Gori Girl

A Mixed-Race Beige World?

One thing I love about living in California is that the area is not just diverse – many parts of the US have racial and cultural diversity – but that the area has been diverse for such a long time. From the Punjabi-Mexicans of Yuba City to the Gosei generation of the Japanese-Americans, this area has had, and continues to have both a striking ability to maintain important pieces of cultural continuity of immigrant groups and a high degree of intermarriage and mixed-race kids. As I walk down the streets of San Francisco everyday, I’m struck by the number of people who look like they could have very diverse backgrounds.

Which brings me to the main topic of the day – the future of mixed-race-ness. You may have run across this idea before – that, in the future, we’re all going to be some beige color

The Real Stuff that Indians (Mostly in America) Like

If you’ve never checked out the oktrends blog, you’re in for a treat. The company behind the blog, OKCupid, is an online dating site with a fun vibe and an extremely extensive, mostly young, cross-cultural group of users. Like any other dating site, OKCupid is sitting on a virtual treasure trove of social data – but OKCupid isn’t afraid to use it. The blog’s most recent post focuses on some of the biggest cross-cultural questions out there, in fact, and uses some decent statistics to answer ‘em.

Interracial Divorce in the U.S. – Statistics and How Much They Matter

Divorce. DIVORCE. It’s one of those things America is known for around the world, along with Hollywood and blue jeans. I’m sure most of you have heard the statistic that “half of all marriages in America end in divorce”. And it’s commonly thought that it’s even worse if you marry outside your race, culture, or religion – if the average American couple has such a difficult time staying married, wouldn’t marriages where the husband and wife seem to have major differences (a built-in area of conflict, if you will) be even more prone to divorce?

With a reputation like that, it’s understandable that a non-American family – one which strongly values familial ties (like many Indian families) – may hear the 50% divorce statistic and be a bit panicked when a son or daughter announces plans to marry an American. The logic, I suspect, goes something like

This American, growing up among divorce – perhaps even having divorced parents or other family members – probably has different expectations about how marriages work and how long marriages last. Thus, if we want our son/daughter to have a good marriage for life, they shouldn’t get married to an American, since that means they’ll have a 50% chance of getting a divorce! Fifty percent!

There’s enough concern about the issue of America’s pesky divorce rate that there’s even a thread in the forum here on family divorces, and how, if, or why they ought or ought not be disclosed to Indian family members.

Truth is, however, the statistics of divorce are rather complicated, and it’s very easy to misinterpret what they mean for individual marriages. And that 50% divorce statistic? Not true . Especially for interracial, intercultural, or international couples, where things get a bit more complicated.

Germany and Leaves: Social Norms

The autumn season is upon us here in Virginia – the leaves have turned bright yellow, orange, red, and cover our yard and front walk in a multicolored carpet.

All I can think is that I’m so glad I don’t live in Germany anymore.

Words on Hindostan – Part Three

We return to crotchety old Mrs. Mortimer’s Victorian children’s stories on India (a country Mrs. Mortimer unfortunately never had a chance to actually visit). Today’s lessons from the 1850′s focus on animals, thugs, and women – and why Mrs. Mortimer chose to group her subjects in such a manner, well, I’ll leave that to all of you to ponder. As always, I do think there are some interesting details in Mrs. Mortimer’s account of India; reading between the lines, you can get a both an account of India and an idea of how the British viewed their colonies. And if that doesn’t draw you in, how about learning the etymology of the word thug? (For those of you just tuning in, here are the links to Part One and Part Two

Broken Traditions? Intercultural Marriage and Cultural Continuity

A new commenter, Lurker frequent, brought up this interesting topic in regards to intercultural marriages in the comments section of my last post:

As an Indian in the USA; the only reason I would not want to marry a local is to not “lose” my own traditions and culture. Minds meeting , and matching interests and hearts are more important, but certainly , coming from an old and rich tradition, one would want to preserve it by having a completely Indian family, no? Thoughts?

It seems to me that there are several issues in play here, some of which Aditya and I discussed in the comments section when Lf first wrote out his comment (do check it out).

1. What is meant by cultural continuity? Is it something we should value, and if so, why? Does intercultural marriage (which often leads to Third Culture Kids) automatically mean that the cultures of the parents is ending?
2. What does it mean to say that India has an “old and rich tradition” (compared, presumably, against America or other Western cultures’ younger and poorer traditions)? Is it something we should value? What exactly do we mean by tradition, anyways?
3. What sort of culture – or cultures – do we want to have in our own lives? For those of us in intercultural relationships, what (if anything) are we losing by not creating a monocultural family? Will our lives be richer for it? Poorer? What about extended families?

Well, that’s a lot of questions! Enough for a book or three, certainly, so I’ll just give a simplified sketch of my own views on this matter, than open it up to the rest of you.

Following the Iran Elections Aftermath

If you haven’t been following the current protests and events in Iran, then I highly encourage you to do so.

For those of you who haven’t heard about the Iran elections (not surprising given the relatively light coverage in mainstream media), Iran held presidential elections this past Friday on June 12th. The current hardline president, Ahmadinejad, was announced the winner, but the elections results released are extremely fishy, and not in line with what opinion polls were predicting. The main statistical improbability is that Ahmadinejad had roughly the same percentage of votes (around 65%) across different rural and urban areas and across different provinces, including the home provinces of his opponents and ones like Kurdistan, which historically goes for the opposition candidate like California goes for the Democratic one.

So what, right? Just another sadly rigged third-world election?

Well, as the pictures here show: No.

Looking for a Few Good Blogs on Relationships, India, and All Things Intercultural?

I’ve been sick the past few days – the sort where you just sit in bed and alternate between sleeping & reading. So, not a lot of blog posts here, but I’ve had a chance to catch up with a few new blogs that have come to my attention recently. A few of them have been added to the blogroll recently, but without much ado. So now it’s time to make a bit of an ado – here’s some of the best posts I’ve found.

Of Love and Race

An excellent short documentary on interracial couples by Tim Tsai featuring four different intercultural marriages in the US.

I was most struck by the first third of the documentary, which focused on the (negative) attitudes that the couples have experienced by being in an interracial marriage. My personal experience has been quite different from that of the couples’ in the film. I have had very few negative encounters regarding my relationship with Aditya. I have cared about very few of the negative encounters I’ve had regarding my relationship with Aditya.

The Intercultural Learner

The quote I’ve been considering all weekend:

“The intercultural learner moves amongst cultures, in a process of continual negotiation, learning to cope with the inevitable changes, in a manner that is ultimately empowering and enriching. The home culture is never denied nor demeaned, yet the intercultural learner will find his or her attitudes and beliefs challenged by contact with others and the process of interaction will lead to the kind of personal growth characterized by ‘progressive’ curricula.” (J. Corbett 2003)

Corbett writes this within the context of explaining good intercultural education, which he describes as neohumanist, for it “places respect for individuals and their many cultures at the heart of its enterprise”.

Thoughts?

Becoming an Intercultural Communicator

My husband and I don’t speak a common language. Never have, never will. Sure, I’m a native English-speaker, born & raised in America, and Aditya grew up speaking English both in the home and at school – and he even majored in English Literature at the Midwestern university we both attended. Nonetheless, we will always be shouting to each other across a ravine – a gap created by our different cultures.

Those of your who are in an intercultural relationship – or who interact regularly with people from a different culture, as I discussed last post – know that this gap goes far beyond the ones created by so-called gender wars, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” talk, the accents or incomplete vocabularies of non-fluent speakers , or even the basic idea from philosophy of language that no person can know exactly what you’re thinking in your head. The culture we grew up with inevitably affects the framework of the world we perceive – and thus the world we communicate to and with. Lest I end up sounding too pessimistic, however, let me hasten to add that that the difference in world views created by dissimilar cultures isn’t insurmountable. Sure, you’re never going to completely conquer the gap between two cultures – but every little bit helps!

Today’s post is on one of those little bits that help. Or maybe it’s a big bit – I’ll let you decide.

Cross-Cultural Connections in your Community

I share my office with a Chinese-American man. My team at work consists of said office mate, an Indian-American (Gujarati) guy, a Turkish fellow, a white dude from the Midwest, my Taiwanese female boss, and three Indians in our Delhi office (two Mr.’s and a Ms.). The offices closest to mine include said Turkish fellow, a Bangladeshi bloke, an Indian (Bengali) lady, a Ghanaian-American gent, a French woman, and a Nepalese chap. Really. For those of you keeping count, that’s two Caucasian Americans (including myself) out of fourteen folk. With numbers like those, as you may guess, I don’t talk to white Americans all that much while at work. (Or women, either – but that’s what you get for working in a field dominated by economists and engineers.) However, even when I step outside the office, I’ve found that I don’t interact with a many people – or, really, more than a handful of people – who appear to be from the same general cultural & racial background as my own. Frankly, it’s a little odd now that I think about it.

ESL Tutoring – or How We Met

I’ve never heard the story behind this photograph, although I know it was taken Aditya’s first year of college, and I’m willing to guess that the crossdressing costume was somehow part of the International Student Association’s annual Bazaar. Oh, how his past comes back to haunt him***

Aditya’s a year older than me, so depending on when this picture was taken I was either finishing up my last semester of high school (I graduated a semester early) or already working in Germany as an Au-Pair. Before leaving for Germany I went through the college application rigmarole, and ended up choosing the same small midwestern liberal arts college that Aditya was crossdressing studying at. Yes, you guessed it – we met in college.

Well, sort of.

A Tremendous Overachievement in a Community of Overachievers

Aasif Mandvi can’t do a very convincing “Indian” accent (at least to my ears), but his delivery is typically spot on – and this bit had be cracking up. I’ve always loved how the Daily Show dealt with “minority issues”. They aren’t afraid to take on the discussion seriously, and they aren’t afraid to skewer that same discussion when it turns ridiculous as it so often does in our media. They don’t hit the mark every time, but when they do, it’s brilliant, as when Stewart, reporting on Obama’s race speech, said, “”and at 11:00 on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults.”

Hat tip to Ennis over at Septia Mutiny, who is wondering if Gupta’s nomination gives Mandvi a bit of job security for a few years.

A Mixed Pair

It was really early in the morning, you see, when the dogs informed us that they needed to go out. My turn to let them out, unfortunately, but afterwards the three of us agreed the hike back upstairs was too long, so we settled on the couch for a nap until the sun was properly up. Well, Kajol – a total snugglebunny – and I settled on the couch, and Panda slept on the cool floor next to us.

Panda Bear is the latest addition to our family, and, as an Alaskan Malamute, he tends to be a bit too warm to snuggle comfortably for that long indoors. He’s about two and a half years old, and another rescue dog – poor pup spent most of his life tied in a field with grass so high he couldn’t see out of it before Animal Cruelty rescued him. When he came to us he was twenty pounds underweight and didn’t know what a treat was or how to play with another dog. He’s still a bit of a failure with treats – he’s excited to get one, but just drops it afterwards for Kajol to eat. Kajol, however, has taught him to play like a champion at the only game she knows: wrestling. We often look out onto the deck to see Kajol’s head disappearing into Panda’s massive jaw, or him just calmly sitting on Kajol while she struggles to get free.

They’re a well-matched pair, despite being from such different breeds – and I suppose there’s a semi-corny lesson in there for all of us in an intercultural relationship, or, really, any mixed relationship where looks or personalities or abilities differ.

Confluence on the Roads: Thoughts about American, Indian, and German Traffic

Yesterday Aditya and I made the trek to the holy queen of all box stores, IKEA. It was the first day of the Preview Summer Sale, so of course we were there, battle plan mapped out, lists made, room measurements at hand, and stomaches ready for meatballs. The plan was that I would arrive mid-afternoon with the U-Haul rental van (the better to transport our loot – we take IKEA seriously in this household), and Aditya would come directly from the office once he was off work at 7. Once there, my orders were to make one reconnaissance sweep, then head to the ground floor to secure the bed we’ve been trying to purchase for the past year. Yes, we’ve been sleeping with a mattress on the floor for a year rather than give up on our dream cheapo bed just because of little things like it always being out of stock.

We plan, and God laughs. I think it was when the third firetruck passed me, sirens blaring, and traffic ground to a complete standstill that I realized I would not be reaching IKEA at 1300 hours. There I sat, stalled on the highway, surveying the baking asphalt meadows around. To pass the time, I started observing the cooperation of the other drivers in responding to the emergency vehicles and the on-going traffic jam, and thinking about how other car cultures I’m familiar with cooperate in their own ways.

Categories, Generalizations, and Stereotypes: Talking About Cultural Differences

We talk about cultural differences a lot on this blog: “Indian parents tend to worry about X, Y, and Z when their children are getting married.” “My husband grew up in a culture where it wasn’t okay to do A, B, or C.” “Lego people of South Pacific descent enjoy conga lines and grass miniskirts.”

This is a pretty sensitive topic. In talking about cultural differences, I’m careful to not make too strict generalizations – I’ll hedge what I say by emphasizing I’m talking about my own, personal experiences, or suggest that a group seems to act in a certain way, or that some (but not all!) people from a particular culture do a particular thing. But it’s impossible to avoid making any generalizations at all about cultures or to keep from categorizing people – and silly to even try.

A Cougar in the Backyard: Dispatches from My First Indian Wedding

In this guest post, NeoKalypso of Doings & Undoings give us her thoughts on the first Indian wedding she attended.

Igniting the fear and fascination of city dwellers, a cougar recently turned up roaming around my highly metropolitan area. The cat was a fairly big dude, about 5 feet in length 150lbs, and eventually made its way into the tiny backyard of a resident who described seeing the animal roam by his window as “surreal.” When the police came they tried to contain the beast, but when it lunged at a policeman it was shot and killed. Turns out, shooting the cougar was really the only option given how ill fitted the city is for large, wild animals. The cougar could have killed someone, and there was no easy access to vets or tranquilizers to entertain any other safe idea. This is an example of an ecotone: when two different ecosystems collide and cause tension. The cougar and the city dwellers were just doing what they knew to survive, unfortunately both could not survive together.

Fortunately, I made it out of my first Indian wedding alive, and though my experience isn’t as dramatic as the poor cougar’s fate, I certainly felt out of my element. After having traveled plenty of strange places, visiting Buddhist Mongolian homes, sleeping in $3 hostels, and not to mention my general love for Indian culture, one would think I could handle any kind of situation, any kind of pressure… right? In almost any other contexts and as a seasoned, brave explorer, I think I would have found The Indian Wedding a smörgåsbord of fascination and wonder. However, let me tell you, The Indian Wedding is a much different experience when you are dating one of their own.

Who is Affected by your Intercultural Relationship?

Many people subscribe to the idea that your personal life is nobody’s business but your own – as long as you aren’t maiming others, anyways. While I generally agree with the sentiment this idea expresses, I also think it’s important to realize that, like it or not, your actions affect a wide swath of people. In fact, at the margin, your actions affect the entire world.

Let’s all pause for a moment to ponder that grandiose thought while breaking out into The Circle of Life.

Everyone back? Good. I brought up this topic because being in an intercultural relationships has a tendency to disrupt the “social equilibrium,” if you will, of the people around you. In almost every country and region an intercultural relationship is the exception, not the norm. So while being in any relationship might affect those close to you – my dad still hasn’t gotten over the fact that I’m no longer his little girl – intercultural relationships are both a regular ol’ relationship and something of a challenge to the status quo. As if romantic relationships weren’t tough enough on their own!

In this post I’m focusing on how intercultural relationships, in particular, affect those around us. I’ll start out by laying out a (non-comprehensive) list of the type of people who can be affected by your intercultural marriage or relationship, continue with how these effects ripple out through the social web of life, and then finish up with how much you should really care about it all. This post developed as I thought about how parents can react to their children’s intercultural relationships – I’ll be applying the principles and theory I develop here to that post, which will be the next “serious” one.

I’m a Rock Star in India!

Read through to see a video with excited schoolchildren…