By Maitreya Hawthorne

Mixed blood Indians fall between the ethnic cracks.

Let me show you how to put on this sari." It is an offer I get often in sari shops I patronize and one that, although meant kindly, sets my teeth on edge. It separates me from other patrons because, though I have been wearing Indian clothing for years, I am often coddled and watched and evaluated when I enter a sari store.
Shopkeepers follow me around and ask, skepticism exuding from their very breath, if they can help me, if I need anything, and beneath the words the unending question what are you doing here? The sight of a fair-skinned woman in a sari or salwar kameez invites stares. Non-Indians throw me curious glances -- looking at the "strange" clothing -- while Indian Americans gaze upon me in wonder. "Who is this firingi wearing a sari?" This firingi is a mixed-blood Indian American who has learned a thing or two about what it means to belong -- and not belong.
Last year the owners of a sari shop in East London greeted me with the same curious looks I've grown used to. London or America -- it does not seem to matter where -- I am still an object of scrutiny when I act out of the narrow cultural context that other people expect of me. The owners of the store, assuming that I would not know how to wear a sari, persisted to tell me that they would help me wrap it. I refused because it was a matter of pride, especially to a mixed-blood, to be able to show that I could wrap it, unassisted. When I emerged from the dressing room, the shopkeeper took one look at me, announce that I "need help" and had one of the other owners come and tie it on me after all. I felt humiliated and angry, especially because as I left the store, wearing the sari, it fell apart within a few steps. Not only did she tie it on me as though I were just a firingi, she did it sloppily. I know how to wear a sari; I am able to put one on in five minutes, without assistance, and have it hold up for the whole day. Who was the one truly needing help here?
Saris are a matter of pleasure and pain for me. I love wearing them; every woman looks good in a sari, and I find the beauty and tradition of them appealing. I gain a sense of my own identity -- part of my identity, anyway -- from wearing traditional clothing, because wearing a sari is like wearing a flag; the clothing is immediately identified as being Indian.
Very few articles of clothing are so revelatory of a person's background as a sari. Blue jeans, for example, are worn all over the world and no longer carry cultural connotations; but a sari is tradition and beauty and everything with which I want to align myself. And yet saris are only part of a culture that I find myself drawn to, and if I were not linked to it by blood, I would still be linked to it by choice. I watch as many Indian movies as I can get my hands on. I phonetically learn lyrics of Hindi songs and I am an avid admirer of Shahrukh Khan's eyebrows. I crave chai when I want a hot drink and gulab jamun when I have a sweet tooth. I wear an image of Ganesha around my neck and perform puja every day at my altar at home. Yet I also know what to order when I go to eat dim sum, I was regaled as a child with stories about the exploits of the British navy, and I was raised in a strictly Catholic family. There is no one home, no one country for such a person. I belong everywhere, and yet nowhere. I am a mixed-blood Indian American who falls between the ethnic cracks. I carry on the traditions of my different ethnic influences and have discovered both joy and sorrow in the process: joy because of the richness of the multitude of cultures from which I emerge and sorrow because I am so seldom acknowledged as a member of these cultures by others. My family hails from Goa, Macau, China, Britain and Germany. I do not belong in any of these other cultures any more than I do in the Indian one; I find no more acceptance with Chinese or German people than I do with Indians. I do not speak any of the Indian languages, but I do speak Chinese. I am privy to a great deal of information that a Chinese-speaking person assumes I will not understand because I look Caucasian.
I was once on a bus in San Francisco, surrounded by little old Chinese ladies who stopped their conversations and stared when I climbed aboard, holding the hand of my Chinese boyfriend, who was a good five or six inches shorter than I was. I sat while my boyfriend paid the fare, and I heard one of them say loudly to the other, "Ta zhen shi yi ge douya cai -- she really is a bean sprout!" -- a Chinese expression for someone who is very tall and lanky. In that moment I felt every towering inch of my five-foot-eight-inch frame.
When my boyfriend joined me at the seat, I turned around and said in Chinese to him, "Why don't we have bean sprouts for dinner? I hear they're very good right now." The woman, who had assumed that I wouldn't understand her, looked as though she had found a fly in her bean curd.
Although I managed to recover from that incident, I never forgot it. I bet the woman never did either. It was funny, but it also alienated me from two Chinese people and by association, the rest of the Chinese community. The woman would never have said such a thing aloud if she thought I could understand it. This convolution of expectations based on appearance is a pattern has been a fact of my life since a teacher asked me if I was adopted; she could not see how I could be the child of my black-haired, Asian-looking father and my blonde, blue-eyed mother.
Such alienation is not limited to my interaction with Chinese people. I am reluctant to go into an Indian store or restaurant wearing a sari because I am inevitably examined, and often people, both Indian and white, stop what they are doing and stare open-mouthed at me. I have been the recipient of both dirty looks and compliments that, though kind, serve to set me apart, because I know that they would not be made if I looked Indian. I have been stopped on the street by Indians in America and abroad and told that my sari looks very nice. I have been stopped by non-Indians and told the same thing, or asked if I were a Hare Krishna. People of both cultures have pointed fingers, stared, smiled or scowled. Positive or negative, there is always a reaction.
I don't deny that being of such a diverse cultural background is a wonderful way to meet people. One of my best friends is a Chinese waiter who simply could not believe that I could order my food in his language, and he made it a point to get to know me because of his delight in my linguistic ability. I occasionally receive free drinks and discounts in Chinese restaurants because the waiters are so charmed that a "round-eye" can speak Chinese. I have been given special food and privileges by Indian Americans who are flattered that I would go to the "trouble" to wear saris every day. But would they do this if I were full-blooded anything? And why are they so taken by the novelty of a firingi in a sari that they must show their appreciation so explicitly?
Community is a strange thing. A sense of "us" versus "them" is inherent in all cultures, all countries. No one is exempt from it. Often, a group that feels marginalized can also marginalize others who are not of their own community. People of mixed blood have a unique perspective that allows them to witness most acutely the dichotomy of alienation and belonging that often occurs in this country. Indians come to America, and while they often have a difficult time integrating themselves into the insular American society, they are nevertheless frequently welcomed into the small enclaves, the communities of Indian people who have endured similar struggles. To a mixed-blood, though, this comfort is denied. A person's appearance often makes the rules and determines her place, human nature being what it is, and a mixed-blood has trouble finding a home anywhere. In my case, I am a product of what is becoming more and more of a trend in the world: people marrying and having children outside of their own ethnic background and traditions. According to Futurist magazine, the number of mixed-race married couples more than tripled between 1970 to 1991. This trend is taking place among all racial and ethnic groups, but with differing patterns for each group. I am in good company now, and there will be many more of us in the future. We bear the features that are neither here nor there: this nose too flat to be European, this skin too fair to be Indian, this hair too unruly to be Chinese ….
I have often wondered what makes a person an accepted member of an ethnic community. Appearance must have something to do with it because people who do not know me at all judge me , so the only criterion for their opinion must be how I look. Yet I know full-blooded Indians with fairer skin and lighter hair and eyes than I have. What is it about me that makes me look so strange when I walk the streets of any Little India wearing a sari? Belonging is not necessarily a facility with the language, either; I speak Chinese fluently, but it is never assumed that I am Chinese. Blood quantum probably has something to do with it; I have been called "only" part Chinese or Portuguese or Indian on more than one occasion, and the people who call me this do not treat me as they would a full-blooded, full-fledged member of the community. But isn't our blood all alike? It is comprised of the same ingredients and it is all the same color -- all red. Likewise, being raised in a culture does not necessarily bestow membership in that culture. I am the first generation in my family to be born in the United States, and yet people assume I am "just American" and that my family has been here since the days of Columbus. I know fourth-generation Asian Americans who still get asked where they are from, as though they are not as American as any other person who has been here for as long. Although I have pondered and asked and experimented, I have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer to the question of what bestows on a person the right to belong in a culture. I am still an outsider no matter where I go. By upbringing, I do not share traditions with most Americans. By appearance, I do not resemble any recognizable ethnicity. Where does such a person call home?
There is no single identifiable mixed-ethnic community; therefore, to a mixed-blood, support must come from within. So what do I do to find solace? I study. I learn languages, I try to understand religions; I stay humble and listen to what other people have to tell me. I reveal my enthusiasm for other cultures, even ones with which I have no blood connection, and I try to learn enough to not stand out too much if I spend any time in their communities. I take joy in the differences of people's traditions, because no matter what the culture is, it has something to teach me, and these are lessons that I take great joy in learning. When I see people on the street wearing clothing that is interesting and foreign to me, I do not point my finger or stare at them. I realize that their clothing, like saris for me, is part of their identity and to alienate a person because of that is unnecessary and unkind.
While my ethnicities -- and I use the plural purposely -- have caused me many instances of pain and alienation, they have also forced me to look within myself for a strength I would not have developed had I been offered the comfort of a true cultural identity. I celebrate rather than bewail my ethnic diversity, because I live in America and can openly nurture this diversity, an attribute that is particularly American because of the diversity of America itself. I am a microcosm of my country. I have suffered because I have felt ostracized from cultures to which I feel I could belong if I only looked different, acted differently, or came from different parents, but this suffering has imbued me with a self-reliance that allows me to be me, however complicated and convoluted I am.
I do not have to act in a way that is an accepted cultural norm because there is no such norm for a person of my ethnic multiplicity. I have freedom along with loneliness. My life's work, as I identify it now, is to derive a sense of self from inside rather than look outside for cultural validation because to a mixed-blood, there is none. I have spent much of my life wishing for people of any community to accept me no matter what I look like, but I realize the naivete of such a wish; therefore, my ambition is to go out for dimsum in Chinatown, shop for saris in Little India, and walk along Main Street, USA, noticing nothing about the way people look at me. No longer will I be too tall, too fair, too traditional, too modern. Community will come from within.

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