[Sandeep]

Hello all, I’m from Mumbai, India, and I’ve always wanted to ask this of any American. It seems to me that Indians (people from India) are little more than a funny accent (or smell?) to most people there. Is that accurate? It’s rather hurtful at times. The only time you see an Indian in a movie is when comic relief is needed — notice how the Indian is always a bumbling idiot or overly lustful and always speaks terrible English. You never see a ‘normal’ Indian in the movies. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see more Indians in movies (after all we are less than 0.6% of the total US population) — my point is, if we must make an appearance must we always be this ugly caricature. I remember watching a stand-up comic do his act on TV — at one point all he needed to do was say ‘Hey, how about those Indians?’ and the audience burst into roars of laughter. Then he went on to ridicule our food and music. On another prime-time TV show, a character jokes that she doesn’t trust her doctor because he wears a turban — would it be funny if she had said ‘because he wears dreadlocks’? I realise that at this point I sound like just another whiney little voice going over the same old ground but I guess I need an answer. Is the respect/sensitivity lacking only because we are a poor country that has little more to offer the world than hard-working people? Sure one might argue that we all make fun of other accents and cultures. Who hasn’t laughed at a good impression of a French or German accent? But the fact is, the humour is counter-balanced with a displayed respect for those cultures. In this case, it is totally absent. Indians are one of the highest earning immigrant communities in the country, usually speak English and are college-educated — we have very low rates of violent crime and very few are on welfare. We don’t make melodramatic movies romanticising our struggles or achievements — we don’t whine about how we are treated (okay, just this once 🙂 ) or cry that life is harder for us…boo, hoo. We have never wanted handouts — if there are obstacles all the better for us — the greater the challenge the greater the reward! So many Indians came to the US from small villages without electricity and made it here as doctors, engineers, scientists and computer programmers. Yet we remain not much more than a funny accent. Why is that? Please tell me.

User Detail :  

Name : Sandeep, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Asian, Religion : Hindu, Age : 32, City : Mumbai, State : NA, Country : India, Occupation : Computer Programmer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

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