Home » News » Too many Indians... that is Joel Stein's problem
Indians, cosseted by stories about their success in America, often think they are the golden immigrants, the good ones, guests who can come for dinner. And stay. Perhaps now the blinders will come off, writes Sandip Roy
What a strange time it is to be Indian in America.
First, we hear South Carolina might soon have an Indian-American governor (One endorsed by Sarah Palin!). Then, Californian company Zazzle popped up skateboards with Hindu gods on them.
And then Time magazine columnist Joel Stein decided to make a joke about Dotbusters in his magazine. No wonder our gods have multiple heads. This is a mind-boggling lot to keep up with. And I am not even pondering if Ganesha mouse pads violate any sacred cows.
Dotbusters, for those who missed the '80s, were street gangs who attacked South Asians in places like Jersey City where many immigrants had moved. Their goal was simple -- kick the immigrants out. Literally.
One of those immigrants, Navroze Mody, died after being bashed with bricks. Another, Kaushal Saran, a doctor, was beaten and left unconscious on a busy street corner. Homes were robbed. Women were harassed.
Joel Stein, in his essay about his old hometown of Edison, New Jersey, has this to say about that little bit of history. 'In retrospect, I question just how good our schools were if '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.'
Of course, Stein will plead satire. And ask Indians not to be so thin-skinned. And anyway Ganesha has an elephant head, not just a nose. And anyway what are Indian Americans going to do if they don't like it? Challenge him to a spelling bee?
Of course, Stein doesn't mean he is in any way in favour of Indians having their heads bashed in. Why, in the piece he says he actually liked some of the Indians that moved in. At least the smart ones, the dorky ones who liked to play Dungeons and Dragons. The problem was the smart ones brought in their less smart cousins ('merchants') and the merchants brought in 'their even-less-bright cousins, and we started to understand why India is so damn poor.'
This is immigration reform in a nutshell.
Give us your engineers, but not your cabbies and Dunkin Donut-wallas. Except those cabbies and 7/11 owners and motel proprietors work damn hard for their little piece of the American dream.
I think in a way the Indian community is also so obsessed with its presidential scholars and spelling bee champs, with its Indra Nooyis and Dr Sanjay Guptas, it gives short shrift to the little guys, the ones that run gas stations on baking highways in the middle of nowhere, take classes during the day and work graveyard shift at the 7/11. They are the muscle and sinew of our community.
Sandip Roy hosts Up Front, a culture radio program on KALW 91.7 in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is associate editor with Pacific News Services and New California Media. He has won the Katha Prize for Indian-American fiction