Melting Pot or Salad Bowl

Harini Venkatesan finds out how Indian and desi students cope with multicultural challenges on campuses.

When one grows up surrounded by people of the same racial and religious background, you would imagine that moving to a completely different environment would be difficult and even sometimes scary. This is especially true of students who leave home to live in college dorms. They slowly come into their adulthood surrounded by peers of different backgrounds and beliefs.

How does anyone manage to stay true to their Indian-ness when they are surrounded by such a mélange of cultures? Does this exposure to new ideas and values create an internal conflict? Does it dilute their hereditary cognitive processes? To give us a better understanding of how culture plays a role in any given living situation, students from across the nation recount their experiences with their college roommates.

Reeta Harwani, an international student from Taipei, explains that her exposure to “American culture” in the form of movies and television prepared her for her move to New York. As an undergraduate student at New York University, she is surrounded by people of all different nationalities and ethnic origins. However, when she went to school in Taiwan, she was only one of a few Indian students in her peer group.

Harwani’s parents were part of a tight-knit Indian community. When she found out that she was living with an Indian roommate, her parents immediately felt a sense of relief because then they felt that her religious and moral values would not be compromised. Describing herself as a religious person, Harwani says that living with someone who understands your religious beliefs gives you an entirely new level to connect on. She believes that had she lived with a non-Indian roommate, she would still stay true to her values, but the added peer pressure to conform to a certain college culture could have had a bigger effect on her.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded living with anyone,” Harwani confesses. “Deep-down, I was hoping to live with an American so that I could get the complete New York college experience. But I am happy that I got the roommate that I did.”

Harwani’s roommate Nisha Gupta, also a senior, is from Miami, Florida. Gupta’s pre-college experience consisted of being one of a handful of Indian students in a school primarily composed of a Hispanic population. She was active in the Indian community in Miami, and thus, when she moved to New York, she was not fazed by the large population of South Asians. Gupta, too, feels that living with someone who understands and respects your religious beliefs allows her to connect better with Harwani. Gupta is currently the president of the Hindu Students Council.

“Perhaps living with someone with the same religious and racial background is easier only because you don’t have to explain everything,” she muses. “If I had HSC club meetings here, Reeta would understand what’s going on and things would be easier to explain.”

Gupta does admit that there have been some awkward moments when people ask seemingly judgmental questions about certain aspects of her life, which is elementary to being Indian and Hindu. “But how else is anyone supposed to learn about my culture?”

Gupta feels that having a good living situation depends primarily on the personalities of those involved. She feels that she was lucky to be living with Harwani, for their personalities go well together and they are now best friends.

“Race is probably a factor, but it’s definitely not as important as personality is,” Gupta states. She has lived with non-Indian students during her study abroad program in London, and she feels that her living situation in London was as comfortable as her situation with Harwani, and she credits this to the dynamics between her and her roommates.

Across the country in California, students also feel the minimal importance of race in roommate situations. Instead, the significance of personalities and value systems are emphasized.

Prachi Ketaki Vaish, a senior at the University of California at Santa Barbara, was born in Pune, India, and raised in the predominantly white community in Orinda, California. Her only exposure to the Indian community came through her parents’ circle of friends, most of whom were from the South Bay.

“Most of my interactions up to 6th grade in school were with white kids,” Vaish says. “Everyone in my Brownie group was predominantly white, as were they later in my community service group.”

Thus, when she first came to UCSB and found out that she was living with a white roommate, she wasn’t very apprehensive. Vaish didn’t have a strong sense of culture shock, as she shared a lot of the same values with her roommate, Kelly Gerula, in terms of friendship, family and school.

“I would say she suffered more from a culture shock than I did,” Vaish recounts, laughing. “She is always surprised about how strict my parents and culture are pertaining to boys, primarily. That was probably the only place where our backgrounds were really different.”

Vaish explains that her childhood in Orinda prepared her to answer curious people’s questions about her cultural and religious background.

“I often joke about being the only brown one, but honestly I don’t mind it. California’s very open and liberal so I’ve never felt marginalized due to the color of my skin tone,” she says. “Honestly, it sets me apart but it just further defines who I am as an individual.”

Kunal Rawal, a student from Kenya currently studying in New York, didn’t view his living with non-Indians with apprehension. In Kenya, he was part of the minority, but he still managed to be a part of the tight-knit Indian community. Rawal also attended two years of high school in England. As he was exposed to different educational environments, he was able to adjust to dorm living easily. Despite residing with students of different racial and religious backgrounds, he doesn’t feel like he has changed.

“It makes you question your values more,” Rawal explains. “You ultimately learn what you really believe.” Despite this learning that occurs, he feels that people aren’t really changed. They just understand themselves and their beliefs better.

Independence and responsibility are also highlighted in this new realm of newfound freedom. Students have to make their own choices, from classes and circles of friends to jobs and social activities, like drinking.

For previous generations, alcohol use was looked upon as a vice. This is still evident in Indian movies and television dramas, where people who drink are viewed as partaking in a “bad” activity because of stress or personal problems. However, in American and European cultures, drinking is as natural as eating. An occasional beer or a glass of wine doesn’t raise eyebrows or questions. Especially in college environments, drinking is an activity that the majority of students are involved in. Thus, Indian students are torn between generational expectations and social blacklists.

“Drinking is a definite no-no,” Rawal says, talking about what his family expects of him. Students in India have an easier time following rules that their parents set for them because the majority of families feel the same way about certain things like drinking. In America, Indian families are usually the minorities in most schools. Thus, the students face an incredible amount of pressure to measure up to their parents’ confidence.

One also wonders whether gender plays a role in adjusting to college life. Numerous studies have stated that women have a higher emotional IQ than do men. So when female students are given difficult choices, they make the difficult choices despite serious social repercussions. Male students, on the other hand, try hard to fit in, and fall prey to peer pressure more frequently.

“It’s harder for guys to adjust to the social scene in colleges than it is for girls,” Rawal states. He attributes this to the need to fit into a certain social group. Despite this, he believes that the only thing he’s had to change since coming to college was his language, in order to accommodate the local slang.

Students face an extraordinary journey as they are evolving into adults. This journey is riddled with numerous obstacles, like roommate issues, social activities, responsibilities, and adjustment. However, for the most part, they manage to stay true to their values by involving themselves in cultural activities, like various Indian dances, South Asian clubs and religious organizations. Being Indian might set students apart from their companions, but it simultaneously gives them a standard to live up to and an identity to immerse themselves in.