So I've been informed that I have a PTR monopoly on all things Oceania, a region defined by its low population growth, lack of natural resources, and increasing likeliness to be the first continent to go under when the polar ice caps melt.
I guess I'd better fulfill my representative duty and get some of those old sheep jokes out of the way. 'Hey, did you know that this week a movie's opened in New Zealand where mutant sheep take over the world!' 'It's f-en true!' And while we're at it, let's mention : Lord of the Rings, (bahahahaha) damn Aussies, (ahhahahaha) and 'ooh lookie at little you you're all so cute tucked up away in this tiny godforsaken country!' (ha).
So seriously, in the midst of procrastinating for my Contract Law test this Tuesday, I came across news via the excellent local blog Yellow Peril that representatives from the South Asian-New Zealand community met recently to prepare for a national identity conference to be held next year (I must have lost my invite to be on the Executive Principal High Committee in the mail).
The proposed conference is inspired by similar efforts by the Chinese-New Zealand community, who have been running an inter-cultural conference catchily titled Going Bananas. since 2005. Sadly, when I tried to find our more information about the desi event there was not much to find (except for a mention on Singaporean-New Zealander Mok's Yellow Peril). On the other hand, when I looked for similar information about East Asian communities there were official websites of cultural associations, weblogs, and a comparatively large body of government information and studies on the Chinese, Korean and Japanese communities.
Which brings me to my point - notice that my writing skills have led me to make it, ooh about five paragraphs too late- In New Zealand, the Chinese seem to have a monopoly on all things Asian. Unlike in the UK, 'Asian' refers to a person of Chinese origin, or at the very least, someone with 'Oriental' facial features. If you mention the Chinese community even the Average Joe would know about Pansy Wong, our only Member of Parliament of Asian origin, or Lincoln Tan, a New Zealand Herald columnist, or even Wing, the Southpark featured old-lady version of American Idol reject William Hung. Whether these figures are loved, ridiculed, or admired, at the very least they are visible. They signify an emergent Chinese identity in New Zealand.
The South Asian community on the other hand, is very rarely seen in New Zealand, or at least not as a community. It tends to be conceptualised through an individual lens -an enterprising Engineering student here, a theatre production company there, a quietly efficient Governor General (who is Indo-Fijian so is shared with our Pasifika cousins). But as far as a sense of community goes, we are far behind our Asian cousins. It's true, Chinese may be the biggest Asian ethnic group at 44%, but with Indians at 26% and Sri Lankans at 3%, the desi community is catching up in terms of numbers but lags behind as a community bloc.
I'm wondering if the same is true in other parts of the (blech!) diaspora. So I'm asking my fellow lovely carb-loving roti-gobblers: Are brown people the forgotten Asians? Will we always lag behind more unified, (and perhaps less heterogeneous) communities in creating a cohesive communal identity? Are we-as the stereotype goes- just too divided on communal and caste lines, too insecure and prone to internal politics to create any sense of unity? (We all know the crab story ).
A microcosm of the contrast between Asian communities in New Zealand is evident in my university (don't worry, it's not an important one, but you knew that already :) ). Groups like the Kiwi Asian Club, the Hong Kong Students Society and the Chinese Society participate more fully in multicultural events, organise their own successful cultural events, hold regular meetings, and have a diverse and large membership base. On the other hand, there's the infant 'Club Indya' which has a handful of members and no planned events, and the Sri Lankan Association, a thinly-veiled attempt to generate a parental-sanctioned hook up zone with its annual boozy ball and 'socials' held at hired nightclubs. Even organising a butter chicken food stall seems like a distant cosmoplitan dream when you look at the kind of events these groups organise.
I shall wait and see whether any substantial information is distributed through the web, community newspapers or other local forums about the Myserious Upcoming South Asian Conference of 2008. My hope is that its receives similar exposure to events organised by other Asian communities, and builds effective networks between Indians, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Indo-Fijians and other South Asian groups.
For now, it seems that my 'monopoly' may still consist of coverage of localised beauty contests (the snazzily-titled Miss and Mister Indianz), spotting cheap New Zealand locations on Bollywood films (the outside shot of the 'New World' nightclub Hrithik Roshan danced in in Kaho Na...Pyaar Hai, is actually a supermarket called 'New World'), and the occasional individual triumph from our ever-enterprising community. Here's hoping that as our population grows, a little more brown may seep into the New Zealand Asian identity.
Ta ta for now, I'm off to read Brinkibon Ltd v Stahag Stahl Un Stahlwarenhandelsgesellschaft MBH...and yet Dr Anonymous, that is a REAL case name :)
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Heya,
yeah there are a lot of Indians in Auckland, if that's where your Aunty and Uncle visited. That's the city (although I guess for Americans it would be a 'town') that I live in now, but I did grow up in a smaller town with hardly any Indians.
What I was searching for I guess, was not mere visibility by existence, but something more. A stronger sense of community rather than the chance happening of a large group of Indians who happen to live in the biggest city.
I have two Kiwi-Chinese friends who recently went on a trip to China organised by the Chinese Association of New Zealand, for example. I haven't seen the Indian NZ community organise anything cohesively apart from amateur beauty pageants.
Hello Tash!
It's the same in the US too, although the evolution of the US Census categories went from "Asian Indian" to "East Indian/Pakistani".
That is very interesting that you should say that because my aunt and uncle just came back last Tuesday from New Zealand (my aunt was born and raised in NZ, so they went back to visit family). From the way they were talking, it seemed like it's the opposite of what you're saying. They kept repeating how many more Indians there are ("LOTS," says Uncle).
I think it depends on the context. "Asian" in America, as in NZ, usually connotes East Asians. So South Asian Americans don't really identify themselves as "Asian" but South Asians. And even that is a more progressive way of looking at things. National and regional identities have a larger emphasis at times (people identifying themselves as Indian or more specifically Gujarati, Pakistani, Punjabi, etc).
And in terms of forging an overarching, pan-Asian identity, that too is conditional on context. If we can find common political, social, and economic ground with others, then that's good. But in the US, for example, those agendas can easily be shaped by the political stage where we act out our political agendas, such identitarian politics being the platform for lauching agendas.
This is a gross overgeneralization.
Dr. Anon:
Sure, absolutely. But my point was about the general trend of the majority NOT calling themselves simply Asian, for the reasons I pointed out in the other comments.
Dr. Anonymous:
But I was being precise when I said this:
btw, i would hazard that there may be a plurality of South Asians in the US that will, in specific contexts, call themselves "Indian" over South Asian. Perhaps a majority, and more broadly than in specific contexts. So should we call ourselves an Indian blog? ;)
I know South Asians in the US (including significant numbers of foreign born people from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lankan, among other places who list their place of birth outside India on the census) who say they are "Indian." I know South Asians in the US who say they are "Bengali." I know South Asians who say they are South Asian. I know South Asians who say they are South Asian but prefer desi. I know South Asians who say they are desi but mean Indian. And then there are all the people who add "American to the back"
And I even know South Asians--some South Asians--who identify as Asian American.
I also know people from the Indo-Caribbean in the US who refer to themselves as "Indian" and people from th UK that call themselves Asian, as you pointed out. I know people in India who call themselves NRIs when they would have called themselves South Asian in the U.S.
Just asking for a little more precision in your language, not an argument for why South Asian identity in the US is not the same as Asian identity in the US, which is obvious.
Ok, how many desis in the US do you know identify themselves as simply "Asian"? I don't mean organizations or people who work in these organizations, for whom often it's a conscious effort to forge a pan "Asian" identity and platform. That is a small slice of the overall population. I mean the rest of the folks.
What I said is a generalization. And from my experiences, the majority of Desis I know do not identify themselves simply as "Asian," since "Asian" usually connotes East Asian (and actually, "Asian" would theorectically include the areas of Central Asia and West Asia [which is around the area of the "Near East"] as well). I think the way we are categorized plays a role in how we see ourselves. South Asians were not under the umbrella category of "Asians"; they were referred to specifically as "East Indians/Pakistanis". "Middle Easteners" were a seperate category as well, even though many could technically fall under "Asian", like non Magrebini Arabs.
If we identify ourselves as "Asian", what is the purpose of calling this blog South Asian? And why have we included "desh" countries which fall under the geographic location of South Asia rather than all of Asia? What, no Japan, China, Korea, Uzbekhistan, Aijerbaizan (sp?) etc?
I'm not saying it's wrong to identify yourself more as South Asian rather than simply Asian. My point is that depending on the geographical context, "Asian" has different meanings. In the UK, Asians do mean Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis. In the US, the word is used differently, which is why we add the descriptor "South". The politics of identity are specific and contextualized according to geographic location. Not to say that they may share similarities, but there are differences as well.