birds of a color...

the world is surprisingly clan-nish even today. its not only the bongs and the chinese who remain glued together no matter where in the world they are and no matter how hybrid a society they live in, its practically everybody.

am i the only who is annoyed by an attitude of - you and i are indians, so we should be familiar. even the random indian 'uncles' i bump into at airports, on campus (assuming they are profs), in conferences, etc. think i am obliged to converse with them because i share their home country. you can almost see a sense of adopted paternal/patriotic pride in their eyes and faces as i answer in reply to their inquisitiveness that i am a phd student....??!!!

and today even the hispanics! lord the save the mingling world where i thought the word 'foreign' was losing its meaning (copyright: United airlines). a room full of hispanic student-friends (colombian & mexican; at least they have a liberally large clan = all spanish speakers) proudly tell us how they are so different from the rest of 'us'. mind you, they didn't realize they were differentiating themselves from anyone. all they were trying to explain was that "throughout most hispanic states, people trust their friends (& strangers) more than their family (!!!), because one does not choose one's family but does so, one's friends". and one person goes "because we know that if we extend help to family (one finger), they will grab our entire arms. so hispanics don't stand by and for their families". another goes, "in fact, once hispanics move to the US, they cut off ties from those left behind so that they are not obliged to help them". clap, clap, clap. i'm so glad you guys all agree on that so proudly. while 'us'= (literally the non-friends in the audience) = the lone chinese, the lone brown south asian me, and the few americans, look around and scratch our brains to understand this...

so the hispanics are different from us. and they don't stick by their clans. and yet the room is full of hispanics because one of them has a dissertation defence on. they really do stick by their friends. or maybe they just stick by their own kind who have managed to migrate into this land of plenty. wow. i'm becoming racist, in that i do not like the races who do not not racially segregate.