This weekend is Thanksgiving in the U.S. Personally I like Thanksgiving better in October since the stores start playing Christmas music in November. It’s kind of nice even though it’s also excessive. Since it’s American Thanksgiving my dad got to come home early this week. He works out of the U.S. since his department deals with their American clients. Even though it will be nice to have him home early this weekend it sucks that he doesn’t get Canadian holidays off. Canadian Thanksgiving for us was cut short because he had to fly out Sunday afternoon. I understand that he works for American clients, but can’t they cut him some slack and let him have one day to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family? I hope they will at least give him Boxing day in December because it would be ridiculous for him to have to stay there for Christmas Day so that he could go to work on the Friday.
Indian Inspired Wedding Cakes Wednesday, Nov 12 2008
Blogs/Sites Wedding 11:24 pm
I just found an article called “Indian-Inspired Wedding Cakes”. It was pretty cool and I never really thought to incorporate my background and my fiance’s background into our wedding cake. It’s something I’m considering now. The post was by a person who has married a Kannadiga, and it’s my first time finding a blog by someone else posting about Kannada/Karnataka related things who is residing in North America. It excites me.
Terrorism & Family Wednesday, Nov 12 2008
Canada and Family and Ignorance and Prejudice Discrimination, Immigrant, Othering, Pain, Visible Minority, Xenophobia 12:45 pm
It’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been keeping myself busy with things. I am currently unemployed and it is surprising how busy I am because of it. In addition to wedding planning and job hunting I have found myself to be the gopher of the family. I am asked to conduct tasks that other family members can’t because they don’t have the ‘free time’ that I do. At least I’m not bored out of my mind.
Something that has been bothering me lately is POC that conform to right-wing justifications on the war on terror. I’ve noticed this with some of my to-be family members. As I’ve mentioned before, my fiance is of Taiwanese descent while I am of South-Indian descent. Just like some of my family members, some of his family members are very conservative, right-wing individuals. We used to be too until we received a broader perspective of the world through our experiences in the past couple of years. So these family members constantly justify the ‘war on terror’ and the fight against ‘terrorism’. One of the things that bothers me about this is their lack of recognition that ‘terrorists’ is often times used as a synonym for dark-skinned Asian peoples (or those that look like them). I know what it is like to be looked at with suspicion because of the colour of my skin. I’ve watched as my family was constantly stopped for a ‘random check’ when we tried to cross the American border while White families easily passed through without so much as a blink. I saw how my father struggled to find a full-time job (he is highly educated and experienced in his field) and how he didn’t get hired until he shaved off his beard. I’ve seen how people would only make eye contact with my White friends while avoiding looking at me while they spoke to all of us. The fact that our family is Christian, that we support charities, that we pay our taxes, that we are proud Canadian citizens, that we work hard does not matter. To those who scrutinize us and question us on our terrorist capabilities all that matters is that we look like those terrorists. Those who killed ‘innocent’ Americans. All they see is our skin colour and our ‘foreignness’.
