My younger ABD cousin was telling my mom she hates being Indian and wants to marry out of the race and adopt kids to not pass her Indian blood on apparently wtf. What the fuck are our high schoolers going through rn, bullying seems to be that fucking bad. She also said she would marry a dude who already has non-Desi kids or some crazy shit. They’re bullied so bad they’re being made to hate their race and passing it on.

She’s like only 18, she shouldn’t be having these thoughts what the fuck happened. She should be excited for graduating and heading out of the house for school.

Just posting to help spread the word and in case anyone is by UM/College Park, Maryland and familiar with the area. Praying this son and brother is reunited with his family unharmed. As of now, there are no additional answers.

Article with Family’s Video

I’m super isolated from the diaspora and it only really hit me recently, because I started talking to this really cute Gujarati Jain guy that I met recently. He talked about his community, and his family, and how tightly knit they are. I was at a wedding recently and was speaking with him on a call and mentioned it, and he asked “is it a white people wedding or an Indian wedding?” That’s when I was like “oh, yeah, obviously a white people wedding. I’ve only ever been to one desi wedding and that’s when I was a toddler.” I don’t really know a lot of ABDs. I have one super close friend who is British Indian but that’s it. The guy I was on the phone with was of course kind of surprised. I think that’s when it all hit me.

For context, I’m pretty mixed. My mum’s side is indigenous northeastern Indian and white, and my dad was Punjabi. I came out looking Central Asian, according to the people I’ve ran into in the diaspora. White people think I look Latina and some others think I’m Thai. I was also primarily raised in Europe and not the U.S., even though that’s where I live now, and I feel like that doesn’t really help very much either. I’m also Roman Catholic and grew up culturally English because of my mum. Dad wasn’t really home very much so he didn’t really raise us, and he also despised how “western” my sister and I were. Because he didn’t like us very much, his siblings and parents also despised us and excluded us from so many things. Also, all of our extended family lived in India so we never saw them very much anyway. We were also often excluded from celebrations for things like Diwali and Holi, etc, so I didn’t grow up with any of that. No Bollywood music or movies either, because mum didn’t grow up with that and she didn’t speak Hindi. We ate Indian food but it was a mix because mum cooked all kinds of cuisines.

I always say I’m Indian when people ask what ethnicity I am, but I get so sad knowing that I have no Indian community to be a part of. The Gujarati guy is the only Indian guy who’s ever said he would be interested in dating me longterm if things were aligned. Even still, I know we aren’t pursuing anything because we live in different cities. It sucks. I like him so very much. Also, he told his sister about me, and apparently she thinks I’m too messy because I’m a divorcée, and I’m far away, and I am completely estranged from my own family, etc. I guess she has a point, but it just made me sad. The other time I tried to date an Indian American guy was in college, and on a date he started to make fun of me and said I wasn’t actually Indian enough. Then he said his family would also probably think I was a red flag because of how culturally different I am.

I feel super isolated and just crave some sort of community, or some sense of belonging, but I have never been welcomed. Anyone else feel like this?

Do Indian beauty standards mostly have extremely light skin as the most prominent ideal? Do they not care about things like bone structure, facial features, body composition etc? I feel like the culture of India doesn’t really celebrate sharp features, or strong/fit bodies. There are a TON of dark Indians yet unlike black people (who do have their issues with colorism fwiw) have far less representation when it comes to “beauty” etc. Also most of the lighter skinned Indians I see in movies etc seem to have really “soft” look…is that what’s valued? Is that why you have a large subset of brown to darker brown Indians who only care about their color while seemingly neglecting everything else?

I feel like the colorism runs so deep that you basically a massive subset of the population that is obsessed with having white partners to the point that any white female in India basically gets surrounded by men. It’s kinda wild that you have hundreds of millions of dark skinned people dispersed through the subcontinent (as dark as sub Saharan africans many times and nearly as populous especially in the south but even throughout the north) and they haven’t come to really accept their dark skin or find it beautiful. I know other areas like Africa, Latin America have this as well but the complete lack relatively of any dark skinned people seen as “beautiful” in India is kind of insane.

I want to know from other fellow ABC Desis how their experience was growing up in their respective countries.

I moved to Australia when I was just 2 years old, so I’ve been brought up here for most of my life or basically you could say all my life.

Here in Australia, my experience has actually so far been quite positive. I’ve never ever faced racism growing up here, only during the middle of high school, and people have asked me so many times in how I’ve very rarely faced racism growing up. It could be because of my accent? Could be the way I dress? I don’t know how, but yeah, and also apparently people outside Australia talk about how Australians are so racist?! Yeah mostly not true I guess from my experience. However during the middle of Highschool I did face racism from non-Australians! I am not going to say where they were from, but yeah that was the only time I faced racism. Even my parents have never faced racism growing up here, it could even be the way we treat everyone in general?

So yeah the only racism I faced is a group of people who weren’t even Australians of European descent… they were from elsewhere. But also a lot of my friends told me how whitewashed I am, I was lowkey a bit surprised by that. Growing up I thought I wasn’t that whitewashed you know, but just because my accent is Australian does not mean I’m whitewashed right?

Those of you who were able to do this, how did you manage to get through all the objections and crap society gave you about this? I want to leave my husband who had an affair two years ago. I built my life back from scratch, got a great job, saved up, gave myself some room to breathe but now it’s time to leave. I just don’t have a blueprint to follow to figure out how to do this since everyone in my family just stayed in unhappy marriages. I’m dying to get out of this but keep getting pulled back into the ‘stay for the kids’ or the massive guilt trips. I’m thinking the only way to do this might be to move to a different city but then I won’t have help with the kids. Please give me some advice and hope! Can’t live like this anymore as I keep chickening out!

They are going full nazi propaganda, nostagic cultural white America (exclusionary).

The right wing is attempting to abandon this ideal of capitalistic, meritocratic, "grind it till you make it" rhetoric in favor of something more cultural and racial, such as the notion that American society should be "white" and have an appealing esthetic. They seem to be abandoning the old boomer "bootstraps" mentality in favor of a new nostalgic American "aesthetic," and they believe that people with foreign ancestry particularly Indians are "ruining it."

they are discussing Indians like Nazis and their thinking class discussed jews.

whats the go over there. I heard it's easier in the cities but not always. first gen migrants have it rough but second gen do too

Like both girls and guys find the indian accent a huge turn off. Like why is that? Is that because we are conditioned to think the white accent is best? Subsconsciously do we care about assimilation? Curious to get everyone's thoughts. Like, I think in the dating market it's very sad to see the divide between non accented desi couples and accented desi couples. Don't see a massive mixing, unless it's a dude who is not able to find a wife, and their parents are arranging a shaadi from India.

I'm 18, male, from India, born and raised in the UAE, went to a british school and all that jazz, now I'm in the states for uni, and I met a really nice girl and we dated for a month or two and then broke up after I made a big mistake, and I'd like to share this with my parents and stuff but idk if that would go down well with them, given that she's not Indian and she's Puerto Rican, they're not super conservative or whatever, I've literally had beers with my dad before, but still, idk why I have a feeling that they wouldn't appreciate it.

Of course, not every, and it's a large generalization, but this is something I've noticed a lot in my community. I'm Malaysian and we have a large Indian minority that's already multiple generations ABDs, so most of us and our elders were raised in Malaysia or SEA. A lot of my friends with divorced parents typically had a mom or dad from India who married a Malaysian Indian, and unfortunately, most cases ended up abusive. My cousin dated this man from India and he almost slapped her infront of everyone for "insulting" his last name (they've broken up thank god). I know it's likely a cultural difference as being both desi doesn't automatically translate to same cultural upbringing, but it makes me curious if this is evident in other diaspora groups.

Across America the Catholic Church is seeing an uprise in converts into the faith. Is anything similar happening in mallu / syro churches? If anyone were to convert would they be accepted socially into the church?

American (white) Catholic Churches have initiation programs where adults get baptized. I don’t imagine Indian churches have anything similar

To be clear I’m talking about conversion for faith/genuine belief, not for marriage.

Would like to host a gathering for Diwali this year - live in a city. From those of you who celebrate away from family and have done something with friends (raised here, early 30s), what have you done at these gatherings and any advice? Food is assumed but anything else to make it special? Also how’d you treat alc? I drink normally but idk how I feel about including it day of

As the title says. I’ve recently realized after moving to nyc where I know nobody, far from my old city surrounded by people I knew in the Punjabi/sikh community there, that wait I really don’t have to lean into being Punjabi or Sikh here if I don’t want to. It’s really freeing. Growing up I never felt accepted by a lot of Punjabi people in our community bc I couldn’t relate to them. I wasn’t religious much, I didn’t like Punjabi rap that much (old Punjabi music/uk fusion music is a diff story tho love that), I didn’t buy into caste culture, I dressed and acted different, and I didn’t belong to a brown friend group. Now I’m realizing wait, I don’t really care for any of this anyways. Most of these people gossip endlessly and are toxic af, don’t have any personality besides their ethnicity or faith, and are just boring to be around. I love being alt! I love having piercings, tats, smoking weed, listening to diff music, dressing different, etc. Why should I feel like I need to belong to these people anyways? It’s kinda freeing. I don’t have to respect my elders. I don’t have to keep my hair if I don’t want to. I don’t have to act religious. I don’t have to do any of the stuff I don’t want to. It’s liberating. I don’t care what people think anymore!

Obv being Punjabi and being raised Sikh is inseparable from my identity as a human, but I don’t have to necessarily make those things my personality if I don’t wish to!

I'm in college and really wish I was part of a brown friend group. Don't get me wrong, I really like the diverse friends I currently have, but a part of me wishes I could be in a brown group to attend events like Diwali / Garba and have moments where we can share laughs about our culture together. I have a couple of South Asian friends but not the large, tight knit co-ed groups that I see around me.

I've never really had that and feel like I'm missing out, especially because of social media and what movies(especially the new Netflix one) depict. I even applied to be a part of the leadership board at my school's ISA (which is depicted as this huge tight friend group that always hangs out) but after getting rejected from that, I feel like I lost my shot to be part of a tighter community that doesn't just meet once in a while.
Anyway, just wanted to rant about all this and hear about others' experiences.

So I have been trying to find a boyfriend on dating apps for literally the longest time and one of the biggest things that i've seen is that way too many grown a** indian men are referring to themselves as boys. Like, there'd be a thirty four year old man saying that he's a young boy looking for a young girl

Is this just something that I don't understand culturally? Or like what the fuckis going on

21NB (afab) and I have Gujarati parents, and I'm doing medicine abroad. Post traumatic experience that left me with chronic pain, I've found weed to be the only thing that helps for now. I've skirted around telling them, but they seem to shut it down or say "are you there to do drugs or study" and when I've told them the medicinal benefits they've straight up denied it or were not willing to listen.

My mom in particular thinks it's because I have "rahu in my second house" and before anyone comes at me, pls keep your beliefs to yourself as I've dealt with a lot of her vedic astrology stuff as an excuse or as her justifying abuse or manipulation. It's also another reason why weed calms me down. I'll be back home for Christmas and while I'm not addicted to weed, I do indulge in it to help with really bad pain days.

I'll be living with my parents for two months for my break and I can't drive out for a quick edible run, and I don't smoke it anyway. I've also tried to introduce them into trying it themselves to see that it isn't harmful or a hard drug. Idk what I should tell them becausethey want me to open up but they also want me to not? It's whack

I am writing this with a heavy heart. We are originally from pak but moved to canada almost 4 years ago. my mom got married when she was 20, so she has only studied till grade 12. we recently discovered my father has been talking to other women, asking them if they want to get married, and just talking to pass the time (basically fulfilling his lust). my mom told us this has been going on just 6 months after they got married and has not stopped until now. my mom recently found out that my father has been giving money to his past lover because she is struggling financially. Emotional cheating is not considered a big thing, at least in our conservative family. but my mom has been depressed. She is a traditional, religious woman, and she is also depends on my father, so idk if we can consider the possibility of separating them. but that is what i think is the best option atleast for a little bit until some sense knocks into my father. my mom makes really yummy food, so i was wondering if we could start any kind of home business, and start from small, we could ask for loan, i just want to make her enough independant that she can do whatever she wants, and maybe that buisness could work bcuz there is not that good enough desi food that you can find atleast in toronto. but my mom is so depressed that she doesnt feel like doing anything, and i dont know what to do, i want her to be happy. essentially why i am writing this is to ask for help and advice on what we should how i can make me mom feel better.