South Asian Youth: Socio-Cultural and Educational Challenges and Opportunities: 11:45 AM Amita Gupta and students

Amita Gupta:

 

Hello everybody. I think we’ll begin to; we’re ready to begin the next panel, so if you could take seats and settle down. Hey, good morning everyone. My name is Amita Gupta. I’m assistant Professor of Education at the City College of New York. Before I begin this panel, I just want to commend the earlier two sessions with some very valuable thoughts and very stimulating conversation, so thank you very much. The next panel is now going to focus on some of the issues: social, cultural, education and others that South Asian youth are facing and continue to face. You know… students in the young adult form such a vital and such a critical component of the South Asian community. And I don’t think that they get nearly enough focus to voice their ideas to share their experiences, their prospective. And I don’t think we create adequate time and space for them to do that and so I was just very thrill to have this opportunity to put this panel together and which we would focus exclusively on South Asian youth. Because as you heard, they are leaders of tomorrow, they are the politicians of tomorrow, they are the human rights activists of tomorrow, so we just need to be remindful of that and have them participate in larger conferences and forums like this. I have a very esteem panel here consisting of a young faculty and students and I am thrill that they are able to be here. One of our panelists will focus on her experiences on teaching students in Bangladesh but most of the other discussions will focus on South Asian’s youth in the United States. And suggest to set the stage of that… children of immigrant family seem to live in that neither/nor world. It’s a world which is neither fully the world of their parents cultures and nor it is fully the world of the culture that they are being raised in. It’s somewhat that third space which consists of an amalgamation of the bad news and the attitudes and the codes of conducts and the behaviors and the languages that are reflected from the other cultures that surround them. And so the predominate question that they live with is who am I? And in trying to seek this, seek answer to this question and trying to seek some sort of cultural balance, they live with this constant negotiation of or between the biggest dimensions of the various cultures that are surround them. And you know, the constantly trying to understand with what this cultural balance is and what cultural elements from the environment do they catch? Because their environment changes so rapidly, one set of values and one set of attitudes and behaviors that are completely appropriate one moment can suddenly become inappropriate, in another context in the very next moment. And so this question proceed, who am I and where do I fit and what parts of culture do I hold on to? But to hear more about that, I’m going to turn it over to the panel and we’re going to start with Rifat Salam and we find this instruction to the social science department of the borough Manhattan community college and is currently completing her PhD in sociology at NYU and the title of her presentation is “Second generation South Asia Americans ethnic identity, cultural conflict and continuity.” We are going to break them all and then just sit and talk, okay.

 

Rifat Salam:

 

The presentation that I am going to give you today is a little different from what I originally planned, which was more academic and sociological. But in, in the… given the time that I have and to give more time to all of the wonderful people that I’m sure we will be listen to. I wanted to cut it down and change it around a little bit. Just to give you a little bit of a background to who are we talking about when we say second generation for the purpose of my studies, these were the children or these are the children of 1965 which means that their parents immigrated to the U.S in that post-1965 through the 1970s and it is a very specific kind of colewort, their coming from middle to upper middle class background their parents were mostly professional and in quite a fact, I am very familiar with Professor Sara n’s work and their basically the children of the people that he studied so there is a unique colewort but I think that some of the things that I’ve learned from them sometimes I’ll say we… an hour because I am from that generation as well can still apply to future second generation or future colewort. I’ll tell you a little bit of… personal anecdote to kind of describe some of the experiences that people had. When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the mid-70s okay, it was a big deal to try to get them to understand that I was not a native American Indian and every year you know for the American history pageant I had to be in a Indian chief with the head dress (laughter from viewers) I kid you not, usually there were some prettier longer hair indo-Caribbean girl who got to be Pocahontas but not me, so we grew up with a lot of these confusions we had this double identity of having to be Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Annapolis, whenever at home and having to be a American at school and in the outside world so there is this double life that we talked about so here are some of the things that I have observed. Well first let me talk about how the rest of the world sees us, okay, so there have been a lot of attention like you know, Newsweek and all of these different publication that talk about the second generation and arrange marriages and they all marry people they know and this is something that a lot of people are concern about because arranged marriage is interesting, its exotic you know, everybody wants to know about it and people have constantly asked me about my own arrange marriage which didn’t really happened so it, it form like a kind of a crux of my research project because what I wanted to get to was how dating and the idea or choices around marriage tell us about this generation becoming American. And so I am going to frame this in terms of the dilemma okay. Here are the dilemma that the second generation has faced and I think this applies to every second generation particularly it is acute for South Asian because so many of our cultural norms like arrange marriage, like norms around gender and gender expectations are so in conflict with mainstream American cultural values. So these are things that are especially highlighted. The really at the heart of it, is the choice between personal fulfillment and individual autonomy, what we want as individual versus family duty, our loyalty to family, and our loyalty to our ethnic community, okay. And a lot of us make the choice seem really easy you know we are the image of the second generation, the Indian especially but South Asian in general are pretty much look like the fulfillment of the model minority dream right. We’re successful a lot of us and the ones that aren’t, are not visible okay. We are accelerating in finances, academics, medicines, engineering you name it, alright but at the same time we have a lot of personal life choices that we are making that involve a lot of compromise, negotiation, and sometime even heartache, right. And some of you, you know I’m sure of have experienced that and we can talk about that. So at the heart of it, is this tension between the ethnic community and family and individual autonomy and where does it fall. The image of the second generation is that basically their very good and listen to their parents and eventually they’ll do what their parents want and it may look like that, they might look like their having arrange marriage but what I found in my research is that nobody really had quote and quote traditional arrange marriages even those who look traditional you know probably one of the big categories that I found, they are dating, they’re being set up on blind dates but not having what’s call a quote and quote arrange marriages. They believe that marrying someone of their same background will make them happier and they feel that is an individual choice that they made and it’s great that their parents are happy about it as well. The second category of people that I found in terms of their life choices is that they really are open and this to, to whom ever they might choose to marry and their dating lives were very much varying away from traditional South Asian you know, courtship norm lets say and their opening to marry someone of the same background or not right and their the ones that have to make more compromises and negotiations with their families underlined all of this for the second generation is this fear of being rejected by their ethnic community and their family right. We don’t necessarily talk about it but we whisper about people who’s parents kick them out or you know cut them off or you know disown them right so a lot of us have this fear as we make our life choices but here is the thing, a lot of parents are flexible and negotiate as well which is for some people is unexpected because there is this idea that tradition that you can’t break so there is negotiation and compromise on both sides when talking about intergenerational relationships so what does this mean for us? It means that on the micro-level of the experiences of the second generation are a lot more complicated than they do everything they are suppose to or they’re really not fully American because they keep to themselves right that’s you know stereotype that people have of South Asian. They’re very successful but they keep to themselves right and I think that those attitudes marginalize and exoticize South Asian community and stand as a barrier to full participation in American society. And what I hope is in recognizing the negotiation and compromises and the struggles that the second generation faces will see that their experiences are not so different from prior second generations of immigrant to the United States and that they are on the road if not already there to full participation in American society. Thank you. (applause from viewers)    

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Thank you Rifat. Next speaker is Samina Shahidi is… who’s actually a lecturer in English and composition at Lehman College. And she is currently pursuing a doctorate at the City University of New York in composition rhetoric of post-colonial literature and women studies. The title of her presentation is writing from third spaces “student negotiation of ideology, gender and literacy.”

 

Samina Shahidi:

 

I wanted to thank Amita for this wonderful panel and AAARI also for putting on this conference. It’s an honor to be here. Well, I teach at Lehman College which is a predominately working class and of color school in the Bronx and working there had supported me amazing opportunity to talk Muslims, South Asians students as they are working towards education, working towards their educational goals, and I was thinking about some of the student in my classes and some of the Muslim students at Lehman College and in classes of my colleagues and also thinking about that the kind of time we live in. It is such an ideology fraud time especially if you are a Muslim and also that part of this language of ideology that is taken place is this language that categorize Muslim women and I guess one example would be just when we, when you think of, if you, in your mind think of what a Muslim women looks like you know, you might have an idea that you know is, maybe you see her looking a certain way, one way you know a job door, you know, very quiet or not really taking part in her education, not taking part in her political system. And so these are the kinds of images, I think are a part of vocabulary that takes place even in classroom. And so I thought what would it be like if we, what is it like for a young Muslim undergraduate woman to negotiate that kind of ideology in the classroom. How does she deal with that kinds of you know issues at home? How does she try to make her way? How does she negotiate the kinds of issues that she has to in this culture? And then also find her own voice? So basically I am looking at this particularly issue through the framework of composition rhetoric which is my field. And composition rhetoric is quite briefly the study of knowledge making through writing and literacy. And so I thought I would use three frameworks that are being discussed either compositional rhetoric or believe or not literary theory. There is a use for it, to see how these young students actually get through their educations. So the first framework that I like to talk about is the context zone of and it’s basically a framework of looking at the classroom in terms of the kinds of values and assumptions about values that are made in the classroom when you, when students are being educated, you know the kind of textbooks that you are given, the kind of discourse that takes place, the kind of assumptions that are value that are taken for granted. And the context zone is basically a way of looking at what happens in our classroom? What kind of text we assign and what are the results of these texts on our students? How do our student kind of… you know, what happens when… lets say, you walk into a classroom and you know, you are given a textbook that shows the community that you are a part of in one representation and that representation may not be what your representation is or it may not speak for all of the different kinds of you know, identity that exists. And so… you know, this idea of the context zone is that the classroom is a place where there is a lot of marginalization that takes place and I am going to give you a definition by there is a Mary Louise Pratt, who came up with this framework. And hopefully that will… this will kind of anchor this, this idea. The context zone, we uses this term Mary Louise Pratt to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grabble with each other, often in context of highly ace sub-metrical relation of power such as colonialism, slavery or their aftermath as they are lived out in many parts of the world today. Eventually, Pratt will use this term to reconsider the model of community that many of us rely on in teaching, theorizing, and that are under challenge today. So basically, Pratt’s theory underscores several unarticulated dynamics that take place in classroom. The first one is that writing or literacy, automatically unite participants in a share community. We all speak the same language, we all have the same values, we all work on the same assumption, we are going the same places, and we want to go to the same places. Be that in which the language in the community is, similarly share or device in constructing a world of uniform, more in world views. And finally the idea of what Pratt’s term use universal, universally shared literacy. That there is a single conception of what literacy is. How it’s constructed? How it works? And what it achieves? For example, this idea of a universally shared literacy could mean the western cannon right. That what the western cannon itself, if you know the great books of the western cannon. You are literate. So having to take into account of this criterion, had argued as the essential construction to the classroom. We’re left with the conclusion that the un-examined classroom is based on, on several kinds of exclusion. So how might… question, you know, several questions came up for me as I was, you know, kind of thinking about this theory and thinking about how my classroom in teaching and how students experience the classroom? I also thought about well, how does the classroom become a sight of unquestioned representation, particularly in the case of Muslim women? And so I like to illustrate this idea with, the case of the Pakistani American student, I interview and her name is Saria Butt and Saria Butt gave her permission for this presentation. She, Saria Butt is a Pakistani descent. Her family moved to the United Arab Emerits and then they moved here. She wants to become English as a second language teacher. She’s fluent and literate and in Urdu. Here are some of the issues that she is going to have to deal with. She has a limited number of years before her parents…in school before her parents ask her to get married, so right now, she’s taking as many courses as she can and she is really loading up on credits, so that she can get her master. That’s her goal. She has to… she is asking herself questions about what will happen to her degree after she gets married. She wants to continue to teach… but she is getting the impression that… you know, after she does get marry, teaching may not be a priority in her household. So she’s at this place, right, where she’s got to think about what she is really focusing on, her coping mechanism, right now, is to just try to get through school. On a couple of other factors, her mom didn’t, her mother’s side didn’t attend college, her father’s side has, so there is kind of this, you know, there is two different experiences with college in her family. And she’s often silent in her classes because she is self-conscious of her ESL skills. And so, you know when she is face with… let’s say, representation of a Muslim woman in a class that she finds… one dimensional or maybe one, she doesn’t say anything. She gives me an example of being in an sociology class and watching a film called “Passages of life” where the discussion of Muslim women basically was represented by an image of a Muslim woman who was covered and a voice of her said and the Muslim’s wife will, the Muslim’s woman family will choose her husband and that was it. It was just that kind of whole discourse, was just, well you know, kind of collapse in to that moment and there wasn’t… that was it. There was no other discussion about it. And she was quiet during these discussions, so that’s something to think about. The second thing I wanted to bring up was this idea of how students negotiate ideology and language and the framework that I was using to think about that was one proposed by Ming Chung Lu, who’s a Chinese American, composition rhetoric theorist and wrote very profoundly about how language symbolizes ideology and how and writes about how as a child in China during the communist. During communism, had to kind of practice two kinds of languages. The first one was this Chinese communism or this language of, of the communist ideology of China and then this liberal arts language that her family was trying to teach her at home. And so for her, it is kind of a code switching, you move from one code to another. And for her, this kind of code switching was very confusing for her. I mean she, she… at point, she’s kind of trying to figure out, you know, what if I lose my language, there was this conflict, in terms of her moving from, moving from thinking about who she was. And one sphere and moving about, you know, a conflict of who she was and another sphere. So I thought that was an interesting thing to look at and one person that does this or has talked about doing this is Nuzra Choudhry who’s a Bangladesh American student at Lehman College. Ms. Rutt is also another interesting person to think about. She’s first year honor roll student. She’s a math major. She attended private school and being in private school as a high school student, she was aware of many class issues and so basically she sees herself as someone who is constantly arguing the other side, when she is in Bangladesh, she argues on the side of being an American, when she is in America, she is always arguing on the side of her Muslim identification. But… so you know, these are some of the, the kinds of ways that these students are kind of dealing with what they do in the classroom. (applause from viewers)  

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Thank you Samina. And I know, I know there is so much that you want to share. Please feel free to continue the conversation over lunch and over breaks and you know, throughout the day. But Rifat and Samina by sharing their research has very nicely framed, staged for the next speakers who are actually going to talk about their personal experiences and shared their narratives of how they grappled with specific issues and to start off… our students here is Sohana Barot who is an undergrad student in the department of political science at the City College of New York. Sahanna will share her experiences of growing up Indian in the U.S and the challenges of grappling with issues of self-identity.

 

Sohana Barot:

 

I am almost 19 years old. I was born in Tarrytown, New York and I’m first generation and my parents were born in India. Growing up in India, my very, very traditional culture, so they have very traditional ideals. When I was growing up, I was faced with three scenarios of what kind of person I would be? I was faced with… okay; I could be too Indian, completely, completely Indian and American and not fit in at all with Americans. I could be too Indian or I could be too Americans and not fit in with India culture, completely, completely devouring my heritage. And then I could be a happy medium, I would be a little bit of Indian, a little bit of American, but I still wouldn’t fit in with the American culture, I still wouldn’t fit in with the Indian culture. When I was growing up, I… it was in my house, we learned good draughty. I learned how to speak it; I could speak it very well when I was very little. Whenever I went to India, I was with my cousins and I spoke it sometimes and I had an American accent. They did not like it at all; they teased me mercilessly on it. My aunts and uncles, that were so adorable, and I did not like that at all as well. So I was very turned off to speaking in draughty to begin with. Because of that I just stopped using it over awhile and it just left my mind. When I was little, I also did not like wearing ‘’, I wear American clothing all the time and I was so use to wearing American clothing, I didn’t really like the change by wearing something so traditional, so I was also too embarrass to wear those even when I was in India. When I was growing up in America, when I was not visiting India, I had probably only one or two close Indian friends and it was an awkward canny, so we didn’t really act Indian when I was with them. We acted just basically borderline. We acted Indian, we acted American. It was our little culture. I was not very close with them as well. So there were no real bases of an Indian community when I was growing up. I was actually kind of scared of being in an Indian community. We did have Indian cultural society in America, Indian cultural society of Rockland County. I used to go to their functions and their dances and I’d see all these people wearing Indian garbs, sarees, ‘salwar kameez’ and they were speaking all these different languages and I was scared of them. They’re too Indian for me and I just was wanting to fit in with something and right now, its just American culture that’s beckoning to me because I was growing up that way. Right now I have, in college, Indian friends, they don’t quite believe I am Indian though, when they first met me. They thought I was Hispanic, Sicilian. I didn’t act Indian. I didn’t speak with an accent. I basically acted American. I was actually called White once by one of my friends. I find it disheartening because I’m very interested in Indian culture. I just recently started learning draughty with my American accent. I won’t say any words to you now because I had enough laughter to begin with. So I like wearing clothes like I’m wearing right now. I like wearing ‘salwar kameez’. I just can’t feel comfortable wearing it in New York though, like if I went outside in the tradition of a ‘salwar kameez, I would feel so unsure of myself because it’s out of the norm. And I consider myself American as well as Indian. I speak like an American and so to have that kind of impression of Americans looking at me that way as too Indian, shocks me a little bit. In other words, how I grew up, I kind of became a little bit too conservative for American culture and too wild for Indian culture. A funny little story, when I was in India with my cousins and I started whistling and my male cousins were just like don’t whistle, don’t whistle, snake will come and get you (laughter from someone) and then I, like my cousins was on a bike and I was starting to run beside her and she’s like don’t run, its not lady-like. So yeah, it was pretty interesting. I also found it interesting that I was stronger than a lot of my male cousins. (laughter from viewers) I was on a canoeing team. So I was very tom boyish for them even though I am girly for an American standard. With Indian culture, it’s kind of stereotypical to go into the sciences and mathematics. I was bio-chemistry my first semester in college. I am currently in my second semester of college and now a political science major. Completely, completely threw away sciences and became political science major, when I told my parents, they freaked out to put it in the right terms. They were like you’re not going to make money and then their like okay, fine, you might make some money (laughter from viewers) and they started doing all this research. I’m actually kind of lucky and how I grew up because of my sister. She’s older than me by 7 years and she paved the road for me. My parents are very lenient with me now and a lot more lenient with me than with my sister. She is still fighting with them in many aspects of getting her freedom. But in general, I do consider myself an ABCD, an American Born Confused Desi saying that’s all I am. (laughter and applause from viewers)

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Thank you Sohana and I’m sure Sohana’s stories will resonate with a lot of you sitting here at this audience and surely sound familiar. For our next speaker we have Rimaz Hussain, who is an undergrad student in the department of Physics, education at the City College of New York. And Rimaz will share his experiences in school expectation and academic work having arrived in the U.S as a high school student from Sri Lanka.

 

Rimaz Hussain:

 

Good Afternoon. I arrived here around about 5 years ago and I was born in Sri Lanka, Colombo and I was educated at an English Medium school, so when I arrived here, I was able to speak English already. But the common perception is that when, if you’re an immigrant, you can’t speak English and when I open my mouth and start speaking, people always tell me that ‘oh’ you caught up to the language very fast (laughter from viewers) and I’m like no, I started with English. It was, well, it wasn’t my first language, it was a mixture of language, I’m trilingual. So I was brought up with three languages. I do not know which one of them is my main language so that is in a way my identity, which… but when you stop speaking some languages like when I’m in America I didn’t get to speak Tamil which I believe some of you, what we know, can speak (“yeah” from viewers) but if I do start speaking Tamil, I start to realize that I’ve forgotten so much, but that’s my transition into America. And talking about education, back in Sri Lanka they used the British system of education so you have to take your O levels, A levels and the exams were tough. The classes were really, really tough. And coming to America they expect me to, as I said, not speak English as well so they tend to be put me into classes that were easier, regents classes. They did not put me into ESL classes so I skip from that, but they did put me into regents classes, and I had to work my way through into Honors and into AP so by 12^th grade, I ended up taking most of the AP classes. What else… yes… and also at being a Muslim, being a special at the time of… at of today’s great woe, it was kind of hard especially being an immigrant. Most of the people of the people in [inaudible] are first generation and I’m not. I’m still not a citizen or a resident, I’m still an immigrant. So it also plays into my college life and my identity. Yes… but overall… the transition from Sri Lankan education to American standards was not that hard for me. It was very easy I got through classes very easy. But getting to college was a whole different story. I’m having trouble with my Science classes, which some of my Indian friends… well I have a lot of Indian friends (laughter from viewers). I was talking to one of my friends yesterday and I told her I’m having problems with CHEM 104, and she was like “dude you’re brown, you shouldn’t have any problems.” (laughter from viewers) What is that suppose to mean? So it becomes a statement not only in the eyes of an American but in the Indian culture, in the South Asian culture too. So which kind of upset me now wait because I love physics that’s why I’m doing, that’s why it’s my major and I love education so I’m getting the education. But in the other hand my love is in photography, I love taking pictures. But my parents can not understand if I told them I want to do photography or film making and be like “What!?” (laughter from viewers) “Why would u do that?” And mostly my mom would do that. But it’s hard and well I’ve chosen to take this path through college, things might change and I hope it does. (laughter and applause from viewers)

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Thank you Rimaz. And next is Ruhma Chowdhry, who is a doctoral student in TESOL Columbia University. And Ruhma will speak about perceptions of South Asians as second language English speakers and the reactions of students in Bangladesh taking the TOEFL exams. Ruhma is also a representative of the S.A.V.E. organization, which is the South Asian Voices and Education, a student organization at Teachers College Columbia University.

 

Ruhma Choudhry:

 

Just picking up on the thing introduced by Rimaz people around my… I’m sorry I got your name wrong… that South Asians who come to this country are labeled as second language speakers because they speak a different variety of English. I’m just going to speak about international who come to the U.S. for higher studies. It’s just that when you come here, one of the things that you are required to do is to take the test, which is known as TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) regardless of your proficiency in that language. Most countries in South Asia, they have English either as an official language or a foreign language or a second language. And many children actually grow up with English as their second or first language. Many of them speak it as native speakers; however, when they apply to come to the U.S., they have to take that test. Whereas, when I first applied here, I … because I have a degree, a Bachelor’s degree in English and I also taught English back home in Bangladesh, I automatically assumed I wouldn’t be taking this test. So I wrote to school here saying “Can I be exempted?” So the response was “No, you don’t come from an English speaking country, therefore you have to take it.” So this is the experience that many international students coming from the region face. So what does that mean, I mean… I regard this label: second language speaker, with mixed feelings because I do consider English to be part of my identity. It is my language, yes it exist along side my other languages but it is fair so when someone gives it a different label, automatically I question my identity. See… am I not an authority on that language anymore? Is it someone else’s language and of course a lot of my fellow friends who are here studying, they mention that their… because their accent is different so their variety again, seen as something alien and they talk about how their sentences are considered flowery. And some of them, as he has mentioned, like you got comments like “Oh! You speak good English” (giggles from viewers) as if you picked it out… picked up the language here but you have done that back home. So how do you regard this custom? It becomes an irritant for people who think that they know the language but they still have to take it. Also TOEFL doesn’t really measure the kind of proficiency required in academic studies here. So it’s not testing what it’s meant to test as it is. So naturally there’s a label of frustration attached to that. And I’ve just spoken to some people earlier, right before the panel settled, and they said even here, even if you studied here, in prior you know… secondary schools like high school, you’re still required to take TOEFL. And which is strange because they speak English as a first language. So now I’m just going to talk a little bit about students who are late back home in Bangladesh, who want to come here. Some of the students have low proficiency of the language and they then regard TOEFL as a barrier to coming here. They know the subject matter pretty well and they score high on those tests. However, because their proficiency is low, they don’t score very high on the TOEFL. As a result they can not come here. So the transition isn’t there with them. So when I go home, so they ask me how to prepare for this test. They find American accent difficult to follow because you have a listening component to the test and they’re not familiar with the idioms that are used here. Also they have trouble with spoken components as well. They’re saying that they’re taped, and they get low score because of people who are scoring them sometimes don’t understand their accent. So these are issues that I have with the test TOEFL and how it could be either barrier or irritant depending on the level of proficiency in that language. (applause from viewers)

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Thank you Ruhma. And now we have… we’re back to our panel of faculty now, and Nilofur Haque is assistant professor of Physical and Biological Sciences at the New York City College of Technology. And based on interviews and her conversations with young Asians… young South Asians, Nilofur will present the first hand analysis of growing pains that they have experience confronted and have had to overcome in their daily lives.

Nilofur Haque:

 

Good afternoon. Please bear with my laryngitis because I have a problem. So if I start choking (laughter from viewers) that’s because I need to take a pause. I’ll admit an advantage… suppose that this morning that I have been listening to the different speakers I feel that I am at an advantage because all the issues that we see as my knowledge I have a number of knowledges to my plate. I come from Southeast Asia… third world country, India and I’m a Muslim. And being a woman that must mean a special category (giggles from the viewers). I was brought up in the British system of education but I never had the problem with language. In fact I ended up being more fluent in English than my own at that time, though I speak a number of different languages. I was sent to British schools because that was an opportunity my parents thought which was put me in the league, above others. It was not easy; there were five of us. And the bills… they had to put up a lot of effort to bring us to that level. I never realize it at the time, but I do now. Towards my ‘O’ levels, my parents started thinking that I was getting too British with fundamental ideas about freedom, women’s independence, etc. And to back me up, the Minority Institution, which is the Aligarh Muslim University, which is the biggest residential university of the country. It was one of the Ivy League universities in my country. And my father was thrilled when he was waiting at the gates of the hostel because it had big highlights was. (laughter from viewers) Since I was in school most of the time it was jeans and sneakers at all school types. At special occasions yes we dress up. Eat, but great in any festival we have traditional dresses with all the trinkets attached. It was fun then… we look forward to it because it meant… the festival meant a lot of celebration; free time no homework. (giggles from viewers) And the parents were happy with us because we were good kids. At the dinner I learned that being isolated in a culture does not necessarily mean that you can not progress. The progress depends on the individual’s endeavors. Because as I in life, as we endeavor, there’s no limit. We set the limits. We find excuses that I can not do it because it could be any one of them attached to it. I never thought, as I was growing up, that if anything was impossible. If something I rather could do, I think I could do better, and I usually did. After my education, when I came abroad, because there was nothing left, you could say that you did not have a choice of the subjects that I want to be a journalist. As I was growing up, my father said no way you can become a female journalist you go around all those magazines. You get your masters, you going to medicines, study science and then become a national geographic journalist. (laughter from viewers) I did not dare, I was the oldest, that I did not dare to defy. So I attended science, you think that also because science meant that to study science, social status also goes up. That’s not the case… it has nothing to do so much with securities nor in terms of the intellectual capacity just to believe that if you tried to study science, he or she is smart and will be able to make it. It is different that medicine means you can be independent you are not dependent on someone for your security, for your earnings, for your financial security. [Inaudible] science to become a neuron-scientist. 12 years in research, I was cooped up in labs where I was there before sunrise and most of the times when I walk out and when the changing seasons I will only know when the snow was overlying or when the leaves are falling because I will not see the daylight and I do not have an idea of what was the weather outside, what was the season and years flew by. When I came to America I was thinking that there’s so many things growing up with the parents and I will discuss, I felt that they did this because I was a girl. You’re suppose to dress up a certain way, you have to wear your scarf puck up. Sometimes it was difficult, why should I wear it with a top on a bell bottom, a t-shirt… it was atrocity, what will they think. My father likes to hang around the kitchen and then my mother was always upset, what will the neighbors say. You have two grown up daughters and you are in the kitchen, your girls are no good. They don’t know how to take care of their homes. When I was coming abroad, I got the job by pursuing my PhD. I was one of the first girls to come abroad on a job from my university. Most of the girls came abroad because they got married to someone who was overseas. So when the chairman came with the appointment letter, the provost and the warden opened it thinking it would have some bad news. Everybody knew, before me, that I had been offered a particular job. As I even calculated, in terms of the foreign currency, how much I will be earning… (laughter from viewers) I had no idea, so I spent about four years in Africa. And I love to travel, and I think that was the basis of the education that I have had. Learning about different people and that within their own circumstances, and knowing they’re better, and making more fluent many of the [inaudible] that I’ve had. Coming to America, I thought, “the sky’s the limit”. But when I came here, I found, there are limitations here too. Not just as a South East Asians some of the families said in terms of language you can speak to me. It doesn’t matter what falls for what position, understood? You speak very good English. How long have you been here? No matter what I tell, I can see the expression in the eye, they don’t really believe that I could have had that handle back on from before. They would often say, “This is the place for you, you can protest. You won’t have the limitation as a Muslim woman back in country you have the restrictions. Your appearance will choose this for you.” I couldn’t, still I tried my own way to tell them that is not so. Yes, there are restrictions there, there are restrictions here. It’s a social system. It has nothing to do with religion. It’s a culture identity to which we stick to hang on more for our own security because we look different we feel different. The difference should enter the system, not make it poorer. Over here, after I came back into the academy here, the last two, three years that I’ve been teaching, I have had the opportunity of meeting many of the younger people. Sometimes, it’s very frustrating, especially when you are teaching sciences and imagine finding a student from human resources sitting in that class. Very frustrated and wondering why he or she is there. The professors advised that it is only for [inaudible] like proper guidance. There are many scholarships here for minority students. Minority meaning African American, Hispanic, or Indian Americans. After the 65 abolishing of the National Origin Restrictions Immigration, at the time, there were about 15,000 immigrants. By, 1980, the number rose to 500,000 and that’s your [inaudible] by the boom of the dark common history of the late ‘90s. The number has gone overboard. The numbers don’t mean anything because I feel everyone, generations opinion about their personal problems is not so isolated. It’s a common problem for every generation, in every nation at every part of the world. This is how we interpret; we feel that now that we are in America we cannot do it. But, the restriction is because we feel that we are not taking what we want because there is a destination. The parents still think because they had a job as a doctor or engineer when they came here, they try to [inaudible] with security. It is encouraging to see that on MTV, on CNN, on other Medias, Newsweek, etcetera, how many of our younger generation [inaudible] etcetera they are making their mark. It’s up to them so there’s still hope. I don’t think that we should feel so dishearten that we are not getting any where. By next ten years, it is expected that one-third of the population will be endless. There are 15 percent students at my campus of Asian origin. Out of that 80 percent make it to the Dean’s list I think what we should focus on is that we’re here and we are here to stay. We should establish the scholarship programs to encourage us to pursue the dreams. In order to do that, you have to make sure that instead of drawing up fashionable conversation; we do something and put all our efforts together to unify. Thank You. (Audience Applause)

 

Amita Gupta:

Thank you Nilofur for arriving and participating despite your throat; and thank you for your poignant and personal narrative. Thank you for sharing that with us and after having all of the panelists speak, it just leaves me convinced that I think we need an entire conference dedicated to South Asian youth at some point so we can hear more of their perspectives so, but I do want to, I think what we’ve done is highlighted some issues that South Asian youth are currently facing adeptly and continue to do so and we wanted to really open the hour to the discussion and the comments because I know as I said earlier, I’m sure a lot of you find these stories familiar and close to heart so we’ll open it for comments and questions.

 

A Speaker from the Audience:

 

Every one of the presenters have touched just some degree on the price of difference and that’s laudable but I’m looking at the panel and just thinking back to the people who spoke before you. My question is, is the discourse on Asian Americans usually, significantly shaped by scholars from Bangladesh, India, or Pakistan?

 

Panelist:

 

I’m not sure I understood your question, could you just repeat that?

 

A Speaker from the Audience:

 

The people who’ve presented so far have either been from Bangladesh.

 

Amita Gupta:

 

You mean all the panels or just…? OK

 

A Speaker from the Audience:

 

Right. So my question is, is the discourse on ancient Asian Americans usually, significantly shaped by people from those three countries or not?

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Does anybody want to take that?

 

Nilofur Haque:

 

Incidentally, we had discussed about it prior to when we were ending because it was quite a short notice and we that you have to involve the different communities but as you can see, this is a feeler to find what are the aspects that we would be glad to discuss in the future and it would be, I suppose we have discussed earlier that it would be interesting to take speakers and Indians from different Asian communities to participate and find what are the common factors.

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Thank you. I think Dr. Saran has a…

 

Parmatama Saran:

 

If I may just add a comment to your question, it does actually quite matter to be honest, Bangladesh, Pakistan, or India and these are different countries now but we present pretty much same heritage, background, and culture so there is a common tread, you know, no matter who the speaker is, whether he or she is coming from.

 

A Speaker from the Audience:

 

Would it be different if we have people from China as well and [inaudible]

 

Parmatama Saran:

 

Of course, yeah, there is some difference but there… sure, yeah

 

A Speaker from the Audience:

 

That’s my concern.

 

Sohana Barot:

 

Well, let me just talk a little bit about it because it’s a whole different issue. I’m not sure if it’s what you’re getting at, but there’s this notion of Asian American and where do South Asians fit within Asian American because in terms of the entire Asian American universe, and most people associate that with East Asians, right? So, South Asians aren’t always under that umbrella although in terms of campus organizing and student organizations, they are and there’s a movement, you know, what is South Asian or Asian Americans but pan ethnicity and pan ethnicity is a strategy used by minorities in order to ban together for some purpose, right. So, there is probably more of a movement for South Asians to get under the Asian American umbrella to organize and have more of a voice. So, I’m not sure if you’re making that distinction or you’re talking about the absence of the other South Asian countries on this panel. OK.

 

Edward Ma:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I feel that this is a very basic question that we’ve all confronted, I myself. I was born, I was born in China, in Tsing Tao the beer, and they went to Taiwan. When I was 15 years old, I went to Taiwan. When I was 30 years old, I came to America. When I was 45 years old, I said, wow [inaudible] American. No, I’m still Chinese. But, as also another question I have several layers, your question several layers. Another layer, I meant, I was confused. When I came here, I talked to my wife, she said, “don’t go to China, its dirty, read English, don’t study Chinese.” Until I met an elderly Chinese poet and she said, I still share with you, she said, if you’re not good at Chinese, you will never be a good American [inaudible] good American, good American. If you’re not a good Chinese how can you be a good American? So now because the here [inaudible] therefore gradually, I think no more of Chinese, less and less of Chinese, less and less Indian but more and more Asian, more and more universal, more and more global image. I think this is the way because of the common technology and common communication putting us together. Faster and faster, we’re getting less and less divided. But at home we’re still eating Chinese food and Indian food, Pakistani Food, but in public, we have to accommodate ourselves with the whole community. Two people, I only hate, two Chinese or three Chinese that’ll talk to you only in Chinese when there are no Chinese speaking people around. That’s discrimination, publicly they can’t communicate Chinese, they’ll have to communicate in English.

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Thank you, there’s still a couple of more questions.

 

A Speaker from the Audience:

 

Actually I would like to answer the question, the questions of South Asian word. Actually if you see like fifteen years ago, there was no South Asian word. Mostly people say Asian, Asian in American culture or American people they think like Chinese people are Asian because we are like nowhere in Asia. So that’s how fifteen years ago, this word came from California and I would say like from ten years, it surrounded all over in America. And now there is a South Asian because if you before, we use to be called Indian, so there was some group like Pakistani or Bangladeshi, and they said no, no, we’re not Indian. We are Pakistani, or we are Bangladeshi and so that’s how the South Asian word I got started. Let’s come together like Latino, so that’s how the South Asian word got started. That we are South Asian, that we are not Chinese. That’s all.

 

Amita Gupta:

 

Thank you. I think there was a realization that Asia is such a diverse region and there’s so much diversity in terms of languages and cultures and values and behaviors and all of that between all the countries in Asia which included, you know, India and Pakistan and China and Japan. So in order to kind of mix up groups, that how South Asia emerges and one region and that is how it is represented.

 

Yes.

 

A Speaker from the Audience:

 

We can go back further with this business about terms. First it was Hindu in the beginning of the 20^th century, then it was East Indian, then we come to South Asian. A lot of you touch the question of change. The change in knowledge, the change of mutual knowledge of Americans who are not from South Asia, about South Asians and about the world they are growing into. I wonder if whether you though that Americans who seem to me living 5 years in South Asian are incredibly providential. Whether Americans are learning or getting more understanding of South Asia, of Muslims from South Asian and of course Muslims in general and of South Asian Americans.

 

Samina Shahidi:

 

Well I think that terms of especially in a classroom and especially through an interdisciplinary curriculum, I mean this is a great place for Americans and South Asian Americans and of course you know just everybody to be able to really just explore the diversity, the issues, you know, a lot of these kinds of issues that are really important. But it has to happen when there’s full representation.

 

Sohana Barot:

 

Let me address another part of that and I’m not sure if this is what you’re talking about. But there’s this great book out by Al Bani called “Remaking the Mainstream,” and the idea is that it’s not just that immigrants are shaped by the mainstream but especially, you know, even in the post 1965 immigrants, but the immigrants themselves change what the mainstream is right? So, I think of even of people, you know, who are ten, fifteen years younger than me, growing up in the mainstream that’s different from the one that I was acculturated in. The things that were considered unknown or exotic about South Asian cultures are much more familiar now. So I think for other people today, there is a difference sense of who they are, right? It’s cool to be ethnic now. But there are all kinds of problems around that, but in a sense that there is a different sort of flavor to growing up Indian or South Asian now than it was a generation ago. I don’t know if that addresses.

 

Amita Gupta:

 

We’ll take just one; well we have to break for lunch, so we’ll just take on more comment.

 

A Speaker from the Audience:

 

I just wanted to ask quickly if you think that particularly [inaudible] I just wanted to ask if you think the biggest challenges for youth, now South Asians in particularly, is communicating with their parents? How much of an impact that is?

 

Sohana Barot:

 

Okay, go ahead. That is a very, very big problem in my family. For example, my grandmother lives with us, and she has a hard time understanding me unfortunately and same with my cousins because of my American accent. My parents as well tend to baby me with the American words and they have a mixture of Draughty-American English words, kind of, but they sometimes slip a couple of Draughty words in. They talk over my head at times. They translate some of the stuff they same sometimes even thought I know what they are saying. There is a definitely a big issue with communication

 

Amita Gupta:

 

I’m sorry, I’m going to have to call it a day here. I know there are many more questions and I know many of you would like to comment on it and talk about it. Again feel free to talk to the panelists over lunch and over the break. But I do appreciate your questions; they’re all very valuable questions. I want to thank the panelists for being here with us. (Audience applause)

 

 

 

Keynote Speech:

 

Parmatma Saran:

 

Please remain seated. [inaudible] the program says, lunch and keynote speech. Lunch is still being set up. We are going to invite our key note speaker who would like to share his parts with us, Mr. Subaro and Professor Nehru. Would you please? It will be a short session and then we’ll go for lunch.

 

Nehru Cherukupalli:

 

Hi my name is Nehru Cherukupalli and I’m part of the AAARI and I’m very happy to invite Mr. Anumolu Subaro to come and give us the key note speech. But before he does that, I would like to say a few words to introduce him to you. As a matter of fact, the key note speech that he’ll be giving in my opinion is perhaps the tribute to the next session after lunch that you’ll be hearing and Mr. Subaro has been the CEO of ASR international of New York. As a matter of fact, he’s sitting over here and I will put him on stage momentary. But he has unique distinctions and the rare privilege of being the only Indian to have been cited by the U.S. congress in June of 2003. The contributions made by him and ASR International Corporation towards providing first rate security assistance for homeland security in the USA. You can read all about him on page 12 and 13 of the brochure you have, but basically, I would like to quote a congresswoman that we have of Carolyn McCarthy who said that Rao has been a shining example of what it means to be a successful businessman, a good neighbor, a caring and generous individual and certainly a loyal and patriotic American citizen. In addition to that, I would like to add that he is to be noted as a good friend for being with us. He has been quite successful and there’s a lot more to say. I would like to in my interview with the keynote speech and I’m very proud to announce the title, which has not been announced, “How Not to Fail in Business” and I am sure I want to listen to this. (Audience applause)

 

Rao S. Anumolu:

 

Yes, I made up the title right here, sitting here. First of all, thank you Dr. Nehru Thank you sir, for inviting me over here and thank you friends. I know South Asians are brilliant people, totally competent, hard working, there are a lot of good things not only in this country but they continue to do this in the back home those people that are there in India and other South Asian countries and even extended into China. South Asians may become a nightmare in the economical, social, and cultural progresses. But the whole world has years to come. Yesterday, I read that we as South Asians are surpassing Europe and American Statistics also show the trends are poor for South Asians, you all should be proud of that. Having said that, disciplinarians, this accomplishment, this educational qualification that you folks are having are the South Asians are having. Someday we’ll get translated into productivity in terms of serving the society creating a good business environment or offering your knowledge, technology or social or other skills to settle the humanity in the process you may like to start a business. And you may – most of you think of business, most of you are likely to start a business, most of you will fail in the business and I hope that none of you will fail in the business. So just to give you the statistics that are compiling out of every 100 businesses that start, in the first to one a year, 90% of them fail in this country recorded to be failed. Out of the balance, 10%. Only 2 to 3 or 4 percent survive after three years. Now, these 3 to 4 or 5 percent that survive, continuously over the period of time in businesses hopefully forever but they also fail. So this afternoon, this lunchtime break keynote speech is you’re worked too hard in your life, you’re educated very well to start with your intelligent people, you are the best of the best, you have to think you are the best and you do so many things, you started as a business, you tried to survive, you did survive, then you don’t want to fail. So that’s my topic this afternoon. There is a relevance to this, there is an importance to this and I thought I’ll address that because that plagues every company everyday and they have to be on the guard and [inaudible]. I want to bring up few points for you to think if maybe shooting over your head some of them but I’ll fill some questions for you in the end. I want you to always think when you’re offering something; you are offering a value to somebody else so that the transaction can take place in a meaningful way that is profitable and economical can do something for you. Having done that, you may miss I have several customer very well but if you fail to follow the government regulations, you can lose your shot. It is not the IRS I am talking, there are several other agencies that are monitoring you. There are eyes senior pockets, there are eyes senior walls, eyes means people are watching so follow all the rules and regulations that are needed. It should not come to you as a surprise at a sermon but that should be, that’s the way to develop your thought processes only then you will succeed or are you not allow yourself to be failed. Also, one of the important things is you will be playing to be hardest problems and you will have to self-calibrate yourself all the time, every time, unless you are committed to do this, don’t go into the business. That means I am asking you to do the impossible. Always try to look at what your back is. You cannot, I cannot see my back but you have to try to see your back all the time. This comes through vision, imagination, perception, loyalty, the many other attributes and your generosity. You have to deal up these traits as you go along in business life or even in personal life for you to succeed. Your vision takes you a long way, your intuition gives you the real spirit to move forward but you cannot fail if you trip here, you will trip forever. However, you’ll take the example of Microsoft, IBM, you don’t hear that much of IBM. You see some fading elements of Microsoft, you see Google coming down. It doesn’t mean they totally failed, it doesn’t that Google is already under upper-scale but the maturity levels of this company are at rich peak and are going down. But for all of you, again, when you set your goals, set it at such a level where you can consistently succeed. Business is constant success day by day and unless you work on these things and look forward and do the forward thinking, you will not continue to – you will not constantly continuously try and succeed. Again, tamper with your good thoughts with good feelings and generosity not only to yourself, to all the people that are surrounding you so that you are a good citizen among all things said because being a good citizen and a good neighbor will help you to succeed too, there is a small compliment to that. Having said these little things, I don’t want to stop the nice legend I’m sure that the real [inaudible] made a little break for me to get in. I think you are all successful people; you are all well-trained, well, highly motivated and intelligent people. I presume if you take the attitude of, I will not fail, I should not fail, I can attribute if business is your choice, you will succeed – you will all succeed 100% and 100% of the time for the lifetime. That’s what I want you to achieve. I started the business and succeeded, I made a million dollars is not the right attitude. I succeeded in the business – I started in the business, I succeeded in the business, I continuously succeeded the business, it should be your attitude. I will request you to think about it, this is just an eye opener and I will request you all so to partake as a sight and I see some good students here and a lot of students here so and a lot of professors and intellectuals here but even one of you, if you separate your thought processes in such a way that success is your motivation, constantly watch yourself the shadow of success so that the shadow is illuminated so that you continually succeed in your universe. A little business or personal life or whatever it is. I really want to thank you sir for giving me this opportunity, Dr Nehru thank you for everything… (audience applause)

 

Nehru Cherukupalli:

 

Thank you Mr. Anumolu that was very nice. Baruch is known as a business college of the city university and here is a gentleman who has been able to be a successful businessman and telling you on how not to fail. I think that’s an interesting thing. I think we can have one or two more questions if there are any questions, Mr. Anumolu will be happy to answer. You can use the microscope… I, I mean microphone, sorry… (Audience laughter)

 

Audience:

 

Hi, one of the things that I, that I find really interesting is that a lot of Indian immigrants, you know, South Asian immigrants, they have professional jobs and there’s this notion of wanting safety. You want a job, not take risks, like do you think that for the next generation or the new generation of immigrants coming in are more likely to be risk takers rather than I want to get a good job and something that’s very solid and pays well but not risky.

 

Rao S. Anumolu:

 

Excellent question. I really admire you for asking that. I will answer your question in two ways. One, be a risk taker in life because you if you’re going down the steps, there is risk there. Be a risk taker and try to be what you can be, push hard, that’s what life is about. My father told me, when he started his own business, he never knew what he was doing in, he was jumping into it, succeeded to the level where others could not imagine and catch. That’s the level now you have to take the risk and you should be prepare to risk take and take anything even when you’re talking and one word is also a risk you know sometimes so take a risk if you have to take risk and how to make together is where you come in the picture. I thank you for your question. Yes, sir….

 

Audience:

 

I would like to ask you about business trends is changing West to East. Where is the best opportunity to start the business, in the east or west?

 

Rao S. Anumolu:

 

OK, I thought about it actually myself. You have to calibrate this at what sectional, I mean at what level of life you are in. You migrated from east to west, you don’t want to migrate back to east however in the process stop and think for awhile what is this country that is out, that it can offer. I predicted for at least the next twenty years if you are a risk taker wanting to do opportunities, are still overwhelming right here, you don’t want to jump there now regarding some youngsters that I see here certainly they can think but don’t emotional to jump there to something in Bengali, India or Karachi or someplace like that you know. Some great opportunities really are on the other side of the fence looks green and greener sometimes but the meiotic eyes but see where you are, if you can succeed here, you have to always think you will succeed anyway, I don’t mean America, I tell the same thing for people in India. If you can succeed in [inaudible] or New Dehli where you are, success is within you, create wealth and that’s you. Finish.

 

Nehru Cherukupalli:

 

Well, I can see that you all are ready for lunch I would like to thank Mr. Anumolu and he besides being a good businessman, he is also a big donor for our conference today and you can see all the details on the panel we have up front, Thank you and we would like to invite you to lunch which is right behind you, over here no it’s served over there in the back, OK, alright thank you again, have a good night and… (Audience applause)