I have heard it stated by some scholars that generations don’t exist, but cohorts do. That is, our bracketing of ranges of people into particular generations is artificial and bins what is truly a more continuous variable into a few categories. The same criticism applies to the Myers-Briggs typology in personality (the main reason psychologists prefer the “Big Five”).
But the flip side of this issue is that to talk reasonably about some phenomenon you have to bin and categorize continuous variables. Human races may not have hard and fast boundaries, but human genetic variation is difficult to talk about unless you use some categorical shorthand.
Some of the same applies to the term immigrant and native-born. The reason I’m putting up this post is that there was a discussion online about whether there can be something called a “second generation immigrant.” That is, someone whose parents were born abroad, but they themselves were born in the country of their citizenship. Myself, I think the term immigrant should only apply to those who were born abroad. Native-born and immigrant are disjoint distributions.
But, there are more than a few categories here within the dichotomy. When you arrive in your life, and where you arrive, matters a great deal.
That was when Ms. Greco took over Subway, and the companyās store count began to shrink. In the East Bay, Mr. Tripathi was under the jurisdiction of a development agent named Chirayu Patel, known as Akki. He oversaw a huge, choice territory that included most of Northern California and western Nevada. Mr. Patel also owned dozens of Subway stores.
I was curious about this story because when I was in college Subway was my “fast food” of choice. But it was interesting to see that under the surface of a story about corporate malfeasance was another about South Asian (Indian) petty corruption. There are whole entrepreneurial subcultures in the USA which are highly South Asian, and conventional business reporters are probably missing some dynamics.
please note I’m loving the representation of black and disabled people but I would also like to see Black Beauty really underscored as well instead of in a tokenistic manner.
Immigrant & white? You're still white. Disabled & white? You're still white. Female & white? You're still white. Queer & white? You're still white. Trans & white? You're still white. Poor & white? You're still white.
Marginalized & white? You will always have white privilege.
I’ll start this piece with an observation- I follow this chap on Facebook and have noticed something rather odd (subliminal) about his videos. I first came across his viral video on what it’s like to have an Indian girlfriend.
Whenever he needs a platonic girl friend she’s usually black or brown. Whenever it’s a girl or romantic interest she’s blonde (unless it’s a video about specifically having an ethnic girlfriend).
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen onĀ Libsyn,Ā iTunes, Spotify,Ā and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donāt have a regular schedule is toĀ subscribe at one of the links above.
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Would appreciate more positive reviews!
Today I talk to my friend “Nan”, who is a Sri Lanka Tamil American. We talked a bit about his own background, growing up in a lower SES household in the American South, but mostly about why and how Sri Lankans think they are distinctive from “mainlanders.”
This is just the beginning of trying to understand this issue in my opinion. Ergo, “scratching the surface.”
In 1992, Disney released the animated movie, Aladdin. In 2019, Disney releases the live action version of Aladdin. OMG IT'S A SIGN. #CWC19#NZvPAKpic.twitter.com/iOJOJCu8qG
On the individual level who you find attractive and what you find attractive is your own deal. I’m not one to go exhorting anyone to anything. To be frank I find “campaigns” to make x more attractive a bit cringe. It’s like the joke about having to explain to someone that actually you are very attractive!
That being said, it’s interesting to observe cultural patterns, differences, and trends. I do not, for example, perceive women with natural epicanthic folds to be less attractive in any deep sense. But the surgery to create folded over eyelids is a “coming of age” practice in much of Northeast Asia, especially South Korea because it is seen as more aesthetically pleasing. This is a new trend triggered by Western norms, as prior to the past century the more common Asian look with epicanthic folds was considered more beautiful.
This brings me to South Asians, and beliefs, attitudes, and opinions about skin color. Years ago I read that Indian (Tamil) American actress Sharon Muthu was lost a part where she would be playing an Indian character “because she didn’t look Indian.” The director, in this case, was a white American. He admitted she nailed the audition, but optically he didn’t think she’d be plausible as Indian to the audience.
This goes to show that the Bollywood aesthetic has come to define what “Indian” looks like even in the West! Muthu is on the darker side, but not anymore atypical than may lighter-skinned Bollywood celebs.
Sendhil Ramamurthy
I am very jaundiced about many aspects of South Asian (which means mostly Indian American really) American culture, but one thing that is striking in contrast to the culture of their parents is that there is little attention to skin color. In fact, there are multiple instances where I’ve heard people say that the parents thought someone they were dating was too dark.Ā This is probably a function of the fact that in an environment where all brown people of various shades are bracketed together, it’s a little ridiculous to make the sort of distinctions that are common in the Indian subcontinent.
Speaking as an outsider to brown culture (my wife is white, most of my close friends are not brown, my children are mixed, etc.) and community, so often when I see an Indian or Pakistani actor or actress they look like older versions of Zayn Malik, the half-Pakistani and half-English teen idol, or an Italian actress with a bigger nose. In general, I laugh, and a lot of American-born/raised brown people I know laugh too.
On the other hand, American South Asians are among the most privileged in the world. The people consuming Bollywood, and Tollywood and all the other woods, are the broad middle and lower classes of India, and their choices do shape what gets put on the screen.
When I was visiting Bangladesh in 2004 many of the posters of actresses I saw were notable for two things:
They were fairer than the average young Bangladeshi woman
They were plumper than the average young Bangladeshi woman
My prediction is as Indian audiences get more affluent, and self-confident in themselves, the actors and actressse will start looking more and more like better look versions of the average Indian, rather than cut-rate Jaggus and Jagginas.
We saw Kabir Singh over the weekend and while I had issues with the film; I enjoyed it.
I had known of Kiara Advani (the lead actress playing a demure Punjabi girl) but I had just assumed she was another Sindhi (Brahmin) girl.
I was surprised to look at her profile and see that she’s half Muslim but that the Muslim half is mixed in with some European.
So essentially like the Kapoor sisters; Alia Bhatt (Vidhi was telling me that she’s Muslim because her nana is Razdan loll) and now Kiara, there is a trend of starlets having a hidden European maternal grandmother (lets not even start with Katrina Kaif).
They have the Indian surname, upbringing and Hindi but also get that “look enhancement” from the European infusion. I’m using that controversial term because that is the Indian beauty standards; sharp features with a fair skin and dark hair/eyes.
Pakistan girls will usually push the envelope and lighten their hair, if they can pull it off. Though I find the Pakistani aesthetic standard to be sometimes a bit too fake for my own tastes.
Intriguingly enough this aesthetic appeal was probably fixed during the Mughal-Muslim period since its not a European ideal. It also doesn’t feel that pre-Muslim India’s aesthetic ideal was similar but then in the Indian Numismatics podcast I was told India’s only imports were wine & (fair) women..
The irony is that the Western perception of Desi beauty is more along the lines of Freida Pinto; softer features with duskier skin.
Happy birthday to Hollywood’s most fabulous Brown Star; Mindy Kaling. She’s an amazing role model on so many levels and as I tell all my +35 single Desi female friends, just go to the sperm bank and get a tall Dane to be your baby-daddy.
Of course my own hypocrisy knows no bounds since my social media coup; I’ve erased all the previous Brown symbols (Kal Penn / Mergagh Man) and replaced it with Kiara Advani, Mughal Princesses & the Hum Safar cast(e).
I was rifling through the obit of an Oxbridge Historian. What jumped out at me:
With a good degree in the subject, he embarked on a PhD on the Austro-Hungarian army before 1914, though never completed it, and gained a reputation for brilliance sufficient, along with his linguistic abilities, to obtain a research fellowship at Caius in 1965, and two years later an assistant lectureship in Russian history, moving to Jesus College in 1971 as director of studies in history.
I was shocked at reading this because a PhD is a pre-requisite to any academic research path. I mentioned this to Vidhi and she glibly replied back that when it was all white men, there wasn’t really a need for rule enforcement.
It articulated something that I had felt but not been able to voice heretofore. The role of white people constantly acting as gatekeepers and rule-enforcers in my interactions in Britain.
The sanctimoniousness with which I’ve been lectured, always subtle never overt, is something that I’veinternalised over the years.
The identity crisis in the West is marked by the fact that the older generation is one race while the younger generation is mixed with another (and the generation after that is even more tilted). The reflexive reaction of the Establishment is now to make sure that those who take on the mantle must know the law if they will not imbibe in the customs in their Oriental homes.
