In America, Indians are confused for being Middle Eastern or “Arab.”

In Britain, they are dubbed “Asian” while Asian in this country refers to people of East Asian descent (Chinese, Japanese, Korean).

I found nothing offensive about the photo shoot, after all, in fashion, regardless if it is in New York or Mumbai, stereotypes are going to be played out.

In Bollywood, “white women” are in. This has been the case since the Hindi film industry came into existence. Pakistan’s Lollywood is no different, the leading actors and actresses are all fair skin.

I consider myself a non-Desi South Asian since I’m of Afghan (Pushtun) ancestry but I am also 1/8 Mississippi Choctaw. The traditional dress of the Choctaw did not include full feather regalia, that is more representative of the Plains people. My people wear traditional garb that is reminiscent of the French Creole and the dress of the Province region of southern France. Obviously, what is deemed “traditional Choctaw dress” was introduced to my people by European missionaries and French fur trappers.

Pushtuns are fair skin and can pass for being “white” in this country or “Mediterranean.” The majority of the Pushtun community lives in Pakistan’s NWT. My mother is a natural dirty blonde, divorced, and gets the attention of Desi men all the time, married or not.

When I have been to gay Desi events, I notice men tend to gravitate around me. I’m average in height and built, but it seems my fair skin has a premium assigned to it.

Just the thoughts from a South Asian “hapa” with roots in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan.

My ex-gf was a hapa. She and I differed on the definition of hapa. For her, it’s a term for those with at least one white parent (and we all know it’s the father). For me, it’s anyone of mixed descent. The population in Hawaii idealizes a creole standard of beauty. If you ask anyone what their ethnic/racial make-up is the response will surely be at least 3-4 from the following list: Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Haole, Samoan, Puerto Rican, Chinese, etc. Claiming racial purity is seen as going against accepting the creole standard and definitely a violation of the aloha spirit.

It was odd seeing brown paint being put on to create the hapa look. Even if you accept my definition over my gf’s, hapas are generally seen to be lighter-skinned than the rest of the population.

I worked on the set of Lost out there and I once saw the Director become totally fascinated with this little kid who was an extra. He was a mix of Black and something, producing seriously curly blonde hair. Anyways, Hollywood is always on the lookout for the new ‘look’ and let’s face it racial ambiguity has a certain cache these days. The lead singer of the Pussy Cat Dolls is also a hapa from Hawaii.

As an east Indian, I wasn’t offended, seriously… Take is easy. It’s a substandard episode but nothing offensive.

P.S. About the sari — it’s simply six yards of cloth. Drape it any which way you want, no one’s coming gunning for you. Enjoy!

It’s probably going to take a couple generations for people to begin identifying people with culture but not race, as the number of biracial/multiethnic people increases. So hopefully in the future someone like SemiDesiMasala can acknowledge part of her culture without feeling like someone will judge her as unauthentic by her looks – basically we need to get away from people identifying looks with culture. Globalization is good sometimes.

And after we left he said, “wow. I didn’t know the natives of America had such a rich culture”…..

The ENTIRE TIME we were there he thought the whole thing was about feathers, not dots.

Can you believe it?

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tyra+the+soup&search_type=&aq=0&oq=tyra+the+

more clips:

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/tyra_banks/index.html?franchise=the_soup

She’s missed many moments to make meaningful statements on race or ignorance ie, when Heidi and Spencer commented on her show that they wanted to adopt an African child and name him Dunk – cuz, you know – all black people are good at basketball, right ?

Always. You should watch the Tyra show where she dresses up like a homeless person and pan handles for a few hours.