Immigration – pj temple

Spanking or Beating? The Language We Use to Justify Harm

February 18, 2025

Children in immigrant families often don’t have language to identify what we’re experiencing. Is it spankings or beatings, discipline or trauma? Much of what happens behind closed doors is normalized because it has gone on for generations. However, that doesn’t make it alright. Not everything can be included under the umbrella of culture.

When we don’t know what to call something, we also don’t know how it affects us. If it’s just what happens, we tend to minimize how painful it is. But calling it out for what it is gives it the proper attention and weight. To name something means to identify and examine it, to possibly change it or keep it the same. Naming ultimately helps us see how we see ourselves.

An article by Sunil Noronha powerfully describes the harm endured by a child who is beaten under the guise of discipline: Spare the child, stash the rod, it’s time to make your minds broad

Name what you feel. It holds power.

Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash

Is There a Sadness In Your Parents You Can’t Quite Understand?

December 10, 2024

Your parents may also have difficulty identifying what it is. But then, when you think about it, they left everything they knew, and likely most everyone they knew, to find opportunity. That was their main goal. Opportunity. And really it can be translated to mean deep sacrifice, even sacrifice of connecting with themselves.

So everything else takes second place. I often wonder if my parents had time to grieve. But I think I know the answer. Many had little time to pause, breathe, rest, in the ways they deserved. And may have unintentionally passed the heartache down to their children. Generational patterns, modeling, trauma, we can’t always tangibly place it, because it sits in our bones. But you know it’s there.

Work on identifying the ways you also hold a sadness, maybe for them, for yourself, for both. Take it, examine it, try to know it so you can release it. Allow it to stop here.

When Nothing Works for Anxiety

December 4, 2024

In many immigrant families, there is already shame about expressing emotions. But then, you work through it enough to try to address difficult feelings. But nothing seems to work. Anxiety is especially guilt-inducing because it seems as though you should be able to control how worried you become about something. But what if we were to strip away the guilt, shame and judgmental thoughts about having emotions? It would create more room to examine why nothing is working.

Often, patients come in and they say, I’ve tried everything to calm anxiety but for some reason, nothing works. And what do I say? First, let’s put all that terrible judgment aside as best as possible. Once we do that, I take a closer look at two important things, technique and consistency.

So now, let’s go over some common problems with technique around three common anxiety reduction tools.

First, breathwork. You want to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Why does this matter? Because if you’re breathing in and out through your mouth, you’re actually taking in less oxygen and feeling more lighted-headed and anxious. You may even start to feel panicky.

Meditation. You wonder whether you’re doing it wrong, which gets in the way of allowing your mind to observe thoughts that are coming in. They can be scary, ugly, weird, silly, anxiety-provoking or boring, but whatever their nature, their just thoughts. See, judgment sneaks in even when we try to keep it at bay. But there isn’t a need to judge yourself on how you’re doing. If you’re sitting and taking the time to meditate, you’re doing it well.

Journaling. You may have been told to write down your anxious thoughts so that you can move them away from you. Or that writing out your thoughts can help you process them. But then you think, what should I write? If you go blank once you open up that journal, write about anything at all. Write about how you’re hungry or sleepy or have dishes to do. Write about how you’re bloated and annoyed. Write that you can’t think of anything to write about. Write down your grocery list. As you write random things, you’ll get to what’s underneath the surface. Take your time. You’ll get there.

Now, as far as all three, consistency is key. You may have tried one or all of these a few times here and there. But have you tried them consistently, every day for a couple weeks, a couple months? If you haven’t, try one for a month. See how that feels. Then you’ll have enough data to tweak the tool a bit. Technique and consistency bring results.

If you need some guidance around this, you might find Breathe and Release, a 12 month guided calming journal helpful. Go to the contact page and request more information.

The Plight and Beauty of the Eldest Daughter

September 9, 2024

If you’re the eldest daughter, you are likely the keeper of the family. It’s an important role, I suppose. It’s also a very exhausting role. Not only are you seen as the confident, capable, responsible one, but you own it. You own all of it, the title, the diligence, the hyper-vigilance, and the silent heaviness intrinsically tied to it.

I commented on Eldest Daughter Syndrome in Newsweek magazine, and the many ways it can have us feeling like a walking contradiction. We are expected to protect younger siblings, the home, family reputation and sometimes our parents, even from each other. We are to do it with grace, a smile and look radiant all the while. The charge is grand, grandiose really. But we do it because it is all we’ve ever known.

Despite the burden, there is a beauty that comes along with being the eldest. First born children are often conscientious and driven to excel in school, career and relationships. They are solution-based and diligent. We dive into high stress situations and figure out how to resolve them. We get shit done.

The tragedy is that we feel a sense of restlessness and angst even when there is nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to complete. Yet, when we aren’t doing things, we ourselves may feel incomplete. We create tasks to work on, to finish, to produce. The doing feels perpetual.

Rest is a luxury, we tell ourselves. Mindfulness is a mirage. But these ideas are false. They were taught early and as a part of a larger system where girls and women must care for and nurture others. We are told it is our identity.

Yet, we can preserve the beauty of this role and embrace the ways it has strengthened us. To do so, we must leave the toxicity behind. It’s not a simple thing when how we perform seems to be intrinsically connected to who we are. But so many things are paradoxically connected. Our true work now is to pull it apart. And this is how we begin.

Permission is powerful. Allow yourself to shift away from unhealthy learned messages, even if uncomfortable at first. Guilt and shame may rise just as you try to push back against long-reinforced ideas, but that doesn’t mean these feelings are accurate. Remain curious about why you feel what you feel, and whether those are learned ways to feel or whether they’re valid.

Increase in your sense of presence. Move with mindfulness to connect with what you truly desire out of a situation, relationship or interest. In each moment, ask yourself if it is bringing you joy, not whether it’s what others expect of you.

Separate what needs to get done versus what you’d like to do. Often eldest daughters have had to handle talks out of necessity but less often are asked what we want. Ask yourself what you’d like to do rather than what you have to do. The have to’s aren’t going anywhere. Fiercely make space for what you want.

Embrace rest. Maybe you don’t want to do anything at all. Maybe staring at a tree, reading, walking without a destination, is what rest looks like for you. Do that. And do it even despite the guilt, until it starts to fall away. And it will. Because much of the guilt we feel is not real, it’s induced. Resting is not selfish. It is balance.

Honor all you’ve done, how loving you have been, how well you’ve cared for others and know that this very moment is for you. The past is gone. The future hasn’t happened. Right now is everything we have. Rest daughter, in this moment. You’ve done the work.

A note: Although I’m speaking specifically about eldest daughters, it is sometimes a younger daughter or only child who must take on the position of the eldest for various reasons. Sometimes, it may even be a younger male in the family who takes on the role of the eldest, although this is rare just because of the structure of most cultures and views of females. Either way, those placed in the role of eldest may hold a deep sense of care and responsibility for others and the outcome of circumstances. For all carrying this weight, I wish you rest and care.

Believe Me When I Tell You

August 31, 2024

The body and mind become so weary from holding secrets. I had now hid my relationship for months. My parents suspected nothing but they also always assumed I was doing something I shouldn’t be. I was groomed to be stealthy. It was without intention they created this in me. They didn’t know how to nurture autonomy in this big, foreign country. Maybe even for themselves.

The weight of what I knew and all the what ifs were getting too heavy. I couldn’t take it much longer. And then it happened, before I realized what was coming out of my mouth. One afternoon, as Mom shook her head while she watched a show about interracial couples, I blurted out that I had an American boyfriend.

She stared at me for a few seconds. She gritted her teeth. I prepared for a smack. And then she went back to watching her show, calling me silly and waving me away. It was too much for her. She couldn’t even imagine it.

I walked out. I went straight to my boyfriend’s house.

Summary of a scene from Where the Tiger Dwells, a memoir

A Million Miles of What They Carried

August 16, 2024

What did they carry with them, my parents, over thousands of miles? What pieces of jewelry did they carefully choose? Which did they keep and which did they have to tear away from? Did they want to wear them all on each of their fingers, filling them as high as they’d fit? As many chains that could go around their necks? What did they stuff into their pockets? What are the most valuable things, maybe viable things, to an immigrant?

Did they wonder which clothes would be most acceptable? Or did they even worry about this? Did they want to take all their clothes, even the ones that were a little snug from high school that reminded them of good times with their childhood friends? Did they want to take some of their shoes, maybe all of them? But would their shoes work there? They had heard it was bitter cold, almost uninhabitable. How do you then dress for that? How, I mean, what, do you put on?

Did they speak to each item that meant something, the ones they couldn’t take with? The doors, the walls with the little lizzards sitting still like decor, the little random steel cups and clay pots in the kitchen? Did they say goodbye, or maybe one day I’ll see you again? What did they think would happen? That they’d never return to the ground and sky and trees they knew so well? The childhood toys, dolls, the table they ate their meals on, where they sat with their mothers and fathers, their siblings, where they prayed over their dal, rice, chutney, chicken. They couldn’t take those.

What about the well in the backyard, the one they leant over as children, yelling into it, echoes responding with giggles. What stories had they told their friends about the well, as they all encircled it, bent over slightly, seeking the bottom? What lay in the darkness? What fears had they buried there and what new ones would well up?

Did they wave goodbye to the animals that freely roamed the dirt roads in front of their houses, the pigs, the dogs, as animals should? Isn’t it in fact their home too? Isn’t freedom for all? Did they whisper into the creatures’ ears one last time, did they give some of them names, letting them know they were going to a far away place where the animals wouldn’t love them the same? Did they know that then? Did they know foreign meant foreigner, a bad word, outsider, feared, to be ridiculed, cursed at, in a place that would never quite feel like home? Did they leave space for this as they were gathering all the things they would carry?

We are Conquistadors!

March 19, 2017

I did it! Actually, we did it. There could be no other way. You, my dear, were the reason they were finally willing to understand the world as it should be seen.

When my parents came to America, they brought with them a few belongings, some big dreams and a host of misconceptions about what the people of America were like. In fact, they seemed to understand all non-Indians in a grossly inaccurate, almost caricaturistic light. It wasn’t malicious, it was simply their perspective.

In fact ironically, when I think of their perceptions, they parallel to Americans’ views of Apu from The Simpsons. He’s a clownish little Indian man with a heavy accent and unethical business practices. In the same vein, my parents saw all Americans as sex crazed hippies with no concept of collectivism, family, sacrifice or desire to maintain an untainted reputation, regardless of the costs.

It makes some sense. They would be encountering so many people unlike themselves, they had to create a sort of blueprint for understanding the many puzzle pieces that made up America. This can be useful to a degree I suppose, but it was also quite harmful. It drew lines between the perceived stark differences separating Indians and “the others.”

My parents were unable to relinquish how their custom-laden world could even vaguely line up with any strand of American culture. And further, meshing even slightly with “bad, loose, selfish” America would be treason of Indian culture.

Had my parents considered though that their children were born into this sin and may one day adopt some of these dreaded qualities? Well, no. Not for a long, long time, not until they had to face you, my very un-Indian boyfriend. Until then, they held on tight to their misinformed notions, which sometimes unwittingly teetered on the brink of intolerance.

And so when you came along, the concept of us was incomprehensible to them, a paradox. But slowly they began to bend. The change was so subtle that it almost went undetected. It was in the small interactions – silence replaced by laughter, formalities replaced by meaningful exchanges – that they were being redefined. They needed you, they needed light. They needed exposure and reflection of their own vulnerabilities.

We did this! We pushed them out of their uncomfortable places. We showed them something they had never dreamt of. We, my love, are conquistadors!

Why I Write

January 23, 2017

I write because the struggles of immigration grieve me in a personal way, a way that for a long time divided my family to near disrepair. Despite this, I believe my very conservative Christian, Indian parents attempted to understand why this American-born Indian girl had to do things a bit differently than what they had planned. And what I wanted was exactly the opposite of what had been customary for thousands of years. I, a female, wanted to do whatever I felt like doing.

Often, the shame related to making independent, very “American” decisions has led to heartbreaking consequences in some families and particularly for females. These endings are often preceded by children of immigrants desiring to adapt to American society while balancing Indian roots. These endings are also preceded by parents quickly becoming disillusioned as they begin to see the land of milk and honey for what it really is. Sometimes, it doesn’t receive families with open arms or flowing vats of opportunity. It is a place that takes far more than it can ever offer – hopes, time, a longing for family back home, culture and many, many tears. But above all things, it wants their children the most.

Some might believe I write to shame my family, and in essence, the Indian community, as we’re a highly collectivistic society. And in fact, allowing a look into the private lives of a collectivistic society is like waiting to be exiled. However, I write because if I don’t, relationships may be broken forever and families may be destroyed. Lives may potentially be lost.

I was once watching a video of author, Arundhati Roy, advocating for the rights of the most vulnerable of India. After it ended, I scrolled down to read words of praise for her efforts and her work of fiction, God of Small Things, which clings close to the often unspoken truths of India. But as I continued to scroll I saw far more comments addressing Ms. Roy with vile, demeaning adjectives and even death threats written by brutish men raised to despise females, to view us as nothing more than insentient things to be assaulted of body and spirit to their liking.

I don’t doubt opposition. Some might even say I shouldn’t be allowed to share my accounts of Indian culture, maybe that I should be banned. I should know where my place is. I should be silent.

And this is precisely why I write.