Dr. Kani’s Take: Introducing our new column

I am very grateful to have been invited to write a regular column in Central Desi. First off, I want to introduce myself. I am a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, a mother of two teens, an author of three books, and an activist based in Mercer County. 

I was born in Chicago in the 1970s and was raised in a mostly white community at a time when meeting another South Asian family was a special occasion, like meeting long-lost relatives. 

There were two other South Asian families on our block, and the rest of our community was white. I felt a kinship towards other South Asians and viewed all South Asian adults as my aunties and uncles. 

I was very grateful that my family was part of the Chicago Tamil Sangam—a local organization that shared Tamil musical, dramatic and cultural events and youth talent shows—and that, every few weeks, I would get to be with others who looked like me, ate similar foods, and spoke the same language.

Our community treated me with warmth, care and respect, and I grew up trusting other South Asians. That trust was instilled by my parents.

Putting trust in strangers

When my father got a residency position in Chicago in 1971, the hospital gave him a plane ticket and a small allowance of $8 for travel. He spent $3 in Rome and $3.50 on airport tax during a stopover in Italy, landing in Chicago with $1.50. 

At O’Hare Airport, he went to a public phone, looked at the phone book and began calling people with Tamil names to see if they would pick him up and take him to his apartment. Amazingly, he found someone who was willing to do so. Balasubramanian, who was the president of the Chicago Tamil Sangam did not have a car, so he called his friend Ganesan, and they both came together to pick up my father from the airport.

Balasubramanian Uncle hosted my father for a meal, and then they dropped my dad off at the hospital hostel. When my dad got his first paycheck, he went back to Balasubramanian Uncle's house and brought toys for his kids.

My dad's optimism and confidence in the goodness of others is something I have always admired. But, as an American who grew up in a culture less based on communal trust, I have also been wary of it.

Living among Desis in Jersey

When I moved to West Windsor, one of my South Asian American colleagues told me that she didn’t like the town because “there are too many Indians here.”

I laughed and asked her why she said that, and she said I would come to realize why with time.

What I came to understand is that when many South Asian Americans gather together, the problems of South Asia come along with them (e.g, religious intolerance, caste prejudice, right-wing politics, etc). Now, I am cautious when I meet South Asian Americans and am unsure of what their beliefs and feelings are about our shared humanity. 

I grew up reading India Abroad and remember reading about Dotbusters in New Jersey with concern and fear. At that time, I didn’t know that I would end up in Jersey post 9/11, when one of my loved ones was racially profiled and falsely accused of a crime because he looked similar to a South Asian man who robbed a convenience store. Fortunately, he was out of the country at the time of the crime, so he was not taken to the police station. That was terrifying. I didn’t know then that Desi men would shave their beards or that we would wear American flag pins and put American flag stickers on our cars to be seen as safe, patriotic South Asian Americans. 

I also didn’t know that, years later amid the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when anti-Asian hate was escalating, my home state of Illinois would be the first to mandate Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) curriculum in schools and that I would lead the coalition advocating for a mandate in New Jersey. 

I didn’t know many things back then, but there is one thing I knew then that I would love to know now, which is that I am safe with South Asian Americans, that they are my aunties and uncles and my unofficial cousins and grandparents, and that we love, protect and support one another. 

I hope in my column, I can relearn that and share it with you all.

Dr. Kani Ilangovan is a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist, mother, writer and activist. She is a board member of The E Pluribus Unum Project and works for pluralistic curriculum advocacy.

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