One thing ultimately awesome
about being an immigrant with roots in another country, I am exposed to a vast
amounts of languages/traditions/cultures and not much is truly a mystery I’m
not willing to uncover. I say this because it’s a bit surprising to me
when people here, in the USA, tell me that in some cases they’ve never even
ventured from their states, much less to another country and one main reason is
the intimidation factor. I’ve said this
before, and I’ll say it again, this truly astonishes me. The way I look at it is that there’s a huge
world out there and it’s dying to be discovered along with people that we
should be meeting. We should have
incredible stories of others from different parts of the world that we regale
our friends at home with and prove that we are indeed exposed.
Anyhow, I digress. This blog entry isn’t another about traveling
because that would just be redundant. Have I told you about how obsessed I am with
the idea of traveling, lately? I
did? Yea, I did, okay so back to what I
was trying to say but I keep wandering off course…so cultures, exposure, yada
yada yada. The wonderful fallout from
this is that a person makes friends with folks all around the globe and learn
quickly that there are commonalities to be found all over the place.
Sure anyone can argue that with the
advent of the internet we are connecting with a more varied amount of humans. What I would say back to them, with a wise
look upon my face, is that while they are right, it can be argued that we also
still gravely lack the ability to really understand one another despite the
chatter/connection. During these long
discourses with someone living clear across the world, we are more interested
in telling them about our lives (maybe in order to impress) than to really
listen and learn. And in the process we
have in mind an image we’ve been lovingly spoon fed by various outside outlets even
as the person on the other side of the computer tries to reiterate what life is
truly like for them. But we humans for the
most part are visual creatures and without real life representation (at minimum
a picture), it is difficult to accurately interpret things as they should be as
opposed to as how we think they are thanks to our own mental pictures. And because there’s a lack of openness in
sharing knowledge as well to some extent, we easily misunderstand or believe in
stereotypes which are just that, stereotypes.
Now, the motha-land for me is
Bangladesh, but also India. Keep that in
mind as I move forward with this blog.
There was a time when I worked at a company which had little actual work
to offer me and thus I was bored for most of the day. There was also the fact that I didn’t
particularly like most of the obnoxious colleagues and my escape was an Indian
chat site. I had heard about these a lot
and trying to avoid the Yahoo alternative options which were rife with jerks
and outright perverts, I just wanted conversation, even educate myself as to
the real life mentality of those who lived across several land masses from me. I made a lot of close and dear friends during
those years as an active chatter. It’s
funny how a nameless, faceless person can know more about you and understand
you better than the very people who you see and interact with on a daily
basis.
One of these friends, who lives in
India, hit me up a few days ago after quite a long hiatus. Some friendships are meant to stand the test
of time, distance, “IA” (as I will reference moving forward) and I have
precisely this, a friendship which is understandings of each other’s busy lives
and that we can’t always be a priority.
We had long since known that our friendship meant something and with
that acceptance and understanding was born tolerance of the silence which would
oft stretch out for months between us.
But when the connection was once again reestablished, it came back
stronger than ever. There’s a lovely
familiarity in the words typed by someone who is dear.
In this instance, IA, after
catching me up on the ongoing of his world, informed me that I had been brought
up as a topic of discussion with his friends.
I admit I was confounded not to mention curious. He explained that he had gone out to treat
his friends to Iftar (the fast break meal) and had mentioned the American Bangladeshi
friend (namely me) who also observed the fast, showing them pics of the
homemade food spreads from long ago. IA
told me that they, his friends, were quiet amazed that we, namely this rando Muslim
raised American chick, would observe it (Ramadan) in this traditional fashion. IA quipped that they had basically believed/assumed
that we, their foreign counterparts, basically went to KFC to grab a bucket of
Sanders original recipe to snack down on.
There was a moment of outrage on
my part that oozed into a sort of weird confusion. Did the brownies back there really think so
little of us over here that we had no concept of any traditions/customs? I wondered if they also figured we were,
every single last one of us, heathens who didn’t practice/follow any sort of
organized religion (I already knew for a fact that most over there thought that
we over here have no moral compass of which to speak). I get that “we” can be a bit of a mystery to
those over “there” and very much misrepresented thanks to media but to this
extent truly blew my mind.
I continued my convo with IA who
was equally as mystified (as well as amused) since he has known me forever and
due to this exposure, also had an insider firsthand account of what life and
reality in this part of the world was/is truly like. Through the years and via IA I’ve also
learned much about a country that may contain my decedents but is unknown to me
since I’ve never spent significant amounts of time there.
But today, I’m here not ust to recount
this particular conversation in an effort to prove I’m super international but
rather to speak to my friends who do not live in the states, more specifically
those who are in the land of the browns, my ancestral homeland.
Look, y’all…you’ve been fed a lot
of glitter. It’s been sprinkled upon you
at every opportunity by Hollywood until you believe the hype. You have a certain image of what non-Desi’s
are but even in regards to what we brown American’s are, your perception is wayyyyyyyyyy
off. While you live in a world where you
eat, breathe and drink your culture, we have to create it, nurture it, foster
it, love it and pass it down from generation to generation in hopes that it
will stick. And if it doesn’t? It’s gone.
Here’s a bit of truth for
you: Our parents here work extra hard at
keeping alive the traditions and values that are embraced there so easily,
found so readily, taught so widely. Over
here the environments need to be recreated, over and over again. And in the meantime here, we are also equally
taught to love what isn’t familiar to us, namely the environment that is
fostered outside the doors of our homes.
But let me assure you, our houses are filled with the smells of ethnic
foods that would be familiar to you, the sounds of languages that aren’t
commonly found outside are found within the 4 walls of our homesteads and we
have closets of clothes that accurately reflect our heritage simply waiting for
the occasion to wear them with pride, which we do. And all this happens even while we are smack
dab in the middle of a world that keeps asking, “what is that…what did you say…why
do you…”. We are looked upon as
mysteries and are always busy defending our actions or explaining them, which
sometimes can be worse than defending.
At least at bare minimum there is a point in defending, some sort of
misunderstanding but to have to constantly explain the smallest and most
inconsequential actions is irritating. You have no idea how much patience it takes
to not snap back at times, “you are so not the center of the universe and there
are other things that people do on a daily basis that does not have to be
explained to you, nonstop.” But that’s
not terribly inclusive…
We “foreigners” (ironically it
seems this word can apply to us whether we are born here or lived here our
whole lives or there since we live here K)
leave the house to switch off one side of an inherent personality only to turn
another on. We assimilate, this is
demanded of us. We acquire accents,
mannerisms, habits that are all a part of this culture only to go home and
revert back to the other. We are one
thing with one community, a totally different thing with another. And we have to screech through the rafters that
we can belong in both without being a copout of the other, damn it. Yes, in our
cars we listen to radio stations that have a varied amounts of music that are
local but switch to a CD or plug in our MP3’s and have Bhangra or the most
recent popular Bollywood song blast from the speakers. We have the ability to switch languages without
pause (sometimes stumbling over the right words in either of the languages). We may look for the perfect black dress, but
we also hunt for the perfect sari. We
make lasagna at home as well as Biriyani.
Similarly, and as shocking as
this may be, we celebrate our religions just like you do there. If you go to mandir (temple), so do those
here. If you’re headed to the mosque to
do a few rakats of namaz (prayer), well same here. If you’re cooking up a storm to celebrate
some particular holiday, we are also, except that we are driving an interesting
distance to get the same ingredients that is readily available outside your
doors.
Oh, and as for our own level of ‘Desi’
(as in how Indian we are)? If you think
we are less than yourself, let me point out some of the obvious here. We fight incredibly hard to straddle two
(sometimes more) cultures simultaneously and this shiz is not easy. We have multiple masks we need to seamlessly
switch out and if we decide to embrace our cultures, we do so without
excuse. And it’s effin’ exhausting,
people, trust me. I mean who likes to
leave their homes in an outfit that you (in India/Bdesh/Pakiland) would wear to
the corner store and no one would stare at you while here every eye in the
place checks you out thoroughly not because you’re particularly stunning but
because you’re…odd, unfamiliar. Yea,
that’s the struggle.
And yet you think we aren’t Desi
enough? All that I wrote above isn’t
enough? Okay, well enough defending
myself and my foreign brethren. Let me
point out this because having more than enough family/friends who reside ‘back
home’ (I mean in all honesty home for me is Baltimore, Maryland so…) I know too
that we aren’t the only westernized people out there. In fact, to me, Desi’s tend to be far more
keen on embracing the western world way of doing things than we do here.
For us, in our everyday lives we
have to be western to survive, after all we LIVE here, but what’s your excuse in
doing the same? You watch the same
movies, follow the same news, pick up the same popular verbiage, dress the
same, imitate mannerisms but why, I wonder?
Particularly if you’re so gosh darn proud of who you are, your heritage,
your culture, your blah blah blah? Is
there some psychology behind this contradiction? You’re doing the same thing but criticizing
others for doing it? Is it some bizarre
sense that if one doesn’t morph, then one is left behind, or is uncool, or just
won’t be accepted by the rest of the world when you westernize yourself? But in a country where everyone is just like
yourself why is there this need at all? I’m
not mocking, I’m legitimately wondering.
And if you yourself prefer to live a westernized life, why sneer at us
for embracing only that which we know while you are appropriating something
that is indeed ‘foreign’, not yours at all and doesn’t need to be for you to
survive? Think about this hypocrisy for
a minute.
What’s the moral of this
blog? It’s kinda simple. Don’t assume.
Anything. Give those who you do
not know the benefit of the doubt. And
please, take the time to open discourse with your opposite so that you are able
to educate yourself instead of living in a dark cave of misinformation. Understand that you may not know them, their
intentions, their struggles which is okay.
Oh, and just to be utterly fair
let me say that this frustration of ignorance isn’t aimed solely at those who live
in Desi-land but also to those who are “here”.
We are just about as bad in making asinine assumptions about the other. We will make snap judgements as soon as we
hear an accent and think, “oh they’re FOBS [insert eye roll of superiority]”
(fresh off the boat), or uneducated, or in fact not as cool as we are or
whatever it is that we dumbasses think.
To me this is almost, if not more so, bullshitty and infuriates me to no
end, causing me to gnash my teeth like no one’s business (I’ll probably need a
lot of dental work eventually).
Truthfully, some of my most intelligent and ‘in the know’ friends are in
fact from the land of my forefathers.
And if I have to be brutally honest?
We American Desi’s are the worst at these uninformed judgements. We think we are so damn smart that there is
no way in hell that our counterparts could beat us in the department of damn
near any topic and thus we do not have to give them due credit. Screw you, you know-it-all. Shut up and listen sometimes, you never know
what you may learn, ass.
So yea, let’s all try to keep
open minds, shall we? Is this too much
to ask for, cupcake? it’s way easier to
find common ground this way than making a pack of bullshit assumptions that
turn out to be precisely that, bullshit.
Anyhoo, lovelies, my lecture for
today is finito. Enjoy your day,
regardless of your landmass.
