HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Mail to Preeti
Date: 13 Oct 92 18:50:07 GMT
Reply-To: moh2@midway.uchicago.edu
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations


Everything I've tried sending to Preeti has bounced, so sorry for
using this space for e-mail...

*****
Preeti,

	Suggestions for names?  I kinda liked soc.culture.indian-american. 
Something a short as possible, yet still clear, would get my vote.  (I don't
really see a need to put "us" in the name.)

	I'm willing to write the charter if someone can mail me a copy of the
old one to use as a template...I have no idea what a charter for a newsgroup
should look like.

	Btw, my first attempt to send this to you bounced...problems with
your mailer?

						 - Amirthi

-- 
The autumn leaves are falling like rain.
Although my neighbors are all barbarians,
And you, you are a thousand miles away,
There are always two cups at my table.		 - A T'ang Dynasty poem
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 13:14:01 EDT
From: ARIJIT MAHALANABIS <AXM128@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: Are IAs close-minded ?
Distribution: na
 <1992Oct7.232001.14758@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
 <1992Oct8.223731.24711@cbnewsi.cb.att.com>
 <1992Oct9.160908.1125@menudo.uh.edu>

I'm not sure that Purna's conclusion that war and unrest are part of the
human condition is entirely true. Consider for a moment that the majority
of India's wars prior to the British era were a result of invasions. After
these invasions, India has always accepted and indeed absorbed the cultures
of the invaders adding to its richness. Whereas, in the brief history of
the United States as we know it, the wars and social strife has been due
to intolerance. The American Revolution, the Civil War, the Civil Rights
movement, and more recently riots in LA have been the result of intolerance
by one or both parties involved. Even the Korean and Vietnam wars have been
a result of an intolerance towards Communism (I guess it depends on how one
looks at it). While it is certainly true that social strife in India today
is largely due to intolerance, this is a relatively new development. Indian
history on the whole is one of complete acceptance of all faiths, beliefs and
creeds regardless of what the majority of the people hold to be true.

Arijit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             _____
The seven most beautiful sounds            O-| O |
in life:                                     |   |-O
Sa,Re,Ga,Ma,Pa,Dha,Ni.                       | O |
                                             =====
                                             |||||
                                             |||||
                                             |||||
Arijit Mahalanabis                           |||||
e-mail: AXM128@PSUVM.PSU.EDU                 |||||
        MAHALANA@CRAYOLA.CS.PSU.EDU          |||||
        ARIJIT@MATH.PSU.EDU                 / ||| \
                                           /  |||  \
                                          |   ---   |
                                           \_______/


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: shashi@aix3090b.uky.edu (Shashi Sathaye)
Subject: Re: Are IAs close-minded ? (Re: Parental authority
    <1992Oct1.041708.24655@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> 
    <1992Oct2.220955.16165@cbnewsi.cb.att.com> 
    <1992Oct7.232001.14758@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 11:32:19 GMT
Distribution: na

c150-bt@po.berkeley.edu (Manish Vij) writes:


>>> If so, you are probably more tolerant and probably understand
>>> other people better than most.  Can you see why an IA kid may grow
>>> his hair long?  
>>
>>A need or desire to identify with a clique, perhaps.

>Maybe because he thinks it looks good.  Maybe he just likes long hair. 
>Maybe it doesn't involve insecurity.  Ever consider that?
This 'long hair' thing always amazes me. 
I used to think that people who grow/shape their hair in certain way are
doing that to get some attention from their peers. Mainly because this
reasoning fits irrespective of the culture and gender of the person.
But then I realized that many of them really choose it as a 'convinience'.
Those who grow them grow them beacause it saves on haircut money and those
who cut them short do it because short hair are easy to take care of.
It is only those who have them 'spiked' and/or 'ZZtopped' (shaved to show 
a Z on each side) are the one who are trying to impress their peers..
But I fail to see any other reason that an IA kid can have.
As a parent, I would choose to ignore (did so too) the length of my son's
-I only have a son - hair as long as nothing living moves in it. (i.e. he
keeps them clean).
--
--With best regards from Shashi
Login name: shashi | System Programmer By Profession | In real life:
                   | but heart(&SWEET-HEART) in Math.| Shashi Sathaye
shashi@ms.uky.edu	sysshash@ukcc.uky.edu  shashi@aix3090.uky.edu
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: raghavan@wk28.nas.nasa.gov (Venkatraman Raghavan)
Subject: Newsgroup name
Organization: -
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 17:18:59 GMT

moh2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>	Suggestions for names?  I kinda liked soc.culture.indian-american. 
                                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That name has two problems.

There is a 14 character limit on strings used in names, this one has
a 15 in there. There was a suggestion before for indo-american or
indo.american 

Some people claim that names like s.c.i-a, s.c.i.a, s.c.a-i, s.c.a.i 
are confusing to both indian-americans and american-indians.

>Something a short as possible, yet still clear, would get my vote.  (I don't
>really see a need to put "us" in the name.)

In alt.culture.*.asian-indian, either the 'us' or 'american' was needed
to distinguish it from soc.culture.indian. Also there was a possibility
of renaming it as us.culture.asian-indian. But to my knowledge, us.*
is not doing too well. I agree there is no need to put 'us', as long as
we don't compete with any american indian newsgroup and SCI.

BTW, is anyone collecting these names?  Alok may have a few names saved.

-Raghavan
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia)
Subject: Re: Regional Prejudice
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 22:03:57 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.145202.4211@midway.uchicago.edu>, moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:
> 
> I've seen racism before, just not directed against Indians.  I grew up
> in a Polish Catholic neighborhood...the few black and hispanic kids
> were often cruelly harassed.  I think adults don't realize just how
> cruel children can be - they don't have the thin veneer of
> civilization that keeps most adults from being overtly rude.
> 

Funny, you didn't say  that when we were having the 'parental authority'
debate and somebody (Manish, if I remember) said kids are more humane
than adults :)

Do I smell hypocrisy ?

>  - Amirthi
> 
> The autumn leaves are falling like rain.
> Although my neighbors are all barbarians,
> And you, you are a thousand miles away,
> There are always two cups at my table.		 - A T'ang Dynasty poem

I think it is time to get to a new poem ...

Alok
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: raghavan@fred.nas.nasa.gov (Venkatraman Raghavan)
Subject: Long and short of hair
Organization: -
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 17:27:19 GMT
Distribution: usa

Tapesh Yadav:

> Curiosity, without long hairs :). 
	    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Words are not enough, if you wish to go head to head (pun unintended)
with Manish. :-)  Where is the mandatory (ASCII) picture? :-) 
May be the two of you can ask Amirthi to be the judge and jury. :-)

>T.Y.                    
>----                     
>tyadav@athena.mit.edu

Silly me,
Raghavan
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: saeed@watson.ibm.com (Saeed Jaffer)
Subject: Mother/Father roles (was Re: Indian women in the Workplace India v/s USA)
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:38:51 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Alok: I know that you're not responsible for the article from
soc.culture.indian that you posted.  However, in that post it said:

 > Women have this unique problem of having to bear children.
 > ( Ahaa, some may say 'why should they ?' ) This means that
 > she has to devote a lot of time (years ?) to motherly
 > chores.   A man does not have as much responsibility and
 > consequently more free.

I do not believe that a man does "not have as much responsibility" with
regards to children simply because he does not bear the child.  "motherly
chores"?!  Other than breast-feeding, what does a mother for the child that a
father is not responsible for either?  A father should not be excused as "more
free" simply because of his gender.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--saeed jaffer        		so this is what i came here for?
saeed@watson.ibm.com  		i don't think i can play your game
saeed@athena.mit.edu  		you may not agree with what i say
				none of us are perfect in every way
						-J. Cavalluzzo	
----------------------------------------------------------------------					


Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: mece1xg@menudo.uh.edu (purna)
Subject: Re: where the group is going (how deep! :-) )
Organization: Dept. of Wizardry, Univ. of Houston
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 16:19:46 GMT

hi all!

In article <1992Oct14.192037.118106@watson.ibm.com> saeed@watson.ibm.com (Saeed Jaffer) writes:
>What I am talking about are the many times a cross-posting flame war erupts
>between soc.culture.pakistan and soc.culture.india where one group of people
>does a bit of Hindu-bashing and another does a bit of Mulsim-bashing and
>exasperated people like myself consider some desi-bashing.  Somehow, the
>title: alt.culture.us.asian-indian has been innocuous enough to avoid being
>included in this.  Possibly this is because it gets much less distribution.
>I'm sure many of you don't even read soc.culture.whatever because you gave up
>on them completely.  Yet, I think all of us (at least most of us) agree that
>the intolerance that sometimes appears on these other groups would not belong
>here.

i agree 100%!!

>I think the name chosen for the soc.culture group will probably have some
>effect on this.  A properly chosen name would be one that clearly indicates
>that the group is for South Asians/desis/Indians/what-have-you who have been
>born/raised OUTSIDE of South Asia/India/what-have-you.  Am I wrong in assuming
>this?  Correct me if I am.  Isn't that what this group is and will be for?

well, i think that depends on who you ask.  for myself, i feel that is
what this group is about.  however, others see it as for people who are
south-asians, but are living outside of their "motherland".  thus, the
group would then include recent immigrants to, say, the u.s.  personally,
i have always felt that if all of these people are "who this group is
for", then we might as well read SCI, SCP, etc. (hi trina!).

>Another thing -- I would recommend a FAQ.  I may be jumping the gun, but at
>least something should be posted once in a while which clearly delineates who
>or what the group is intended for.  

well, as for dilineating the purpose of the group, that's what the charter
should do.  a FAQ should only be for those "frequently asked questions".
you know, the ones like "who is alok?", "what are the top 10 reasons to
marry/date an IA male/female?", "why you should grow your hair long",
etc. :) :) :)

>Of course, some may argue I'm trying to exclude others.  I don't think so. 
>Anyone and everyone can and should post!  The point of going to a soc.culture
>listing is to reach more readers and get more discussions going.  I just don't
>want to see this group become victim to flame wars over differences that don't
>particularly concern the South Asians born/brought up outside of South Asia. 

hear! hear!  well said!

>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>--saeed jaffer        			So after a lot of thought
>saeed@watson.ibm.com  			I'd like to reconsider
>saeed@athena.mit.edu  			Please
>					If it's not too late
>					Make it a cheeseburger
>							--L. Lovett
>----------------------------------------------------------------------					
peace,
-purna


Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia)
Subject:  Last SCIA Vote
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 16:08:40 GMT

The previous SCIA vote took place between April 17 and May 7th. Results 
were announced on May 21. The vote tally indicated 85 YES and 173 NO votes.
Since this did not meet the criterion of USENET soc group creation
(Number of YES votes should exceed number of NO votes by at least a margin
of 100, and the Number of YES votes should be at least 2/3 of the total
number of votes cast), the group was not carried further. 

The first ever vote for SCIA was held between Nov 19 and Dec 12, 1991.
The vote tally in this was 191 YES to 87 NO. This vote was however
annuled by the second vote carried out in April-May this year.
Second vote was required as a number of people objected to the first
vote on the grounds that guidelines were not followed 'strictly'.
Specifically the acccusation was made that the vote taker engaged
in campaigning during the vote.

The SCIA group which was created as a result of the first vote
was therefore declared defunct (by Dave Lawrence) in May after the 
second vote. 

The group however exists in some places as 
it is upto individual system administrators to allow or disallow a
newsgroup at his/her respective site.

Many people disagreed with the accusations levelled against the vote 
taker the first time and thought that the second vote was influenced
heavily by negative campaigning against the group. They have decided 
to continue to carry the group.

The statistics showed by Satyen shows that the group is still carried
by 36% of the total number of USENET sites. In earlier statistics
posted in April, this group had a propagation to 48 % sites.
Statistics however may not be very reliable.

The group is NOT 'officially' listed in the USENET news group list
which is maintained by Gene Spafford at Purdue University.

I have included 'officially' in quotes because there are no officials
of USENET (strictly speaking). Everybody is a volunteer including
Gene Spafford and Dave Lawrence.

Now back to the issue of third vote ...

Averaging the two votes, it seems like a 50:50 split on the newsgroup.
We need 67:23 split to have the group passed. Furthermore the total number
of votes should be large enough so that the YES-NO margin is greater
than or equal to 100.

Alok


Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia)
Subject: Re: To Marry (Indian) or Not?
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 14:47:45 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.140042.12838@midway.uchicago.edu>, moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:
> >
> >Look at the Jewish for example. They always try to marry
> >a Jewish person. Jews as a community faced tremendous discrimination
> >in the western world and such discrimination brought them together.
> >They have a sense of community. They want to grow together or die
> >together. 
> 
> But you have to acknowledge the fact that one of the reasons they
> faced such discrimination was *because* they were such an insular
> community.  People would look at their closeness and be worried that
> they would choose "their own kind" before their friends and
> neighbors...and thus the Jews were never really trusted.  This isn't
> the only reason the Jewish people were persecuted but it was certainly
> one of them.
> 
Fine.

> The answer to racial prejudice and ignorance is not segregration, but
> integration.  Involve yourself in the community at large, and teach as
> many people as you can the best parts of your heritage.
> 
Agreed ! Do you know the best parts of your heritage ?

> >Look at the Chinese. Chinese stick together with chinese and 
> >promote each other. Chinese women and men would often marry 
> >among themselves too. Why ? They too feel persecuted as a 
> >community in the western world.
> 
> Much like the Indians, the Chinese have a very paternalistic,
> traditional culture, and thus it has taken much longer for them to
> begin to integrate with American society than most immigrants.  It is
> happening however.
> 
A paternalistic traditional culture also has a positive side.
Do you understand what the positive side of it is ?

> >In difficult times, it is your own community that you can trust more.
> >In my own experience, I have found Indians being helpful in difficult
> >times, not the Americans - partly because Indians understand the 
> >difficulty easily compared to an American who is relatively ignorant 
> >about Indians, and partly because there is a sense of being 
> >co-miserables ...
> >
> But in my experience, it has always been Americans who I turn to for
> help, and it has always been freely given.  Not to say that I couldn't
> turn to Indians, or that they wouldn't be helpful....just that
> Americans can be too.  

Now the big question is why you always turn to Americans but not Indians, 
even though you believe that Indians can be helpful too ?

> Besides, if Americans are relatively ignorant
> about Indians, then isn't it our job to educate them, to make life
> easier for our children and spread understanding throughout the world?

Sure. Would you like to move this group to the main heirarchy of
newsgroups so that you can educate the Americans more effectively
about the great IA culture ? First do you consider yourself an IA ? 

> 
>  - Amirthi
> 
Alok
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: raghavan@wk28.nas.nasa.gov (Venkatraman Raghavan)
Subject: Re: Newsgroup name
Organization: -
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 18:59:25 GMT

Caution: long posting

Here are the charters of s.c.i.a. and a.c.u.a.
[The s.c.i.a. charter is from a reply, so I am not
sure how complete it is or whether it was edited 
by the poster]
-Raghavan
 
 -----
 Charter:
 ________
 
 It is proposed that this group deal with the following:
 
 1) Cultural aspects of all the people of Indian origin settled, born or 
 raised in America. 
 
 2) Career and work related issues affecting them
 
 3) Entertainment and events of mutual interest
 
 4) Family unification, citizenship, rights, grievances, advice etc.
   
 5) Indian and international food recipes
 
 6) Dating, marriage, division of work/responsibilities issues
 
 7) Views of Indian-Americans about contemporary India and Indian heritage
 
 8) American politics/society and Indian-Americans
 
 9) Relations with other *-Americans (Chinese-Americans, Italian-Americans
etc)
 
 10) Travelling/sight-seeing, Vacationing experiences
 
 11) Programs/Proposals for development in India
 
 12) Programs/Proposals for building stronger links with other Indians (Who
 are studying or are here in USA on temporary basis)
 
 etc.
 
 Alok 
 ----

alt.culture.us.asian-indian:

                     About this newsgroup

STATUS:      Unmoderated.  

DESCRIPTION: Forum for posting and reading the articles 
	     pertaining to the experiences and issues common to 
	     Asian-indians who were brought up and living in the 
	     USA and Canada

CHARTER:     Discussion about all social, political and cultural topics 
             related to people who were born and/or brought up in the USA 
	     and Canada of Asian Indian background/ancestry. This newsgroup
	     was created with the intention of catering to the needs of 
	     "asian-indians who consider US/Canada as their home" and and this
	     newsgroup is not intended to be a duplication of soc.culture.indian

FOUNDERS:    Ron Hira 
             Arijit Mahalanabis 
             Purna Murthy 
	     Venkatraman Raghavan
             Niranjan Ravindran 

The word asian-indian is used in a general sense to include people whose
origins are from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
---
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: saeed@watson.ibm.com (Saeed Jaffer)
Subject: Indians in Western shows/films/etc. (was Re: Sprint commercials)
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 16:26:26 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Manish writes:

|> >If you want to see stereotypical, watch THE PARTY (Peter Sellers) or
|> >SHORT CIRCUIT (something Fisher).

This thread reminds me of the ABC sitcom, "Head of the Class".  On that show,
there was an Indian student, quite stereotypical with the accent and all that.
Every other show he would have maybe 2 lines or so.  His stage-name was Jory
Hussain, (real name is Johair Hussain).  He actually graduated from my high
school (Karachi American School, Karachi, Pakistan) and then took off for
Hollywood.  Most of us were really distressed to read interviews of him in
teeny-bopper magazines where he would claim that Pakistan was only his touring
ground for his acting career (far from the truth).  The only other time I saw
him on the small screen was as a guest on the "Password" morning gameshow.
I felt really bad for him.  Even there, he couldn't get away from the stigma 
of being someone with a funny accent.

A couple of years later after "Head of the Class" was cancelled, some of us
got in touch with him and he seemed extremely bitter about the experience.  I'm
not sure what he's doing now, but I believe he went back to doing what he
always loved -- Shakespearean theater.

Question then: does someone remember ANY instance where Indians have been
portrayed without the traditional stereotypical attributes?  That is, as
members of the American "melting pot" or whatever?  The only thing I can think
of is some of Professor Amar Bose's televised lectures (MIT prof and head of 
the Bose speaker company).  In general, it seems that only academia has
examples of all types of people minus the stereotypes.

BTW, I really enjoy the stereotypical characters in THE PARTY, SHORT CIRCUIT,
"The Simpsons", etc.  I find them hilarious.  They do offend, but they're also
funny.  Do some people find them to offensive to enjoy at all?  One that
really pissed me off was PASSAGE TO INDIA.  I almost walked out of that.

It's interesting, but I despise mischaracterization of Muslims in the Western
media, while stereotypical portrayals of South Asians don't bother me as much.
Maybe this is because the Indian media itself ridicules the "juht" (villager)?
the uneducated simple-minded thick-accented Indian?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--saeed jaffer        		so this is what i came here for?
saeed@watson.ibm.com  		i don't think i can play your game
saeed@athena.mit.edu  		you may not agree with what i say
				none of us are perfect in every way
						-J. Cavalluzzo	
----------------------------------------------------------------------