https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2019/10/ ... ilization/
Thought I'd start this thread with a blog post by Bangladeshi-American geneticist Razib Khan on the Indian-American experience. Much of his online content relates to South Asia, its people, culture, and history. I don't exactly agree with his political views (and don't even get me started on certain webcites his work has been hosted on), but his takes on Asian history and religion are generally on-point- if a bit pedantic. This blog post delves into the sociology of Indian-Americans, and to what extent their relative success is due to being "whitewashed" compared to the unique cultural traits of South Asians. I'm sharing this even though India =/= South Asia, because the South Asian community in the US is overwhelmingly Indian (rather than Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, or Nepalese).
You could say that this attitude, which reduces non-Western peoples and societies as outcomes of Western history, is marginal. But the person who expressed the opinions is a graduate student in sociology, and this viewpoint does suffuse the assumptions of many educated Americans “in the know”, albeit less nakedly and brusquely expressed. Less enlightened Americans probably believe that Indian immigrants are just smart and well-educated (this is true), and that is the reason for their success (again, true). But those who are “in the know” “understand” that these sorts of reductive characteristics are outcomes of a particular historical process, and it is that historical process to which Indian American success redounds (“Well actually, British colonialism imparted bourgeois values to native allies in western India, and that’s why they succeed in the United States”).
Though I am not Indian American, I am obviously Indian American adjacent. Arriving in the United States just before elementary school, and growing up with parents raised abroad, I have a visceral understanding of intercultural dynamics which is probably not available to professional anthropologists. I am aware of elements of South Asian culture which are very different from American culture, and so am always curious about the new pattern of some Westerners to reducing South Asian culture as simply a postcolonial reaction to Western hegemony.
A big reason why Indian-Americans are relatively affluent and successful is how the immigration process selects for education and skills, which in India is fairly concentrated among certain caste communities that have higher status.
First, it is famously well known that Indian American migration to the United States has been highly selective, biased toward individuals with high levels of skill and education. Additionally, these people are not a representative cross-section of Indians themselves in regards to ethnicity and community. There are, for example, very few individuals of Dalit background in the United States. And, there is a preponderance of individuals of higher status communities. Using the framework above, one might say that communities that have internalized European mores, outlooks, and skills, have been advantaged and that this is why they have immigrated to the United States.
I agree with his observation that local-born/raised Indian Americans tend to be more whitewashed in terms of opinions, morals, and intellect- compared to other Asian Americans originating from countries/cultures that weren't colonized by the British.
In this globalized world roiled by economic change and characterized by migration, there is a temptation to fall into the trap of simplistic theorizing. We must avoid that temptation if we are to understand the true shape of a thing, rather than the fictions one could spin-out from our theories and preconceptions.
Going back to the starting point of his post: the strong economic performance and robust families of Indian Americans is not just a function of hegemonic Western values. These people are not simply persons Indian in blood and color, but white in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect, though there is something of that, especially by generation 1.5 and above. But the entrepreneurial aspect of some Guju communities, to give an example, illustrates that folkways derived from the South Asian context have been transmitted to the United States. The “joint-family” is quintessentially Indian, and though it is not common among Indian Americans, it likely casts a shadow on Indian American family life (additionally, divorce is very taboo for many Hindus). Most Indian Americans today are immigrants, raised abroad, and their orientation and mores are fundamentally distinct from the native-born and native-raised.
This last part isn't directly related to the South Asian diaspora or South Asian culture, but it relates to US politics and how that might affect the integration and self-identification of future generations of Indian Americans.
Of course, assimilation happens. But even that is contingent. The America that the children of Indian Americans are growing up in is highly polarized and post-Christian. This has some downstream consequences for how 21st-century immigrants and their children view themselves in the body politic.
So NSG, what are your thoughts on South Asia, its people, its history, and/or its culture?
