Significance to Identity

As the child of immigrants, I face a dilemma that is common to the first generation experience, that of balancing my mother culture with the one in which I live. Negotiating this identity can have many hypothetical outcomes. Monoculturalization, biculturalization, hybridization, or rejection are several possible effects of the “cultural crisis” faced by first-generation, second-generation, and immigrant youth in the United States. In order to introduce and develop these concepts, I would like to refer to a seminal work on identity formation written by Carol Markstrom. Although her piece specifically targets Native American adolescents, the theoretical implications extend to other identity groups as well, such as Indian Americans. Markstrom examines three distinct levels of consciousness, and the dependence of one’s identity on these contexts. At the local level, one’s definition of identity is concentrated on ethnicity, and sources of influence include family, tribe, cultural education, and oral history. On the national level, bicultural, multicultural, and hybrid identities emerge with greater influences from media, schools, peers, and travel. Finally, on a global level the result is an indigenous, non-hegemonic, or hybrid identification, with influences from media, personal exposure, and travel.

For Indian Americans, these three levels of consciousness have comparable identifications and influences. I propose that on the local level, Indian Americans will self-identity based on their mother tongue, regardless of whether or not they have the ability to speak it. The influences include immediate family, extended family, faith education, and oral history. For example, amongst other Indian Americans, I identify by my mother tongue Tamil. On a national level, or within less homogenous groups of both Indians and White Americans, identification is based on region. For example, I identify as South Indian. This identification draws cultural boundaries in which linguistic and traditional distinctions are implicit. Sources of influence include media representation, pop culture, school, and travel. Finally, in a global context, Indian Americans will choose to identify by country or by continent, usually either American or Indian, and sometimes using Asian as a substitute for Indian. Personally, I always identify as Indian, although I use Asian when filling out demographic information. It is only in India that I am marked as the American. On this level of consciousness, influences include media, personal exposure, global institutions, and travel.

In order to connect these levels of consciousness with the importance of cultural dance to Indian Americans, it is important to understand an additional set of terms, namely acculturation, biculturalism, and hybridism. According to Markstrom’s offered definition, being a first generation American necessitates acculturation, or the “cultural and psychological changes that result from the contact between cultural groups, including the attitudes and behaviors that are generated.” Biculturalism is said to be the most desirable outcome for individuals negotiating multiple strands of influence, and is “associated with more positive feelings toward the self among ethnic adolescents as well as immigrant adolescents.” Finally, a hybrid identity strives to reach beyond a bidimensional approach and attempts to incorporate “complexities of additional cultural affiliations.” The example provided in Markstrom’s work comes from research identifying a subculture of Native American youth in a town on the border of a reservation and their absorption of heavy metal culture. This influence helped create a unique sense of identity separate from that of both their white and Indian counterparts from whom the students felt alienated.

For nearly all first generation Americans, one’s experience with the acculturative process is what defines one’s position within larger society. Furthermore, acculturation has a great impact on positive self image and mental well-being. In the case of Indian Americans, the two strands come from the local and regional Indian cultures and the broader experience of living in America. Growing up, bharatanatyam was a way for me to learn about Indian culture, specifically with my own regional focus. Although I attended the temple every week and participated in religious events and activities, dance was the medium through which I most connected with Hinduism. Through the mythology portrayed and the demonstrations of devotion, my demonstration of faith occurred on the dance floor. Even to this day, I derive great spiritual power from these movements that are steeped in religious practices and traditions. However, after leaving a religious ceremony to meet up with my American friends, I would feel a sudden need to shift away from one end of the spectrum to the other. The greatest example was my childhood haste to remove my pottu, the traditional forehead marking, as I exited an Indian function and prepared for an American one.

Through dance, I was able to augment my positive self-image, thus resulting in the early stages of biculturalization. I attribute a large segment of my identity development to the power of bharatanatyam and its ability to make my culture accessible on kinesthetic, theoretical, and religious levels. It was only after the completion of my arangetram that I was successfully able to house both cultures within my identity, as it coincided with my transition into young adulthood. According to anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, the modern world resembles the mathematical models of fractals, in which patterns are reproduced at several levels, but overlap with one another to add levels of complexity ranging from the local to the global experience. He identifies five different “-scapes” that mold this modern state, the most relevant being ethnoscapes, or the “landscapes of group identity.” These territories include local communities, larger cities, states, countries, or continents; areas of ethnic or cultural influence. Significantly, he notes that many of these territories may largely exist in our imaginations, which is the case for many first generation Americans who have never visited their motherland. When coming to college, I was temporarily deterritorialized from my ethnoscapes, and was forced to react in order to fix such a cognitive dissonance. The result was to immerse myself in IU’s Indian community through dance, specifically IU HooiserRaas. Joining HoosierRaas was not only a reconfiguration of my identity, but was a subscription to a subculture that unknowingly culminated in a temporary and communal hybrid identity.

The competitive collegiate dance circuit has redefined the role of dance in Indian culture to reach beyond global levels of consciousness and into hybrid realities. Dance teams have accomplished this through the aspect of theme incorporation as well as the marketing around the competitions. Compared to the model of bordertown youth’s hybridism, first generation Indian Americans have sought out dance as the influence that both connects and distinguishes them from the influences provided by their parents. Dance is a factor that is implicit in both Indian and American cultures, yet dance teams have extracted it from its molds and transformed it to serve their own interests. An article written by Elizabeth Chacko and Rajiv Menon in 2013 examines bhangra and raas-garba competitions in Washington, DC. The authors conclude that the collegiate competitive circuit appeared to “resist hybridity and produce rhetoric that marginalizes diasporic culture in favour of the ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ culture of the homeland.” They further note that there are constant interruptions to this authenticity that obstruct its implantation, and that the groups promote “ethno-regional distinctiveness rather than a hybrid or pan-Indian identity.” What this argument ignores is the particularity of certain competitions, the performance dynamic, as well as the dancer’s individual sphere.

It is well known that there are certain competitions that historically prefer more traditional steps, while other competitions favor modernization. Furthermore, from my personal experience, dancers involved in the raas circuit do not claim authenticity; they are aware that their production on stage is not an accurate representation of traditional raas-garba. Not only are we aware of our departure from such traditions, but in some cases we must intentionally detach in order to make steps more complex or execute novel themes. Furthermore, crowd reactions and scoring responses to the variety of recent themes emphasize that, while dancers do have revolutionizing identities, these are not rejected by the infrastructure of the competitions themselves. As a Tamilian dancer practicing a traditionally west Indian art form, I myself serve as an interruption to the authenticity of raas-garba. In this sense, regional distinctions are clear, but so is the exchange and mixing of cultures, from me to my Gujarati counterparts and vice versa.

Since Appadurai’s theory accommodates the constant upheaval and replacement of social norms and expectations, it is not surprising that the conclusions of Chacko and Menon’s study may already be obsolete, just as the ideas offered here may not be valid two years from now. In recent years, there has been a wider acceptance of modernization, an increased sense of respect for traditional raas-garba, and an attempt to reach beyond the binary. Chacko and Menon recognize that hybridity is not a combination of two binarized categories, but requires a restructuring of foundations that accept fluidity. In the context of the raas circuit, I see many attempts to restructure this foundation. The first is the involvement of south Indian dancers, although there is still some resistance to normalization. Another important factor is the rising importance of non-cultural factors taking dominance in scoring rubrics. Exemplified by categories like theme incorporation, cleanliness, and formations, the raas circuit is redefining what holds weight and determines the winning dance teams. Finally, the stage is considered a place where teams can dare to try new things. Although daunting, risk-taking is encouraged in an effort to move beyond the old binary of of of traditional versus modern, and instead restructure the purpose of the activity as a whole.