Introducing a new series of observations on the Indian female immigrant experience
I want to give a shout-out to the millions of Indian women out there who have tirelessly been working on their parents’ education since they barely got out of childhood themselves. Indian immigrant parents have many reasons for being the way they are – we can empathize and sympathize because for a lot of them, their behavior stems from good intentions and love. But we’ve also paid the price. We deserve our stories to be heard too, and our pain to be recognized, and we deserve solutions.
This next series of blog-posts is about you, about me, about us – women of immigrant Indians. These blog-posts will talk about our problems. I will share anecdotes from my life and the lives of friends and acquaintances, and I will posit some solutions that I have found to be effective for myself and for friends.
A lot of what I write about is just the normal angst of growing up and finding yourself for anyone – including white males. I totally acknowledge growing up is hard in general and that no one’s parents are perfect, but growing up is made harder for Indian women and that’s the nuance here.
Another disclaimer upfront: I do not speak for all Indian women – we’re a diverse bunch. Some of you may not have some of these challenges or have altogether different ones. This is my perspective based on my own experience and research.
Problem: The incapacity to think independently
“It’s been life-changing for me to move away from home for work [to another city]. Before then, I was following my mum’s advice almost constantly. I just couldn’t think for myself” – Indian girl-friend 1
Tight-knit families can be a double-edged sword. Sometimes each member loses their ability to form independent perspectives. You get locked into having the same opinions for better cohesion.
For the longest time, I had my mother’s opinions on several issues. When I was in high school, I remember saying something that sounded peculiar coming out of a 13 year old’s mouth: “Sarah and Joe don’t have the maturity to be in a relationship” I said to my friend about our classmate Sarah and her new boyfriend. It wasn’t my opinion. It was what my mother had said. I think if you’d have questioned me at that time on what “maturity” was required for a relationship, I wouldn’t have known.
Until I was 22 (yes, that old!), I was convinced no Indian guy wanted to marry a girl who wasn’t a virgin (who wants to even hang out with let alone marry such a guy is a valid question that various friends raised!). I thought boys were a distraction and a danger to good grades and a good career.
Many of these thoughts are what I call “cultural viruses” – they are generally negative and handed down generation to generation and enforced through fear and shame.
It has been a gradual process over the years to let go of thoughts, ideas and concepts from my heritage and formulate my own – many of which are totally different – and thankfully as a result of these different, more positive, more progressive thoughts, my life is way different from what it could have been.
You’d think by 30, I’d be all clear but every now and again I still catch a thought and have to question whether this is what I think or what someone else thinks or was some cultural thought that has been handed down generations.
Solution: Build the muscle to think for yourself
Observing your thoughts is a practice that has been recommended as part of meditation. Meditation is about observing, not judging though. Unfortunately for us, quiet observation is not enough – we need to do some analysis on our thoughts. Where are they from? What assumptions are we making? What evidence do we have to support our thought? This self-analysis can be an energy-intensive process but I have found it to be worth it – especially on important thoughts that are going to determine action. Once you dismantle destructive old thoughts, you can get to place where new thoughts that stem from your true personality and desires arise more naturally and effortlessly.
Another way to be a better independent thinker is to stress-test thoughts with friends. This may sound counter-intuitive at first blush as you are involving other people, but it isn’t when you think about it more deeply – the origin of thought is usually some cultural construct or cocktail of cultural constructs — you just need to pick which cultural construct/s work/s best for you. You consult many people who have different opinions and then you come to your own.
For Indian women who have grown up in a culture at home that can feel pretty monolithic and presents subjective opinions as objective truths, actively building diverse friendships is especially critical to your growth as a deep independent thinker. This can be hard for us, but we must go out of our way to do it. Find those people who will challenge you, see the world differently, have different beliefs and ultimately lend you the freedom that comes from acknowledging one truth: there are very few objective truths in the world.
This is one blog-post in a series of problem-solution posts for Indian immigrant women. Please comment/message me for ideas of which other problems and solutions you want me to write about! The next one will be about guilt and blaming yourself.
Stiletto Muse 