Seasick Christopher Columbus’ screw up some 500+ years ago is Annu Matthew’s inspiration for this photograph.
As an immigrant, I am often questioned about where I am “really from.” When I say that I am Indian, I often have to clarify that I am an Indian from India. Not an American-Indian, but rather an Indian-American, South-Asian Indian or even an Indian-Indian. It seems strange that all this confusion started because Christopher Columbus thought he had found India and called the native people of America collectively as Indians.
“Y’all actin like you never seen a brown person before….”
img: via SPENational
From the more blunt
“So ….ummmm …….. tell me what race you belong to?”,
to the less obvious
“So where are you really from?”
to the more politically correct
“If you don’t mind me asking, what is your ethnicity?”,
its hard to find desis in the US and A, who have NOT been asked these questions.
Some get mad, some take photographs. Annu Palakunnathu Matthew chose the latter.
In this portfolio, I look at the other “Indian”. I find similarities how Nineteenth century photographers of Native Americans looked at what they called the primitive natives, similar to the colonial gaze of the Nineteenth century British photographers working in India. In every culture there is the “other”.
You can view more photographs in this series from Annu’s portfolio.
I stumbled upon this article in Mid Day (hence tip: myself) and the reason it intrigued me is because this is a familiar situation for desis in the US and A. We will not dwell upon my unpleasant experiences in post 9/11 US, when I was “random checked” before boarding every flight as as example of mistaken identity.
In my personal experience, when the above questions were thrown at me, people either already knew I was an “Indian from India”. In some cases people assumed beforehand I was Latino. For instance, on my first date with my then-girlfriend-now-turned-wife we went to a Mexican restaurant and the waiter started talking to me in Español. I’ve had other instances of random Latinos walking upto me and our conversation going something along these lines:
Random Latino: Hola Señor. ********* entire sentence in Spanish ***********
Uber Desi (sheepishly): No Habla Español
Random Latino: Oh. Señor no Mexican, Puerto Rican?
Uber Desi: No. Indian.
Random Latino: India?
Uber Desi: Si
Some people would find this case of mistaken identity annoying. To me its just part of the experience of living in a multicultural society.
It would be interesting to hear of similar experiences of mistaken cultural and racial identities our desi readers have experienced in their time in the US and A or elsewhere in the world.
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