Disqus - Latest Comments for sf_sg

Re: Broken Traditions? Intercultural Marriage and Cultural Continuity

sf_sg — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:34:40 -0000

I agree with LF that this is an excellent post.

I was intrigued by both references to not wanting to give up Indian citizenship (and the implications this might have for whether one considers oneself and "immigrant" or not). This same topic - both halves of it - is one that we've discussed in my household, as well.

I'd be interested to see more on this topic - Aditya, any interest in providing a guest-post on your thoughts on the matter, sometime?

Re: Broken Traditions? Intercultural Marriage and Cultural Continuity

sf_sg — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:26:20 -0000

Neo_indian, your point is well taken. Since, in fact, my own little family is currently dealing with 4 of the 5 issues you mention, perhaps I'll comment on how I see it working out.

First off, in general, and as GG discussed, I feel that all families are put in the position of picking and choosing amongst their own two families' traditions - even if both families are "American". My own parents were from very different backgrounds, where varying degrees of emphasis were placed on things like education and living close to extended family, and all my life my parents were choosing to sometimes adhere more to one family's tradition and other times more the other's (or sometimes, to pick a third way...).

On the subjects you mention, I think that in practice what happens for us now is often a mix of this picking-and-choosing, and finding that you can still blend practices, even if it's not "doing both" fully all the time.

The specific examples:

vegitarianism -
This is an easy one. When S and I married, I was a vegetarian (had been for >15 years), and he was not. This wasn't really a big deal. He mostly cooked vegitarian food at home, except when he wanted to add some meat for himself, and when we went out he'd often get a burger. Then, when we decided to have a baby, I started eating meat... and now his parents are staying with us, and his mother, who's doing much of the cooking, is the vegetarian. The same blend holds true. It's worth noting that actually, this blend is in a sense almost an exact replica of his own culture and mine, since he grew up with a vegetarian mother when noone else in the family was vegetarian, and starting at age 13 I was the only vegetarian in my family - so this was sort of a nonissue for us.

elders who expect to live with their kids -
This is a much harder issue for us at the moment, although not necessarily in the ways you might mean here. In fact, in my own family, my parents very much wanted both sides of their own family to live with them when they were older - and both sides refused, not wanting to leave their own homes. Eventually, my father's parents did move very nearby my parents' place, so that my parents could help more easily. In the end, though, all four of my grandparents passed away without ever having left their own homes to move either into a care facility or with their children, just as they had wished. It wasn't my parents' first choice, but they respected their parents' decisions. Similarly, S and I hope to find a way ourselves to make our own parents' preferences work out. The primary obstacles, however, seem to lie not in our willingness to respect our spouse' sand parents' choices, but rather in logistical issues - while we'd love for S's parents to move to the US and live with us eventually, it seems unlikely to us (and to them) that they would ever want to do this, given their strong ties to their own neighborhood and friends, and how difficult it would be to reestablish such ties in a new country when they're older. In addition, as silly as it sounds, the cold weather is a real concern... and, perhaps the biggest obstacle of all, is how we could afford health insurance for them, since they wouldn't be covered by medicare even when they're older.

Ok - this is getting long, and I think those two examples cover the three basic points I think are relevant in the answer: (1) you can often blend even things that seem binary; (2) as long as you're both willing to make some sacrifices for things that are important to your partner, even major divides often aren't much different than what's faced by many "American" couples, and (3) often, logistics are actually the biggest problem (and this would be true even if we were both Indian).

Re: Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective (Part Two)

sf_sg — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:18:17 -0000

Oh, well, it's not so much that I thought you were trying to keep it hidden... (presumably they knew they were being interviewed for something!)... just... I still hadn't pictured them sitting and reading what we wrote, for some reason.

You should encourage them to comment! (Or, @GG's Baba & Maa: we'd love to hear your thoughts in comments, too!)

Re: Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective (Part Two)

sf_sg — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:42:56 -0000

"Baba: ...I have been reading your blog..."

Oh! Well, then, hi GG's Baba (and Maa?)!

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts with all us of!

Re: Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective (Part One)

sf_sg — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:49:43 -0000

I agree - even if it weren't the same person, snark can just be ignored. GG, you do such a good job thinking of interesting posts for this blog (!) - it's unfortunate to then have the comments quickly devolve over and over.

Perhaps you worry that ignoring it will make it look like you accept it - but I don't think that's true. Don't Feed the Trolls is, as SportsFan points out, common internet etiquette - people will know what you're doing. Plus it makes trolls get bored and go away. Just delete any too egregious ones without commentary.

Re: Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective (Part One)

sf_sg — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:48:26 -0000

This is great! Thanks to all of you for doing this!

(...and, I have to say, I am sooo jealous of your easy communication with your in-laws. While I think many of my in-laws' responses would be very similar, language is such a larger barrier for us - there's no way we could have this kind of a conversation without much of it being translated back and forth. At least, not yet!)

Re: Following the Iran Elections Aftermath

sf_sg — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:55:50 -0000

I've been appreciating fivethrityeight.com's discussions of the election.

Re: Following the Iran Elections Aftermath

sf_sg — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:06:27 -0000

Yep! Iranian friend sent me this link:

http://gr88.tumblr.com/post...

And I found this utne reader one as well:

http://www.utne.com/Politic...

Re: Following the Iran Elections Aftermath

sf_sg — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:44:51 -0000

I'm fascinated and awe-struck myself. My facebook homepage seems to be about 95% Persian now, from just the few Iranian friends on my list & the comments their posts receive; I wish I could read the discussions.

I wish there were a productive way to show support.

Re: From Atheist to Hindu? Religion and My Intercultural Marriage

sf_sg — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:24:02 -0000

I grew up in a UU church. It has its own issues, but overall, I really liked it. If I am in an area where there's a good one near me when my kids are the appropriate age, I'll bring them.

Be warned, though, that (I guess like all churches) the community can vary significantly from one congregation to the next. So if you go to one and hate it, you may very well find that the congregation the opposite direction from you is a great fit.

Re: Don’t Get Your Undies in a Bunch: Worrying About Intercultural Quirks

sf_sg — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:22:58 -0000

Good post. Thanks.

Re: Words on Hindostan - Part One

sf_sg — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:06:19 -0000

"PS: Thank the Pagan Gods for giving us white teeth - otherwise how would we see each other in the dark?"

Ha!!

Re: Words on Hindostan - Part One

sf_sg — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:54:31 -0000

Today's quote from the word-of-the-day folks:

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Re: Wearing Sindoor as a White Woman

sf_sg — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:10:41 -0000

But the threaded comments are great!

Re: Wearing Sindoor as a White Woman

sf_sg — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:55:38 -0000

I think it's almost always going to be at best a half-truth to make a claim that something as common as Sindoor exists "because of X" or "means X". Almost nothing so common and simple as this kind of a custom has one cause for its perpetuation - different people participate for their own mix of reasons, and if enough people find enough reason to follow it, it is kept alive.

In this case, the causes clearly vary greatly. Just like engagement rings are clearly warn in part because women think they look nice, in part because they show off that you've found someone who can afford a ring (and thus you've got someone at your back and shouldn't be messed with), and yet at the same time have some element of labeling a woman as "taken"... Sindoor clearly is worn for at least all these same reasons. But, I'm not sure it's fair to link it with husband-worship or certainly polygamy - my MIL's family wears it, and their heritage is traditionally matrilinar, and was not that long ago known for being one of the few examples of practicing polyandry in the world.

Re: Wearing Sindoor as a White Woman

sf_sg — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:37:55 -0000

I enjoyed this post! Worrying about doing "Indian" things that other Indians aren't doing definitely makes sense to me.

Sindoor is pretty common where my husband is from, and I enjoyed wearing it there (in fact, I enjoyed almost anything that made it clear to those who say us out and about that we were married - I think I just find double-takes kind of fun, plus, of course, things were easier for us once it was clear we were married).

I don't wear it here, but I probably would if I were wearing Indian cloths for some reason.

Of course, having red-ish hair to begin with, it's less obvious on me!

Re: Interracial Marriage in the US: Some Simple South Asian Demographics

sf_sg — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:57:15 -0000

These numbers are indeed higher than I'd imagined, and with less of a M/F split.

What a great post - thanks!

Re: Indian Wedding Story, Part Five

sf_sg — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:23:34 -0000

We had issues in our wedding, too. Doing things with the wrong hands, me getting confused about whether I was supposed to eat something, smear it on someone's forehead, or throw it over a shoulder - your usual confusions! I think it helped dramatically that the wedding video I'd been lent as my only in-advance explanation included a part where the rings got put on wrong, but were then stuck, and there was much tugging and making faces in the middle of the ceremony - and noone cared. It helped me appreciate that there are no "rehearsals" not because everyone already knows what they're doing, but because it's not a performance the same way it is here - it's a ritual, which you do with a guide. People come to be present when it's done. That's it. It's kind of nice, really...!

Re: Have You Ever Felt Guilty About Your Intercultural Relationship?

sf_sg — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:01:24 -0000

I have great respect for the complexity of these issues. If anything, though, as my sense of the complexity has grown, the issues & costs of different actions have grown less clear.

My now-husband, who grew up in India and just came to the US for grad school (so, his family is still entirely in India - his parents have never even visited the US or Europe), told his family really very early on when we were dating. To be honest, it rather freaked me out - I remember being aware of it as being a big deal, and I felt like it should somehow wait until we (by which I meant "I") were more sure of the relationship lasting. When I expressed this to him, he looked at me a little funny, and very politely told me that really, this wasn't so much about me - it was about his decision about the extent to which he wanted to be honest with his parents about what was important in his life.

I thought about this for a long time (in fact, I still think of it). Now, I'm not saying that what worked for his family is something that would work for every family, by any means - his family has never been one to threaten exclusion or even anger over such a decision, and I don't know what his choice would have been in quite that situation. But, I do know that it made me think differently about how I interacted with my own parents. I think until I thought more consciously about it, I hadn't realized how much my interactions with my parents still echoed a lot of how we interacted when I was a teenager (not entirely, of course! but more than I'd been willing to admit) - and that this was in large part to the fact that I expected the dynamics to be such. And, in little ways, which grow over time, I think it's really changed my own family dynamics.

Again, I'm not saying any of this ports easily over to anyone else's situation. But, I think it can be worth sitting down to think about what kind of relationship with one's parents one really wants long term - and what will be required to get there. If you realize that your current actions will leave you resenting your parents' role in your life (which they don't even know they're playing, at the moment!), that's something to keep in mind as you weigh this all out... whereas if you realize that talking with your parents, as equal adults, about some of the cultural issues that come up balancing Indian and Western culture is in general something you would really value being able to do long term, that might be a reason to find a way to broach the subject with them - whether or not you plan to continue (or even discuss) any particular relationship.

Re: Initial Family Resistance to your Intercultural Relationship

sf_sg — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:25:16 -0000

Pardesi_gori - I think perhaps you don't realize how offensive some of your comments may be to some of the people reading this blog.

Aside from making sweeping generalizations that out of large numbers of Indian families there are likely to be no exceptions to your claim that women marrying into the families will be expected to be subservient (which is how I've interpreted your comments - if it's not how you meant them, I'd be happy to read a clarification, of course!), your comments I think read to some of us as if you're saying that the very relationships we're living now don't exist the way they think they do. Perhaps it's not how you mean it, but for me it's a little hard to feel like your comments mean anything other than you think that (a) I'm deluded and my husband and his family are actually completely different people than I believe they are, or (b) they're not actually Indian after all (which would sure be weird, since my in-laws have never even left India, and my husband hadn't until coming here for graduate school...).

Personally, I have been amazed at and very grateful for the lengths to which my in-laws have gone to be accommodating, whether it comes to meeting my needs when I visit, being sincere and welcoming and kind when my family flew over to meet them, working hard to get to know us as people... or even making it clear that although they have some sadness about how far away from them their son (and, soon, their first grandchild) are now living, they do not hold it against me and are happy that I have become a part of their family.

In this background, reading some of your comments feels to me like a very direct and unfair insult to people I love and respect.

Again, this may not be how you've intended your comments to come off. But, as I've felt the tone of this comment thread heat up a bit, I felt it was important to explain a bit about why some people may be reacting the way they are. One of the things I've really valued about this blog is the extent to which the community of readers have been able to talk very directly about difficult issues without things disintegrating into frustration and insults - I really hope we'll all be able to keep this up!

Sincerely,
sf

Re: Initial Family Resistance to your Intercultural Relationship

sf_sg — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:54:57 -0000

Just wanted to second the comment about there being all sorts of families in India

My in-laws, like GoriGirl's, have been fantastic - although little things will always come up cross-culturally and between families (for example, "going for a run" is not a normal thing to do where my husband grew up, and his parents were initially very anxious about whether this was a safe thing for me to do while visiting), they are fundamentally kind, thoughtful and open-minded people who have very much not tried to force me into a role I am uncomfortable with.

In fact, one of the (many) things I appreciate about my husband is his self-sufficiency in all areas, including always doing his share (or lately, while I've been pregnant and very tired, way more than his share!) of housework and cooking etc - a trait he gives his mother much credit for, pointing out that from the time he was a child she insisted he not depend on or expect the women around him to take care of him.

In addition, during the few times there have been conflicts between his parents expectations and my own (which there will be, any time you stay with family for weeks at a time - heck, it happens when I visit my own family), my husband has been right there beside me making sure my needs are met and making it clear that while his family is very important to him (like mine is to me) our marriage is his priority.

So, while I want to echo GG in acknowledging that it can be useful to talk about generalities that can help us to understand the context for the specific examples of things we actually see in our own lives, I also want to emphasize strongly that such generalities should never push you to discount what you actually see in front of you in real life - if your partner, like mine, is kind, thoughtful, responsible and completely respectful of your own goals and desires and choices, it would be a terrible disservice to both him and to yourself to start distrusting who you know he is just because he's Indian!