Setu 🌉 सेतु: Hyphenated Identities

When Dr. Sunil Sharma asked me whether I would like to be the guest editor of this special Setu issue on hyphenated identities, I eagerly said, yes! It’s a theme very dear to my heart and being. My prime identity from childhood has been peace and justice. My father had nicknamed me, mother of all humanity. What is the meaning of a person’s identity, if they are not safe? What defines our core? Gender, class, education, or being a good person? In India folks often talk about the Chaar Diwari (four walls) of the house, sometimes evoking the crassest of patriarchal control of women within those four walls, which instead are meant to be the most sacred and safe spaces for anyone—their home.

Originally from India, when I moved to the US with my young son twenty years ago, creating a safe and peaceful home, and being a great mother trumped any concerns or desires I had as an immigrant. Folks around me were buying homes and establishing financial real estate roots, while I was on a journey to raise a decent human being. One who would epitomize and recognize that treating people properly far outweighs any degrees or financial wealth one may possess. The duality of being Indian and American did not stress me out too much. And, hyphenated identity can imply a plethora of dimensions we all possess that we keep hidden in our blind spots or chose to freely exude. I don’t deny, I was tugged by notions of belonging especially when I traveled back to India. Didn’t quite feel at ease anymore in my birth country. And didn’t quite feel comfortable in my new home country either like, Ijeoma Umebinyuo eludes to in her poem, Diaspora Blues. So, I borrowed what I perceived to be the finest of both cultures/places, and to try to be, and raise a decent human. In my belief system, being good is a person’s true identity.

Now, with COVID19 plaguing the world, and racial injustice ever so disturbing in the US, home and identity have added news layers for me.

I could go on and on. So, let me shift to my focus in guest editing this special edition…to draw out folks from various walks of life and diverse backgrounds. I hope you enjoy this special issue which carries thoughtful expressions by artists, painters, poets, short story writers and life contemplators.

To begin, please find below a special prose poem, I curated. I requested six other women poets to write a poem jointly with me... they graciously agreed for which I am most grateful. Each person picked up on the work of the person before resulting in an amalgam of real voices, in this case women’s voices, lending themselves with openness of thought, expression and feelings to the theme.

I am deeply thankful to Dr. Sharma for this fascinating opportunity to be guest editor of this intriguing issue. I learned so much from the process, and from our contributors.

Anita Nahal, Ph.D., CDP is a poet, professor, short story writer, flash fictionist, children’s books author, and D&I consultant. Currently she teaches at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington DC. Besides academic publications, her creative books include, two volumes of poetry, Hey...Spilt milk is spilt, nothing else (2018) and Initiations (1988), a collection of flash fictions, Life on the go-Flash fictions from New Delhi to America (2018), and three children’s books: I love Mummy and other new nursery rhymes, When I Grow Up and other new nursery rhymes and The Greedy Green Parrot and Other Stories (1993-1995). Her poems and stories can be found in national and international journals. Nahal is the co-editor (with Roopali Sircar Gaur) of the anthology, In All The Spaces-Diverse Voices In Global Women's Poetry (2020). She is also guest contributing editor for aaduna. Nahal is the daughter of Indian novelist and professor, Late Dr. Chaman Nahal, and her mother, Late Dr. Sudarshna Nahal was an also an educationist and author. Originally from New Delhi, India, Anita Nahal resides in the US. Her family includes her son, Vikrant, daughter-in-law, Sumona and their golden-doodle, Cashew. For more on Anita: https://anitanahal.wixsite.com/anitanahal

Who am I?

Anita Nahal, Niharika Chibber Joe, Meenakshi Mohan,

Roopali Sircar Gaur, Lopa Banerjee, Shruti Goel & Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

I’m wood encasing a soul, best I can. Wise oud, ancient agarwood of a woman escaped from mutilated identities. Not here to create new ones. Phoenix and Renaissance marry my soul. And the clothes, hairstyle, lipstick shimmering are whiffs of a polish with which I shine my naked self. You’ll need to sift the coarse grains, the burning ambers beneath if you wish to find me. Go through the trials with me. More I age, more with ease I stand. I’m a blue moon drink of dervishes, gypsies, hippies and fairies. Stirred. Neat. Peppery. I’m just fine wood that my sins, and yours, tried not to rot so I could wrap my soul, and yours. Tenderly.

Anita Nahal

They told me I was different. They said I wouldn’t fit. I wouldn’t fit into the clothes they sold. I was too fat…I didn’t fit their idea of beauty. I was too dark. I wouldn’t fit into those shoes – they were big shoes to fill…I wouldn’t fit into the mold, the box, the boundary. Who was I, they asked? Where was I from? My identity, an incomprehensible mosaic of ancient cultures and of myriad lifetimes. My strength drawn from my mother. I keep them guessing. It always amuses my mother and I.

Niharika Chibber Joe

Pages layered in stacks, my life stories bound, etched from birth - some in colors, some in gray and white, then, a whole black page. How many avatars do I wear? Who am I? Where do I belong? A blank page awaits --Dharman Sarnam Gacchami! Let me drape myself in peace, quiet and tranquility!

Meenakshi Mohan

I stand like Colossus bridging both banks. Far beneath and between flows the forever changing moody river. Like Atlas I long to shrug, throw this dichotomous existence. My aching back, the colored visage, the painful forked tongue, the twanging white voice. How did I get here? What brought me here? Choiceless but not voiceless I must stride both worlds, muscle aching yet arms akimbo.

Roopali Sircar Gaur

I let the rivers of my life run haywire, flirting with the uncertainty of miles that sprouted on summer nights. I would come out in the open, unabashed, an earth unknown, cracking wide open at the edge of an unnamed surrender. In that sacrosanct moment of a dark-throated song, the confluence of the east and west wrote its script of diaspora within my being like an irreconcilable truth, like the whisper of an omniscient God. Come, visit the rivers, the homes, the molten stories dying, and born anew, within me.

Lopa Banerjee

I am me. A culmination of my experiences, environments, my beliefs, my strengths, my vulnerabilities, my visions, my actuality. Every facet of me with a glimmer of originality. They wanted me to be silent, yet my silence was louder than a million words. Here I am today, neither black nor brown, not red nor white. I come undone bearing my soul in this world so ready to brand me. I unearth the layers of my identity every moment, learning, molding, and remodeling myself. Etched as a human in this world, a work in progress to be more humane in this evidently opinionated world. That's who I am.

Shruti Goel

The moth is one metaphor for my existence. Sometimes it beats its fragile wings against the windowpane, praying to be let into the light of belonging. The butterfly is the other metaphor. I feel like that colorful butterfly I chased in the garden of my home by the sea. And knew it was home. Yet, in faith, I know I am where I am supposed to be. I must stop flapping my restless wings, and practice acceptance in silence. I must rest against the windowpane, albeit lightly, and make peace with my world even though the unbreakable barrier of present reality allows scant comfort. Longing and memory bring bitter-sweet fusion into my hyphenated identity, into my divided self.

Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

A moth, a butterfly, a fish, human, deer, dog, from this planet or not, you can think of me as any and none. I am the sheen that sparkles on dried spilled milk, the gooey honey that lingers in a beehive, the fauna, flora, dirt, air, fire, the waters that crust the earth and beyond. I am an atom, I am Avinash. Am each one of us. I’m your imagination, dreams, and maybe reality. I’m ethereal bells, music, dance, whispers and screams. I tell stories as is. In my voice. I am layered, not homogenous. I am passion, heat, the cool on your perspiring brows. I consent to my hyphenated identities; not letting them control me, I work with them, not carrying them in my heart or soul or my wood. Those are me. Just me.

Anita Nahal

*Dharman Sarnam Gacchami: I go to Dharma for refuge

**Avinash: indestructible

For bios of the other writers of this special combined poem on hyphenated identities, please see their work and bios in this issue.

Hyphenated Identities in the US: Authors

* POETS *

Lopa Banerjee

Radhika Sajja Chandrasekar

Sean Cribben

Anne Madhu Gammon

Anoucheka Gangabissoon

Shruti Goel

Frederick D. Harper

Parvinder Mehta

Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

Meenakshi Mohan
***

* ARTISTS/PAINTERS *

Michael D. Harris

Tara Sabharwal

* CONTEMPLATORS *

* SHORT STORY WRITERS *

Niharika Chibber Joe

Sujata Sankranti

Setu, August 2020

Hyphenated Identities: Anne Madhu Gammon

Anne Madhu Gammon was born and educated in Chennai, India where she discovered her mission and found the best way to be educated is be prepared to listen and look, then in asking questions. Having seen her father a lawyer, and mother full time homemaker give their time and ability to help those in need, inspired her to become a doctor. She graduated from Christian Medical College and specialized in Dermatology at Madras Medical College. She was involved in ICMR Delhi collaborative Research Study Project with Wellcome Unit CMCH Vellore, with her husband Keith known as ‘the surgeon with the golden voice and singing fingers.’ Madhu is Third-Degree Black Belt. She and her family reside in Princeton, NJ.

CARAVAN of FINGERPRINTS

From the day of first breath we are closer linked to life than death

I wonder then why do problems ever trouble me?

When dawn delight opens my sleepy eyes

I realize my own frailty without family

Lost without a single friend and community

O Lord have mercy! Oh! Where am I!

Who am I, but a humble bungling

Student on my knees!

Here I am, now in these Covid19 times

We come to re-think on these

That sneeze has multiplied a thousand rhymes

Caught in a winter freeze ...

Carried far by robust summer breeze

Beyond the trees, across the seas to overseas

To a new world power of statistics...

Tis not a tease.

Covid like a tempest has hit the world

And hurt us all…we are not at ease

We learn our lessons and take the cue

Made in India or USA… we do the best of right

Should we follow rules or be a fool?

Think on these…if we love ourselves, we are of better value

And able to love our neighbor better still

And if we love our neighbor, we show justice and forgiveness

As workings from our hearts

Walking humbly, hidden in plain sight.

As doctors, nurses, paramedics learn their arts

Of compassion for the wounded rubble…carry on

As made in India, seasoned in USA, and growing... we live and move

As God would have us do, with His mercy and Grace

We strive to do it right.

I learned LOVE, my parents’ sound advice

In times good and bad, be grateful, look to God,

Help be a fix, in caring, for a solution,

In practicing perseverance, learn to carry on in LOVE and PEACE.

Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020

Hyphenated Identities: Sujata Sankranti

Sujata Sankranti was born in the coastal state of Kerala and was educated in New Delhi. She worked as Associate Professor in the Department of English, S.V College, University of Delhi. She was the All-round Winner of the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the year 1998. She has published a volume of short stories entitled The Warp and the Weft and other stories. Her debut novel In the Shadow of Legends was published in 2011. Many of her short stories have been published in journals and anthologies in India and abroad. Currently she lives in Mumbai.

Kris Versus Krishna

Through swirling flakes of snow, as the car turned into Austin Street he fumbled for the remote and reached for its smooth luminous centre. The right amount of pressure… the garage door, he was sure, had responded without any protest. The remote in his hands empowered him. He could dictate, control and bring distances closer.

He turned the key, pushed the door open and peeped in.

Hi I am home. Anybody in?

His voice boomed and came back to him. Apart from the swish and starts of the dish washer there was absolute silence. The blackboard standing in the island of the kitchen had as many scrawls on it as the space permitted. The round artistic handwriting of his wife, educated in a convent in Malabar stood out against the casual irregular scribble of his daughter and son who went to schools in Evanston

I am at Jennifer’s. Esther has come down to arrange for the garage sale. I am helping her to catalogue Jennifer’s stuff

Oh Yes. He reminded himself, Jennifer, the old dame from the opposite ranch house, his girlfriend as she was famously known, was no more. Her daughter had arrived to take stock of her belongings—catalogue and fix price tags to her precious stuff. And Devi, his wife was there to assist her.

A day in early June. Jennifer made a desperate call to Kris. The pick-up van had failed to turn up. She wanted him to drive her down to the soup kitchen. Until a few years ago, she used to drive around. Without much problem. After the fall she had three winters ago, she had hardly moved out of the house on her own.

It was a spring morning. Jennifer made him roll down the glass. She put her head out to look at the green shoots of the maple leaves. She told Kris again and again she loved spring and summer. Naturally. Winter of this city of icy winds was too much for her old brittle bones. Kris gave her the special herbal oil he had brought from India. The oil had miraculously eased Jennifer’s knotted joints and she nicknamed it ‘Malabar magic’ Kris had become her favourite, ever since.

As the car sped past avenues and highways Kris turned quizzically to the old dame. Jennifer, why do you insist on going to the soup kitchen? You donate a huge sum every month. Is that not enough charity service?

Oh Kris, don’t you ever talk like George and Esther` Ladling out stew and salad to those hapless crowd, watching them enjoy every bite and every gulp. Don’t you think it is much more satisfying than signing away lifeless cheques?

She bowed before an old man, ruffled a youngster’s unruly hair. Coaxed someone to eat a little more. And the ecstatic looks on her face! It was mesmerizing. The glint of Jennifer’s irises, a curious blue stood out against her papery white face and Kris felt as though he was crystal-gazing

x xx

Amma’s face tired but excited as he saw her for the last time in their ancestral house flashed before him. She had insisted on getting out of her sick bed to watch the annadanam, poor feeding which was a yearly ritual of the family. Kris wrapped her in her favourite red blanket and. carried her to the courtyard and made her sit in the easy chair.

Don’t pamper her Unni She is too week. And there is a cold wind blowing If she sits in the courtyard, she will catch a cold. As it is, she is asthmatic You will not have to take care of her. You come like a guest and will be off in a day.

His sisters had protested. Why did they have to remind him with such vicious pleasure that he had failed in his duty towards their mother?

Unni, the whole village waits anxiously for this yearly event. The milk payasam of our cook is their favourite. Give a little more rice to that boy sitting in the corner. And give some pickle to those women at the far end.

Kris was moved at her palpable concern for the poor folk

Yes. There is no end to her wishes Not just annadanam she is planning to give a godanam now. Does she have any idea how much a cow will cost.

Kris ignored his sister’s taunt

He had left the estate, the ancestral house and most of mother’s belongings to the sisters. Had brought back with him only the leather-bound copy of her Ramayana and the wooden stand on which she used to keep it.

Jennifer used to complain to Kris about her children’s utter indifference to the artefacts she had collected. The laquerd jewel box from Burma, the spider lantern from Venice…. each one of those rare pieces was for her a sacred memory. But to Esther who had majored in Psychology it was just hoarding syndrome. Jennifer had asked Kris to take whatever he liked from her collections. But he couldn’t bring himself to touch any of her treasures At last when Jennifer insisted that he should take something from her as a token of love he had agreed to accept her Bible, which he knew she was in the habit of reading every day. She left it for him with the peacock feather he had presented her once, placed as a bookmark on the Book of Job. On the top shelf of his bedroom closet he had reverently put it away along with his mother’s Ramayana.

With the fourth peg of whiskey Kris had grown groggy-eyed and lethargic. Like a robot he propelled himself to the black board. Picked up the pink rayon and willed his right hand across the board. Just below where Perry had scrawled, Jennifer’s chess board is for me and the oval mirror is for Molly, he wrote.

Prasanna, not Perry, Malavika, not Molly, mark my words. You are not going to take anything from Jennifer and Shri devi, get in touch with the travel agent, we are returning to India.

Through blurred eyes he peered at the black board. The letters swam in front of him. But his distant vision was getting clearer. He could see Amma not as he saw her last withered and wasted. She was sitting in front of the kitchen churning curds into hillocks of butter. He could hear her calling out to him in her sing-song voice.

My little Krishna. Unni Krishna.

Come fast

Let me feed you butter. As big as an elephant’s head….

Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020

Hyphenated Identities: Niharika Chibber Joe

Niharika Chibber Joe is a reluctant short story writer and poet. Her parents are published poets and writers. When she is not writing, Niharika is an international relations specialist, working in the field of public diplomacy. She is also somewhat of a fitness fanatic. Niharika speaks several languages, but writes in English, and sometimes in Japanese or in Hindi. She was born and raised in India, and lives in the United States with her husband and son. She is a proud graduate of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies

The Land of the Free and the Home of the Lucky

“Arrey Beta, you can’t put small girl in jail”, Raj’s beleaguered voice cut through the chaos. “Sure we can!” squeaked eight-year-old Bittu. “Unless she rolls a six!” confirmed my son. Four-year-old Dimple burst into dramatic wails, wet with tears.

“Raj, take care of her, pleeeease?” Rekha pleaded. The corner of my eye caught her fixing herself a discreet drink and sinking into a chair. Raj and Rekha were raised in conservative small-town India. But here, a world away in the sweltering two-bedroom apartment in Virginia, alcohol was liberating. The pursuit of freedom is an unequivocal tenet of the immigrant experience, and Rekha intended to be free.

Raj plonked his drink down in exasperation. “No bloody peace in this house!”

The single malt left behind an aggressive ring of condensation on the latest Craig’s List coffee table. The table procured after aggressive haggling with Tim, a disinterested Millennial jettisoning his recently former girlfriend’s belongings. The girlfriend had scooped up the Chihuahua and the car keys and walked out in blinding fury after discovering Tim’s penchant for Internet pornography. He’d thought it best to immediately sell all her furniture to finance his porn habit.

Monty, born Maninder Singh Ahluwalia in faraway India, had arrived promptly at eight to drive Raj to West Virginia for only this table. Rekha was pissed. She was not a morning person. Complicated rituals had to be accomplished before she was willing to face the world. These non-negotiables began with a carefully prepared masala tea to ignite the bowel. Much to Rekha’s chagrin, Monty, a short, balding, mustachioed, pot-bellied Punjabi man who spoke in non-sequiturs, had arrived just as the tea had initiated ignition.

“Sorry, Monty-bhaiyya, I have got pressure. I must go to loo,” Rekha announced. “Take some Hajmola pills for the digestion, bhabhi.” Monty assured her jovially. He spoke learned English - translated directly from his native language. He had come to America in 1985 to work at his uncle’s gas station in Sacramento, and he now owned five of his own. Monty had arrived, but he was pushing 50 far more quickly than 50 could push back. He would mark his 51^st birthday with a heart attack if he didn’t “shape up”, Dr. Arora had admonished.

“Open roads yaar! Open roads!” Monty sang in his distinctly Delhi-American accent. The non-sequiturs flew with gay abandon, as ‘Bollywood Oldies’ blared in surround sound. “Old is gold, you know? I love this car! Arrey, buckle your seatbelt! Safety first! I can’t complain. Big house, good business, money in the bank. I tell my kids; you are so lucky to live in this country. They have no clue. I miss India yaar. I miss chicken tikka!” They had stopped for tikka on the way.

A Korean-owned hypermarket sold chicken tikka with pickled onions that tasted almost like those back home. Almost.

Tim had not taken kindly to the two brown men reeking offensively of kimchi, onions and Drakkar Noir, showing up at his door, telling him how this table could be had for ten rupees at any roadside bazaar in India. They had arrived an unapologetic hour late and balked at the price. “Two hundred dollars?!” If Tim wanted to sell, they scoffed, he’d have to do better, or they’d walk. Tim had offered ideas of where they could stick their ten rupees before taking their brown asses back to India.

Two hours later, the brown asses had smugly sauntered out of Tim’s apartment with the table. “Thirty dollars is too much,” Raj had lamented. “Happy wife. Happy life”, Monty had reasoned.

The table now occupied pride of place in the Kumars’ eclectically appointed apartment. Its Ethan Allen East Hampton persona in a silent tussle with a former tenant’s Ikea Ektorp couch and shag rug. Calendar portraits of Hindu deities beamed benignly down on elaborately framed photographs of the last Kumar family vacation; and a massive television only somewhat legally streamed Star Wars - dubbed in Hindi, sub-titled in English.

“Raj! Use coaster! You want to get another table for me, kya? And why Dimple is still crying?” Rekha scolded Yoda-like. Raj gingerly unfolded his gangly frame, hastily stuck a magazine under his glass. “Boys!” What is problem? Why you cannot play this game together? Why she is crying? Beta, why you are STILL crying? I will take iPad away for one week!”

“These children,” Raj shook his head and sat back down, propping his legs up on Tim’s ex-girlfriend’s table. His whiskey glass had etched a faint but visible ring on the surface. “How we are going to teach them good Indian values in this country?” he lamented to no one in particular. “We come to U.S. for good life for children. But they just don’t listen! I don’t know what they learn in the school. Too much imagination. If they keep imagining all the time, how they will learn?! Your son will be fine. He is half-American. How you say? Indian American? But Bittu?! What I am going to do?! Dimple, she is Hey Bhagwaan so dark! Anyone will marry her?” He shook his head, “Poor girl! Bechaari! We made mistake by coming to America. Too much freedom here. Rekha! Arrey, what we can do? Phooti kismat! Bad luck!

Rekha was miraculously missing from this mayhem. I encountered her silhouette on the balcony - tequila, salt and lime. She gave her long black hair a shake and took in the warm mid-Atlantic night. I thought it best to let her enjoy her immigrant experience. Rekha was seeking freedom.

The kids were quiet, watching Star Wars in Hindi. “This is how they will learn language!” Raj wagged an annoyed finger at them. “Kuchh seekho! Learn something!” His quiet, weary eyes wistfully wandered to his slowly warming whiskey. The very expensive scotch on the rocks had turned into a urine sample with flecks of melting ice. What a bloody waste!

“Dimple!” He declared suddenly. “Beta, you go roll a six and change your luck!”

Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020

Hyphenated Identities: Elaine Leeder

(Picture credit: Diana Souza)

Elaine Leeder, MSW, MPH, PhD is Dean Emerita and Professor Emerita at Sonoma State University (California). She is the author of six books, speaks nationally about her experiences working in prisons, as a child of a refugee of the Holocaust and about progressive, radical Jews who have tried to make a difference in the world. She can be reached through www.elaineleeder.com

THE DAYMARE

SHOAH CHILDHOOD: MEMORY AND REMEMBRANCE

It begins as I turn out the lights and prepare to settle down for the night. The room is dark, the bed is comfortable and cozy, and I eagerly await my restful sleep. But I am still awake when a cold feeling comes over my body. I begin to be anxious, for I know what is coming. All of a sudden, the fear takes over—visceral and terrifying.

I am falling into a pit; it is large, emptying into an abyss that spirals downward. The spiral reaches to infinity, and my fall down this hole goes on forever, without end. I stay conscious. I begin to think that this life I know will cease, and that everything I know to be reality is, in fact, temporary. The life I live is an illusion, to be shattered and end with no control on my part. I will die; it is inevitable. And the world will go on without me, my existence wiped out in an instant. Completely conscious, I am falling forever into this pit. It is my death, and it will never end.

The pit is dark. The farther I fall, the smaller it gets. There is no one to help or save me. I must deal with it myself, as I have done since the horror began—as I have done since I was eleven years old. My father said I would outgrow it. My husband held me when I was a young woman, telling me he was there with me. Now I have these daymares alone. They have come for fifty-nine years. Will they ever end?

HOW IT EVOLVED

We are sitting in a car in the dark. We are waiting, my brother and I, for our parents to emerge from the apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y., where they went upstairs hours ago. We do not know why we are sitting down here, but we continue to wait. When he went up, my father was hopeful and eager to meet with whomever he had come to see. He seemed wary but anxious.

Many hours later, my father emerges, almost carried by my mother, helped into the car as if he is an invalid. He is weeping, quaking actually. He looks like a broken man, so much did he age in those few hours in that apartment. We don’t know what happened, but we know something horrible occurred. Silently we drive back to Boston, many hours away. We sit in silence, knowing that we should not say anything. Nothing more is ever said of that evening. My family guards the secret well. Over the many years since then, I have tried to understand what happened that night, but the pieces never fully come together.

My father escaped Lithuania in 1939, just before WWII. His family perished when the Nazi’s invaded in June 1941. He did not find out the details of how they were marched to their deaths to a pit outside of their shtetl (village) for almost 10 years after it occurred. When he did, he was devastated, forever having survivor’s guilt, searching for family for the rest of his life. His mother Yenta Leah, his eldest sister Althea and his younger brother (only 17) Hershel were shot, never to be heard from again. As a religious man he prayed every night; by day he was a working-class immigrant with a heavy accent, never feeling completely at peace or at home in this country.

We never spoke of it, but my daymares started the year he heard the news, not stopping until I visited the pit where they died 70 years later. I had done research, spoken to the lawyer for the State Department who deported one of the perpetrators who had entered the US illegally. I was experiencing the intergenerational transmission of trauma that had led to my fears. As a second-generation survivor of the Holocaust, I was carrying the psychological scars into the next generation as well.

THE CONSEQUENCES

I learned through study of children of Holocaust survivors and refugees that it was through the interpersonal relationship with my father that I learned to unconsciously displace my emotions. It might not have been talked about, but the Holocaust permeated our lives. There was darkness in the home; there was great concern that no one outside the house should know what was going on within. The family taught me to trust no one but myself and other Jews. I learned vicariously to take on the sad, depressed state of my parents. In fact, I also learned early on to escape the home, the dark moods and the angst that filled it. I was out of the house by seventeen, never returning to live there again. But I nevertheless have carried my home with me for the rest of my life. The family saw me as rejecting them; in fact, I felt that I was running for my life.

My life has been spent trying to understand the reasons why people commit evil. I work with prisoners who have murdered, robbed, raped and kidnapped. The literature says that such people follow the lead of those who brain wash them or they are “hurt people who hurt people.” It is all true. I am learning to forgive, by working with such people. In the Judaism we talk about “repairing the tears in the world.” By doing work with those the rest of society scorn I hope to be the memorial candle that keeps the memory of my family (and the 6 million who perished with them) alive.

Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020

Hyphenated Identities: Roopali Sircar Gaur

Roopali Sircar Gaur

Roopali Sircar Gaur, Ph.D. is a retired English professor (Sri Venkateswara college, University of Delhi), and Founder President of YUVATI, a nonprofit organisation working for adolescent girls and boys across India. Sircar Gaur also works with children from underserved communities in what she calls Mera Kitab Ghar: The Backyard Book Club she established as a pop-up book club. She also taught Creative Writing at IGNOU for many years. Sircar Gaur is a widely published columnist and writer, who has written for peer-reviewed journals, and presented papers and served on academic conference panels at Universities in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, Canada and India. Her book The Twice Colonised: Women in African Literature is a seminal text on those subjects. She is also the co-editor (with Anita Nahal) of the anthology, In All The Spaces-Diverse Voices In Global Women’s Poetry (2020). Sircar Gaur has traveled the world, and now lives in Meerut, India with her retired military spouse and their three dogs.

Travelling Tales 1

I am Janus...The Roman God. Like the month of January named after me I look back and I look ahead. Journeys are like that. They begin in memories of other places and other times. Somewhere on our journeys, we catch up with places and people who had journeyed ahead of you.

In South Florida I caught up on one such friend who had left the adjoining village to the shores of the United States of America. How deep and beautiful that connection, unravelled itself in memories of each and every word we had once exchanged. He was the young physician next door who was aspiring to go to the US: Those were heady days and he left one day.

But before he did, we friends got together to bid him farewell. After all the dancing and singing was over he sang a most poignant song…a song about never saying goodbye. The song echoed over the decades that we did not and could not meet.

Last night as I walked into his incredibly palatial home, a movie star home with the who’s who in the neighborhood, I knew my friend had arrived. His long journey from next door physician to reputed celebrity cardiologist had happened.

My heart swelled with pride. The chandeliers twinkled and tinkled with the wine glasses as we raised a toast to this eventful journey. His and mine. To sit and talk about my father and my family and my father’s home where we all hung out was incredibly satisfying.

The dinner was thoughtfully curated. It was all Hyderabadi cuisine. We Hyderabadis just sat down and ate, swallowing our tears and our memories.

We forgot Florida.

When it was time to go, the cardiologist broke my heart. ❤️

He picked up the karaoke mic and sang the song he sang in 1977 before he left home...

Kabhi alvida na kehena

Never say goodbye.

The heart travels too.

Travelling Tales 2

Travelling is not always about places it is about people who live in those places. I am particularly interested in human behaviour especially of people known and unknown. Coming from environs where the neighbour hood is no longer neighbourly I am charmed by the friendly hi and hello from anybody and everybody I encounter. Be it the postman, the janitor, the dog walking neighbour or the helmet wearing young cyclist. It has made me a friendly person too. I feel less conscious about the exotic ethnicity that I think I exude.

The super expensive only high end shopping mall called Tyson Galleria with its quietly boasting Omega, Yeves St Lauren's, Gucchi, Saks of Fifth Avenue, Chanel, Armani, Michael Kors , and the shining sleek Maserati cars , Calvin Klein , Ralph Lauren had just a handful of people window shopping. If I were to buy these I would have to move into a mansion in a new neighbour hood. The neighbours may not be as friendly.

What kind of people bought a handbag that cost $3000? Or a suit that cost seven thousand! Or a man perfume for $ 2,350!!! Couldn't be very nice people.

Thinking my thoughts, I headed towards the exit. A huge glass door barred my way and a gentleman with salt and pepper hair, dressed immaculately in a suit (Armani?) stepped aside holding the door ajar for me, as I stepped out, he ran and opened the second huge glass door smiling. I was overwhelmed. "Thank you thank you " I gushed. " i have not met anybody like you!" He smiled the handsomest smile I had seen! "I am the last of the American gentlemen left! " he laughed "oh I am joking". " you deserve a hug" I said. It was followed by a big hug, a kiss on my cheek and a, “I am always ready to hug a beautiful woman". I saw the flash of an Omega watch and smelt the whiff of Clive Christian no 1…

People who shop here aren't bad at all. Just different. The heart travels everywhere.

Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020

Hyphenated Identities: Deepti Pradhan

Deepti Pradhan was born and raised in India. She is now living in the United States for the last ten years. Deepti completed her doctorate in International Psychology and her dissertation was on Stigma of depression in youth of India. She currently practices as a psychology associate at her private practice named NeuroThrive in Baltimore. Her work focuses on rehabilitation of cognitive impairments. Deepti enjoys travelling and learning about new cultures. She loves animals and is attached to animal organizations that rescue and work towards policy change.

Hyphenated Identity- An Act of Balancing and Conflicting Identities (from a larger article by the author on the same topic)

We carry carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocides

We carry dust of our families and neighbors incinerated in mushroom clouds

We carry our islands sinking under the sea..

We carry our hands, feet, bones, hearts and best minds for a new life

We carry diplomas: medicine, engineer, nurse, education, math, poetry, even if they mean nothing to the other shore..

We carry railroads, plantations, Laundromats, bodegas, taco trucks, farms, factories, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, temples…built on our ancestors’ backs..

We carry old homes along the spine, new dreams in our chests..

We carry yesterday, today and tomorrow..

We’re orphans of the wars forced upon us..

We’re refugees of the sea rising from industrial wastes..

And we carry our mother tongues..

As we drift…in our rubber boats…from shore…to shore…to shore… “THINGS WE CARRY ON THE SEA” BY WANG PING, 1957

Hyphenated identity refers to situations that arise due to conflicting and balancing between two cultures. It appears from the implications of having a dual culture and analyzing which side of the hyphen or the dual culture that the person belongs (Easa 9). The most common impression is that people with hyphenated identity oscillate between two cultures. Immigrants who have a strong identity with multiple heritage must balance the influence of the new society and aspects of their native traditions and practices (Singel 3). For instance, immigrants’ off springs feel the pressure to be loyal to the old world where their roots are and at the same time strive to be fluent in the new world. Often, immigrants who have settled in another country strive to be approved by either side of the hyphen.

When Indians and other immigrants move to a new country, they experience radical changes in their social and cultural surroundings. Principally, the new dynamics of intercultural contact cause an acculturation process resulting in both psychological and behavioral changes (Salam & Abualadas 54). The result triggers a change in an individual's social network, juxtaposed with the need to create new relationships while compromising and even dissolving the old. An individual is required to either diminish or consolidate the existing connections, thereby affecting the person's identity. The level of integration between the current and the old norms, values, and perspective influences the unique character of a multicultural individual.

Cultural identification and interaction with people of different cultures affect an individual's personality, since most individuals' reactions depend on the cultural knowledge acquired. When the ideals of one culture are not connected to another, custom generalizations about a character may arise. Persons with a bicultural identity need to fuse aspects of two or more cultural paradigms. They need to incorporate the ancestral tradition with the new tradition to give rise to an identity that does not necessitate them to choose either culture. As a result, bicultural people strive to incorporate traits of both cultures. Incorporating both cultural attributes is not easy, and in most cases despite rich heritage, Indian immigrants never feel entirely Indian or American. Instead, they accept both of their identities and try to pass both cultural identities on to their children.

Works Cited

Caneva, Elena. "Identity Processes in the Global Era: The Case of Young Immigrants Living In Italy." Journal of Youth Studies 20.1 (2017): 79-93.

Easa, Khalid. "The Impact of Exile on the Formation of Hyphenated Identities in Abu-Jaber’s Crescent." European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies 8.2 (2020): 1-9.

Jobgen, Amanda Haddad. Hyphenated Americans: Christian Arab-Americans’ identity Struggle. Diss. 2018.

Salam, Wael, and Othman Abualadas. "Cultural Authenticity Versus Hyphenated Identities: Transnational Modes of Belonging and Citizenship in The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly." CEA Critic 82.1 (2020): 52-68.

Singel, Leslie. "How to practice Irishness: Hyphenated Identity at Irish American Cultural Centers." Quarterly Horse: A Journal of [brief] American Studies 1.3 (2017).

Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020

Hyphenated Identities: Priya Devi Deonarine

Priya Devi Deonarine, M.S., is a first generation American of Indo-Caribbean ancestry from Somers, Connecticut. The daughter of Guyanese immigrants descended from North Indian villagers, Priya grew up innately aware and inquisitive. Hungry for knowledge, she began writing at a young age. Priya is currently a school psychologist in East Hartford, CT, where she assesses urban youth for disabilities and promotes social-emotional wellbeing in elementary school. She is also planning on becoming a sexual assault volunteer crisis counselor. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with loved ones, cooking, reading, and traveling.

Twice Removed: A Personal Account of Indo-Caribbean-American Identity

Do you ever rehearse what you want to say? The conversations surrounding my identity feel like a repetitive speech or explanation that still leaves unanswered questions. As a proud first-generation Indo-Caribbean American, my hyphenated identity reflects loss, resilience, and growth. I cultivate incomparable strength from it by being able to connect with diverse individuals, empathize with numerous social ideals, and balance assimilation and tradition in order to progress.

The British brought my great-grandparents to Guyana from India as indentured laborers after the abolition of slavery. On the South American coast, Guyana is culturally connected to the West Indies due to its melting pot of races, love for British past-times such as tea and cricket, and Caribbean music. Firstly, Indians had to assimilate into greater Guyanese society whilst keeping their traditions alive. Nevertheless, the amalgamation of ethnicities and cultures forced a reshaping of Indian identity. The caste system faded, food changed due to the availability of ingredients, spelling was Anglicized, and languages were gradually forgotten, Punjabi dhol beats transformed into tassa drums, and chutney music emerged from fusing Bhojpuri folk songs with island rhythms. Indians blended with other migrants and every facet of their original homeland was altered into a specific, vibrant niche intertwined with their demographics and geography.

It’s critical to note the deep-seated effects of colonial policies on Indo-Caribbean identity, with many longstanding implications still haunting us today. India was highlighted as a replacement for cheap labor after the collapse of slavery throughout the British Empire. Many families were lured away with the promise of sustenance or kidnapped to undergo a brutal sea passage, followed by degrading dehumanization on sugar cane plantations. Displaced on a foreign land, most never returned to India, and were systemically oppressed through inhumane working conditions and exploitative contracts.

In particular, Indian women suffered both sexual assault from British overseers and domestic violence within their own community. Additionally, the prevalence of rum as male labor relief created a cycle of addiction that disproportionately put women at risk for abuse, single parenthood, and financial insecurity. British leaders began to request that Indian children have English names and encouraged conversion to Christianity. This stirred painful, internalized feelings of confusion, inferiority, and resentment from a collective identity that had already been traumatized. Once independent, colonial structures facilitated violent racial prejudice between Guyanese of African and Indian descent, leading to a mass exodus.

Hence, Indo-Caribbean identity is molded from tremendous historical sufferings and adaptability. With this weight, my family started over in America, thus illustrating the second removal from their home country. It was overwhelming, with some continuing to Anglicize names and converting in an attempt to blend in and escape prior adversity or negative feelings associated with trauma. Personally, my parents utilized this opportunity to educate my brothers and I about our immensely unique history and instill a deep connection to our roots, whilst understanding that we were American-born and will inevitably have generational differences.

Indo-Caribbeans are distinct from other hyphenated identities in that assimilation and struggle occurred twice across three continents, with each migration leaving behind and changing certain aspects of identity. Upon arrival, Indo-Caribbeans did not feel “Indian enough” or included in the greater Indian American community, despite having the same racial background and similar inequalities. Indeed, the Indo-Caribbean perspective was largely unknown within the diaspora. Instead, Indian Americans at times looked at Indo-Caribbeans with a mix of curiosity and bewilderment at our accented creole, unusual spellings, and blended dishes, music, and rituals. At worst, ridicule and exclusion further perpetuated feelings of shame.

These examples exemplify why I sometimes felt discomfort amongst cliques of Indian American students at university cultural events. I explained that we don’t have separate sangeet, haldi, and mehendi ceremonies before a wedding, but rather one called maticoor due to a historical lack of resources. I didn’t have the opportunity to learn classical dance, grow up near a temple, or celebrate holidays largely, as I was from a rural New England town.

Now, I am extremely grateful for my twice-removed hyphenated identity. The Caribbean backdrop has transformed Indian identity as I know it into a remarkable fusion found nowhere else in the diaspora. I love the colorful beauty and ancient intricacies passed down from my Indian heritage, alongside our adaptations. I enjoy both educating others while learning more of Indian culture that we lost along the way. It has allowed me to be part of and find commonality among many and advocate against evils still found in all societies, such as gender inequity, mental health awareness, and abuse. Being American is inherently linked with the cultural and religious traditions I was raised with, whilst giving me greater ability to voice my opinion and follow my own path. Overall, America has laid the foundation for my mixed family to find security in our hyphenated identity despite original uncertainty, as it binds us toward betterment and a sense of being for generations to come.

Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020

Hyphenated Identities: Meenakshi Mohan

Dr. Meenakshi Mohan is an educator, art critic, children’s writer, painter, and poet. She has taught at universities in Chicago, Boston, and, more recently, for Towson University in Maryland. She has been listed twice in the Who is Who Among American Teachers. She has published widely both in the academic field as well as in the creative areas. She is the author of two children’s books, The Rainbow in My Room, and The Gift. She recently had a solo exhibit of her paintings in Potomac, Maryland. She is currently on the Advisory Committee of the Montgomery County Library System in its Potomac, Maryland branch. She is on the Editorial Team for Inquiry in Education, a peer-reviewed journal published by National Louis University, Chicago, Illinois.

In the author’s own words…

Hyphenated identity with its complexities and simplicity is as old as human history; for some, the story is written in more linear scripts while for some life moves in more inebriated curves. My two poems: Chat Masala and God is the Color of Water are two sides of this pendulum: linear and curvy. My tone is more whimsical in writing Chat Masala, and I dedicate this poem to my grandson Anant, and many other kids like him. God is the Color of Water is inspired by James McBride’s book, The Color of Water. McBride, son of an African American father and a Portuguese mother, is an accomplished musician, author, and recipient of the National Book Award. The fabric of modern American society is slowly evolving – hybridity, which is compatible with hyphenated identity, is taking a turn in enriching rather than weakening the country. We may sing in the same tune as Maya Angelou’s “I rise.... into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear….,” and we can dream with Walt Whitman for a new America, “I hear America singing the varied carols. I hear…. Each singing what belongs to him or her…. strong melodious songs.” This below painting of mine, The Young Explorer goes with my poems. Information on my painting: Meenakshi Mohan, The Young Explorer (24X36, oil on canvas with pallet knife). Abbott Corporate Office in Chicago has the original of this painting. I dedicate this painting to all the children of the "Hyphenated" generation.

Chat Masala

My grandmother affectionately calls me

her "Chat Masala" –

"Why," I ask,

She tenderly expounds,

"You are as eclectic as all my chat masala recipes!"

Chat masala –

her favorite of all spices --

a mixture of various flavors.

A pinch in here and a nip in there

goes in all the delicacies her kitchen produces.

Italian, French, Mexican, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, or name any --

I relish the chromatic results

this unique spice brings in her cooking.

“How am I your chat masala?”

Through her luminous smile, she illuminates

the story of my being.

Born in Singapore, childhood in Indonesia, India, England,

now, home in America --

a land of mixed ethnicity, race, culture, language, and religion.

In this deep-sea of the variegated expanse

I am not anyone's "bird of a feather."

My DNA weaved with mixed color and texture --

not a melting pot,

but my own unique identity.

I speak in many tongues.

As a child the first full sentence I babbled –

"Aku mav nasi goreng."

At four I mesmerized my audience,

reciting Sanskrit Shlokas in a tongue of pure silver.

I often correct my father's Americanized Hindi.

I trick my mother with her Cockney heritage.

Spanish and French come with liminal drifts.

In the world of music,

I float from Bollywood to Hollywood –

from rock, nu-metal, 90’s rap, soft pop to

Indian Blues, and Remixes

Anthony Bourdain's adventure with universal cuisine fascinated me.

My palatability extends beyond

fish and chips, hamburgers, pizza, parmigiana, NY strip, enchiladas, tacos,

moussaka to murgha mussallem, and saag paneer.

Mexican, Italian, French, Indian, Japanese, and many more I love.

I am chat masala,

I love my grandmother's analogy –

so precise and pure.

I am a pinch of this and a nip of that.

An eclectic mix!

I Am a Child of the Universe.

Note: Chat Masala is a spice and a mix of different ingredients used in Indian cooking, but now getting universal galore.

Aku mav nasi goreng – Indonesian. “I want fried rice.”

God is the Color of Water

Who am I?

My confused eight-year-old reasoning,

muddled with fear, knew no bounds.

Is my mother really my mother?

Then, why is she different?

Searching, finding, lost at times,

my body and mind infused with orchestrated chaos,

I looked into the layers of my life’s scanty pages --

find an answer, open a mystery –

I asked with anxiety, and disquiet nervousness,

“Are you my real mother?”

“Yes, child!” you replied.

“Then, why am I different?”

You calmed my soul,

“We are all human beings,

and God’s creation!

In our differences, we have similarities.”

“What color is God?” I asked.

You replied, “God is the color of Water!”

“But water has no color –

why did God put different colors in making us?”

My curiosity grew.

You smiled and took hold of my hand,

“God is an artist. The canvas of the world is enormous –

He filled it with different colors to make it look beautiful.”

I smiled, I looked at myself, and I looked at my mother in the mirror –

yes, we were different, yet we were same --

both our hearts full of love.

Up above, and far away, God smiled

through a vast stretch of a rainbow --

shining different colors.

Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020

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