i understand that ykb is meant to be an open space. i also understand that over time it is evolving. my attempt, and this one more so even than the last one, is to contribute to that evolution, not to tear it down. i acknowledge that in 2008 piece, this wasn’t obvious. i’m making it obvious now.

language is tricky, but it needs its play. the openness of the space can be completely undermined by a tag or rubric that is or seems to be homogenizing. desi does that. yoni does that. it doesn’t necessarily mean that neither should be used, but that what is used should be complicated.

here, though, what i’m really saying is that there is a definite difference in the priorities and the language of those who have “made the US their home” and those who have not. i have always found this difference glossed over in US South Asian communities. I appreciate that you’ve complicated by take on it by pointing out that some South Asian Americans are born in S. Asia and others in the US – which I hadn’t acknowledged. But I stand by my larger point that the difference in language matters especially where you’re dealing with “homeland” (for lack of a better term) versus “diaspora” communities.

Best of luck for the coming production. I really wish I could have been there.

“A project like Yoni ki Baat (which is how this whole thought process got started for me) needs to acknowledge that, when it’s talking about South Asian, it’s not talking about every kind of South Asian.”

yes and no. i performed in 2008 and am directing the 2009 production. we send our call and do outreach in all sorts of SA communities, and we hear back from all sorts of SA communities. some choose to participate, others opt out. YKB doesn’t claim to represent every kind of south asian, nor does it need to make any acknowledgments to the contrary. what it does claim and uphold is an OPEN space for EVERY kind of south asian, self-identified, where you are invited in and you have a choice to speak about whatever you want. There are plenty of South Asians in this production, myself included, who were born and raised in South Asia before making the US their home.

of course, terms for South Asians are as messy as the concept itself, as you outline. We are often not sure whether we’re South Asians or Southeast Asians! But the dream is to find solidarity, rise above divisions and acknowledge a shared history and heritage without glossing over diversities and differences. this is a big task and brings big speed bumps, yes, and language is tricky. but desi means “of the land” and my punjabi friends use “apne” or “our own.” i assume there are reflections of this in other SA languages too. so even if i don’t understand the word, it’s nice to know that i’m being included, celebrated, broadly, as one of our own.

i think that’s beautiful.

I expect there’s a similar disconnect with a lot of hyphenated U.S.Americans of various origins and people who actually live in/are from that other country.

I had a (family) friend visiting from Argentina on an author’s circuit who was talking about this a bit, how she was staying with this other American during her tour who was very earnestly trying to reconnect with his Jewish roots. (She’s Jewish too). Like, being the uber-Jew, culturally speaking, everything was about Israel even though he’d never actually been. And she said…I forget what exactly, but something to the effect of how Americans seemed so concerned with getting it right, identity, or…something along those lines, I wrote it down somewhere when it was still fresh.

and I said something to the effect of, I think it’s because a lot of us from (various) diasporas don’t really know who we are, and sometimes overcompensate. certainly it’s at least partly a backlash to the earlier paradigm about America as a “melting pot” where you were supposed to lose your background, origin, past, to blend in.

but still i think a lot gets lost in translation, somehow.