America doesn’t offer “best
of both worlds”
I am responding to your editorial in the July issue
(“Celebrating Our Freedoms in America”). Your praise of
an immigrant’s life in the U.S. is puzzling at best given the
recent anti-immigration laws passed in Arizona, Alabama,
Texas, Florida, and Georgia. Most recently the anti-Sikh
shootings in Wisconsin should give all Indian-Americans
a wake-up call that the U.S. is not a “mecca for multiculturalism”
as your article suggests.
Perhaps you are not as familiar with the history
of apartheid in this country as you are with that of
South Africa. Discrimination against people of color
has been prevalent in this country since the genocide
of the Native American population as well as the introduction
of slavery here. Civil rights have not secured
for us “a fairly level playing field” but only opened
up other means by which immigrants and people
of color are disenfranchised.
As a U.S-born mixed-race Bengali Indian my physical
appearance makes me a target for most antiminority
hatred. As a young adolescent visiting the pre-Civil Rights
South, I was refused service in a restaurant because of the
color of my skin regardless of the fact that I was not African-American. I fear being stopped by law enforcement
because I can pass for a Latina.
You give your readers false hopes about their experience
in this country. Yes, many have come here and been
extremely successful but they were already successful in
India and came here with education, job skills, and perhaps
some economic resources. In addition, many had
friends and families already established here who could
offer support and guidance while acclimating to the area.
Contrast this to many of the poor and jobless workers from
Latin America who come here to escape crushing poverty
in their countries only to find that their presence is not
welcome, even though they are willing to work at menial
jobs most Americans wouldn’t dream of doing.
Yes, perhaps Indians can come to this country and
find their “mecca” but don’t think the U.S. is “close to
perfect in allowing its minorities their unique identities,
providing them with security, and ensuring them equity.”
On the contrary, there will never be equity or security
for immigrants in this country so long as the majority
of the dominant culture continues to push policies that
fuel hatred and division. I strongly suggest that you and
your readers familiarize yourselves with not only the
history of race relations but the present state of race
relations in this country. Perhaps then you might find
that the U.S. is not the “best of both worlds” as you or
your readers envision it to be.
Beatriz Golden-Hayes
Atlanta, Georgia
Are Indians thriving in
South Africa?
Archana Shah’s article, an excellent summary of
South African history and a telling portrayal of the status
of the Indian community, was especially meaningful to
me on account of its similarities to Kenyan history.
Last summer, a wedding in the family took me to Kenya
for the umpteenth time. From there I went to South
Africa for the first time. It was a short five-day visit to Cape
Town and its surroundings, but it confirmed Archana’s
story about the Indian dilemma: to stay or to leave.
Our highly educated Muslim tour company owneroperator
and his partners and the mainly Hindu senior
management at the franchised upscale hotel in Cape
Town had never been to India and didn’t know where their
ancestors lived in India. These successful Indian professionals
and entrepreneurs enjoy a good standard of living
and see a bright future for their children. They could buy
homes in formerly exclusive white residential areas, send
their children to what were once segregated universities,
and get corporate positions if they qualified. Merit and
money overcame affirmative-action-based post-apartheid
discrimination in most cases.
It was the marginalized who were willing to leave
but lacked education, employability, or financial means
to do so.
The situation in Kenya was similar. The heterogenous
Indian communities in Kenyan townships, especially in
Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa, like their counterparts
in Durban and Johannesburg, had weighed the climate
of crime, discrimination, and harrassment, against their
deep roots, their comfortable life, even behind their “fortress
homes,” and new or more economic opportunities in
the rapidly globalizing economy.
Both Kenya with its third-world infrastructure
and first-world criminals and South Africa with its
first-world characteristics offer what the author has
ascribed to South Africa: “temperate weather, sunny
days, stunning landscapes, a diverse culture.” They
are worth visiting. Indian tourists, like all tourists, should
exercise caution.
We do plan to visit South Africa again.
Nizar A. Motani
Atlanta, Georgia
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