Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

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Separate and Equal

“If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” is a short story written by Geeta Kothari. Geeta moved to the New York City from Northern India as a very young child. The story chronicles her journey into adulthood and the social barriers that she faces because of her unfamiliarity with American and Indian culture. Geeta is a brown haired, brown eyed, dark skinned person. Geeta’s family; her sister, mother, and father are first generation immigrants. They are the only Indian family living in their area. From some of her earliest memories, Geeta had a difficult time assimilating into American culture. “To belong is to understand the tacit codes of the people you live with.” (21) Geeta did not understand the silent rules that everyone else knew. Using food as a medium, Geeta describes how she felt isolated and different from other American children because her unfamiliar background and upbringings.

An Indian diet consists of many vegetable dishes, lentils, rice, dairy, and a limited amount of meat. Most food is prepared with heavy spicing. The smells and look of Indian food is very unfamiliar to the American culture that the family moves into and their new friends and neighbors are suspicious of it. “What is Indian food? My friends ask, their noses crinkling up.” (24) The American food is also strange and new to the Kothari’s, but the family wants to feel accepted in their new life and is willing to try many new things in order to achieve that. Geeta tries tuna because her friends all eat tuna sandwiches at school. On weekends, the family eats fried chicken from the local Woolworth’s. Geeta’s mother takes cooking classes to learn to cook foods such as apple pie, pasta, and egg salad.

In order to find acceptance, the family changes a lot about itself. They still eat a lot of Indian food at home but when at school or work they change their habits to be more American. By giving up the culture and customs of their Indian heritage in order to find acceptance for the future, the family begins to change their identity. On one occasion, the family brings guests to their house. Geeta’s mother cooks lamb vindaloo, a type of curry, for the guests. This is not a customary food for the family and the mother must use a cookbook in order to make it. Geeta asks her mother why they have served this unfamiliar dish. “I understand then that curry is a dish created for guests, outsiders, a food for people who eat in restaurants.” (25) The family cannot display their culture because American people do not accept it. The family is forced to create an image of what others think they should be. Doing this soils their heritage and changes who they are.

The Kothari’s slowly grow out of touch with their Indian culture, but that does not mean they become more American. The family still struggles to understand the tacit code of their neighbors. When Geeta sees her classmates eating tuna sandwiches at lunch she buys a can of tuna. Upon opening the tin, Geeta and her mother are surprised to see a diced, smelly, pink substance. The food the children ate was not pink, it was creamy colored and it didn’t smell as bad. ‘“What’s wrong with it?” I ask. She has no idea. My mother does not know that the tuna everyone else’s mothers made for them was tuna salad.” (22) In the end of the story, Geeta’s mother reflects back on the cooking class where she learned to cook apple pie. She was learning many new American foods but she had to drop out of the class because they had to learn to cook lobster. The mother is apologetic to her children for depriving them like that. Though she understands that lobster is not an everyday food for American’s she still feels alienated for not being able to cook it. “For my mother, however, lobster was just another American food, like tuna – different, strange, not natural yet somehow essential to belonging.” (29) Geeta and the Kothari’s find themselves in a precarious place. “I have never been fond of moong dal. At my mother’s table it is the last thing I reach for. Now I worry that this antipathy toward dal signals something deeper, that somehow I am not my parent’s daughter, not Indian, and because I cannot bear the touch and smell of raw meat, though I can eat it cooked (charred, dry, and overdone), I am not American either.” (29)

This feeling of isolation is not uncommon for immigrants living in places where they do not have a support structure of people with a common culture. The Kothari’s decided to change who they were in order to find acceptance in their new surroundings. Instead of letting go of the precious history of the family, immigrants like the Kotharis’ should instead live in small, tightly knit communities of people from similar backgrounds. A neighborhood like this would allow the family to grow up feeling secure and accepted while still allowing them to interact and adjust to the new surroundings at work or when out socially. During the 1800’s and early 1900’s, as millions of new immigrants moved into New York City, many times people from the same country of origin would live in the same area and form ghettos. Places such as China Town and Little Italy formed where regional food could be purchased, many people still spoke their original dialect, and new immigrants could feel at home. Having these areas allowed the heritage of the immigrants to be preserved while still allowing for interaction between people of different descents. If Geeta and her family had moved into such an area, they would have been able to purchase the food they miss from “the old country,” speak in Punjabi with people from their region, and they would have felt more accepted by their neighbors while still being able to work and interact socially with non-Punjabi people.

Living in a closed neighborhood like this would have created a dramatically different life for the Kothari’s. Geeta would have had much less trouble making friends and finding supportive people. At school, which would not be segregated, the different groups of people, Indian, Mexican, Chinese, Italian would have been able to interact and share their heritage with each other instead of having to conform to American culture. This would create an incredible opportunity to learn about other cultures and find common ground between people of different descent. People who are constantly exposed to a variety of cultures would become more understanding and accepting people. Geeta’s classmates would not turn up their noses at the thought of eating traditional North Indian food and Geeta would have even more oppurtunities to try different foods like tuna and apple pie. Living in communities of similar people would allow the Kotharis to maintain their strong heritage while still experiencing the culture of others.

Many people would be weary of this idea because there is a potential for different ethnic groups to interact poorly with each other. There are some cultures where people can not get along because of deep seated differences. The Kurds and Muslims in Iraq do not get along because of a difference of religion. The Chinese have still not forgiven the Japanese for the war crimes Imperial Japan committed against the Chinese during World War Two. Though this could pose a problem in some cases, in most instances this would not happen. People are usually much happier to settle differences and get along. Having many different cultures interacting would have many more benefits than disadvantages. Each group of people would bring unique ideas and viewpoints to a situation. The Kothari’s would be able to help others experience their regional food and others would in turn do the same for them. The mixing pot that this would create has the potential to generate many new ideas. An Italian family might come to eat at the Kothari’s. If they really enjoy one item from the meal, they might ask how it was made and take the recipe home with them. They may blend some parts of this dish with a traditional Italian food. The Italian family, which might own a restaurant, could place this new, nontraditional food on their menu and people would be able to enjoy their creation. Being able to share different cultures would create a very positive situation where people could learn about each other and about themselves.

Living in small communities would allow people to maintain their cultural identity while still being able to enjoy and learn from other cultures. If the Kothari’s had lived in a situation like this they would have felt at home in their neighborhood where the residents, who were once immigrants in the same situation, would be able to act as a support system. They would also have had the opportunity to interact with people who live vastly different lives, but who would be eager to share themselves and their way of live and would be excited to learn about the Kothari’s. Separated living communities would create an ideal situation where people would feel comfortable and accepted at home and would still give them the opportunity to interact and learn from different people.