Being brown

Résumé du document

-She tries to educate her parents, whose main error was to move to America, to turn their back on their roots (they betrayed their country) and to try to become American (they betrayed themselves)
-For what? Money, financial comfort-they became typical Americans, they send their children to the best US school, and in doing that they created a unbridgeable gap between Priya and her country (the girl doesn't even speak any of the Indian languages!)
-She's very sententious and has ready-made ideas. She imposes her point of view. She's even a bit childish (maybe spoilt) and touchy
-She's lecturing her parents, especially her father, on ethnic identity
-She wishes she was living in India
-She wishes her parents had not adopted the American way of life, she wishes her mother was less superficial, she wishes her parents would see her point

-When coming to America, the "Browns" have to forget about their origins to conform to the only US model there is: the melting pot theory
-Some people may indeed claim their problems (i.e. joblessness) are due to their origins (racial profiling) but the point is she's not even concerned: her family is well-off, she has everything she needs, and still finds fault with the US way of life.
-She probably wants to appear as some kind of spokeswoman for the voiceless Brown minorities, but she surely doesn't understand at all the reality of the lives of those who have real discrimination problems, given that she doesn't have any
-"Brown is beautiful"

Extraits

[...] Being brown I Priya's radical point of view She criticized her parents for having turn their back on their roots She tries to educate her parents, whose main error was to move to America, to turn their back on their roots (they betrayed their country) and to try to become American (they betrayed themselves) For what? Money, financial comfort they became typical Americans, they send their children to the best US school, and in doing that they created a unbridgeable gap between Priya and her country (the girl doesn't even speak any of the Indian languages!) She's very sententious and has ready-made ideas. [...]

[...] She imposes her point of view. She's even a bit childish (maybe spoilt) and touchy She's lecturing her parents, especially her father, on ethnic identity She wishes she was living in India She wishes her parents had not adopted the American way of life, she wishes her mother was less superficial, she wishes her parents would see her point She criticized the American way of life and the place of Indian people in the American society When coming to America, the have to forget about their origins to conform to the only US model there is: the melting pot theory Some people may indeed claim their problems (i.e. [...]

[...] joblessness) are due to their origins (racial profiling) but the point is she's not even concerned: her family is well-off, she has everything she needs, and still finds fault with the US way of life. She probably wants to appear as some kind of spokeswoman for the voiceless Brown minorities, but she surely doesn't understand at all the reality of the lives of those who have real discrimination problems, given that she doesn't have any “Brown is beautiful” II The paradox of the lecture She criticized a world in which she seems completely integrated All the critics she's making, she probably learned them along with her “diplomatic” speech at the prestigious university where she's studying She's ungrateful : maybe her parents worked hard to offer better lives to their children : “it's nice that you have the luxury of your opinions”, her father says, meaning it's easy to criticized when you have a such “perfect” life She has a naïve view, she's self-centred, she doesn't see the luck she has and criticized everything It's almost as if she were arguing just for the principle, because she likes to argue for the sake of arguing She has never been in India, and she doesn't even respect the Indian rules (i.e. [...]

[...] respect) If she were really India, she would respect her father and not contradicting him : she has an US behavior when she opposes him that way, she behaves like an American girl She wants to go back to India, to go back to her origins, but she doesn't speak India, she doesn't know her country, she probably doesn't imagine the reality, she's cut from her parents reality and from India's reality By criticizing America she's almost racist herself: a brown country, every one ( ) feels the bond that comes from having the same color that could mean that non-Indian people aren't part of the Indian community. [...]