NPR/ KERA repeats identity blunder!

Ever since I came to the United States, I have been disturbed by the fact that even after 500 odd years, the Euro-American majority have not begun to attempt to correct the historical error. i.e. the wrong identity label stamped upon the original peoples of this country/ continent from whom the Europeans usurped the land and built this glorious nation. These original people continue to be referred to as "Indians" even though everyone in the world knows that only those people from India can be referred to by this identity label. The original peoples should be referred to by their ethnic identity, such as Cherokee, Chickasaw, Comanche, etc. There was not one or two such distinctly different ethnic groups but more than 700 before the first Europeans even stepped on this land.

Recently I was listening to National Public Radio while commuting to work and I hear about this important Native American ceremony. The news report was about the first peoples of this nation commemorating the birth of a White Buffalo Calf. The news report started off politically correct by referring to these people as "Native Americans" but as the story progressed it changed once again to refer to them as "Indians".

I wonder how many more centuries these Euro-Americans will take to realize that they need to correct their erroneous identity labels. More than that I am amazed at the billion plus Indians in India and the few million Indians in the United States of America who are silently watching this historical blunder repeat itself again and again. I don't know whether people from India are even aware of the misuse their ethnic identity is undergoing.

I know being one individual I can't fight the system that has been established for over 500 years but I can make my protest to this gross misuse of my ethnic identity label to refer to someone who is not even remotely associated to my culture, nationality, or ethnicity.

Smart, Business Savvy, But Unaware or Callous???

I continue to blog about the gross injustice the western world is inflicting on easterners... particularly people from India. First when people in the US or Europe say "Asian" or "Asia" they mean "China". This is a recent phenomenon since the west began to access cheap goods produced by slave labor in China.

What I am blogging today is about a greater and more historical injustice that continues to go unnoticed in the greater consciousness of the entire Western world and almost everyone in the Eastern world also. This is the identity mistake that has endured since the past 500 years and has not been corrected despite the arrival of the internet that has ushered in the information age and created knowledge explosion.

Yes I am talking about the identity label of "Indian" being hijacked by people of "Native American" tribes. Today I listened to a radio program titled "Smiling Indians" on NPR. Quite predictably this program spoke about the Native Americans or the original inhabitants of continental America, most of whom were massacred by the European settlers when they started colonizing this continent.

Well I understand that Christopher Columbus was totally mistaken when he landed here and discovered the new world for Europeans to exploit and conquer. But isn't it high time for the world to recognize that these people are not "Indians" but are whatever nations they profess to belong to.

I am amazed by the fact that these "Native Americans" are also not standing up to claim their true national/ tribal identity and are piggybacking on the "Indian" identity label. How much longer will they remain oblivious of their own roots and compromise their ethnic identity for the collective label often used in a derogatory sense: "Indian".

I am totally shocked that the fairly influential and large Indian diaspora living in the US since the past several decades have quietly accepted the title of "East Indians" and allowed their true identity to be pegged on to the Tribals of America. I wonder when these people: Indians and Native Americans will get educated and start labeling themselves correctly.

I hope this happens in my lifetime.... or is it too much to hope for???

Proud to be an "Indian"!

In my three years of living in the US I have come across people from several nationalities, cultures, and ethnic groups. One thing I have noticed is that the people who are the most proud to be "Indian" or "part Indian" are not people from the great nation of India. In fact they are not even remotely connected by family or heritage ties to the nation of India. Can you guess who these people are and why they are claiming to be "Indian"?

Yeah, you guessed it right. These are "White People" or "Euro Americans". I have come across several of these people who are "as white as they get" and they say "I'm 1/8th Cherokee Indian" or "My great-grand father was Navajo Indian," or "I have some Indian ancestry," etc. When I hear such comments I wonder about the rationale of their observations. Knowledge, Education, and technology has connected the world and made it a global village, but have failed in correcting the gross historical mistake in the consciousness of the Euro-Americans... including the Spanish-Americans. When I say Americans here I am talking about the Citizens of all nations of both North and South America.

History is evidence to the fact that Christopher Columbus set out looking for a route to India and thanks to pathetic navigation skills he landed in South America instead of India. The people he saw there he thought they were Indians because he was sure that he reached India. We all know this but over the past five hundred years people have become aware of the stupidity of Columbus, but they haven't felt the need to correct the historical mistake. This includes common people, highly educated academics, government officials, and the people affected.

There are two distinct groups of people who are affected by this false nomenclature or identity tagging. The first of course is the "Native American" or "First Nations" peoples who have their own distinct tribal/ national identity of being a "Cherokee", "Choctaw", "Navajo" or whatever which is completely lost under the common umbrella of "Indian" or "American Indian". Second group which is affected to a greater extent is the real Indians, i.e. people from the world's most spiritually advanced Nation of India. We have been unnecessarily branded as tribal with no refined culture, science, education or nationality by getting equated to these "Native Americans".

It is surprising that there has not been any organized movement from either groups to correct the historical blunder. The Native American people seem comfortable with the identity label of "Indian", as evidenced by the names of their organizations such as "American Indian Chamber of Commerce" "Bureau of Indian Affairs" etc. The people of India are so naive that they don't mind sharing their ethnic identity label with anyone and everyone in the world even if it means accepting a derogatory name, listening to insulting comments and having their ethnicity challenged.

The people who made the mistake don't care because they can't admit that their ancestors were at fault. It hurts their ego. Also by branding people from India as tribal they can assert their own Euro-Supremacist identity and attitude.

I wonder why everyone is silent to this historical blunder. I don't expect anything from academics because they have always historically been involved in finding ways and means to brand India as a nation full of tribal, superstitious, stupid, slave-like peoples. But I am appalled by the way Native Americans have let this identity label be applied to them even in this age of awareness. I wonder why they have not asserted their own national identity. They can stress that their heritage is "Cherokee, Navajo, Apache, Comanche,... etc" instead of adding the "Indian" suffix to their nation's name. By doing so they are actually diluting their own national pride and respect to their nation. People from India, their complacence in handling issues of national identity, civilization pride and respect make me wonder.

I believe that it is high time everyone stepped in to correct this historical blunder and stop being stupid. Teachers, academia, government, media, and most importantly the people should resolve these identity conflicts so everyone can be at peace and not confused.

Bureaucracy and Red Tape is same everywhere in the world!!!

When I was in India I would often be bewildered and frustrated by the way government functioned. The way center and states fought with each other and bureaucrats hindered the work. The end result would be to slow down the over progress of the nation. I was under the impression that this kind of tussling and infighting happened only in nations like India where there is enormous diversity in culture, language, religion, traditions, etc.

Boy, was I wrong... this seems to be the norm everywhere in the world, even in the supposedly most developed, richest, and powerful nation in the world - the US. Recently I heard a news item on KERA, a member station of National Public Radio that confirmed to me beyond doubt that bureaucracy and red tape most often hinder a nation's progress because of their obstinacy to follow rules by the letter.

Illegal immigration has been a problem of this continent since the first ship landed from Europe, bringing hordes of white people who massacred and decimated native populations to establish what is known today as the United States of America. This post is not about that historical illegal immigration, but about the recent issues since the modern democracies were established across the world post World War II. States of the US bordering Mexico, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California, have the largest influx of illegal immigrants historically.

The Federal government has been attempting to stem this influx by putting in place several measures that included installation of border fences, employing border patrols, deporting illegal immigrants, etc. At local government level one Texas city attempted to discourage illegal immigration by passing a law that prevented land lords from renting properties/ homes/ apartments to people who don't have legal standing to stay in this country. Logically speaking I would have expected the Federal government to applaud this measure and encourage other cities to pass similar laws.

Unfortunately this didn't happen, on the contrary a Dallas Federal Judge struck down this law on the grounds that controlling illegal immigration was the job of federal government alone. This sends out a serious message to the people in local governments and also to the illegal immigrants. The latter rejoice because now even if a local government official is aware of their status, he/ she can't do anything about it, only the federal government can take action.

Taking the judges logic to its extreme I wonder if common people should keep quiet if they see a crime taking place. Fighting the crime is the job of Police, so citizens should just report and watch quietly as the incident takes place. I would like to know other people's opinions on this.

Movie Review: Gangs of New York

The United States of America, perceived as the land of unlimited opportunities, heaven on earth, land of ultimate freedom, a place where wealth can be made, the world's most powerful nation, etc... But like every other nation in the world, it has its own share of slums, underworld gangs, thugs, crooks and prostitutes. This murky underbelly is carefully hidden away under the towering sky scrapers and grandiose buildings.

What was it to live in this land of freedom and opportunity a century and half ago? This is what the film Gangs of New York attempts to re-create and it does very successfully. Set in 1846 the movie stars Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis and others. The story is pretty historical as it is a movie and there is a substantial amount of reality in this according to a National Geographic study.

The movie starts off in the year 1846 with the protagonist Leonardo DiCaprio getting released from the prison and returning to the neighborhood in Manhattan where he was born and grew up. As he approaches the five points neighborhood, DiCaprio is witness to hordes of Irish immigrants landing into the US, in a bid to escape sure starvation due to the Potato Famine and of course persecution from the British Crown and nobility. But the original settlers (who call themselves "Natives") don't want new immigrants and they are standing at the docks yelling humiliating abuses at the immigrants.

DiCaprio, himself an Irish immigrant-settler and has seen his father being murdered in cold blood by Bill the Butcher, the undisputed king of underworld in New York. Young DiCaprio is thirsting for revenge and his target is Bill the Butcher. DiCaprio starts off being a small time thief and gets into the Butcher's brotherhood of thugs. In his life of crime he tangles with Cameron Diaz who is another petty thief and pick pocket in the same gang. Love blossoms between the two much to the angst of DiCaprio's best friend, who reveals the former's true identity to Bill the Butcher.

DiCaprio's first attempt to kill Bill the Butcher fails and he is thoroughly beaten up and knifed. In retaliation DiCaprio decides to start his own gang of Irish settlers and wrest control of Five Points from the original English settlers (Natives). This coincides with the American civil war era when Irish immigrants were ordered to get drafted into the army to fight the southern states against slavery. In frustration the immigrants rebel and riot and of course there is the clash of gangs in which Irish emerge victorious.

The Gangs of New York is a brilliantly made movie and performances of all the stars are captivating and cinematography is hypnotic. It has a few subtle lessons about American history, social equations and immigration. The original British settlers who landed in the US and started killing native Americans and taking over their lands were intolerant towards Irish immigrants in the 19th century, now a substantial section of the white population of the US hates increased influx of Indian technology workers. Things are pretty much the same: American's hate immigrants, especially those whom they think are taking their jobs.

Another subtle reinforcement that the White people try to make is that America belongs to them and not to the native Americans who were here thousands of years before the settlers came in. It is common for people of color in the US to be referred to as "Asian Americans", "African Americans", "Indian Americans" but to themselves they say "Americans" implying that the country belongs to them. This movie in which the original settlers call themselves "Natives" is one such attempt. To understand these messages one must watch The Gangs of New York.