Discrimination and being a Multicultural Adult

Over the past few months, there has been growing unrest regarding the assaults – and sometimes murders – of black people at the hands of the police. Indeed, these protests have spread globally. Some of you who read this may find issue with what I write. However, whatever I write here is my personal experience and thoughts as a multicultural adult. And the issues that are being faced by Black people around the world made me question where I stand in my little microcosm.

I am a Third Culture Adult, or TCA. What is that? Recken and Pollock (1999) defined Third Culture Kids (or TCKs) as “persons raised in a culture other than their parents’ or the culture of the country named on their passport (where they are legally considered native) for a significant part of their early development years.” So, I grew up as an Indian in Hong Kong for the first 18 years of my life. Extend with age, and you have Third Culture Adults.

It does not completely encompass me, however, so I have begun using the term multicultural more often to describe my cultural identity. As a young adult, I spent 13 years in India where I gained even more values relating to my Indian identity. Having been exposed to US culture growing up, and then living here for the past 7 years, has led to me identifying with values here as well.

So, why this info? Because of how I experienced discrimination, not just towards my race but towards all the cultures that I identify with.

An article came out recently that the Indian minority is being used by the government of a particular country as a counterpart to the systemic racism faced by black people, and it spurred me to write this. Basically, the governing body was providing ‘evidence’ that Indians in their country were financially and occupationally successful, so that meant that racism wasn’t an issue.

In my personal life, I can agree to some extent, and disagree to another. First of all, finances and occupation are not the only areas where racism may exist. However, I will admit that I have not experienced racism in these areas. Having lived in affluent Hong Kong for 18 years before moving to India, our family could be considered quite well-off. Likewise, I have never worked part-time, and have only ever held full-time jobs (albeit in a poorly paid but emotionally rewarding field).

That is not to say I have not faced micro-aggressions due to my identity. From bullying and social exclusion as an Indian child in British-occupied Hong Kong to discrimination on how I walked, talked and dressed in India, to responses from educators in both countries, micro-aggressions were so rampant that I thought they were ‘normal’.

Nonetheless, they were exhausting to deal with. So I made a choice to go to a country where the world’s perception of my identity and what it truly is was similar – where we both could agree “what I am” for lack of a better expression. After all, both the world around me and I agree that I am not American.

Then I started working as a therapist. You’d think we are all culturally aware. Not true. Unfortunately, this didn’t mean there was a reduction in micro-aggressions, just new ones. At the start, they were within my education. Peers unwilling to help a newcomer find people for field work. Teachers asking “oh, so you grew up in British-occupied Hong Kong? You must speak the Queen’s English”. Being suggested to do another Masters degree on top of the two I already had because “doing a Masters in India doesn’t really prepare you for doing a Doctorate in the US”.

Turns out choosing to do my third Masters in the US was a blessing in disguise – it was more suited to what I wanted to do, plus I had more culturally competent teachers who didn’t judge me because of my cultural identity. There were more questions of curiosity about my cultures rather than assumptions. And I was looked at solely for my academic skills.

Then I started working as a therapist. You’d think we are all culturally aware. Not true. One colleague asked “Oh you’re Indian? I don’t know if this question is appropriate, but…dot or feather?” I took it as a question of curiosity. My answer? “I’m an Indian with a dot. I’m East Indian not American Indian”. She needed education, I gave it to her. Let me also add that she stuck to using East Indian after that interaction.

Here, however, was a different type of discrimination – my friends wondered why I didn’t consider that discrimination. Why wasn’t I upset that my colleague had asked that? Why wasn’t I identifying it as a micro-aggression? To me, however, these questions could not be assumed as discriminatory. Yes, the question was assumptive. Indians are not just identified by a dot or a feather. But it was a learning experience for her, and – for me – the positive emotion associated with a successful learning experience trumps the negative emotion of a racial micro-aggression.

Compare this with another experience that I had with another colleague. As I prepared for my licensure exam, a mentor (yes, a mentor) stated, “it must be hard for you because of the language gap, since it’s in English”. I figured this, too, was to be a learning experience, so I clarified “well, even if English isn’t my native language it is my first language – I grew up going to British schools, and the first language I learned was English. My parents would only speak to us in English, too, so that we wouldn’t get confused”. And here is where it differed. Her response was, “but still, being Indian it must be hard”. No learning, just a pretty firm hold on her belief that my skill at the English language was inferior because I was Indian. THAT was an unacceptable micro-aggression.

I guess the question I always land up asking myself is this – where do we draw the line between what is discrimination and what is innocent questioning? Not everyone experiences the world the same way. Many people haven’t ever left their own countries, or even their own cities. They learn how to express themselves from the people around them. Yes, I may be more aware of micro-aggressions in New York city as compared to, say, a small town in Wisconsin. But if, in the end, they leading to learning…if they can be corrected and that correction becomes a part of their mindset and behavior…do we really have to continue carrying it with us?

How I became a Fan of a Boy Band (Part 2 of 2)

There’s a reason that I split my feelings for this group into 2 parts. One part is my admiration for what they do for the public (and for me). Another part, however, is of concern for these same men.

Lets start with how they dared to start the journey following their dreams, just like the rest of us. I don’t presume to know what their dreams are – mindreading is a nonexistent talent. But they are fulfilling a dream, perhaps without even realizing it – expressing themselves freely and introducing themselves to the world. A beautiful dream, one that extends from the desire all of us have – to be accepted for who we are.

And yet, ironically, the more people they reach, the less free they become to express themselves. BTS’ resounding success at reaching people around the world (the first K-pop group to have an album debut at number 1 on the US Billboard Top 200 is just one accomplishment) is partly based off their willingness to share their vulnerabilities, be it through their music videos, their reality sketches, interviews or meet-and-greet sessions. This very strength that makes them stand out can becomes a double-edged sword, as it exposes them to that much more scrutiny. A side-effect that they most probably knew would happen, but also one that presumably became progressively more real and pronounced over the 7 years they’ve been together.

There is always a part of us that we want to keep to ourselves. Usually, it is the opposite of what we show to the world. Being a leader does not necessarily mean we do not have our insecurities. Being attractive does not necessarily mean we don’t doubt our appearances. Being the one who is often in the spotlight doesn’t mean that we aren’t otherwise introverts or that we don’t prefer to being in the background instead. Those are our vulnerabilities, and showing these takes a great deal of courage. Most people don’t have that courage, and we have the option NOT to show our vulnerabilities to the world. We can choose to work through our weaknesses privately, just as we can choose to share them with others to get through them. Sometimes we slip up and we let them show them unintentionally, but we are very rarely ever forced to show them.

Not true for these men. In fact, this post came off a couple of incidents that caught my attention. An article popped up about a member going clubbing in the midst of the COVID outbreak in April. Another sampled an infamous mass murderer in a song he personally wrote. Then there are the ones not posted in the news – a self-made exercise video inadvertently showing one of the guys with a frowning and serious expression. Another was casually questioning his capacity and skills in two separate live streams.

Most of us can get away with not choosing to show our vulnerabilities to the world by taking time to ourselves and, hopefully, processing our feelings and coping with them on our own or with our near and dear ones. We go for walks, we post our feelings on social media, we go clubbing, we go shopping, we write…these are all our coping strategies during times of stress.

When 7 young men get together to chase a common dream, there’s no doubt that it is a stressful journey. It is also not one that has an end, not because of the desire to maintain a place of power and fame but also because of the enriching relationships developed throughout it. Add to that the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced all of us to focus on self-care more than ever.

Self-care strategies remain the same, regardless of how far along you are in your dream. The difference, though, is how easy it is for the person to do it. Writing is one form of self-care, and all the BTS members write their own. For one member, however, the lyrics were overshadowed by a poorly chosen sample track. One of the guys went clubbing with friends, another self-care activity, but it was overshadowed by poor timing (about 3 months after the identification of the virus). Socializing with people other than the other members and staff they work with is now impossible. One apparently loves to go for walks and enjoying nature, but this is overshadowed by excited fans and the constant presence of security and other staff. Then again, some people do not have an outlet for stress in the first place.

So yes, the BTS members are awesome. They are skilled and are able to do something I always hoped someone could – providing a safe space, music, for people to realise that they aren’t alone in their vulnerabilities.

But they are also human. And therein lies my concern. While they provide a safe space for us to express our vulnerabilties, who does the same for them?

How I became a Fan of a Boy Band (Part 1 of 2)

I recently found myself, a 39-something years old woman, very interested in a boy band (though can you call a group of 20-something year old men boys?). Even now, as I write this down, I wonder if I am simply attracted by their looks, their dances and their styles. In which case, how mature am I in reality? I began to reflect on my thoughts and actions, as I am wont to do when they cause me to question myself. I wondered if I, like many of their fans, was enamored by their outward appearance and behavior. I looked back at when I first began to pay attention to their music.

It began with a friend telling me about them as part of our conversation about music (I had mentioned that as a multicultural adult, I listened to a great deal of music from other countries). She noted how some of their lyrics were based off of psychological concepts and suggested a song that I should listen to.

My curiosity piqued, I watched the video of the song she suggested. Yes, they looked good and they danced well. They were able to do both at the same time as well, as I later found when I watched one of their recorded live performances. Might not seem like much, but there are surprisingly few artists who can simultaneously sing and perform a choreographed dance.

But what intrigued me the most was the way their dance was expressing something even deeper, something more raw. Since the song was in a language that I didn’t know, I decided to look them up. This was the turning point in my interest – their lyrics expressed the depth of distress that came with writer’s block. I went further into their music, and that they wrote their own lyrics based off their own experiences. But it wasn’t just that – several of the phrases harkened back to Jungian concepts. For those of you who don’t know, Carl Jung was the student of Sigmund Freud, and – in essence – developed a more practical version of the unconscious mind and how it affected conscious thought and action.

Now, my curiosity was no longer just curiosity…I actually began admiring them. How did a group of 20-something year olds bring out these very concepts that we use as therapists? And they took it one step further…by using their music, they were doing what I hoped to do one day – using these concepts to help a much larger group of individuals. They were fundamentally introducing these concepts to millions of people!

I talk to my clients and use their life experiences to introduce these concepts, making more practical and real. These men (yes, men, not boys) were using their own experiences to introduce these principles, exposing their own vulnerabilities and reaching out to those of their fans.

So, yes, I am a fan of a boy band. Not just because of how they look and dance…but because of what they were doing with their music.  I hope more and more of their fans realise just what they are saying through their music, fulfilling the goals of not just the men in the band, but mine, too.

By the way, the band is the Bangtan Boys, or BTS. There you have it, I admit to being one of their millions of admirers. And I’m not ashamed to say so.

Unavoidable, but amendable

As a therapist, I see clients with many different diagnoses. Over the years, I learnt one thing – that we humans always seek control and predictability in our lives and, when we don’t get it, we become distressed. This goes for ourselves, as well as for others who we care about. A person with ADHD or bipolar disorder is unpredictable and beyond control (both of others and of themselves), and we start being concerned of their overall functioning.

I then began wondering – why would we seek predictability and control when we KNOW our world is unpredictable and uncontrollable? A couple of days ago, it struck me – our brain makes ‘rules’, or heuristics, for EVERYTHING. Following heuristics makes it easier for our brain to understand our world. In the process, our brain creates heuristics for our daily functioning.

Following a “if x, then y” thought process doesn’t really work, however, in the real world. “If he’s in school, he will be focused”, “if I ask for help, I will get it”, “if I give to others, I will receive from them”. Can you see how that speaks to a need for control and predictability?

So, why would our brains nurture our dysfunctional thought and emotional patterns? Because our heuristics change – “if he’s in school, he’s never going to be focused”, “if I ask for help, I’m never going to get it”, “no matter how much I give, I’ll never get anything back” OR “I don’t have to give to get”.

OK, so what are we meant to do about it? First of all, be aware of it as an unconscious and automatic process. Know when you are seeking control or predictability, and realise that it is, perhaps, your brain’s way of making life easier to understand.

And then, use our wonderfully evolved capacity for executive functioning. Pay attention to the one place that you DO have control over – the here and now. Come back to “I may not know what’s going to happen in the next minute, but right now, I am doing/feeling/thinking…”. Let this guide you to what you do/feel/think next, and don’t let that be the source of an attempt to predict our control the future. It’s not easy, and it is an intentional lifestyle that we put in place every day.

This is just a thought – I haven’t looked for research or clinical backing for it, so don’t quote me. But do think again – do you think this could affect you?

The obscurity of wealth

We haven’t evolved, really. Evolution has been based on survival of the fittest. Humanity has forgotten what it means to survive. We do not know survival. All we know is hedonism. And where does it come from?

“My child shall never want”.

The pain of seeing one’s child desire something they cannot have is painful. It engenders envy, desire, jealousy. But it is only by going through the tunnel that one reaches light. And there is no dearth of tunnels in this life.

So, two children stand at a tunnel’s entrance. They both think, “here’s another tunnel”. One goes through the tunnel, thinking “Heck, I’ve done this before. I just have to get through time the other side, and I’ll be alright”. Meanwhile, the other either turns around and stays in the light without ever crossing the tunnel or waits until someone takes his hand and guides him through it. Delayed or aborted, the second child’s growth is needlessly slowed.

We are, in effect, helping our kids to be like the second child. We take upon ourselves the negative emotions and cognitions that would be exceptional learning experiences for them. We ensure their every whim is fulfilled, excusing it by saying they will not suffer as we have. But neither will they develop the grit, the strength of character – the very will to survive – that our struggles have afforded us.

Ironically, those who face such struggles want the ease that the others have. At what cost? Being wealthy is not being rich. Being strong, being resilient, being able to cope with a harsh world, THAT is richness. Facing the tunnel and not fearing it’s darkness knowing it is temporary, THAT is richness. And it is those people who have, and will, evolve. For they know how to survive.

Let kids be kids

Last week, I was on a bus. Traffic was slow, and I was struggling to keep myself awake by listening to music. At some point, I heard voices over my music, a thing that I felt was rare in the US. I took out my headphone to hear a woman arguing with another with a child. The child had apparently touched the other woman on the knee, which had aggravated her.

As I put my headphone back into my ear with a sigh, I found myself wondering once more about children. Or rather, about our reactions to children, be they our own, our friends’, or those of complete strangers. We see infants and we think, “oh, how cute.” Sometimes, we don’t even think that. Every act of the child is assessed on adult standards – their crying, their movements, the things they say – and then hold the child’s elders responsible for when the child does not fit what we expect. Children cry when they’re hungry or upset. They LEARN to control it, but that doesn’t mean that they can do so all the time. We adults can’t, so how do we expect them to?

Yet a baby crying in the subway or on a bus is unacceptable, earning many dirty stares – and, sometimes, harsh comments – to the adult accompanying them. Children like to explore. They enjoy their expeditions in all those activities that we find mundane and boring. And yet we get annoyed at the boisterous little boy who touches things we think he shouldn’t (even if doing so would not lead him to direct or indirect bodily harm). We give stern glances to the little girl who asks us innocent questions and then for clarity about those questions. Few of us have taken a flight where there hasn’t been a child on board. And yet, when we do, we grumble about the sound of the baby crying or the ‘hyperactivity’ of the little girl excited about taking the flight. Flights are difficult sometimes, and if they can make us uncomfortable, how do we believe that a baby won’t cry, or that a child won’t run up and down the aisle to relieve his or her boredom?

On the one hand, we encourage children to be curious. And on the other, when a child asks us questions, sometimes embarrassing ones, we give them the cold shoulder or even a sharp look. Why? Because they asked such a question. Because they actually wanted to know something. They dared to want to learn from a complete stranger. How could they.

In all honesty, they absolutely can – that is what we encourage nowadays, independent thought built on asking questions, learning something new and incorporating it into an existing knowledge base. I can still recall a time when a young preschool student of mine asked a heavy-set woman, “are you going to have a baby?” I was terrified about her reaction, but she laughed and said, “No, that’s just my belly”. I went to her to apologize, but she smiled at me and said, ” well, at least he learned that not all big bellies are a sign of being pregnant!”

WHAT ABOUT THE PARENTS? In a myriad of cases, parents are unnecessarily held responsible for their children behaving in a very natural way. We somehow expect them to have become superhuman, and capable of watching their children 24/7. We cannot believe that there may be circumstances unique to them that force them into a situation of having to control their children more than normal. People would not have been so mad at, say, a mother and father of twins boys who were on the autism spectrum, who could not control their them on a 17-hour flight, but had no choice but to take the flight to get specialized treatment for the two preschoolers.

It is impossible to say all parents are good, that all of them are not to be held responsible. In certain cases, they are. When they neglect their children, or punish them so harshly that the children no longer know what is right or wrong, what is good about them and what they can rectify, then we all can say that they aren’t doing right by their children. But until we know the circumstances, can we really point fingers? We were all children once. Why begrudge them the freedom that we once had or desired ourselves?

When we lost ourselves…

It’s been more than a year that I arrived in the US.  Today, I received news that an childhood friend of mine was coming to visit tomorrow.  “What’s so big about that?” I hear people wondering.  Well, you’re right, it isn’t a big deal…in itself, at least.  But what made a big deal is what feelings it elicits.

Meeting an old friend, for the longest time, was a wonderful concept to me – to catch up on old times, to reminisce over the crazy, fun and entertaining life we had together as kids.  However, that seems to be a rare phenomenon. I have always been in search of that one relationship – the one which continued to have value even over the years.  It appears, on a daily basis, that such a persevering relationship does not exist.  People do forget others.  And there is nothing that changes that.

Indeed, not even blood can keep two people close.  Sure, if you’re immediate siblings, then there is no question.  But as soon as one speaks of first cousins, or aunts, or uncles. things change drastically.  A cousin you have grown up with may have already forgotten all about you, and you feel it painfully when you stay with them for a week. In some cases, not even that long – my erstwhile best friend from back home (whom I believed closer to me than my very own sister) was so different when I saw her, just for lunch, that I realized then and there she had become the kind of shallow people that we once used to make fun of.

Why the change? To fit in.  Children yearn to be what they are not, and then become exactly that as adults.  We mocked the superficial, uncaring world of the ‘popular’ kids, but that did not mean that we did not want to be one of them.  We laughed at those people who had drunken sprees with one another on the weekends, but that did not mean we did not wish to be asked to those selfsame events.

Being part of the ‘in’ group DOES mean the world to a person, even if they appear unaffected by the very existence of the group, or show a blatant dislike for it.  And this is what changes many of them as adults.  We become that which we weren’t in childhood with the belief that this is what will make us happy in the future.  and along with that comes a very sad situation – we unwittingly let go of those relationships that could have meant something even more valuable than that which we are now receiving.

Take for example the cousin I had mentioned.  Right now, the cousin is very popular, with many friends that he goes drinking with almost every weekend.  But at the same time, he competes relentlessly with my sister, who is the least interested in such trivialities, and disregards my existence as well.  And yet, as a young man, he was the most warm and considerate relative I had ever had.

Sure, on our own, he may revert to the ‘old’ person, although I must admit that’s only with me.  And yet I have seen the other side of him, which has altered our relationship irrevocably.  No longer can I trust him to be the person that I once admired and looked up to – the person I loved with all my heart.  That person has been hidden so deep within him, that I can’t find him.  And even now, I wonder whether the change was worth it.

My sister, I guess, has changed, too.  But her very essence remains the same.  She is as independent, as confident,  and – yes – as headstrong as she ever was.  At times, this distresses her.  But she never let go of who she was, and – to me and to all her friends that she kept since we were kids – that was her most irresistible trait.

I have to say that I changed, too.  I tried to become one of “those” kids – the popular, the favored – and yet my own, inborn naivete and unawareness of the pitfalls that befell those who were popular led to me reverting back to the person I once was.  But there was an unexpected boon from all that I suffered after my change…I became unintentionally popular. Question is, did I already have to the skills to do so, or did I gain them through the trials in my life?

But that is another matter altogether.  I will not say change is a bad thing.  Quite the contrary, it makes life worth living.  But how much is the question.

In school, it hurts to be grouped as geeks, nerds, losers, rejects, jocks or bimbos.  So we strive to remove ourselves from the group, and in the process we lose our own essence. 

At times I wonder, maybe those nicknames in schools – geeks, nerds, losers, rejects, jocks, bimbos – could actually be used for the benefit of the students.  The geeks and the nerds are the brains in the school. The losers and the rejects are the last word in  individuality and genuineness. The jocks and the bimbos are the social leaders.  And each of them are a bit of the other – don’t the nerds and geeks, the losers and the rejects, band together in their own way?  Don’t the jocks and the bimbos show their intelligence and skills in some way or another?

Should children feel that the way they are is “not good enough”, or should we engender in them a love for who they are?  We weren’t just members of those groups because of the stereotypical definitions of them.  We were ourselves within them, and we lost ourselves as we grew up fighting against our own nature to become something we never were in the beginning.  We buried within ourselves those very qualities that would have, perhaps, made us as loved as we wanted to be in the first place.

As a counselor, I often found myself telling kids, “You may think you don’t want to be a certain way right now.  But believe me, once you’re out of here, there will be no other way you want to be”.  Of course, no one believes it at the time.  But it is the truth – who you are right now is who you want to be.  If you weren’t meant to be that way, you are better off not being that way.

I just hope someday we can get this message to all kids…maybe then we won’t have another or Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, or Jaylen Fryberg.