From: hira@cme.nist.gov (Ron Hira)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: being asian-indian/american
Date: 4 Jan 93 20:06:51 GMT
Reply-To: hira@cme.nist.gov
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology

In article <C0AJvM.85o@portal.hq.videocart.com>, pagrawal@portal.hq.videocart.com (Pankaj Agrawal) writes:
|> From: pagrawal@portal.hq.videocart.com (Pankaj Agrawal)
|> Subject: Re: being asian-indian/american

[Bunch of stuff deleted]

John Hoag writes:
|> : Ever since I was about 20 (I'm 41 now), I've wanted to go to India.  Maybe
|> : even move there.  I'd have to see how things go.  But I've never in my
|> : wildest dreams imagined that Indians would accept me as an Indian.  Why
|> : should they?  I'm clearly a European.  We're talking race, here, are we
|> : not?  Races do exist.  The important thing, to me, is that people of  
|> : different races respect each other's differences.  They don't have to
|> : pretend that differences don't exist.  The differences are just the tip,
|> : the commonality is the iceberg.  

Agree with ya. 

|> : But respect is the ideal, sad to say, not so much the rule in everyday
|> : life.  And I'm afraid that's true in many cultures.  I'm sure it's hard
|> : not feeling accepted in a country that is dominantly of another culture
|> : than one's own.  I can imagine feeling that way in India.  But what I look
|> : for is individuals who are really pretty much all-there, awake,
|> : compassionate, lively, thoughtful, intelligent...  There are people like
|> : that everywhere.  They may not be in the majority, but they come in every
|> : culture.

When you're 41, I think its a helluvalot easier to handle this than when
you're a kid growing up in your "own" country. This is not meant as a 
flame, but just a response that I give to people like my folks who say
that its no big deal living in America as a minority. Immigrants and
1st generation people face significantly different problems, not
to belittle either. Immigrants "choose" to settle in a foreign land,
at least usually. In addition, their identity is pretty well set by the
time they decide to come over.

Pankaj writes:
|> I agree with John whole heartedly! I do understand where Virendra is coming 
|> from also. But there is no need to be so cynical. I think the problem of 
|> identity arises from our own insecurity as human beings. Why do we want to 
|> be labelled as Indians, or Americans, or anything, legally, socially, or 
|> otherwise. Why do we want to assert our nationality or culture in any way. Can 
|> we not just live as good human beings and not even care about these 
|> differences. Sounds idealistic, but not impossible. 

I don't care to smother out the differences between myself and my friends,
who range from euro-american, african-american, european, chinese, jewish,
iranian, turkish, etc, and even indian-american. This does not take 
anything away from our friendships, IMO. I think its healthy to gather
a broad set of perspectives. Is this not alt.culture.us.asian-indian?

|> To me the only way to live is to be oneself, without asserting oneself as this
|> or that. It is enough to be just human. When I am at ease with myself, I accept
|> and I am accepted. All labels are meaningless.

That is great for you, but I doubt that most of society feels a similar
way. As aforementioned, I don't care to paper over the differences between
the way I grew up or my skin color with yours. I believe that the aspirations
for a color blind society are fruitless.

To respond to the original post by Virendra, I pretty much agree with
most of his observations on how european-americans can easily blend
into white-american society. This is something that will take a heck
of a lot longer for people with color. This is not to say that I'm 
vindictive towards european immigrants. Its just that they usually don't
realize that they're easily accepted. It is pretty easy to be bitter
about this, but not that productive.

Ron
Xref: sparky alt.culture.us.asian-indian:1717 alt.individualism:6201