From: sherwani@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Naveed Sherwani)
Subject: Re: ABCDs
Summary: maybe it is loss of identity
Organization: Western Michigan Univ. Comp. Sci. Dept.
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:14:12 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.174331.23608@ucunix.san.uc.edu>, mg819306@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Manoj Ghayalod) writes:
> The ABCDs I have come across here in the US happen to be extremely
> fanatical, one wonders why?  The Indian hindus I have met want
> India to be a Hindu state, also for the temple for Ayodhia, most
> of the material and finance was sent from abroad.  The Sikh terrorists
> who are fighting for an independent Sikh state are supported mainly from
> Sikhs settled in Canada.  The Pakistani ABCDs are always harping of
> the brotherhood of Islam, for them nothing else matters and they support the
> cause of an Islamic state, more strongly than other Pakistanis. 
> In my experience in India the temple is a very small issue.  The BJP
> has fought for the temple and could not come in power, whereas the 
> Janta Dal, an extremely new party came into power on the corruption
> issue.  And now the Congress I is in power their plank is secularism.
> Thus my conclusion is that Indian ABCDs have lost all touch with the
> happenings in India.  Is this also true about Pakistani ABCDs?
> And also here in the US where the ABCDs are always in contact with 
> different cultures, so what makes them narrow minded?
> 
> Manoj
> 

I can classify my friends (from NED) who came to US some
9 years ago, into two groups.   People who have become
more liberal and people who have become more conservative.
There seems to be few people, who have stayed the same.
It appears that people have a loss of identity problem.

Religion, race, national orgin, extra serves a solid
foundation for basis of a new identity. Many of them 
think Islam gives them this unique identity, others
think of national origin, etc. I think that the 
problem may be same for Pakistani-americans or Indian-americans.

I think people should feel confident about themselves.
This country allows people to be whatever they want to be, we
should use that. We should not over-do our nationality thing
at the same time there is no need to hide. I think both
extremes are harmful. Some Pakistani tell me that we should be
proud of being Pakistanis, others tell me Pakistan is
history, lets forget about it. Why do we have to act in 
extremes ?

The problem seems to be that people think that they need
to make a choice. They can be either pakistanis or americans.
I dont think that is true. There is no definition of an 
american, so you can be what you want to be. 

Maybe we are culturally trained to act that way and we 
transfer that feeling to our kids. We make them aware that
you should always belong to something. This phenomenon is
not limited to pakistani/indian-american, it is also
true for african-american, korean-american, etc.
The gang problem is big cities is a result of lack of
belonging to something (so I have been told), among other
factors.

Who knows natural evolution may have favoured folks, who
tend to stick together and form groups ?

Maybe we need to belong?

regards,

-Naveed

Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan