I’m starting a new thread to answer that since this one is supposed to be about proposals and so on.
Not really. More like… “does not compute”. There’s a strong preference among South Asians for fair skin, which is apparently fading, as such prejudices ought.
One of the results is that Indians are sort of confused by white people, in the sense that they’re outsiders (bad), but fair-skinned (good).
Beyond that, there’s a love-hate attitude toward the British, and the West in general; it’s a lot like that part in Life of Brian where they’re talking about how the Romans have brought nothing but suffering to the Jews- except for the roads, schools, dams, irrigation, public order, safe streets, and so on.
The net result is that Indian immigrants to the West, if not already married, married other Indians when they got here. The generation now in their twenties and early thirties is the first (in Britain) for whom interbreeding with the locals is not taboo.
Honestly, I only ever saw one Indian/non-Indian couple before 1996, and that was Freddie Mercury (nee Faroukh Parzibal) and his boyfriend.
I think something like that is happening here in Toronto as well. We now have a South Asian population of over 300,000, who either arrived in the past couple of decades as married couples, or are the children of those who arrived. South Asian people over thirty or so are invariably married, but the younger generation is not, and is much more open socially.
Sorry, I started to post under my husband’s account again! :smack:
I grew up in Montreal (parents from South India, I was born and raised in Montreal) and before I married a French-Canadian in 1995, there had been 2 other Indian/non-Indian couples from our community in the previous 15 years. Now these sorts of couples are more common and socially acceptable - on both sides of the marriage.
As an aside - after my son was born and my mom stayed with us to help out, we got a sitter near the end of her visit and she, my husband and I went out to see the film My Greek Wedding. My husband and I enjoyed the movie particularly since it seemed to have so many things in common with our dating & marriage experience.
My brother is a Briton of Indian descent married to a (white) British woman. His best friend is a British man married to a Briton of Indian descent. People think they did it on purpose…
Probably the biggest reason I seriously wanted to marry someone Indian is basically that I’m religious and I want(ed) to raise my child Hindu. There were also some tangential cultural reasons like the importance of education, close-knit family blahblahblah…but I think you can find all of these things in different cultures around the world. The advantage of being with someone Indian is that 9/10 times they came with the same worldview programmed in so I didn’t have to ask those questions.
Now that I’ve had so many BAD experiences with desi guys (well, more stuff like “oh we’re different castes”, “you make too much money for a woman”, I-want-someone-super well educated-but-not-as-modern, your-tattoos-make-you-unmarriageable etc.), including a failed engagement, I decided screw it, I’m done and I’m going to be open to dating Americans again. I did a lot of thinking and also decided that I was okay with raising any future children in a liberal denomination of Christianity, rather than as Hindus (raising them in a religion is important to me).
It is of course, at that point, having sworn off 1) Investment bankers (I think I might have dated 25% of Lehman Bros) and 2) Indians that I met an Indian investment banker (non-Lehman) I liked and now we’re dating and it’s going well though sometimes I like to pretend he is neither an Indian nor an Investment banker. I still wouldn’t rule out an American in the future (except I hope my current BF sticks around since I really like him).
Hilariously we’re both described by our separate sets of friends as being different than most Indians, and I think we’ve both been urged by our separate friends to just hook up with an American already. So maybe we’re just perfect for one another.
It’s not that I don’t mind if it’s mine, it’s that I’m willing to accept raising them UU, Episcopalian or Presbytarian because I find enough overlap between my interpretation of Hinduism and the philosophies of these sects of Christianity such that I’m okay with raising them Christian. I would not be comfortable raising them Catholic or in Islam, on the other hand. And of course, I would still prefer to raise them Hindu if possible. It’s simply that I realise that a) sometimes compromise is necessary b) what compromises am I willing to make if my husband really desires to raise them Christian and c) maybe if I had multi-cultural kids who are likely to basically be American that the chances are that they would be a better natural fit for a religion they could participate in/would match predominant culture/be taught in a language they understand.
That last one is pretty much my biggest beef with Hinduism, anyway (that and the over emphasis on ritualism, as opposed to philosophy). I’m lucky in that I have unusually intellectual parents, and I’m a full blood Brahmin* so I got a lot more of the Gita and the Ramayana and that Mahabharata than I did nonsensical chanting (my dad’s, an inventor but really wanted to be a playwright & sanskrit scholar, except for that whole poverty thing that forced him to attend IIT). I guess I could try to pass this heritage on to my kids too except I think they would have a better religious community based experience if I just raised them Christian as opposed to “whatever they want” or bi-racial kids packed off unwillingly to desi school or whatnot.
This is all moot if I marry another Indian Hindu, I’d just raise them Hindu, though I probably still would not insist on the Indian school because that shit’s just miserable (I should know). That’s another thing, being with someone Indian is still pretty important to me, but I completely acknowledge that my kids will be way more American than I am, so I have no intention of imposing any of this on them (except the religion and the food). If they want to marry an American or…whomever they want, so be it. I’m just trying to find a partner (for myself) that I know I can work with through life and the fact is that I’ve had both a very liberal and very conservative upbringing at the same time.
*Not in the sense that “ooh, it’s so awesome to be Brahmin” and my current bf is not from my caste at all, my sister isn’t married to someone brahmin blahblahblah. But more, lucky in that since my dad is trained as a priest AND is actually intellectual that I got a lot of exposure to Hinduism both ritualistically and philosophically, explanations about what stuff meant, what we believe etc. even though I grew up in rural northern quebec and didn’t meet many Indian people till I was 12 and we moved to the US (or when we visited relatives in India).
I know what the OP was on about reference Europeans in India,in the old caste system White is at the top,Brahmins I believe and Black is down the bottom,The Untouchables,laundry workers etc. who were considered unclean…BUT anyone born outside of the sub continent white black or luminescent green is an untouchable.
I’m a white Brit by the way.
I have a Geordie mate whos married to an Indian girl and she is pretty much traditional.
I know several Ugandan Asian descendants and they claim to know nothing of the caste system,did many lower caste members emigrate to Africa because of that system?
Also the blokes fathers claim to hate “Indian” Indians.
They are all shop owners.
I am genuinlly curious about this but when I ask my Indian mates about it they seem embarassed to talk about it,no doubt I’ve put both feet in it but if you could satisfy my curiousity I would be grateful.
They were dispossed and eventually exiled from Uganda by Idi Amin, but I don’t know what the hatred is about. I’d guess it has something to do with the lack of action taken by the Indian government on their behalf; they severed diplomatic relations with Uganda, and said no more on the matter.
Most held British passports and went to Britain.
It’s a pretty close situation to what happened/is happening now in Zimbabwe with Mugabe - the property seized by Amin was mostly businesses, and of course they were handed to people whose sole qualification was being an Amin supporter; most promptly went under.
Wow. I related so much to this entire Post, that I’m amazed.
I agree with you on the Hindu/Christian thing- I totally see where you’re coming from. My biggest beef with Christianity is just that whole “One god, one religion” sorta thing- It IS a pretty big part of Christianity. But if that one part wasn’t there, sign me up! (I’m also a Brahmin & a desi btw for what its worth, and I love the stories and lessons they have- that’s shaped my view of hinduism much more than the ritual aspects as I don’t speak Hindi, and can only basically learn from English translations)
My only problem is that I’m Indian, but I’m outta touch with my culture. So I kinda wish there was someone who basically was like you around. As I can’t really share the language, food or religious rituals and such things to my kids, but I want to be able to do so. I can only try to teach them “my” interpretation of Hinduism, and the historical cultural significance, but I can’t really “personalize” it very well.
