This Friday I embark on an extended trip -- up to DC, Philly, NYC, Prague, and then back through again. I won't be back in Miami until the end of the first week in September. Two weeks without the beach is really going to test me. Two weeks with my family, though, will test me more.

So to cope with the experience of seeing my family, I thought I'd reflect a bit on what it's like growing up Indian in America.


First, I must say there has been an immense amount of change in the past decade. When I was growing up as a kid in the 80s (my god I feel old), the racism was very clear. I grew up in suburban Philadelphia, and got harrassed a lot in elementary school and high school. To a certain extent that's just kids being kids. To a larger extent it was the result of my parents' inexplicable decision to send me to a Catholic school that was pretty much all Caucasian -- a peculiar choice when one considers that I am neither Catholic nor Caucasian. LOL. That's only scratching the surface of my parents' insanity, though. But ultimately I cannot blame them too much, as they mean well, even if they lack the common sense needed to translate these good intentions into good results. Of course it is all part of the masterplan: if my parents didn't mess things up so much I would not have the financial problems that have plagued me pretty much my whole life, and if I didn't have those problems there is a zero percent chance I'd be working as hard as I do. I'd just sit on the beach and play guitar all day -- that is the smart way to live life, albeit an unproductive one.

When I went to college in 1998 (New York University) I still encountered racism from time to time, although not nearly as much as in elementary and high school. Also, in elementary and high school, it was overt racism; the perpetrators had nothing to be afraid of, everyone was in on it, it was basically the culture. New York City, though, is a different story. I mean if you want to catch a cab or get a meal on Sixth Street you better be nice to Indian people. So I encountered a more subtle kind of racism. Only a couple times did it get overt -- once I was on a subway and some lunatic directed a bunch of racial slurs my way and threatened to attack me. I got off the train and waited for the next one to come. This was back when I was 19 or so and a lot more timid; if that happened today I would probably sit there and just look right back at the guy. Or tell the guy 9/11 was an inside job, my default response to most everything. LOL.

But I'd say since I graduated college in 2002, the kind of racism I've experienced has declined immensely -- now it mainly comes from people insulting me on YouTube . In fact, now it is like the opposite, where depending on who you're with being Indian can be cool and even an unfair advantage -- something we talked about in our post on racism 2.0. I'd like to thank Jay-Z for remixing that Indian dance song, that definitely helped. Don't get it twisted, though, I'm still beefing with Jay-Z, though his cowardly ass is too afraid to respond after I straight up dissed him in front of billions of people on YouTube. Damn.

Definitely, the biggest culture issue comes up if you're dating a person of another race. At least in my family, it's that way. My aunt, whom I adore dearly and is like a second mother to me, will surely remind me of the importance of marrying an Indian person when I see her next week (now that I am 28 and soon to be 29 and single, it is the only conversation we have, much to my annoyance). I think she might cry if I don't marry an Indian person. LOL. I don't really let that affect me, though. Basically I'm such a loner and I like so few people that I don't think I have the luxury of blocking off entire races of people, especially when Indians are still a minority (I barely see any down here in Miami, which is weird...I thought we were everywhere). Also, when you grow up with the whole two culture thing that is an inherent part of coming from an immigrant family, the end result is that you identify partially with cultures. So I'm not really gung ho about being Indian, or about living in America, or about any of that type of crap. Whatever culture values honesty, simplicity, and liberty will capture my heart. While I think immigrants may lead this trend, I think the end of nationalism and cultural pride based on race is coming to an end. The new loyalty will be to communities that are united not by race, but rather by psychological ideals and lifestyles. As an example, I'm a 9/11 truther before I'm an American, before I'm an Indian, and before I'm pretty much anything else.

Anyway, the song for the post is "Beware of the Boyz" -- the club song Jay-Z made with Punjabi MC that remixed the song "Mundian To Bach Ke." Listen carefully, you'll hear the bassline used in the television show Knight Rider.