Cultural Identity and Immigrants - Part I

I got a book entitled Destination America from my local library and then went to this website as it relates to a PBS program of the same name: www.pbs.org/destinationamerica/ - the book tells the stories of various ethnic communities that have made America their destination. There is a wide range of reasons for people to have come here - Destination America delineates this into five Freedoms - to Worship, from Oppression, from Want, from Fear, to Create.

While the book and program website are wonderfully illuminating and fascinating, I was surprised and disappointed about what info was provided in the book regarding India and Indian Americans. In almost every state listed in the appendices, foreign-born (FB) people from India are in the top ten, and yet a mere *two* pages are given to the topic of immigrants from South Asia and the Middle East. This is in significant contrast to the number of people in those regions and the number of immigrants from those regions that come to the US. The number of pages that are devoted to understanding other immigrant communities/countries is not proportional to their representation in society. Why is this important? Knowledge - and not misinformation or misconceptions - helps us live together more harmoniously.

Knowing the stories of the peoples who make up America is critical to our future - the individual threads need to be woven together through a deeper understanding of each other to develop a fabric that is strong and resilient. While we are all "going global" around the world, there is a challenge that technology and ease of travel bring to the story of America. I appreciate the Ethnicity in Michigan series - the first one is a slim volume by Arthur Helweg and Jack Glazier which so clearly underlines the challenges we face today. The authors lay out the stories of what ethnic communities make up MI and what the migration patterns are (yahoo, they start with the native people!). Many of the most recent immigrants are from South Asia and the Middle East, whose story Destination America doesn't lay out in much detail. The assimilation and acculturation (or lack thereof) of the recent immigrants as narrated by Helweg and Glazier underlines my favorite Diana Eck quote - Diversity is a given, pluralism is an achievement.

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New Year, New Directions

Journaling the Journey

Knowledge about religion is not spirituality, but practice of religion is – this comes from Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy. So I started a new leg of my journey or balancing act - I joined the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit as a special student for the winter quarter. I hope to learn something new and deepen my faith. This comes at a time in my life when I am searching for a new career and a new sense of hope. It's not that there haven't been other legs where I have had to search for hope, or where I have had to carve out a new career path. Being a stay at home mom when I had all that surgery on my left leg in 2000-2001 also was a new career in a sense, for someone who constantly wants to be engaged.

The class I am taking is helping me to reflect on God and what it means to me not only from my Hindu perspective but also from the (liberal, ecumenical) Christian perspective. Its titled God and Humanity and follows systematic theology with textbooks by Migliore (Faith Seeking Understanding) and Evans (We Have Been Believers). If I survive this course and find funding to pursue the MDiv, I think that is my new direction.

Reflecting on my visit to the American Academy of Religion's Annual Meeting in Chicago in Nov. 2008, I realized that my attending the Pluralism and Peacemaking Session with Eboo Patel and Susan Thistlethwaite being the bookend speakers is what has pulled me in this direction. Eboo is a scholar, she is a seminarian - and I believe that I want to be with other seminarians - even if they are going to all end up Christian ministers and I don't know what I will end up as. But I am cautiously excited that I have a context that is unique and can help with peacemaking in my region. There may be many others who have preceeded me in comparing Eastern Philosophy and Western Thought (I allude to S Radhakrishnan's book, which I am trying to get a hold of right now), but I approach it as a Hindu mother who wants to see America hold on to its promise of religious liberty for her children, while seeking a balance between the Indian and American cultures to which I belong.

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Pluralism is the Password for Peace

I wrote this piece for NPR's This I believe this past summer, after a significant loss in my life - someone who has been part of the second set of parents that I have been gifted with. She passed away before she had the opportunity to share all the experiences she could have had with her family. I decided that my essay had to be written to share my core beliefs, if I too got taken away from my children earlier than expected. I thought it is fitting that as I begin this blog, my first post speaks from the heart about something that embodies me.

Pluralism is the Password for Peace

Padma Kuppa, Troy, MI

July 2008

I am an interfaith activist. As a founder and board member of various social justice organizations, I organize and participate in activities where spiritual understanding and cooperation are fostered by people of all faiths.

Born in India, I arrived in New York to start kindergarten in 1970, and lived for the next 11 years in the Northeast. My parents’ eclectic approach to ritual and religion was enhanced by close friendships with people of many faiths and ethnicities.

We returned to India in 1981; I was alienated because of my parents’ acclimatization set against my inability to fit in to the culture of pre-globalized and pre-outsourced India. I explored the myriad of Hindu traditions foreign to me because of the undeveloped Indian-American diaspora in the 70s. I found truth in the Hindu philosophy my father expounded upon – a faith where all paths are accepted. Ekam Satya, Viprah Bahuda Vadanti[1]. But I felt stifled and out of place socially, and was constantly seeking something, and decided to go home to America to find myself.

Tempest-tossed[2], I returned to NY as a foreign student in 1988 for graduate school. I studied, worked, got married, got a green card and had kids over the next ten years, and slowly achieved stability – marriage and motherhood were key. On relocating to Michigan in 1999, I began to volunteer at the local Hindu temple. Major surgery eventually led me to quit my job and begin a commitment to even more community service. It bothered me when a teacher wasn’t willing to explain the difference between Indians and Native Americans, or when members of the school community were unhappy with including Mahatma Gandhi’s favorite song at the Holiday Sing-Along – especially since we live in Troy, the city with the highest Asian population in Michigan. In 2005, I was refused a part in the City of Troy’s National Day of Prayer, and realized that a Hindu voice was needed at America’s table and that interfaith interaction is important in dispelling ignorance and fear. My neighborhood, my town, my country, my world – today all seem torn apart by an adherence to the belief that one’s own interpretation of beliefs is the only way.

I believe that pluralism is the password for peace, and that it is the promise of my country and my faith. My neighbor the Methodist creates the interfaith organization’s website, my neighbor the Episcopalian coordinates an interfaith Habitat for Humanity build. I break bread with my friend the Republican Congressman to celebrate the Temple expansion, I am honored by my friend the Democratic County Commissioner with a flag flown over the Capitol. My Muslim sister enlightens me about her hijab, my Jewish brother and I walk a labyrinth together on an interfaith pilgrimage. We are each unique and yet so much more than these labels… I am eager to engage people in dialogue, sometimes getting hurt in the process, and make connections so that we do not identify someone as “the other.” I believe in a truly pluralistic[3] society.

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[1] The Truth is One, the Wise call it by many names.

[2] From the poem, “The New Colossus,” describing the Statue of Liberty, by Emma Lazarus.

[3] The belief that no single explanatory system or view of reality can account for all the phenomena of life.

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