Hello you gorgeous individuals, it's
Kav here and welcome back to my channel
after a month or so of a break, if you're
new here welcome for the first time, but
if you've stuck around with me for this
long welcome back. Today I'm going to be
doing a little bit different of a video -
some of you may know that it's currently
Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage
Month and I thought that I would make a
video dedicated to that about my
experiences as an Asian American teen in
America. These are just my experience,s
I'm not speaking for anyone else - I'm a
South Indian teen growing up in a
liberal part of America so my
experiences are just my own, I'm not
speaking for anyone else - Asia is a giant
continent with people of many different
cultures and then there's also the aspect
that it's also Pacific Islander Heritage
Month so they all have their own culture
as well and I'm growing up where I'm growing up,
so my experiences are different than
anyone else's, so this is just my story
and I'm not trying to speak for anyone
else except for me. I asked you all to
send me some questions on my social
media and I'm basically just going to be
going with those because I think that
they all cover the major aspects I
wanted to cover in this video, so just
sit back ,grab some popcorn - that's what
the kids eat nowadays, and watch this
video. Okay, the first question is just
whether or not I ever wear any
traditional Indian clothing such as a
sari or anything else. I do, but not very
often,
like, I wouldn't wear it in my day-to-day
life just because that's not how I've
grown up I guess. I've grown up being
very westernized/Americanized - whether
that's a good thing or a bad thing is a
different topic. If I'm in India or if
I'm going to some sort of the festival or
special event I will wear Indian clothes -
I don't generally wear saris just
because they are a lot of work and they
don't seem very comfortable to wear and
many of you may know that I'm
not very comfortable in like dress or
skirt-type clothing - "traditionally female"
clothing, so I tend to wear chudidars
or salwar kameez if I do wear
Indian clothes because those are more
comfortable for me and I think that they
are all absolutely gorgeous - I think
Indian clothing in general is very
absolutely gorgeous, but those are just
my personal preference if I do wear
Indian clothes. The next set of questions
revolves around being lgbtq+ in India.
There is a lot of stigma against the
lgbtq+ community in India - homosexuality
as an act is actually still illegal
there, so it's kind of about my
experiences dealing with that. So the
first question is how has my experience
been in my community being both a person
of color and an lgbtq+ individual. I
think that that definitely has affected
me, I recently wrote a thread talking
about how my skin color and my race
comes before the fact that I'm lgbtq+
and that's something that I saw a few
people agree with. I don't really know
how to explain the reasoning behind that,
but I think it's just that my race is
something that has kind of made me who I
am since I was a kid. My entire family
comes from this same culture and it's a
big part of me, like, of course, being
LGBTQ+ is also a big part of me - you
guys hear me talk about it practically
all the time, but it's not the same as me
being South Indian. Being a queer teen of
color also shows its own challenges
because then there are these nuances
between the different marginalizations
that I'm a part of because within
marginalization there are levels of
privilege and that's something that
people don't really talk about a lot
because you don't want to take away from
the fact that being marginalized is
being marginalized and even with that
level of privilege
people are still marginalized, but as I
said there are levels. For example, as a
non black person of color
I have it easier than someone who is a
black person, but that doesn't take away
from my struggles as a person of color.
Being a queer teen of color definitely
has its own challenges because I have to
find a way to bridge the gap between
these two communities that don't always
have a bridge between them, but I think
that that's something that people like
me have to work towards because we're
the only ones who know what that's like
from a personal account. As much as any allies try their best to help they
don't really know how it feels to not
really be fully in either community
because there are aspects of yourself
that are sometimes not respected or not
included in both communities. So the
second question is how there is a lot of
stigma around the lgbtq+ community in
the Indian community and she asks
whether that was something that was
really hard for me or not something I
had to think about. Most of you know that
I am pretty much publicly open - I'm open
to my immediate family, I'm open to my
friends and my school in real life, and
I'm also open publicly online, so I've
had it relatively easy having people be
accepting of me being an LGBTQ+
individual and that's something I've
talked about how I'm really grateful for
and really thankful for, but the only
people I'm actually not open to are my
family that live in India because I
don't know what they know or where they
stand on it because I know that the view
of the lgbtq+ community is very
different there than it is here and as I
said, homosexuality as an act is still
illegal there, so it has affected me in
some minor ways in the way that I still
can't be as publicly open as I want to
be because I don't know how my family is
going to react -
I'm actually not open to anyone on my
dad's side of the family besides my dad
because they're mainly all in India so
I'm not really sure how they would react
to me being queer. Do you ever feel like
you're Asian-American identitiy comes in conflict with other parts of
your identity and what does that look
and feel like for you.
I wouldn't say it ever comes in conflict
with other parts of my identity - has it
ever been hard being Asian-American? Yes.
Growing up I didn't understand racism, I
didn't understand internalized racism
and the internalized belief that white
is superior as well as I do now,
so I actually internalized a lot of that
myself and I had a lot of hard
experiences coming to terms with my skin
color and being South Indian growing up,
but I don't know if it's ever really
affected the other parts of my identity.
I don't think that me being Indian has
ever affected me being queer or anything
of that sort, but has it affected my
mental illnesses? Definitely - because as I
said, I internalized a lot of that racism
myself and I think that contributed to a
lot of my anxiety and depression growing
up, so in that way I guess it has
definitely affected some parts of me, but
I don't know if it's necessarily
something I would consider a conflict.
Okay, so the next questions are focusing
on media that I would recommend, so the
first question is do you have any book
reading material to recommend about your
culture, I'm interested in both fiction
and nonfiction, but I don't know where to
start. I've talked about this before, but
there's not a lot of literature out
there that I'm really a fan of. My go-to
is When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
because I think that it talks about the
positive and negative aspects of Indian
culture really well and it is an own
voices novel, so it's written well and I
think it just creates a great balance
between that of being proud of your
culture, but also being able to criticize
the aspects that aren't necessarily good
because, of course, no culture is perfect
there are issues within them all - I
assume so at least, from what I've seen.
As you all know, I'm mainly focused in
YA literature and that's really the
only novel I have that I've found to be
very good Indian rep. What's something I
wish everyone knew or
was aware of? I think that people need to
be more aware that Asia is a giant
continent that has so many different
countries and all these different
countries and different places have
their own cultures. I hate it when people
just act like East Asia is the only place
in Asia and also that East Asia is just
one country itself because Asia is giant
and there are so many different
countries throughout it and I really
wish people understood that better
instead of just assuming that we're all
one - if you see a brown person you just
automatically assume they're Indian,
that's completely incorrect. What's
something I wish more people understood
about South Indian culture? Kind of
similar to the last question, I wish that
more people were aware that India itself
is a giant country and that we don't all
speak Hindi and live in Delhi because
that's completely inaccurate. I've had
people come up to me and asked me if
India even is in Asia or if I speak
Indian, which Indian's not a language.
India itself is a giant country and
North India and South India are very
different and there are a lot of
differences between it and I just wish
that people understood that. And the next
question is what are the main
differences between North Indians and
South Indians. So South India is
basically hated by India to put it
simply. It comes from a long history, but
one of the biggest issues that I tend to
focus on is colorism because that's
something that I think I've
internalized growing up, so that's
something that I have wanted no one else
to feel or face. So basically, I tend to
think of it as North India is the more
westernized part of India it's like
where Delhi is - it's the part where
people know, it's the part where
everyone speaks Hindi - well, not everyone
of course because there are a lot of
languages in North India itself - but this
is the part people know of, people don't really pay attention to
South India, they kind of just pretend it
doesn't exist and I think that's
probably one of the biggest reasons I
haven't found any good Indian rep out
there because I try to look more towards
South Indian represenation
and I cannot really think of a single
form of media that has that off the
top of my head. But, as I said, one of the
main aspects I focus on is colorism
which is a big issue in India. South
Indians are generally darker than North
Indians. There are a lot of creams that,
like. are like "we'll lighten your skin and
stuff" and it's really infuriating. As I
said, I've dealt with that and
internalized that growing up - when I was
in elementary school, I used to ask my
parents why I was the darkest one in the
family because I was taught that being
dark is bad which is ridiculous
because, like, my skin color doesn't say
anything about the type of person I am -
to a certain extent, I mean, I mean my
skin color is related to my heritage, so
in some ways it does contribute to the
person I am, but like it doesn't
contribute to whether I am a good or bad
person based on how dark my skin is and
that's one of the biggest things I hate.
Do I have a favorite South Indian
youtuber or blogger? My favorite South
Indian kind of bookish personality is
Mana or jinoraslight, I will link her
Twitter in the description below, she
talks about these issues even more than
I do, so I highly recommend following her.
All of these questions are basically
about my favorite thing it's what do I
love most about my culture, what's my
favorite thing about it, so I guess I'll
just talk about some parts of my culture
that I really do enjoy. I have mentioned
how I've grown up as a Hindu before and
most of you may know that I am an
atheist, so I'm not religious in any way,
but I think that Hinduism is more a
culture than it is a religion and I'm
very glad I have that background even if
I have grown up to be an atheist because
it really contributed to me eventually
growing up to be proud of being Indian
because as a child I would have my mom
tell me stories from Indian mythology
such as the Mahabharata or Ramayana and
those types of stories have really
helped contribute to who I am and I
think that they have really helped me be
proud and be okay with being an Indian.
And, as I said, I absolutely love Indian
clothing - I think it is some of the most
beautiful clothing there is and Indian
fashion in general, like, if you see an
Indian bride, it's just absolutely
beautiful - Indian weddings are honestly a
lot of fun, they last for a pretty long
time, so I think that I like also the
aspect of our different festivals and
such. And then the next question is what
do I treasure most about my culture. I
don't really know if this is just
something within my family or if it's
more part of the culture, but from what
I've seen it definitely has some
background in the culture and I think
that's the idea of family being really
close and that's something that I really
treasure. I recently talked about it
even - how I'm so fortunate to have a
family that really, truly does love me
and accept me and I think that I'm also
lucky enough that I come from a liberal
enough family that they do accept all
aspects of me, but I definitely think
that being close to your family does
have some background in our culture
because I've seen it with most of the
families and friends I have that are
Indian. I've seen this type of closeness
that I don't know that I necessarily
see with the families that I know that
are from here. So a lot of people have
asked about what are some misconceptions
about South Indian culture or about my
culture in general. I think that goes
back to the stereotypes that I was
talking about - that every single Indian
is good at math and going to be a doctor
or an engineer or that all Indians are
part of the same family or that we all
speak "Indian" (that isn't a real
language) or that we're all Hindus.
There's a lot of them, there's a lot of
stereotypes out there and I think a lot
of that comes from them being
stereotypes, but I think a lot of them
also come from being uneducated which is
why, like I said, I think the education
system needs to change and I think that
people need to start putting in more
effort to really educate themselves
about different cultures around the
world. Okay, those were all the questions
you all had for me - I don't really to know
how long
this video is gonna be because I might
have just kept going on a few times, but
I hope you enjoyed it and I hope it did
give you some aspect of education, I know
there were some questions I couldn't
necessarily answer, but I did it to the
best of my ability. If you guys have any
recommendations for good media please put
them in the comments below because I
could use some of that myself and I'm
sure many other people could as well. As
usual, if you enjoyed this video please
give it a like and subscribe so that you
never miss a new video because I make
new videos every Sunday and they're
usually pretty fun, so you want to be
here for that and thank you all so much
for watching this video. Like I said, I
really hope that you got something from
it
and, you know, you can tell me what you
got in the comments below. And I will see
you next week with a brand new video, I
hope you're having a lovely day or night
wherever you are, please remember that
you are beautiful, and you deserve the
world and good bye!
you
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