Brown American in 2019


Interesting interview of Zoomers by Millennial Hasan Minhaj. Especially interesting to me because I’m Gen-X.

Near the end, there is a reference to the fact that the diversity within Indian Americans is something that these kids wish people understood more. One of the things that the old Sepia Mutiny blog made many Gen-X and Millennial brown Americans aware of is that there was a lot of variation we didn’t understand or comprehend since we were often the only representatives of all things brown for our social circle.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about recently is that many of the people who immigrated between 1965 and 1990 are now becoming grandparents as their 1.5 & 2nd gen offspring become parents. These people often left an India (or Pakistan or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, etc.) that had been independent for only a few decades. Their children grow up on stories of the “old country”, but that country no longer exists. It’s been more than two generations now since the early professional immigrants left.

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Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago

To me what’s strange is how much Bollywood still is a reference point for Indian Americans, at least for Millennial crowd. I recently met someone who grew up in the states, and knows (mostly) nothing Indian apart from Deepika Padukone and she models herself on Deepika.

For all the success Mindy’s and Dev patel have their is still an absence of true blue chip desi diaspora star. It would be interesting to see by the time zoomers grow up if there exists one , or will that push them totally towards the american side of their heritage.

Diasporan
Diasporan
4 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Well, Bollywood is still a point of reference towards the “homeland” for some Indian diasporas like Fiji and Guyana that have for the most part (except for a few communities like California and BC Canadian Sikhs) even longer separations from India itself than most American desis, so it’s not too strange.

True, I think a further development of a more robust homegrown desi media that is still part of America (e.g. think BET or black American culture) would be cool, but that doesn’t preclude still an interest in the old country’s affairs.

Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  Diasporan

Well i could get the Fiji or S-African diaspora etc curiosity about the homeland culture. But its not them whose reference point is India. Its more of reference point for Indian Americans than folks from Guyana etc.

I feel its the opposite and these diaspora group who had left India long long back which have produced some really world class products (which is not dependent on Indian-ness) like Nicki Minaj and Naipaul. Perhaps they have outgrown Indian-ness and not stunted by its overarching desi-effect.

H. M. Brough
H. M. Brough
4 years ago

I like the 12-year-old in the front. Dude has panache.

Cool Guy
Cool Guy
4 years ago
Reply to  H. M. Brough

future chadjeet

Aditya
Aditya
4 years ago

It’s strange. My parents left in the 70s and were the last to experience the dying vestiges of the old India. It killed them to go back and see how things had “degraded”.

That said their India was always something of a fairytale to me, perhaps like an emigre child’s thoughts of Russia. I was taught to feel very Indian, but in a manner that made me a part of a country that no longer exists or perhaps never did.

I couldn’t associate with Bollywood, since my parents saw it as degenerate and brain-damaging at best, which was the main cultural expression of contemporary India.

DaThang
DaThang
4 years ago

“zoomers”
Imma go on a bit of a tangent regarding that term.
To think that the forced ‘boomer’ meme that gave rise to this term would come such a long way in merely ~2 years is strange to say the least. I was there, I witnessed it getting forced so thoroughly that people eventually just accepted it. It changed my view of forced memes being ineffective on a personal level.

Curious
Curious
4 years ago

There shouldn’t even be that many pure (unmixed) 3rd gen Desi kids if Indian Americans are an assimilating group… This betrays the American ideal of minority dilution through intermixing (except among blacks)

justanotherlurker
justanotherlurker
4 years ago

Have only watched a few minutes of it but seems interesting.
Somewhat of a tangent: All the kids seem to be of Indian descent? Perhaps the older Muslim boy in the back left is Pakistani or Bangladeshi? My guess would be Bangladeshi based on his features (eyes)

Kevin
Kevin
4 years ago

Bangladeshis can have both big and small eyes depending on individuals. I’ve seen Bangladeshi expatriates that have eyes ranging from roundish-almond shape to fully round or fully almond. In my opinion, all these kids can pass as Bangladeshi and Pakistani(excluding Pashto-Baloch area). They do have a pan South Asian look.

Bengalistani
Bengalistani
4 years ago

Brown people wouldn’t be even able to migrate to USA without Serbian admixture ?

Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
4 years ago
Reply to  Bengalistani

The 10th plus, Stani. Not bad, not bad at all. The best jokes are when you talk seriously but others think that you are joking. You are the BP rising star, I’ll nominate you to Razib for the Rookie of the Year Award.

However, things do not work as you say. In 90’s Serbs were the most Satanized nation in the world and such admixture reference would not make any advantage, just opposite. If this is true, Russians would be today in US the most favourite nation and immigrants. Why? Because, they are the closest cousins to the white America. All of them originated in Vinca and belong to the white or Vinca’s or Serbian race (‘Caucasian’ term is wrong and not proven).

Now, 20 years after bombing of Serbia, some white Americans, who were tracing their roots, are coming to Vinca to see the place where their ancient ancestors came from and wandering why 1000 of their planes bombed 8 million of people with uranium bombs if this people saved 500 of their shoot down pilots during the ww2 from Nazis i.e. people, who were subjected to multiple genocides (Barca guy who was impressed with Croatian anthem does not know that in 1835, when a Serb composed this song it was 75+% of Serbs what is today Croatia and now there are only 3-4%).

Even some geneticists (Reich) started finally to research Lepenski Vir and Vinca and stopped talking such nonsenses, although without mousses and elephants, that IE languages (and people) originated in Yamnaya 5000 years after LV.

But, I would be really interested, what was the US politics in giving residency to SA people (did they have favourite groups, etc.) in last 20-30 years.

VJP
VJP
4 years ago

Wishing all these young ones the best of luck in their lives. Life is hard, and I wish them all the good weather, all the favor, and all the fortune that will help them survive, transcend, and thrive in this world. After all, these are our young ones too. That said, these are the model desi kids. Where are the ones who are not the model, studious, happy types? Are there ones who resemble Philip Roth’s Nathan Zuckerman?

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago

As the generation in between their’s and Razib’s, I approve of this message. They seem even more assimilated than mine, yet somehow more comfortable with their Desi identity. Racism has gotten so much better so quickly. It’s good to see progress, even from when I was recently a wee tristate area lad. I don’t agree with Hasan on his leftist and islam apologist agenda, but I do like that he is a positive Indian American media representative. Finally, a polished looking well spoken dude. Not an Anglo Indian who makes all his money off of dissing Indians, a nasally 5’4 115lb dude that still somehow gets the creepy rep, an overweight conventionally unattractive Indian woman whose claim to fame is picking White men over those of her cultural group, not a man who plays a nerd that can’t talk to women without alcohol, a man who went to med school, denies evolution, fakes a Southern accent, and puts a literally whitewashed image of himself in his governor’s mansion, and not a woman who refuses to identify as non-white on her voter registration, who happened to luck into UN ambassadorship with hardly any foreign policy experience, due to political expediency. While Hasan behaves like a grievance politician crybaby a lot of the times, at least, for all intents and purposes, he comes off as a “normal” guy.

Kal Penn, my Guju bruda, is the only ones that’s better.

Arjun
Arjun
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

Wow, lot of anger there. How about letting different people swim in different lanes.

Basque Half Back
Basque Half Back
4 years ago
Reply to  Arjun

Agreed!

Basque Half Back
Basque Half Back
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

Jindal and Haley’s conservatism is true to traditional Asian-Indian values. The true India, is a pluralistic India, not a Hindu India. In addition, Kal Penn and Hasan Minaj are progressive liberals which is antithetical to traditional Asian values; they are white men disguised as brown sahibs. Indeed, Hasan Minaj is a peculiar contradiction: the promoter of progressive values that are inimical to Islam; he would be in alien soil anywhere outside the comfort of big American cities, and especially if he went abroad to Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and North Africa. Moreover, Malays; Chinese and Indonesians despise progressive liberalism because it is a Western import, alien to Asian soil like European colonialism. The aggressive form of progressive liberalism is the new form of colonialism. Progressive liberalism, in its quest for souls, has already has wreaked havoc: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It has no qualms in doing business with the illiberal China.

An interesting note: many liberal Indians on Twitter still define themselves by American cultural signal markers. There are the West Wing, Friends, Big Bang, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama types. Only some of them are equally proud of India and her cultural milestones. So many of the liberal Indians are still oriented towards the the white man and defined by the West.

Arjun
Arjun
4 years ago

“The true India, is a pluralistic India, not a Hindu India”

That makes no sense. It’s like saying “The true Stanford University is an educational institution, not a place for lecturers and students”.

It’s one because of the other.

Numinous
Numinous
4 years ago

a man who went to med school, denies evolution, fakes a Southern accent, and puts a literally whitewashed image of himself in his governor’s mansion, and not a woman who refuses to identify as non-white on her voter registration, who happened to luck into UN ambassadorship with hardly any foreign policy experience, due to political expediency.

Don’t all politicians in every country create public personas that will help them get elected? Are Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley so unusual in that respect? Didn’t Sonia Gandhi start donning a sari (and speaking tortured Hindi) after her commitment to her adopted country was questioned?

To desis who dislike the Jindal/Haley types: is it because they chose to run as Republicans or because they repudiated Hinduism and disconnected themselves from Indian culture?

Numinous
Numinous
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Sure, but I thought the commonalities between Jindal and Haley were more significant than their differences: conservative Republicanism, choosing to convert to Christianity (this is a very very sensitive thing for Hindus), in Haley’s case marrying a white guy.

I always thought that the modal Indian-American desire (and there are lots of exceptions) was to grow prosperous according to the American Gospel but be a separate (socially) community, only partially assimilated. Indians in India like to think of their brethren in America the same way too.

Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

In a strange way i am more comfortable with someone like Bobby than Nikki.

Bobby wanted to have nothing to do with Hinduism/India or his brown-ness and he seems more honest about it. Nikki i would say is the more shifty considering she wanted to move to total “white” , but perhaps saw some use of her sikh /Indian roots later and didn’t abandon it totally.

Numinous
Numinous
4 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

I’m OK with either type, and don’t really care if Bobby or Haley converted out of conviction or for political expediency. Unlike most people in the world (I think), I don’t expect or demand authenticity from politicians; just the ability to make good decisions and be transparent about policy priorities.

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago

Sikhism is an easier sell. Reputed as meat eating, monotheists who love drinking, sports, and sign up to be cops and soldiers, have a jovial yet courageous rep, and have many members (still a minority) who “don’t look Indian” for the average White American.

But Niki Hayley would be great for India. In the past, she even pushed for India to be a permanent member of the UNSC.She is also not a khalistani religious wingnut like Jimmy Singh. I am just a little sour about her registering as white and getting the opportunity to undertake huge roles in government for which she had no direct prior experience for. She is more tolerable than Jindal.

In America btw, even among White blue collar America, Sikhs get more street cred than Hindus do. They take on farming, trucking, and ride motorcycles. They also use modern beats for their music and dominate India’s cultural import of Bollywood, the most glamorous aspect of the culture. Again, the Steppe will always appeal closer to the hearts of White American than the children of the Indus ever will 😉

Americans like butter chicken, samosas, and gulab jamun, not idli, dokla, and ras gula.

The best is the “We are not racist like caste ridden Hindus.” Some of the most colorist and racist S Asians I have ever had the misfortune of meeting were from that community.

DaThang
DaThang
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

> Again, the Steppe will always appeal closer to the hearts of White American than the children of the Indus ever will
Sikh Jats have about as much of the Indus ancestry as regular Gujaratis do (comparable to the amount in Gujarati Brahmins), with the only exception being that they have a few % more steppe and a few % less AASI than Gujarati Brahmins do. They even cluster closer to people like Khatris than they do to the south Asian steppe extreme populations. The real Steppe extremes of south Asia (Rors and eastern Jats) are pretty obscure culturally speaking.

INDTHINGS
INDTHINGS
4 years ago
Reply to  DaThang

Most Gujaratis can’t claim Indus status, sorry.

There are 3 features of the Indus people, you need 2/3 to be Indus.

1.) Non-Hindu. Indus people took the first wave of Aryan invasions, and subsequent invasions from the Aryanized North-Indians, and still largely remained aloof from Hinduism, and are mostly Muslim and Sikh today.

2.) Genetics. Most Indus peoples have a genetic profile distinct from most North-Indians, either via admixture or via haplogroup.

3.) Dravidian Language. The ability to retain the ancient Indus-related languages in the face of Aryan conquest is commendable.

So a while a few Gujaratis do fulfill the genetic requirement, they fail the other two. In contrast, most Pakistanis, Sikhs, and certain South-Indian groups fulfill 2/3, allowing them to claim Indus status.

I’ve copyrighted this criteria, so don’t get any ideas about stealing it.

DaThang
DaThang
4 years ago
Reply to  INDTHINGS

Indus status? Now this has to be a joke or a bait, but I will address the comment anyway since that won’t hurt much.

>1.) Non-Hindu. Indus people took the first wave of Aryan invasions, and subsequent invasions from the Aryanized North-Indians, and still largely remained aloof from Hinduism, and are mostly Muslim and Sikh today.

If you really want to be consistent then no one following a non-Indusian tradition can claim to be Indusian. Islam is as alien to the Indusians as Aryan religions are.

>2.) Genetics. Most Indus peoples have a genetic profile distinct from most North-Indians, either via admixture or via haplogroup.

We are talking about Gujaratis here who are more Iran HG-like than Lahori Punjabis are.

>3.) Dravidian Language. The ability to retain the ancient Indus-related languages in the face of Aryan conquest is commendable.

If Dravidian languages come from IVC then most south Indians are to Indusians what north Indians are to steppe Aryans. No one in their right mind would consider north Indians (or any kind of a north south Asian, or heck even a central Asian) to be a steppe Aryan.

>So a while a few Gujaratis do fulfill the genetic requirement, they fail the other two. In contrast, most Pakistanis, Sikhs, and certain South-Indian groups fulfill 2/3, allowing them to claim Indus status.

Sounds like an arbitrary toss up to me. I’ll give a 3/10 for trying.

Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  INDTHINGS

LOL, are you seriously arguing with a Pakistani about Indus valley?

First let his “own” people claim its as its own ,and then we can discuss.

H.M. Brough
H.M. Brough
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

Dude you’re reading way too much into this. Americans don’t know or care much about the (to them) small differences between subtypes of browns.

Here’s a story: when applying to residency, I was advised not to obtain a letter of recommendation from a certain physician because it would look like “nepotism” to have too many letters from “South Asians.”

The physician’s surname? Qureshi.

DaThang
DaThang
4 years ago
Reply to  H.M. Brough

You have completely missed the point of my post. My point is that Sikhs having any cultural influence has nothing to do with their steppe ancestry.

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago
Reply to  H.M. Brough

I am applying to residency rn, interviewing actually. My rec letter writers are all whites. I must be a closet self hater. There are no dearth of Browns, and I couldn’t even find one. Horrendous

Diasporan
Diasporan
4 years ago
Reply to  H.M. Brough

In all fairness, most Americans (of many races) don’t typically know much about the distinction between many ethnic groups in other countries unless they personally have a family history of have peers or familiars with roots in those places.

After all, are most Americans able to distinguish European groups well? Africans? Many Americans might know famous countries like Italy, France, Japan, China, India, Kenya etc. but if you get into the details of what makes Pakistanis different from Indians or Bangladeshis, it’s probably not that different than asking them about Ethiopians, Tanzanians or Kenyans or Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians, I think they’d be equally at a loss to note the major differences.

Most Americans go by a schema of broad racial “phenotype” groupings like black, white, East Asian or Native American-looking, brown or “mixed”, which is mostly about appearance not culture (with just some leeway of racial category adjustment in their minds for cultural markers like speaking Spanish or having a Spanish surname for “Hispanics” or wearing a headscarf among Muslim women of any race as being saliently non-Christian).

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

yeah that’s true. I would contest though that the perception of them is what counts more. Most people I encounter envision them as big meat eaters. Granted, I am speaking entirely from anecdote

Khalistan movement has contributed a lot to their racism. It adds a final unifying layer to the racial dominance hierarchy already present in S Asia. Religion can only go so far. Ethnic differentiation is key to stirring up support, especially a story of an inherently superior people who are in danger of oppression by the dark masses and even worse, long term coerced miscegenation.

The best is when they talk shit about Chamars. They disown their own people and call them “not real punjabis”

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

yeah. I should be more nonchalant about it. I just am exposed to constantly via my gf’s friends and acquaintances.

INDTHINGS
INDTHINGS
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

There’s this funny dynamic where ethnic groups love to shit on other groups considered less attractive, but when they face the same from a more attractive group, suddenly they get sensitive.

North-Indians shit on South-Indians, then cry when Punjabis/Pakis do it to them. Punjabis/Pakis shit on North-Indians, then cry when Afghans do the same to them. Then Iranians shit on Afghans, but then are shit on by Europeans, and so on.

Diasporan
Diasporan
4 years ago
Reply to  INDTHINGS

Who shits on Europeans then?

Better not to internalize colonial mentality.

INDTHINGS
INDTHINGS
4 years ago
Reply to  Diasporan

Europeans shit on themselves. Southern Europeans shit on Northerns for being generally less cool, having pale/pink skin, and awful food. Northerns shit on Southerns for being shorter, lacking the blonde hair and blue eyes, and being poorer.

This stuff isn’t colonial mentality. It goes back centuries, if not longer. Light-skinned Hindus have shit on dark-skinned Hindus for a long time. Middle-Eastern conquerors shit on everyone with dark skin, even the Muslim converts. The Punjabi Sikhs considered the Gangetic North Indians inferior, and were eager to join the British in squashing the Indian Mutiny to avenge the shame of being conquered by a largely North-Indian force under British command.

Scorpion Eater
Scorpion Eater
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

wow. i didn’t know sikhs were that racists! i have known sikh friends back in india and they were ok guys. may be diasporan sikhs are different.

when i came to US i did notice that if you asked a sikh taxi driver if they were from india, some of them were likely to reply sullenly – “no, from *punjab*”. but i thought it was a receding attitude. may be others have detected something which i haven’t.

Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

I dont think it would recede. These are folks who have seen 84 and the subsequent aftermath , and have migrated around that time. Anybody would be bitter, if they were in their place. Now they have mostly no relationship with India apart from some extended family.

Space also freezes your memory. For them today’s Punjab is the same one they left behind.

sbarrkum
4 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

when i came to US i did notice that if you asked a sikh taxi driver if they were from india, some of them were likely to reply sullenly – “no, from *punjab*”

Possibly same with many Sri Lankan Tamils, living out of Sri Lanka post 83.

Anything but Sri Lanka. Jaffna, Eelam and older gen Ceylon.

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago

Guju are among the most Iran HG in India. Hindusim is a mix of aryan religion and indus traditions. Shiva and yoga were already in Indus. No one knows real IVC language.

Anyway, the steppe IVC Chokolingam skyfather stuff is a giant joke to me. People inventing criteria around it is funny. S Asians are thoroughly mixed. Those delineations based on partial, often minority ancestry, are not meaningful today.

Most importantly, the leader of the free has anointed Sri Modiji to the position of “father of India.” He replaces the skyfather and the nuddy niece father and the Guju father of Pak because he is officially emperor of S Asia. The 4th Rasthra is coming. First the steppe aryans, then the ashoka (he wasn’t buddhist but close enough) , then the guptas.

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

I’m H1a1 according to some estimate and maternal U8b’c. Was too cheap to ever get it officially tested

I am OG open defecator. Dem pre Indus sanitation system vibes.

INDTHINGS
INDTHINGS
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

“I’m H1a1”

Christ I didn’t think aboriginals could use computers.

(Joking btw in case this is taken seriously).

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago
Reply to  INDTHINGS

I deserve max affirmative action. Everyone has oppressed mah people from Iran HGs to British.

I don’t know how to use a computer. A surrogate typing and turning my barely intelligible speech into something semi respectable.

Jai Shree Ameen. May the chokolingam smile upon you. Halal haleem owasi

Kevin
Kevin
4 years ago
Reply to  INDTHINGS

Weren’t H men Iran_HG as their “G” cousins are from the Caucasus and “I” cousins are from Dinaric Alps?

Scorpion Eater
Scorpion Eater
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

“I’m H1a1”

If it makes you feel better, bollywood actor john abraham is H too, and he is very “Steppe” looking.

don’t let yourself bullied by those r1a guys. there is nothing special about it. it’s just that r1a asabiyya is very strong. always sticking together and bullying non-r1a folks, led by a certain geneticist… 😉

Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

He is half parsee, so “steppe” looking

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

I’m aware that it’s just harmless joking man. People here are pretty rational, among those who discuss such matters. I have ready some looney toons confidently claim that the Y DNA, while gene poor, “defines the soul of the man.” Hence, it is ideal for determining the natural hierarchy of mankind.

I’m ultra desi looking bruh. Dem pan S Asian vibes. I pass everywhere as a generic brown like these kids and Hasan himself.

Kevin
Kevin
4 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

It appears John Abraham looks like his Iran_HG+AASI father than his steppe looking Parsee mother.
comment image

DaThang
DaThang
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

Gujus are a subset of western Indians in general so they would obviously have more Iran HG ancestry than eastern Indians like the ones from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

sbarrkum
4 years ago

Did anyone notice, the darkest very pretty girl (Tejasri Vijaykumar), right last row was the only one who implied her parents would be OK with interracial marriage. She said her sister was married to a white guy.

I would predict the odds of a white guy marrying Teja too, are quite high. I think more (obviously not all) white guys would appreciate Teja’s beauty (and intelligence) more so than her fellow South Asians.

In SL even darker a shiny black individual are considered smart and intelligent. Examples a classmate a Doctor, unhappily too into Christianity. Another, a year junior who got full scholarship to MIT. Fantaistic athlete and sportsman too.

My only first cousin with the same surname (got a few second cousins). He got his pitch black from his mom. Also didnt consider him, book smart as was not STEM and did Architecture. First non white black/brown President of a professional body in the US. Raj Barr-Kumar President American Institute of Architects (199?).

Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  sbarrkum

“I would predict the odds of a white guy marrying Teja too, are quite high”

I think it has to do with region, India’s south is far more cosmopolitan than N-India. Why white guy, i would say she marrying into a black family (Kamala Harris) would not be as big of issue as much as N-Indian lady marrying a black guy would.
Marrying white is not a stigma at all in India.

https://www.firstpost.com/politics/elites-in-south-india-less-rooted-than-their-north-indian-counterparts-jairam-ramesh-3196538.html

“The elite in North India are far more rooted and entrenched to their motherland when compared with their counterparts from South India.

Elaborating on his previous point, Ramesh went on to add that elites in South India are more “comfortable” in places like Berkeley, Stanford, Germany, France etc. Comparatively, the elite of North India are rooted in India more than anywhere else in the world.”

Numinous
Numinous
4 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

The people of Chennai are used to being called parochial by north Indians, so what you say above will surprise them.

The Kamala Harrises of the world are far outliers. South Indian Brahmin families typically don’t take news of interracial relationships any better than north Indians do; it doesn’t matter whether the “other” race is black or white or anything else. (Speaking from personal experience.)

Being comfortable in places around the world may have more to do with education. South Indians are more likely to be educated in English and to learn more about the modern world, so the places they encounter may not hold as many surprises to them. Cow Belters are indeed more “rooted” and less cosmopolitan in that respect.

sbarrkum
4 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Elaborating on his previous point, Ramesh went on to add that elites in South India are more “comfortable” in places like Berkeley, Stanford, Germany, France etc.

Kamala’s mother seems to be very much assimilated into Berkeley. photo 1).
Even Kamala’s maternal grandparents appear quite cosmopolitan (photo 7). P.V. Gopalan, an Indian diplomat who was stationed in Lusaka
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/10/kamala-harris-president-parents-shyamala-gopalan-donald-harris-berkeley/

Why white guy, i would say she marrying into a black family (Kamala Harris) would not be as big of issue as much as N-Indian lady marrying a black guy would.
Most often, more than African-Americans the marriages are to West Indians with African descent.
The most unusual couple I saw was a Tutsi girl (from Rwanda I think) married to South Korean (from Korea). Met at grad school.

Marrying white is not a stigma at all in India.
Exactly. So a dark skinned girl in India is less attractive (in general) than a fair skinned girl.

Sri Lanka has be quite cosmopolitan for a long time, even in small towns like Galle.
Early as late 1920’s there was a District Judge T W Roberts (Oxford grad) in Galle. His first wife was English who died. Later married a Ceylonese. One of the daughters Estelle from the first wife was my mothers classmate (in photo below).
Estelle is standing 2nd from right. My mother standing 1st on left

https://photos.app.goo.gl/GPdZoZiSan6WevNa7

Hoju
Hoju
4 years ago
Reply to  sbarrkum

“I would predict the odds of a white guy marrying Teja too, are quite high. I think more (obviously not all) white guys would appreciate Teja’s beauty (and intelligence) more so than her fellow South Asians.”

Definitely agree with that. It’s much easier for dark Indians in the US / Canada to marry a White or Black person than another Indian. Indeed, I think dark Indians benefit the most when leaving India for the US / Canada. Unless you end up in some Indian enclave where you will still be subject to humiliation from the other Indians there.

Scorpion Eater
Scorpion Eater
4 years ago

reading some the comments, i cant fail to get amused when people throw around terms like steppe, aasi, iran-hg etc as if these tentative scientific labels define their final destiny. genetics field is evolving rapidly, and for all that we know these terms might be completely obsolete in next years, to be replaced by completely new models and labels.

Also, get over this obsession with Y-dna. Apparently it doesn’t do anything useful other than making a male a male. Most of the other stuff that matters lies on autosomal dna. per wikipedia – “the human Y chromosome is extremely gene poor—it is one of the largest gene deserts in the human genome”. so unless you think that growing a dick the the biggest achievement of your life, there is not much of an import too it.

Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
4 years ago
Reply to  Scorpion Eater

Agree, Scorpio. I already wrote in several occasions about the meaninglessness of terms such as – steppe, grasslands, farmers, cowboys, indo-europeans, balto-slavic, west euroasia, conduits, etc. Instead of this, under such topics, should be used the name of tribe/nation how they called themselves (or called by others), which language they spoke and their genetic group. After that, it can start the pissing competition and checking who has the longest dick…

thewarlock
thewarlock
4 years ago

One of the saddest days of life was when I found out my Y DNA excludes me from being Milan’s cousin. I wanted to invite him to my family reunion. He sounds like he’d be an entertaining uncle. Maybe he could have convinced my mostly sober family to accept their partial Serbian roots, via indulging in copious vodka consumption. Descended from a line that excludes paternal fraternity with the most interesting man of Brownpundits, alas, woe is me.

Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
4 years ago
Reply to  thewarlock

If you read my original comment you can see that genes are neither a reference nor an obstacle for cousinship, they are just a guide. You still can remain as a ‘black sheep’ in the family, all families have at least one. It is enough that you are not involved in autocolonial mazo-activities (cricket?). Also, you can also see that some r1a are oit proponents (remember the elephant and mousse which are running out of india over the bridge?). It means, black sheep and lunatics are common features of the most families.

But there is a hope, maybe all have not been lost yet. If you read Kev’s comment, you may be a cousin to Dinaric people. All Dinarics (name based on the mountain Dinara) are Serbs (I wrote before about their basketballers built). It means, you do not to be Nikola Tesla (r1a), you can be Novak Djokovic (I2). Btw, they have the same height, 188 cm. And…Serbs do not drink votka (northerners – Russians, Polish and Skandinavians do), they drink everything else.

Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
4 years ago

As I’ve just said, in this 40 sec video – can you recognize who is Tesla and who is Novak?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp-AW3BO-Cg

Diasporan
Diasporan
4 years ago

I personally think Desi Americans, while continuing to influence American media and culture, would do well to stop thinking of themselves as “guests” in America, and part of the culture itself (as they already have been, even if slight in the past). America is a work in progress and if Desi Americans play a bigger role in 2010s and later American culture, that is American culture. Just like Jazz, Blues etc. from African American culture was part of American culture in the late 19th and 20th century and black culture continues to be part of American culture, and how Jewish culture was part of and continues to be part of US culture in media, comedy, film etc.

None of this entails giving up identification to the homeland — you can be an American that reps your roots. I’m still annoyed sometimes to hear otherwise confident, educated non-white Americans act as though they still have to defer to white Americans as the default and judge of American-ness, even if not, as Razib sometimes says, as “gods”. I’m a bit tired of the trite cliche of the “caught between the hyphen” because it elides the idea of who claims to be the arbiter of identity in either case anyways — what gives non-brown Americans the right to tell browns if they are or not a “real American”, and likewise what gives the homelanders in the subcontinent the right to tell brown Americans if they are or are not real desis (for instance, do Nigerians get to tell African Americans what it means to be black?). Real confidence in a community is not allowing others to define you or ask permission for belonging. White Americans didn’t ask native Americans when they replaced them demographically and then later in their own minds as “real Americans”, and then when American culture spread to the world, fronting the image of the “all American” blonde as most authentically representing themselves to the world so much so that I have international students at the local college I meet from India that literally think white Americans are “native” and for whom I literally have to talk to them about who “native Americans” really are before they realizes whites came here only centuries ago. Indian and other brown Americans aren’t here to replace but to complement the other Americans and the least they could do is not see themselves as “less American” in their own homes.

I think the Jewish diaspora is a good analog and representation of the path forward. Yiddish words like hutzpah and schmaltz are part and parcel of American culture and most Jewish Americans don’t worry too much about being seen as American or not by other Americans but at the same time don’t feel like they have to choose a dichotomy between American and Jewishness. And so it should go with browns!
Cheers!

Slapstik
Slapstik
4 years ago

No clue what these kids are saying. Most of these references just pass me by. My niece is growing up in California and that scares me a little. I hope the transatlantic cousins in the family will have a common enough register to not be total aliens to each other when they grow up.

#SpeciationIsScary

Brown Pundits