File spoon-archives/sa-cyborgs.archive/sa-cyborgs_1997/97-02-22.183, message 175


Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 12:30:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Lakshmi Gopinathan Nair <lnair-AT-uclink2.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Id-entity


Give me a name

My name is Lakshmi
Hindu goddess
ooh, how exotic
bet you're a wild thing.

What a nice 
traditional name.
Such a sweet girl.
So Indian.

No, no
White feminists tell me
I am not a girl.
I am a woman
please.

Dirty slut.
She's a bad influence
on our girls,
that one.
Too Americanized.

American?
No.

Only in India
am I American.

Here
I am...

??? 
Asian
hyphen 
American

You don't look
Asian.

In England,
I do.

That, or black.

Black?
Ah yes...
nigger.
Or maybe sand nigger
would be more appropriate.
Dot head?
Or how about 
Paki?

Oh, Indian.
What tribe?

Pierced nose.
Must be 
nouveau tribal.

No, no...
it's a traditional
thing.

for "us"
Asian Indians...

South Asian
Cauc-Asian
No, Dravidian
South Indian, that is.
Malayali
Hindu
(Hairy Krishna?)
Um, Nair
(International Society
of Caste Consciousness.)
Who wears short shorts?

Person of color?
But Amma says,
Don't go outside
or you'll lose
your color.

Perhaps
post-colonial
hyphen 
American.

American 
Born
Confused
Desi...

A,B,C,D...
a, aah, i, eee, u, ooo...

look at you,
dancing bhangra,
listening to Nusrat,
eating pani puri
like it was
dosa-idli.
Aren't you 
supposed to be
a madrasi?

And why don't 
you madrasis
speak Hindi, anyways?

Why don't you
speak Malayalam?

Wow, you speak English
so well.
Hardly any accent!

Could I be
considered
sub-altern?

No, you're
just a
middle class,
privileged
Western-educated
Oriental.

ethnocentric
sell-out.

First
hyphen
third
world
Imperialist
nigger
bitch

who's late
with the rent check
yet again
because
you refused
to study
medicine 
or at the very
least engineering.

The least you
could do is marry
a nice
boy.

You know
there's this guy. 
I think his 
name is
uh, Patel
He works
in the 
7-11.
Yeah,
I think
he'd be perfect for you.

Go home!
Go back to where
you came from!

Tell me where 
to go 
and I'll go
and rest
and dream
of nameless
things.



   

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