tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/south-asian-immigrants-17576/articlesSouth Asian immigrants – The Conversation2022-01-30T13:12:52Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1717882022-01-30T13:12:52Z2022-01-30T13:12:52ZNavigating dementia care in the South Asian community: Overcoming barriers and stigma<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443163/original/file-20220128-19-ee5vn8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=992%2C287%2C3711%2C2884&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most South Asian people with dementia and their care partners did not know the signs and symptoms of dementia before their diagnosis.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/navigating-dementia-care-in-the-south-asian-community--overcoming-barriers-and-stigma" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When care partners of older adults first encounter symptoms of dementia, many assume the symptoms are a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1471301218800641">normal part of aging</a>. This lack of knowledge needs to be addressed to facilitate the first step in seeking dementia care.</p>
<p>Things can get even more complex for care partners living on the margins of mainstream Canadian (English and French) health-care services. As a first-generation South Asian in Canada and a doctoral student engaged in dementia-related research, I still struggle with translating and explaining what dementia means to my parents since my grandmother’s diagnosis. </p>
<p>South Asians comprise what Statistics Canada reports is the country’s largest “<a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/dq171025b-eng.pdf">visible minority group</a>,” at 5.6 per cent of the population. That means South Asians also make up a significant portion of the <a href="https://www.alz.org/ca/dementia-alzheimers-canada.asp#:%7E:text=Share-,Alzheimer's%20and%20Dementia%20in%20Canada,crisis%20that%20must%20be%20addressed.">747,000 Canadians</a> living with Alzheimer’s or other dementia.</p>
<p>South Asians — people who are either born in or who can trace their ancestry to South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and the Maldives — are an <a href="http://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84858">ethnically diverse</a> group with socio-cultural norms that influence their experience of living with dementia. They may also encounter specific barriers to care including language, perceived stigma regarding dementia, lack of knowledge about available services, and hesitancy to use those services. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/gps.4242">process of getting care</a> for people living with dementia can be broadly divided into three stages: recognizing the symptoms, seeking a diagnosis and using various services to access the care needed to maintain quality of life.</p>
<h2>Recognizing symptoms</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Portrait of an older South Asian man wearing an off-white shirt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443155/original/file-20220128-13-1stbz3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=63%2C51%2C1830%2C1212&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443155/original/file-20220128-13-1stbz3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443155/original/file-20220128-13-1stbz3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443155/original/file-20220128-13-1stbz3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443155/original/file-20220128-13-1stbz3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443155/original/file-20220128-13-1stbz3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443155/original/file-20220128-13-1stbz3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A diagnosis of dementia involves several steps, including a visit to a family physician, referral to specialists, and physical and mental tests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pixabay)</span></span>
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<p>The first step of recognizing symptoms is in itself a significant barrier. In a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/1471301218800641">study conducted in the United Kingdom</a>, most South Asian people living with dementia and their care partners acknowledged their lack of awareness and knowledge of dementia. They did not know the signs and symptoms of dementia before the diagnosis. </p>
<p>The study also found beliefs play a significant role in how the symptoms of dementia are perceived. These include associating dementia with a punishment by God for prior sins or dementia as a medium through which the connection with God is deepened. </p>
<p>An abundance of information about dementia is available from <a href="https://www.alz.org/ca/dementia-alzheimers-canada.asp">organizations</a> across Canada, but limited information is available in <a href="https://alzheimer.ca/en/help-support/dementia-resources/dementia-information-hindi-chinese-other-languages">multiple languages</a>. While almost all (<a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-621-x/89-621-x2007006-eng.htm#7">93 per cent</a>) South Asians in Canada can carry on a conversation in English or French, 46 per cent do not use English or French at home. </p>
<p>Access to information in multiple languages that goes beyond the basic definition of dementia and its symptoms, and that includes information on local resources, could help raise awareness and encourage people to seek diagnosis. </p>
<h2>Seeking diagnosis</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://alzheimer.ca/en/about-dementia/do-i-have-dementia/how-get-tested-dementia">various steps before receiving the diagnosis of dementia</a>. These include a visit to a family physician, referral to specialists, and physical and mental tests. </p>
<p>Navigating the health-care system can be a daunting experience, especially if the individual lives with dementia and has a language barrier. The multiple visits to a doctor’s office may require a family member who can speak English to help with translation. The same individual may not be available for each visit, disrupting communication. </p>
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<img alt="Older hands clasping younger hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443168/original/file-20220128-27-puj6lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443168/original/file-20220128-27-puj6lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443168/original/file-20220128-27-puj6lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443168/original/file-20220128-27-puj6lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443168/original/file-20220128-27-puj6lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443168/original/file-20220128-27-puj6lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443168/original/file-20220128-27-puj6lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">After diagnosis, access to appropriate services is crucial to maintain the quality of life for people living with dementia and their care partner. However, most of these services are offered in English or French and embedded in western culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>The experience of receiving a diagnosis is emotionally draining and challenging. It falls on the family member to disclose it to their loved ones as a <a href="https://www.affordablelanguageservices.com/why-medical-interpreting-shouldnt-be-left-to-family-members/">translator</a>, which causes emotional stress for both parties. </p>
<p>Another issue is <a href="http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2020/12/dementia-pagal-or-neurocognitive-disorder-what-is-in-a-name/">describing</a> dementia in a language aside from English, as not every language may have a word for dementia. </p>
<p>Services such as having <a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp-rj.2017.120806">translators</a> present, better policies to provide <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2021/canadas-rules-for-sick-and-caregiving-leave-must-be-redesigned/">financial security</a> for care partners who have to take multiple days off from employment, physicians having an understanding of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/tropicalmed5010022">socio-cultural norms</a> and the perception of dementia within the community may be a helpful starting point to make the experience of seeking and receiving dementia more inclusive to the South Asian community. </p>
<h2>Access to services</h2>
<p>After diagnosis, access to appropriate services is crucial to maintain the quality of life for people living with dementia and their care partner. Across Canada, multiple organizations provide such services. </p>
<p>However, most of these services are offered in English or French and embedded in western culture. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/dementia-seniors-immigrants-programming-1.5697664">Social and recreational services</a> often include bingo, line dancing and discussing western art and literature, which may not be inviting or appropriate to a person living with dementia from the South Asian community. </p>
<p>Support groups for care partners may be a challenge due to the cultural differences in providing care for the elderly. In western culture, a move to <a href="https://alzheimer.ca/en/help-support/im-caring-person-living-dementia/long-term-care">long-term care</a> is often the final stage for care partners to ensure their loved ones are safe and cared for. </p>
<p>This is a difficult conversation in South Asian communities where filial piety plays a significant role, and <a href="https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/12862">long-term care homes can be viewed negatively</a>. The financial responsibility associated with long-term care may also be a factor for some families. In this way, home care becomes an integral part of dementia care in the South Asian community. </p>
<p>To ensure a comfortable stay within the community, services need to be more culturally inclusive in terms of content and structure of the services, the language of delivery and culturally appropriate advertisement of the available services.</p>
<p>To help improve the lives of South Asian Canadians living with dementia and their care partners, it is time we take steps to ensure Canada’s mandate for diversity and inclusivity are reflected within our health-care system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Navjot Gill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People living with dementia in the South Asian community often face challenges accessing care because of a lack of culturally appropriate services, language barriers or perceived stigma about dementiaNavjot Gill, Doctoral Student, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1675212021-10-20T12:38:55Z2021-10-20T12:38:55ZModel minority blues — The mental health consequences of being a model citizen: Don’t Call Me Resilient EP 9 transcript<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427323/original/file-20211019-13-1mptz4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C285%2C5018%2C3700&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On Don't Call Me Resilient, we speak with Satwinder Bains, associate professor and director of the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley and Maneet Chahal, co-founder of Soch Mental Health. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Claudia Wolff)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/593ba323-0be6-42b4-a9f2-6d785595cc81?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-mental-health-consequences-of-being-a-model-citizen-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-9-166620">Episode 9: Model minority blues — The mental health consequences of being a model citizen</a></p>
<p><em>NOTE: Transcripts may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.</em></p>
<p><strong>Vinita Srivastava (VS):</strong> From <em>The Conversation</em>, this is Don’t Call Me Resilient, I’m Vinita Srivastava.</p>
<p><strong>Maneet Chahal (MC):</strong> We all have self-stigma to mental health. If tomorrow we’re emotionally challenged, we are going to wonder: What is wrong with me? Why is this happening to me?</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> It has been a tough year. We have all struggled and our collective mental health has taken a real hit. But according to a recent Stats Canada report, South Asians have taken an even bigger hit, reporting lower levels of mental health than any other Canadians during the pandemic. Today, we’re going to talk about some of the reasons why, including the pressure of needing to be a model minority. That’s the idea that Asian immigrants keep their heads down. They don’t rock the boat. They are successful and they prosper. Well, those ideas are mostly myths. And those myths can cause all kinds of problems. Mostly, it forces people to internalize their mental anguish and it can end up leaving gaps in our mental health services. My guests today are intimately connected to the situation. Satwinder Bains is an associate professor and director of the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on access to mental health support in South Asian communities and the effects of migration and social isolation on mental health. And Maneet Chahal is co-founder of Soch Mental Health, which encourages better access to mental health support in Canada’s South Asian communities. Thank you both for joining me.</p>
<p><strong>MC:</strong> Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Satwinder Bains (SB):</strong> Thank you, Vinita, for having us here today with you.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Maneet, as the co-founder of Soch Mental Health, your work with the South Asian community has really kept you close to the issues. And I’m wondering what kinds of trends you’ve been seeing.</p>
<p><strong>MC:</strong> I don’t think it’s any surprise that South Asians were as hard hit as they were. This has been happening a long time before the pandemic. And it’s really sad when you think that because you don’t know your environment, you haven’t acclimated to the culture around you, that that’s a disadvantage to your experience, your mental health narrative, essentially. We look at mainstream systems, mainstream mental health services that are catered in a way, for those that are educated, that are literate, that are English-speaking, predominantly from a white background is what you see. So, South Asians we’re struggling with depression, with anxiety, without even knowing it’s depression and anxiety. I think that makes it even more challenging when you’re navigating something related to your mental health in the dark because you don’t associate it to be a problem or for it to be even recognized as something that can be addressed or you can get help for.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> So there’s a few things that you’re bringing up there. One is this idea of culture and how important it is in terms of getting the kinds of help that you need to take into account that culture or someone’s culture, and the position that they’re coming from is important when you’re talking about their mental health. But you’re also saying that this idea that the pandemic has exacerbated existing mental health issues, I think that’s what you’re saying, is that it’s not the pandemic necessarily. It’s just the pandemic that highlighted existing mental health issues. But I’m wondering specifically if things got worse during the pandemic?</p>
<p><strong>MC:</strong> Yeah, things definitely got worse during the pandemic. And I think the reason why Soch started is because a lot of people, a majority of their life, will probably go falling through the cracks of the mental health system. They’ll never get picked up. They won’t even know they lived their entire life having a mental health concern. So some of those things that are exacerbated during COVID in relation to mental health are depression, anxiety, suicide, addictions. Addictions is a huge issue in our South Asian community. Specifically speaking to the South Asian Punjabi community. And drinking is a No. 1 inquiry we actually get at Soch, where concerned loved ones are reaching out because a loved one is drinking and they don’t know how to navigate and support them.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Satwinder, you’ve been researching South Asian communities for years, why do you think some of these communities have been so hard hit during the pandemic? The South Asian communities that we’re talking about?</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: I feel that in B.C. there has been an explosion in terms of an understanding of the vulnerabilities of ethnic communities through COVID. And partly it’s been because of the issue of racism. I understand culture as being a very critical point in terms of understanding mental health and wellness and making sure that practitioners take that into account. But to kind of say that it’s because of culture is also a bit not warranted because sometimes it’s not the culture that’s at fault is actually the whole society that’s at fault, that hasn’t really understood their needs. And I think the good thing from the pandemic has been that there has been a really bright light shone on the vulnerability of ethnic communities, and they’re starting to be a greater understanding at the higher level of government to show a deeper understanding of the needs of these communities as taxpayers, as citizens, as children born here, not as put to the side kinds of groups, but really integrate their designs so everybody’s needs get met, the needs don’t get met. And then what you say is, well, these people don’t know what they’re doing. It’s their problem. They live in extended family systems. They’re spreading the disease. Without understanding what is going on behind it. Our community is matured and evolved from the ‘70s onwards. Even I would say, not hiding our mental health issues, but coming forward with them. There has been a shift and I think that shift has helped.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Let’s talk about that shift for a minute. We all know that this is not a new issue. I mean, as you said, it’s been going on since the '70s. In the '70s, one of the higher reported suicide rates in Canada was for South Asian women. And many in the South Asian communities have struggled quietly with mental health for years. I guess what you’re saying is actually it has changed since the '70s, which is very hopeful, but it is an ongoing issue. So, what are some of the reasons that, you know, South Asian communities have struggled quietly? What are some of those issues at play there?</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: In B.C. we have some very unique issues. We have, although a hundred year plus history of South Asian Canadians living in this province, we still have a very large influx of newly arriving immigrants. The newer immigrants, as they come and continue to bring traditional ways of dealing with situations. One of them is look within the family. Don’t put this out. Don’t let other people know there’s mental health issues in the family, because the sense of this collective identity, that we will all be tarnished with this brush. And as you know, in the South Asian community the family is sacrosanct. It is the cornerstone of everything we do. And people will sacrifice the individual for the family. And unfortunately, that does happen with mental health, that we tend not to get the kinds of help we need for the individual thinking that the larger group, the collective family, is the support the person needs. As Maneet said sometimes that support is right and sometimes it isn’t. So partly it’s been that we are not getting access to the services we need. One: the services aren’t there. Two: if they were there, we’re not accessing them. Three: there is still lots of stigma and the stigma continues. Even with COVID, there was stigma. And Vinita I want to say that we no longer can see ourselves as a homogenous group. We can’t say all South Asian Canadians deal with — every community has cohorts of people that deal with things differently. So we also have to have the diversity of access options for all of us as well. And I think that’s not happening. And to some degree, we are seen as homogenous.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> The South Asian diaspora, what that means is so diverse. We come from so many different places. But you talked about two things there, the stigma, this idea of the ongoing stigma. You talked about this idea of this collective identity, that somehow there’s this notion that the collective is more important than the individual. That is a cultural echo that continues. Maneet, what are some of the other things that you’re seeing? Why do folks in the South Asian communities tend to struggle quietly? This idea of not accessing the help?</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: The stigma is huge. I think with stigma it’s the guilt. Guilt and shame are huge. I think it’s with anyone who struggles with mental health. But when you don’t have that health promotion, that preventative lens, that mental health dialogue happening — it takes years to break down stigma. We all, I’m sure all of us, anyone listening, we all have self-stigma to mental health. If tomorrow we’re emotionally challenged, we are going to wonder: What is wrong with me? Why is this happening to me? So add on a layer of not knowing what mental health is. No one’s ever having the conversation around you in the cultural way, the linguistic way for you to challenge that. You forever remain stuck there. And then comes that point. Maybe one day you take a leap of faith and you go to the health-care system. And as a mental-health professional, it is so broken and so complicated, you wouldn’t even know where to go, what to do. So what you see here in Brampton, locally, is things are unaddressed. They’re shoved under the rug. You end up in ER, likely, because you don’t know the system. What will happen is you end up having a panic attack. You only went to the hospital because you think it’s a heart attack. If you knew it was a panic attack, you probably wouldn’t go because you’re like it’s mental health. I got to keep this hidden. I can’t tell anyone.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> But then you feel it in your chest —</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: You physically start feeling something is wrong with you now. It’s like, OK, it’s OK for me to go get help. But then a lot of those visits are left like that. You have a visit, you may have a follow-up and you never follow up again. That’s one example. The other example is you might go to a service provider, try to seek help and they don’t recognize, appreciate, value, your cultural experience, your family dynamics. And you are forever turned off from the entire experience and you don’t want to go back.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> You mentioned family, Maneet. I know that you’ve spoken publicly about your dad’s struggle with mental health. I’m wondering how that impacted you in terms of your work and where you ended up.</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: Yeah, my dad struggled with depression, which started through grief. He lost his father. He lost his brother. And I think grief consumed him. And I think that is the driving factor along, I’m sure with family history, probably a lot of family history that he wasn’t even aware of because no one talks about mental health in the home, the immigrant experience, just milestones. But I think grief is the biggest thing for my father. And I think all of this as a professional and as a human being when it really struck me was when I lost my dad at the end of 2018 because I think that experience was like, oh my God. I think when you’re in it and you go through it. My entire perception — if you were to have this conversation with me in 2017, I’d probably have a very different perspective than I do today because I was like, oh, my God, grief can completely destroy you, destroy your mental health. And some of us bounce back. Some of us are broken and just carry on and others completely lose their way.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> I’m so sorry for your loss.</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Satwinder, I know that you have done a lot of work in terms of the different generations and do different generations view and deal with mental health differently? Is that what you’ve noticed?</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: Yes, absolutely. As I said, the family is the cornerstone of our communities. And I give it real credit for, one, holding things when things go wrong, but also falling apart when things go wrong. So I want to say that generationally because we live in multigenerational homes, there’s no empirical evidence of how many people live in multigenerational homes. What we kind of know, it might be half and half, let’s say, as a guess estimate that half the people live in multigenerational homes and half live by themselves in nuclear family systems. So I think living within multigenerational homes is both a support and it’s also a bit of a negative because I hear professionals saying all the time in B.C. that South Asian Canadians don’t need the kind of support from mental health services because they have family at home. Their family is able to help them. But I don’t think they understand that not all families are equipped or have the knowledge to really do the work and they can do more damage than harm. Whereas maybe if there were a nuclear family and they didn’t have the support, they’d have to look somewhere else. And others may step in and they may have to show through their assessment that the professionals do around the support you need, that they don’t have anyone and perhaps they would get the services. So I keep telling families to let people know that they’re working. They’re not home, looking after mental health and that they do need the support. But I think it goes beyond the understanding. It has to be a demand from us as South Asians to say to services that 25 per cent of the population in Abbotsford is South Asian. I want to see 25 per cent of your services reflective of that. I want to see 25 per cent of your staff having that cross-cultural competency, not just early knowledge of cultural competency, but really advanced skills, well-developed skills. Hire people who have gone through universities and had those types of educations. Why in our social work program or nursing program do we not have the cross-cultural, considering that the people that will graduate are going to work in these communities? And we can’t unfortunately always put the onus on the family to come forward and look for services. I would say to you, as Maneet has talked about the immigrant experience, immigrants generally are very passive. They come to Canada as a developed country and see the beauty, the milk and honey that they see. However, they see that with rose-coloured glasses because it is not milk and honey. They see it that way initially, and they kind of accept that they should take a second-tier position to demands. They shouldn’t go into the school and tell the teacher, I want this or go to a doctor and say I want this, because they see the immigrant position as a secondary position. They haven’t been accepted as full Canadians are rights and responsibilities, and it’s a very difficult dance that they are doing because they’re trying to uphold their cultural traditions, which they don’t want to let go yet, they’re frozen in time for a period of time. And then at the same time, they’re trying to adapt and culturalize to Canadian society. And you talked about these, you know, the environmental acclimatization that people have to go through. I have to tell you, that’s a very complex process. And we can’t expect people to jump off a plane and get acclimatized to Canada and figure out how things work and make the demands that they need. As you know, all of us know we have to be our own advocates for health care, unfortunately. But immigrants don’t always have the capacity and the wherewithal to do that. So multigenerational homes provide the support to people who are perhaps mentally ill because there’s someone in the home, someone to help, etc., etc. But it is not the optimum support system. There have to be services attached to that.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> It sounds like you’re saying not just do — I’m just going to use the “we” for a minute because I’m part of this community, too. But it sounds like you’re saying not only do we not have the capacity, but we don’t feel like we have the right.</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: Yes. That’s why the idea of Soch — I love the word <em>soch</em> because <em>soch</em> is much beyond just thought it is a meaningful engagement in terms of our beliefs, our values, what we think, how we think, why we think it is a much bigger word than its actual small meaning.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> So for somebody who doesn’t know <em>soch</em>, let’s give a definition of <em>soch</em>, the word.</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: I think Satwinder did an amazing job, but like definition-wise, <em>soch</em> means to think or a thought and for us <em>soch</em> is bigger than that. It’s a word that we’ve been using to really delve into the conversation about mental health, emotional wellness, your thinking, your emotions. And it comes across really well when you’re having the conversation between generations. I can have the conversation with my grandma, elders in my family and they’re like, what kind of work do you do? I’m like, I work in mental health. I think about the mind. Think about your <em>soch</em>, your mind and all the things you think about. And that’s the stuff, the challenging bits, and the happy bits. How can we manage that and keep that at a balance. It’s a short word, but it has a very large meaning. It was just like a random brainstorm at a Starbucks with me, Jasmeet and Harman, another founding member of Soch. And we wrote it down. And then we started asking everyone at the coffee shop, non-South Asian people. Can they pronounce this? Cause you want to pick a name that everyone can say.</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: I also think, Vinita, <em>soch</em> has within it — is imbued with a sense of future thought. <em>Soch</em> is deeper than the moment. <em>Soch</em> is really about reflection and introspection. It’s about a moment of thinking and it can take you forward. I’m really a proponent of progressive thinking of inching forward. Regression is just not my cup of tea. And I’m sorry what’s happening in Afghanistan today. We’re all just heartbroken because the progress is so hard fought and especially of people who are vulnerable. Women, children, people are in abusive situations. People who are suffering from mental health or other incapacities. <em>Soch</em> is imbued with this idea that you can overcome your shortcomings, that you can go forward and make something of it.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> We talk about going forward a little bit and you mentioned Afghanistan and we talked about generational differences a little bit, but we haven’t really touched on gender yet. The notions of Asian masculinity, the idea of patriarchy and gender-based violence, these are all wrapped up together. What role does gender play, Satwinder, in all of these things that we’re talking about?</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: I always feel gender is a fluid term and that it is forever being changed and challenged and manipulated. But traditionally, as you know, gender is seen as a binary and that there’s this or that, and we are nowhere in South Asian Canadian communities really ready to address all the differences between our genders. So as a result, I think the boundary of gender really defines who we are from when we are born to when we die. The rituals, the traditions of thoughts, the ideas, the beliefs, the expectations of roles and responsibilities are kind of part and parcel of everything that we’re socialized to do and to break those norms — every time I see someone who’s broken that norm, I’m in awe of that human to say that they have this courage and this strength of conviction to go against the grain. But in South Asian Canadian communities, partly because we, as all other communities on the planet, are mostly patriarchal, we’re in a bit of a trap. And to open that trap is something not everyone is able to do.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> I’m also talking about just the idea of the patriarchy, this idea of how this overwhelming patriarchy impacts the mental health of these communities and those impacted by that. I see Maneet you’re nodding your head.</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: Yeah. Where we are stuck right now in the traditional sense in the patriarchy is that women really struggle with their mental health. And that is because you have loss of power, loss of voice, loss of autonomy within your home. There’s a lot of gender-based roles that play into your mental health and your wellness. You see caregiver roles are put on women and women have household roles. They are also working, they want their independence. They want equality outside. But then they are expanding themselves and stretching themselves out thin with caregiving. So that plays a huge role on women. And then we look at men in the traditional sense, on how they’ve been socialized to deal with their mental health and their challenges. We look at patterns of not talking about your emotions. Soch has been hosting a South Asian Men’s Forum, which we actually started with the beautiful work of therapy, which is the South Asian Mental Health Initiative in the U.K. So the South Asian Men’s Forum we created for South Asian men to come together, have a safe space with those that have lived experience, those who are professional, to talk about things that are very challenging for men to talk about. We don’t give permission to men to talk about their emotions. “Be a man, don’t cry. You can handle it.” These pressures also don’t allow for their mental health and the way they navigate to evolve. So what do they do? They drink, they get angry, there are outbursts that are happening at home because that is the cycle they’ve seen before them. And that is what’s repeating and it’s not breaking. So that still exists. It’s very heavy. It is being passed down to our generation, to our younger generation, because that is a pattern they’re seeing at home.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> I know that you both have seen the news, the sort of media reports about young South Asian men being impacted in a particular way and many of them turning to gangs. And I’m wondering what’s happening there.</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: Yeah, it’s unfortunate that B.C. has seen over the last, I would say, 30 years, a real decline in wellness of young South Asian men, a certain group of South Asian men. Now, don’t forget, they’re a minority. They’re a small number. They do not define South Asian Canadian men. Generally, most of them are functioning at very high levels. They’re succeeding. They’re doing well. But there is a small group of men that are vulnerable and Maneet has shed some light on why they are vulnerable. But I think one of the things that’s happened is that as researchers and scholars, as practitioners, we really haven’t spent the time understanding men’s burdens and understanding men’s roles. And while we spend a lot of time talking about the shifting role of women from being caregivers, but also being breadwinners, we haven’t really spent the time to understand the burden that men carry generally. If I look at the literature, there’s very little on South Asian men. There’s lots of South Asian women, but very little on men. And we are nowhere near understanding the challenges that young men face. And we also have to understand the role of mothers and fathers and how they’re raising those young men, because they’re also raising them with expectations of the past as if they’re going to carry the burdens of family and breadwinning and always being there for everyone and looking after — that can be shared. It’s so much better if it’s shared between sisters and brothers. I have to tell you that men don’t understand their own privilege. They actually wake up in the morning without examining it. So there are challenges.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> If I could give you a magic powder, magic dust, where would you start spreading that dust? What needs to happen to improve the situation? I’ll start with you, Maneet.</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: I think in terms of Satwinder shared, we’re kind of second tier in terms of a lot of our community not thinking that they deserve it or it’s their right. Because I think coming to Canada was like a ticket, like it was you won the lottery. Magic dust would be that South Asian mental health, culturally, linguistically appropriate mental health services and supports. It’s everyone’s right. It’s there. It’s not something that we’re fighting for. We have to advocate for. We have to sit at the table and beg for funding for, that stuff is just there. That is where I would start. The other thing I would start with is at schools. Schools should have mental health from the very beginning. Why are we not talking about this? And it should be mandatory for them to have mental health courses, mental health training and mental health in the curriculum. We need to start young. Mental health first aid should be mandatory. I think that staff should be out there. </p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Did you say mental health first aid?</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: Yeah, mental health first aid. So as a first aid for CPR and saving lives, there is mental health first aid for knowing your foundational mental health. But obviously having that in different languages for different cultures. Mental health training was not mandatory during my nursing education. And I’m baffled about the fact that you’re supporting someone who might be at end of life or they’re terminally ill or they had this horrific accident happen to them. But you have no mental health training under your belt to support them during this transition and this horrible experience. I can continue to probably go on. But I think right now, in terms of the bigger picture, I really feel like if you have that language from as soon as you’re born and you come into the world and you’re given the permission that you have in mind, and we all have a mind and we have emotions, and that is the human experience. That’s the beauty of it. And please experience it to your fullest. And if you’re struggling, reach out for help. Just reach out. Don’t suffer in silence like that is the vision of the community that I look forward to seeing at some point in my life.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Amazing. Thank you for that. And Satwinder I’m going to give you the same dust, the same magic dust.</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: You’re so generous, I thank you for that. I hope we can make some impact. I guess I have two areas that I think really need attention. One is we really need a very strong overhaul of the education system to address mental health. And we need it at all levels, as Maneet has said. And the second piece is really for policy-makers. If I had magic dust, I would like to see at every policy table that there be culturally sensitive and appropriate services being designed for every single thing that we do. Canada speaks about being a multicultural community, but does it act it out? Does it, in everything that we do, or do we address multiculturalism? Do we address the idea that so many cultures live under one roof, in one country, affected by these policies? I’m sorry, the policies are still very Eurocentric. They are colonial driven. They don’t even address Indigenous issues, let alone migrant issues. So the magic dust, it might be wonderful. It’s just not — I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it needs a whole shift in mindset, a whole shift in idea making, a whole shift in paradigms of how we function as Canadians. And we all need to do that. It can’t be a prime minister and his cabinet who does that, although we put them there. And once we put them there, let’s hold them accountable.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Guys, I felt that physically, even though we’re just virtual. That was very powerful and very beautiful. Thank you both so much for the time that you’ve given today. I really, really appreciate it.</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: Well, thank you for creating this platform and thank you for allowing us to share our thoughts. And Maneet, lovely to meet you.</p>
<p><strong>MC</strong>: Thank you Satwinder and thank you, Vinita. Honestly, I think this conversation, it helps for myself to kind of sit back and reflect on why I’m here, why are we doing this and what work do we still need to do. We deserve this. We demand this and we need a better tomorrow, especially when it comes to mental health for South Asians.</p>
<p><strong>SB</strong>: And Vinita I love that your podcast is called Don’t Call Me Resilient, because I think in that idea of resilience comes this idea of there, there, you know, condescending, patronizing ideas of, you know, you should be able to overcome this. Some things we can’t overcome. We need help to overcome those. But this idea that immigrants will always be resilient, they can take racism, they can take assault, they can take all kinds of discrimination and stereotyping, and they should just bounce back. I think that’s a really unfair characterisation of what we can and what we’re able to accomplish. I want to be resilient, of course I do, but not at the cost of somebody else’s ability to then just shove me down and expect me to bounce back.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Thank you so much. Thank you both so much. I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>That’s it for this episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking after that conversation. I’m on Twitter @writeVinita. And don’t forget to tag our producers @conversationca. Use the hashtag #DontCallMeResilient. Don’t Call Me Resilient is a production of <em>The Conversation Canada</em>. It was made possible by a grant for journalism innovation from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by me Vinita Srivastava. Our producer is Susana Ferriera, our associate producer is Ibrahim Daair. And special thanks to our intern Vaishnavi Dandeker for her help on this episode. Reza Dahya is our incredibly patient sound producer and our fabulous consulting producer is Jennifer Moroz. Lisa Varano leads audience development for <em>The Conversation Canada</em> and Scott White is our CEO. And if you’re wondering who wrote and performed the music we use on the pod, that’s the amazing Zaki Ibrahim. The track is called <em>Something in the Water</em>. Thanks for listening, everyone, and hope you join us again. Until then, I’m Vinita. And please, don’t call me resilient.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Recently, Statistics Canada revealed that South Asians reported lower levels of mental health than any other Canadians during the pandemic.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientIbrahim Daair, Culture + Society EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1666202021-10-20T12:37:32Z2021-10-20T12:37:32ZModel minority blues: The mental health consequences of being a model citizen — Don’t Call Me Resilient EP 9<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427434/original/file-20211020-14-1bdnaro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C19%2C988%2C587&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this episode, we discuss some of the reasons South Asians are reporting higher rates of mental health issues than any other group. Here a group of young South Asians at Besharam, a Toronto nightclub hosted by DJ Amita (pre-pandemic). </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">courtesy Besharam</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/593ba323-0be6-42b4-a9f2-6d785595cc81?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>It has been a tough year. We have all struggled and our collective mental health has taken a real hit. But according to a recent Statistics Canada report, South Asians have taken an even bigger hit, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200902/dq200902b-eng.htm">reporting lower levels of mental health than any other Canadians during the pandemic</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-9-model-minority-blues-the-mental-health-consequences-of-being-a-model-citizen">In this episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, we take a look at some of the reasons why, including the pressure of needing to be a model minority. That’s the idea that Asian immigrants keep their heads down. They don’t rock the boat. They are successful and they prosper. Well, those ideas are mostly myths. And those myths can cause all kinds of problems. It often forces people to internalize their mental anguish and it can end up leaving gaps in our mental health services. </p>
<p>My guests on this episode are intimately connected to the situation. Satwinder Bains is an associate professor and director of the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on access to mental health support in South Asian communities and the effects of migration and social isolation on mental health. And Maneet Chahal is co-founder of Soch Mental Health, which encourages better access to mental health support in Canada’s South Asian communities.</p>
<p>For a full transcript of this episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient, go <a href="https://theconversation.com/model-minority-blues-the-mental-health-consequences-of-being-a-model-citizen-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-9-transcript-167521">here</a>.</p>
<h2>Additional reading</h2>
<p>Each week, we highlight articles from <em>The Conversation</em> and other places that drill down into the topics we discuss in the episode. This week:</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mental-health-issues-get-stigmatized-in-south-asian-communities-culturally-diverse-therapy-needed-164913">How mental health issues get stigmatized in South Asian communities: Culturally diverse therapy needed</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/we-still-stigmatize-mental-illness-that-needs-to-stop-169518">We still stigmatize mental illness, that needs to stop </a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mental-health-issues-get-stigmatized-in-south-asian-communities-culturally-diverse-services-needed-164913">Inquiry into coronavirus nursing home deaths needs to include discussion of workers and race</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/how-2-toronto-women-are-reshaping-what-it-means-to-be-south-asian-and-taking-that-message-worldwide-1.6006002">How 2 Toronto women are reshaping what it means to be South Asian and taking that message worldwide</a></p>
<p><a href="https://newcanadianmedia.ca/mental-health-south-asian-community">Men’s forum addresses mental health in South Asian community</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.baaznews.org/p/ask-new-questions-metro-vancouver-gang-violence">Harpo Mander: It’s time to ask new questions when analysing Metro Vancouver gang violence</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.abbynews.com/news/theres-help-for-south-asian-men-wrestling-with-drug-addiction-in-surrey/">There’s help for South Asian men wrestling with drug addiction in Surrey</a></p>
<p>If you or your loved one needs resources, check out this <a href="https://www.sochmentalhealth.com/resources/">resource list published by Soch Mental Health Services.</a> </p>
<h2>Follow and listen</h2>
<p>You can listen or subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. <a href="mailto:theculturedesk@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join <em>The Conversation</em> on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
<p><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient is a production of The Conversation Canada. This podcast was produced with a grant for Journalism Innovation from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by Vinita Srivastava. Our producer is Susana Ferreira. Our associate producer is Ibrahim Daair. Vaishnavi Dandekar is our editorial intern. Reza Dahya is our sound producer. Our consulting producer is Jennifer Moroz. Lisa Varano is our audience development editor and Scott White is the CEO of The Conversation Canada. Zaki Ibrahim wrote and performed the music we use on the pod. The track is Something in the Water.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A girl sits on her dad's shoulders" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427320/original/file-20211019-14-1fm0rrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=307%2C193%2C3386%2C2728&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427320/original/file-20211019-14-1fm0rrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427320/original/file-20211019-14-1fm0rrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427320/original/file-20211019-14-1fm0rrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427320/original/file-20211019-14-1fm0rrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427320/original/file-20211019-14-1fm0rrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427320/original/file-20211019-14-1fm0rrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This episode explores the mental health of South Asians in the diaspora. Here a South Asian girl sits on her dad’s shoulders at the Vaisakhi Parade in Surrey, B.C., 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The pressure of needing to be a model minority — successful, quiet, hardworking — can force people to internalize their mental anguish and ends up leaving gaps in our mental health services.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientIbrahim Daair, Culture + Society EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033212018-10-02T23:14:03Z2018-10-02T23:14:03ZEssays On Air: the politics of curry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236540/original/file-20180917-96155-6xi579.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">I had never encountered the word 'curry muncher' until I arrived in Australia 10 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/keep-calm-curry-on-handbag-710808244?src=K8tE2f3oHZAWBfV2cNGiJg-1-1">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Opening Night, Melbourne Comedy Festival 2018. Dilruk Jayasinha’s introductory salvo:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is so exciting. I honestly… Sorry, it’s unbelievable — that I get to do stand-up comedy here at the Palais in Melbourne. Because I… I’m from Sri Lanka! And I used to be an accountant. Yeah. A Sri Lankan accountant!!! So — not just a money cruncher, but a curry-munching money cruncher!</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Thaaat</em> word … is it back again? For someone who has spent the last 30 years of her life specialising in English literary, postcolonial and cultural studies, I had never encountered it until I arrived in Australia 10 years ago.</p>
<p>On today’s episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/essays-on-air-48405">Essays On Air</a>, a podcast from The Conversation, I’m reading my essay, titled <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-politics-of-curry-97457">The politics of curry.</a></p>
<p>Find and subscribe to Essays on Air in <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/essays-on-air/id1333743838?mt=2">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://play.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-a-suburbs-turn-for-gentrification-comes-75609">When a suburb's turn for gentrification comes ...</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p>Big Mojo Vadodara by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X_LvXLFt9c">Kevin MacLeod</a></p>
<p>Dilruk Jayasinha’s performance at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOKT8u9P3Bg">Melbourne Comedy Festival 2018</a> (used under fair dealing)</p>
<p>Indian beats by <a href="https://soundcloud.com/delta9thc-2/indian-beats">delta9THC #2</a></p>
<p>Indian dream by <a href="https://soundcloud.com/zebra404/indian-dream">zebra 404</a></p>
<p>Old Man’s Tale by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/Cinematic/Old_Mans_Tale">David Szesztay</a></p>
<p>Snow by <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Szesztay/Cinematic/Snow">David Szesztay</a></p>
<p>Sound effects from <a href="http://www.orangefreesounds.com/">Orange Free Sounds</a> and <a href="https://freesound.org/browse/">Free Sound</a></p>
<p><em>Today’s episode was recorded and edited by Maggy Liu.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mridula Nath Chakraborty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether being called 'curry munchers' or pigeonholed as authorities on a dish largely invented by the British, diasporic South Asians are emulsified in a deep pool of curry.Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Deputy Director, Monash Asia Institute, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/974572018-06-28T19:57:02Z2018-06-28T19:57:02ZFriday essay: the politics of curry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225059/original/file-20180627-112614-1y1f3bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A curry-themed shoulder bag: 'Curry' is a word that no self-respecting subcontinental would own without a thousand caveats attached.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Opening Night, Melbourne Comedy Festival 2018. Dilruk Jayasinha’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOKT8u9P3Bg">introductory salvo</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is so exciting. I honestly… Sorry, it’s unbelievable — that I get to do stand-up comedy here at the Palais in Melbourne. Because I… I’m from Sri Lanka! And I used to be an accountant. Yeah. A Sri Lankan accountant!!! So — not just a money cruncher, but a curry-munching money cruncher!</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Thaaat</em> word … is it back again? For someone who has spent the last 30 years of her life specialising in English literary, postcolonial and cultural studies, I had never encountered it until I arrived in Australia 10 years ago and soon after chanced upon Roanna Gonsalves. </p>
<p>Not the real-life, award-winning writer of <a href="http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about-library-awards-nsw-premiers-literary-awards/multicultural-nsw-award">The Permanent Resident</a>, but (to me, at the time) a little known author of the short story “<a href="https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=14613">Curry Muncher</a>.” In Gonsalves’ story, an Indian international student working night shifts as a restaurant waiter is attacked on a Sydney train and viciously beaten up, while repeatedly being called a <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/hindi/en/article/2017/10/11/how-racism-affected-australian-cricketer-who-was-called-f-ing-curry-muncher">“curry muncher”</a>. Like the story’s omniscient narrator/fellow-passenger/onlooker, I was genuinely puzzled as to why that term could or would exist: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wondered how one could possibly munch curry? The way I understood it, curry, being a liquid, could be eaten with rice or one could even drink it as one did rasam and even sambhar. But there was no way one could munch curry as if it were a biscuit.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224829/original/file-20180626-19399-eb51lk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Singaporean curry purveyor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Ooi/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When “Curry Muncher” was published in Eureka Street in June 2009, in the wake of two years of intermittent protests by Indian international students and taxi-drivers against racially-motivated violence in Sydney and Melbourne, you could be forgiven for assuming that the narratorial voice was a thinly-disguised autobiographical riff. In fact, when I wanted to invite Gonsalves to participate at a university roundtable about the racist attacks, the organisers rescinded the invitation when I told them the short story was fictional - the author was not a “real life” victim of the violence. </p>
<p>Gonsalves has since steadfastly maintained the right of imagination to animate her fiction and has refused to inhabit the implied authentically-currified authorial body. But it seems that time and time again, stories and identities of the South Asian diaspora get emulsified in the deep pool of curry that Jayasinha too uses to flavour his circular stand-up act.</p>
<h2>An invention of the British Empire?</h2>
<p>Embedded in the slur <a href="http://australiafirstparty.net/curry-munchers-call/">curry muncher</a> is a long history of racialised stereotyping and name-calling that accrues to bodies presumed to be the primary ingesters of that great culinary equaliser, the curry. The aspersion is collectively cast upon inhabitants of, and diasporic populations tracing their genealogy to, the Indian subcontinent, alternatively known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asia">South Asia</a>. </p>
<p>A close kin to the noun is the verb “to curry favour,” also related to “brown-nosing”, which refers to the orifice at the other end of the digestive canal that comes into contact with curry. In the hands of creatives like Gonsalves and Jayasinha, such terms are reclaimed and recuperated to make a political statement against hegemonic cultures and hate-groups that use them to essentialise, discriminate against, and terrorise subcontinental brown folk in white settler nations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224823/original/file-20180626-19390-1wdc36o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Curry is not ‘munched’ like a biscuit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beau Giles, flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Notwithstanding the fact that the prefix in question is one of those enduring inventions of the British Empire that no self-respecting subcontinental would own without a thousand caveats attached, “curry” seems to be the lowest-common denominator that unites these disparate peoples who have had their histories defined by European colonisation. </p>
<p>Christopher Columbus might have set the action in motion in 1492 when he sallied forth to find the shortest sea-route to the Indies in search of the famed spices that Europe coveted, but really, it is the Brits who can rightfully claim to be the progenitors of the ubiquitous dish called the “curry”.</p>
<p>The Wikipedia entry for it traces the word as far back as the 1390s to the French (“cury” from “cuire”, meaning to cook), thence to a mid-17th century Portuguese cookbook, with the “first” English curry recipe recorded in 1747. An entire body of academic scholarship on the subject interprets the meaning of curry as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346803?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">domesticating imperialism</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Global-Asian-American-Popular-Cultures/dp/147981573X">codifying race</a> and <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520270121/curried-cultures">transnationalising identity</a>. </p>
<p>The eventual spread and sprawl of Anglophone colonisation took the now-popular creation to all corners of the world. Wherever the English went, taking with them slaves, soldiers, indentured labourers, bureaucrats, factotums, cooks, clerks, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/11/25/247166284/a-history-of-indentured-labor-gives-coolie-its-sting">coolies</a> and other cogs in the wheels of Empire, so did the curry. Curry might well say, like that T-shirt, “<a href="https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/1-december/comment/opinion/uncovering-our-forgotten-history">We are here because you were there</a>!”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224845/original/file-20180626-19385-u9272u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An entire body of scholarship has interpreted the meaning of curry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thus in lands far away from the Indies, in the Caribbean, East and South Africa, Fiji, Guyana, the Maldives, Mauritius and Suriname, sprang up a cuisine created with local ingredients that was the closest approximation of loved and remembered foods from “back home”. </p>
<p>Curry then attaches both to the food and the identity of the people from which it is assumed to have originated, attaining the power of stereotype to achieve its full effect. Like the English language, the capaciousness of the culinary genre grants admission to variegated arrivants, even as the putative “custodians” of the recipes, the peoples from the Indies, are rendered unwelcome in Anglophone collectives. These migrated flocks are forever deemed to be speaking in accents, munching away at their curry, leading to that seemingly curious and innocuous, yet politically offensive and proprietorial, question: “Where are you <em>really</em> from?” </p>
<h2>A potent metaphor</h2>
<p>Still, it appears that these flotsam and jetsam of Empire’s enterprise are not content with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jan/12/how-to-cook-the-perfect-mulligatawny">mulligatawny soups</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/feb/24/how-to-cook-perfect-kedgeree">kedgerees</a> that the British brought back home to ye olde England. Subcontinentals and South Asians stubbornly insist on their “own” versions of <a href="https://blog.ketchupp.in/rasam-health-potion-south-india/">rasams</a> and khichuris (<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/20/527945413/khichuri-an-ancient-indian-comfort-dish-with-a-global-influence">cousin to the Egyptian koshari</a>). Therefore, it follows they must possess the secret magic ingredient that will lead to a truly original curry. </p>
<p>Paradoxically, “foreign” innovations are treated with suspicion, by the descendants of both the colonisers and the colonised, leading to that dreaded quest for the authentic experience on all quarters. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224840/original/file-20180626-19390-1eyxdgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Curry at the Wall Berlin serves currywurst: a pork sausage served with curry flavored ketchup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Claudio Saavedra/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is this totalising affect and effect of curry that Naben Ruthnum, a Torontonian of Mauritian descent, cavils against in his recent book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34144408-curry">Curry: Eating, reading and race</a>. Ruthnum contends that in migrant-based, multicultural states and colonial-settler nations, subcontinental/South Asian minorities like him partake of the meaning of curry, in food and in literature, as “the defining elements” of their identity (albeit unwillingly and ambivalently). </p>
<p>Curry becomes a way of being contained and corralled by their own communities holding on to the fragile, frayed thread of belonging to that mythically-originary Indies, as well as creatively hybridising the changing face of a dish that has always absorbed influences. </p>
<p>Ruthnum is interested in the historically specific self-identifications of subcontinental diasporas. They devour, in equal amounts of delight, disbelief and disaffection, both the recipes and the curry-novels that narrativise migration journeys.</p>
<p>His book is divided into three sections: the executing and eating of; the reading and reflecting about, and the racialising and erasing of identity via the curry. In the first two sections, he makes a convincingly cheeky case against the insistence on the purity of curry-making and charges a polemic against the way curry-novels constantly transmute into conversations about “experience, alienation, authenticity, and belonging”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224808/original/file-20180626-19416-19xfgjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Matters get really interesting in the third section, when Ruthnum delves deep into why curry continues to provide such a potent metaphor for South Asians, forcing a kind of subcontinental solidarity on brown bodies. Such idyllic camaraderie and commensality, however, is not borne out by the entrenched divisions of subcontinental caste, class, gender and arrival stories. </p>
<p>For those not-in-the-know of subcontinental stratarchies at your local curry house, it may not matter whether it is paneer, chicken, mutton, beef or fish that goes into your tikka-masala. But to the initiated and adept, it is the hermeneutics of différence unto death that determines their eating practices and politics. </p>
<p>Tracing his own ancestry to a V. Ruthnum who arrived in Mauritius in 1886, and having discussed his own contemporary alienation of trying to find comradeship in the “colonial gangbang” of a creolised island nation, Ruthnum concludes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just as curry doesn’t exactly exist, neither does the diasporic South Asian. If we are attempting to build solidarity out of a shared history, it will never quite mesh, hold true, unless our great-grandparents happened to be from the same time and place… Members of Team Diaspora may have skin of the same general tone, but each has a family history that is likely completely distinct. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What Exactly is a Curry? asks <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/25/foodanddrink.restaurants">Camellia Punjabi</a> in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573.50_Great_Curries_of_India?from_search=true">50 Great Curries of India</a> where the word might mean different things in different regional subcontinental contexts: “kari”, “kadhi”, “kaari”. <a href="https://www.cordonbleu.edu/news/chefmridula/en">Mridula Bajlekar</a>’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/764777.Curry?from_search=true">Curry: fire and spice</a> includes recipes from South East Asia in its remit, while <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/curry-a-biography-by-lizzie-collingham-305267.html">Lizzie Collingham</a>’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31570.Curry?from_search=true">Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers</a> concludes that popular dishes now known as curries are the result of a prolonged history of invasion and fusion of food traditions from Persia to Portugal in the subcontinent.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the indeterminacy and obduracy of the curry to resist definition, discussions around its “roots” continue unabated. From unflinching purists to unabashed adulterers, everyone has a position (missionary or otherwise) on the curry; the only constant being that each narrative is tied to identity and its (ab)uses. Even among proponents of <a href="http://www.rediff.com/getahead/report/the-un-curry-approach-to-indian-food/20170713.htm">un-curry</a>, the attempt to establish bona fide credentials remains an overwhelming ambition.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224841/original/file-20180626-19408-119nkq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African bunny chow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, the more specialised a curry is, the greater appears to be the need of practitioners and purveyors to pin down its ancestry. In the subcontinent, this might take the shape of venerating culinary traditions like the <a href="https://www.sahapedia.org/our-food-their-food-historical-overview-of-the-bengali-platter">Bengali</a>, the <a href="https://scroll.in/article/771614/kashmiri-cuisine-is-more-than-just-food-its-a-celebration-a-life">Kashmiri</a> or the <a href="https://riotofflavours.com/chitrapur-saraswat-brahmin-cuisine-an-introduction/">Saraswat</a>. Regional subcontinental particularities like the <a href="https://www.oyorooms.com/blog/presenting-lucknows-mouthwatering-awadhi-cuisine/">Awadhi</a>, the <a href="https://scroll.in/magazine/873268/why-keralas-mappila-cuisine-needs-evangelists-like-abida-rasheed">Mapila</a> and the <a href="https://www.thebetterindia.com/59341/parsi-cuisine-india/">Parsi</a> are but testament to the enormous trade and traffic in cultures and influences through the millennia. </p>
<p>Curries at a remove from the subcontinent have the constant burden placed on them to prove their authenticity, an expectation that sits piously and provocatively on migrant bodies that have swum valiantly onto unknown shores. The <a href="http://caribbeanpot.com/buss-up-shut-roti-made-easy/">buss up shut roti</a>, the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/01/511834972/bunny-chow-south-africas-sweet-sounding-dish-has-a-not-so-sweet-past">bunny chow</a>, the <a href="http://www.natgeotraveller.in/the-north-indian-snack-that-aamir-khan-and-m-s-dhoni-rave-about/">litti chokha</a> give any curry a run for its money, and triumphantly declare their independence against the republic of curry.</p>
<h2>Currying on…</h2>
<p>Landing in Sydney in 2008 after an 18-hour flight from Edmonton, where I had lived for a decade, I was taken aback by my alarming lack of diasporic angst as the plane almost touched the red-tiled roofs of St Peter’s. Perhaps I was also lulled into a familiar/familial tropical torpor by the scent of the freesias and frangipani that greeted me everywhere. </p>
<p>Nestled in a tiny apartment atop Kantipur Nepali grocery store in Marrickville, I was still half a decade away from its gentrification and burgeoning <a href="https://www.goodfood.com.au/eat-out/a-foodies-guide-to-marrickville-20140617-3ab5m">foodie scene</a>. Instead, my neighbours were a fruit shop run by two hierarchical but loquacious Greek brothers and an unbelievably clean butchery. I was charmed by the Australian language, which left nothing to the imagination as to what might transpire inside those premises: the butchery!</p>
<p>Nine months on, walking about in this not-yet-not-quite-hip inner-west neighbourhood, I would pass numerous verandahs where grizzled, old Greek men sat playing board games while a tiny, bearded goat munched on grass growing in the cracks between cemented front lawns. I hazarded the guess that, true to old country values, these were being fattened for Easter on the tenderest green tidbits. I also discovered that the butchery would sell you a full baby goat: I only had to convince three of my friends to go in for shares. </p>
<p>When I enjoined upon the laconic butcher to give each one of us a leg, the grim, unsmiling character said, without missing a beat on his cleaver: “Goat not have four legs. Cow have four legs.” Somehow that seemed wildly funny on that dazzling day as the four of us stood across from the Uniting Church and hugged our blood-soaked packages to take home and bestow the meat with our own unique benefaction.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224843/original/file-20180626-19390-voplba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Goat curry? Moi?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>The deal was that we would invite each other to taste our culinary creations. Among all possible renditions, roast leg of goat, goat ragout, goat chops, goat cutlets, goat shashlik and goat dumplings, it fell to me of course to make the goat curry. <em>Moi</em>, who bristled indignantly whenever anyone asked me what the best place to “eat Indian” was in town: hell, I’d been here only less than a year! Moreover, in a city of such culinary finesse and fusion, where every Shazza, Dazza and Bazza had access to cuisine from Vietnam to Vanuatu, Bangladesh to Beirut, China to Cyprus, why on earth was it assumed that I, fresh off the flight, would know, or even want to know, the best place to “eat Indian”? </p>
<p>There was a promiscuity of palate and uppity <em>savoir faire</em> in Sydney that I have come to love, but somehow that would get eclipsed in the quotidian query that presumed that when South Asians went out, we would consume only our own, never the “other”, that our tongues were not urbane enough for the pronunciation of, or experimentation with, other “global” foods, and that the connoisseurship afforded to aficionados who could differentiate between which wines to pair with “Indian” was not available to us. </p>
<p>In this field of alimentary refinement, South Asians could only ever be native informants, never enlightened anthropologists or even pretentious gourmands.</p>
<p>Ten years on, the question never fails to arrive: the push and pull of authenticity laid square at my door to conjure the “most genuine” Indian food possible, a parallel to those other historically amnesiac questions encountered with unfailing regularity, with inimitable rising inflections: “You really speak good English?” and “Will you stay on in ’stralia?”</p>
<p>These connections between being called a smelly curry muncher and pigeonholed as the genuine article or authority on “curry” cut deep, but paradoxically they are also a reminder, as Ruthnum puts it, “that there are domestic, comforting aspects to exoticism”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225046/original/file-20180627-112623-zl2fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Curry t shirts, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>They are a frequent intimation of one’s provisional and privileged place in a settler nation, as well as an incantation that we might know something about that most adaptive, bastardised and chameleon-like dish of Empire, the curry, even as we wag our typhoid-yellow index fingers and wiggle our collective subcontinental heads and insist that it just does not exist.</p>
<p>So to go back to that day, when it came down to being objectified as a true blue, genuine cook of goat curry, I had no objections. These were my Australian friends, South Asian and non-South Asian, the ones who had taken me deep into their hearts and homes, and if curry was what they wanted, curry is what I would make them. I invoked my ancient culinary karma and sacred gastronomic inheritance to embark on the journey of the goat via my friend Iman’s Egyptian recipe that called for only onions, garlic and black peppercorns. No mustard oil, no cinnamon or cloves, no turmeric and chili, no cumin and coriander powder, or ginger and garam masala. </p>
<p>After all, she, no mean cook herself, had declared with supreme discernment once, when I had painstakingly made <a href="http://www.expressfoodie.com/main-course/food-memory-project-remembering-cairo-mumbai/">Egyptian mahshi</a> from a recipe, that they tasted absolutely Indian, that anything I made would taste Indian. It is a fact of life I have come to embrace as well, as I go about adding green chillies to my penne pasta and soy sauce to my cauliflower curries. A right royal subcontinental flip to the Descartian dualism: <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum">cogito, ergo sum</a></em> upturned into, “I am, therefore I curry!” </p>
<p>At 0.37 seconds in the trailer for the Netflix documentary series, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN_XItALHmM">Ugly Delicious</a>, David Chang, the renowned Momofuku chef leading a crusade against purity and piety in food, has a memorable line that all authenti-siasts should adopt as their motto: “It’s when you eat a dish that reminds you of a dish cooked by your mom.” </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pN_XItALHmM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>I may improvise, with the right pinch of remembrance and matricidal rejection thrown in, curry is an invention and an <a href="https://soundcloud.com/nicolas-holzheu/edward-said-on-gramsci-infinity-of-traces-without-an-inventory">inventory</a> of arrival that also asserts its adulthood against that long-lost mother country, tongue and palate.</p>
<p>Ruthnum would agree that authenticity talk is uniquely boring and absorbing: the more you try to establish provenance, the more pedantic it becomes, but the conversation around it can be endlessly entertaining. As Helen Rosner, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/david-chang-combats-culinary-purity-netflix-ugly-delicious">roving food correspondent at The New Yorker concludes</a>, “the great cooks, in Chang’s view, are those who don’t just deploy an ingredient or a technique but feel it, deeply, adopting the food and its history as a fundamental part of who they are.”</p>
<p>This then is ultimately what is at the heart of the insistence on curry: the owning and the disavowing of it at the same time, in all its racialized legacies and imperial flavours, in all the ways that it searches for a genesis story and all the wonderful wanton ways in which it leads you astray in the detours of history. </p>
<p>Curry as social bonding, curry as story telling, curry as sloganeering, curry as stand-up comedy, curry as the personal, curry as the politics, curry as imagined community — keep calm and long live the curry!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mridula Nath Chakraborty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether being called ‘curry munchers’ or pigeonholed as authorities on a dish largely invented by the British, diasporic South Asians are emulsified in a deep pool of curry.Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Deputy Director, Monash Asia Institute, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800742017-06-28T20:10:33Z2017-06-28T20:10:33ZBeing South Asian is as great a risk factor for stillbirth as smoking<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175794/original/file-20170627-21898-6yffki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We need to change the way we monitor the pregnancies of women born in South Asia to reduce their chance of a stillbirth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/456672769?src=ODysdIv-g4OJeDuPHMDNkA-1-30&size=medium_jpg">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian women born in South Asia are more likely to have a stillbirth than other women, perhaps due to a rapidly ageing placenta that cannot support the pregnancy, new research suggests.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5460852/">study</a> looked at 700,000 births in Victoria over more than a decade. We found women born in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh had a 1.5 increased chance of a stillbirth at the end of their pregnancy (known as a “term stillbirth”) compared with women born in Australia or New Zealand.</p>
<p>That’s equivalent to 2.6 term stillbirths per 1,000 births for South Asian-born women compared with 1.5 per 1,000 births to women born in Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<p>This is an increased risk equivalent to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673610622337">smoking, advanced maternal age or obesity</a>.</p>
<p>The risk of a term stillbirth increased earlier in pregnancy and rose more rapidly in women born in South Asia. Alarmingly, for South Asian-born women, the rate of stillbirths at 39 weeks’ gestation was almost equivalent to the rate in Australian- and New Zealand-born women at 41 weeks (when the chance of stillbirth would be higher than earlier in the pregnancy).</p>
<p>While other research has found the mother’s ethnicity places a role in the risk of a stillbirth, this has largely been put down to factors related to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067361501020X">migration and social disadvantage</a>. What our research shows is women born in South Asia and giving birth in Australia are at increased risk even when other factors are taken into account.</p>
<p>This means we need to rethink how we monitor and manage the pregnancies of women born in South Asia, including redefining when some babies reach “term”.</p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>About <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=60129557657">seven per 1,000</a> babies born each year in Australia are stillborn – when the fetus dies at or after 20 weeks’ gestation – a figure that has remained unchanged over the past two decades.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/reducing-the-heartbreak-and-burden-of-stillbirth-1983">Reducing the heartbreak and burden of stillbirth</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Advanced maternal age, maternal infections, non-communicable diseases (like pre-existing diabetes and high blood pressure), obesity and a prolonged pregnancy are known <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067361501020X">risk factors</a> for stillbirth globally.</p>
<p>Not only can a woman’s country of birth now be added to the list, our research suggests how we look after pregnant women of South Asian origin needs to change.</p>
<p>In another recent <a href="https://www.nature.com/jp/journal/v37/n2/full/jp2016190a.html">study</a>, we found that at 41 weeks’ pregnancy, South Asian-born women experienced rates of fetal distress at almost four times the rate of Australian- and New Zealand-born mothers. </p>
<p>Current <a href="https://www.ranzcog.edu.au/Statements-Guidelines">national</a> and <a href="https://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/antenatal-care-for-uncomplicated-pregnancies#content=view-node%3Anodes-pregnancy-after-41-weeks">international</a> guidelines recommend additional fetal monitoring and/or induction of labour for pregnancies that progress beyond 41 weeks due to the increased risks of stillbirth. </p>
<p>But for South Asian-born women this may be too late.</p>
<h2>Why might this be happening?</h2>
<p>There is growing evidence to suggest a mother’s ethnicity influences how fast her <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-placenta-28851?sr=2">placenta</a> ages as her pregnancy progresses.</p>
<p>For some women, they can go into spontaneous labour sooner. In our study, we found South Asian-born women went into labour a median one week earlier than Australian- or New Zealand-born women.</p>
<p>However, for others, an ageing placenta <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23452441">cannot meet</a> the fetus’ increasing metabolic needs at term and beyond. And this increases the risk of stillbirth.</p>
<p>We still don’t know which individual woman will go down which path.</p>
<h2>Can we spot ageing placentas?</h2>
<p>Biological markers – caps on the ends of chromosomes or “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3370421/">telomeres</a>” – can help us assess ageing. Each time a cell replicates, the caps on the chromosomes get shorter. So shorter telomeres are a sign of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1016/j.febslet.2004.11.036/full">more rapid cellular ageing</a>.</p>
<p>And the length of telomeres in placentas from pregnancies ending in stillbirth are <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/14767058.2015.1046045">two times shorter</a> than those from live births. In other words, the placental cells had aged faster.</p>
<p>Some researchers have also studied ethnic differences in placental telomere length.</p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27865975">American study</a>, placental telomeres from pregnancies in black women were significantly shorter than from pregnancies in white women (the ethnic backgrounds of the women were not further defined in the study).</p>
<p>Whether telomeres are shorter in placentas from pregnancies in South Asian-born women is unknown. </p>
<h2>Does this matter?</h2>
<p>We don’t know the cause for up to <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129557656&tab=3">one-quarter</a> of all stillbirths in Australia. So, better understanding the role of placental ageing may help.</p>
<p>Our research is also relevant as migration from South Asian countries to Australia is <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/statistics/migration-trends-14-15-glance.pdf">growing</a>. Almost <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/statistics/2015-16-migration-programme-report.pdf">one-third</a> of people migrating to Australia are from South Asian countries. So, the number of women giving birth in Australia from these countries is also increasing. Now, Indian mothers make up <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129557656&tab=3">almost 4%</a> (roughly 12,000) of all women giving birth in Australia a year.</p>
<p>It’s time this was reflected in how we manage the pregnancies of women born in South Asia, particularly at the end of their pregnancies. We may have to more closely monitor their pregnancies and, if needed, recommend their labour be induced sooner than other women to reduce their chance of a stillbirth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miranda Davies-Tuck receives funding from the NHMRC, Stillbirth Foundation and Red Nose Foundation She also has a secondment 1 day per week to Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity (CCOPMM) at the Victorian Department of Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Euan Wallace receives funding from from the Victorian Government Operational Infrastructure Support Program and is a CEO of Safer Care Victoria, Department of Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary-Ann Davey is a part-time employee of the Clinical Councils Unit, which manages the Victorian Perinatal Data Collection data.</span></em></p>Women born in South Asian countries like India or Pakistan are more likely to have a stillbirth than women born in Australia or New Zealand.Miranda Davies-Tuck, Perinatal Epidemiologist and NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow, Hudson InstituteEuan Wallace, Chair professor, Hudson InstituteMary-Ann Davey, Senior Research Fellow, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/756092017-05-03T20:04:13Z2017-05-03T20:04:13ZWhen a suburb’s turn for gentrification comes …<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163559/original/image-20170402-27266-1oqn5wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Must we become passive observers to the destruction of one of Melbourne’s most culturally diverse and socially rich suburbs?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Those who value “multiculturalism” and “access to the city” as key markers of a vibrant, progressive city will find these attributes in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray. Yet, at the same time, they will find them under threat through the forces of gentrification. These are the same forces that have, through time, transformed former “slums” such as Carlton, Fitzroy, Abbotsford and <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-gentrification-lacks-empathy-a-case-study-70582">Richmond</a> into “blue-ribbon” suburbs of Melbourne. </p>
<p>It is, inevitably, Footscray’s turn because of its proximity to the CBD. Many outside stakeholders have aspirations and conceptualised visions for the suburb. </p>
<p>These emerged at the turn of the millennium, when the Melbourne 2030 plan and its subsequent <a href="https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/melbourne-2030-a-planning-update-melbourne-@-5-million/docs/DPC051_M5M_A4Bro_FA_WEB-1.pdf">updates</a> envisioned a new “central activity area” in Footscray.</p>
<h2>A suburb in transition</h2>
<p>In response to the metropolitan plans, substantial changes have been made to the council’s planning framework. <a href="http://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/Files/Footscray_Structure_Plan_FINAL_Part1.pdf">New schemes</a> allow for developments up to 25 storeys high along the banks of the Maribyrnong River and over the Footscray Market site.</p>
<p>With public investment to match, further catalysts of urban renewal were the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-13/footscray-celebrates-completion-of-railway-station/5888088">substantial upgrade</a> of Footscray railway station and other investments to polish the public realm. </p>
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<span class="caption">Another development looms in the background as Footscray’s Welcome Arch is erected to mark the Vietnamese community’s contribution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Following the script of urban intensification, apartments have mushroomed in and around the suburb – with developers and investors colluding to rewrite and perpetuate new narratives. </p>
<p>In a tacit attempt to dilute Footcray’s shadier reputation, the suburb has <a href="https://www.domain.com.au/news/a-new-era-for-footscray-as-apartment-towers-go-up-and-younger-people-buy-in-20161003-gp9ktq/">been reimagined</a> as the next “St Kilda” or “Fitzroy”. This has helped to raise unit prices and <a href="https://www.domain.com.au/news/west-footscray-as-rich-residents-move-in-can-it-keep-its-character-20170503-gvwqx2/">attract different types of residents</a> and businesses.</p>
<p>These market-led models of urban development and renewal discount Footscray’s existing socio-physical and cultural landscape. The result is exclusionary, culturally homogeneous places and spaces. These reflect the fundamental top-down global and cultural drivers of the city in the race to climb (or, in Melbourne’s case, retain) <a href="https://theconversation.com/rankings-fever-melbourne-goes-over-the-top-again-30700">liveability rankings</a>. </p>
<p>On the contrary, multiculturalism is essentially a bottom-up phenomenon: ethnic enclaves form organically in the <a href="http://theconversation.com/new-to-australia-good-luck-migrants-can-no-longer-afford-gateway-suburbs-75201">process of migrants settling down</a> and “accessing the city” economically, socially and culturally. This is something that cannot be planned nor designed, but can be assisted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163600/original/image-20170403-16542-f550gf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163600/original/image-20170403-16542-f550gf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163600/original/image-20170403-16542-f550gf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163600/original/image-20170403-16542-f550gf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163600/original/image-20170403-16542-f550gf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163600/original/image-20170403-16542-f550gf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163600/original/image-20170403-16542-f550gf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The African influence is evident in barbershops, cafes and restaurants along the Nicholson Street mall.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, Footscray has been an exemplar of this practice. The suburb’s absorption of immigrants has given rise to distinct Vietnamese, South Asian and Horn of African commercial precincts.</p>
<h2>Improvement or displacement?</h2>
<p>Formal agents of change (politicians, administrators, planners, designers) seem to view this urban condition as a temporary, transitional state to be eventually “improved”. They are often narrowly focused on physical and economic benchmarks. </p>
<p>The changes are compounded by a contemporary <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-cities-will-stop-working-without-a-decent-national-housing-policy-60537">housing affordability crisis</a>. Footscray has been attracting a local migration of first-home buyers and <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/footscray-restaurants-windows-smashed-twice-in-one-week-as-residents-fear-class-war-20170107-gtni55.html">“hipsters”</a> searching for more affordable properties and rent. </p>
<p>One might argue that this is a recipe for a multiculturalism where differences co-exist – or at least are juxtaposed. That might be true, if only the local white gentrification culture does not displace the minority cultures and socio-economic groups, <a href="https://www.domain.com.au/news/house-prices-rising-across-melbourne-doesnt-necessarily-make-a-suburb-trendy-20170210-gu97tk/">as is happening</a> to newer outer centres such as Sunshine and Broadmeadows.</p>
<h2>Footscray’s beating heart</h2>
<p>Critically, many may not realise the tenuous vulnerability of the place. </p>
<p>Last December, Footscray lost one of its most substantial cultural institutions, when the Little Saigon Market <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/footscray-icon-little-saigon-market-burnt-down-because-of-electrical-fault-mfb-says-20161214-gtb1ia.html">burnt down</a> due to an electrical fault. Befitting current development trends, there are now <a href="http://www.techne.com.au/little-saigon-development/">plans</a> for the site to become a 12-storey “mixed use” apartment building. </p>
<p>Both Footscray Market and Little Saigon Market are the key urban centres that sustain the commercial, culinary and cultural life of the suburb. However, Footscray Market is wholly owned by an individual – and there has been a <a href="https://urban.melbourne/planning/2013/12/12/the-wave-footscray-yes-please">proposal</a> to replace it with a ubiquitous “mixed use” tower-on-podium development. This would (and still could) hasten the demise of Footscray’s distinctive character. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163560/original/image-20170402-27266-ijphug.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163560/original/image-20170402-27266-ijphug.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163560/original/image-20170402-27266-ijphug.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163560/original/image-20170402-27266-ijphug.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163560/original/image-20170402-27266-ijphug.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163560/original/image-20170402-27266-ijphug.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163560/original/image-20170402-27266-ijphug.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A familiar scene at the bustling Footscray Market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is in stark contrast to the hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in Melbourne’s <a href="http://participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/queenvictoriamarket">Queen Victoria Market</a> and other markets. Established during the European colonisation and migration period, these have accrued heritage status. This arguably implies that Footscray’s markets are “minority markets” for lesser sub-cultures. </p>
<p>Significantly, in Footscray, multiculturalism and access to the city are lived experiences. The spatial and social implications are reflected in the ways buildings are used and goods are sold on the street. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164627/original/image-20170410-3845-16xexhh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164627/original/image-20170410-3845-16xexhh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164627/original/image-20170410-3845-16xexhh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164627/original/image-20170410-3845-16xexhh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164627/original/image-20170410-3845-16xexhh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164627/original/image-20170410-3845-16xexhh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164627/original/image-20170410-3845-16xexhh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164627/original/image-20170410-3845-16xexhh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Local street vendors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A walk along Leeds Street reveals the finest scale of commercial practice by individual vendors. They hand-carry or push their cultural-specific wares on shopping trolleys – tactics to camouflage their subversive practices in busy pedestrian areas. </p>
<h2>A different story</h2>
<p>What we advocate for here is that there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/urban-hacktivism-getting-creative-about-involving-citizens-in-city-planning-62277">alternatives</a> to the ubiquitous developer-driven urbanisation; these make it possible to carefully consider the local communities directly affected by developments. </p>
<p>The City of Melbourne’s complex negotiations between developers and key stakeholders at Queen Victoria Market offers a potential local model. There’s no reason this model could not be carefully applied and extended to Footscray’s markets. </p>
<p>Complementing the markets, Footscray’s small and fine-scaled businesses should be recognised as alternative models of urban vibrancy and participative, socioeconomic resilience.</p>
<p>These are highly interrelated practices, which help mitigate socio-economic inequity, while meaningfully contributing to and showcasing Melbourne’s multiculturalism.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was written in collaboration with Jimi Connor, designer and independent researcher. It is based on <a href="https://www.patternsoffootscray.com/">ongoing research</a> projects with Tahj Rosmarin and Amanda Achmadi.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sidh Sintusingha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Must the aggressive, homogeneous global pattern of development take its course in Melbourne’s long-standing multicultural suburb of Footscray?Sidh Sintusingha, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Architecture, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/424592015-06-04T05:53:30Z2015-06-04T05:53:30ZWhat does the spelling success of Indian American kids tell us?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83591/original/image-20150601-7006-tfxj6v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Speller Dev Jaiswal of Jackson, Mississippi is a second-time National Spelling Bee competitor. He finished fifth in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shalini Shankar</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When spellers win the <a href="http://spellingbee.com/">Scripps National Spelling Bee</a>, audiences want to know their secret. Yet this question seems to be asked far more in recent years in response to an Indian American winning streak.</p>
<p>South Asian American spellers have <a href="http://time.com/3901006/scripps-spelling-bee-south-asian-india-pakistan-bangladesh/">excelled at the National Spelling Bee</a> for eight years in a row, with 2014 and 2015 featuring Indian American co-champions. </p>
<p>As a topic of intense speculation on broadcast and social media, the win has elicited comments that range from <a href="http://cnn.it/1PT7JfI">curiosity</a> to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/29/us/spelling-bee-south-asians/">bafflement</a> and at times outright <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/trolls-cast-pall-over-us-spelling-bee-221122590.html">racism</a>. It seems to spark a curiosity that is different from past speculation about “whether home-schooled spellers have an <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/656321/posts">advantage.</a>” </p>
<p>This range of responses offers a moment to consider some of the factors underlying the Indian American success at the bee, as well as how spelling as a sport has changed. </p>
<p>Moreover, when <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/indian-americans-dominate-national-spelling-bee-then-slurred-on-internet/2015/05/25/8ec01098-f414-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html">racist remarks</a> are directed toward non-white children when they win this distinctly American contest, it pushes us to reflect: what does it mean to be an American now? </p>
<p>Since 2013, I have been conducting <a href="http://grantome.com/grant/NSF/BCS-1323769">research on competitive spelling</a> at regional and national bees with officials, spellers and their families, and media producers. </p>
<p>My interviews and observations reveal the changing nature of spelling as a “brain sport” and the rigorous regimens of preparation that competitive spellers engage in year-round. Being an “elite speller” is a major childhood commitment that has intensified as the bee has become <a href="http://educationnext.org/competition-makes-a-comeback/">more competitive in recent years</a>.</p>
<h2>Why are Indian American spellers winning the bee?</h2>
<p>South Asian American spelling success is connected to the history of this ethnic community’s immigration to the United States. </p>
<p>For instance, the <a href="http://cis.org/1965ImmigrationAct-MassImmigration">1965 Hart-Cellar Act</a> solicited highly trained immigrants to meet America’s need for scientists, engineers and medical professionals. In subsequent decades, skilled migration from South Asia continued alongside the <a href="http://indiaresearchpress.com/products/9788187943051">sponsorship</a> of family members. </p>
<p>Today, along with smaller, <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/841_reg.html">older communities of Punjabi Sikhs</a> and other South Asian ethnic groups primarily on the West Coast, South Asian Americans constitute a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-South-Asian-Americans-New/dp/0313297886">diverse population</a> that features a disproportionately high professional class. </p>
<p>For <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1070289X.2011.672867">upwardly mobile South Asian Americans</a>, success is in part due to moving from one socially and economically advantageous societal position in the subcontinent to another in the United States. </p>
<p>The English-speaking abilities of most educated South Asian Americans clearly give them an edge over immigrants from other countries. My research indicates that fluency developed in <a href="http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=LaDousaHindi">English-medium schools</a> – a legacy of British colonialism – makes them ideal spelling interlocutors for their children, despite their variety of British spelling. Members of this population with elite educational qualifications have likewise emphasized the importance of academic achievement with their children. </p>
<p>Also important here are the <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/Desi-Land">strong family and community networks</a> that offer social support and economic opportunities. Community-building has not only been important for individuals and families, but also for advertisers and marketers <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/Advertising-Diversity">that target Asian American ethnic communities</a>. </p>
<p>Capitalizing on the success of professional immigrants, there are now spelling bees that have been established exclusively for children of South Asian parentage. </p>
<p>For instance, the <a href="http://northsouth.org/public/main/home.aspx/">North South Foundation</a> holds a range of educational contests, such as spelling bees, math contests, geography bees and essay writing, among others, whose proceeds contribute to promoting literacy efforts in India. The <a href="https://southasianspellingbee.com">South Asian Spelling Bee</a>, partnering with the insurance company Metlife, offers a highly competitive bee as well. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83590/original/image-20150601-6993-35u1yq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83590/original/image-20150601-6993-35u1yq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83590/original/image-20150601-6993-35u1yq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83590/original/image-20150601-6993-35u1yq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83590/original/image-20150601-6993-35u1yq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83590/original/image-20150601-6993-35u1yq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83590/original/image-20150601-6993-35u1yq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">2015 National Spelling Bee spellers Vanya Shivashankar, Gokul Venkatachalam, Cole Shafer-Ray, and Siddharth Krishnakumar, who finished first, first (in a tie), third, and fourth, respectively.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shalini Shankar</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Taken together, this “minor league” circuit gives South Asian American spellers far more opportunities to compete, as well as a longer “bee season” to train and practice.</p>
<p>This is particularly helpful because, as past champions confirm, ongoing practice and training are the key to winning. </p>
<h2>Hard road to success</h2>
<p>The parental ability to dedicate time to education and extracurriculars is certainly not to be taken for granted. Predictably, families with greater socioeconomic means are able to devote more resources and time.</p>
<p>These parents are as invested in spelling bees and academic competitions as families with star athletes or musicians might be in their children’s matches or performances. As several parents explained to me, spelling bees are the “brain sports” equivalent of travel soccer or Little League. </p>
<p>Of the families I interviewed, some had a stay-at-home parent (usually the mother) dedicated to working with children on all activities, including spelling. In dual-income households, spelling training occurred on weeknights and weekends.</p>
<p>Like elite spellers of any race or ethnicity, South Asian American spellers I spoke with studied word lists daily if possible, logging in several hours on weekends with parents or paid coaches to help them develop strategies and quiz them on words. </p>
<p>A few parents have been so invested in helping their children prepare that they have now started training and tutoring other aspiring spellers as well.</p>
<p>Like any national championship, the pressure on all spellers at a competition on the scale of the National Spelling Bee is intense. South Asian American children are already subject to living up to the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10665680600932333">model minority stereotype</a> and feel no reprieve here. </p>
<p>This is especially important to consider when South Asian American spellers come from lower socioeconomic classes, but nonetheless succeed at spelling bees.</p>
<p>Among the <a href="http://spellingbee.com/public/results/2015/finishers/html">2015 finalists</a>, for instance, one was the son of motel owners and a crowd favorite, as I observed. Another <a href="http://spellingbee.com/public/results/2015/finishers/html?type=semi">semi-finalist</a> was featured in a broadcast segment living in the crowded immigrant neighborhood of Flushing, New York.</p>
<p>When I visited this three-time National Spelling Bee participant in 2014, I realized that she lived in the very same apartment complex that my family did in the 1970s. This Queens neighborhood continues to be a receiving area for Indian Americans who may not have the economic means to live in wealthier sections of New York City or its suburbs.</p>
<h2>Learning from the bee</h2>
<p>The reasons that Indian American spellers are succeeding at the bee are not easily reducible to one answer.</p>
<p>South Asian Americans, like other Asian American immigrants, comprise varying <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1395.2008.00022.x/full">class backgrounds and immigration histories</a>. Yet it is noteworthy that even within this range of South Asian American spellers, children of Indian American immigrants from professional backgrounds tend to become champions. </p>
<p>The time and resources Indian American families devote to this brain sport, as I have observed, appear to be raising this competition into previously unseen levels of difficulty. </p>
<p>This can take a toll on elite spellers, who emphasize the perseverance they develop from competitive spelling. They learn to handle increasing levels of pressure, and alongside this, important life skills of focus, poise and concentration. </p>
<p>Ultimately, what makes Indian American children successful at spelling is the same as children of any other ethnicity. They come from families who believe in the value of education and also have the financial means to support their children through every stage of their schooling. </p>
<p>Comments on social media, however, seem to discount these factors and years of intense preparation to instead focus on race and ethnicity as sole factors for spelling success. In alleging that only “Americans” should win this contest, <a href="http://www.colorlines.com/articles/spelling-race">Twitter racists</a> ignore that these spellers too have been born and raised in the United States.</p>
<p>With their American-accented English and distinctly American comportment, it is merely their skin color and names that set them apart from a white mainstream. </p>
<p>Like generations of white Americans and European immigrants, Indian American parents spend countless hours preparing word lists, quizzing their children and creating ways for their children to learn. They encourage their children in whatever they are good at, including spelling. </p>
<p>As a result, they have elevated this American contest to a new level of competition.</p>
<p>Clearly, this is an apt moment to expand our definition of what it means to be an American.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shalini Shankar has received research funding for this project from the National Science Foundation (BCS-1323769), the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and Northwestern University.</span></em></p>This is the eighth year in a row that Indian-American kids have emerged as champions at the National Spelling Bee. What is the ‘secret’ to their success?Shalini Shankar, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.