"Diverse and International Populations"

When I got my resume critiqued at the Resume Rodeo, my HR representative told me I should make one addition to my "statement of qualifications."

"You've been to India," she said. "So you need to promote that you're good with diversity. Diversity is a big thing right now."

She told me that I should add the sentence "experience working with diverse and international populations" to my statement of qualifications.

Which I did, because any piece of advice is worth taking at this point, and it now shows up both on my resume and my LinkedIn profile.

And it makes me feel really, really weird. It's like code for "this white person won't wig out around people who aren't like her."

The HR rep who gave that piece of advice falls under the category of "diverse and international" herself, so she's seemingly okay with it; and yet I have to wonder if she puts it on her own resume. If she worked in an office full of white people, would she be able to include the statement?

After all, it might help her move her career forward. Diversity is a big thing right now.

American Girl Has Introduced A New Doll. This Time, She's A Pole Dancer.

Okay, not really.

But doesn't she look like one?

Julie, btw, seems based off of the same model as the retired Kailey doll. Also, I know too much American Girl trivia.

Julie's also got a "friend doll," Ivy Ling. Ivy, AG's first "second-gen" doll (assumed via context -- I can't confirm it until I sneak into Borders and read the book), deals with a rather predictable culture-clash scenario:

The only place Ivy feels at home is at gymnastics. But this year the big gymnastics tournament is scheduled for the same day as the annual Ling family reunion.

Someone on that creative team watched a little too much Bend It.

Ivy is also being promoted as AG's "first Asian doll," despite the release of Jess Akiko McConnell in 2005. Jess, however, was promoted as AG's "first biracial doll." Incidentally, she and Ivy share the same face model, which goes to prove that AG thinks all Asian dolls, whether Irish-Japanese-American or Chinese-American, look alike.

No, wait.

What it really proves is that I know way too much American Girl trivia.

Persepolis: War is Horrible, Family is Wonderful, Art is Beautiful, Quarter-Life Crises are Universal

Yesterday, while I was waiting for my landlord to restore water to my building, I went to Borders and read Persepolis.

Cover-to-cover, both parts, in one long sitting.

It was fantastic. I want to read it again to catch all of the parts I missed the first time. I wasn't familiar with much of the history (the Iran hostage crisis, yes, but everything else... no, unfortunately), so reading it -- especially with Satrapi's "jumping back and forth in time" narrative -- was like putting together a list; what happened when? Who did what to whom?

When the list became muddled, I gave it up and focused entirely on the characters. The Satrapi family is, after all, the heart of the story. I soon became enveloped in their world, mesmerized by the emotion revealed through pages of simple pen-and-ink:


(Image taken from Amazon's "Search Inside!" feature.)

By the time I reached the second half of the book, I was surprised to see how much I seemed to identify with the character of Marjane. She spent her childhood under the shadow of violence, bombings, and repressed liberty, after all, and I spent my childhood... well, here. But there she was, moved (by her parents, for her own safety) to a boarding house in a country halfway around the world where she didn't speak the language and didn't know anybody, and I thought "yeah, I've been there." The way she negotiated Austria was much the way in which I negotiated India.

Then there was the long section in which Marjane, alone over the holidays, realizes she has nothing to do with her time except read (this is the section in which she makes four trips to the supermarket in one day just because it puts her in contact with other people), and I thought "that's exactly what I am doing now."

Then, of course, the final chapters of the book, in which an adult Marjane, returned to Iran, tries to puzzle out what she should do with her life: should an educated woman pursue a career? a husband? children? How can a woman form an equal relationship with a male partner? How does this fit in with being a citizen who fights for social change? How much can one give up and still be oneself?

I thought "It's the quarter-life crisis!" Even in Iran. Even after a childhood without the privilege and entitlement characteristic of "quarter-life" Americans. Even after being sent away from one's family at fourteen and left to fend for oneself in a foreign country.

Even after a remarkably, unimaginably different life, Marjane and her friends ask themselves the same questions I (and my friends) ask. That's something worth considering.

I can't wait for the movie.


And...

When I got back to the apartment, there was water! Woo-hoo!

To Thambi

To Thambi, who is also "Name" (of course I track ISPs), and who has now adopted two different identities (with the same hidden Blogger profile) to leave me notes on the blog:

Thanks for the link. I remember reading that article two years ago, but it was nice to be reminded of it again.

I wanted to respond to your comment because I respect where you are coming from, and although I don't think I'm doing what you are accusing me of doing, it's clear that we are misreading each other, which I think is unfortunate.

So. (Enters storytelling mode.)

I have worn a bindi. Twice.

The first was the night Tempest opened, in Hyderabad. My students insisted I wear one.

"I'm not Hindu," I said. "And I'm not married. I don't think it's appropriate for me to borrow a symbol like that."

They disagreed, explaining that "you can't wear a sari without a bindi!"

So I let them put one on my forehead.

The other time I wore a bindi was in Bangalore, and as before it was suggested and offered by my host, before going to visit nearby families and their Kolu.

Although I have received a few colorful, glittery bindi packets as gifts when making clothing purchases, I don't wear them. I certainly wouldn't wear them on my navel. I've always recognized the bindi as a religious signifier, even as its meaning has altered.

But the salwar is different. It isn't a religious symbol, as far as I understand. It's a form of clothing that has, in fact, already passed through the hands of a few different cultural groups before it ended up on a hanger in my closet.

I know that people think I don't have a right to be interested in India, or in Indian culture; that I am "Bollywoodizing" India (to which I respond "no, I'm Bollywoodizing Bollywood, which -- you have to admit -- encourages that kind of behavior"), or that I am operating from a colonial mindset.

The first part I disagree with, the middle part I know isn't true (India isn't all Bollywood and yoga, and I didn't think it was before the trip, either), and the last part is something that I have consciously tried to address and avoid.

What I don't understand is why you tell me I am presenting myself as an "expert" or "ambassador" of Indian culture. This blog was started in a spirit of questioning, which has continued throughout my travelogue.

It was started -- if you go back to my very first posts -- because I didn't feel comfortable cluttering up the SepiaMutiny comment boards with my questions (and... um... whiteness), and so I started a blog of my own where I could try to puzzle through what I didn't understand.

(Now, interestingly, my blog has in fact been cited on SepiaMutiny, as well as Ultrabrown, and no fewer than six times on DesiPundit.)

I never meant to present India to anyone else, or to (re)define it by my standards. All I tried to do with this blog was to tell stories about my experiences, and to ask questions to help me understand what I was experiencing.

Now that I am no longer traveling, I'm not quite sure what to do with the blog. ^__^ Now is the time where writing "about India" seems presumptuous, and although there is a place for a post about Saawariya because it has to do with something that was recently posted on Ultrabrown, I feel like I ought to redefine my writing focus so that this blog becomes... about a job search? about my personal musings? about OMG-they're-adapting-Ballet-Shoes?!

Anyway. Thambi, I'm sorry that you are offended by what I am writing. I'm not going to stop blogging, though. I make mistakes sometimes, and make stupid assumptions sometimes, and correct them when they are pointed out to me. But I have never presented myself as an expert or ambassador. This blog is always, and has always been, about promoting understanding through question and discussion -- not only understanding of a semester in India, but also of theatre, education, economics, literature, etc.

And that's all I'm going to write about that.

Loins of Awesomeness

I saw Loins of Punjab Presents last night. I wasn't expecting to find it in Hyderabad, but there it was. Late show only; they had to reserve the afternoon slots for things like Happy Days and Dhol and the (sixth?) straight week of Chak De.

The movie was awesome. Absolutely hilarious. I would recommend to anyone.

My favorite part? There's a moment, near the end of the film, when you realize exactly how the story has to play out. You realize that there is only one inevitable solution, and that the writers have been setting up for it since the very first moments of the film. And it's brilliant. I love it when stories are plotted that closely. It makes my nerd heart happy.

It's an odd film to watch as a white woman wearing a blue salwar, because so much of the story deals with the idea of "performing Indian-ness" and who has the right to perform. It's a question that is given some exploration but is never solved to anyone's satisfaction (neither the on-screen characters nor my off-screen self), Mr. Bokade's summary aside. Without spoiling the ending for anyone, if you've seen the film, what did you think? (Manish?)

The other part that made my nerd heart happy? Vikram's first date. I would have been all over that, had I been there. But then the film would have turned out differently, and not so carefully plotted. ^__^

The part that made my nerd heart sad? None of the singers ever told the band in which key to play their songs. Perhaps the band is known for its perfect and relative pitch. Who knows? ^__^

Will You Be My Diversity Friend?

We interrupt the travel blogging for a brief piece of astonishment about a new application on Facebook.

Since Facebook has opened up its interface to allow users to create and promote new apps, we've gotten... a lot of weird stuff. Some good stuff. But my guess is that it will only get weirder before it gets better. ^__^

And thus, trawling through my friends' sites, I unwittingly discovered the "Heritage and Flags" application.

This is an application which allows you to break down your lineage and announce that you are, say, 50% Irish and 30% Italian and 2% Cherokee. (Yes, I know that only adds up to 82%.) This is described, in the application, as "ethnic pride."

For people who have a direct connection to those countries, more props to them; but for all my dear white friends who are 15% this and 4% that... it seems a bit self-indulgent.

Anyway. Here's the icky part. The application then announces on the user's page how many "diversity friends" the person has. Diversity friends, of course, are anyone who has identified themselves as anything besides plain ol' American. It calculates the "diversity" of the user's network and totals the results.

Each percentage of a nationality counts as more diversity points; thus, a person whose entire friend network is made up of white middle-class people from Ohio could garner a high diversity score as long as all of her friends identify themselves with four or five nationalities.

I haven't run the app myself, but I wonder if there is an option for "American." There must be; I can't see an app priding itself on "diversity" leaving any one country out; but then how does American fit into the percentages? I haven't seen any of these "diversity friends" identifying themselves as such.

Ah, but of course... being American is not "ethnic pride."

Blargh.

The (Long) Color-Blind Casting Argument

I'm going to have to do this post as a series of anecdotes for now. Just to get the ball rolling.

1. We're rehearsing Shakespeare's Pericles. The play contains several phrases which equate the word "black" with "evil;" i.e. "black-hearted," "black as incest," etc. Whenever we reach a line which includes the word "black," the director stops the rehearsal and says "I think we should take that line out. What do you think?"

Everyone turns to look at the African-American guy in the room (he's playing Helicanus).

"I really don't have a problem with it," he says.

"I know," says the director. "But Pericles says those lines right to you and I would hate for someone in the audience to think..."

In the end all instances of the word "black" are excised from the script.

This isn't a true color-blind casting story but it is the beginning of my argument that even when directors cast "without regard to color" they very often place actors "of color" in the role of the other, both within the ensemble and within the play. This leads us to:

2. A few years ago I was involved in a performance of Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics. The play is about a group of Cuban factory workers whose lives are interrupted by the arrival of a visitor. (It's much more complicated than that, but you'll have to read it for yourself.) The factory workers were all played by Team Light Skin (there was one woman in this group who identified as Hispanic but for acting purposes read white) and the only actor with darker skin than mine was an African-American man who played the visitor.

As a director, this is an example of racism/othering that didn't even occur to me until an African-American actor pointed it out. Then I suddenly saw it everywhere. The performance of A Doll House in which the only actor "of color" was the actor playing Torvald (the character operating outside of the primary group); the performance of Oedipus where the only actor "of color" was the actor playing Oedipus.

Wait, you will say. Isn't Oedipus the lead role? Yes, but it's also the character who doesn't belong to the group. Oedipus is the other. His return to Thebes causes a plague. He is the only character who fails to understand what is going on around him... until, of course, he does, and he blinds and exiles himself (i.e. returns to his otherness).

3. I was sitting in an audience next to an older man who had no patience for politically-correct language. He asked me about an African-American actress we both knew, and asked when he might next get to see her onstage.

I explained that she was going to to be in a performance that opened in a few weeks.

"But that play's about white people," he said.

I gave a brief blurb in support of color-blind casting.

"Why do directors make black actors pretend to be white people?" he asked.

I explained that the idea was that a character didn't have to be a certain race; that a character's experiences could be lived and acted by anybody. He didn't like that argument.

"The play takes place at the turn of the century, and those characters are all white people," he said. "Why don't you find a play where this actress can play a black woman?"

This conversation illustrates two problems: first, the preponderance of theatre towards plays featuring white characters; and second, the failure of color-blind casting to acknowledge that these are white characters. Torvald in A Doll House would not have been a man "of color." We have the option to cast anyone we like in the role, and to suspend our disbelief (as it were), but there is always an underlying dissonance.

This is a huge topic and the one that took up so many tangents and off-tangents in my original draft, because to really dig into this one has to look at a variety of examples -- Jonathan Price in Miss Saigon, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, white actors playing Cubans in Anna in the Tropics, etc. We used to suspend our disbelief when white actors played Asians or Hispanics, and now we are less comfortable doing so -- but, as the man in my example stated, we are beginning to be less comfortable passing off actors "of color" in roles intended for white actors.

But that argument is hardly simple enough, because to really dig into it one has to ask the question: how far do we go? Can only people of Norwegian descent play Ibsen? Do we need Italian actors for Romeo and Juliet? Is it an issue of color, of nationality, of ethnicity, or of identity? Can we make the argument that Torvald could (historically) have been of Egyptian or Indian or Mexican descent because it's not a complete impossibility, even though it is an illogicality? Are we making black actors pretend to be white people?

3. The reason (I believe) that directors so often cast only a "minority" (pun intended) of non-white actors in performances, even in performances intended to be color-blind, seems correlated in some way with the way the director has experienced people "of color" in his/her own life. That is to say, if a director does not already have significant personal relationships with a diverse group of people, the director is less likely to give significant stage time to a diverse group of people.

Follow me on this one.

When one is casting, one looks for actors which have qualities one would like to see present in the character. (One also looks for talent/craft/technique/etc. but we'll leave that out of the question for now. Assume that all of my hypothetical actors are ridiculously talented.)

If a director removes color from the list of qualities, i.e. Nora Helmer doesn't have to be played by a white woman, then the director is looking instead for a series of attributes.

So. Nora Helmer should be... young, pretty, quick-moving, capable of humor, capable of depth, beguiling, flirtatious, serious, able to dance a mean tarantella...

All right. Quick quiz. What does the woman who just popped into your mind look like?

In my case, she's white. Just from the list of attributes. Even if I removed Nora's name and removed Ibsen's text and just asked myself to "think of a woman who is..."

This is because I, like many American directors, am white and grew up with white people as my closest influences. It doesn't mean I believe that white is "the default race;" it simply means that when I begin to visualize characters I pull images of shape and line and mannerism from my (white) relatives, my (white) neighbors, etc.

And so already the director is a step away from thinking color-blind. The director may plan to cast color-blind, but when presented with an array of actors is likely to go with the ones who remind the director of characteristics of people he/she already knows. And if most of the people the director knows are white, the "color-blind" casts are going to look pretty white as well.

I had to be told that I was doing this. And then, suddenly, I understood how my mind was getting in the way. Now I look at actors (and at characters) much differently.


Anyway. This was supposed to be a few short anecdotes, but... brevity is never my strong suit. I'll be interested to read the responses, if anyone followed the argument to its end! ^__^

To the Team Looking for the "Color-Blind Casting" Post

I mentioned on SepiaMutiny today that I was in the middle of writing a post about color-blind casting (the same one I promised to write on this blog, last week).

I've been writing on this one for a while, and I'm having difficulty reining it in to blog-post length. I'm also having difficulty trying to put all of my arguments in order, because this is a huge topic. It is, essentially, an analogy (in microcosm) of the way race (as represented by color) is handled in America by way of how it is handled in the theatre.

Right now the damn thing's already three pages long. It needs some work. Truth be told, it's a rough draft of a conference paper trying to force itself into a blog post.

But I promise that I will leave something behind on this topic before I fly to Hyderabad. Because I can guarantee that after I fly to Hyderabad, I will probably be fairly occupied... ^__^

On the Limitations of American Accents

(Editor's Note: She's posted this one, then pulled it, then posted it, then pulled it again. She's not sure. She never is, on issues like these, because she knows she can't ever truly understand anything from "the other point of view."

But she's posting it again, anyway, because she thinks her point about American accents not being considered accents is valid, and she'll trust her readers and commenters to straighten her out on the rest of it.)


Hmmm. I read this editorial in the NYT today and thought it was about time I weighed in on the... um... "name thing."

The editorial tells the story of a Hispanic author's experiences with his own name, Manuel Munoz, and his observations that there are two ways of pronouncing it -- the Mexican way and the English way. He notes that he and many of his Hispanic friends and relatives allow their names to be pronounced in the English way for "convenience" and to allow them to "blend in:"

Ours, then, were names that stood as barriers to a complete embrace of an American identity, simply because their pronunciations required a slip into Spanish, the otherness that assimilation was supposed to erase.

I won't argue his experience. Munoz goes on to write about how having an easily-pronounced name increases "access" (in the lit theory sense as well as the literal one) in America. It's overwhelmingly present; there is still discrimination against people whose names sound too "foreign."

(As I've noted before, people today are extra-aware that names are everything.)

But there is another side to this story.

It has to do with Munoz' failure to identify the native-born American accent as an accent, with all the quirks and limitations thereof.

He writes as if it were merely a matter of choice that American speakers (read: white) pronounce his name "Man-WELL" without the elisions that a Spanish speaker would use.

This troubles me, because it speaks to a generality: that the "American accent" is, in this country and increasingly worldwide, viewed as a "default." Think of the dialect coaches in India, working to give call center employees default/blank/all-purpose-American accents.

If this "American accent" (never mind the varieties of speech patterns among Americans) is viewed as default, a few other assumptions begin to tag alongside.

The first is the assumption that people with American accents have the ability to say any phoneme they like, or to slip into any other accent unhindered. (After all, the American accent isn't an accent; it's the opposite of an accent: a blank slate.)

The second is that people with American accents have the ability to hear the difference between the way they pronounce a particular name and the way it is pronounced by the original speaker. (Trust me: when we refer to "Dr. Gooooopta," we really think we're getting it right.)

The third, of course, is that all non-American accents are viewed as variant, deviant, of less value, etc.

I'm not sure what the solutions will be to any of these problems. It will be interesting to see how accents change in the next hundred years; whether the "American" accent is allowed to dominate, or whether it becomes tucked alongside a multiplicity of accents and is no longer a "default." Globalism could take us either way.

But -- at the current moment -- to Mr. Muniz and to everyone who's had a name butchered: Some of us, including me, can't always say the words we'd like to say. Forgive us our flat vowels.

America the Beautiful

If you've been following this blog since it's induction, you should have a fairly good idea of where I live. I'm in an unnamed mid-sized Midwestern town, small enough to have only one shopping mall but large enough to have three (competing) Indian groceries.

Like Sashi over at Buoyantville, I spend a lot of time playing the observer. Particularly if I'm at an event by myself, which is likely to happen if I'm, say, temping during the summer while all of my grad student friends are scattered across the country.

Anyway. This is what I observed, in this mid-sized Midwestern town, on the Fourth of July.

Imagine a bandstand, in the middle of a large, well-maintained park. On the bandstand, there is a performance of sorts; a nationalistic "spectacular" about our country's history which clearly took a few cues from "Red, White, and Blaine" (down to the old geezer sitting off to one side, narrating the entire thing to the audience).

The performers look a lot like TV America: a bunch of smiling white people and one black man. They're all dressed in American flag t-shirts.

At closest proximity to the bandstand are the elderly; all white, all white-haired. They are the only people really enjoying this performance; perhaps they are its intended audience. When the actors ask all of the veterans in the crowd to stand up, it's this group who provide the tears.

The older folks fill all of the available seating. Right behind them stand the townie crowd; again, all white, largely overweight, with children who are clearly bored and misbehaving. They don't look happy to be there (this performance is something that must be sat through before the fireworks begin), and the mothers glare and whisper threats at the children.

Behind this group is the desi contingent. Many of them took the time to dress up for this event; saris of course, but the men also wear neatly pressed shirts (as do the little boys) and the girls are all ruffles and frills. They also look fairly bored; but, unlike the families in front of them, they stand silently and wait.

Behind this group are the black families, and behind them are a few Hispanic families. And, with only rare exceptions, the audience has very neatly stratified themselves into this arrangement.

Which meant that when I came over the hill towards the bandstand, I saw arrayed before me a little unconscious microcosm of America, appropriate enough on the Fourth of July: a little center of white faces backed by a larger group of brown ones.

And to top it all off, I heard the old geezer onstage say this:

"America's a great democracy, but we can't forget that there are countries out there who are still dreaming that they can be like America. But with hard work, we can help them get there!"

Makes me proud to be part of this great nation.

Where Is Blue From?

So... I was on the phone, talking with S., and we got to talking about my hometown. I grew up in a place so small it had no stoplights, no fast food, no chain restaurants, no cinema, no shopping besides a grocery store, a general store, and a "nearly new" shop... a place so small that one could walk from the north end of town to the south in fifteen minutes... a place where kids could walk to school unsupervised and could run around in neighbors' and friends' backyards without parents ever fearing that they would be abducted.

A place which still had an old-fashioned soda shop where one could purchase old-fashioned vanilla phosphates -- not for the tourist attraction, because no tourists ever came here, but because people still wanted them.

(And, btw, phosphates seem to be so "out of touch with reality" that there is no entry on Wikipedia to describe them. It's essentially a homemade soda mixed by hand, using water, the flavor -- vanilla, strawberry, raspberry, etc. -- and whatever pop-rocks-type chemical you put in the water to make it carbonate. Probably, given the name, some kind of phosphate.)

In short, I lived in a sort of throwback to the halcyon days of the American 1950s. Except that instead of prefab housing, the majority of homes in my town were (slightly) renovated Victorians.

This makes me, in certain conversations, "exotic." ^__^

Did you crown a River Queen every year? S. asked, visions of funnel cake festivals and teased-hair outdoor beauty pageants dancing through his head.

Yes, I said.

Did you ever get crowned River Queen?

No -- I was never that popular. But I tried out for cheerleader... and pom pom girl... and didn't make it onto either of them.

Unfortunately, probably due more to the vagaries of American fashion than anything else (damn you, Target, and whomever thought it would be a good idea to make the Midwestern national costume an oversized t-shirt with a sports logo worn over a pair of faded blue jeans!), my hometown exoticism will never be marketed to a larger audience.

But here we are, doing our traditional native dance:



(Note from the editor: The faces are blurred to protect the innocent; the website where more of these pictures can be found has been blurred as well.)

A Good Dress Rehearsal

There is nothing like sitting with a laptop on one knee and a kitty on the other (of course I have a cat -- haven't you all guessed by now?), with my feet in warm fuzzy slippers and a big bowl of chocolate ice cream (with peanut butter and caramel swirls!), after an ideal dress rehearsal.

Nickel and Dimed will be a good show. The pieces have come into place, and we get our first audience tomorrow. The official opening is Wednesday, but tomorrow we are inviting a large group of civil service workers (read: maintenance staff) to attend a special, "honored guest only" performance.

Before I let myself get too... I don't know, complacent or something, I should consider this: my university hosted a guest director this semester, and her play opened last Friday. I saw the matinee on Sunday (between my own rehearsals), and -- although my play is good and I'm quite happy with it -- the difference between the two works was astonishing and humbling. Hers looked like a detailed oil painting and
made mine look like a crayon sketch by comparison.

So... there is always something more to work towards. But, tonight, there is ice cream.

A side note on yesterday's post: I discovered the source of the familiar Indian cooking smell and am surprised no one suggested it in the comments (maybe y'all were just being polite). It wasn't the bags from Namaste Grocery. It was me -- my own skin. Interesting. Now I suppose I'm wondering if it's as obvious to other people. And how that will smash up against (or deconstruct/subvert, if we're playing the lit theory game) the old "Indians smell like curry" stereotype. Because -- at least today -- this gori girl does as well.

And -- if you'll forgive her -- she kind of likes it. It's a nice smell.

Where Are You From?

I'm going to an International Fair tomorrow, sponsored by my university's various international student organizations.

It's probably one of the few spaces where it's safe to ask "where are you from?"

I know it's not a particularly appropriate question to ask. It implies otherness, and, as another (now offline) desi blogger wrote, forces the person to then endure some kind of heartfelt enthusiasm about how much the questioner loves their culture, clothing, food, etc. --or forces them to endure some kind of insult along the lines of "why don't you go back there?"

It also assumes that anyone who isn't obviously white or black is "from" somewhere, regardless of where the person was actually born or raised.

I did ask, once. Not out of any context -- I go to this desi-run gyro shop about twice a week, and had shared enough back-and-forth banter with Dev, who worked the counter, that I felt daring enough to press the familiarity.

"Are you -- forgive me for asking -- you are Indian?"

"Yes."

"Which part?"

"You wouldn't know."

"No -- I'm going to Hyderabad next summer and I'm trying to learn everything I can about India. So I might know."

"I am Punjabi. It is very far from Hyderabad. I don't think you would know much about it."

I paused. Punjab. North India. Refugees after Partition. Tandoori ovens, salwar khameez, Chandni Chowk, kali dal...

But I didn't say any of that. Because, really, did I know anything about Punjab that didn't come from Bollywood films or cookbooks?

So I said "You're right -- I don't know much about it. But thank you."

I understand why it would be uncomfortable to be continually interrogated about one's background; to be continually judged as "other," to be continually evaluated as an outsider. I understand why I shouldn't make a habit of asking. But sometimes I think that not asking is equally unfortunate, because not asking demands that we remain ignorant. Learning that Dev is Punjabi makes me want to learn more about Punjab; it's the not knowing that keeps people and places "foreign."

What are your thoughts? I'm interested to hear from both sides -- those who might be questioning and those who find themselves often questioned.

On "Opinion" and Reality

All right. I said I would continue these thoughts from yesterday, and I will.

Here's a scenario. I'm over at SepiaMutiny, typing a comment to a post about the character Apu, from The Simpsons, and the idea that he perpetuates the stereotype of Indian immigrants as convenience-store workers with funny accents. The gauntlet was thrown -- "The average American is far less likely to interact with a desi IT worker than with a desi grocery store clerk/owner, or a desi taxi driver. Right or wrong?"

And so, feeling red-headed, I typed back "wrong." Actually, I phrased it in nicer terms; I wrote that if "average American" meant a white person from flyover country, I qualified on both counts -- and I had met and interacted with a variety of desis throughout my life, even when I lived in a tiny Midwestern town which was so small it didn't even have stoplights. In fact, I've seen nearly every episode of The Simpsons and I had to learn through the internet in college that Apu's occupation was an intended stereotype -- I had never thought to associate being Indian with working in a convenience store, any more than I had thought to associate being Scottish with working as a school groundskeeper or being Jewish with clowning.

I typed my response. And then I thought "Okay, Blue. That's your opinion. But some of the posters at SepiaMutiny have very strong memories of being taunted because of Apu, and they hold a well-earned belief that mainstream white America views them as a group of interchangeable workers with funny accents. And that's their opinion."

So -- in a case like this -- whose reality is more valid? It's no longer exactly a comparison between an undergraduate and Foucault; it's one set of life experiences against another. This is the problem that Olson does not address in his essay; that once we enter a truly diverse society (and no, we're not there yet) we are going to come up against competing opinions which are, or can be, of equal worth -- and yet we're going to lack the critical skills to deal with them.

This seems to be at the heart of the Senator Biden debacle, at least as far as I understand it. Biden's press secretary released, a few days ago, a list of all the people Biden had described as "articulate" in the week leading up to his comment on Obama. Since we're dealing with politics, who knows what is true and what is spun -- but there seems to be a paper trail of Biden liberally using "articulate" as if it were his highest form of praise. Yet when he called Obama articulate, two different realities collided.

And both realities were equally valid.

Was Biden a fool not to understand how Obama's realities would temper and alter his compliment? Perhaps. Does that make him insensitive and/or racist? I don't know. What it does do is make me worry about how people with different life experiences will ever manage a point of connection.

Perhaps in my case, it means simply that I should shut up and listen more; that if a group of people has a strongly-held belief that they are viewed negatively in a particular way, who am I to say... well, anything about it? If my reality becomes shared by enough "average Americans," their reality will incorporate that and the "Apu stereotype" will become a non-issue.

Hmmm. I'll come back to this, I'm sure. And to the SM team -- I am sorry that I tried to counter your reality with my own individual experience.

(EDIT: I have since learned that Biden's remarks to Obama were not an isolated misunderstanding, and that he in fact seems to have a great propensity for labeling and insulting people. Grrr. Damn politicians.)

Education and "Opinions"

This essay just appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education today. Written by Gary A. Olson, the essay deals with the current trend towards revering opinion over analysis:

We seem to be witnessing the apotheosis of opinion, a trend that has grave consequences for all of us in higher education. A generation of students and others are training themselves not to become critical thinkers, not to search for evidence or support of an assertion, and not to hold themselves or others accountable for the assertions they make.

Students believe that their opinions are as valid as those of long-established scholars (Brown tells the story of a student in a philosophy course who dismisses Foucault after one reading because the student "has a different opinion" on the nature of discourse). Parents believe their opinion of how to run a university is as valid as those of university administrators. This leads, Brown writes, not only to a spate of lawsuits (the courtroom being often the final place where two warring opinions can do battle), but also to a detachment from the concepts of research, study, and critical thought.

I'm not one to say that there is a universal truth, and I'm certainly not a structuralist. However, I agree with Brown and his idea that we are living in a society where opinion trumps all. Forget truth -- we've got Colbert's "truthiness;" and our freewheeling abandonment of hierarchical structure gives us a classroom where any student can stand up and say "that's just Foucault's opinion."

I'm including this in my blog for a few reasons. Brown has already written about how the cult of opinion affects education, so I will write about how it affects theatre. We are currently in a period where directors -- particularly directors of Shakespeare -- feel as if playscripts are just some writer's opinion of how the play should be done. Without taking the time to study the play or the time period -- often after only a few readings -- out come the scissors and lines are trimmed, words are changed, characters are compressed, scenes are cut... all with the goal of better shaping the play into the director's opinion of what a play should be.

I'm directing Tartuffe next year as my final graduate school project. I'd like to direct the entire play without cutting or altering a single line. Who am I to trump Moliere? The reason we are still reading and performing Tartuffe now is because Moliere did a pretty damn good job the first time. (Same reason, btw, that we are still reading Foucault.)

This is not to say that theories won't change; certainly we learn new things and we move from structuralist to post-structuralist, from modern to postmodern, from a Western-centric to globally inclusive canon. (Well, we're still technically pretty far from a globally inclusive canon. This from the person who tried and failed to get a South Asian play on our university's season.) But they certainly won't be changed by an undergrad who sits in a classroom and says "I think this author's wrong" without taking the time to understand why or to propose an alternative theory.

The other reason I've got this on my blog has to do with... oh, I don't know, the giant issue at the center of my blogging. (No, it's not about getting stains out of white sweaters.) Opinion, it seems, is at the heart of our lack of cultural understanding. Obama was educated alongside Muslims, so he must be a terrorist, etc. And, of course, the multiplicity of opinions surrounding the idea of a white woman in a blue salwar, and my own responsibility for ensuring that I do not turn my experience of India into a series of "facts" based on opinion -- "India is this" or "India is that" based on my single, unencompassing viewpoint.

Hmmm. My next post will be about moving past opinion. In this day of competing theories, how does one consider and validate information? Anyway. Enough for now. My roommate has baked a cake.

A Ramen Inspiration

Looks like we're up to part five. Here are parts one, two, three, and four.

After I wrote yesterday's post, I thought "now wait a minute, Blue. How can you be said to be appropriating anything if you're not trying to be anything but yourself?"

This was after I had come home from rehearsal and made myself a small meal of ramen noodles stir-fried in garlic, ginger, and cayenne (in lieu of the dreaded "flavor packet"). It tasted... well, I don't know if it tasted like anything Madhur Jaffrey would have cooked up or not. I know it tasted exactly like something I cooked up, and it tasted good enough for me.

And I sat with my ramen and spices, in my pretty pink bowl with yellow cats dancing around its periphery, and thought now see, this is exactly what it is. It's a representation of everything in my life up to this point. It's not trying to pretend anything, or claim an authenticity it does not posess. It's just... me.

(This epiphany was sparked, in part, by a friend who suggested that I stop worrying about trying to do everything "correctly" -- trying to make sure I wasn't too appropriative, trying to make sure no one felt threatened by my attempts at learning about another culture, etc. -- and just be myself in every moment.)

So... can I get away with this? The other problem is that I'm not quite sure what "performing authenticity" means. It's the sort of term that gets thrown around, now and again, in the theatre but never really discussed. And the magical internet is no help.

So I either need to find out more, or take my friend's advice and just have a ball being myself. The latter sounds more fun, doesn't it? Not to mention screamingly less self-centered (always focusing on how I appear to other people rather than the interaction of the moment). I suppose time will tell what I do... :)

Appropriation and Authenticity

This is rapidly appearing to be what is now the fourth part of a series. Here are parts one, two, and three.

I got in touch with Mano at The Home and The World to let her know I was using her post (yes, I know, that's what trackbacks are for, but sometimes different blog interfaces don't play together well). She sent a very nice reply, and noted that we were addressing a similar issue from two different viewpoints: mine being really a question about appropriation, and hers being a question about authenticity.

So... I've been thinking, off and on, between rehearsals and going to get my first round of Hepatitis B immunizations and taking my laptop to the local Geek Spot (where it will engender $170 of repairs because some kind of malware attacked my admin system... grrr...) about appropriation and authenticity.

This is a huge question and there's no way I'll be able to handle it all in a single post. If I did, perhaps I could win a Nobel Prize for Awesomeness or something. :)

People appropriate identities for two reasons, as far as I can tell.

The first is so they can learn about the particular identity/role. They adopt the outer semblance of the role and gradually begin to push towards the center, or actuality, of the identity. A child parading through the living room in Mom's high heels and purse becomes a fourteen-year-old getting a pair of heels for a junior high dance becomes an adult woman walking confidently down a busy street. A teenager in Delhi gets a pair of pedal pushers from an older sister and begins to dream about an identity in England and America -- and in a few years finds herself establishing a life there. I put the soundtrack to KANK in my car and sing along to "Rock and Roll Soniye" although the only words I understand are, in fact, "rock and roll soniye."

The other reason people appropriate identities is so they can differentiate themselves from the people around them. They're not interested in developing the role or intermeshing the identity with their own; they're interested in the "look" of the role. Sometimes this develops into something more complex, but often it is left as simple "poseuring." Trust me. I work in a theatre department. I've seen it all.

However, there is another layer if the identity being explored/appropriated belongs to a group of people who have, say, been historically marginalized by another group of people. Does the group of people who was once (or is still) in power have a responsibility to refrain from assuming aspects of the identity of the formerly (or still) marginalized group?

Or does becoming familiar with another culture -- with the mysterious/dangerous "other" -- work towards ending marginalization?

Now. On to authenticity. Mano writes that wearing salwar allows her to express her authentic self, the self that was always present underneath but which became hidden in a culture that did not allow it to be openly displayed. At this point in my life, my wearing salwar is like trying on high heels or pedal pushers -- not presenting authenticity in and of itself, but a reflection of the exploration and growth that I am experiencing at this moment. And yet -- using a more literal definition of authenticity than the cultural theory definition -- this exploration is in fact my authentic self at the moment.

So. That's all I've got. I'll keep thinking about this.

(Edit: And on to part five...)

The Volatility of Clothing

This is the post I was looking for to complement this entry. I hadn't read it in a while, and remembered the end but not the beginning.

I'm not sure what to write, right now.

Clothing is volatile.

Though it is interesting that the question Mano asks at the end of her entry is the same one I am asking -- how to wear Indian clothing without the rest of the world viewing it as, in her words, "fetishization."

(Edit: Click here for part four.)

Pretty Striped T-Shirt

I was going to write a longer post. Full of arguments, back and forth, on whether my wearing a salwar was appropriate... or appropriative. But then I remembered something. How could I forget -- I'd been working through the recipes in this book since Christmas.

Here it is. Taken from Madhur Jaffrey's Climbing the Mango Trees:

Kamal returned with suitcases full of fashionable gifts for all of us. I received a pair of pedal pushers and a black-and-white-striped T-shirt that practically became my uniform. She also presented me with a light tartan shawl and a sterling silver charm bracelet with the Eiffel Tower dangling from it. [...] I had yet to see the rest of the world, but, already armed with a pair of pedal pushers, the charm bracelet, and the Coke, I felt that phase of my life had to be just around the corner. (Jaffrey 237, 240)

That's exactly how I feel, and much more eloquently stated. It's interesting that Jaffrey chooses, for her book jacket image, a picture of her wearing the striped T-shirt and pedal pushers. Rather like my choosing the pretty blue salwar as the image for my blog. I have yet to see the rest of the world, but that phase of my life is just around the corner.

It doesn't completely solve the problem. That is, I still open myself up to criticism. I still find myself in a world that thinks this way (believe me, I would put up the YouTube clip directly if I could -- it's undergoing scheduled maintenance right now and I'll edit the post ASAP). I also... well, I also understand that there's a long history of cultural rape, exotification, forced assimilation, etc. behind this pretty blue salwar which wasn't necessarily behind Madhur Jaffrey's pair of pedal pushers.

But -- the salwar stays, for now. Here, at least, it stays. When I wear it in public, I'll let you know.

(Edit: Click here for part three.)

Why "pretty blue salwar?"

Or, more specifically, why title my blog something that references directly concepts of ethnicity, nationality, multiculturalism, and identity, and can provoke some fairly contentious response?

Or, even more specifically, why title the blog something which begs the question "can a white (non-desi) woman wear a blue salwar?"

Well, to start off, I can -- if one interprets it literally. That is, it goes on over my head (though technically the salwar part pulls on from the feet and is tied at the waist) and my body does not burst into flames a la Glauce.

That's the easy answer.

Can a white (non-desi) woman wear a blue salwar in Hyderabad? Yes. The tourist blogs claim I'll be taken more seriously that way. In the photos I've seen of the place I'm going to work, everyone's wearing salwars and kurtas, so my guess is that I will be following suit.

But I bought my blue salwar three months ago, as a birthday present to myself. I've never worn it in public.

So the real question is "can a white (non-desi) woman wear a blue salwar in America?" And if so, where?

To a Bollywood film showing at a local theatre?
To an Indian Student Association event?
To the Namaste Grocery?
To a classroom or rehearsal hall?
To Wal-Mart?

I feel like the answer is "no" and yet I don't like it.

There's another blog post I want to reference, in which an American (desi) blogger describes her experiences wearing salwar, and the various readings of this particular piece of clothing. It's a post about tension and misinterpretation, and passing judgment without understanding. And yet, in the comments, a white woman writes "may I wear salwar too? they are so beautiful and comfortable..." (Edit: The link is here.)

It's... I don't know. When I wear it (if I wear it) I want it to read "I am educating myself about India," but it's going to look like it reads "I am exotifying India." And that seems to be the inherent problem.

I'm going to keep puzzling through this, although right now I am out of time.

Here's the other half of the answer, in case you were wondering. It's called pretty blue salwar because that was the name of the actual thing, when I bought it on ebay. "Pretty pretty blue salwar," said the link. I clicked, and the rest is history.

(Edit: Click here for Part Two.)