From: pajhuab-AT-bigfoot.com
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 21:43:04 +0000
Subject: Re: poetry and histories


At 06:49 PM 10/20/99 -0700, you wrote:
>To Manjushree,
>
>While your poem is perhaps intense for you, it really breaks my heart
>to see how our (Indian immigrant) poeticizing (if I can coin that word)
>re-installs a colonial repetitiveness in the affirmation of the U.S. as
>'new world'.
>
I answer this from three perspectives. As one who works with refugee
children because after three generations, I still feel the pain of being an
outsider. 

This nation as does any, has enclaves. Should you move to one, let's say
New England. You may live there decades and NEVER fit in. But it is never
as intense as not LOOKING 
as if one were born here. And yet to intermarry, means the kids are
confused as ever as to the age old "Who am i ?" That w/which we all have
struggled, at some time.

I now work with refugee kids only because I saw what was being done to
them, and recognized that pattern of behavior. But I suddenly thought "HEY
WAIT! I'M THE GROWNUP  HERE!!!" I now speak the language, as much as anyone
can if not born into a multi-tonal language with soft consonants, and oh
yes, my own hearing loss <grin> I am now taking on yet another minority
language, Southeast Asian. They are hard. But it's nothing compared to the
prejudicial assumptions made by others against them (for nothing they
themselves have done.) It seems inherant in human nature, within some
cultures. THe one w/th/e/y were in is Germanic, within the US, and NOT
inclusive. I myself was far too Celtic for them.

And I went to the "old country" and for the first time in my over 40 years,
I FELT NORMAL. I FIT IN! But mind you, I had it so easy---they speak some
kind of English there! My family has only been here three generations. I
say it takes longer to assimilate. But expecting those from thousands of
years old cultures without watches, clocks, time, electricity and more, but
far more respect bound rules generationally as old as the culture can
remember, and recent digs showing they predated the Chinese in Asia
[waiting for an explosion here]. The forced assimilation is now causing
major problems and because the 'American' or what I call highly westernized
non-thinking, expects them to a) wish to resemble our behavoir [has anyone
watched TV or teen videos recently? Hmmmmmmm] and b) expect them to gladly
swallow it, as 'theirs'.

Well, I see it as highly westernized, and the country I returned to visit,
and found as home, is Celtic. So go figure! But I shall never be
"germanic/nordic" enough for the area in which we lived previously.

What IS AMerican? I feel it is not what it is seen to be. To be US means to
be westernized, and clearly not old world thinking. Old world thinking
expects that nations come and nations go. Persons remain as they are,
simply adapting to what is, or what is not present. To hope it might one
day become flexible and benefit from what other cultures have learned over
time, is rather naive.

For to do so is to expect a teen to be an adult. It simply won't happen.

We are a young, foolish, immature nation, with far more land of natural
resources, which in our arrogance, we stole by lying to a kindly nation of
persons who initially helped us. That is what I think. And yes, I was born
here, in the middle of the US, and I like who I am. I just do NOT like
others' ignorance about others not having to WANT to resemble them.

You see, if you wish to operate by your rules and patterns, I may find it
fascinating, as I have this past decade and a half. However, should you
choose to force your patterns down my throat, I might feel that medicine
which is good for your condition, might in fact, poison me! Think about it.

Also, expecting the SE Asian groups to lose what makes their families
stronger than ours in so many respect based ways, to LOSE that and have
what again? The 50% divorce rate?
Why should they move from a culture based on lots and lots and lots (ae
nauseum to the kids%^) of commmunication, with what? Shooting?

What is American is a question which will live on until we lose our
my-ain't-we-grande
persona, and become like older nations. But who can TELL an adolescent
anything. Is it not that they, like others, must learn it for themselves?
And is that probably not how Europe looks at America?

I work with kids from many areas. I do not excel at all cultures. I find
the nitche where I DO work well, and give the kids a space in which they
can be something quite UNamerican---THEMSELVES. They know I do not care
what language they speak, they also know I understand more than they might
imagine <very big grin here>. But they come in droves. 

When I ask them why they tell me something very simple. Respect. I live by
that rule. Respect for cultures other than one's own, respect for self,
respect for boundaries. It is not complicated. But the little ones, the
ones not yet in school, still loving the parents who gave birth to them,
speaking the mother tongue. Those kids say one thing, they feel safe.

America has done what it has done to newcomers. Ask the Irish and you will
find we are only the third generation, or second, and that our coming was
not welcomed either. But we now work with newcomers, because a part of each
of us remembers the 'welcome' we never received. I can only never imagine
being one who IS American, but doesn't LOOK American enough for those whose
own heritage is a complete unkown to them, save a few generations. I know
WHERE I came from. And without trying, I continue that heritage. My red
hair made it hard not to. But it came more from within. I went to the "old
country" and hope to retire there, rather than here. Thinking, in case you
have not noted, is now passe here, Few do this task.

I can not live in an environment wherein the only place it is truly allowed
is in academia. Perhaps others have not noticed? I have absolutely no
doubt. I don't believe that you can sue me for seeing or feeling this. And
it is my opinion. I do not regret this. I love learning. Our schools are
the worst in the world because we do NOT as a nation. Have you not noticed
this as well?

>Turtle Island, one of the U.S.'s many names was only new to those who
>came from Europe. There are never 'new worlds' or frontiers, not even
>in space.
>
>goldie
>  
If there are never new worlds, then there are not births at all. Nothing is
'born' fully created. All life begins, and eventually ends. Nations end,
and newer nations begin. It is human nature.

And I subscribe to the theory that stars are born, live and die. But I do
not excel at that But the Americas as they are today, were there before
westerners came to take over. As a nation it is still young and immature.
That speaks of things political only to me. 

But people group themselves as cultures. I see no American culture, per se.
Perhaps in a few more hundred years. But not at this time. We simply have
not beeeeeeen a nation sufficiently long to make this assumption. 

As for now, we in the US, are still assimilating. Who knows when all will
be considered "citizens". But I can tell you as one who once walked, and
now use a wheelchair-at times. I am NOT a citizen either. I do not have
rights. But more significantly than this, I am no longer a person at all. I
have BECOME a chair.

Should you not believe this...simply go for a 'walk' in one....and look
even at the verbage here...walk. 

But who am I? Am I the same person? Well, yes, I dare think this. 

But I am quite sadly, the norm for PWDs. It is America today. We call it
Liberty and Justice for WHOM? Certainly not for us. Second class citizens?
We strive to reach that high. But OTOH, I do not struggle with skin which
may not be this weeks favorite color.

THere are my reflections on the poem. I too miss the old country. I cannot
pretend that I have no roots. A tree is as high as its roots are deep, AND
go out AROUND the tree.
We forget this. And by forgetting our roots, we choose this for ourselves.
But to tell another to do so strikes me as brazen, and rude and oh so
American.

I strongly disagree that we have roots here. I believe that we are a
growing entity. The family therapy movement here is based on the fact that
having more than one person means you have an entity, an organism. Our
nation as an organism, is still quite the child. We now reach out to find
our roots. Individuals like myself have come to see that Mother Tongue
Literacy, leads to literacy at all, for many kids. It also gives kids
roots. And no, it's not some passion. It's just something which seems to
fit the need at the time.

There is more than one way to do anything you can think of. Who are we to
impose ours on anyone....EVER?

Just thought I would throw out a whole 'nother perspective.

s a smith
  
>
>--- cyberdiva <radhik-AT-bgnet.bgsu.edu> wrote:
>> The word "abhimaan" in Bengali has a poignant meaning that is very
>> difficult
>>                                           to translate into English.
>> It
>> describes that bitter-sweet emotion when feeling
>>                                           left behind, forgotten,
>> overlooked, and neglected by the object of our desire,
>>                                           our Beloved. Many years
>> have
>> passed, a few decades even, as I look back at
>>                                           India, wondering why I've
>> been
>> forgotten; wondering why India remains so
>>                                           remote, aloof from me; why
>> no
>> tangible Indian earth or soil grounds me and
>>                                           gives me daily solace;
>> wondering
>> why so much sea and sky separate us?
>> 
>>                                           Am I an exile as I have
>> often
>> felt myself to be? Although I've lived in the US
>>                                           all my life, my first
>> memories
>> were shaped where I was born. Even as I
>>                                           began school in Cambridge,
>> Massachusetts, I drew pictures of the last
>>                                           sceneries vivid in my
>> child's
>> imagination, the mountains of Jaipur and the
>>                                           palm trees in Calcutta,
>> both
>> drawn together in the same painting. Even the
>>                                           Bengali I speak harks back
>> to the
>> India of my parents, as I've been told.
>> 
>>                                           I was mentioning to a
>> Bengali
>> friend of mine that try as I might, I have not
>>                                           been able to formulate a
>> "lifestyle" in America. Yet, I know I have a lifestyle.
>>                                           It is the lifestyle that is
>> prevalent still in more rural India, I think. At least, it
>>                                           seemed so to me when I was
>> last
>> able to visit back in 1993. An evening walk
>>                                           before dinner, a visit to
>> friends
>> and extended family members, the pampering
>>                                           that soon ascends, or
>> descends to
>> heated discussions about how best to
>>                                           spend our times, since no
>> one
>> among us adult cousins requires "upbringing."
>> 
>>                                           Then, the inevitable tears
>> when
>> departing for our homes. I remember very
>>                                           fondly how it wasn't my
>> cousin
>> who cried, saying "Monjudidi, that just isn't
>>                                           me, I'm sorry!" It was her
>> husband, overcome by the closeness, the
>>                                           arguments, the rushed
>> sight-seeing in Jaipur, a city we have all seen many
>>                                           times over, but which
>> attracts by
>> its many-faceted splendor.
>> 
>>                                           The most intriguing
>> feeling, to
>> me, was landing in Delhi that October of
>>                                           1993, and having an uncanny
>> sense
>> that_I_had_never_left! What then
>>                                           happened to the years in
>> between?
>> Perhaps India had not forgotten me after
>>                                           all.
>> 
>>                                           Four years after writing my
>> anguished poem above, I realized that I had come
>>                                           full circle in how I really
>> felt.
>> Being born in India gave me a "head start" in
>>                                           its 6,000 years plus of
>> history.
>> Living in America gave me a "head start"
>>                                           participating in a blending
>> of
>> cultures with the added advantage of having a
>>                                           heritage whose richness and
>> depth
>> sometimes defy explanation. Thus, no
>>                                           longer feeling the pain of
>> being
>> an exile, I now enjoy the extraordinary gifts
>>                                           of a unique birthplace and
>> an
>> opportunity to share my perspectives in a New
>>                                           World, for America, to me,
>> is
>> still very new.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>
>====>
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