Dr. Kani’s Take: The taboo of marrying outside the culture

After my last column, we received this letter:

Hi,

I enjoyed reading Kani's article today, and admire the work she is doing in the local community as a psychiatrist and advocate. Kani and most of the Desis I know in NJ (both US raised and immigrants) can agree with her that a good portion of our fellow desis can be really toxic. It seems the community connections revolve around material success and what caste/religion/ subgroup you are. And everything is just one big competition. None of that is conducive to creating true community and connection. It is no surprise so many first-generation Desis are marrying non-Desis and leaving the community. 

Our community's segregating themselves, although normal for immigrants, also creates insularity and no diversity. 

Warm Regards, 

Madhavi (pseudonym)

I’m grateful to Madhavi for allowing me to share her kind and insightful letter via a pseudonym. I’m curious to what extent you agree with Madhavi’s reflections. One of the issues that Madhavi brings up is cross-cultural marriages, and I will discuss that in today’s column.

As a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist, I often work with immigrant families. There are certain challenges and conflicts that arise when parents who are raised in one culture move to a new culture with different values, worldview, and social mores, and begin raising their children there. It can be confusing and painful for the immigrant parents to accept and accommodate their children’s growth and maturity in a world that may always remain alien to them. 

My parents came to America as pioneers, the first members of their families to venture abroad and begin a new life elsewhere. They each brought many of their siblings to settle here as well. There have been many great opportunities for growth in this move to America, but also some unavoidable cultural conflicts. 

In South Asia, parents sacrifice everything for their children and in return, they expect their children to act for the common good of the family and follow their parents’ wishes and expectations. When I say thank you to my South Asian relatives, it is often discouraged. To say thank you is an insult. There is no thank you owed to family members. It is to be expected that family members will do whatever they can to make you happy and comfortable. This is one of the beauties of South Asian culture—its loving generosity and hospitality. 

As Hasan Minhaj joked in his recent Netflix special, “Have you ever seen an Indian homeless person in America?”

Of course, there likely are Indian homeless people in America, and I don’t want to perpetuate a model minority myth that there are none. But I agree with his point that many adult Desis can return to their families’ homes and be greeted with open arms.

There is also a dark side, though. If you can’t express your thanks in words, then the only way you can do so is through your actions. If your parents provide everything for you, then your only acceptable recourse is to respect and act on their wishes. 

In America, non-Desi parents vary more in their degrees of sacrifice for their children and, in turn, have fewer expectations. There is more of an understanding that “good fences make good neighbors.” Boundaries are preserved, and it is more understood that children will make their own choices, even if their parents disagree. 

My own defiance of my parents’ wishes

My parents have been very loving, devoted, and generous. I am very grateful to them. They gave me everything they could financially, and I graduated with zero debt after my college and medical school. 

But I did not become a neurologist like my father wanted. I chose to be a psychiatrist, even though my father called everyone he knew and asked them to persuade me not to be a psychiatrist. 

I also didn’t follow the path my parents imagined for me when it came to marriage.

I know of my parents’ love of Tamil. I know about the attempted suppression of Tamil language in favor of Hindi as the national language at the time of Independence. I grew up with a resentment of North Indian, Hindi-speaking oppression. I heard my parents’ stories about caste oppression in India and of wrongs perpetuated in the name of Hindu religion. 

I grew up in a secular humanist home that was devoted to the precepts of Periyar, a social reformer who worked tirelessly on behalf of women, children, lower castes, and the poor. Periyar was a mixture of Socrates and Santa Claus to me. 

Despite having these beliefs, in college, I fell in love with and later married a North Indian Hindi speaker who was the son of a Hindu priest. My father felt personally offended and asked me if I had chosen my husband to spite him. This, of course, was not the case. 

To know my husband is to love him. I admired his feminism, humanism, kindness, intelligence, and generous heart. He taught me about yoga and meditation, which are not necessarily identified with any particular religion. We shared so many of the same ideals despite coming from such different backgrounds. 

My very kind and patient mother was supportive of me and trusted my judgment, but my Ammachi (maternal grandmother) was furious with me for being the first person in my family not to get an arranged marriage. 

She refused to talk to me for seven years. The last time I saw her, she took me into her room to watch some Tamil soap operas with her. She asked me, “I heard a story about why you married him. You were going to your college library, and you got hit by a car when you were crossing the street. He picked you up and carried you to the hospital. Then, you felt you had to marry him because he was the first man who had touched you. Is this true?” 

I couldn’t stop laughing and told her it wasn’t true. She looked very disappointed. Later, when my cousin was getting married to a smart, lovely, Caucasian woman, my Ammachi wanted to attend the wedding. She changed a lot over the years. Thank goodness! 

Over time, my father came around as well. My father, a secular humanist, took my husband and his family on a tour of the temples of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. He stood outside in the baking heat waiting for us as we viewed the temples. My husband, his family, and I respected my father very much for putting aside his philosophical differences to share these places with us, knowing that we would enjoy visiting them. I will always treasure and remember his attempts to accommodate us, which we deeply appreciated as acts of love and generosity. 

What I hear in therapy

I see South Asian American patients in my office who come to me in shock over the upheaval that comes with cross-cultural marriages. Mothers and fathers tell me: 

Our children do not understand that when they marry someone, that person is marrying our entire family. 

It cannot work. The cultural differences are too great. 

Their spouse does not understand our culture. They will likely get divorced. 

Their children will be too confused. There will be no place for them. 

How dare my child betray me in this way? 

My child has been lying to me for years. 

I have given them everything. How can they repay me like this? 

I see young South Asian American adults, who are traumatized by the depths of their parents’ anxiety and depression as a result of the choices the children have made. They tell me: 

My parents have done everything for me. How can I do this to them? 

I have been living a double life, because I know they could not accept what I am doing and I don’t want to upset them. 

Now I know I love my partner, and I want to spend the rest of my life with them. Should I throw that love away to please my parents? 

Who is getting married—me or them? 

I am afraid of losing my relationship with my parents, that they will never forgive me, that they will never accept my spouse or our future children. 

I am afraid that if I do this, it will cause irreparable damage to our relationship.

In my therapy with families in distress about cross-cultural marriages, I try my best to console both parties. I teach them to listen to each other and find a path to letting go, forgiveness and a fresh start.  

I often share that, in my extended family, everyone born after 1984 has married non-Desis. I also share that one of our wedding guests declared that my husband and I are engineers—we are building bridges. I feel similarly about cross-cultural marriages.

We are fortunate to be bridge builders by being products of two cultures. We can be cultural opportunists and take what we like best from both cultures. 

In America, Western models of parenting are often valorized whereas, Asian American models of parenting are seen as too domineering and not emotionally responsive enough. 

Many people know the five love languages as defined by Gary Chapman: touch, quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, and gifts. Dr. Russell Jeung gave a fascinating talk on Asian American Love Languages, which you can view on Asian Parenting. He describes Asian American love languages as follows: loyal love vs. individuation, presence vs. phones, food vs. words, favor vs. shame, and sacrifice vs. convenience. 

He made the point that Asian American love languages promote emotional intelligence and that the collective orientation in Asian American culture focuses on the group as well as the individual. 

My hope for my own children

I hope that I can let go and accept what choices my children make when they are adults. I hope that I will give them all that I can and trust in them to make their own choices and learn from their own mistakes. Kahlil Gibran expressed it so eloquently in his poem “On Children”: 

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

As much as I want to protect my children always, they know better than me sometimes, and I love learning from them.

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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