Many multiracial people claim that they are the future of the world. That is, they often claim that most people are going to be multiracial in the coming years so they are only the face of the future. Well, I don’t agree. I am sure that increasing numbers of people are going to multiracial, sure. But that doesn’t mean that everyone, or even majority of the people are going to be. Besides, this seems a rather ethno-centric point to make, but I digress and this is a discussion for another time.

The point in this post is to say that I realized that a large part of American-Jews interest in religious practice and increased rigor has to do with a sense of identity crisis.

Jews have become “white” in America. But they had such a history of being minorities. Even when they achieved racial equality, their religion set them apart (the way the Irish’s Catholicism set them apart for decades even after they started “blending in” visually). Now, though, Judaism is a viable option and no longer weird. People pleasantly talk about “Rosh Hashanah” and “Yom Kippur” in the big cities–they are no longer a weird or heathen customs. It’s now acceptable to be a follower of the Jewish religion, which makes Jews even “whiter.” Even in areas where Jews are not prominent, I believe everyone knows about Chanukah and Passover. The latter not just because it’s key in Christian history.

Jews are no longer set apart for being ethnically or religiously Jewish. This, I think, has thrown many younger Jews into an identity crisis.

What makes you a Jew? That your parents are Jewish is no longer sufficient. Then you are only Jewish-descended. If you have Holocaust survivors in your family, that tends to be a strong anchor. But if not? Then perhaps practicing your religion? Yes, that’s an option. And not only practicing it, but practicing it so stringently that it makes it difficult for you to hang out with not only non-Jews, but also your non-observant Jewish friends and family members.

Being Jewish as an observant Jew becomes this authenticating rarefied experience. Elevating yourself again, to the oppressed minority status, that your (ideal) Jewish parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents lived in the shtetl.–I am not really mocking Jewish observance. After all, I am an observant Jew myself. But I must say that it sometimes frustrates me to see people being needlessly exclusive, using religious observance as an excuse to self-segregate, and then to turn around and talk about discrimination of Jews in today’s USA.

At the same time, it made me realize why Jewish observance might be on the rise among younger American Jews. It is increasingly difficult to “just be Jewish” without something that proves your Jewishness.

Having to assert who you are by your behavior or daily practice is familiar to me. That’s me. If I don’t assert how Japanese I am everyday–by keeping up my Japanese, by staying engaged with Japan, Japanese stuff–,if I don’t assert my Jewishness–by knowing my Hebrew, knowing my religious rituals, staying connected with a Jewish community–my ethnic identities will be unrecognizable to myself and others. I need them anchored. That is the life of a multi-ethnic person who strives to stay connected to her ethnic/cultural/religious identity/ies.

I do think that with the world become smaller and smaller, as they say, and the cultures becoming more and more homogenized, this is the reality of many people and countries. What distinguishes you as a part of —(fill in the blank)? It is increasingly difficult to claim a single ethnicity without justifying, at least in today’s America. In this sense, perhaps, the many multiracial/multi-ethnic activists have it right that the our experience foretells the future. Surely, for the US. But for the world? Perhaps.

 

Speaking My Mind

I lately have been dealing with the difficulty of speaking my mind.

Often, there is so much to say that I feel overwhelmed by the words approaching my throat, that the voice gets bottled up, and… I can’t speak.

This happens when:

A) What I want to say is too complicated and I want to say too many things at once to communicate the right nuance

B) When I worry that what I am about to say is not going to be understood the way I intend it

C) I am not sure what I can and cannot say–a case of heavy self-censorship

D) I don’t have confidence in the person (or people) listening to understand what I am saying or why I am saying what I am saying

On the other hand, I can fall into verbal diarrhea. That’s when I can’t stop talking. This happens when:

A) I have confidence that the person I am talking to is going to understand what I am trying to say

B) I have been  silent for too long and there is stuff that I just have to get out (This doesn’t happen as much in recent years thanks to Misha’s generous ears)

Sometimes this happens in appropriate settings, and sometimes not. The other day I felt like I took over an entire conversation for a whole meal, which I felt a little bad about. Hopefully, it didn’t bother the others too much.

On a completely unrelated note, I ran a half-marathon this past Sunday. It was fun, but because I couldn’t train for it adequately, I am suffering the aftereffects of over-taxing my body.

 

Racism Against Us Biracials

Thanks for the intriguing and interesting comments and cheers. Sorry I don’t have time to respond.

 

Today I am posting because I had enough of people commenting on what biraciality represents–whether it’s the “positive” side of being a “bridge” or always “having a choice” or the negative side of “being confused.”

 

This Sunday morning on the New York Times, on the top page, there was an article that infuriated me. I am not going into the details (again, lack of time), but I will just give you the quote that annoyed me the most: “Even his eyes — one brown, the other green — hint at roots in two places.”  In the context of the article, which makes mention about how “troubled” and “confused” he was, the implication that his “mixed roots” contributed to his “confusion” seems pretty solid. This is a remix of the “tragic” and “confused” mulatto narrative that I am tired of hearing and tired of being subjected to.

 

It’s harder to marry (or get together with) someone with whom you don’t share a common language, culture, or set of beliefs.  That’s partially why international (and sometimes inter-racial) marriages have a seemingly lower “success” rate. (If you consider the length of time being together the only measure of a “successful” marriage.) Kids who have parents with a strong and solid relationship, regardless of their race(s) or nationality/ies, often turn out fine. The ones who come out “troubled” are the ones who had parents who couldn’t communicate solidly irrespective of their differences or commonalities. With “troubled” children who come from “mixed” backgrounds, people are too happy to point to that as the cause of a majority of their “problems.”  Really, the world is a bit more complicated than that. Not that I trust journalism that much, but this level is just too low.

 

 

The rest of the article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/us/22terror.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

 

 

 

“Diverse” Continued

I don’t mean to undermine the efforts to spread the awareness that Jews exist in all colors.

But, the way that that is being propagated lately makes me a little uncomfortable.

When you look at the posters of “diverse” Jews in America, you always see a “black” face, an “Asian” face, and a “Middle-Eastern” face. To the trained eye,  it looks like this: There is an African-American, who either is born Jewish or converted (there is no way of telling, really. From my experience, both are equally likely with African-American looking people). There is usually also that Ethiopian face (which, needless to say, is usually someone born Jewish). The “Asian” face is usually an Asian girl, who was probably adopted by “white” Jewish parents. (Sorry for the stereo-typing, but I haven’t met an exception to this one yet.) The Middle-Eastern looking person could be a Yeminite Jew, or a Arabic-Jew with slightly tan skin. Occasionally, you also see a mixed-race child (although if there is, that tends to be an Asian-White child, like me).

I look at this and think…. Well, it’s great that there are advertising this…. But, we are not all the same. In fact, we have such a different history from one another. To lump us all together like this seems a little problematic because that shows me more than anything else that we are “the Other” Jewish population. I almost hear a voice saying, The Black ones, Asian ones, Middle Eastern ones (to a lesser extent) are all “weird” but we are going to bite our tongues and say, “we must embrace all the diverse Jews among us.”

Let’s get real for a second:

The existence of biracial and multiracial Jews (born Jewish or with a Jewish parent) is a pretty new (by which I mean about a half-century old) phenomenon which has a lot to do with the increased ease of movement between varying regions and countries, banning of anti-miscegenation (interracial marriage) laws (for more on this, look here), and the increased acceptance of such children in the general Jewish community. At least in the US. The Caribbean islands is one of the most interesting and earliest sites (to the best of my knowledge) that gave rise to this phenomenon that still continues till today.

The existence of black American Jews has its own rich history (details of which I don’t know yet) which goes back to as far as the mid-nineteenth-century in the US and also has links to the Black Pride Movement.

The Ethiopians Jews and Middle Eastern Jews, as a collective, have been Jews for ever. That they get lumped together with “us” newer-phenomenon Jews seems to point to the real reason all of this bothers me.

So many of those visuals that try to tout “diversity” in the Jewish communities seem to focus on the “Wow! You are a Jew?” factor that comes from the “general” (which is the “white”) Jewish population and does not seem to take into account “our” perspectives or even basic histories–the perspective of the ones who are being lumped together to compose the “mosaic” or “diverse face of Judaism today.” Honestly, when I see those visual images (and may I add that anything advertising something Jewish still uses the dark curly-haired white-skinned 20-something girl most often), I feel like I am being used to show to the rest of the (non-Jewish) American world, that “yes! We too, are ‘diverse’ like the rest of America!” (Assimilation complete!) Cynical? Perhaps.

This is a post I hesitated to post because I don’t want to shoot the positive movement of trying to diversify people’s ideas of who a Jew is. At the same time, I felt compelled to upload this because, really, it’s quite irritating that “diverse” is being used to only mean “non-white” and I think that use really needs to stop. Otherwise, real normalization can’t happen and we “diverse” Jews will always remain on the margin.

What alternatives remain then? I have ideas, but not now. To be continued…. Maybe….

 

Fired Up

There is an organization that I love.

It is a community that has nurtured me as a person in yesteryears.

It has been and remains a place of kindness and seriousness.

I have heard about its dwindling and have been sick-worried. I have been wondering what was going on and wondering if there was anything that I could do. I have been wondering about this for years. Now that I am back on their turf, I have been given the opportunity. I hope that all the information-gathering I have been doing over the past couple of years with this organizaion in mind and my past experience can contribute to helping out the organization that is so close to my heart.

 

“Diverse” as a Euphemism

The other day I was standing in line in a post office in Harlem.

I turned to a woman behind me, who was the only other “white”(-ish) face in the post office and asked, “how do you like living here?” She said, “oh, you are thinking of moving here?” I said, yes, and she started off by saying, “Well, it’s…”diverse” around here, so you know, you have to like that.”

I thought to myself, “diverse”?
We are in the middle of Harlem.

Or, maybe, she means that there is also a Latino population?? Was she referring to the large African immigrant population? Somehow I wasn’t sure that she was even aware of the difference between African-Americans and the recent African immigrants. What does she mean?

It kind of bugged me, made me self-conscious, and also made me regret having asked her that question in the first place.

She also told me that she had heard that it got “noisy” in the summers–but perhaps, she quickly added, that was true about anywhere in Manhattan.

“Noisy?” You mean, people hanging out in the streets? I don’t understand. What’s wrong with that? If you don’t want that, shouldn’t you be living in a place where you can buy an acre of land for the same price you pay for a tiny apartment in Manhattan?

My head was full of question marks.

I didn’t understand why someone would want to move to Harlem if they were so uncomfortable around the African-American community. Harlem has been a black neighborhood for over a century and bears the richness of it.

Having had more time afterwards to put things together I came to the conclusion that she in fact was using the word “diverse” to mean that “it wasn’t white.” Wow….I thought.

Another woman walked in who looked closer to my age and friendly-looking after I had already engaged in discussion with this other one, and I really wished that I had asked the same question to her instead. She was black (like everyone else in the post office ), but didn’t look like she was a long-time resident there and that was my point: Asking someone who was new to the neighborhood what it was like coming in as a new-comer to the area.

This incident reminded me of how the word “diverse” is often used in the Jewish community as well. Isn’t “diverse” also used to mean “not white,”  including the Sephardic community, in many American Jewish communities?

Te be continued…. maybe

 

Discontinued!? No!!!!

I grew up on this stuff. Even though now I can drink coffee, I definitely prefer…well, I guess now, “prefered” would be correct…this stuff to coffee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postum. But this entry brings the news, it has been discontinued. Now I must make it myself if I want to replicate this delicious and better-than-coffee taste by following these instructions: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1630,149185-250198,00.html

In case you haven’t noticed, I love food and have great attachments to certain foods… Unfortunately, I would make a very bad Buddhist…

 

Very Sad

http://ayecha.org/

This is one of the most inspiring organizations I have been involved with. Very sad to hear that they have closed their doors.

 

“Dirty” Mumbai

I am one of those deeply saddened by what has happened in Mumbai recently, and particularly to the Chabad shluchim.

I am particularly saddened because I have met and have been helped by many shluchim in my travels.

I have seen and heard of Chabad shluchim breaking up old native communities in “far-flung” places, but I have also been helped by them in others.

What it comes down to though, is that while Chabad launches a huge outreach program, and many of the shluchim share deep-held ideologies and religious convictions (obviously), they are all individual families. As in, I do not feel the same towards all the shluchim. They are those I like and deeply respect and those that I do not.

The shluchim in Mumbai, I never got a chance to know directly. They seemed to have been very nice and special people. I am really glad that their son, Moshe, was saved and is being taken care of by his maternal grandparents. There were many episodes I heard of both of them which I found heart-warming and repsectable. I think it is a shame that I never got a chance to get to know them. However, in the speeches about them, there was a recurring trope that I could not miss and found disturbing.

A note: What is about to follow has nothing to do with the shulchim that passed away. I will repeat, the following, which means, this post itself, has nothing to do with them, but is only prompted by what has happened in the aftermath: In speeches that I have heard (or read), I noticed a trend that betrays just how exactly the “Jewish” community (of the US at least, if not the majority of the English-speaking traditional world of it) feels about “India” and “those backward countries.”

The first came on a Friday night in my regular shul where someone got up and talked about just how special, welcoming, and nice those shluchim were. In the speech, I noticed, the person made a comment about how difficult it must have been for the shulchim to build the terrific center that they did. The wording used was that, “Imagine the difficulty to build a modern building in India, where they are 200-years behind.” …Excuse me, “200-years behind”? Why not simply say “uncivilized”? Isn’t that what you meant?

I heard another speech made about them which used a phrase–turning into something of a set one–to describe what going to India meant to them: They left their “comfortable Western home” to arrive at “dirty,” “crowded,” and “difficult” India. Oh, “dirty”? Right, the street corner that this speech was being made, in the middle of what some people would call “filthy” and “dangerous” New York, doesn’t measure up to it, I am sure. My stomach turned.

Another thing that bothered me was that, in all of these speeches, save for one, India kept being described as “such a difficult place to be a Jew.” The shulchim kept being described as providing “a home away from home” for all the traveling and “wandering” Jews.  Well, aren’t you forgetting about the Indian-Jews? The native Jewish population: Bnai Israel? From what I hear, one of the important services the shliach provided was the service to the local Jewish population, whose existence most (though not all) of the speech-makers seemed to totally forget about. I mean, Jews are not only Ashkenazi. They don’t only exist in Western Europe, North America, and Israel. Jews do not only live in “comfortable” “civilized” “western” homes. They also come from India too.

In fact, this reminds me how when I went to Israel for the first time to Israel on Birthright, how so many of the college kids I went with (I was also a college kid then) thought that majority of the places we stayed in were too dirty. I thought that they were spoiled brats. They only seemed to think that things were up to their standards when we were staying in a five-star business hotel being served by Israeli-Arabs who were being managed by Israeli-Jews and knew how to smile at us pleasantly and serve us nicely. I felt like there was no point staying in a place like that if I was visiting Israel for the sake of visiting Israel–not to have some business dealings. I also hated the fact that I was on the bus with hundreds of American Jews who could only marvel at how “inconvenient” and “dirty” (read, “backwards” and “uncivilized”) Israel was.

Majority of the people making speeches had traveled through India and that’s how they had made their acquaintance with the Chabad shluchim, whom, sadly, they will never see again in this world. If what they took back from their trip was just how “hot, muggy, dirty, and noisy” Mumbai (or are they saying India as a whole?) was, except for the oh, occasionally “beautiful” and “historically significant” sights, they seriously need to rethink their frame of mind. India is not simply a tourist spot (or some exotic Disneyland) existing to serve your needs as a traveller. It is another region where people live in. They perhaps have totally different ways of seeing things and coping with things than the casual (and unobservant) traveler/observer could ever imagine. To not know what that way of life and perspective on life is, to be completely ignorant of it and instead, to come down on them as being “uncivilized,” how self-centered, what an embarrassment. What a shame.

 

Talking Politics

I believe that in the blogosphere, for many reasons, I should keep my political opinions to myself. But, I was compelled to write something. But then again, I decided that no–my opinion is not going to change any political outcome anyway (the states that I vote in always vote the same) and it just jeopardizes me, so why should I bother. But really, I have been compelled to say something so many times…

Having said that, I will state this much: I will vote this election because I have to for external reasons. Not because I want to. The candidate that I will vote for I don’t particularly like–many critics have pointed out the reasons why I don’t like him. In fact, personality-wise, I think I like his opponent better. If I were voting based on character and personal like and dislike, my choice would be the opposite of what I will do. But I will vote for the candidate that I will because I perfer this particular candidate’s policy a whole lot better than his opponents’. (Well at least I am revealing that I am not voting for any of the smaller parties, but sticking to the major ones…)

And I am sad that again this election season, I can use the pronoun “he” to describe both Republican and Democratic presentential candidates. I wish that I had to come up with a creative way to refer to the presedential candidates without the feminine or masculine pronouns. Or better yet, if I could use “she” for both presidential candidates! ;)