Welcome to the 21st Century

Jeez…I wish I could write epic stories about abused girls in Pakistan, or about the highlights of a cricket match, or even about the politics of Pakistan. After browsing through and frustrating myself about writing an article I have come to the conclusion that even though I’m a hybrid Pakistani due to the lack of time I’ve spent in Pakistan, I just cannot write about such things that chowk seems to pertain too. Don’t get me wrong I love the site, and I do see how it is a reflection of the ideas that are in one way or another linked to South Asia. However, my contribution to chowk is a recognition of a wave of change.

Even here in the US, culture and religion, which is conformed to the constraints of our culture, is bombarded upon youths from their parents. I’m not an orphan but I feel as if I’ve always raised myself emotionally. Forcing culture on myself is difficult. The only outlet I have left to remind me of what Pakistani people are like are my aunts, who were raised in Pakistan. What I see in the US now is a sad reflection of loss of one’s culture for the adaptation of another culture. Take a look around. South Asian immigrants have been arriving to this country for quite a few decades now. The stereotypical immigrant comes with almost nothing except for a few pieces of currency and some clothes to begin a new life. He begins life at the bottom of the spectrum. He may get a job as a bus boy, gas station clerk, 7-11 employee, etc. Meanwhile he could choose to struggle and try to stick to some sort of profession by climbing corporate ladders from previous knowledge or by attending school part-time. After he establishes himself in “amreeka.” His parents find him a wife. He gets married. He has kids. They grow up. Their morals and values are different from his. His daughter wants her curfew extended till 1:00 am so she can stay at the club a lil longer. His son wants a new car. Before he knows it his kids have turned into consuming beings void of guilt or respect. It’s not all their fault, Ammi never paid much attention to them and Abu was always yelling at them. All they did was bark restrictions at them and not let them be normal just like everyone else at school. What to do…What to do? Absolutely nothing.

Now I know for a fact that this does not apply to every single South Asian household in the US. However, I’ve seen it happen many times. Now I’m not some sort of bigot saying that girls and boys should never have any fun, but what I see happening is dissolution of the South Asian cultural identity. It’s not being transferred to further generations. Wearing Pakistani clothes is considered embarrassing to some desi teens. Striving for an education is superfluous, what’s the point when you’re having so much fun blowing your parents’hard earned money? And of course what is the value of family? It doesn’t have one anymore. Parents are frustrated about immigrating to this country in response to the development of their children. Children do not have many emotional outlets in the family anymore, such as aunts and uncles. Many desi families in the US function as single-family units. Life for the desi has changed in this country; the change can be viewed as positive or negative depending on which wavelength one wishes to view it at. In my opinion, change isn’t always good especially when you see the people you grew up with change so negatively. Casual sex, barhopping, drinking, drugs, and the list goes on…these lethal activities destroy self-respect, the body and the mind. The endless list of abuse of the self stems from a lack of identity. I know many of these things exist in Pakistan too. However, on a smaller scale because the time that I have spent there not only shows life how it is in the US now but also how it used to be 20 to 30 years ago.

After rambling for so long, all of this goes to show why 50 years from now chowk will be void of culture, instead at this rate it’ll be no different then picking up a copy of the Washingtonian or browsing through the New York Times. Now this is just a generalization, if one did not generalize than it would be impossible to go about daily life. What makes chowk unique is the transition aspect that it gives of life here versus the life there and everything in the middle.