Just guessing from your username are you from Pakistan? Because I think depending on your country of origin you concerns would be different than maybe someone from India since the culture and beliefs are different.
Very well said The GFH
As a “desi” I totally agree with everything you said and raised my children to be Americans first and take the best from both cultures that they are blessed to be belong to.
I live in a community that is almost 1/4 Indian, and many Pakistanis live here as well.
MOST of my daughter’s good friends are “Desi” (if I understand the term correctly as being from South Asia…)
From an outsider (I am white/Anglo-American) looking into your culture, and from a very close proximity -
In GENERAL - Give your kids a little more freedom and independence to figure things out on their own.
Especially the young women. American culture, above all, values independence and freedom of expression. Your children will be rewarded in American society for getting a handle on that. Forging one’s own path, all that.
I see a couple of my daughters’ close friends - one first-gen Indian-American and Hindi - the other a 1st gen Pakistani-American and Muslim - both doing little things that are all about rebelling against their parents’ tight reins on them.
One (Muslim) has a boyfriend the parents know NOTHING about. This one is not allowed to come to our house, I’m not sure why. Her parents do invite my daughter and other friends to their house a lot.
The other (Hindi, Indian parents) does little things like get small tattoos and lie to her parents about going to the movies or to the mall, shopping, with my daughter and another friend - not to a party, not out drinking, mind you, but TO THE MOVIES. SHOPPING AT THE MALL. She has to lie about this. She’s only allowed to leave the house on her own during the school year if she says she’s at the library studying with my daughter.
Fwiw, I believe her parents like my daughter a lot and consider her a good role model. Her mother always tells me “Your D is so independent, I would let my D do those things (walk to a friend’s house, go alone to a movie, etc.) but your D is so much more responsible…”
Actually, no, her D is just as responsible, and would be more independent if they simply allowed her some small freedoms and gave her the chance to learn to navigate the world on her own.
This family was not going to allow their D to attend the state flagship - although their son attended that same school. Their D enrolled anyway and drove herself to the orientation recently.
Furthermore, this girl’s experience does not seem like an isolated one in our community. I have heard some students talk, as I drove them places, etc. Socially isolating the young women seems to be common in both cultures. My D and her other Anglo friends are frustrated that they cannot see their good friends outside of school.
I’ve seen a small glimpse of a superiority complex but not a lot, tbh. It mostly just seems like a cultural thing designed to “protect” and control young women.
The other thing - please understand that many other Americans do not share the view that only prestigious colleges and certain professions are worth going into. More than a couple Indian-American immigrants have lectured me - to my face - on how I’m ruining my daughter’s life by allowing her to attend a university that is not prestigious or selective, or allowing her to study social sciences and humanities. Yeah, it doesn’t necessarily work that way here in the USA.
Give the girls a bit more freedom.
Try and relax a little about the academic/college and career process It’s going to be okay.
This is the USA, things really are a bit more equalizing here.
All this being said, I actually love the Indian-Pakistani community here and am happy we were able to raise our child here. Love the food, love many beautiful aspects of both cultures, but the above points are what advice I’d give to someone asking - “What can I do to make my American-born Desi child less confused?” Let them be an American child with American values - American values respect immigrant cultures and traditions. Your child can do both.
I really like your post, @mothersv
I am a white American, but have had the privilege to become good friends with two families where the parents were born in India, and have terrific kids who have been raised in the US. To me they do a great job of capturing the best of both cultures, while understanding and respecting both.
Their children are very friendly, close to their family, diligent, excellent students, outstanding athletes, and have strong social skills. They seem to be entirely comfortable in either culture. Their friends are a mix of ethnicities. It is clear to me that their friends are people they have a lot in common with, and that is not limited to being of Indian descent, although many of their friends are of Indian descent.
I really admire what these parents have been able to accomplish by embracing the best of both cultures.
thanks.
Thanks to everyone for their input. @Much2learn finding the right balance is the key imo, earlier the kid gets it the better chance she/he has in brighter future. I personally struggled with finding the balance growing up, but since my kids are 2nd generation americans, I can better relate and give advise from personal perspective vs my parents. There was no implicit or explicit intent to denigate any culture, so I apolgize if anyone extrapolated that from any of comments.
No worries, pakiman2–you didn’t imply any denigration at all. I have, unfortunately, experienced quite a bit of that attitude here in my community though. The Desi parents believe they are protecting their kids and sometimes they are, but often they are also causing their kids a lot of grief. In America we respect diversity and strive to appreciate all cultures, and here people who might be enemies in their homeland can be friends. So if I may offer one more tidbit of advice, try to let your kids be friends with Indians. The India-Pakistan animosity, when brought here to the US, is another source of pain for American-born kids who don’t really understand it. Their generation can and therefore should put any historical enmity aside, because in the United States they can coexist peacefully and even become good friends. That is a positive development toward world peace, so don’t thwart it.
As an immigrant with U.S.-born kids, my answer is… do what you want, but please don’t fling them in dat brier-patch! 
Be a good role model, communicate your values, and let them find their way. They’ll be fine. But do encourage them to speak your native language as much as they can - they’ll thank you later.
@BeeDAre - I don’t think Hindus would appreciate being referred to as Hindi. Most Hindus I know don’t speak Hindi either.
Just to explain the comment above, since it’s pretty obvious @BeeDAre wasn’t aware of the differences: “Hindus” are followers of the Hindu religion. “Hindi” is one of the major languages spoken in India, mostly in the north-central part of the country. It’s related to, but not the same as, Sanskrit, the ancient language of many important Hindu texts. I think it’s the most common language, and the language of official communication (along with English), but it’s not the main language of more than a quarter of the people in India, and lots of Hindus don’t speak or use Hindi at all.
Adding:
- I am an old white person, and I first heard the ABCD acronym a dozen years ago.
- Someone mentioned animosity between kids of Indian and Pakistani descent here. One of the things that was interesting about my kids' high school was that there was practically no tension among the various groups of South Asian ethnic students -- Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, and others. Granted, it was one school. Altogether they probably represented only about 10% of the school, and it was an academic magnet where everyone was there to learn and everyone had a stake in keeping a lid on ethnic/national/confessional tensions. And I doubt the good feelings included much visiting one another in their homes with their families. But the daily cooperation and discussion was nice and a little unexpected.
@BeeDAre , how do you feel about knowing that the girls are lying to their parents, and having to be complicit in it? I would think that it puts you in a very awkward position. Even though you know that they are lying about something that is essentially innocent.
What university did the parents want the daughter to attend? I.e. were they disappointed that she did not get into some super-selective university, or did they want her to live at home and commute to the closest one?
First - thanks for the clarification of “Hindi” and “Hindu” - my bad! Now I won’t sound like an idiot anymore, :).
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#30 - I don’t like being put in this position at all, and neither does my daughter. I feel sorry for their daughter, so I’m not going to say anything. If they ever found out and called me on it, I’d just be honest with them and tell them I think they’re being too controlling of their daughter who is actually a very good kid they should be proud of.
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#31 - They wanted her to attend university close to home, within an hour’s drive. We live within an hour of four other universities she applied to - two state schools, two private. One of the privates was Northwestern where she was waitlisted. But I think they were okay with the two state schools (neither is very selective) because I think they just wanted her closer to home.
Her brother attended UIUC and talked their parents into letting her go. They finally relented, but for a while it really looked like they would not let her.
Fwiw, I really like her parents, they’re incredibly nice people. They’ve been very kind and hospitable to both me and my daughter. But they definitely treat the son differently than they treat their daughter.
Surprisingly enough, most of the control comes from her mother. The father seems much more relaxed and open to letting the kids do their own thing.
Also re: any tensions between Indian and Pakistani kids - I’ve not seen that at all, and I’ve never heard it even mentioned by D or anyone else. For instance, D’s two friends that I mentioned above are both in the same social group.
On a lighter note, no one can describe Asian parents as well as Russel Peters.
Perhaps the South Asian American kids are not interested in continuing fighting their parents’ and grandparents’ wars.
That was exactly my point–the kids have zero interest in perpetuating their parents’ and grandparents’ animosities, and in fact are embarrassed by them. There was an Indian boy and Pakistani girl who were best friends in the high school when D1 was there. I think they ended up val and sal. However, they had to keep their friendship secret from their parents, even though they weren’t officially dating (though there was romantic interest). All of their good friends (many of whom were also South Asian) knew and just kept quiet to protect them, which tells you they probably didn’t agree with the enmity either.
On the issue of sneaking around, there was a bizarre incident a few years ago in town. An Indian girl went missing for a number of hours and her parents were understandably frantic. Because she was such “a good girl” and always came right home, her parents were absolutely convinced she had been abducted. Generally, given the culture, Indian girls are indeed like that, so the police bought into the narrative. As a result, even though she hadn’t been missing for more than 6 hours, the police went into full emergency mode. There were even helicopters scouring the area, and the search made the national news. Well, it turns out she had gone in to the woods near her house to drink, and got really drunk and passed out. It was a huge embarrassment for the family.
Oh wow. ^
my personal experience of pak-indian enmity was that it was virtually nonexistent for kids that grew up here, but things would get hairy/interesting around cricket matches on tv. Students who were new to the country, or fob as they were called were mixed bag but most would get really animated when discussing politics of back home. yes it is wrong and immature to use the term Fob nor would i use it now. I personally would not loose sleep over who won or lost the wars or who was better in cricket. I started freshman year wanting nothing to do with desis but ended being married to one by graduation time. Took me longer to get to the point where i didn’t feel embrassed with my culture/ethnicty than most people. Some parents are better at navigating their kids through this and finding a healthy blance in mixing of cultures and I applaud them for it. Its definetly not a easy task. I think speaking langauge from back home,constant communication, and letting kids mingle with kids going through same problems goes long way to ease kids’ anxiety about fitting in.
I wouldn’t mind incidents like the one narrated by TheCFG if they are as a result of overprotective parenting. Can you imagine a Desi mom remaining clueless about her son building bombs in his room? I think America and Americans will be better off if we learned a thing or two about parenting from Desis.