On November 2, acclaimed
Canadian author Rohinton Mistry canceled
the remainder of his U.S. reading tour.
He cited the repeated airport security
inspections he was subjected to as
the reason. "It began to happen at every
single stop, at every single airport," he
told Canada's Globe and Mail. "The
random process took on a 100 percent
certitude."
To
many South Asian Americans, Mistry's experience is
not news of a new phenomenon, but rather news of one
particular instance in which the media has been compelled
to take note. It comes as the latest in a series of
similar complaints--more egregiously the case of T.S.
Kahlon, who is filing suit against Southwest Airlines
after he refused to remove his turban and was twice
denied entry to flights; and last July, the group of
Indian movie actors whose presence on a Trans Am flight
generated sufficient alarm to require an F-16 fighter
jet escort into La Guardia airport, where they were
taken in for questioning.
In
reaction to his own experience, Mistry contemplated
shaving
his beard, so as to potentially attract
less negative attention. "But when I caught
myself thinking in this manner, trying to appease
a bad policy, I knew it was time to call off the
rest of it," he said.
His
reaction brings to mind a sign I recently saw
in the window of
a neighborhood grocery and
deli, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The
printed poster read: "Proud to be an American
and a Sikh." Mistry considered changing his
appearance, left the country to return home, and
spoke out against the treatment he had received.
For many South Asian Americans, including the Sikh
owners of this deli, these are not viable options.
The poster is evidence of the increasingly apparent
need to justify our presence in this country, where
many of us were born or have spent the greater
part of our existence. On September 12, 2001, in
a rural North Carolinian town, a woman presented
my father--a resident for over 20 years--with an
American flag. You'll need this more than anyone,
she said.
That same day, in a Brown University classroom,
my Asian American studies class was discussing
the World Trade Center tragedy. The first flags
to go up, someone predicted, will be in ethnic
businesses. That night, I sat underneath a banner-sized
example in our local, Middle Eastern-run falafel
stand. I use these examples not to deny the patriotism
of these people, but to point out the necessity
that it be hung from the walls and windows, as
a measure of self-preservation.
As
a politically aware young South Asian American,
a recent graduate
of a liberal arts institution
where I was free to study South Asian history,
Asian American literature, and post-colonial theory
at will, I find myself a member of a group slightly
more savvy of the nuances of identity politics,
or perhaps slightly more weary of the typical responses.
When a friend throws up her hands and asks "Am
I Indian? Am I American? I just don't know!" it
is an ironic gesture, and elicits laughter from
her audience. "I feel so fragmented." Plays
and books are often critiqued as, "just more
of that tired identity politics routine."
We
know that we are, as post-colonial critic Homi
Bhabha tells
us, examples of hybridity; we harken
back to Salman Rushdie's imaginary homelands, and
are denizens of theorist Benedict Anderson's imagined
communities. And yet, on leaving academia, I find
that such complexities are no longer guaranteed
their place. The identities Sikh, Muslim, Hindu,
Indian, or South Asian are no longer able to admit
conflict with being American, even when members
of these no-longer-model minority groups experience
religious offense, interrogation, or incarceration.
One must be "Sikh and American," as the
poster proclaimed, and never the twain shall fail
to peacefully coexist.
Arranging
my very first job interview over the telephone,
the head
of Human Resources at a prominent
magazine publishing company posed only the following
two questions: "Are you able to come and interview?" and
then, "Are you an alien?"
"I hope you don't mind me asking," she
said, "but there are a lot of foreign references
on your resume." The foreign references in
question were under "Languages Spoken: Telegu--my
parents' native language--and my semester spent
in South Africa, clearly listed as a "Study
Abroad" experience. Every geographical location--home
address, summer jobs, high school and college,
indicated that I had spent my time in the U.S.,
with that sole exception. Her question struck me
in its vast difference from previous responses
to the document--my previously commendable "international
experience" now aroused concern and required
reassurance.
And yet, the lines between institutional America
and its minority populations are not so clearly
drawn. Visiting the Web site for the Indian embassy
to the U.S., I confirmed for myself that it did
indeed caution Hindus to wear bindis, in order
to distinguish themselves from Muslims and reduce
their chances of attracting negative attention,
pointing to internal division within the South
Asian community. In another ripple effect, Middle
Eastern studies courses advance in popularity at
universities, and Arabic is the new language to
learn. Walking into the central terrace of the
Brooklyn Museum of Art recently, I watched a diverse
group of people from the very young to the middle
aged shake their arms over their head in the style
of the Bollywood dancers I had grown up watching
in videos, as DJ Rekha was spinning.
Perhaps I'm no longer troubled about the composition
of my identity, but more disturbing than ever is
the minefield of acceptance and mistrust that every
young South Asian American must observe--the polls
demonstrating that the majority of Americans do
feel more comfortable with airport racial profiling,
or that they would consider the possibility of
internment camps; the popularization of Bollywood
music in radio hip hop and club settings; the diversification
of South Asian presence in the workforce, from
CEOs to subway conductors; the indignant response
to Rohinton Mistry's announcement; the extra 20
minutes we must all set aside when traveling by
air. Identity politics has turned from academic
inquiry to strategy in this post-collegiate world,
as flags, bindis, dances or birth certificates
brand my affiliations cultural and institutional,
my ability to be the citizen of my choosing.
(Priyanka Motaparthy is a recent graduate of Brown
University in Providence, Rhode Island. She is
currently a writer based in New York.)
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