From The Peopling of New York City

I am interviewing Maya, a student from Archbishop Molloy, a Catholic High School in Jamaica. She also frequents Jackson Heights. I am interviewing her concerning her parents/her own views on race and religious differences. This is a bit unorganized, because I had forgotten my questions at home, also this is not the entire transcript, she goes on to talk about the differences between the Indians and West Indians (Carribean) in her high school. I will type this up soon. She speaks a lot about marriage and Bollywood. We just got on the topic, but if anyone would like to interview her further on these topics, she is definitely welcoming to meeting them. From this interview, I think I see a family that may be somewhat assimilating, although her father is slightly resistant. I will go on to interview her friends...maybe rethink my topic. This interview was more general, I asked a lot of race related questions, but I also wanted to get a sense of her family values. I will try to organize this when I return from break.

So I just want you to kind of give me your background, where you’re from, all that stuff.

My name is Maya. I am 18 years old. My parents are born in India, but they came over, so I am an American, technically. I was born in…I was raised in Long Island City, but now I live in Richmond Hill.

Now, you go to a Catholic High School, but you are of Hindu faith. How did you come to the decision to come to Molloy or why?

Well, I went to a Catholic grammar school, and my father believed that I would get a better education. All my cousins, I’m technically the youngest, so all my older cousins and my sister, they all started off in a Catholic grammar school. So, I just felt more comfortable, and when I had to go to high school I figured it would be more of a comfortable atmosphere rather than a public school, because of all those stories you hear, I definitely wanted to go to a Catholic high school and Molloy was the best.

Molloy has a lot of religious obligations, such as mass. How do you feel about that?

I really don’t mind, I’m pretty accepting of other religions, definitely, because in the grammar school we were forced to go to mass every month as a school, and in Molloy you only have to go to about two, which isn’t a big deal. I just went to the Easter mass willingly just because it was our last official mass and it was actually really cool because, yeah, it’s of a different faith but you learn more about it, like, learn to be more accepting and it’s just how I was raised.

So, it seems like your family and parents are very accepting of other faiths, is that true?

They pretty much are; I don’t really talk to them much about other faiths, but I’m pretty sure they’re accepting because I have been going to Catholic school for all my life. They’re also very religious, every weekend we do go to temple, we do go to our own little masses and my dad, like, forced it upon us basically when we were little and how it’s just out of habit mostly, but we do, we’re very religious.

That’s good. What temple do you go to?

Um, we go to a Hindu temple, but we also go to a Jain temple because its more specific, but I’m Jain, so I’m a vegetarian and all that. So, we go to both every week, and sometimes more other Hindu temples around the area, but minimum those two.

You said at first you felt forced to go, but now you kind of accept it?

Yeah, because when we were little, it’s like you don’t want to wake up Sunday morning and get out of bed and do the same thing repetitively, but that was what we had to do. You have to go to temple when you are little and now it’s just like we know the drill, so we do it, and it’s kind of out of habit now because we’re so used to it, but we do want to do it because it’s a tradition.

In other interviews that students have been doing, they have noticed a very strong family relation in Indian families. A big thing they talk about is staying at home until you’re married, now you had mentioned that you’re going away to school. Is your family not as traditional? How do your parents feel about that?

When you come over to America, things change, especially values. We are very family oriented, when I was little we used to live with my uncle, my aunt, and my two cousins in the same house, because of tradition. Our grandparents also lived with us when they were alive, but now it’s like accepting realistically all eight of us could not live in a house together and get along and now you accept American values as well when you come here. My sister went away to college so I guess it’s not accepted of me, but I want to just because it would be more of a steady environment. My mom and my dad actually they both don’t want [me] to because they just want to keep me around and stuff like that, but they’re accepting of it. Yeah, stereotypically, you do stay home until you’re married and you get an arranged marriage, too, so you have no say in life. Now, especially when you come here, you have to learn to let go, you have to be accepting. My dad is trying to stick to the old traditional ways, but my mom knows it’s not gonna happen, like once we get a job, we will move out. We will take care of them, it’s not so hard. With my parents and their generation, it was like, you stay home, you get married, and no matter what age, well, preferably younger. My uncle, the oldest of my dad side, he actually came to America to study and he didn’t want to but my grandparents were pretty liberal for that age. So he came over, and he brought over everyone else after that. Parents typically want you to get married within the same background and religion, but my uncle actually married a Philippine woman out of love and it wasn’t arranged. That I felt was very surprising, especially for that era, and because he was the oldest. They were in love, and they still stuck it out so that was really awesome.

What were your parents saying at home when they found out?

I…I never really asked them that, but they accepted it, they had to I guess. It just happened. I’m pretty sure, during their wedding, like none of the family was there, because it happened in America when they got married and everyone else was still in India. But when my mom came over after her arranged marriage with my dad, she keeps telling me how my Philippine aunt was always there and for her, because my mom also had no one from India. She still was only by herself and it was [my aunt] that made her feel at home and was there for her like an older sister. So, even if they were offput at first, I know that the feelings still there, and they would do anything for her. Even I was surprised because I would also expect the parents to be crazy and say “Oh no, you can’t marry a Pilipino,” and I remember one time I asked my uncle, “How was it? Being here all by yourself, you were a student, didn’t want to be a student, and you just wanted to stay in India and do what everyone else did,” and he said, “No, I remember calling up my parents and there was an open communication. They would help me with trigonometry when I didn’t understand it and stuff. They trust me, I guess in a sense, and I told them about this dating thing, and they were like, if you really want to, if I fell in love then go for it.” I thought that was awesome and now whenever I need my parents to budge on something I tell him

Your parents were arranged. Do they have that in mind for you?

This year, especially, I learned so much more about it in classes and stuff. It’s good economically, I guess, just because you don’t have to worry about it so much, but in the long run I’m not a big fan of it. I’m against it and I don’t want it definitely, and my parents realize that, so it’s not gonna happen. If anything, I’m pretty sure it might possibly happen to a cousin of mine, because he’s 25 and were just, like, joking around with him like “When are you gonna get married?” but he doesn’t really have a steady career or anything so, there’s a likelihood that he might get arranged, and his parents are more traditional. My parents are not like that.

So, does it come to a point where, like your cousin, they say “Well, you haven’t found anyone at this point, we’re going to arrange you”?

This is my opinion, that he should be arranged just because he doesn’t really have much going for him and socially, he’s not talkative or outgoing, so I think it would just be better for him. I think his parents understand that too, but they haven’t been around in his upbringing [as much]; they just let him do whatever. It seems an arranged marriage would be better for him in the long run.

Do you ever spend time in Jackson Heights, like hang out there?

Yes (laughter)

What do you do there?

Shop. I rarely go by myself. Most of the time I go with my parents when they have to grocery shop or there’s an Indian thing where I need an Indian outfit, so I trust them more than more Indian places around the city. Jackson Heights is pretty cool to go out there for dinner and stuff but if I were to go there by myself I would be scared because I wasn’t raised around many Indians so a lot of them do scare me, just that feel. I don’t know how to word this, but a lot of them together they act like they would in India, where you can spit on the floor and act like, I don’t know, an animal. I don’t know, a lot of them in big groups like that do scare me, but Jackson Heights is relatively moderate, I can stand that.

Jackson Heights is not only Indian, there are a lot of Hispanic people who live around there. Do you see any interactions?

Well, especially in the grocery stores, it’s surprising to see Caucasian [and Hispanic] people shop around there because its like “[Wow], they shop here too.” It’s pretty cool when I see that, you know were interacting culturally so.

It seems like South Asians and Indians keep in their own culture, for example, when confronted by the white students in our class they shied away, but had no problem talking to South Asian students in our class. Is this common?

I think so. In anything its more like interacting with people of your own kind, yeah, that’s it. Especially since they don’t know what you guys are doing, they’re like “Why are you asking me questions?” and I guess that’s part of it.

How do your parents feel about the different groups that live there?

They’re pretty accepting. I remember we were at temple many years ago, and there was a Caucasian lady doing the practices with us, and at first I was like, “Oh, what is she doing?”, type of thing and my mom said, “Oh no. She’s Jain too and she’s one of us.” I thought that was pretty cool and wanted to know why she wanted to become Jain and all that stuff and my mom was accepting of it. It’s not “normal”, but my mom accepted it.

Now, where are you from exactly in India? Where are your parents from?

They’re from Gujarat, it’s a state and I think it encompasses Mombai too, so it’s like that area.

Is there any religious tension going on there?

Well, that state is pretty much Hindu or Jain, that’s where we all originate from so there’s pretty much no tension. I don’t think so. With my grandparents, they actually got arranged through one of the religious groups they had, so religion is a big aspect in that area.

(we got back on the discussion of arranged marriage)

For my mom, when she got arranged, they got engaged in January, they got married in February. After they got married, my dad had to come back to America because his visa was up and my mom wouldn’t come back until April or June. She had to leave everything she knew. It’s one thing to leave and then go to another town in India, but to go across the world practically…I asked her about it a lot over this past year and she just said, “Well, it’s something you have to do,” I think it’s just something you have to do for your life, not just to do for a man, and she said “Yeah, but…” I asked why she had an arranged marriage and she said technically she was old, but she was only 24. She had an education, she had her Masters, she had a lot of degrees, so that like wasted time before her marriage so, my grandfather, her father, was reading the newspaper and saw an ad for my dad. My dad didn’t know about it, but my grandfather liked it and that was the case. With my mom growing up, it was like the women were second class. My mom has seven sisters and only one brother, and her, her seven sisters, and her mom had to eat on the kitchen floor, while her brother and my grandfather ate at the dining table, and the dining table was pretty big, so it just goes to show you how women were treated as second class and they were expected to be this “little servant girl” for their husbands. When my mom first came here, it was that case, the man works, the woman stays home and cooks, but now as the American values are creeping in, my mom does go to work, yet she still does the cooking and the cleaning of the house. Just yesterday, I think my mom playfully hit my dad, and I was like “Yeah! You go girl,” type of thing, but my dad said “No, no, in India traditionally, does the wife hit the husband? No,” questioning my mom and my mom said “Listen, traditions are changing, you need to accept it.” I thought, yay mom!

It seems though you still have different values than your mom, for example, she accepted an arranged marriage where as you would fight it.

I don’t know what she wants me to do, I think she just wants me to make a lot of money when I grow up. That’s her goal. Even in India, I think, arranged marriages are slowly creeping down because I heard they’re trying to mimic America, but to the extreme. They think that we’re something that we’re not, like in the movies. I was talking to my little cousin, and she was saying how girls in India wear tubetops and miniskirts because they think that’s what we do here, and I think they jus take it a little too far. We’re not that “Britney Spears” generation, we don’t do all that stuff that they think. My mom watches a lot of Indian reality shows and Indian tv shows, and she knows now that India is worse than America in a sense because they think that they can do all this stuff, which they can’t.

Even in their movies, they are fantasized about love and this and that, whereas their tradition is different. Do you see that as changing as well? What they portray in movies, is that maybe changing India?

Yeah, definitely. I’ve even noticed. I’m a big Bollywood fan, I do like to watch the movies and go through the motions and all that stuff but now even Bollywood has taken a change. They’ve stopped all that lovey dovey love-triangle stuff and are now focusing on action or one night stands. It’s very creepy to see. In Bollywood, you’re not supposed to kiss, lip-to-lip, impossible. It was very funny at first, but now we’re accepting, like you’re not supposed to show that kind of affection in public. A couple years ago I actually saw to actors kiss, on tv, and I was like “Gross!”, first of all, it didn’t even look natural, second of all, it didn’t even work in the scene and it was just weird and now in most Indian films, especially the younger actors, they feel the need to actually kiss and it’s just unnecessary, especially in an Indian film it’s just awkward and unnecessary, I don’t like it. Even Bollywood is becoming modernized. Indians are living by the Bollywood ideals, and they’re giving up their traditional values too. Do you feel like they’re trying to ripoff the American movie, like the big romantic kiss?

Definitely, even in normal movies. Bollywood just copied “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” they definitely just ripped everything from that movie.

Really? That doesn’t seem like a movie they would make.

I know. It was definitely a big deal, because its gay so you’re gonna approach the homosexual topic and then also the modernization. I think it was a big box office hit because they had two very well known actors, and the Miss Universe, I think it was. That was a really good movie, it was actually funny, funnier than the American version which I saw.

Did your parents see this movie?

Well, they saw the beginning of it, and my dad didn’t like it so much because it was based in Miami. It was an Indian movie in Miami, so they had all the swimsuits, and whatever. My dad was like “What is this?” and now in Indian movies they’re also speaking English so it’s like English and Hindi mixed together so it’s hard to keep up. It’s weird. So, my dad didn’t like it so much at all, basically, and my mom thought “This could be good…” I don’t know. There was a cute scene in it where the mom finds out that her son is gay so I thought it was funny and my mom would like it, but she said she didn’t want to stick around to see it, it was too much.

On the topic of homosexuality, what are your views, your parents’ views…

I’m perfectly fine with it, I’m totally accepting of it. My mom…I’m not sure. I don’t talk to my dad about it, it’s not something I’d talk to my dad about, so…I think my mom is accepting it more and more because she works in the city, she does see a lot of gay people. I remember, she tries to make a joke out of it though…her joke is just “gay.” Just that one word in the middle of nowhere. I’m a big fan of Ellen DeGeneres, an openly lesbian person, and my mom likes her, too, but I don’t think she realized that she was a lesbian until I told her “Mom, she has a girlfriend!” and she said What? And I told her she just got married to her wife. My mom was just questioning it, like, “She’s gay??” …Yes mom, she’s gay. She’s accepting of it. I think one time she tried to explain it to my dad that a person she was working with was gay and my dad was just like, yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah, he knew, but he didn’t wanna dwell on it, like yeah whatever. It’s something you have to accept, especially in New York City, you can’t get around it and… With the arranged marriage, my cousin is like 24, 25 and his parents sat him down and at dinner and said, “Listen, if there’s any serious girls in your life, you can tell us, we’re accepting of it. We want to know if you have a girlfriend.” As a joke, he was like “What if there’s a guy?” and his parents were like “What?” His father is more modern and he was like “No, if there’s any girl.” His mother flipped, she’s very traditional, way more traditional than like anyone I know, she was like “No, no, no. Don’t even talk to me about it.” My cousin was just joking, but it was funny. His parents grew out of it, but we used the joke again, and they said we need to stop.

If you or your sister came home and said, “Hey here’s my girlfriend.” How would that go over?

I don’t know. I really don’t know, I guess you won’t know until it happens. I don’t think my parents would isolate me, maybe for a month or whatever. My dad might, my mom would be like, “What’s the deal?” sort of thing. They might actually be harsh, I don’t know. It’s something you wouldn’t know unless it happened, but they won’t be accepting at first, definitely, not with open arms, because even when my sister had a prom date, he was Spanish. We had to go through the deal of all having dinner with him, all that crazy stuff. My sister does date, I just don’t because there’s not too many nice guys there in the world. (laughter) She dated her prom date who was Spanish and my parents don’t really get involved in that aspect. I don’t know why, but it’s just something they don’t want to deal with at the moment. They just leave it be, they don’t talk about it. I don’t mind if my sister came to me, but we don’t have that close of a sister bond, as I see with most sisters because she went to college when I was in my teens so I didn’t have her for that whole thing. Now, I’m going to college when she’s home so it’s like the timings not right, we’re not around each other that much to have that open communication, but I know she does date, and I don’t know why but now she’s gearing toward more Indian guys which I’m accepting of all guys, if you’re cute, if you’re nice then “Hey why not?” Indian guys, alright fine it’s a plus, I wouldn’t be ashamed, but it’s more accepted. My parents don’t really talk to us about it. My mom sometimes asks me, “Maya, do you have a boyfriend? Maya, is he your boyfriend?” Mom, no. If I had a boyfriend, I would maybe tell you. I lived far from where I used to go to school, so if someone was going my way we would go together. I remember this one guy dropped me home, and I was not attracted to him at all, but my mom wanted to know if he was my boyfriend. I told her no, definitely not. No way. My mom sometimes asks that question.

Where did your sister go to college?

She went to SUNY New Paltz.

Has she brought guys home, or is she dating on her own? Other than the guy you spoke about.

She has brought guys home, but it was mostly like a hang out type of thing. She says hang out, but I don’t know what it is because I know she had problems with one of her boyfriends, they were friends, but it was complicated and he dropped her home one time, because we had a bridal shower for our cousin in our house. So he came in, he said hi and everything like that and then it was like, “Here’s my friend” I knew something was more because I’m her sister and I assume these things. During breaks and stuff, he and his friend would come in. Our parents always go to bed at 9. That’s set in stone. It was around 10, 11 maybe. They would come in and just chill. At first, we didn’t tell our parents because I feel like it’s my sister, I don’t care what she does. My parents kinda knew, because they sleep in the basement, and this was the living room, so they obviously heard stuff. It was like okay, fine, whatever, as long as Maya’s in the house with him, it’s safe. He brought another friend, so it was okay, they just hung out.

Do you see any bias in Jackson Heights in favor of Indians?

The bias you would see would be with the store owners, because I know if I wanted to buy and outfit, it would be like $70. With my mom there, she would be like “Oh, hey sister, wanna like chop down the numbers?” and the price would go to like $60, at the most $55. She could have that bond with them, whereas a Caucasian or a Spanish person wouldn’t get that same benefit. So, I guess there’s bias in that sense. We’re more at home, so we get that home feel. If you’re in a group and someone different comes, of course you’re going to look and question them for a second. You’re going to have that little doubt. There are biases, especially with the language barrier, there are people who work in Jackson Heights like my parents who are not native English speakers, so they would speak mostly in their home language. The signs, because I would know certain vegetables by the Indian name, like cilantro, we call something else, and I just realized that it’s cilantro. If someone needed something it would be hard.

--bterranova 16:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)