Why the Gori of Gori Girl?
There’s been some talk in the comments about the word gori, which, given the blog name, is probably a term you’ll hear thrown around here from time to time. So I thought I’d explain what it means, some of the connotations it can carry, and why I chose it for the name of this blog - as well as my pen name.
What does gori mean?
The following was derived from Aditya’s lengthy comments on the etymology of the word gori – be thankful that I’m sparing you all of the tangential diatribes that developed during our conversation.
Gori is a Hindi adjective that literally means “fair” or “light-complexioned”. The i at the end of the word is a feminine conjugation, so gori is often used as a noun, with the subject being understood without explicit reference. In this slightly looser interpretation of the word, gori can mean “pale female”, “fair woman”, or even “white girl”. The masculine version of gori is gora, which can be translated as white man. Since I’m awfully pale-skinned, at least in the winter, gori can be rightly used as an adjective to describe me, or as a noun in reference me.
How is gori used in real life?
In the comments section referenced above there was a bit of discussion on the connotations that “gori” carries. I’m not Indian, I don’t speak Hindi, and I’ve not spent much time in
I’ve also heard that gori or gora can have some negative connotations. Aditya maintains that, without context attached, it’s a neutral word – I think he compared it to the profession of engineering, which can be seen as a great job with wonderful prospects, or a career which only boring, socially-stunted people are attracted to, but is really just, you know, a job. Another Indian friend wrote to me about gori, saying that
In Indian context it refers sorta playfully/even a little pejoratively at times to a pretty or attractive girl, depending on context. Otherwise it becomes a euphemism for white people or foreigners, also perhaps a little pejoratively.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the connotations, if any, that gori might have - like I said above, I don’t have the background to present myself as any sort of expert on this.
Finally, in any discussion about the word gori as used by Indians, it should be pointed out that in India (like in many other countries), fair skin is considered beautiful or ideal by many people. The image attached to this post is from an advertisement for a bleaching cream that Indian woman use to lighten their skin. For a good discussion of this issue (I personally don’t want to get into it right now), check out this blog post.
The reasons why I chose Gori Girl
There were a few main reasons that made me think that gorigirl.com would be a good choice for this blog.
The domain name was available
Finding a short, easy-to-remember domain name that is somewhat related to your website topic can be a difficult prospect in the current internet economy. We’re no longer in the good ol’ days of 1998 where most words - or at least phrases - were available. Nowadays the rights to a good domain name can be sold for a lot of money (pizza.com recently went for $2.6 million), so speculators purchase names en mass in the hopes that some company will eventually buy it off them. When I was in the planning stages for this blog Aditya and I bounced a few names around, and Gori Girl, as the first name we thought of that was still available, won out.
“Gori Girl” is a good signal of the blog’s content
The name might be a bit confusing, but, then, navigating intercultural relationships can be too! First off, the gori sounds foreign to English ears, because it is, of course. People familiar with Hindi (or other Indian languages) will realize that the content has something to do with India. But by attaching “girl” to the gori (and yes, essentially saying girl twice), the title becomes a little slangy, and more than a little Western. This blog is about the mingling of cultures, so it seems appropriate that the title mingles languages. Plus, at least to my ear, “gori girl” rolls off the tongue in a way that sounds casual and fun - which is the attitude I try to project here (when I don’t let the little academic in me run wild talking about theory).
Being “the white girl” has been a big - and confusing - part of my life
For those of you who haven’t read the relevant sections of this blog, I grew up in Silicon Valley, California, which is an incredibly diverse area, with a lot of first and second-generation immigrants from Asia. I’m used to being the only white person around - “the white girl” if you will. The shopping center around the corner from my house? All Chinese or Taiwanese shops, except for the British pub. The high school “academic-y” crowd I hung out with? There were three other people besides me who were white Americans - and two of them were guys. Everyone else was Asian or first-generation Eastern European immigrants. And this wasn’t because I just liked hanging out with “the ethnic people” - it was because there were only “ethnic people” in the honors or AP classes I took. Even the extracurriculars I took - marching band, math club, volunteer tutoring at a local elementary school, Junior Engineering Technical Society (yes, nerdy, I know - I once aspired to be a boring, socially-stunted engineer) - were filled with non-white people.
This upbringing has made me quite aware of race, but in a way that’s different from what you’d expect. For instance, I’m more comfortable being the “token white person” than being surrounded by other white Americans. (It took me a couple of months to figure out why I was feeling slightly on edge at my predominantly white Midwestern college.) My white friends and I would joke about becoming eggs - white on the outside, yellow on the inside - but, frankly, if you didn’t incorporate part of the pan-Asian culture of the schoolyard, you were going to be left out of a lot of conversations, events, and fun times.
But the oddest part of this all is that I’m not even entirely white. Yes, my skin is quite pale in the winter - to the point where I look a bit ill if I don’t make sure to regularly put on tanning moisturizer. But in the summer I can get pretty good tan going - which comes from my Mexican grandfather and the bit of Native American blood sloshing around from both sides of my family. Unfortunately, my grandfather and grandmother (who is a French-Canadian immigrant) didn’t want to their children to be anything other than American born-and-bred. The end result is that the cultural part of my heritage from their side was wiped out in a single generation.
Writing as Gori Girl reminds me that, while I’m seen as white by strangers, I’m really a rather mixed-up person, just like the name. Yes, I’m white, but I’m also brown on the outside when the sun shines (enough that I get chatted up in Spanish during the summer), and I’ll always have a yellow-brown tinge on the inside.
So how does this relate to intercultural relationships?
A person in an intercultural relationship is going to pick up some of his partner’s culture, just like I picked up on the culture of my friends’ as a child. It’s inevitable - I touched on this idea briefly in a post a couple of day’s back. However, how much is picked up will depend on a lot of a factors, including each person’s personality, comfort levels, the surrounding dominant culture, and, of course, each person’s desires. Some couples will end up creating a relationship where one culture is dominant, while others will work towards some sort of compromise, picking from the best of each.
Personally, I think that a compromise is the way to go - but it’s a careful balancing act. My grandparents’ actions, while quite typical for the time, went way too far in one direction - they submersed themselves in the American culture surrounding them, leaving my mother, aunts, and uncles with very little to connect them to their family history. And my grandparents lost a little part of themselves too.
I don’t want that to happen with Aditya - and it’d certainly be easy enough, given that we live in the US, and are not particularly involved in any Indian community. Although he is quite Indian in outlook, he “passes” very well as an American, even though he’s only been in the US for six years - so well, in fact, that I can often forget that I’m in an intercultural relationship. He speaks with an American accent, knows most of the cultural references (his English Lit major and love of TV helps big time here), and appreciates a lot of American things. Case in point: it took over a month for him and his coworkers to realize that his avatar for their office wii (yes, I know…) was white, while the other Indians in the office had dark brown avatars.
So I’ve made efforts to incorporate Indian things into our household to keep “US-ness” from running us over. And, in some ways, this is an expression of my own Asiannified background too. But just like my grandparents, I need to be careful to keep from throwing everything into of myself into his culture - and that means keeping around those both the American AND pan-Asian things from my childhood that I appreciate and enjoy. And I share them with Aditya, just like he shares his culture with me.
So for all of you who are embracing your partners’ cultures: I absolutely applaud your efforts, but do be careful to not forget yourself in the process.
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Comments
GG, I really liked this blog thread. It was great! I am glad to know that I am not the only one that looks white American..but feels just a little different than that on the inside. Sometimes my own inner mixed heritage causes confusion, much less the SO’s. I applaud you being able to hold onto yourself and help him hold onto his OWN heritage as well. 
GG - Great post! I like that you have such a positive outlook on both your own and Aditya’s culture and that you’re willing to work to make sure it isn’t lost. Sometimes in the face of a culture as rich as that of India, it’s easy to forget that your own background is important, too.
mocroidh - Since your guy is so Americanized, it probably won’t be too much struggle to insert yourself into the household culture. Chances are, they are used to doing a lot of the things that you would like to keep up. I don’t live with my inlaws, so I’m not as overrun with Indian-ness as you will be, but my husband has had no objections to eating American food most of the time, spending Easter/Christmas with my family, etc. In fact, he makes fun of me for watching AVS and Namaste America on the weekend, and it was a compromise to get him to eat Indian food once a week so I can learn to cook it! I think communication is key, though — make sure your guy is on board with the things you want to do, and it will be easier to broach the subject with his parents as a united front, in the off chance that they put up any resistance. Not saying they will, since they sound great, but it’s good to be prepared, especially since you’ll be living with them.
I quizzed my guy a little further and discovered his sense of the word “gori” comes from memories of watching a very pale-skinned uncle be teased in what he perceived to be a really cruel way, as well as a couple of times where he thought he heard it used to make fun of a white person - so that’s why he came to associate the word as negative.
GG, I totally identify with what you say about growing up in a diverse community. I think the Silicon Valley is special because it’s a place in the U.S. where you can really experience life as a minority as a white person. During high school, I had a core group of about 10 friends (all of us Honors and AP students) and besides me, only one other person was white (a redhead no less!) - all the rest were of Asian heritage.
You wrote that your upbringing has made you quite aware of race but is that in retrospect or were you aware at the time? I’m often amazed at how oblivious I was to race issues growing up. Of course, I knew I was surrounded by people of different races and cultures, but those differences were no more significant to me than their differences in height or clothing size or taste in music. There were only a handful of times where I really felt aware of being from a different culture from my friends. One that comes to mind is that I remember experiencing slight embarrassment that in my house we kept our shoes on since when I went to all my other friends’ places we always took ‘em off.
You know, it’s positively creepy how often I read these posts and feel like they could have been written by a ghost-writer of my own life story! My family also has a noticeable amount of native american in it, but, similar to the story here, a couple generations back it was widely agreed that this was to be hidden at all costs (too dangerous for people trying to get employment and participate in communities), and all records were destroyed - my great grandmother to the day she died refused to give honest answers on the subject. But my husband sure raised his eyebrows when he first saw the old family pictures on my grandparents’ walls (or even met or even met my grandparents in person) - didn’t look quite as white as he’d been imagining! We’ve definitely enjoyed our share of “Indians marrying Indians” jokes since then….
Overall, I’ve worried a lot more about how to make sure our home and lives are sufficiently balanced on the side of having enough Indian influences than the other way around - although, I think I’ve worried about it less since getting to know his family better, and learning to see how many things I hadn’t even recognized as having anything to do with “indian culture” actually did. On a very superficial level, one thing I enjoyed about our wedding there was that although (thankfully) most people followed the “no presents” (or, literally, “your presence is the present!”) directive on the invite, just a handful did give us small statues or carved masks or small bronze items that were typical of the region he’s from, which together help bring more visible reminders of the things he grew up around into our own home.
@CaliforniaTransplant: I like the shoes-embarrassment story! Growing up on the West Coast I have very similar recollections….
@ mocroidh: glad to hear you’re enjoying the blog! I’ll add the “balancing of cultures” post to the long queue of things I want to write about. I think it’s really great that you’re so open to having your inlaws live with you - I’m not sure if I could do that at this time in my life. Aditya’s parents will be coming for a several months’ stay this summer, so we’ll see how that goes. Do let us know how the mixed-culture household turns out!
@ ara0062: thanks for your kind words. What’s your “mixed heritage”, if you don’t mind me asking ?
@ D: India certainly does have (many) strong & rich cultures, but America does too - the US has just exported so much of its culture (say, jeans & t-shirts) that it seems like a world thing now, rather than a US thing.
@ CaliforniaTransplant: my awareness of race is mostly in hindsight, like you point out. Being around a bunch of Asians was just “the norm” when I was growing up, and I didn’t think much about it at the time.
We didn’t take shoes off at my childhood home, either, but as soon as I had my own place in college shoes off became the rule.
@ sf: I really appreciated the little statues and pictures we received at our wedding too - well, that and the saris… 
One thing I like to do when I enter an Indian home is to count the number of Ganeshes. We have (off the top of my head) at least 7 decorating the place. How many do you have?
Native American Indian LOL. Cherokee and Choctaw tribes married white people on both sides. Granddad was nearly 1/2 by the way it mixed, but he married my white 1/2 British grandma. So granddad was a little more tan than normal, causing my mom to get brown skin. My dad has the truly redskin from his heritage..and then I got grandma’s pasty white Casper-the-ghost skin LOL. My granddad’s parents turned down the land, so were stricken from the rolls because of identical thing as sf said. We have very few pictures family pictures, but one of the cousins has a picture of my great great grandfather in full N.A. indian attire. People have always joked that I was adopted LOL. I don’t want to lose either part of my heritage though because I am proud of all of it.
The indian guy I was dating used to use the same joke SF about Indians dating Indians although it wasn’t the same LOL.
I really like that you said this “So for all of you who are embracing your partners’ cultures: I absolutely applaud your efforts, but do be careful to not forget yourself in the process.”
As an old married woman(at least I feel that way sometimes!) I do advise others in this situation to try to be yourself. Werent you that way when your man fell for you? Naturally one goes through some changes as you get older, exposed to things or by being with a spouse for periods of time, even when the spouse is of the same background.
By that, I dont mean not to incorporate things you enjoy or learn things you are interested in, or to occasionally do things for the other person. But, Ive also seen women who agree to things for the sake of love(changing religion, becoming vegetarian, not celebrating Christmas, how to raise kids) only to regret it later or worse, become resentful. Changing oneself for the wrong reasons tends to only last so long.
To be honest though, I have had people think that I am that woman, simply because I do live a rather Indian lifestyle. Oddly enough, my husband is the neutral party(he goes with the flow) here, and I was all this weirdo before he even met me
Hi,
I’ve read through your blog with great interest. Being an Indian (now naturalized American) and an army brat too, married to an American, I found a lot of familiar experiences described quite eloquently in your postings. I wish you and Aditya all the best !
I can relate to the ‘token white girl’ issue - I grew up in Hawaii among people of mostly East Asian and Polynesian ancestry - frequently I was the only ‘haole’ in the class. I am so comfortable with Asian culture that when I moved to NYC I chose to live in Flushing, which is largely Asian(both desi and Chinese/Korean) - in my immediate neighborhood there are something like 5-6 Hindu temples, a Sikh gurudwar(sp?), a mosque, and maybe 10-12 Indo-Pak groceries.
@ BrownInTheUSA: Glad you enjoy the blog, and thanks for stopping by! I’d love to hear your insights as another army brat/Indian in America.
@ PattuRani: thanks for stopping by the blog. Hawaii is a VERY diverse area - I have some family there, so I’ve been lucky enough to visit the islands a time or two. And I completley understand your wanting to live in an Asian area in NYC - I just feel *weird* being in all white areas!
Hi,
I think growing up in the army life in India is almost like a parallel but separate world compared to how most (traditional) Indians live. Most army kids are used to moving around far more than the average kids. I think I went through 5 schools before I finished. Probably makes it easy to adapt to living in a foreign country too. I also have a hard-wired familiarity with all things military… was watching an air show at Andrews Air Force Base in MD and felt a wave of nostalgia looking around. Watching the Marine Corps Band perform in DC on July 4th also brings back memories of year ago. I suppose the military theme does bring a common thread across time, space and cultures (to me anyway).
Yea GG and PR, I start to have, like, an existential allergic reaction when I’m at all white bars/parties in my city. This intermittent itch started affecting me after I experienced foreign travel (like real foreign…China, Mongolia…India) and seeing how different ways of living/thinking can be so valid. I’m not sure exactly why I’ve noticed this phenomenon so much … maybe travel makes you realize how wonderfully small you actually are in the world and it poses so many alternative possibilities that homogeneity actually feels sort of stifling. Whereas, “sameness” might not have bothered you so much before if you never had a pluralistic clue in your life…
Hi,
I think growing up in the army base life in India is almost like a parallel but separate world compared to how most (traditional) Indians live. Most army brats are used to moving around far more than the average kids. I went through 5 schools and lived in 4 states before I finished my education there. Probably made it easy to adapt to living in a foreign country too. I also have a hard-wired affinity for all things military… living in the DC area lets me indulge in that bit of nostalgia with the local Air Force air shows and Marine marching bands. Connects the present with the past.
@ BrownInTheUSA - Aditya had a very similar experience to yours, and he’s also mentioned that moving all over India has helped him learn to feel “at home” anywhere, including here in the States. We live in the DC area too. Until recently we were *right* next to the Iwo Jima memorial, where there’s a Marine event every week during the summer for the tourists.
Small world… I have lived all over the DC area, Maryland and now N. VA. I lived in New Delhi years ago growing up. A similar theme, moving from one capital city to another.
DC with all its monuments and edifices sometimes seems like a city of stone temples dedicated to forgotten gods.
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I’ve just recently discovered your blog, and I’m really enjoying reading all the posts! I’m getting married to an Indian man in July, and so I’m finding yours and other blogs on interracial relationships very helpful. I was intrigued by your last statement:
“So for all of you who are embracing your partners’ cultures: I absolutely applaud your efforts, but do be careful to not forget yourself in the process.”
This is something that I’ve been somewhat concerned about in my own relationship. I’ve embraced a lot of Desi culture (I love Indian food, I really enjoy Bollywood movies/music, etc.), but sometimes I worry that I may be losing some of my own traditions/culture in the process. I’d love to hear more about how you work to maintain that balance!
My fiance and his family have lived in the U.S. for over 20 years now, so for all the Indian-ness they retain, they’ve been pretty Americanized as well. To a certain extent, it feels like I have LESS of my own culture to share with them, because of this. And perhaps things will be a bit different when we’re all living together full-time after we’re married (my fiance is the only son, so his parents will be living with us - which might not be the ideal, but which I’m actually mostly very happy about, since I get along with them extremely well!) But I do sometimes wonder whether I will be able to incorporate my own culture and heritage into our household, since sometimes it seems as though the Indian culture dominates so much.
Anyway, I’m rambling here…but I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this! Thanks for writing about these issues so eloquently and intelligently!