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that many of the ugly aspects of the cul- ture back home find their way into America: South Asian women also report verbal abuse from in-laws and husbands regarding their dowry. A public health nurse told Sharma that when a young Pakistani American woman had her father imprisoned for raping her, her mother abandoned her and left for Pakistan. Observes Sharma, “Reporting a family member to the authorities and ‘breaking up the family’ is a stigma which will stay with these women as long as society continues to believe that the ‘sanc- tity of family’ and the dignity of the male are more important than an individual woman’s right to dignity and well-being.” Anita Govindarajan, a board member of Sawera, puts it succinctly: “The South Asian immigrant woman is faced with a multitude of problems due to her culture. A proverb in Tamil states: Kalaanalum Kanavan Pullaanalum Purushan. It rough- ly translates to ‘Even if he is stone heart- ed, he is your husband, even if he is weed, he is still your spouse.’”
Male dominance and family prestige are such important factors in South Asian cul- tures that women often chose to stay in abusive marriages just to save the family name and not ruin the marriage prospects
of their siblings. Leaving a bad marriage is also hard because Asian society is par- ticularly hard on its womenfolk, and does not look compassionately at single moth- ers or divorcees.
“Historically even in South Asia, the fam- ily has always been touted as being per- fect,” observes Sujata Warrier, who is president of the board of Manavi. “It has been believed that joint families work well and the structure is well-maintained because there is a hierarchy, people take responsibility and there is family account- ing. But that has never even been histori- cally true. There is no such thing as a per- fect family.”
As she points out, what this myth has done is mask problems within the family — problems of violence against women encompassing everything from murder of women to infant mortality in South Asia. When South Asians migrated post-65, they brought along many of the same tra- ditions here. Manavi has dealt with cases of violence against women that have included incest within the family and child abuse. Warrier concedes that in the last decade, the South Asian communities are more willing to talk about domestic violence, probably because of wide publicity the
issue has received. “What is often much harder to talk about in Asian families is the whole issue of sexual assault, rape, which includes date rape and child abuse. We treat our children wonderfully, so there is no child abuse — but that’s not true.”
She adds, “We have to realize that these are our problems — hiding them is not going to make them go away. Only when we take ownership of the issues can things change.” The South Asian family portrait of the model minority, set in its gilded frame, is an imposing one with its many wonderful qualities of family unity, respect for elders and its passion for hard work and enter- prise. If only the people in this portrait would unload the heavy weight of unnec- essary cultural baggage from their shoul- ders! If they would only question some of the so-called golden rules that they follow. And if only knowing that society is really a structure of glass, they not throw stones at those who err or fall by the wayside. Yes, what this self-congratulatory portrait needs is introspection, a human heart and the courage to acknowledge its imperfec- tions and affect change. 0000000
Sikh Virsa Calgary
185.
Nov., 2011
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