Last week, TIME set off a viral frenzy with Joel Stein's, "My Own Private India." In what was supposed to be a satirical take on immigration, Stein waxes nostalgic about his hometown of Edison, N.J. - now unrecognizable to him thanks to an influx of Indian immigrants. Resorting to tired stereotypes about "genius" Indians and their less-desirable counterparts who run convenience stores, Stein goes for the laughs only to strain his 'See how clever I am?' muscle.
It's not clear that Stein actually has a larger point, but any meaningful satire gets thrown out the window when he uses model minority stereotypes to pit 'good' immigrants (you know, the engineers and doctors) against the 'useless' (a.k.a. working class) ones. Add in his offensively casual use of racial epithets, and you've got a piece that inadvertently mocks everything that's difficult about being an immigrant of color in America.
To be fair, Stein does make one good point: American communities are constantly changing along ethnic and economic lines. It's not just immigration that should take the blame - it's gentrification, recessions, and simply the passage of time (ahem, Arizona).
Still, with lines like this, you can't blame angry readers for pegging Stein as racist:
"'dot heads' was the best racist insult we could come up with for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose."
Recently, there seems to be an attitude in the media that Indians are an okay minority to joke about, perhaps because of their model minority status. After all, you can't kick someone while they're down -- but hey, if they're successful, why not? But the truth is, the Indian immigrant community, like virtually all immigrant populations, has a wide range of socio-economic diversity from working class to upper class.
So what does the model minority label say about the worth of Indians, or any immigrants, in America who aren't high-salaried doctors and engineers?
Sadly, despite claiming to be pro-immigration, Stein unwittingly makes a case against all immigrants in his effort to be funny:
"When I was a kid, a few engineers and doctors from Gujarat moved to Edison ... For a while, we assumed all Indians were geniuses. Then, in the 1980s, the doctors and engineers brought over their merchant cousins, and we were no longer so sure about the genius thing. In the 1990s, the not-as-brilliant merchants brought their even-less-bright cousins, and we started to understand why India is so damn poor."
In other words, even the 'good' immigrants will eventually bring in the riff-raff.
And so, the model minority remains an outsider -- accepted and admired, but only to a point. The Indian community is a prime example. Once they change from the doctors and engineers whose kids win spelling bees and take advanced-level math classes, to a Bollywood-blaring, working-class, small business-owning, visible and vocal minority group, the welcome mat gets pulled away.
As Stein points out, the model minority label that's applied to Asian immigrants stems from reforms in 1965, which were designed to encourage new sorts of immigration from Asia in an effort to bump up technical innovation in America and beat the Russians in the space race.
But this idea of equating intelligence with certain races or ethnicities has very real repercussions for all immigrants of color. There's something distasteful about the idea that immigrants are just being brought into the United States to do specific jobs. It raises a provocative question: Is this the best that immigrants of color can hope for today -- being treated as hired help whose families aren't welcome to join them?
It turns out that no matter what ethnic minorities do -- work hard, own their own homes, contribute to civic society -- ultimately skin color, what god you worship, and what you wear still defines how others perceive your 'American-ness.'
This isn't just an issue that immigrants face -- all people of color in the U.S. are saddled with this burden. Even President Obama was forced to put his birth certificate on display, proving once and for all that his 'funny' name and his blackness didn't disqualify him from being American (or President, for that matter).
So, is the depressing reality that minorities in America are still on the outside looking in? And what does this mean for immigrants of color and their children, who are American by birth?
Unfortunately, even if you do follow Stein's idea of assimilation -- dressing American and Westernizing your name (say, from Piyush to Bobby, or Nirmrata to Nikki) -- in today's political climate, it doesn't actually make you American enough to avoid being called a raghead.
Follow Shiwani Srivastava on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shiwanis
Lady! you are just one of those insecure Indians who can't make fun of themselves.
http://chitraraman.voiceofdharma.org/blogs/general/-time-for-a-sensitivity-check.html
Our favorite Indian restaurant Moksha (yes, the 5 star one with the waterfalls and incredible spices) is replaced by an Italian restaurant just this year. Instead of being filled with desis, it’s filled with smiling happy Joels in there. We too desis, felt displaced on seeing this.
We too feel displaced when we go back to our little hometown in India and see the biggest growing population smoking cigarettes there – the village teens! Yes, American massive marketing at work, folks. Funny, we don’t see massive ad campaigns to get the non-Indian teens to eat the dazzling samosas, in Edison.
Whether 100% clone-dom into the melting pot is good or bad, it's felt by many who are open-hearted that Indian immigrants bring a lot of art and culture (dance, music, cusine, culture). Many good things of America (Pizza, Dutch apple pie.. are parts of origin cultures which survived and transformed the melting pot for the better). A samosa is a work of art (a perfect one takes at least 12 spices and flair to make it a thing of beauty). Whether a samosa survives the melting pot is upto majority of future generations to decide...
Interesting read of Edison in 2008, which discusses the good and bad of the Indian immigrants:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/27indianj.html
there is another Pizza Hut in Edison.. perhaps they decided to change their location because they didn't want to be near Indian restarants??? and don't put the blame game if Dominoes took over Pizza Hut's business, folks.. Pizza Hut is all over India now.. just like cigarettes are there.
google maps: Edison Restaurant:
Pizza Hut- =2002 Lincoln Highway, Edison, NJ - (
L.A. too has undergone changing landscapes. Mr. Stein's new town, LA, ironically boasts the best of all cultures. It is now the home of new fads, some which are part of mainstream Indian culture and practiced in Edison too: vegetarian-cuisines, Ayurveda based diets using Indian spices, yoga, meditation, and some new-age theology based on Hindu principles of karma. These 'fads' were readily available to Mr. Stein at a fraction of a cost in Edison, by the way..
My guess is that perhaps Mr. Stein is more open to changing landscapes and fads when it's presented by the 'white America' of LA. Oh well, who are we desis to blame Joel? He sort of reminds us of some (not all!) American-born 'desi' children who resist or are ignorant of their own culture, till the white community reminds them to accept it. Our Indian-American friends struggled with their own ABCD (American born confused desis) kids, who hiply started to eat beefy meats... , only to turn vegetarian after PETA (the beautiful white community) taught them eating meat was un-hip.
oh wow.. it must take a LOT of guts to be a shock-jock and hit out at first generation honest immigrants who are STRUGGLING to make a dollar, honestly earned, of your hometown. by the way, Joel, we went to Mogul on a Friday afternoon and it was EMPTY. nice of you to leave all your dungeon and dragons nerdy friends behind and kick them a bit too… since you have moved onto bigger and better friends in LA who practice yoga.
TIME is seen as factual, and the point is some people are saying Joel Stein is being tossed tomatoes for saying the truth. Perhaps he may in some aspects, but he is grossly stretching some 'truths':
--> Fact: Edison is the largest Indian-origin population it's true. But the census still marks Indians at 17% as of 2000, and whites are a majority. Wikipedia lists it as one of the most diverse towns.
--> Fact 2: Aside from Oak Tree and Oak Tree Ave harboring most of Little India shops, most of Edison has does have other restaurants (including Italian, Mexican, 'American', etc). In fact, it is only Oak Tree, which is known as Little India, and driving around Edison outside of Oak Tree is where all the non-Indian shops/restaurants are.
-> Fact 3: The little theater which Joel refers to serves not just samosas, but also popcorn. It shows both Bollywood and Hollywood films. It is an addition, not a subtraction.
This seems to be the only theater in America to show such a diverse range of Indian and American films.. and it should be an asset, not loss, to Edison. It is refurbished nicely in the famous Methani way road, and is quite charming.. hardly charmless. After having a fantastic vegetarian meal next door, we recall seeing a late 1:00 AM Indian art film.. and then driving to the Jersey shore seeing the dawn. We were charmed !
Yes, it serves a range of diverse cuisines ranging from artifically flavored good ol fashioned American popcorn to all-natural spiced samosas. (( By the way, most movie theaters across America are now offering more choices ranging from wings to burgers, in addition to popcorn.. just to survive... )). Expansion, not reduction.
http://bignews.biz/?id=891241&keys=Senator-Robert-Menendez-IndianAmericans
He displays same quality like his other abrahamic brethen: religious snobbery and theological ignorance.
If you research Mr. Stein and see his first immigration article in TIME magazine (pro-Mexican in Arizona), you probably would come to the conclusion that he's using the satire of the racial hate that the Indian community once faced in Edison to show what's happening to the Mexican community in Arizona. The point is, he's NOT making fun of us Indians--- he's making fun of racists who are doing the SAME EXACT THING to Mexicans in Arizona with the absurd old sterotypes (Arizonians calling their Mexican country damn poor and stopping those folks from comin... , etc. etc.). The difference is night and day when you see this perspective, is it not?
Thanks. Sincerely, JC
http://ems.gmnews.com/news/2010-07-07/Editorials/Assemblyman_responds_to_Joel_Stein.html
http://www.dnaindia.com/blogs/post.php?postid=287
Yes. Western rejects are going to India. Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Wal-Mart, Taco-Bell, alchohol, cigarettes are all changing the landscape there to Western Western Western (the diabetes rates are going up , eating fast food & meats and skipping the organic simple veg foods taught for centuries.. )