Behind the Veil: Our obsession with sexy

It all started when I went dress shopping. It was almost Mid-May, the days were getting hotter and I wanted some nice Summer dresses to wear to keep cool during the next couple of months. I headed to the mall to check out the usual women’s retail stores. I stepped into Forever 21 after seeing their bright colorful display and sign advertising summer attire.

Wearing a hijab sometimes makes it difficult to find clothing tailored to suit my needs. However I usually have no problem layering outfits to customize them to my taste.

After walking around the entire store for half an hour to no avail, I finally approached a sales rep for assistance, “Excuse me, can you help me find some longer dresses?” My inquiry was met with a chirpy, “Sure!” and she led me around the store, color coordinated section by color coordinated section searching for dresses.

Each time we came across a dress, she would pull it off the rack, hold it up to herself and ask for my approval. About 97% of the dresses we found barely covered mid-thigh. After 36 dresses—yes, I was counting—we found one that was knee-length, but still, not long enough for me. The sales clerk began to look a little exasperated. Finally, we located a small rack at the back end of the store that had four maxi-style dresses that were full length. The fact that they were in garish, gaudy colors and prints is besides the point. The more important issue is what the sales girl said to me while I was examining the horrid prints, “You could try this one” She said, while holding up a cheetah print mini, “it would go great with any type of accessories.”

“I’m sorry” I replied, “I don’t wear anything that isn’t full length.”

“But it’s so sexy!” She said with a smile, “It would look great on you!”

“But I don’t want to be sexy,” I responded without even thinking.

“Why..” She began, but then stopped mid-sentence. She shook her head as if she couldn’t grasp what was wrong with me.

There was an awkward pause between us, then she hung the dresses back on the rack, smiled at me, and left.

I stood there for a long while thinking about what had just happened.

I left the store without purchasing anything and thought about what I said to the sales rep on my drive back home. It was true, I did not want to be sexy, at least not for everyone else to see. I resented that I was made to feel weird for not wanting to be a sexual object, and what is our obsession with oozing sex appeal 24/7 anyway? Why must I look sexy for everyone? And why must one look sexy all the time? What is so wrong with looking modest, or decent, or presentable without the sex factor?

A few days later, I was waiting to pick up my brother in my car in front of his school. A parade of middle school children walked past my car to their rides. I had my windows rolled down and I was overhearing tons of conversation. One particular conversation caught my attention, four young girls were speaking animatedly describing outfits they had bought on their shopping trips over the weekend. One girl was gesturing while describing her purchases, “It’s a strapless and it’s cute and short, and I got a blue headband to match it,” she described, illustrating the dress with her hands for her friend. Her friends were all entranced with her description, “That sounds so sexy!” her friend chimed in.

I wondered for a moment, why her friend hadn’t chosen the world “pretty”, or “beautiful” to describe her friend’s dress. Since when did these words get replaced with a variation of the word sex? And of even greater concern, these girls were only in 6th or 7th grade, why were they concerned with sex appeal at age 11?

The girl smiled at her friends compliment, “Yeah, I know!” she said excitedly, and began describing the other things she had bought.

I thought about the dress she had described and it reminded me of my own shopping trip this past weekend. Her description matched all the dresses I had seen, and I understood why her friend chose to compliment with the word “sexy,” it’s because it matched the outfits perfectly. Those outfits were not designed to make a woman look beautiful, or pretty, or lovely, they were designed to make you exude sex appeal and leave little to the imagination.

The conversation taking place between the middle school girls was simply a reflection of our society. A mirror showing us what values we are teaching our future generations. We are teaching our daughters and younger sisters that it is important to be sexual at all times with everything they do, the way they act, the way the dress, and what they say. And it’s no surprise that they are picking up these ideals. Just take a look at the type of women we glorify in our society, Kim Kardashian, for example, whose only claim to fame was the release of her sex tape with an ex-boyfriend, or Paris Hilton, who surprisingly also had a sex tape with an ex-boyfriend. We plaster images of these women in magazines, or on Yahoo’s front page, forcing people to see what they are doing, and what they are wearing at all times. We give these women the limelight, it’s no wonder that the next generation of females is following in their footsteps.

Change comes one person at a time, and I am determined to break this “sexy” cycle by complimenting more women by telling them that they are “beautiful” or “pretty” instead of “hot” or “sexy.” I am starting a beautiful revolution. Justin Timberlake might have brought sexy back, but I’m bringing beautiful back.

Walking away from the world of money

One day you loose your job and your last hundred dollar bill breaks into two 20’s and a 10. Then your money crumbles into the last dimes that send you off the cliff.

Watching myself slip into poverty feels like following the lethal injection as it disappears into the skin. Poverty is its own society and system and if you don’t know the system as you leave the world of money, you’re so lost, you suffocate.

Everything is complicated and uphill now. If I get work today, how would I afford the gas to get there? How would I survive for two weeks or a month as I waited for my pay?

What amazes me is how much money, change, how many extra rooms, couches, cars and jobs people have. But so few help and even fewer do anything of substance.

Even when someone does help, there is an amount of guilt mixed with resentment within me. I need a job so that I can create free will for myself.

Even my relative who is letting me sleep here wants me to move already. It has been a month and she wants to get her second bedroom back and maybe turn it into an office for her pyramid scheme business.

So, do I look for a job or a place to live?

I have no place or rights at the restaurants or the movie theaters either. I have no reason to go into almost every populated place I find. Tomorrow, for just one day, imagine a world like that.

The world sees the beating heart of a poor man as an unfortunate continuation. If things get worse and my clothes get dirty, finding even a bathroom will become a moment of guilt that I will have to pursue.

You sometimes feel that you have slipped into a place somewhere between a dog and a man. And so you wait patiently for a world that is so bothered by your existence that it finally calls you to your bowl. But you will eat knowing it is only because you barked, whimpered and gave the world your guiltiest eyes.

I have heard people say that the homeless or the poor deserve these circumstances, are lazy or want them. But I am here because someone hired me and then did not pay. Then another job was starting but it did not. I would bet most of us are here because of something similar.

It is believed that 1 out of 10 people in this country, very soon, will be unemployed.

Of the nearly 10 percent unemployed now, many will slip forever away from their productive lives. Many will silently slip through the cracks of the richest country in the world.

The goal is to not be one of them.

Feeding the homeless, one lunch at a time.

Despite the current recession, the United States continues to be one of the most economically prosperous nations in the world. However, the U.S. has one of the highest poverty rates among industrialized countries according to HungerReport.org. For a country that has so much food that its citizens are plagued with an epidemic of obesity, we have an alarming number of Americans that die from hunger each day, many of them are children. All it takes is a drive down to L.A.’s skid row— the area that contains one of the largest stable populations of homeless persons in the United States—to see that hunger is very much a reality in our cities. Locally, in Orange County, one of the most affluent districts in the world, over 456,000 people are at-risk of going hungry sometime every month.

Although there are many coordinated efforts in place by local governments to help end hunger, it falls short of the needs of many people. It takes the help of everyday people to help these government and private shelters make ends meet. These shelters rely on food and monetary donations to provide food to the homeless population. It is with the help of ordinary people that some of the less fortunate have a chance of survival. These people are a ray of hope amongst the darkness of hunger and poverty.

One such person is Zahra Billoo, a recent law school graduate who has spearheaded her own initiative to tackle hunger. Her project is called Operation: Brown Paper Bag, which aims to organize and distribute brown paper bag meals to as many homeless people as they can. I had the pleasure of interviewing Zahra about her project, and she was kind enough to take out some time from saving the world to share with me the details of how her inspiring operation works. Below is a transcript of our conversation.

Q: How did this “operation” get started? What was your motivation? Where did the idea come from?
A: There were about 4 of us, all of us were friends from Cal State Long Beach who went to a homeless feeding event in Pasadena during thanksgiving, last November. There are always events for the homeless on holidays but never in between holidays. There’s clearly a need and there aren’t enough channels so we decided that we would come up with our own event and there’s enough time and money amongst volunteers to get it done. All of the big events have feeding, but not on a random Saturday’s or weekdays. So we pulled it together.

Q: Was this your first time doing this?
A: Our first time was in December of 2008, the third one was this June, and they are done quarterly. We get together at one persons house and then distribute them [the meals] at shelters. We’ve been to between 5 and 16 different shelters. We’ve made over 2,500 lunches distributed thus far.

Q: Where did this event take place? Why did you choose this location?
A: We did Google searches to see what shelters were nearby, and then we went to the recommended searches.

Q: How many people volunteered?
A: Alhumdolillah we’ve had over 25 – 30 each time we’ve done this.

Q: What types of meals did you serve?
A: Usually it is PB&Jelly sandwiches, a boxed juice drink, chips, cookies and fruit snacks.

Q: How much does this event end up costing?
A: Each lunch ranges from a one dollar to $1.50. A basic lunch is a dollar at most, if we add in produce it adds on about an extra 30 cents an item because fresh produce is expensive. Our total cost per event is approximately between $1100.00 and $1300.00 dollars.

Q: You were also in law school while you were coordinating these events, which is very time consuming, how did you come up with the time to put this all together?
A: Just working with great people, its been surprising how helpful people have been. Sending out a few emails and working through Facebook is how we raise the money, and then we just have good coordination, and then we do all our shopping at Costco, so its fairly doable. If there’s a will there’s a way.

Q: That is very inspiring. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
A: I started doing this in San Francisco in September on my own. People in san Diego and in the Inland Empire have inquired about how to start their own. It’s not easy but it’s very doable. In San Francisco we gave out about 300 lunches a month. Even a few lunches helps the hungry. Even one lunch is one less hungry person.

A lot of people spend a lot of time thinking through details and complications and that slows us down. I would recommend someone just move forward, there is nothing to lose.
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If you would like to help Operation: Brown Paper Bag, or would like more information about them, you can contact them at their email address at brownbagbunch@gmail.com. Or you can follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/BrownBagBunch.

Engineering Laughs

Dan Nainan is living his dream.

It’s a few minutes before eight on a Sunday evening in Ontario, California and the energetic comedian has just performed for 1000 people at the North American Kerala Hindu Convention. He’s famished and briefly considers the convention’s vegetarian buffet, then heads for the hotel steakhouse instead, pausing en route to shake hands and give out business cards.

“Take two, they’re free!” Nainan shouts to passersby, rolling his r’s Indian-style. “Indians LOVE free stuff!” the comic (who is half Indian) confides with a wink.  “Hey, look me up on Facebook!” he urges a group of Desi teens. “I only have one friend!”

Between gulps of grilled salmon (no butter, he is watching his waistline) he returns messages on his Treo 700p while simultaneously extolling the virtues of his favorite discount travel websites.

Later, Nainan sets up shop in the hallway outside the banquet room.  As the moon rises over the Doubletree Inn, he hawks his latest CD and tries to book more gigs so he can keep doing what he loves to do:  make people laugh.

Nainan has logged more than 125,000 flight miles this year. By year’s end he will have performed more than 150 gigs in nearly 50 cities worldwide. Although it sounds brutal, his frenetic pace has led to some prestigious gigs, including performing with comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Bob Saget and touring with Indian comic Russell Peters. He has appeared on Saturday Night Live and Last Comic Standing and is currently filming alongside Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel in a movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

Recently, I caught up with the multiversant performer and he told me the joke about the Indian/Japanese guy who went to sleep an Intel engineer and woke up a comedian.

Only, in Nainan’s case, it’s no joke.

*******

Q:  You bill yourself as “the only Indian/Japanese comedian.”  How has your ethnic background influenced your career?

A:  It’s funny, when I took my first comedy class, I asked the teacher if she thought that [my ethnicity] would be a disadvantage.  I was seriously concerned about that because there weren’t many mixed race comics out there.  But she told me ‘this is going to be your greatest advantage’ and she turned out to be extremely prophetic and correct. I don’t do only ethnic jokes, but by doing those jokes I am able to gain acceptance.  Both cultures - Indian and Japanese - have been very accepting.

Q:  Growing up, did you identify more as Indian, Japanese or American?

A: I was born in Indiana so I really identified more with being American. The only problem was that the other kids made fun of me a lot because of my race.  Starting with college, [my race] became less of an issue.  Now in my adult life, I welcome it.  It’s very flattering to be asked about my race.  It took me a while to realize that people were not asking that with any malice.  Now it’s more a source of conversation.

Q:  Were you a funny kid?

A:  No, I was extremely, painfully shy and withdrawn.  A real wallflower.  It was so bad I didn’t even get invited to parties.  I was a straight A student but once a month or so I would say something really witty and smart alecky and everybody would burst out laughing and I would get kicked out of class for the rest of the day.

Q:  In the late 1990’s you were working for Intel as a demo engineer. How did you get into comedy?

A:  My job at Intel was to design technical demos that would be featured in the speeches of executives like CEO Andy Grove.  [I traveled] all over the world – to distributors’ conferences, analysts’ meetings in New York City, shows in Vegas.  We were doing live demos on stage for things like voice dictation or the latest graphic software in front of thousands of people or sometimes millions on television. I was extremely nervous so to try to get over that I took Intel’s Toastmasters class, which prepares you to do business presentations. But it wasn’t enough of an adrenaline rush because I was in front of 10 to 15 nerds like myself.  Then I heard there was a comedy class being offered in San Francisco.  People had told me I should do comedy or acting.  That was the germination of the idea that I could do comedy.  That, paired with the need to get over stage fright was the impetus to take a comedy class.

Q:  When did you realize that you could make a career doing comedy?

A:  The final event for the class was a show at a real comedy club.  I was very, very nervous about that.  Terrified!  I practiced my act over and over, said it in the car all the way to San Francisco.  When I got onstage [the audience] was laughing and laughing from the get go.  I didn’t know it then, but for a debut it was extremely successful.  A few weeks after that, Intel sent me on the road again to a convention in Vegas.  I had my tape of that first show with me and I mentioned to some people that I had it.  They watched it and they liked it.  It turned out they were in charge of the entertainment for the final team dinner for Intel.  So I performed at that event and I did impressions of Andy Grove and Bill Clinton and they absolutely loved it.  Two months later I performed the same act at an international sales conference and I had 2500 people rolling at that event.  People actually thought I had been hired as a professional comedian.  That’s when I thought, hey, I can do this!  I decided to leave Intel about a year and a half later to get serious about comedy.

Q:  Much of your comedy is based on your ethnicity.  Why does that resonate with your audiences?

A:  I think that, especially from the Indian side, you have an audience that really hasn’t been exposed to stand up comedy.  It’s an art form invented in America and isn’t something that’s been prevalent throughout the world.  But, because of Russell Peters, comedy is now gigantic in the South Asian community. I think that if you do ethnic humor, it is going to appeal to that ethnicity.

Q: Do you perform for both Asian and mainstream audiences?

A:  I would say ninety percent of the shows I do are for Indian audiences, eight percent are East Asian and two percent are mainstream. I think people tend to identify with whatever race you look like.  There are a lot of Indians who have dark skin like me but I don’t think there are too many Japanese who have my skin tone. But it’s also very gratifying to perform for mainstream audiences.  If you can do ethnic jokes for mainstream and have them laugh, it’s kind of like you’ve won a battle.

Q:  Are there any subjects you stay away from in your act?

A:  I don’t do any profanity.  I don’t do sex humor.  There are a lot of staples in mainstream comedy clubs [that I don’t do], like picking on the disabled or mentally challenged.  I just think it’s really cruel and that isn’t the kind of humor I want to do.  I think that actually helps me because doing that kind of humor narrows the kind of groups that will hire me.

Q:  You’ve worked with some well-known comedians.  Who influenced you the most?

A:  Jerry Seinfeld. I asked him once if he had any advice and he said ‘Dan, you’ll work a lot more if you do clean.’ So I try to emulate him in [that sense]. Also, his approach was different.  Your typical comic is an alcoholic or drug addict, getting stoned after the shows, waking up at five in the afternoon.  Jerry had a different attitude.  He would dress up onstage and show up at noon and people would be shocked.  I like to emulate the fact that he is a real professional.  Comedians are known for diva behavior and I don’t like to do that.

Q:  You’ve been filming a movie this summer.  Can you tell me about it?

A:  I just wrapped up filming The Last Airbender, a live-action adaptation of the TV series The Last Avatar.  It’s an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the first that he, himself, hasn’t written. I play the part of Fire Nation Soldier as well as stand in for [actor] Aasif Mandvi. Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire is one of the stars.  I shot for 16 days in Philadelphia, which enabled me to get my Screen Actors’ Guild card.  I got to know Night very well and I got to know Dev and Aasif really well and had an absolute blast.

Q:  When will the movie be released?

A:  It’s coming out in June of next year.

Q:  What was it like to work with M. Night Shyamalan?

A:  Night, as everyone calls him, was absolutely magnificent.  Everyone says you’re not supposed to talk to the director or the stars, but that was completely untrue on this movie.  He was standing next to me on my second day of shooting.  I told him that I had performed at a wedding part at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia about a year and a half ago and that his father and mother had come up to me an introduced themselves as his parents.  His eyes widened and he said, “That was you?!  My father was absolutely raving about you!”

Q:  What else have you been working on?

A:  I just shot my first episode of Desi States of America, which is on [an Indian] channel called PanDesi.  I’m the host and I do some improv stuff and some sketch stuff.  Once it airs, it will be available on their YouTube channel.

Q:  When you’re not performing, what do you like to do?

A:  It’s really important to stay in shape, so [I do] karate, squash, cycling, lifting weights. I don’t watch television, ever – I think I watch fewer than 10 hours a year.  I’m always learning a language on my MP3, whenever I’m driving or on the subway or at the gym. I also play five instruments: keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and cello. Once I get my home studio set up, I’m going to start writing some songs.  Secretly, I want to be a musician.  Every musician wants to be a comedian and vice versa.  It’s funny how that works.

Q:  What advice would you give to young people who want to pursue a non-traditional profession?

A:  A lot of people say to me, “I want to be a comedian or a dancer or a musician or a director, but my parents want me to be a doctor or an engineer.  This is a constant struggle between the young and the old.   What I would tell kids is your parents are right - you really should get gainful employment first.  To suddenly come out of college and say I’m gonna be a poet or a musician…you just can’t do that.  It takes years of honing your art before you can get to the point where you make money. If you want to do something artistic you need to have a 9 to 5 job and make a living first.  The times that you can work on your craft are evenings, when everyone else is watching television, and weekends, when everyone else is getting drunk.

Q:  Have your parents been supportive of your comedy career?

A:  My parents have been extremely supportive.  But I’m not like the guy who wanted to become a comedian right out of college. If that had happened they would have been horrified.

Q:  What is something that nobody knows about you?

A:  I have a hard time admitting this, but I have a pink and white Hello Kitty toaster.  It actually toasts an image of Hello Kitty’s face on the bread.  I also have one of the only bottles of “Michael Jackson King of Pop” cologne in existence.  They were going to market it but never did.  It’s actually a pretty nice scent!

For more information on Dan Nainan, visit his website: www.nainan.com

Managing Diabetes with a Phone Call

SAN FRANCISCO — Luis de Jesus, a Spanish-speaking factory worker, says he enjoys a better quality of life now than when he was first diagnosed with diabetes 10 years ago, thanks to having better control over the disease.

De Jesus enrolled in a program at San Francisco General Hospital’s (SFGH) Center for Vulnerable Population. The program is specifically tailored for “vulnerable” people like him with poor control of their diabetes and with low incomes. Although DeJesus works two jobs to support himself and his family, he has no health insurance.

“I had zero knowledge about how to control or manage diabetes prior to my participation in the project,” the 54-year-old Jesus said through an interpreter. “[The program] was so practical.”

Called Improving Diabetes Efforts Across Language and Literacy (IDEALL), the hospital’s approach uses simple communication technology to help people manage their diabetes without having to make frequent hospital visits.

The IDEALL project team developed an automated telephone support system (ATSM) for diabetes management.

The system provides weekly calls in the patient’s native language–English, Spanish or Cantonese–regarding issues ranging from symptoms and taking prescribed medications, to diet, physical activity and self-monitoring of blood sugar.

The calls also offer advice about psychological issues and referrals for preventive services.

Depending on their automated responses during the call, the patient then receives automated health education messages and a “live” telephone call back from a bilingual nurse care manager. The IDEALL team found that the program could reduce diabetes-related health disparities in vulnerable populations.

“We were really impressed that diabetes patients with limited literacy and limited English proficiency, who many health care workers consider to be ‘hard to reach,’ were the most likely to use this communication tool,” said Dr. Dean Schillinger, director of the SFGH’s Center. He is also chief of the California Diabetes Program in the California Department of Public Health and head of the IDEALL team. “We found that better communication between a public health care system and the vulnerable populations they serve yielded concrete benefits,” Schillinger said.

But Schillinger warned that the program should be seen as “an adjunct” to primary care offered by physicians, not a replacement.

“Diabetes requires daily home management by the patient and occasional visits to the clinic,” noted Susan Lopez-Payan, coordinator of the California Diabetes Program. “The IDEALL project reaches out to patients in their homes.”

An estimated 23.6 million people, or nearly 8 percent, of the U.S. population, live with diabetes. Nationally, the number of people diagnosed with type-2 diabetes has doubled over the past two decades, qualifying it as an epidemic, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In California, one out of nine adults has the disease.

Diabetes is more prevalent among those without a high school education, and disproportionately affects underserved and ethnically diverse populations, including Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans and Asian and Pacific Islanders.

The correlation between the disease and educational level is in part because of the patient’s ability to read food labels, track blood sugar levels, assess insulin amounts, record meal schedules and communicate with clinicians when complications arise.

Schillinger said he hopes that the IDEALL project becomes a “standard of care” across California, given how “scaleable and cost-effective it is.”

The Center for Vulnerable Populations has received additional federal funding to scale up and adapt the ATSM system with a local Medi-Cal health plan partner, the San Francisco Health Plan.

De Jesus has nothing but praise for the program. “Had I not had this opportunity, I would have had to look for alternative programs to help me,” he said. “Because of the program, I now know how to live better.”

The California Medical Association Foundation, too, is trying to reduce the disparities in diabetes care in ethnic minorities.

Today, in Sacramento, it will release the outcome of a Qualitative Collaborative it launched in 2006 to help improve the quality of diabetes care provided by solo and small group practices.

Called the “Advancing Practice Excellence in Diabetes,” the project was initiated to improve diabetes care provided by individuals or groups of primary care physicians fewer than five, said Elissa K. Maas, the foundation’s vice president for programs.

“It was also done to find how the disparities in diabetes care in ethnic minorities could be reduced,” Maas said, noting that ethnic physicians are the most likely to be seeing patients in underserved communities.

In California, small group health care providers represent approximately 60 percent of all primary care physicians who, in 2007, provided care to over 800,000 patients with type-2 diabetes, she said. In the United States, most diabetes care is provided by primary care physicians.

Twenty-four solo/small group primary care practices started in the collaborative, all of them working in the largely agricultural communities of Butte, Glen, San Joaquin, Riverside and San Bernadino.

“We wanted to work with physicians serving a large number of South East Asian communities,” Maas said.

The collaborative found that regardless of the size of the practice, improvements in patient care could be made by taking “small steps,” she said.

For instance, only two primary care groups had patient information stored in electronic devices, something necessary to efficiently track the care patients with diabetes were receiving.

By the end of the Qualitative Collaborative, in December 2008, Maas said, “we helped [participants] build a system that fit the size of their practice.

“We were stunned by the changes that had occurred. We saw improvement not only in the staff’s performance, but also noticed such changes in patients as a drop in blood sugar and cholesterol levels,” as well as an increase in the number of foot exams. (Blisters and red spots on the foot, as well as numbness, are telltale signs of high blood sugar.)

Maas said that by making basic changes in their practice, primary care physicians could help in reducing the number of hospital admissions of their patients with diabetes.

In the long run, “it can save money and improve patients’ health and well-being,” she said.

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This article originally appeared on New America Media.

Movie Review: Dwindling Drops in the Sand

It all started on vacation during a drive through Damascus. Sama Wareh’s uncle thought aloud to himself about God’s mercy, Syria and droughts. It grew into self-funded vacations to Syria, ritual oaths that she wasn’t a spy in return for interviews and a little sprint from the Syrian Secret Service. It resulted in a Masters’ thesis documentary, “Dwindling Drops In the Sand” (DDS), which won the Best Thesis Award in Wareh’s graduate class of environmental studies at Cal State Fullerton.

“DDS” shows you the cracks in Syrian soil, the retardation of the forests and the disappearance of rivers. It is a simple documentary by a student film maker, but despite its simplicity, it connects its audience with the human aspects of environmental changes. It touches softly on the Syrian country and the 4,000 years of continuous life within its capital of Damascus. “DDS” asks you to not forget this side and how, through drought, pollution and carelessness toward the environment, there may soon be an end to this land.

The water problems’ root causes are shrouded by purposely distracting issues, such as the Palestinian struggle, human rights’ violations, and an ethnic rivalry between Persians and Arabs. Wareh strategically chooses to ignore these and other similar deterring issues in her documentary, allowing us to see a more well-informed global view in which natural resources are being depleted causing tensions to rise.

To understand the Middle Eastern, especially Syrian, water issues and territorial struggles, one must understand the following:

-Israel invaded Syria in 1967 and took over the Golan Heights including Lake Tiberias, one of the major water sources for southern Syria.

-Turkey has built the largest damn in the world on the Euphrates; trapping much of the Euphrates’ water in a mountain range in Turkey before it gets to Syria.

-The United States invaded Iraq causing the Syrian population to grow by 700,000 refugees onto an already maxed out water supply.

- Sometimes water in Damascus is only on a couple of hours a day.

-There is a major drought on top of this.

Water is both symbolically and literally sinking away from the people of Syria. It was once only 10 meters from topsoil a generation ago, when Wareh’s grandparents could simply dig for it with their hands and shovels. It is now 300 meters from topsoil.

According to Wareh, the reality is that Syria used to be a place of plentiful water and the forests took up 30 percent of the total land mass; today, the forest takes up 3 percent of Syria. This has caused governments in the Middle East to start thinking that water wars may be necessary and not just a good movie plot.

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Read Wareh’s interview with Cal State Fullerton’s Public Affairs Office.

Modern Day Percussionists: Street Beat

Meet a modern day version of an energetic and community oriented percussion group - one that will transform a bucket, a trashcan or a set of rims into solid musical instruments. Street Beat entertains audiences of all ages by combining percussion, dance and education. Their interactive shows have enlightened diverse crowds through arts education and music appreciation. Street Beat also performed over 400 shows in 2008 and is set to tour the U.S. starting this fall.

In this week’s MD Spotlight, meet 31-year-old Ben Hansen, the founder of the L.A. based percussion and dance troupe.

What is Street Beat and how did it get started?

It’s a modern day percussion troupe, [which] takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. Our main objective is to stimulate people of all ages groups [and encourage] them to keep some kind of musical engagement as part of their daily lives. We feel it’s a big part of being human, healthy and having a spiritual connection and as a way of releasing passion and creative energy.

We got started when I got my green card 5 years ago. I wanted give back to the local SoCal community. I moved here from Denmark as a drummer because I had a contract. I started shifting gears after getting my green card and focused on music education and spreading music awareness amongst youth.

We started at the Avalon Gardens School in L.A. [There was an] African percussion class that had no funds so I pulled inspiration from other drummers and got creative. We came up with the concept of “repurposed percussion” of all of our instruments. We found left over water drums and we repurposed them.

Street Beat has evolved – we had 400 shows last year. We [are managed by] Columbia Artists Management in New York; we produce a show of 11 crew members that will tour this fall. We focus on dance as well, linking percussion with street style. We will start at Lancaster Performing Arts Center in early October then go to the east coast for four weeks.

How many members are part of Street Beat?

A total of 26 members in the company – some are in the instructional aspect, running workshops, staff development [while] some are performers only and participate in small and large shows. We do corporate shows and shorter high impact shows.

What is your niche? What sets you apart from other groups?

We have among all cast members the ability to produce music entertainment on a  slightly more professional level. We use African, Cuban, Latin, West African and jazz concepts to produce something more dynamic and complex.

The other niche is our ability to connect with the crowd. Especially with younger crowds. Arts education is a very successful program. We can offer some of the best arts education; our program enables us to use creative awareness of these basic primal tools and compare them to school or something students work on daily. To be a street beater, you have to use pedagogy and engage with crowds.

What are your goals for the future? How long has SB been around?

Unify the world, which is so spread and torn these days in so many different ways (culturally and religiously). Our inner mission is try to unite everyone through music and percussion as a founding element that will over exceed any other power.

Is this your sole job?

It started as a project with Avalon Gardens school, I was a freelance drummer and played with bands around town. As I got more excited about creating, producing and seeing changes within kids we performed for and worked with, my focus was on Street Beat more. I was luckily able to pass on my gigs to other guys I worked with.

It’s been a pretty smooth transition, we are looking at expanding as times goes by. We want to take arts education through out the nation.

What is the art education program?

We are like consultants. We come with our services to school sites and provide everything needed. We do staff shows for companies, performances at schools, we have direct assessment time and provide all the instruments. We teach kids the basics of percussion within one hour but prefer 120 minutes to teach the main concepts of percussion. We can put an advanced drum piece together after that workshop. We  also have our assemblies - the clip with Corvin Bleu was a 45 minute duo.

We also do larger assemblies with two drummers and two break dancers. The focus is to teach kids the responsibility [needed] when combining dance with percussion.

Also, we do human beat box, [which is] beat boxing and body drumming. We teach kids how we can practice our passion without instruments.

Biggest challenges up to date?

Sometimes it’s challenging to accommodate clients requests if conditions for a successful workshop are not met. We have two different programs for elementary schools and we like to split up our assemblies in two. We’ve a developed a presentation for low and high grades. It’s challenging when schools split up the student body and we have to present programs for kindergarten and sixth graders [together]. Some schools work well with us and some don’t. It’s not as successful as it could be if were divided the  right way.

What do you like most about what you do?

The ability to connect to people and spread joy through very random, every day items. Also, realizing possibilities exist in everything beyond their appearance. We feel people are stimulated by this.

Some of our instruments are literally left over items in our home that we turn into percussion instruments and some are found in junkyards. Some of our broken water drums from schools are donated to us and we take them back to the shop and cut out the upper part and turn it into a cylinder we use as a base drum. We made our own medal symbols, some of it wears out so on  occasion, we purchase actual trashcans but that doesn’t happen that often.

What do you like least about what you do?

My neck always hurts and my voice is kind of raspy after shows. But I love it, too.

How many instruments do you take to a show?

It depends on sites and their real estate size. Some performances are in really small areas so we can’t bring a lot. At performing arts centers we have an arsenal of gear. It all depends on the show.

How do you transport the instruments?

When we do local shows, we use smaller vehicles depending on how many crew members are going. Sometimes we travel to location individually. We are able to fit our equipment.

Tell me about your members.

They’re in their mid 20’s to mid 30’s. Because of educational aspects, it’s important that they’re at a certain experience level not only as performers but as instructors and speakers before even considering being a part of our crew.

What are your favorite causes?

The environment and trying to resolve conflicts caused by religion worldwide. I’m doing as much as I feel I can at this point by using music as a catalyst for unification and energy amongst everyone in the world.

Favorite pastime outside of work?

I still love music so I spend a lot of my time on it. I like the entrepreneurial aspect of things. My days easily turn into 17-18 hour days for marketing [purposes]. Also being at our shows; I’m trying to establish energy. Walter and Josh did an amazing performance themselves.

Do you have any mentors?

Micheal Shermer – he has an incredible ability to speak and to bring awareness to shed light on things in a very successful way for everyone to understand. He’s a science historian, his ability to open people minds and talk about things in a logical way has inspired me. The list would go on for religion.

Best practical advice to pass along?

To believe in yourself. Our instruments have a whole other side and beauty in them and are items that you’d never consider instruments. We want our kids to look at themselves [in that way].

The way we carry the show, the need of academic achievement is so important to success that we try to fuse that in what we do so that it’s inspiring to the kids.

–

To learn more about Street Beat, visit their website here or contact Ben Hansen at Bh (at) streetbeat (dot) biz.

Spoken Word Artist: Gabriela Garcia Medina

At first glance it may not be obvious that this small framed girl has the orating power and self confidence of a seasoned artist in tune with her life’s purpose. In reality she is a 26-year-old woman who captures the imagination of her audience, has them laughing and rooting as she maneuvers through a rhythmic incantation about a mother’s magical powers or a feminist’s view on love. Her voice pierces the walls of engaged venues and she leaves them wanting more.

In this week’s MD Spotlight, meet Gabriela Garcia Medina, a spoken word artist mixing stories, poetry and emotion to convey messages of hope, revolution, identity, love and so much more.

How did you get into poetry and spoken word and what attracted you to it?

There have been a few stages in my life that were detrimental. [First], my family left Cuba in 1989, and went to London. One of my school field trips was to a soup kitchen [to] help homeless people. I didn’t understand that there were people who didn’t have food or homes [at the age if ten]. I cried at home and the only way I stopped crying was by writing a poem. My family started nurturing me to keep [writing].

When I was 15, there was an event at Columbia University in New York where children from around the world applied for a summer program: I got chosen. I spent my 16th birthday in New York City - spent it in development workshops. [One] field trip was to the Nuyorican Cafe and I saw people older than myself doing spoken word - not poetry but not hip hop [either]. I said, “Wow, I totally want to do what they’re doing.”

When I graduated high school in Europe, I came to UCLA for college in 2001. My first and second boyfriends were poets and one was a Def Poet- he was getting paid. I realized then that I could make a living out of my poetry.

What is the typical process of getting a poem from your mind onto the stage?

There are two different ways I write a poem. One is the structured way - I’ll get commissioned by an organization. They give me a theme, time and money. I have freedom as to how I write the poem but the idea and theme is [provided].

[Then with] every interaction I have with people, in the back of my mind I know that I have to write this poem. Everything that I do, I try to relate to my poem. I might be having a rough day, [and] writing is a way I heal. Maybe I [will] have a conversation with you today about something that changes my views then I go home and write a poem about it.

[My poems are] usually 6 minutes [in length] like the “Magician.” I memorize them by reading them over and over again on stage. When I’m getting on stage, I tell myself that everything I have to say is valuable and positive. That kind of affirmation helps me memorize what I wrote. Not everybody has the opportunity to get up on stage and share their thoughts. I tell myself to honor that opportunity–it’s almost a prayer.

What do you call your style of spoken word?

I’ve seen in poetry [that] people are influenced by each other. The artist amalgamates and I try to grow and expand the style in which I write. I never want to be one style. I don’t want to be the angry revolutionist. I’m tired of the poems that get people angry and riled up but not inspired to do something. I want to inspire people to feel great about who they are and feel empowered about who they are and do something. Now I’m thinking: how do I tell stories?

Slam is competitive poetry and I don’t believe that people should judge your art. [In slam competitions] you write for the audience because you want to get that perfect 10. You stop writing for what your spirit wants to say and for yourself. That style is very dynamic, which is good and very performative, but you’re not writing for yourself anymore. [Your poetry] stops being genuine.

How do you remember your lengthy poems?

I meditate for a minute before getting on stage. I get nervous when I do shows in front of thousands of people. So I tell myself: “You have this amazing opportunity to get out there and touch these people. You can get scared or you can really do the best you can.” I pep talk myself and it really works.

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on two poems and editing one. It’s called ‘At least I’m a good poet,’ [and] it’s about not knowing how to cook. The underlying story is really deep. In life, you can be good at as many things as you want, but you have to commit and try and know that you will get better (that inspires people). [It's also about] identity. Just because I’m Cuban, I don’t have to eat pork fat, love Fidel and smoke cigars. Your identity doesn’t have to be applied [onto you] by outside factors - you define it yourself. I’m talking about being a Cuban vegan and cooking Cuban vegan food [but also about how] it wasn’t working out. That one is almost done. I’m working on memorizing it now.

[Also] soap operas, like Stella Novela, [are a] part of our culture [and] I grew up listening to [them]. My grandparents, aunts and the whole neighborhood in Cuba listened to them. They shapes our identities as women and machismo as men. It’s a sad perpetuation of how the media want our people to look – light skinned, light haired. Now I’m using humor more – people listen to it more than anger. [The poem is] about how this has shaped our identities as women and Latinas.

The next poem I’m working on is about the declaration of hope - about revolution, social justice and spirituality. How I moved from anger, going to anti-war rallies to a more proactive and creative place, but it’s just as reactionary. You can affect more change if you can be proactive and creative about what you want to build, not destroy. People say what they’re against when you ask them about their politics - but what are you for? What will you create and do when war is over? I’m struggling right now because I don’t want to get preachy - I’ve written it four times and it’s not ready to be born yet, which is okay.

What sets you apart from other poets?

I have my own unique voice and style that I continually try to grow out of and into something else. A woman, person, activist and spiritual person - that’s hopefully reflecting on the subjects I choose to write about. I’m always changing and evolving. There are a lot of good poets, but they fall into one style; that’s good but it has an expiration date. I continually try to go outside and try something different. [I] always try to expand my style and voice – I want to redefine that rhythm that I use in my poetry while I’m trying to continually grow.

Biggest challenges up to date?

Right now with my writing, my poetry career has taken off really fast. I’m very lucky to be living off my poetry right now – it’s a big deal. I wasn’t prepared for so much success so quickly - it threw me off balance. I haven’t had time to write because I was in production and performance mode. I haven’t been able to edit a poem for 5-6 months. I’m booked until Sept. 2010 - so if you want to bring me out to your school, you have to talk to my agency.

It’s great. I don’t want to complain but it’s important for me, knowing I’m in my next stage as a performer, to know that I have to write. I have to write in a safe place, where my mind is open. Two hours in a hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee is no the place to write about the woman you met at the sweat shop in downtown L.A. Now my challenge is to move forward in this stage – I see my challenge as an opportunity to grow.

What do you like most about what you do?

I get to meet incredible young people all over the country - they’re like sponges absorbing ideas. I get to present ideas [of] alternative forms of culture and empower them – give them ideas that are bigger than them. Hopefully they will go out and do something ground breaking. Everyday I’m around people with different beliefs - it’s not easy. I like to push the envelope.

At social justice events, I don’t want to write only what they want to hear. And I love that I can do this full time – 4-5 months a year I’m performing at schools. The rest of the year, I can do what I want. [I can] teach at a girls’ school in Monrovia, California, take a class or do things that I’m passionate about.

What do you like least about what you do?

What I like least is that I spend very little time with the kids I speak to.

I wake up at 5 a.m., take a plane at 6:30 a.m., and get into a city by early afternoon. In 3 or 4 hours, I get to a hotel, drop off my stuff, and get ready. Then I do a performance, do a Q&A show, get back to the hotel, drive over to the airport, and then fly to another city the next day.

I don’t like that; it doesn’t give me time to connect with friends in a community, and I can’t root myself. I’m not always on - I’m always genuine and 100 percent myself, but I’m not always on. Sometimes I’m going through something, and I want to be in my room, meditating [while] burning incense. Lately I’ve felt inauthentic because of it. But now I realize this has become a job. I have to be a performer, and I have to be that performer when I’m on stage.

What are your most notable milestones?

I’ve had a very interesting life: I’ve seen the world which has made me compassionate about all people. I graduated college in ‘06 – I almost didn’t want to graduate. I was very political. I had to go through that phase to get to the next phase – [I was] developing as a writer.

I don’t like the idea of milestones – that means that there are certain stages in life that make a big impact and others don’t. I view my life as very fluid, changing and evolving, letting me move forward.

My family is completely displaced. I grew up in Cuba. I visited Tehran, Iran in 1995. It was very life-changing – I was visiting my dad who was working there. I loved the country; it was different from what I was used to.

This last summer I cycled across the country – from Oregon to Virginia. It was very humbling physically and emotionally. It was a very empowering experience. I got to meet a lot of interesting people on the road – I was humbled by there compassion.

We’re influenced by the people we come in contact with in life – I’m excited for the AIDS life cycle this summer. I’m cycling from San Francisco to L.A. to raise money for AIDS from May 31 to June 6.

This is not like [before]; it’ll kick ass but it serves a different purpose. It’ll bring awareness to my family and friends that even if there are hard times right now – as much as we’re struggling – there’s always someone struggling more.

My agency is based out of Minneapolis; we communicate via email and a shared calendar. I block off dates I don’t want to work. [So] I’ve blocked off April 29 – Sept. 15. My dad’s coming over from Argentina, and I’m flying him out to spend a month with me. I’m [also] going to Thailand and Cuba.

Any particular moments from a show worth mentioning?

I have a pet peeve: when people have phones on during a show; it totally throws me off. Sometimes the audience doesn’t realize how affected we are by their energy. While we’re there, we’re exposed to them; it throws us off if they’re texting or checking their phones.

Best practical advice to pass along?

[Because my family is composed of ] first generation immigrants, they prioritized my education. They were disappointed when they saw I wanted to be a creative person [and] not an engineer, doctor or lawyer. I didn’t have their support and had to fight for it.

I get to do [spoken word] for a living and full time. The interesting thing is that my aunt is an engineer, and she’s worried that she’ll be out of a job. Here I am writing and I’m not worried for the next two years. People will try to use fear to make you not do what you want in life, and as long as you don’t succumb to that fear and really believe in your work, you’ll make it. People will pick up on your genuine work, support [it], and be a part of your life.

What did you do before you got into poetry?

[I did] theater in UCLA, and I double minored in Chicano and African American studies. I started a clothing line, sewed myself, toured and set up booths with a friend. I worked as a tour guide and project director for an art outreach program. I always worked with youth and have been committed to them.

Favorite pastime outside of work?

I love to cycle and salsa dance (the Cuban style not L.A. style. It’s not as showy). I do it full time with friends at a Culver City Brazilian bar. Poetry used to be my hobby during college – now that it’s my life and career, I found I need to do something else [as a hobby]. Dancing is like praying, meditating and [expression].

During a tour, I Google vegan restaurants, Bikram yoga studios and look for a place to go dancing after shows. You can’t put me in a box.

Do you have any mentors?

Not that she knows me, but I love Alice Walker – she wrote Temple of my Familiar, my favorite book.

My favorite author is Octavia Butler – I’ve read all 20 of her novels, because she too can’t be put in a box. She was a 6 foot tall black woman and a science fiction writer. She was a pioneer – she was brave enough to write about something she was passionate about.

Favorite book?

Temple of My Familiar and So Far From God

Passions in life?

Creativity and art and using them to heal, empower and make a proactive difference.

What inspires you to stay in this field every day?

I realize I’m doing the right thing, and I sleep like a baby. That’s a good thing. Every morning, I’m excited to live my life and fulfill my purpose. My goals will always change and grow but that’s my goal. Every morning it’s reaffirmed.

Who would you like to meet one day?

[I would like to meet:] Muhammad Yunus [who won the Nobel Prize for establishing a microcredit movement in the developing world]; Michael Pollan, who wrote the Omnivore’s Dilemma; and Lila Down, who is the Mexican Billy Holiday and sings old Mexican mixed with political music. I’d also like to meet President Obama, the whole Obama family, as well as Paulo Coelho, who wrote The Alchemist.

Who would you like to be contacted by?

I want to go into different proactive organizations, empowering women’s organizations, group homes, social entrepreneurship and micro-lending organizations. As much I love doing college shows, I [also] like to do venues that have less funding but are doing social justice work.

Caught Between Cultures

CERRITOS, Calif. - Perhaps it wasn’t fireworks, but there was definitely a spark. As soon as she set eyes on him, Rebecca Chokshi knew that Vrajesh was the man she would marry.

Sneaking a peek through the window of her parents’ home in Baroda India, she watched as he, his parents and his brother arrived for the first of three arranged meetings.

“The first time I saw him, I got connected,” Chokshi, 49, remembers. “By then I had seen dozens of guys and I never felt that they could be my husband.  But seeing Raj, I thought that he is a good person, a kind person.  At that time I could not spell it out but, looking back, I would say it was love at first sight.”

Over the next 15 days, the couple met two more times under the watchful eyes of their parents. By the third meeting, they had agreed to marry.  The engagement was set and ten months later the couple was wed in front of 500 friends and family members.

Both time and tradition have changed since Chokshi married in 1982.  While once considered the norm in India and many Asian and Middle Eastern countries, arranged marriage is not the rigidly-constructed institution it once was, but rather a hybrid that melds eastern traditions of security and stability with western ideals of love and mutual respect.

Growing up in the 1970’s in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Chokshi always accepted that, in the tradition of her parents and her grandparents, her marriage would be arranged by her family.  There was never any question, and to do otherwise – to have what was termed a “love marriage” – would have brought shame to her parents.

In those days, and to some extent today, families took enormous pride in finding a husband who could provide security and stability for their daughter and the children she would ultimately bear. Families performed extensive background checks on the boys and consulted astrological charts to make sure the couple was a match.

In Chokshi’s case, she and Vrajesh were allowed to have a say in the choice of their partner and to date after they were engaged.  But that was not the case for her parents, who were forbidden to meet each other before the wedding and did not have the option to refuse the marriage.

“Pictures, yes.  They would see pictures but they could not see each other until the wedding date,” Chokshi says. “Their parents would decide that my daughter and your son can get married.  Because the parents would know better than anybody else who would be a good husband for my daughter.”

While arranged marriage is still commonplace in India - especially in the rural villages – higher education, technology and western influence have left their mark on a tradition and way of life that hadn’t budged for centuries.

“I think it has become very informal now, especially in the cities in India,” Sulabha Abhyankar, a Laguna Woods, Calif. licensed clinical social worker says.

“In fact now, because of everybody being educated and having jobs, they meet people on their own.”

Nowadays, she says, the call centers have transformed the Indian economy. The girls are earning their own money and traveling themselves, so they are not that enthusiastic about coming [to the U.S.] like they were 30 or 40 years ago.

But in 1967, when Sunila Kulkarni’s family was looking for a husband for her, non-resident Indians (NRIs) were in demand, and it was common for men to come to India on a two week vacation and return to the U.S. with a bride.

Sunila, now 64, was visiting her sister in Bombay when a friend suggested she meet Arvind, a cousin who was coming from the U.S. Upon his arrival, an appointment was set for the two to meet at his family’s place.  They liked each other immediately and, after seeing a few more girls, Arvind told his parents he wanted to meet with Sunila alone.

“His parents said, ‘no, we don’t do it that way.  We have to inform her family that you like her and you want to meet her.’”

Against their wishes, Arvind contacted Sunila through his brother and they arranged to meet privately.

“The main thing was that he wanted to see that nobody was pressuring me to marry him,” Sunila says. “And he wanted to tell me that his parents are dependent on him, so he has to take care of them financially.

“And then, of course, my parents were really rich and his family, they were middle class.  So he said ‘will that bother you?’ and I said ‘no, I don’t think it will.’  And within two weeks we got engaged.  We were married within a short time and came to the United States.”

While once seen as a ticket to a better life in the U.S., non-resident Indian grooms have lost their allure in recent years, according to Gourav Rakshit, business head of Shaadi.com, an Indian internet matrimonial service.

“With promising careers, independence and the need to spend more time with one’s family, some of the eligible Indian women are not looking to move abroad after marriage,” he says via e-mail.  “Also, despite the economic slowdown, jobs in India are still secure, which is one of the reasons why Indian grooms are in higher demand than NRI grooms.”

Rakshit said they have seen a drop of more than 25 percent in the demand for US-based members and a 23 percent drop in the demand for UK-based members in a year’s span.

They have also noticed that the search for professional working women has risen 15 percent in the past few months, showing that “financially, people are doing their bit to ensure better stability during this period,” he says.

Shaadi.com, which bills itself as “The world’s largest matrimonial service” was launched in 1997.  Since then, the company has helped arrange over 800,000 matches, Rakshit says.

How does he explain the popularity of Indian matrimonial websites over traditional word-of-mouth matchmaking?

Rakshit says one factor is the changing social fabric among Indians and South Asians in general.

“In the absence of a strong social network to fall back on, people are moving to other forms of connecting and communication. The internet takes away the geographical and spatial boundaries and limitations that traditional matchmaking suffers from. One can meet one’s prospective life partner based in Mumbai, while he or she could be sitting in Seattle.”

Of the total member base of 14 million members, 11 percent reside in the U.S. And while some parents are using Shaadi.com to find matches for their children, 70 percent of the profiles are posted by members themselves, he says.

Sandeep Gupta, 31, and Shefali Patel, 27, met on Shaadi.com in May of 2007.  Gupta posted his profile because of family pressure to get married.

“It wasn’t direct pressure,” Gupta recalls, “but sort of like how everybody else was married and starting to have kids.”

His parents had introduced him to a few girls, he says, but they didn’t work out.  Gupta, a director of analytics and operations for an online retailer, contacted Patel on Shaadi.com after filtering for women who speak Portuguese.  (He had lived in Brazil in 2003 and Patel had lived there as a child.) Patel’s name was the only one that popped up.

The couple, both of whom resided in Orange County at the time, corresponded by e-mail for a few weeks and then met for dinner.  They were engaged after eight months and were married in Boston ten months later in a ceremony that Gupta terms ‘traditional with some twists.’

Patel, who was born in the U.S. and is currently an MBA student at Pepperdine University, says she liked the filters on Shaadi.com.

“They were things you traditionally look at:  religion, color of skin, what they do for a living, body type, height,” she says. “Education was extremely important to me.  I was looking for Hindu but I wasn’t dead set about the language that they spoke.”

She doesn’t consider herself traditional, Patel says, but she still likes the traditional aspects of marriage.

“Choosing your friends is one thing but when you are choosing a life partner you have to take into consideration that you will be raising children and you want your spouse to have the same religious views.  My parents are very non-traditional but we have some traditional aspects.  They gave us a choice, like if we wanted to celebrate certain holidays.”

Although they are from different ethnic communities, she is Gujarati and he is Punjabi, and she kept her last name, Patel says there was no opposition from either of their families to the marriage.

“My parents just wanted to make sure Sandeep made me happy and would fit into our family.  Sandeep’s parents just wanted him to get married as soon as possible.” she says.

Patel says she considers internet matrimonial sites like Shaadi.com a modern form of arranged marriage.

“Anybody can put up a profile for their daughter, their niece, their nephew, to find somebody.  When you meet [the person] you’re kind of already on a fifth date because of the filters,” she says.

She believes the tradition of arranged marriage will continue, despite western influences.

“There are tons of small villages in India that don’t have the western outlook on life.”
Gupta agrees.  “My cousin got married last week in the U.S. and that was a traditional arranged marriage and I know a few other people who have done it, even using Shaadi.com, but they themselves didn’t really have a say.  Their parents were more involved.”

But the old ways have definitely fallen by the wayside, he says.

“Nobody does it the way our grandparents did it.  It’s a different form.”

Perhaps, but many traditional-minded Indians in the U.S. are trying to keep marriage traditions alive through their temples, cultural associations and other parent-supervised youth groups.

They also try to meet among the families, social worker Abhyankar says. “The parents are hoping that if they keep pushing, the kids won’t be tempted to marry outside.”

She has known a few very traditional families where the mother threatened suicide or went on a hunger strike because their child was going to marry someone out of the community.

“I’m sure 20 or 25 years ago it was an issue here – marrying in the same community, the same caste.  But I think the requirements have gone lower and lower,” Abhyankar says.

“Parents still want the traditional girl that will take care of their son, will take care of them and will represent their side of the family and their name, be the ambassadors of the family. But nowadays the girls, having their own point of view, they may not even change their last name.  It’s hard.”

Rebecca Chokshi understands how hard it is to raise traditional kids in a non-traditional world.  She has raised two sons since coming to America - one is 25 and the other, 18 - and she worries about the values they are learning here.

“We have those kind of [Indian] youth groups but I don’t know how much I should trust that youth,” she says. “Because when they are together, they behave like Indians but when they step out they are American, drinking and eating meat.”

She has friends who have tried to arrange marriages for their kids but not in the traditional sense.

“The kids will exchange phone numbers and e-mail addresses,” she says. “They start talking and they meet outside without letting the parents know.  And they start dating and then they would tell the parents.”

Even the parents would like for the kids to get to know each other before they meet them, she says.

Her older son is approaching marriageable age, according to Indian custom. But for Chokshi, caught between two cultures, all she can do is wait and pray.

“If I would have been in India, I would have looked for a wife for my son. I would have some involvement in finding him a girl,” she says. “Over here I have no control.”

Chokshi feels a sense of loss in missing one of the important phases of life, she says.

“For me, it’s one of the things I should be doing in my life – taking him to the girl’s house or making him meet the girl.  It’s one of the things that you don’t want to miss in your life. You want to tell people: look at my son!  I raised my son and I am proud of him!  There are a lot of emotions involved in the wedding process.”

He is currently dating an American girl, though how serious it is, Chokshi isn’t sure. She says if they do marry, she will accept it because that would make her son happy. But given a choice, she would prefer that he marry an Indian.

“I’m not that good in English that I can express myself [and] my feelings,” she says. “If she was Indian we could share more things.

“I want her to learn my traditions.  I want her to learn my ways.  I feel that [if he does marry an American] they would get involved more in American culture.  Though they would accept mine, it would not be the same.”

What is most important to her is that her family’s traditions be carried on to the next generation, she says.

Later, Chokshi retrieves her wedding album from her closet and thumbs through the pages, something she often does when she feels blue. She takes comfort in the pictures and in recalling the happiness that surrounded her wedding day.

As she shuffles through the photos, she lovingly smooths the pages, now creased and faded with the passage of time.  She lingers on some, explaining,

“This was my mehndi party the day before my wedding.”  She points to the intricate henna designs that adorned her feet and hands, remembering the pride she felt as a bride-to-be.

“These are my girlfriends from school. This is the party the morning of our wedding, when our extended families met for the first time. Here I am wearing my two wedding saris – one is white, the other red.”

In her community, she says, the white sari is given to the bride by her parents while the red sari is a gift from the groom’s family.

She pauses over a final picture of she and Vrajesh saying goodbye as they leave for their honeymoon and after that, her new life with her husband’s family.

“That’s my mom, crying,” she says softly, allowing the bittersweet memories to wash over her.  “My dad also cried when I was leaving. I wanted to cry too but I didn’t want Raj’s family to see me sad.”

With a sigh, she flips the album shut, closing the book on a tradition and a way of life forever lost in time.

Scrambled Identity

It’s usually at this time after a few hours of studying history and politics that I go back to my niggling question of identity. I often attempt to sweep it under the rug with a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself,” and I carry on bravely trying to create a brilliant girl who on occasion makes brilliant scrambled eggs. But the spices in my kitchen cabinet smile at me in colorful Malay slogans (”Maggi Nasi Goreng Cina!” “Bawang kering- guna terus dari kotak!”), the American microwave softly beeps the hour, and the Arabic murmurs of prayers from the nearby mosque wafts in through the window screen, and I am compelled again to wonder what I am. And leaning against the counter with a greasy spatula held speculatively above the sizzling pan, an old poem from my GCSE high school years comes back to me.

Mind, it’s been so long that I almost forgot who the author is. A cursory look on google reminded me that Merle Collins is a poet who participated in the Grenada revolution in her youth. Below is the poem that provoked me to overcook my scrambled eggs. Even years later, the poem is still unique to me– more so in some ways, as I’ve unwillingly cultivated a few more identity issues since my GCSE days.

Where the Scattering Began
Here, on the streets of London
where, some say, the scattering began
we come to find our faces again
We come to measure the rhythm of our paces
against the call of the Ghanaian drum that talks
against the wail of the mbira from Zimbabwe
that yields music to the thumbs
We come with faces denying names
gone English, Irish, Scottish
We come with hands that speak
in ways the tongue has forgotten
We come with intonations
that reshape languages we have been given
We come with eyes that tell a story
the brain cannot recall
We come with the blue of the sea so close
that we lift our eyes with yearning
to the emptiness of the skies
Some of us come with the memory of
forest sounds that we have never known
We all come speaking so simply
of complicated things. Here
when we recognize each other
on the streets of London
hands and eyes and ears
begin to shape answers
to questions tongue can find
no words for asking.

–

Credit: Khalisah Stevens, who is half Malaysian, half “white” American and has lived in the Middle East most of her life.

Note: GCSEs are exams students take at the end of the British high school system.

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