2011

Things are changing once again…..this time we may finally move!  Yipee!  Well, we will move it is just a matter of when and where.

At the moment it could be to the West Coast!!  I’m hoping it will be more relaxed.  We may be moving to a place that has one temple and just one small Indian grocery store.  Satya visited there and noticed lots of mixed couples (in his words), but I wonder how it will be.  Will I have to worry about people yelling at my in laws when they visit?  (In fairness to people in small places, this happened to them in NJ where there are lots of Indians).  Lots of little anxieties-what if we don’t like the one little temple that is there??

I’m hoping we will feel at home and will be able to settle in and maybe buy a house.  I’m hoping we will not feel stuck. Overall though I think I’m ready and willing to trade East Coast aggressiveness, lack of space, and good food for West Coast relaxation, friendliness, and bad restaurant food (we’ll just cook more at home).  Yes, I know that the West Coast has lots of great restaurants-this place though will have few.  Maybe our focus will change-less on art museum stuff and more towards outdoorsy things like hiking, biking, and running.

Anyone else in a mixed relationship living in a small city with one temple and one grocery store?

If this all goes through, it means we’ll be in India in April.  Bright sides-we will be there for the Kannada New Year, Ugadi, and will be there for the house blessing of the home of Satya’s cousin.  Bad news-hot, hot, hot.  I will have to stock up on cotton salwars then.  How do you cope with India’s warm temperatures?  Dress in light, loose clothes and drink lots of water and stay out of the sun?

In terms of reading, I’m reading now Monsoon Summer by Mitali Perkins.  It is a teen novel.  The protagonist, Jazz (short for Jasmine) is in Pune with her family for the summer.  She hates having to leave her business and her best friend Steve in California while having to accompany her family to India while her mom works at an orphanage.  In India she feels out of place because she is pale like her white father and huge (she was a shot putter at her California high school).  It is ok, but sometimes I want to shake the main character and tell her to be brave (send those letters to Steve!) and to quit whining about her appearance (but then, who hasn’t been there when they were a teen?).  I thought it was weird how caste comes into the book.  Jazz or her brother asked, How do you know someone is of a low caste?  The answer was because of darker skin tone, smaller, lighter build, and flat nose.  Really?  That was disturbing a bit.  Some of those characteristics are just those of Southern India-not of caste necessarily.  But, as my husband reminds me and as I see everyday working in an inner city library, the U.S. is not colorblind nor class-blind either and has its own struggles-1 in 4 children in the U.S. at risk of hunger and in the city we live in a high school graduation rate of 50%.  Anyway, will have to find out if Jazz’s mother ever does find her mother and whether she did come from a lower caste.  If so, how will Perkins handle that?

Also, at my library I found the book Does Anyone Else Look Like Me? A Parent’s Guide to Raising Multiracial Children by Donna Jackson Nakazawa.  Has anyone read it?  Do you think it is useful?  Am just trying to look ahead for when Satya and I have children of our own.