humanity is an ocean
Anonymous: your blog is one of my favourites :) please update more?
thank you I am v flattered
i wish i could i’m working like 9-4 everyday when i get home i just want to DIe
sorry anon!!!
How unfortunate is it that my parents had to literally force me to wear beautiful parts of my culture because I was afraid of being ostracized, but Selena Gomez can take aspects of the clothing I grew up with and make money off of them? How unfortunate is it that South Asian immigrants and South Asian Americans are Otherized every single day for the way they look, talk, and dress, but Urban Outfitters continues to commodify and make a profit off the sale of bindis – as made popular by American pop stars?
[..] My bindi is not a way for you to present yourself as being friendly to South Asian culture while exotifying it. My bindi is from my mother, put in my drawer because it is another mark of my internalized Otherness, on top of my brown skin. My bindi is tainted by Western celebrities trying to be “cultural” or “bohemian” or “tribal.” My bindi is not just a piece of plastic, my bindi is not for sale, and my bindi is not for you.
Anisha Ahuja, “Selena Gomez, What Are You Doing?” (feminspire.com)
Frieda Pinto and Sonam Kapoor attend a L’oreal cocktail reception during the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival.
i ALM OST TURNED INM Y essay with this title
i think maybe it’s something we share, us immigrants, us children of immigrants, those of us thrown into diaspora, scattered across countries and continents with names we still struggle to pronounce, further from the heartland than our parents ever dreamed we’d end up. we spend so much time in airports, picking people up, dropping people off. there is always someone leaving, someone coming back, and it exhausts me- this perpetual meeting and parting of ways. we miss the births of nieces and nephews, we miss funerals, we are condemned to celebrate and mourn without each other. when ladan was born we slaughtered a goat and shared it with strangers. i saw farah when she was two years old, and again at her wedding. we cry when our mamas leave, when we leave them, our time together is measured piecemeal, it is always too short, it is never enough, we milk these precious moments for all that they’re worth. we stand in lines at airports, bear suitcases that hold gifts as offerings, it’s a condolence, always an apology. you say i’m sorry i was gone for so long. always someone, maybe your niece who is four tugging on the hem of your coat asking when you’ll be back again. soon you tell her, you kiss her on the forehead and you know soon is never soon enough. you hug your aunt and tell her you love her. on the plane you watch the city and all those you love grow smaller, distance blooms wide and unforgiving in your mouth. both here and there, neither here nor there, call it the immigrant’s burden, this weight, this persistent longing we carry on our backs. always someone asking you to stay, i can’t, you say, every single time.
i had no idea this site cost 1.1 billion i bet its because of my blog
