LOSING THE CONNECTION
Columnist Uzma Jalaluddin wonders what it will mean if her children lose their ties to ‘back home,’
How is culture and tradition maintained beyond first- and second-generation immigrants?
Without regular trips “back home” or strong relationships through cultural associations, I wonder if my own kids will simply . . . lose their culture. And if they do, what exactly have they lost?
These are questions I and my fellow second-generation immigrant friends wonder and worry about for our children.
My kids have never visited India. They don’t know how to speak Urdu, the language I grew up with, nor Malayalam, the south Indian language of my husband’s family. They also have no spicy-Indian-food game, and any time I make biryani or rajmah or palak paneer, they ask what else they can eat for dinner. They do like butter chicken, but when a curry is also a pizza-and-poutine topping choice, it loses its cultural authenticity.
A well-known Italian idiom, “shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations,” refers to the accumulation and loss of wealth across generations. In China, the saying is “wealth never survives three generations.” I fear the same is true for culture.
Culture is about more than food or colourful clothing. It is a mindset, a way to experience the world and navigate one’s place within. Culture is family and history and tradition.
When my sons are asked, “So where are you from?” I wonder how they will answer. My answer is easy — I was born in Canada, but my parents immigrated from India.
My sons’ answer gets murkier: They were born in Canada. Their parents were born in Canada. Their grandparents immigrated from India — a country they have seen only in pictures and through the memories of others.
Being the child of South Asian immigrants was a big part of my identity growing up, and it also provided a handy cultural reference for myself and others.
My mom wears hijab because she is Muslim. My parents don’t like cheese and don’t think any meal is complete without basmati rice because they are Indian. They have to eat said rice with a sour dal because they are Hyderabads. I was thinking about this when I recently rewatched Hasan Minhaj’s clever Netflix special, Homecoming King. I laughed again at his jokes about growing up as a visible minority from a traditional Indian household, but it occurred to me that his jokes will not have the same resonance for Mustafa and Ibrahim.
Every parent marvels at how much things have changed since they were kids. For immigrants, and the children of immigrants, this feeling is magnified by their dislocation of place, or the echo of that dislocation in their children’s lives.
In contrast, my kids don’t struggle with the same identity issues. They don’t feel the tug of war between the culture of “back home” and here. For them, “back home” is a historical fact, not a living reality. While I’m happy for their firm foothold in Canada, their lack of cultural knowledge also makes me sad.
They will never know what it is like to have close family living in the country of their ancestors. I visited India several times throughout my childhood and each time I was astounded at my large, diverse family.
Having family in another continent also gave me a more global view of the world. Sure, my kids have had the opportunity to travel around Canada, the U.S. and parts of Europe, but travelling for pleasure is different from visiting family and becoming immersed in another way of life.
My grandmother, Laikunissa Begum, died in India at the start of the year following a long illness. She was a kind and generous woman, always smiling.
My kids used to call her “Super” Nani when she visited us in Canada. She was also the last of her generation and with her death, the living memory and lived experiences of an entire generation have disappeared.
When I saw pictures of her grave in Hyderabad, my uncle explained that she was buried in a mausoleum built by my great-great-great grandfather, on land that holds generations of my family.
When I looked at that picture I thought, one day I will bring my children to visit her. So they can say their goodbyes and pay their respects in person.
So they can experience that part of themselves they don’t even know exists inside them; the ember of identity their grandparents still call “back home.” Uzma Jalaluddin is a high-school teacher in York Region. She writes about parenting and other life adventures. Reach her at ujalaluddin@outlook.com.