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‘Life is a balancing act’, holds good even for resolving cultural conflicts in a fast moving and migrating world. With the forces of globalization and free market economy, migration to a country with a different culture has become inevitable. This has resulted in a clash between the old and the new, Eastern and Western cultures. The Indian diaspora living in the USA is a glaring example.  The identification of cultural challenges faced by the immigrants is the first step in finding out solutions. 

What is culture? Culture is what the society acquires and perpetuates from one generation to other. It includes food habit, language, dress code, family relationship, religious customs, festivals, art and music, and subtle ways of living. Culture is mainly formed through parental influence, it is shaped up through formal education and informal experience, from the society.   When the people are alienated from their mother tongue and motherland, their culture clashes with a new culture. This results in the synthesis of cultures, through selective absorption. 

The Indian diaspora living in the USA, is a large contingent of 4.9 million immigrants, only next to China (5.4 million). Thanks to IT revolution, and software industry growth in India, more and more techies have landed in USA. More than 25 big firms are led by the Indian CEOs.  India has a strong community of doctors besides scientists and student community.  

The Indian diaspora in the USA, reflects the phenomenon of ‘unity in diversity’, that is found in India, in terms of language and religion. They belong to all major religions, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Sikhism. They speak several languages, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, and all South Indian languages. Interestingly, Telugu is now the fastest growing language in the USA, spoken by more than 400,000 people, owing to the huge migration of IT professionals from Andhra Pradesh. Though the Indian community in the USA is widely scattered, at the same time, each group has strong bond with its native culture. For example, Bengalis celebrate Durga Pooja, so also Maharashtrians observe Ganesh festival. Diwali is even recognized by the White House, if not as the official festival, not-withstanding  the criticism by the environmentalists on the negative impact of fire work.   

More than the festivals, the biggest challenge for the Indian immigrants is perhaps, to guard their kids who are schooling.  The basic problem is that the immigrants, having born and brought up in India, still expect their children to follow the Indian way of food habit, dress code and cultural practices, amidst American way of life, which is an uphill task. The kids are sandwiched between American way of freedom on one hand, and Indian way of parental control on the other hand. The parental control may even extend, to decide what kids should eat, what they should wear, how they should behave, and what career goals they should aspire.  

The kids, having tasted the new freedom, rebel at home, and switch over to western culture quickly, in order to gain acceptance from their peers. In the process, they may think of Indian culture as ‘out of fashion’, which becomes a bone of contention. For example, the parents insist their girl child to sport ‘Bindi’ while going to school. The girl resists it under peer pressure. Further, she switches over to jeans and shorts, leading to more fire work at home. 

In India, the parents can, restrict their kids from using mobile phone and internet. But in the USA, it is mandatory for the teenagers to possess their own mobile and e-mail account for registration to avail medical facility. The freedom and privilege to possess mobile and internet at such vulnerable teen age, creates a lot of fear and anxiety for the parents. If they oppose and punish their children by chance, the kids can call the cops and get them arrested!      

Though, mischievous behavior like bullying and temper tantrum are common in schools in all societies, the American kids are further vulnerable to the growing rate of violence and gun culture. This is a threat to the peace loving population of immigrants.    

The children entering teenage, encounter additional problems such as dating which is the general norm in the USA. This is a source of anxiety to the parents who believe in the sanctity of arranged marriage as opposed to the love marriage. The increasing rate of divorce cases in the USA is a matter of concern to most.

Even perception of success by the Indian immigrants and their counterpart in the USA is different. Indian parents want their children to pursue hard career such as science, technology and medicine, while the Americans prefer careers that bring financial reward and  work-life balance. 

Even after weighing the pros and cons of both the cultures, the Indian immigrants, at the end of the day want to settle down in the USA. They value the rich infrastructure, facilities and comfortable living, in contrast with the hard realities of Indian society, such as overpopulation, poor infrastructure, too few well paid jobs, limited scope for merit and talent, corruption, bureaucracy and red tape.   They don’t mind waiting patiently for the green card and subsequently American citizenship. They fear that returning to India means, facing tough competition in the Indian job market, and missing a cozy and comfortable American life.

Thinking positively, the cultural integration of Indian diaspora with the American society is just possible with a balancing act. We can learn lessons and tips from the successful individuals, communities and organizations who have set examples for others to follow. We will explore them in the next episode. 

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