Nowhere has Indian culture become more mainstream than in American music, especially the hip hop genre. Numerous musical artists, such as Missy Eliot and RedMan, have incorporated Indian music into their beats. The unfortunate thing however is that most of these artists use these Indian lyrics and beats because they simply like the sounds of them. Many do not understand the difference between Indian and Arab music. In fact, in many of the music videos some of these artists have belly dancers dancing to the Indian music and subtitles that are completely wrong. Nonetheless, the general listening public has grown accustomed to these sounds, and has helped make these songs reach top ten lists across the country. Indian artists have even started becoming members of American bands such as Tony Kanal of No Doubt and Dave Baksh of Sum 41.
Indian music has embraced the nightlife scene as well, especially in big cities such as New York City and Boston. Sunaina Marr Maira, in her book, “Desi in the House: Indian American Youth Culture in New York City”, talks about the subculture that second generation Indian Americans have created for themselves. South Asian music has become so popular that “some of the city’s hottest clubs host regular bhangra parties, weekly events where young South Asians congregate to dance to music that mixes rap beats with Hindi film music, bhangra, reggae, techno, and other popular styles.”
Scenes such as these are popular in cities other than New York City as well. Boston, Dallas, and Los Angeles for example, also have “Indian parties”, which are tailored mainly to Indian Americans. Clubs are rented out for the night and several Indian Americans get together for dancing and socializing. Most of the time the deejays that are hired are Indian as well so that both Indian and American music can be played. Some clubs, such as Mantra in Boston, have even incorporated an “Indian Night” into their programs because of the large Indian population. Another club to follow suit is 711, another popular lounge in Boston that features an “Arab Night”, which plays both Middle Eastern and Indian music, while providing an “Arab-Indian” environment where customers can even order a hookah while eating dinner.
Music is not the only media outlet in which Indian culture has succeeded. The Indian film industry, known as Bollywood, has been rated second to Hollywood. In recent years, countless Indian films have been introduced in American theatres across the U.S., such as the Loehmann’s Cinema in Falls Church, MO, and have even been rented out from video stores such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. Some of these movies are Monsoon Wedding (nominated for a Golden Globe), American Desi, Kama Sutra, My Father’s Daughter, Lagaan (nominated for an Oscar), and Mississippi Masala, which starred Denzel Washington.
Indian Americans can be compared to other Asian groups in terms of their values and outlooks on life. Both groups focus on the family rather than the individual and both groups require family members to make sacrifices for the individual. Indian families, like other Asian families, are patriarchal. Males are the dominant ones, they are the breadwinners, in charge of household decisions, and head all family business. The woman’s main role is to care for her husband and children. Often times, especially in more traditional households, the woman is expected to be subservient. Children are to always respect their elders and be extremely obedient.
Like other Asian groups, the Indian family is multi-generational and children are often times raised by both their parents and their grand-parents. Due to the high emphasis placed on respecting the elderly, nursing homes are never even considered. Almost all Indian American families bring their parents into the household to care for them. In turn, the grandparents help to raise the young children.
Many comparisons can be made between Indian Americans and other Asian groups such as the Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese. Kibria’s book, “Becoming Asian American,” touches upon several of the points that are prevalent in Indian American culture as well. For example, Kibria interviews several young Asian Americans about numerous issues that affect them today. Of the issues she talks about, one is the role that education plays in their lives today. Kibria’s subjects said that their parents, who are first generation Asian Americans, always told them that they had to study hard and get all A’s in order to “be better than the Americans.” They claimed that this was the only way to excel in the United States being a minority. Indian American children, including myself, have heard very similar things from their parents. Growing up, my father always told me that “the only way to excel in this world is to prove that you can outperform everyone.”
In fact, it is this view of “being better than the rest” that many first generation Indian Americans have used to succeed. There have been countless examples of Indian American men mostly, who have held high positions in companies, but have quit those positions in order to start their own businesses where they know they will not encounter a “glass ceiling.” One first generation Indian American man I interviewed told me, “I was vice president in the company I worked for several years ago, but I knew that was as far as I was going to get so I decided to start my own company…where I was my own boss.”
Another similarity between Asian groups and Indian Americans is the tendency for Indian Americans to surround themselves with other Indian Americans. They tend to form cliques that are mainly composed of Indians. These cliques are also seen in other Asian groups. It is believed that these groups make Indian Americans feel most comfortable. They feel that they have more in common with other Indian Americans than they do with their American friends. Their American friends do not understand things such as why you are not allowed to date or why boys cannot call your house. Surrounding yourself with people just like you seems like the easiest thing to do for many Indian Americans.
According to an article in The Journal of History and Computing, by Mechthild Gawlick, entitled “Asian Immigrants and Sojourners: Adaptation Strategies of Second Generation Asian Indians”, “Second generation Indian Americans often relate better to their Indian peers because of the shared circumstances in which they grew up. Many classify their closest friends as Indians because of a better and deeper level of communication. Comments such as: ‘he is going through the same struggles I am’ are not uncommon.”
Indian American children also have similar outlooks as other Asian groups when it comes to recent immigrants. Just as Kibria noted in her book, American born Asians, just like Indian Americans, tend to view recent Asian immigrants as FOB’s, fresh off the boats. They feel that these recent immigrants seem so foreign that they might ruin the reputation that American born Asians, including Indian Americans, have formed for themselves. They are afraid that people will start to associate them with these recent FOB’s. In fact, it has become quite a common joke among Indian American girls across college campuses to tease their girlfriends by saying things such as, “Oh, there goes your future husband!”, when they see a “FOB” walking by.
Although it is easy to place Indian Americans in the same category as Asian Americans due to the immense similarities, it is essential to note the differences between the two groups as well. Unlike other Asian groups, who tend to settle in “Asian enclaves”, Indian Americans are more dispersed in terms of where they chose to live. They never lived in ghetto areas; instead they live in suburbs and nice housing communities.
Another difference is that Indian Americans tend to have a greater religious base than do other Asian groups. All around the country Indian Americans have set up beautiful temples for worship, which house intricate statues, some even made of gold, of the great many different gods and goddesses of the Hindu religion. These temples allow first generation Indian Americans to keep their faith in Hinduism and teach their children about the religion through classes taught in the native language about Hinduism and various other subjects.
One of the major distinctions between Indian Americans and other Asian groups is the ideas surrounding marriage. Although many Asians groups have preferred rules for marriage, such as the preference for an Asian to marry an Asian, most Asian groups do not have elaborate caste rules and arranged marriage rituals like Indian Americans do. In the Indian culture, finding a mate is not an individual decision. Rather, the entire family is involved throughout the process, starting from finding a boy or girl, meeting their family, exchanging presents, going to a priest for blessings, a week long wedding celebration, and finally the conservative reception. A marriage cannot take place unless both families have agreed to the union and have provided their blessings. It is seen as very improper for a man to ask a woman for her hand in marriage without first asking her father for permission.
Many distinctions can be made between American culture and Indian culture as well. American culture tends to value the individual whereas Indian culture places great emphasis on the group. As a result, women in American culture are much more independent than women in Indian culture. The emphasis on the group makes it difficult to have anonymity. For example, in Indian communities, everyone knows everyone’s business. An Indian community can be compared to a small town where your business is everyone’s business.
Unlike white Americans who can simply move to get away from inquiring minds, Indian Americans will always remain in the spotlight. Because the community is so tight knit, there is no escaping the gossip circles. Indian Americans, especially second generation children growing up with conservative parents, must always pay close attention to their actions so as not to shame the family, for doing so would be considered a huge insult.
Also, certain rituals are seen extremely differently by both cultures. In American culture, dancing is an activity performed as a pastime. In Indian culture, on the other hand, dancing is a ritual that tells a story. It is a ceremonial production and has deep meaning.
Due to many of these differences, there is a very interesting power struggle that goes on in Indian American families. Second generation children often have to teach their first generation parents the culture of America. A culture that is much more liberal than they are used to. This slowly turns into a situation where the children feel they exert more power in the relationship since their parents are out of sync with the mainstream culture. Sometimes this sense of newfound power turns into delinquency such as defying parental wishes and questioning authority more often.
In recent years, the traditional ways of life for Indian Americans have begun to clash with the more modern family ways of life. There are certain rules that almost every Indian American child had while growing up. These rules included, but were not limited to, no dating, no sleeping over at friends’ houses, no going to dances, no speaking about sex, no bad language, no having boys as friends (for girls), going regularly to the temple, and having arranged marriages.
As Indian American children become more and more assimilated to the American way of life they begin to challenge these rules more often. They feel restricted, especially when they see things such as dating as such a common practice among their peers. This restriction causes them to experience severe conflict between their culture and that of their American friends. This, in turn, causes older Indian American children to defy their parent’s wishes and do things such as go behind their backs to date.
The whole concept of dating and girls being friends with boys is only recently beginning to become more accepted among first generation parents. Traditionally, a girl was not supposed to think of boys romantically until marriage, but this is rapidly changing as more and more Indian American children are becoming assimilated into American culture. As one girl said, “Sometimes my parents can be so overprotective. They are wary of any relationship I may have with boys from other communities. I just want a normal life like everybody else around me. I’m not doing anything wrong…I wish they’d trust me more.”
Indian Americans have been fortunate enough to have not experienced as many hardships as other minority groups. Upon their arrival, many Indian Americans had money with which to start a life and communities that welcomed them. Also, many white Americans saw the “lighter skinned” Indians as more closely resembling darker Europeans, which was an advantage for Indian Americans for it saved them some racism based on color. Unlike other colored races that were all classified under the “black” category, Indian Americans were simply called “brown.” This does not mean that Indian Americans have not faced discrimination and prejudices, for they have.
Just as other minority groups experience racism, Indian Americans experience their own sets of misconceptions. Indian Americans find themselves having to confront racism and stereotypes about their food and dress habits, religious practices, and even their ways of speaking. Common fallacies include the following beliefs: all Indian American women wear dots on their heads, all Indian American women wear saris, Indian food is called curry, Indian Americans do not speak English, Indian Americans worship cows daily, all Indian Americans work at convenience stores or are taxi cab drivers or engineers, and Indian Americans are the same thing as American Indians.
The dot that people refer to is actually called a bindi. It has never been labeled as a dot in the Indian culture. To call it a dot is an insult to the Indian religions (some see it as a religious symbol) as well as the culture. As for all Indian women wearing saris, they are actually worn by both non-western as well as western people and the term “sari” is in fact an Anglican term derived from the Indian term “saadi”, meaning marriage. Also, only meats and vegetables that are cooked in sauce are called curry, not every single dish and as for Indian Americans not speaking English, the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies states that “after the United States and the United Kingdom, India has the third largest English speaking population in the world.” In reference to the misconception of cows, the cow is considered sacred because it is associated with the Hindu god, Krishna. It is an important part of some rituals but is not a part of everyday life.
Another misconception, which perhaps is not as bad as the previous ones, is the “model minority” classification that many Indian Americans are perceived to have. While interviewing several young Indian Americans, I found that most grew up having experienced this stereotype. Raj, a student at Boston University, said, “In high school, everyone would just assume I got an A on all my exams and they would make fun of me because of it, when in fact I did not get all A’s, but they just assumed it because I was Indian and looked smart.”
Most of the students I interviewed said the same thing, that they were seen as smart simply because of their ethnicity. In many cases it irritated them that their peers constantly judged them as smarter because it placed stress upon then to perform better. Reema, another Boston University student, said, “My friends always expect me to do the best and they turn to me for the answers and I have to know them otherwise it makes me look bad.”
These feelings are echoed in the interviews that Kibria conducted for her book, “Becoming Asian American.” Asian Americans, like Indian Americans, did not like being thought of as academically superior. This was a role they had not asked for and did not want. Often times, the “model minority” stereotype is used by white Americans to show other groups that, “If you do what they do, you too can succeed.” In the case of Indian Americans, most other minorities cannot succeed to the extent that they did due to economic factors. Indian Americans have been blessed from their very early beginnings both financially and academically, unlike most other minority groups.
A final misconception that Indian Americans encounter is that all Indians are the same. The general public is unable to distinguish between the many different regions of India and consequently the diversity of people who come from each region. To them, Indians are simply one big group of people, but in reality there are many groups such as Punjabis, Sikhs, Gujuratis, Malyalis, and Sindhis. This is similar to the issue that other Asian groups encounter, such as white Americans thinking that Chinese, Korean, and Japanese people are all the same.
One of the most amazing aspect of Indian culture is the emphasis on close, tight knit communities. Just as there are Chinatowns in many big cities, there has been an increase in entire areas, roads, and sections of cities that are known as “Little Indias.” Little Indias have arisen in several cities such as London, Edison, NJ, Dallas, TX, Jackson Heights, NY, and even places such as South Africa, Singapore, and Trinidad and Tobago. Little Indias are places that are made up entirely of Indian stores and restaurants and are modeled after places in India. Little Indias have tiny footpaths, narrow lanes, food stalls known as “dhabas”, and are always swarming with Indian people. In fact, on one visit to the famous Oak Tree Road in New Jersey, I was amazed to see not a single white American. I literally felt as if I was in India, it was that overwhelming.
These Little Indias are a place where Indian Americans can get together and preserve their culture and heritage. They are places where second generation Indian American children can go to in order to experience their culture first hand. They can be used as tools to teach those, whose knowledge of Indian culture is fading, of the close knit community of friends that the Little Indias offer. Little Indias are not only ethnic shopping centers, but also structures that show Indian American growth in the U.S. and their ever increasing dominance in society.
In an article entitled, “Indian community in U.S. constitutes an invaluable asset,” published in the News India Times, it was written that because first generation Indian Americans have passed down so much of their culture and traditions to the second generation, there has been a “heightened awareness in the mainstream communities of the uniqueness of Indian culture”, which has in turn, “reinforced the community’s pride in it.” It is still to be seen whether or not these second generation Indian Americans will pass down equal knowledge to their children like they received from their parents.
It is interesting to think about what the third generation of Indian Americans will be like. As traditional Indian culture fades away it could very well be possible that the third generation will experience a loss of knowledge and thus, more of a yearning to connect with their roots. It is very likely that they may even become confused about the importance of certain symbols in their culture, as these symbols become more mainstream in the general public. For example, as more and more symbols such as Indian gods are placed on clothing, they may lose some of the value that they once had. Third generation Indian Americans might see these symbols as fashion icons rather than the deep religious entities that they are.
Only time will tell the fate of Indian Americans. Will third generation Indian Americans gradually lose the significance of their culture due to the infusion of Indian and American, or will they hold tight to their traditions and continue to learn and practice it? It can only be speculated upon whether or not future generations of Indian Americans will succumb to the fate of the early European settlers of the nation and eventually leave behind their culture and become fully assimilated.
