Where the Desis Are

When I was being recruited for my job, everyone at the office was over twice my age and I expressed my concern over how I would meet people my age and make friends. My employer-to-be drove me around the city to show me that there were plenty of young professionals in Baltimore. He assured me that I would have no problem making friends, and today I can confirm that he was right. Nevertheless, I distinctly remember something that bugged me on our drive around. I only saw one Asian person during the drive, and all day I didn’t see a single person of Indian origin.

I grew up in Ames, Iowa. The local Indian community in Ames has always been a big part of my life, and I imagine always will be. When I went to college in Iowa City I struggled to connect with other students of Indian origin, even though I participated in the Indian students’ association, I was in a group dance for Diwali one year, and I was even the master of ceremonies at the Diwali program the next year.

This struggle continued into graduate school, where I had a little more luck in making connections but still never quite found the right group. At Penn, there was the South Asia Society, which was heavily dominated by undergraduates. There was Rangoli, a student association primarily of PhD students in engineering and other sciences who grew up in India. The medical school, dental school, and business school all seemed to have their own Indian students’ associations. I ultimately became a member of the Wharton India Club, because they were a diverse, fun group of people who seemed most open to my participation. Nevertheless, I still felt like a bit of an anomaly, but also had a little more success connecting to the desi community in grad school than I did in college.

Now I live in Baltimore. I adore this city, yet its “black and white” mentality occasionally grates on my nerves. I have desi friends in this area (desi means of the country, as in “of India”) and yet still feel like an exception to the rule: desis are doctors or engineers and live in the suburbs while I am a city planner working at a community development nonprofit and I live in the city. I do not just live in the city to live close to work, I live here because I enjoy an urban lifestyle.

I have an Indian friend within the city limits who is a graduate student at Hopkins, and we bonded over both being anomalies – she’s studying public policy. We both really enjoy our dual culture, Indian and American.

Other than that, my other Indian friends live in Howard County or in Washington, D.C. I try to tell my Howard County friends that living in Baltimore is great, but they contest that there are hardly any desis here. The other night one of my friends told me that all the white young professionals he knew in his office chose to live in Baltimore city, whereas all the Indian young professionals chose to live in Howard County.

My D.C. friends seem to have an appreciation for Baltimore’s quirks but don’t have cars in which to come here. Furthermore, desis get why other desis would choose to live in D.C.: it's perceived as more diverse and with more fun things to do than Baltimore.

Feeling like an anomaly gets a little tiresome. Even though in many ways I think being different is one of my greatest assets, I still want to connect with the desi community. I want to be able to accept who I am while also accepting who they are. I often wonder if there is truth in our impressions of where we choose to live and work, or choose not to. A lot of times, people are pretty perceptive of their surroundings, but actually knowing some of the facts helps us know whether things are just in our heads or if there’s something to our impressions.

All of this is a long preamble to what may be the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done. In the same screwed up way that finally being diagnosed with a disease after feeling sick and not knowing why for a long time makes a person feel better, I thought I would look up some census data about where the desis are and see if I could diagnose whether I really am an anomaly. I looked at U.S. Census 2000 Demographic Profile Highlights for the Asian Indian Population for various geographies, based on Summary File 2 (SF 2) and Summary File 4 (SF 4). I also looked at U.S. Census 2000 Demographic Profile Highlights for the Asian population as a whole, based on Summary File 1 (SF 1) and Summary File 3 (SF 3) and U.S. Census 2005 American Community Survey Data Profile Highlights for the Asian population as a whole so I could get a sense of the changes from 2000-2005. Data for the Asian Indian subgroup of the Asian population is not available in the 2005 data, and not all places have 2005 data. All of this might sound complicated if you haven’t used Census data before – but it’s not as crazy as it sounds, look up http://factfinder.census.gov and you’ll probably be able to find some fun facts of your own.

People are always amused when I tell them I am from Iowa, because I do not exactly fit the stereotypical mental image of what an Iowan looks like. Plus people on the coasts or from large metropolitan areas find it fascinating that people, whatever their race, live anywhere in between. So two of the geographies I selected are my hometown Ames, Iowa and the state of Iowa as a whole. I also looked up Baltimore city, Baltimore County (which is not inclusive of Baltimore city), Howard County, and the state of Maryland as a whole, as well as the city of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

I computed the percentage of the total population in each selected geography that was Asian Indian and Asian, changes over time, and the percentage of Asians who were Indian. I compared percentages between the selected geographies.







I also calculated the percentage of Indians who are foreign born – a lot of times, I think there is a societal bias towards thinking we are all immigrants, but I am American, born and raised. It is true that most Asian Indians are either immigrants themselves or come from families who have only been in the United States for one or two generations. Yet I feel strongly about asserting my identity as an Indian-American, and I think many of my counterparts do as well.



Finally, I calculated how many of us are homeowners, how many are renters, and how long, on average, most of us are willing to travel to work. I compared these numbers with numbers for the general population.





It seems that in all the selected geographies, Indians generally had a shorter commuting distance, but in the United States as a whole had a slightly longer commuting distance. I don’t know why it’s longer for the United States as a whole, I wonder if certain areas that I didn’t look at (such as the New York metro area or San Francisco Bay Area?) skew the results, or whether the areas I chose are unusual. But this confirms my sense that in the places where I’ve lived, Indians tend to prefer living close to work.

The housing data surprised me. Given that we are regarded as a relatively wealthy, upwardly mobile subpopulation, I thought we would exceed the average rates of homeownership. On the contrary, Asian Indians were less likely to be homeowners than the general population for every selected geography including the United States as a whole.

And regarding being an anomaly? Take a look at all the data for Baltimore city. Pretty abysmal I think... with the exception of the state of Iowa as a whole, Baltimore has the lowest percentage of Asian Indians in the places I analyzed. Anyone who knows me knows I would not advocate for Baltimore to lose any of its current population. I think this city could stand to add to its population, rather than replace anyone who’s already here. It would be nice if some more Asian Indians chose to live here, but they’re not going to just come-a-flocking just because I live here and I said it’s a great place to live. So, I am left wondering, what is it about our cities that fail to attract Asian Indians as residents, and why do the suburbs succeed in attracting Asian Indians? What in particular is it about Baltimore being the way it is, and Howard County being the way it is, what’s changing, and why?

Please feel free to comment on this post. I hope that people are able to see the charts and tables okay, right now they are jpgs but I might try to figure out how to get excel files in here directly or else work on hosting my own website. For the moment I think I've exceeded my nerdiness quotient, at least for the day.

If there are particular things you’d like to add or you’d like me to look up let me know, this is just a start. I know there are many cities and many subpopulations I didn’t look at, and that this analysis is very basic... but I hope it gets a dialogue going!

Mount Vernon in the Pink Evening Light

view around 7:20 PM, 9/19/06
Originally uploaded by spunky star fruit girl.

I decided to exchange going to yoga this evening with a slightly longer walk home to the wine store, so I could relax with a glass of Rioja and my writing. On the way back home, I noticed the magnificent streetscape that exists throughout Mount Vernon: even massive, modern buildings have a manageable and pleasant presence on the ground level. In other words, people walking by would not be overwhelmed by buildings much larger or taller than the surrounding buildings, because these buildings have street-level convenience stores or landscaping to offset their immense scale.

My infatuation with cities, art, and architecture go hand in hand. For example, I cannot walk around an architecturally rich neighborhood at dusk without thinking of Edward Hopper. His paintings of sunlight on buildings truly capture the texture of city life.

(For an example, visit: http://www.vmfa.state.va.us/collections/53_8.html).

This evening I poured myself a glass of wine, opened my window, and looked outside. At that time, a luscious light enrobed the neighborhood like pink cellophane. To the west, the sky was a brilliant blue. A calmness transcended the scene, not as quiet as the world seems after snowfall, but muffled and serene nevertheless. The air still had a touch of summer humidity but it was tinged with a cool, slow breeze hinting at the coming winter.

The neighborhood and sky transformed as the sun set. The pinkness diminished, to be replaced by gray-blue and then slate. As this happened, streetlights, reflections, and illuminated windows became more apparent. A more perceptible arc formed near the horizon of the western sky, formed by the light yellow halo of the sun and surrounded by mauve, melon, and light blue. I watched a woman with a backpack walking south and her shadow pointed to eight o’clock. Sure enough it was almost 8PM. The sky near the Inner Harbor, to the southeast of me, was slate gray and hazy and the lights over Key Bridge twinkled.

Appreciating my living space

A couple of weeks ago fall hit Baltimore in full force. As soon as the calendar changed to September, the weather cooled down. My apartment and I were so relieved! I do not have central air conditioning in my apartment and I had no idea how much the heat had been getting to me. All of a sudden I had the energy to move some furniture around in my living room and spend some quality time with my kitchen.

I love my apartment. I do not have a dishwasher, central air conditioning, a garbage disposal, carpet, a washer and dryer, or a balcony. There is no window in my kitchen. The linoleum on my kitchen floor and in the bathroom were poorly laid and are fairly ugly. I live on the eighth floor, which is the top floor of the building. This means there is no way to wash the outsides of my windows so when a bird flies by and relieves itself, I get to cherish the gift it leaves for me months and months. It used to be possible to sneak up to the rooftop, which is what many drunken tenants and their guests occasioned to do – very loudly – after closing time on weeknights. That stopped when someone apparently stuffed a piece of wood down the elevator shaft and rendered the elevator broken. For the next four months. The elevator is up and running again, but still makes for a bumpy, uneasy ride. It always seems to be on the verge of breaking down again and makes my guests a little nervous every time they come visit me. The common areas of the building are gross: dimly lit, could use some new carpet, sometimes smell funny. I feel slightly mortified by the prelude to my apartment every time someone is coming over for the first time.

I love my apartment. I have a decorative fireplace. Once upon a time, this fireplace kept the living room warm. Once upon a time the living room may have been an office or waiting room, from what I hear the reason every apartment in my building is configured differently is because the building used to be all doctor's offices. Today, the fireplace and mantle are a place for my trinkets, plants, and tapered candles stuffed into wine bottles. Except for the kitchen and bathroom, the apartment has beautiful hardwood floors that were refinished just before I moved in a year ago. The apartment is spacious and has nine-foot high ceilings. It gets amazing natural light, coming through two large wood-framed windows in the living room, a bay in my bedroom, and a large window in the bathroom. These windows face downtown, and I can see a sliver of the Inner Harbor from my bedroom. The view, the fireplace, the bay window, the hardwood floors, the location, and the bargain rent made moving here a no-brainer.

Climbing up seven flights of stairs with several bags of groceries or overloading the circuits just by plugging in my iron when the window unit air conditioners and fans are on make me acknowledge that eventually I will want to move. But now fall is here, I just renewed my lease, and I feel satisfied enjoying my great view and my fake fireplace.

Nokia Reincarnation (the new phone)

Nokia Reincarnation (the new phone)
Originally uploaded by spunky star fruit girl.

The phone started acting funny so I turned it off... and then it would not turn back on. The next 24 hours were somewhat angsty: finding the numbers of people I was meeting up with that night, then not being able to text or call friends when we split up into smaller groups, not being able to call my friend Elizabeth in California to debrief the events of the night at 2AM EDT, trying to get a hold of people by email early Sunday morning to try to make plans for the day, and then waiting until noon to go to the Sprint store since it was Sunday and wouldn't open until noon.

When I got to the Sprint store I put my name on the list, and when my name was called I explained to the customer service agent that I had tried to prevent this from happening way back in June. At that time, the phone wasn’t charging properly so I took it to the store, went through the ordeal of waiting in line for an hour, and was told by an agent that someone would contact me in three to five business days once a free replacement phone arrived at the store. I waited two weeks or so and called the store, was redirected to an 800 number, and then redirected to an answering machine at the store. I left a message and no one ever called me back.

Yeah, I could have been even more proactive at the time. I could have spent more time on hold on the phone or leaving more messages or driving to the store and waiting in line to be told the same thing all over again. But since my phone was working I fell into complacency. The customer service agent was sure to lecture me that my phone was my responsibility. Apparently, good customer service was not her responsibility or her coworkers? After a lot of bickering back and forth she told me that rather than us wasting our breath why don’t I go talk to the manager.

I waited patiently for the manager to finish the breath-wasting conversation he was engaged in, with a customer who hadn’t paid his bill but wanted his phone turned back on. I then told the manager the whole story. He looked into it. After clicking some buttons on his computer and going into the back room, he came back with a newer model of my phone. He clicked a few more buttons and soon thereafter I had my reincarnated Nokia phone.

Sure, it would have been kind of fun to get a whole new phone, after enduring the pain of picking one out, shelling out the cash (actually, plastic) and learning how to use a new phone. But I was satisfied to walk away with the reincarnation. Hopefully I’m still eligible for an upgrade in December... didn’t think to ask that, oops.

Involuntarily purging a lot of information can come with its advantages. I can think of two times this happened to me. A few years ago I had a Hotmail account that contained a number of emails I was only keeping for sentimental reasons. At that time, Hotmail deleted everything in your account if you didn’t log in for thirty days. I was away on vacation and forgot to log on... and when I finally did, everything was gone. Technology helped me learn how to become a little less of a pack rat, to let go of the past, and purge.

I’m still not that good at it; most of my info-purging is still involuntary. When my phone decided to go kaput, there was a teeny-weeny little sense of relief. Gone are the numbers of guys who I shouldn’t call and who will probably never call me. Gone are the numbers of so-called friends uninterested in calling back. Gone are the numbers of people I met once and know I am never going to call but whose numbers were still in my phone just in case.

Between having other ways to contact people such as email, Friendster, mutual friends/relatives/co-workers, and my excellent Google-stalking skills, I think I can get a hold of people if I really want to. Also, I do live in Smaltimore and I run into people I know in places like the Hong Kong airport or in the cable car line in San Francisco or on Devon Street in Chicago. Or I meet people on the East Coast who somehow know people I knew back in Iowa.

There is a little fear that some people will be difficult to google-stalk and who might actually want to hear from me and now I’ve lost their info... but thankfully I am easy to google-stalk even if they aren’t.

I am very reluctant to change my cell phone number for a whole bunch of ridiculous “just in case” reasons... but I don’t know if there is a way to involuntarily lose my 215 area code.

As a result of this involuntarily purge, I’ve emailed a whole bunch of people I haven’t talked to in a long time... the irony is how losing all my phone numbers has made me more connected to my world!