Aaron~ Thanks for the comments and the hysterical story. I think you're right that the fiction of the untouched culture is similar across immigrant groups. If we start thinking of it that way--as something that stems not from our "true" desi nature, but from migration, then it certainly opens up a lot of opportunities to imagine our community in new ways, doesn't it?! Appreciate your response and looking forward to more. Cheers, Smitha

Hello,

Thanks for your podcast-- very interesting thoughts, as always. I have one fairly obvious observation to make, that may support your comments about
some portions of American desi society trying to preserve a pure Hindu culture untouched: Many other recent and not-so-recent immigrant groups also try to preserve their cultures in a "pure" state, to a degree that it becomes a frozen caricature of an evolving society.

Here's one slightly humorous and fictional example, from Garrison Keillor's novel Wobegone Boy (1997), regarding Norwegian immigrants in Minnesota and their relationship with the motherland (pp.66-7):

"Every few years, the King and Queen of Norway pay a visit to Minnesota, and they are driven around to Lutheran colleges and churches and old-folks homes and museums, where they inspect the rose paintings and the hardanger lace and they make about fifty personal appearances in four days and at each appearance they wave to crowds of blue-eyed geezers and listen to a choir of flaxen-haired children in eighteenth century peasant costumes sing in unintelligible Norwegian a song about maidens gathering birch boughs that nobody in Norway has sung for a hundred years and the King and Queen are given big plates of pickled herring and killer Norwegian pastry and they sit through a speech or two or three about the heroism and industry and faith of the emigrants, and after four days of this pounding punishment they fly home to Oslo and are whisked back to the palace and change into their jeans and T-shirts and open a bottle of white Bordeaux, put a Duke Ellington CD on the stereo, and fix themselves a green salad and a plate of chicken quesadillas, and they look at each other and say 'Who in the hell were those people? They couldn't have been Norwegians! They seemed so--so backward.'"

-Aaron

Pandrinath & Priya~ Thanks for taking the time to comment and for your constructive thoughts. I'm glad you enjoy the shows and feel like you get something out of it. About the model minority thing, I guess that's exactly what I'm trying to question: should we be so focused on being a model minority? A "model" for whom?? It's an open topic. In any case, thanks for your input and support and looking forward to hearing from you again! Cheers,Smitha