As a South Asian diaspora across the seven seas in a constantly evolving world, how do we center our unique perspectives in our creative pursuits? How does our art fit into our socioeconomic frameworks? And how do we relate art that reflects the triumphs and grievances we experience as a group back to our personal accounts of the same?
Almost five years ago, I wrote an essay titled "Confronting the Unfinished South Asian American Dream,” wherein I discussed my feelings on our incomplete cultural progress as a people. I underscored the tension between our notions of professional success and the lack of meaningful “representation,” and emphasized the need for authentic, creative depictions of our lived experiences to inspire future generations to think bigger.
It’s funny how much can change in half a decade. The tide has turned in the culture war, and it is increasingly more difficult to believe we will be afforded the same opportunities by those in power. And we're at a point where our foot is halfway in the door: we can't say or act exactly as we might want to and really push the needle because we still need to be “familiarized” in the western canon. We're still in that interim between waiting to be noticed and having full control of our narratives.
One part of the South Asian diaspora’s creative journey that irks me is our inability to center our privilege. Sure, we may be under fire across the internet and in the outside world, and are even being used as scapegoats for socioeconomic decline, but what endures is our ability to create strong footholds in the new countries we occupy. And this isn’t by coincidence.
South Asian Americans such as myself, whose parents brought me here in 1999, largely benefit from generational wealth, upper caste and class status. This doesn’t come close to representing our people at scale, however — South Asia as a whole represents a population of over 2 billion, or one in four humans worldwide. That means that for every 2 members of the diaspora (roughly 45 million worldwide), there are 98 people still living in the homeland. The Rickshaw community includes those of us lucky enough to have the means to see our dreams through.
As I’m sure many of your parents also do, my parents love to remind me of how lucky I am to have access to the opportunities afforded to me. The ability to attend accredited Western universities, to be removed from problems and systems which remove individual agency from those back home, and to even be able to carve out our own paths in industries like entertainment are made so much easier by the fact that most of us come from places of immense privilege.
Further, the scale back home is unimaginable. It’s much easier to succeed on playing fields that don’t filter out millions of applicants for hundreds of spots, like the brutal IIT admissions process in India. While our immigrant parents do tend to push us to take extra classes and participate in extracurricular activities, the level of competition here could never reach the extent of places like cram schools in Kota, Rajasthan.
While I am proud of our movement’s progress thus far, there is a lot more to say and explore than the typical suburban, high-achieving, high-income storylines and characters that tinge our stories today. The word “representation” as it relates to South Asians in media ever-increasingly feels like an incomplete portrayal, reflecting a skewed reality wherein the pretenses of high-achievement, high-income and high-status are already assumed and always present — though this only tells part of the story in reality.
However, trends that deserve further discussion, such as why Indians are the third-largest undocumented immigrant population in the US behind Mexico and El Salvador, are eschewed in favor of those more palatable to Western audiences and “high-achieving” diaspora who never had to face these issues. Why can't we also have shows about ourselves like Mohammed Amer and Ramy Youssef's MO, which beautifully details the immigrant struggle by centering its plot around its protagonist's refugee status? South Asian Americans love to maintain the status quo of our people as a successful group that overcame hardship, but we remain hesitant and uncomfortable to represent one that still undergoes it.
One effort that has really been scratching the itch for me lately is season 2 of Jasmeet Raina (JusReign)’s series Late Bloomer. The new season’s first episode immediately throws its lead characters into a basement apartment teeming with Punjabi immigrants struggling to make ends meet while facing repercussions of the derogatory contemporary discourse surrounding them.
It’s so evocatively reflective of real issues being faced by Canadian Punjabis today that it makes you get it. It makes you feel like you’re right there with them. Another episode lampoons the chai-tea, naan-bread, liberal-arts-college fodder espoused by today’s creatives that either misrepresent complex and urgent topics like geopolitical relations back home or don’t go far enough as to bring about meaningful conversations to push us forward.
A third episode depicts Jasmeet's character and his half-white, half-Punjabi cousin going through 9/11 and its immediate aftermath in their Canadian middle school. It shows the audience how ignorance and hatred can spawn and even be internalized by those who face this discrimination and ridicule. In one scene, Jasmeet’s turbaned father and uncles drive him to school the morning after 9/11 and walk out of the car after Jasmeet forgets his backpack. Students in the background are visibly uncomfortable with the turbaned men's presence, but Jasmeet's inner monologue goes further as to conflate them with the terrorists on TV the night before; he has a vision where the backpack becomes a bomb, to a young Jasmeet’s embarrassment.
Later in the episode, Jasmeet’s crush confronts him about a dumb, unfounded middle school rumor that Osama bin Laden is his uncle. While “kids can be cruel,” this scene’s inclusion depicts how the mainstream media apparatus deliberately contributed and still contributes to ignorance in order to stoke fear and hatred — and keep people watching. Raise your hand if someone has ever called you “Osama” – it definitely happened to me, and it happened way before I ever grew facial hair.
I remember a similar moment with my own grandfather during my childhood against the backdrop of the "War on Terror," where his disheveled appearance called back the image of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as the "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks. I had always considered this a personal flaw, an example of the media's impact on me as a young, impressionable child; however, seeing something so similar onscreen made me re-characterize it from childish folly to a symptom of a real-world problem that has affected brown kids like me at scale.
The episode in question ends in a bittersweet but ultimately uplifting moment for a middle-schooler Jasmeet as he undergoes his Dastar Bandi ceremony. He valiantly clings to his roots and stands up for himself despite being alienated and relentlessly bullied at school for wearing his patka.
“Representation” as it exists in South-Asian-focused entertainment today generally begs for a chance to be included, but should demand to be seen. We are a bold, driven, vibrant, diverse group of people that must demonstrate our commitment to pushing our culture forward. Future generations are counting on us to model it for them — they deserve a bounty of timeless work that lets them place their experiences as they see fit.
Late Bloomer is on Crave in Canada; DM me if you’re having trouble finding it!
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