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Okay. So today is Tuesday, June 15, 2021. My name is Emily Ma and I'm here with Dr. Betty Joseph for the Houston Asian American Archive at Rice.

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So to start, when and where were you born? I was born in a small town, in the southwestern part of India in a state called Kerala. And the town was called

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Kanjirapally. And it's–it's in what we call the rubber estate country. So that's where the foothills of the Western Ghats, which are like a hill range, and that's where a lot of

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plantation crops like tea, coffee, rubber, et cetera, are grown. And both my parents came from that part of India. Okay, I see. And I understand that you have one sibling, are you still close with them today? Yes, except that, you know, I–I left home

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when I was 18, to go to college, and he left home when he was 17 to–to join the merchant marines. So we've seen each—we see each other as often as we can, probably once every year. And sometimes it's not once every year because he's often

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sailing. And you know, it all depends on when he comes home. But yes, because we have a living parent, we have—our mother is still alive, we do keep in touch. And, you know, I–I see him and his family when I visit India every year.

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Yeah, I see, that makes sense. So is he an older brother or younger? Yes, he's a—he's older, but just two of us, he's about a year and three months older than I am. Oh okay, so–so pretty close in age.

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How would you describe the household that you grew up in? I think we were what you would call the kind of modern Indian middle class family. So my parents both came

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from very large families that–that came from agricultural backgrounds. My grandparents were planters and farmers. And they had huge families. My mother came from a family of nine, my father came from a family of 12.

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And, you know, after Indian independence in 1947, the government undertook a big, state-directed modernizing of the family by asking people to have smaller families, right? I mean, they didn't have a very strict policy, but they

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encouraged people to have only two children. So my father and all his, many of his siblings, only had two children each, maybe at the most three. So I think we were part of that new middle class of

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small, you know, nuclear family unit that became very popular among the urban kind of, you know, dwellers in the 70s and 60s. Yeah, that-that's like a huge jump from 12 all

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the way down to two. I know, exactly. Do you have, like, some favorite memories of your childhood that you'd like to share? You know, my favorite, my most treasured memories are always of

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leaving the big cities where my–my father worked in, for example, New Delhi, we lived there in the 70s. And I think the–the–the most treasured memories I have are of leaving, you know, taking these long two-day train

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trips, all the way down from the northern part of India down to the south, where my grandparents lived. And to spend the—our summers, you know, running around in these very green and hilly areas, and with

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streams and fishing and hanging out with lots and lots of cousins. Because of the big families, we had plenty of cousins who were our age. So those are my memories, my

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most, you know, cherished memories are of spending those childhood vacations with the extended family. Yeah, that sounds really fun. Were you more of like a outdoorsy kind of kid? I think we were because we-we didn't have television

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in the–in the 80s. I think Indian households, you know, many, many families did have tele-television in the 50s. But my father didn't get one till-till '82 because

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the part of India where we lived in also didn't have the kind of broadcast kind of thing. It wasn't very centralized or powerful enough. So there were many parts of India that didn't get television I think till the early 80s. So we spent all our

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time outside and I remember coming back from school, and the first thing you would do is you would get out of your school uniform, and jump into what we would call our home clothes, which is things that you could play in, and run outside the house to go and find your–your–your friends who lived in the

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neighborhood. And the girls would all play hopscotch. Or we would go in and play Monopoly, or, you know, so it was always outdoors or some kind of game that involved playing with other

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children, it was never sitting at home and playing by yourself, like a video game or some other—I mean, the only reason you would stay home was if you wanted to read a book. But otherwise, all your play was with children outside.

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And my brother always had a group of three or four boys who would play cricket with him. So as soon as he came back, he would grab his cricket bat and they would go out to the, to the little park in front—in the–in the place that we lived.

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And they would be playing till about 6:00, 6:30, when you were—we were all called home. We all had to come home before it got dark. That was kind of the rule.

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So in the winters, that meant coming home earlier. In the summers, it meant that you could actually stay out later. But that was often the rule, that you could go out anywhere you wanted, and no one supervised you.

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But it was safe enough that parents didn't really worry about where you were going except that you had to come home before it got dark. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. And that sounds like a lot of fun too.

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What was the education system like where you grew up? Could you describe the schools that you attended as a child? Yeah, I think when we were really young, and we had moved to

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New Delhi, you know, it was an unfamiliar place. So my father had us enrolled in a school, a private school, very close to where we lived, so my mother could pick us up at lunchtime, or could drop us off and pick us up, et cetera.

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So that was like a coed school. By coed, we mean it was a mixed school for boys and girls. But for the most part in India, even good private schools in—at that time, were–were gender specific.

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So my memory, I mean, generally, I went to an all girls school for most of my educational life. And because we were Catholics, my parents really wanted to send

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us both, my brother and myself, to Catholic schools. So he went to a boy's Catholic school, you know, from the third grade onwards, and I went to a girl's Catholic school from the third grade onwards, and

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even when we moved from one city to another city, we would find the best boy's and girl's Catholic schools, and my parents would always enroll us in them. So it was what you call religious education.

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But it was also because of, you know, the historical circumstances, those were also very good schools, and they were also English instruction. So even if English was

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not my mother tongue, you know, that was the language in which we were taught, because it was the, you know, one of the official languages after the British left. So we went to English, what we call English medium schools

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and Catholic schools. Okay, I see, and do you still practice Catholicism today? No, I'm not a practicing Catholic. Okay, I see. And how do you, how do you think the education system in

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India is different from the education system here in America? I don't know how, you know, I haven't been to Catholic schools here. But—so I don't know.

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I mean, it was much stricter, right? I mean, my sense of my cousins who have gone to high school here is that it's so much more interactive, much more informal relationships between

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teachers and students. But, you know, I think that gender specific nature is also unusual. I mean, I know only one cousin who sent her daughters to an all

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girls school. Most–most of my cousins who grew up in this country have gone to coed schools. So for me, that itself is unusual, that—I don't know, I think it changes how you relate to culture, it changes how you relate to women, for example,

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I have really—the, the high school class that I, that I, you know, graduated with were like 35 women. We are so—we just, we all keep in touch. We have a big WhatsApp group.

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We had a big reunion in 2016, organized by three of these women, they're all, you know, many of them are like professionals. Bankers and lawyers and doctors, all really doing well with grown up children, and was just

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amazing that the—one of their fondest memories were of the friendships that they had in these girl's schools. So I think that has really changed my own kind of social network in a way that I don't see, among a lot of

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American students here, I think a lot of American students, their primary friendships are probably more formed in college, as opposed to high school, which is seen as a very transitional kind of spot, and people just leave, unless you're in a small

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town, and everybody comes from there, I don't see a lot of people mentioning people they went to high school with. So that I think is one of the things that we—I went to—I grew up in a small town in the northeastern part of India, which

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is where my–my father went to work in a university. So all that created a very different, you know, kind of sense of camaraderie,

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and long term relationships with my, with my, you know, friends from school. So I think that, and then we were, our teachers were very strict with us. I mean, you know, you broke rules

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because rules were made. There were always rules everywhere. So when you wanted to break a rule, it when—meant things like small acts of rebellion, you know,

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tucking in your—shortening your skirts, or rolling your socks down, or writing poetry about teachers that you didn't like, and circulating them in class. So those were the, you know, those were the kinds of rebellions we had, I

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mean, no one got into like, major trouble or anything. Everyone seemed to have a kind of stable family life. So we weren't worried about the mental health of many of our, you know, colleagues or classmates in a

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way that, you know, that you hear about more these days. And teachers, teachers were given full rights over us. If the teacher said something, parents didn't come to complain to the teacher.

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So they would, they would really deal out horrible punishment, they would make you stand outside the classroom if you didn't finish your homework on time. This was like in the third grade and fourth grade, but was considered perfectly okay to punish, you know, students

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by making them sit to go to detention for small things like forgetting their homework. And so I think my sense is that parents didn't have to supervise their children a lot at home, because the teachers would do it for them.

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You know, we didn't hear of parents sitting down with kids and making them do their homework and things like that. I mean, if you didn't, you got punished for that in school, and your parents wouldn't help you at all.

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So I think it, to me, it just seems like a completely different world. The sort of education we had was much more regimented. Not a lot of choice in

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classes. I mean, we had no choice, we had to take every class that we had to. So very, very different. Yeah, yeah, that sounds like really different. I know, like, I've talked to my cousin who lives in China, and

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she has said, like, similar things. Right, right. It's a much more kind of old—I mean, things have changed a lot now. I think the American system has become kind of global.

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There's a way in which many of these American educational kinds of things are moving even into the, you know, the–the fancy and the private schools in India now, but we were not. We were not, definitely not part of that.

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Yeah, I see. But I-I also like the idea of like, the poetry rebellion . Yeah! We had to write poems about people you didn't like, was considered like a really big radical thing. I like that. So, kind of transitioning

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back to like, cultural–cultural customs, what were some like traditional holidays or customs that you practiced growing up? So, you know, India is a very multi-religious country, by people who are actually practicing those religions.

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So one of the big decisions that the Indian state made after independence was that every religion would be given a national holiday. So the national holiday for, you know, Christians was actually both Good Friday and Christmas.

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So those two days when national holidays. Nobody went to school. You know, banks were closed. It was quite amazing.

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And then the Buddhists had the–the birthdate of Buddha was a–was a holiday. The Jains had the birthday of Mahavir was a–was a holiday. And then there were several Hindu holidays.

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And then there were the two Eid holidays for Ramazan and for the Muslims. So I think we had over 17 national holidays, if I'm not mistaken. And if you lived anywhere in a neighborhood where you had, when we were growing up, on the Hindu

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holidays, the neighbors would invite the children from the other households. So if there was Diwali, or, you know, I guess Diwali would have been their biggest holiday, or Holi, Holi was a celebration of color, everyone

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participated in those, in Diwali, everybody got firecrackers. So the Happy Holidays, everyone would celebrate them. And the neighbors would invite the children from the neighborhood households to come and have a meal in

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their house, or the—if you had Muslim neighbors, they would send over biryani or some kind of a special dish. It is very customary for people to send their immediate neighbors or people that they knew well in the

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neighborhood, some form of food as a gift on their own special occasions. So when Christmas came, my parents would go down to the neighborhood bakery and order these small cakes.

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And when on—you know, somewhere around Christmas, we would wrap up, you know, I would be given the job of wrapping them up in little tissue paper. And we would just give them, small cakes, to neighbors.

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And so food was a very interesting way of people actually announcing their own holidays and special days to other people. And so it made everyone happy for other

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people's holidays, because you knew there would be something coming your way . So everyone was keen on these holidays. So yeah, lots of holidays, people love to celebrate all these

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different holidays with color and Diwali, everybody puts lights in their houses and the firecrackers starting from like, evening, all the all–all through the night. So yeah, those were big, those were big.

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Yeah, that sounds really fun and festive. And yeah, I think food is a great way to bring people together, just like in general. Right, right. So what were—what would you say are some important values or lessons that your parents

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taught you? Well, they're diff—my thing, my—I think my father and my mother emphasized different kinds of values. My father was a big admirer of the Kennedys.

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And when he was, when he was a graduate student, he came to the US for about six months in 1963. And I think he kind of had a great admiration for the Kennedys. So it was funny to

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me, because, you know, I didn't know who the Kennedys were till I was much older, but often he would just kind of, he–he–he liked the idea of American independence, which is, you teach your children to be self reliant, as

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opposed to—so he would do things that were considered unusual for under—for households, you know, to middle class households. For example, giving children a little bit of money for them to do work, nobody did that.

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My–my father gave us something called pocket money, my brother got a little more than I did, because he was older. But in exchange for that, we were supposed to do certain chores. So one would be, you know, washing his socks

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would be–would be one of my chores, because he didn't like them thrown into, you know, the dish—the washer or anything of that sort. So he would like to have—and the other was, when the, watering the

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plants would be, one of us would have to do it. Then I think we had an old car that needed to have water put in its radiator. So whenever on Sunday, my father would get under the car to fiddle with it and check

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the engine and oil and all that, one of us had to take water in a little plastic mug, you know, to pour into the radiator till it was full. So there were these things that we had to do, so I think very early, he taught us in–in–in

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an interesting way the value of working, or how important it was to work, and–and to understand the value of money, that money is always connected to work and to labor. So you know, in that sense, I think my

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brother and I were both, very early on, quite determined that we wanted to be independent in terms of getting our own work, getting jobs, being, you know, aspiring to have a career and all that.

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And because of that, he also allowed me a lot of freedoms. So one of the very unusual things again, he did, which was unusual for—towards daughters of my generation was, my mother didn't like me reading many of these romance books and stuff.

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We would read these very racy kind of Harlequin romances because we were all in a girl's school and people would just bring them, big stacks of them. And then we would exchange them.

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We could get through one, and like, two. So my fa—my mother went and complained to my father saying, you know, you have you noticed what your daughter is reading? She's reading all

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these books, and they've got terrible covers of men and women all embracing and half-naked and dada dada da. I heard them arguing one day and my father's response to her was, "well, she should be allowed to read

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anything that she can understand." Right? So I—he never told me that, but I always knew that I had a certain license, that I was allowed to read anything that I wanted, which, you know, so that made me a kind of very

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voracious reader. I read a lot of crap. But I also read, you know, I remember reading Albert Speer's biography, I mean, you know, and probably didn't understand a lot of it. I would read books that my father also loved to read.

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So I would read the novels that he brought home, they would be historical novels, you know, about Chesapeake Bay, or about the Middle East, et cetera. So that was one of the—a kind of intellectual freedom

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was a big thing for my father. For my mother, it was more about respecting traditional norms. So, you know, girls should also know how to keep

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their rooms clean, or they should know basic information about running a household. So I was brought up in a way that allowed me, you know, I was encouraged to do athletics, I played table tennis, and, you know,

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this is not exactly athletic, but I was kind of good at it. And badminton, which was my kind of preferred, very–very Indian kind of popular games, but probably also in places like China.

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Asian countries, I think these two games are very popular. So you know, if you did well, in athletics, you were given, you were given the money to buy yourself a nice, fancy racquet, or, you know, stuff that you needed for—so

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I think my father encouraged a certain kind of reliance and independence of, you know, intellectual independence and a certain argument that people need to be reliant, and he sent this message quite early to us that he didn't expect my brother or myself to

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be the traditional children, and he would never spend his old age being taken care of by us. So I think we got a signal very early on in our life that he intended his family to be not in the same model,

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where, you know, he would, you know, children are often brought up so that the parents can spend their old age with them. My father never had such plans. So in that sense, that freed up my brother and myself to do whatever we wanted to

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go, go wherever we wanted to go, we never felt guilty in that sense about staying, you know, not going far away from home, et cetera. So, yeah, so my mother was very good at, you know, she, I think

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I learned how to cook from her. I learned how to sew from her. I learned a certain kind of practicality about how you solve small problems.

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I mean, if something happened, I mean, I remember her taking the blender apart, because she really couldn't do without her blender. And she was not, you know, she was not somebody who I thought was very technically oriented, but she would

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just take the screwdriver and figure out what was wrong with the blender and–and put it back together. So it's only late in life I realized all the things that I learned from my mother, because I always defined myself, because of my–my career as a professor, I thought most of the stuff that

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I–that I learned were from my father, the values and stuff. But you know, you learn from both your parents, it's just that you don't acknowledge them at the time you're learning them.

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Because there are all kind of, you know, you have your own investments and what you think your identity is. But yeah, so you know, a certain, I would say, in short, my mother was all about respecting

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norms. My father was about that too. But my father did give, you know, us a lot of independence that was unusual and was not couched in terms of, you know, partying or that stuff he did not

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approve of. But he didn't, he liked people in—having friends. So if I said I wanted to go and see a movie with four of my friends, he was totally gung ho. Because for him, that was all very important aspects of

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socialization. He always believed that children should have friends. And that's how they learn, their personalities develop, so there were things that he was very strict about. You were not supposed to stay out after dark.

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That was always a rule. That was the way in which I think those—that generation's parents protected their children. As long as you were home before it got dark, they

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didn't care where you went, you had to say where you were going, but you know, you didn't have phones or anything. So they technically couldn't track you anywhere. So that's a long answer.

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But you know, sometimes these questions help me also kind of think about these things that I have not thought about. It's kind of telling the story to myself too, in a way that I understand it now.

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Yeah, that's good. It's like, they kind of had two different philosophies, but yeah, they both seem to help you a lot. Yeah. I-I think, to be honest, I would probably take plant watering over sock washing any

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day. But yeah, do you think that the intellectual freedom that your dad encouraged set the foundation for your love of humanities and English–and English? So, because you know, he was a—he was in educational psychology, he was a faculty

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member. And so I kind of knew the university life, I knew what it meant to be around students. And I kind of loved the idea that you could—to me, the going to teach was

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basically someone was going to pay you money, to do what you love to do anyway in your life, which is to read and write, because I love to read. I mean, there was a certain, I think, by the time I was eight or nine, that became my ultimate pleasure, to come

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home, take out a novel, and just kind of lie there with the novel till it was finished. I mean, it was just so pleasurable, it was amazing. And I just thought, oh, if I could spend my whole life reading literature and writing

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short stories, or something, that would be so fantastic. So you know, that–that is really what it was. It was—I don't think at that time we were thinking in terms of intellectual freedom, et cetera.

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But you're thinking about, if I have to make, if I have to have a job in my life, it should be something that gives me pleasure, I didn't want to be the kind of person who looked like they were just so glad to be home, because that stuff was in the office, and then you know, who

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dragged their bodies out to do work, that they didn't want to bring home with them. And you know, teaching is not like that. In academia, you

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take your work home because you are going to teach a novel the next day, and you might actually enjoy reading it tonight, you know, so that was what it was. To me, the thought that I would be so lucky if I could also earn

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my living doing what I actually love. Yeah, that's really good to hear. And yeah, I'm–I'm glad that you found this job, and that you feel happy in it. So kind of transitioning to college, what college did you attend,

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and how did you choose that college? You mean, when I came to the US or when I was in India doing my undergraduate? My first college? Yeah, undergraduate. Yeah. So I wanted to, I wanted to leave, you know, I

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wanted to go to another city because I had spent, you know, when I was 18, I said, God, I've spent all my life in—under my parents roof. I so wanted to go somewhere where I would be on my own.

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And I think that's the kind of thing that was helped by the sort of independence that my father gave me and, and it also meant a lot of—it wasn't that easy. This is an—a day before, this is the years

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before email, or internet, right? And if you wanted admission in college, for example, in the city of Bombay, I wanted to go to this college called Sophia College. It was an all girls college.

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It was in this beautiful old palace that had been bought by these nuns who were running the college. It was in the middle of Mumbai town, and I just loved the idea of being in Bombay.

00:29:56.630 - 00:30:10.180

So a friend of mine had—was already going there. And it just sounded so fantastic and it was expensive. So, you know, my father said, well, it's, if you can get in, you can go, and it was

00:30:10.180 - 00:30:25.800

kind of competitive. So I remember getting on a train with my cousin's family, I've never been to Bombay, and I went there on the train. And I, they asked, they found, you know, I asked the neighbors and people around to—the way to get to the

00:30:25.800 - 00:30:40.180

college. And I remember going there with my mark sheets, my mark sheets are the high school transcripts, and you know, people, you could transmit them through mail, but they would take so long, so I had a copy of my

00:30:40.180 - 00:30:56.240

transcripts with me, and I went by myself to apply for admission to this college. And I remember getting it and then writing to my father and saying, you know, I've got in, send him a telegram saying that I've got in, and you

00:30:56.240 - 00:31:11.330

need to send them the fees by this date, and this is the number, etc. So I kind of did that on my own, that I chose the college I wanted to, and once I had permission from my father that he would pay for it, I just went and

00:31:11.610 - 00:31:23.610

basically attended it. And, you know, because it was an expensive college, and I knew that there was quite a bit of sacrifice, too, I was I probably became really, really serious.

00:31:24.010 - 00:31:39.990

So at that point, you know, I was, what, 18, 19, 20, there were three, it was a three year degree, I remember thinking, I'm not going to waste any time, I would finish, you know, classes, go back, have a nap.

00:31:40.720 - 00:31:52.180

And after tea time, I would just head up to the library, which was already on the campus of this college. And I would sit there till dinner time, you know, and just read. And so I think in

00:31:52.180 - 00:32:08.150

some way, knowing that I had got this amazing opportunity that a lot of, you know, other st–students of my generation didn't, that I got into this great college and I was getting a good education, I also became serious

00:32:09.320 - 00:32:23.860

because I was not a very, you know, scholarly kind of a—I hated school, in many ways. So in some way, English literature became my passion, because I finally realized that college was a place where

00:32:23.860 - 00:32:40.430

you had the freedom to really focus on what you loved. Suddenly, the whole relationship to education completely transformed. And now I just realized, oh, my God, this is so wonderful, I don't have to do languages, I don't have

00:32:40.470 - 00:32:54.430

to do, you know, history, I don't have to do science and math, I'm going to focus on the stuff that I really like. So I think that was probably one of the most, you know,

00:32:56.110 - 00:33:07.960

learning experiences of that time. Because even now, I can remember how, you know, the sorts of lectures we had on Paradise Lost or Chaucer.

00:33:07.960 - 00:33:20.650

I mean, things that I've never studied after that point, I mean, I've read Milton on my own after that, but they were very intense classes. And, you know, you–you studied in the traditional

00:33:21.280 - 00:33:36.390

way, you went to the library, you couldn't check the book out, you had to sit there with a notebook and take notes, and then organize the notes and look over them before you're—you had these end of year exams, where each day you would go for a three

00:33:36.390 - 00:33:50.540

hour exam in the morning, a three hour exam in the afternoon, and no one send you to some prep place that taught you how to do these exams, I am sure if they had, I would have–I would have figured out a way to really ace them,

00:33:51.100 - 00:34:03.260

you know, the ways that you can answer questions in a way that organizes things properly. Nobody taught us to do that. So you just went and wrote these essays for three hours, and then came home and you know, had

00:34:03.260 - 00:34:18.130

lunch and then you went out again and did a three hour. So it was a very traditional, probably people would say, not a very good way to learn. But boy, it kept me kind of very focused on reading

00:34:18.940 - 00:34:33.910

and, you know, on basically reading a lot. So, you know, I think that was leaving my parents' town and going off on my own made it easier for me to then kind of make my own

00:34:33.910 - 00:34:46.380

decisions. So then I decided where I wanted to do my Master's. Then I decided I wanted to apply to a university in the US and once you make one decision, then your parents trust you to make your other decisions.

00:34:46.380 - 00:35:01.940

So I think that was a really important move going away to a completely new city in India to do my undergraduate education. Yeah, that sounds pretty like intense for, like, a young adult to take on.

00:35:02.010 - 00:35:16.570

Yeah, I know! I mean, when I think about it, I said, gee, I was only 18 years old when I got on a train with my transcripts, and you know, went to this office and applied for admission there. So yeah, it's interesting, but

00:35:16.700 - 00:35:31.070

when your parents couldn't do it, like my father was working, he couldn't just leave things and come and do it, so you just had to do the stuff on your own, you know? Yeah. And I also think it's like pretty relatable for a lot of students, where like

00:35:31.070 - 00:35:44.280

college is more enjoyable a little bit, because you're able to hone in on certain subjects that you actually enjoy and not focus—yeah. Um, so what were some extracurriculars that you participated in during

00:35:44.280 - 00:36:02.730

college. So, because I was what they call a boarder, which means people who were in the boarding or the—who were living on campus, the most of the students who attended college were day scholars, which means they–they

00:36:02.730 - 00:36:14.950

commuted, they would come take classes, and they'd leave. But there were like 150 or 180 of us, who were just—who lived on campus in the dorms there. So we were called boarders.

00:36:16.720 - 00:36:29.420

And so we had a lot of activities. I mean, we were, we joined clubs called "newsmakers" clubs, where you kept in touch with what was on the news. So the rule was that everybody had to read the newspaper in the morning.

00:36:30.040 - 00:36:41.040

And at the end of the week, you would all come and have a little debate in the newsmakers club about current events. So I loved that club. I was a good short story writer.

00:36:41.170 - 00:36:57.960

So colleges often had intercollegiate competitions in all kinds of things, different kinds of debates, story writing, poetry writing, so I would enter those competitions, and often I would get prizes, you

00:36:58.040 - 00:37:11.060

know, those small amounts of money. And so that was kind of good. So those–those were like a big thing for me. Well, Bombay was a lot like, I think would be like New York here,

00:37:11.100 - 00:37:27.920

very cosmopolitan, lots of theater. So I loved going to movies and stuff like that. Played badminton, that would be you know, my kind of favorite extracurricular indulgence.

00:37:28.750 - 00:37:42.640

But mostly fun things that got connected in some way to collegiate life, nothing like major stuff that you would do outside, or anything like rock climbing or stuff like that.

00:37:42.670 - 00:37:54.710

And that was just completely impossible. You know, anything that involved big logistical planning, leaving college, because you were—they were very strict with us in college.

00:37:55.200 - 00:38:09.150

You could not go anywhere, the only place you were allowed to go on the weekends was to your local guardians, which were my–my aunt and uncle, my father's sister and her husband, and their two children.

00:38:09.150 - 00:38:23.930

So I was allowed to go to their house, or they had to give permission, written permission that I was allowed to go somewhere else. But because it was a girl's college, they were pretty strict about people coming back every night, we had a roll call at about eight

00:38:23.990 - 00:38:38.430

o'clock in the night, and on Sundays, you would be allowed to stay out till 11, which was pretty amazing. We could go for a late movie or something like that. But because of that, you—whatever activities you had to do had to be

00:38:38.430 - 00:38:49.900

done, you know, close to college, or they would be done with, you know, your relatives or whoever you spend your weekends with, but they were pretty strict actually, in college.

00:38:51.560 - 00:39:08.300

Yeah, that–that sounds pretty different from like, college as I imagine it. Yeah. Did you have any professors in college that left an—a lasting impact in your life? I guess the–the people, I think

00:39:08.760 - 00:39:18.340

my–my economics professor was just amazing. Her name was Lija Merona . And she was very young. And she was just amazing, how well she taught

00:39:20.800 - 00:39:35.090

the–the discipline. So I-I spent many years, you know, kind of undecided about whether I wanted to be an economist or I wanted to be a literature—a literary critic.

00:39:35.140 - 00:39:47.370

I just couldn't decide, because she was just an amazing teacher. And then I think she went on a–on a full scholarship to Cambridge and did her PhD there, and then I don't know where she went. But she left maybe in

00:39:47.370 - 00:39:57.860

the second year I was in college, and the next person we had was not that good. But I loved economics, and I loved the literature. The people were good.

00:39:57.950 - 00:40:12.430

I wouldn't say they were the best teachers in the world. Actually, I don't think they were as good as some of my high school teachers who really left an impression. There was a—an Irish nun, who we called Johnnie her name was Jean

00:40:12.430 - 00:40:22.590

Francis, Sister Jean Francis. She, I think, was so amazing as a teacher of geography and of literature that those have always been two of my favorite subjects. And I think it's

00:40:22.610 - 00:40:35.620

because she was just an amazing teacher. So I think I would give her the—my high school teacher in literature, more credit for, in some way, recognizing that I had the ability.

00:40:35.620 - 00:40:48.400

I mean, she recognized quite early that I had a kind of, you know, aptitude for it. So, you know, she was strict with me and never gave me much time. But when it came to the literature classes, she would

00:40:48.470 - 00:41:03.180

often read out my answers to certain kinds of questions, or my reading of a passage from Julius Caesar. And I said, wow, I'm actually being singled out to do this. So I think that was–that was quite something,

00:41:04.800 - 00:41:19.440

to–to have a dreaded teacher actually compliment you on something. So I think that may have been much more of a–of a influence in some way than, you know, any of my college

00:41:19.440 - 00:41:30.610

teachers. Graduate school is a different story. I mean, there, I think I was really, really influenced by the teachers that I met in America. I don't think my–my college

00:41:30.610 - 00:41:45.900

teachers in India were that good, frankly. They were conventional, they really didn't make a big—it was only—there was—when I went to graduate school in–in India, I did my Master's

00:41:45.900 - 00:41:57.620

there in New Delhi, there I began to see professors who really began to influence me, but college was a different, it's a different system. It's not a very imaginative system at all.

00:41:59.790 - 00:42:13.380

Okay, I see. And I know you mentioned like, you're pretty close to your—you're still pretty close to your high school friends and you have a WhatsApp with everyone. Are you still also in touch with your friends from college? Yes, several of them, actually.

00:42:15.150 - 00:42:29.720

Because many of them are also in a WhatsApp group, a couple of them. Not as much as the–the students in–in Mumbai, because they were from all over, all over the place. We were all

00:42:29.740 - 00:42:44.050

transients. I don't have family anymore in Mumbai. So I think that kind of also affected, the fact that you didn't keep that much in touch with them. And when you chose a major, then you end up, ended up spending more time

00:42:44.050 - 00:42:59.170

with the people in that major, but I have actually recently got in touch with my roommate from college, who she and I shared a room for two years. So she is now a banker, a kind of financial analyst

00:43:01.060 - 00:43:16.080

for Wells Fargo in New York. So we found each other, you know, like last year and have talked a couple of times, so, yeah, but not as much as this—the people that I know from graduate school, who are still some of my

00:43:16.080 - 00:43:28.320

closest friends. So the college life in Mumbai, I think, was much more transient in some way. Okay, that—yeah, that makes sense. And just moving on a little bit to immigration.

00:43:30.160 - 00:43:45.660

Could you describe your experiences arriving in the US and maybe some challenges you faced living in a new country? Well, I think the biggest challenge was this was the 80s, the Indian government was

00:43:46.070 - 00:43:56.180

very strict on–on–on foreign reserves. So I think it was like that in places like China too, if you know, you know, anyone from that

00:43:56.290 - 00:44:11.150

time. That you could not take any money out of the country in foreign exchange. So that was like a big thing. I mean, I remember when I applied to American colleges, of course, I did my GRE and all that from there, and I

00:44:11.200 - 00:44:26.920

paid for it, but to pay the application fees, you know, if you didn't have a bank account that would dispense dollars, you would have to pay in international money coupons or something, which is really hard to–to do.

00:44:27.270 - 00:44:39.820

So I remember I had a friend who was going to school at University of Michigan, he was doing an MBA there and he said, hey, you know what, I'll just pay, just tell me which schools and I'll just drop them checks. So things like

00:44:39.820 - 00:44:52.840

that, logistically, it was really hard to even apply to schools. Nobody had laptops. I had an old typewriter. So I had to type up all my, you know, this was the 80s, nobody had

00:44:54.150 - 00:45:07.870

computers. I mean, everybody, all the computers one heard of were like supercomputers in a lab, nobody had personal computers at that time. So I would have to type out all the application letters and the essay, you know, this—the

00:45:08.340 - 00:45:21.590

essay that you used to apply to, I had to go in to the—to a typist and have my writing sample typed up. It was logistically, I remember spending a whole year basically planning this out.

00:45:23.180 - 00:45:40.720

And then the postage was expensive, you had to make sure they're all registered post so that they all got delivered, the big fat envelopes. So, you know, you couldn't call any of the schools. So sometimes you applied to things that were probably not such a good idea.

00:45:41.360 - 00:45:51.780

So you had to depend on friends who knew schools. So I remember a friend telling me, she definitely applied to Syracuse because they get full aid. And I knew that

00:45:51.840 - 00:46:04.640

there was no way I could go to the US and study there, unless I got a full scholarship and I got a full tuition thing, because my parents would not be able to come up with that kind of money, because nobody had that kind of foreign exchange to pay.

00:46:05.250 - 00:46:19.260

So that's why I ended up going to Syracuse to do my Master's there. And luckily, my–my—I had, my father's two sisters had immigrated to the US in 1978 and 1984.

00:46:19.800 - 00:46:37.610

So when I came over in '87, you know, my aunt and uncle picked me up from JFK, took me to their place in New Jersey, I spent the night there, and then they put me on a plane the next day to Syracuse with $300 in my

00:46:37.640 - 00:46:47.130

pocket, because I had no foreign exchange either, you know, and then I needed some. It was really cold, and I was coming from Delhi, which was made hot at that time.

00:46:47.130 - 00:46:59.980

I didn't have any, you know, big woolen clothes. So we quickly got some clothes. So I was lucky that I had relatives here who kind of made that transition easy, I think it would have been really, really hard

00:47:00.650 - 00:47:14.960

if I had come to this country with—and kind of with absolutely no knowledge about how to operate in–in the 80s, when you didn't have internet and you couldn't find anything out, and every—you were coming completely blind.

00:47:15.410 - 00:47:28.790

You had no idea what the rules were, you couldn't check up anything, you just had your documents, and you just had to blunder your way through. So that was, I think, very fortunate, I didn't feel homesick, I always knew that

00:47:28.790 - 00:47:44.480

there was somebody who would be able to help me. But once I went to Syracuse, you were all put into a TA orientation program. There were these other two women from India that I met during it, and then there was this Canadian landscape

00:47:44.480 - 00:47:54.620

architect, we were all in the same foreign TA's training program. And we all looked for a place together. And we found this kind of old dump of a

00:47:54.620 - 00:48:12.130

house that had four bedrooms, and the four of us rented it together. And, you know, we cooked together and–and stayed there for like two years, it was a lot of fun. So, I think I had it easy because I

00:48:12.130 - 00:48:26.100

had relatives who helped me kind of get here and who were always like a backup in case, you know, I needed help, because I couldn't get in touch with my parents or something. And remember, it used to cost $1.15 a minute to

00:48:26.740 - 00:48:37.590

call India. That was what long distance calls cost. And when you, you know—and I remember, my TA stipend was like $6500 a year.

00:48:38.120 - 00:48:54.040

So that meant you had, after taxes and all were taken out, you had about maybe, you know, $600 a month, at the most, maybe $500, $500 a month. And you had to pay your rent, and you had to pay your—make your food and

00:48:54.040 - 00:49:07.850

buy your books and everything from that. So, you know what? We lived on that, and I think it really helped to sh—be able to share a house and to cook meals together, because it really brought down the costs of being, you

00:49:07.850 - 00:49:19.970

know, from a poor third world country. I mean, nobody had any money, you just had to kind of figure out how to live on your own and–and live within your means basically. So but that was not hard.

00:49:19.970 - 00:49:33.360

I mean, you know, because in graduate school, everybody was poor, even my American friends, because they didn't want to take money from their parents, all lived on the same amount. So it was–it was pretty amazing.

00:49:33.360 - 00:49:47.570

It was one of the, I think the happiest time I've ever had was being in graduate school. We all earned the same amount of money and we would learn to have fun and have parties and baby showers for our friends who were

00:49:47.570 - 00:50:00.980

having children, we would do all those kinds of things, and everyone shared things. One person had a car and everyone would pile into that car to go anywhere. So, you know, people would drop people off to the airport, and it was a

00:50:01.060 - 00:50:15.550

pretty amazing community. So I was–I was really thankful for that, both at Syracuse and to Minneapolis, where I went to University of Minnesota's graduate program in English, because one of the people I really admired

00:50:16.420 - 00:50:25.040

in 18th century British Lit, Nancy Armstrong, was teaching there. So I wanted to work with her. So I ended up there, and I loved it there.

00:50:25.450 - 00:50:40.750

So, you know, I always tell people, I think the most depressing time was after I got the job at Rice and moved here, because you lost that entire community, which was pretty amazing. It was, you know, I think graduate school was

00:50:40.790 - 00:50:55.420

one of the most rewarding and happiest times of one's life and is quite—and you know, the friendships that you form there are people I still keep in touch with. There was a conference at Minneapolis four years ago, and I went

00:50:55.420 - 00:51:10.460

there, and three of—people from graduate school was still living in the area, we all met up and hung out together, and still keep in touch over Facebook. So those are all, you know, many of them are in academia, so you end up

00:51:10.500 - 00:51:24.260

meeting them, or you occasionally invite them for talks. You know, one had a Guggenheim and his name was in the newspaper four or five years ago. So we called him up to congratulate him.

00:51:24.260 - 00:51:39.430

So you know, occasionally you hear great news, when their books come out, you see them. But it's a pretty rich, rich experience. So yeah, there were no big cultural shocks, I think, because we were all, we were all kind

00:51:39.430 - 00:51:53.130

of, you know, I think by the time we were teenagers, we were all pretty accustomed to some form of American culture, you know, whether it was a pop music or the familiarity, because you had relatives here, I

00:51:53.130 - 00:52:07.740

never thought of it as much of a cultural shock, you know. And I think knowing the language helps, it's probably much more of a cultural shock for relatives of mine who–who may have come in here with, you know,

00:52:08.650 - 00:52:21.620

with English, more is a second language. I think it has been harder for them, people who came here without. Having lived in big cities in India and stuff, I think it's harder for them. Yeah, for sure.

00:52:21.940 - 00:52:36.240

But, yeah, graduate school sounds like a really tight knit community. That sounds— It is! And you know, I think in the US, it's an amazing—the fact that people in graduate school get stipends, and everyone's kind of on the same—it is a really,

00:52:38.870 - 00:52:49.180

it really creates community in a different way. And, you know, it's not where people are competing with each other to get something or the other in a department. It's never like

00:52:49.180 - 00:53:03.040

that. So I think it just, I see this at Rice too, among our graduate students. They really help each other and take care of each other and, you know, do things for each other, they're all pretty much part of a big, you know,

00:53:03.210 - 00:53:17.400

community. And that is, I think, one of the greatest, I think, what I so admire about the American, you know, higher education system, which I really think is–is unparalleled. Anywhere else in the world, you won't get this

00:53:17.640 - 00:53:34.830

kind of experience, not even in Europe. Yeah, definitely. So could you explain a bit about like, how you chose to pursue a career in education? And did you hold any other teaching positions before coming to Rice?

00:53:36.510 - 00:53:49.290

No, this was my—I went, you know, I started my PhD in '89. I finished in '95. And I think I defended my

00:53:49.290 - 00:54:02.260

dissertation, I think, early '90—well, late in '95. And, you know, the—got the degree awarded in '96. So technically, I joined Rice at '95. But my PhD says, 1996.

00:54:03.730 - 00:54:19.970

No, I—the first year I went on the job market, I had, I don't know, 12, 13 interviews, and I had three job offers. And this was–this was the one in the big city. And I remember thinking, well, if I have to leave Minneapolis, and I'm going to ba—going

00:54:19.970 - 00:54:30.800

by myself, I mean, I was what, 30 years old then. And I said, oh, you know, if I'm going to go to a big city, I want to go to a big city where there will be lots of different kinds of people.

00:54:31.640 - 00:54:47.370

You know, one of the jobs was in Maine. The other one was in like, you know, Delaware and one was Texas A&M. I just realized that, you know, as an immigrant especially, it made

00:54:47.370 - 00:54:59.860

more sense to go to a big city. If you're starting work, then you've lost all your friends from graduate school, you're starting from scratch. You might as well go to a place that is very, you know, has much more potential of

00:54:59.900 - 00:55:14.390

being diverse and all that. So I think Houston was like, the choice. I know that Rice was considered a really good school. And I loved meeting, you know, I think

00:55:15.200 - 00:55:28.220

Helena Michie was on the–on the search committee that–that interviewed me. The other two people who were on the search committee are no longer here, they've retired, Med Oscura .

00:55:28.470 - 00:55:42.770

And I think Terry Doody was there. So when I came to Rice, it was a very small department, I think there were only about 20 people. Dr. Aranda was here, he had just been hired a year before I was, so he was like

00:55:42.830 - 00:55:56.080

the Junior Professor then. And I remember really loving Houston and thinking, at that point, it was more important to me where I would live, rather than where I would work, frankly, because,

00:55:56.860 - 00:56:11.100

you know, moving from graduate school, in a way graduate school is such a protected environment. So technically, you don't really immigrate until you leave graduate school, and you go and get a job, because now you have to really face the

00:56:11.100 - 00:56:24.840

American culture. And you have to live with ordinary people, not just students. So I think for that reason, it was almost like Houston was as important for me, as much as it was also Rice.

00:56:25.960 - 00:56:42.120

But I mean, I—by the time I came to graduate school, I knew that what I wanted to do was teach the stuff that I loved. I mean, what else would allow me to do that, so this is the only profession in which you can actually earn a living where you can

00:56:42.430 - 00:56:53.930

read the stuff you like, and write about the stuff you like, in, you know, without having to get stressed out about—I never I wanted to be a novelist, or a screenwriter, or anything, because to me, those were too risky.

00:56:54.590 - 00:57:07.110

I think too stressful, because you—your productivity can never be kind of, you know, ensured. So yeah, that was a kind of roundabout answer. But, you

00:57:07.110 - 00:57:19.130

know, that's how I ended up here. Yeah, that makes sense. And what would you say, would be like the most fulfilling part of your job right now, and also the most challenging?

00:57:20.450 - 00:57:36.350

I think the most fulfilling part of the job is working with graduate students, I have to say. Because at that—with graduate students, your own

00:57:36.820 - 00:57:54.910

research interests, they recognize, they know what—they understand your research interests, because they are reading the same stuff that you are reading. So graduate seminars for me are very easy to teach, because I don't have to explain things to them, I just

00:57:54.910 - 00:58:07.280

have to kind of put a certain spin on things, and then they pick things up. And so working with graduate students is really, really

00:58:08.090 - 00:58:21.870

rewarding in a different way. But in recent years, I've also spent much more time teaching undergraduate classes, I mean, I actually asked for classes like the 200, because they're very hard to teach.

00:58:22.450 - 00:58:37.140

I think the 300 is really hard to teach because, you know, students, it's like a foreign language to them, you know, something like theory. So, I think now that, you know, I'm kind of, I don't really have to, like,

00:58:37.650 - 00:58:53.940

do big professional things for the institution. So I'm a full professor now, I don't have to write another book unless I really want to. I'm trying to figure out ways to make my undergraduate classes much more interesting.

00:58:54.670 - 00:59:13.200

So I just took a workshop that tries to do a research project in–in a class right from day one. So one of the things I want to do is, next time I teach 200 in the fall, I'm going to add a project on Houston, right from the beginning, where students will

00:59:13.200 - 00:59:27.560

work together in groups, pick a site, analyze a site, write up an essay, do a presentation. And then they'll have different models to choose from. We'll read novels about cities, or plays about cities, poetry about cities,

00:59:27.970 - 00:59:42.880

so that there's a way in which they can also go out of the class and explore the city together because a lot of them are freshmen in 200. So I've been trying to think of things like that, that could make the class a fun experience, but also make literature

00:59:43.660 - 01:00:00.830

part of a kind of worldly experience, where what you—where your analysis in a–in a literary setting can also be used to analyze a cultural site, for example. So I think teaching is finally the most rewarding,

01:00:02.080 - 01:00:13.720

because, you know, some of my, a lot of my students keep in touch with me, especially the ones that you—whose successes you've been associated with.

01:00:13.810 - 01:00:29.050

So students who have gone on to get fancy fellowships, or gone on to really good jobs in academia, they end up keeping in touch with you, because for some reason, they seem to think that you may have helped them in some way.

01:00:29.560 - 01:00:45.670

And in a way, it's a way of celebrating their success, too. So all that is very rewarding, you know, you never lose touch with many of your students. Not all of them, but there'll be like a group of six or

01:00:45.670 - 01:00:59.490

seven, who will never leave your life, they'll always be in touch, every couple of years, they'll write to you and say what they're doing, especially the students who end up in some kind of academic, because you'll always run

01:00:59.490 - 01:01:11.390

into them at a conference or a talk, and they'll always be in your orbit. So those are students who will always remain part of your life in some way. And that's kind of really, really nice.

01:01:11.710 - 01:01:27.050

And the other thing, you know, is I—my closest friends are from the English department, I mean, the–the two of them, we meet two, three times a week, we go out together for walks, we go and eat at restaurants.

01:01:27.090 - 01:01:35.490

And, you know, they live within three miles of me. And we're like one big family. So these are also things that I think that

01:01:35.570 - 01:01:51.970

academia really helps create, because there's not a lot of competition among colleagues. We don't have a boss, chairs are people that we vote for. So I think academia is one of these places where you have a very

01:01:53.200 - 01:02:08.380

kind of egalitarian and consensus based decision making, without a hierarchy. I mean, there is a little bit of hierarchy about, you know, in terms of ranks of professors, but then the full professors

01:02:08.380 - 01:02:22.070

always protect the–the mid level and the junior professors, they try not to give them too much work, they try to support them and mentor them. So it's a different—they don't–they don't abuse them or take advantage of them, at least

01:02:22.350 - 01:02:33.010

not in my department. So, you know, it becomes a part of your whole life, your social life, you're—you know, and you miss it, when you're away

01:02:33.010 - 01:02:45.480

from it for too long, then you really want to come back to it. I mean, you know, I tell people, I said, you know, if I'm away from teaching, or reading, or writing for two, three months, it's not a job that I feel like I want to get

01:02:45.480 - 01:02:57.820

away from me. Things get stressful, but it's like–it's like, it becomes a fabric of your entire life, which is kind of pretty amazing. Yeah, I love that.

01:02:58.110 - 01:03:08.480

That's really sweet. Like the English department sounds like a nice support system for— It really is! Everybody is really, you know, not everyone knows everyone really well. But everybody has a little pocket of friends.

01:03:10.290 - 01:03:25.860

I mean, you know, so these two people who I'm close friends with, we have eaten lunch at Cohen House, almost every day, for the last 20 years. In fact, when two of us head out there for lunch, the

01:03:25.860 - 01:03:40.230

staff and the faculty club, say, "Oh, where is so and so?" Because they always expect the three of us to show up together. So it's quite funny, they're—you know, we've become like a triumvirate. But you know, it's so unconscious, but that's kind of—and then, you know,

01:03:40.230 - 01:03:57.100

when–when–when there was a cold, or when that cold front came, and, you know, one of us, two of us lost electricity, one person had it, and one person had a generator. So, you know, the other two of us were camped in the house of the person with the

01:03:57.130 - 01:04:09.860

generator, because—you know, so we've become, you know, like people who–who become each other's kind of network, even outside the department, which is kind of nice.

01:04:11.580 - 01:04:28.690

Yeah, that's awesome. And if you could give a piece of advice to someone who is pursuing a similar career path as you, in the humanities or in education, what would it be? I mean, can you say a little more about what kind of advice were you

01:04:28.860 - 01:04:42.080

thinking about? Would it be the American audience, or— Maybe, yeah, maybe American audience, just like anything that you think—or like, if you could go back in time and tell something to your past self?

01:04:43.630 - 01:05:02.450

Yeah. You know, I think one of the things that worries me a bit is that the new generation of students in the US, growing up in the era of multiculturalism, that there is a lot of interest—I mean, everybody is interested

01:05:02.560 - 01:05:18.760

in their roots. There's no question about that. But I also feel that–that in some way, the growth of ethnic studies and minority literature in American academia, is also kind of

01:05:19.660 - 01:05:36.720

putting a kind of pressure on students from that heritage to do that work. So I feel like people who–who come from other cultures to this country should definitely come to study somebody else.

01:05:37.820 - 01:05:51.360

Right? So, if you come to the US to study, then I tell my Indian friends, don't come here to study like Indian literature and English. Why can't you—you can just do that in India, you don't have to come to

01:05:51.360 - 01:06:05.020

the US to study that. If you're coming to study, to the US to study, study something that is completely other to you. Because everyone in some way must leave their own identity a little bit and learn something else.

01:06:05.720 - 01:06:22.820

And that I think, in some way makes it possible to understand your own culture, your own heritage, in a different way. And this is a lesson that Edward Said actually often talked about, I mean, you know, he was one of the most eloquent

01:06:22.900 - 01:06:41.050

writers when it came to–came to writing about Palestine. But he was also an amazing peer theorist of Michel Foucault. He, he was an opera level kind of pianist, you know, concert level pianist, he loved writing about opera.

01:06:41.160 - 01:06:58.230

I mean, he could write about anything that you could think of. And I think that kind of cosmopolitanism is something that the humanities used to give us, and we should not let go of that. And I feel a lot of this identity based work ends up

01:06:58.230 - 01:07:15.360

being—making us focus on narrower and narrower pieces of the world, that we lose that whole cosmopolitical kind of emphasis that humanities has, which I think is its greatest, you know—I mean, if I, you know,

01:07:16.310 - 01:07:30.560

it was because, as an Indian young girl, I was reading literature in English, that made me in some way love that literature, right? If I had been taught to read only short stories,

01:07:31.260 - 01:07:44.000

translated in my own language, I'm sure I would have come to love them, too. But then I would have become a completely different kind of person, I would not have wanted to go out and see the world, for example. So I think

01:07:44.490 - 01:08:00.530

literature also opens up the world to people. And I think a big portion of us should also embrace that, not just our own identities and our own kind of literature or ethnicity, and you know, so that's something I feel that

01:08:02.130 - 01:08:12.310

is getting a little lost. And there's this idea that well, if their Asian American, why don't you do Asian American Lit? You know, no, I think you should go into Shakespeare, frankly.

01:08:13.230 - 01:08:26.230

Because it's really important that people who do Shakespeare hear from people who might have a different perspective in their lives. So I guess what I'm saying is that people from—who are Asian American in this country, they should

01:08:26.320 - 01:08:37.870

offer different perspectives on the Western canon too, not just focus only on the diasporic experience and that kind of thing. So that could be my

01:08:37.870 - 01:08:53.550

kind of little piece of advice to young Asian American aspiring academics, I guess. Yeah, I think that's really good advice. Like not–not like staying inside of a tiny box, more like, opening your

01:08:53.550 - 01:09:09.790

eyes to like the—like outside, kind of? Yeah. I mean, you use literature as a way, or the humanities as a way, to really go into new territory, you know. And while also keeping an eye on your own kind of

01:09:10.180 - 01:09:21.580

background and heritage and all that. You can do both. Yeah, definitely. And I think we're running a bit short on time. So is it okay, if I move on to questions about

01:09:22.330 - 01:09:31.290

identity? Okay. So how would you personally identify yourself? And this could be anything from like ethnicity to religion to core beliefs, things

01:09:34.130 - 01:09:47.780

like that. I think I'm, you know, I would have called myself, politically, a progressive. But I'm also—I think as I grow older, and I see that there is a kind of progressive

01:09:51.110 - 01:10:03.400

politics that doesn't seem to understand how the electoral system works. I mean, they're very idealistic and, you know, for example, the people who just keeping on saying, oh, you

01:10:03.400 - 01:10:16.560

know, we should just, we should just go ahead and do this and do that. And they don't understand, well, if you've got only 50 votes in the Senate, you're not going to get it. Right? So—or people who went and voted for Jill Stein,

01:10:16.720 - 01:10:31.240

because they said, oh, you know, I don't think candidate X is radical enough. So I think–I think–I think of myself as progressive and left, because, you know, I grew up in a–in a poor country, and I can–I

01:10:31.400 - 01:10:42.540

can see what—when you don't have social opportunity, how people get, you know, stuck for generations. So I-I didn't grow up, you know,

01:10:42.540 - 01:10:55.720

not noticing that. I noticed that. So, to me, it is really important that whatever country you live in, that you don't only benefit from that, but you also understand that there may be people who

01:10:55.780 - 01:11:10.840

don't benefit from it the way you do. And I think, as an Asian American who moved here with educational opportunities and educational training already, I mean, I didn't have to struggle in this country at all, in

01:11:10.840 - 01:11:24.580

a way that many people in this country have had to struggle. So I think that has made me much more of a leftist or a liberal in my politics, because I-I recognize

01:11:24.580 - 01:11:40.200

that, you know, we have privilege, we came in here on a particular kind of student visa, we came here on a work visa, these are all professional kinds of things that give you lots of protections, lots of opportunities, I never really

01:11:40.480 - 01:11:58.560

had to struggle, I mean, I was always protected against racism by the university. So recognizing that privilege also made me understand that one has to be more generous to people in this country, who have not had that opportunities, though they've been citizens of this country for

01:11:58.590 - 01:12:13.880

much longer. So that's how I think of myself, I think of myself as completely invested in the politics of the US, I don't think of myself any more as someone who needs to vote in India or, you know—I mean, I get

01:12:13.970 - 01:12:24.080

angry at when I see what's going on there. There's a kind of autocratic fascination with people, among middle class people there. And I, you know, I don't

01:12:24.080 - 01:12:41.300

like people in the US who support that kind of regime back home. So I speak out about that, you know, I-I try not to be nationalistic, you have to be even handed. I don't like people who, you know, think that just because you are

01:12:41.300 - 01:12:51.330

from a particular part of India, that that place is always right. So you also have to criticize your friends when they are blind in a nationalistic way. That's been important.

01:12:51.850 - 01:13:02.000

It's been important for me to reach out to people who are traditional enemies. So, you know, some of my closest friends in the last few years have been Pakistanis, because

01:13:02.000 - 01:13:16.750

you never had a chance to, to meet people from that country because your country used to vilify them or go to war with them. And so the US becomes a place where you can meet people who were enemies in your old home,

01:13:16.950 - 01:13:31.700

right? So that's the idea of diaspora to use the opportunity that you've had in the US as a new way of thinking about relationships among your own people, influencing people, so they don't go and do terrible things back home by

01:13:32.110 - 01:13:46.060

sending money to horrible, reactionary, racist parties back home, for example. That's where you should intervene, where, you know, you can't have two double standards. You can't say, I want a religion based country,

01:13:48.050 - 01:14:01.370

in India, but, you know, a Hindu nationalist government, but I don't want a Christian party in the US. No, you can't have double standards. So a lot of it has been about engaging people from my own community, whether

01:14:01.370 - 01:14:15.860

they are their relatives who vote for, you know, people who are really problematic, and explaining to them that if you want some of the freedoms that you've had here, it is because you've been privileged. You never had to live and grow

01:14:15.860 - 01:14:30.260

up in this country. You've never had to experience racism as a child. You all came here as people who had educational qualifications, as engineers and doctors. So I think it's a really, I mean, I think–I think

01:14:31.140 - 01:14:42.980

we are facing a really important juncture in the US. I don't know which way things are going to turn in the US. I feel like the story that we heard about this being a melting pot of immigrants, that is really being

01:14:42.980 - 01:14:53.790

challenged at this point. And I'll just say something. I never–never gave up my Indian citizenship. Because I wasn't absolutely sure about

01:14:54.360 - 01:15:07.060

what the future of this country was. There was a part of me that knew this was a place that I would love to live, because all my friends are here, you know, my–my closest relatives are here now, you know.

01:15:07.060 - 01:15:17.070

But at the same time, there's a part of me that says, I don't know if this country is going to be the same in 10 years or 15 years, something has really happened here.

01:15:17.690 - 01:15:35.280

There's a real challenge being posed to the idea of this being a melting pot. And you know, that idea is now being challenged by people who feel threatened that their heritage is being erased. So, you know, I'm still—have an Indian passport

01:15:35.910 - 01:15:50.180

and a green card. And I've, I've kept it that way. And at some point, I might have to make a decision about that, but I haven't made it yet. Yeah, that's really insightful, thank you for sharing that information with us.

01:15:51.670 - 01:16:07.580

And could I also ask, like, what are some, like current hobbies and interests that you have outside of your career? Oh, so for years, we did a radio show on KPFT called "Border Crossings." It was two Indians, a

01:16:07.660 - 01:16:22.080

Pakistani woman, and a Mexican American woman. So we did, we did the show that was on South Asia. So it used to run every Wednesday. So—from, you know, we did that from like, 2004 to

01:16:22.080 - 01:16:34.540

2009. So that was like a big undertaking, because we had to plan for the show, like a whole week in advance, it was on KPFT. You know, sometimes in the morning, and then it moved into the evening hours.

01:16:35.930 - 01:16:50.130

So that was like a big undertaking, but, you know, 2009, the hurricane came and destroyed my house. And I had to kind of completely focus on getting it kind of rebuilt and stuff. So I kind of gave that up.

01:16:50.690 - 01:17:10.340

So that was a big thing. Other than that, you know, it's mostly hanging out with the, with friends and going for long, you know, picnics and drives and the sorts of things that, you know, people are—would consider ourselves now as kind of youthful, middle aged do,

01:17:12.020 - 01:17:23.870

you know, but yeah, I'm mostly, you know, now with—when the summer comes around, I'm mostly a kind of a homebody. I like to watch movies, I like to cook with my friends.

01:17:23.870 - 01:17:41.420

So we often do lots of—like my friend, Helena Michie, and I went all the way to HMart the other day, and we bought all these, you know, things that we normally don't find in the other grocery store. And for the last two days, we've been trading recipes and making things like

01:17:41.500 - 01:17:54.470

bitter melon, et cetera. So cooking and culinary adventures are like a big thing for me. We make a big game out of it. We, you know, take Alison Cook's best restaurants in town, and we try and go to

01:17:54.470 - 01:18:11.870

every single one of them, one by one. And then cooking things around that, exchanging recipes. This has all become like a really important part of my life now. Yeah, that's awesome. And if you go to—if you go back to HMart, in the future,

01:18:11.930 - 01:18:24.390

I think you should try like in the freezer section, I think there's like fish shaped ice cream. Really? What is the flavor? It has like red bean inside, but I think there's also green tea and

01:18:24.390 - 01:18:36.720

strawberry. That's so funny. So how do you eat it? You cut it into like— Oh no, it's like, it's covered in, it's covered in

01:18:36.720 - 01:18:49.040

this—not pastry, but this kind of sturdy outside so it doesn't melt that quickly. Oh, like the—those little, what do they call those little balls that you find?

01:18:49.070 - 01:19:02.180

Oh, mochi? Mochi! That has a skin too, right? Oh, yeah. Mochi, I think that's like, glutinous rice skin? Yeah, the fish is like covered in—it's

01:19:02.180 - 01:19:11.860

kind of similar to an ice cream cone, like a cake cone. Oh, interesting. But in the shape of a fish. Does it taste good? I mean, I'm curious about the shape itself, but does it taste good?

01:19:12.220 - 01:19:20.160

Oh yeah, it tastes really good. Okay, wow. I will definitely find that next time I go. Okay, good.

01:19:20.440 - 01:19:34.080

so I think this would be the last question. But you've had a pretty successful career and have definitely left an impact on many students, including me. So how would you personally define the word success?

01:19:37.960 - 01:19:53.410

Ah, personally, for me, as a woman of my generation, it was the ability to lead your life just the way you wanted to, and being financially independent. It's almost like an old fashioned idea, but I felt that was really

01:19:53.410 - 01:20:06.150

important for women of my generation, because it really paved the way for a lot of other women to do the same thing. I never thought about it. But when younger people—you know, I came from a society that still has

01:20:06.150 - 01:20:20.780

arranged marriages, if you remember, right? Many of—most of my cousins, by the time they were 22, 23, you know, got married, because that was expected of them. And then many of them had careers, etc.

01:20:20.940 - 01:20:34.540

But that always took a second. So I think, for me, personally, success is the fact that I chose to do something different. I chose that I didn't want to, you know, have a traditional kind of

01:20:36.120 - 01:20:49.690

structure of relationships and family, etc, those things were not that important to me. And to get that, and to do it on your own terms, at the same time, not lose your family.

01:20:49.750 - 01:21:03.470

I mean, my idea was never to rebel and lose my family. I'm very close to my family and extended family. I love family gatherings. And certainly success means not only the fact that I got the life that I wanted

01:21:03.470 - 01:21:16.030

to do, which was to spend a life of intellectual freedom and passion, to me, that's really so important. But also to–to have your family recognize that people have a right to be happy that way.

01:21:16.230 - 01:21:30.130

They don't, you shouldn't be expected to do everything that other women in your generation are supposed to do. So that to me is a very personal idea of happiness, to do what you want to do, but not have to

01:21:30.130 - 01:21:48.390

sacrifice all your social links, because you're somehow—it's important that you persuade your family that this is also a good thing to do. Yeah, I really like that philosophy. And yeah, so that's all the questions I have for you today, but feel free to

01:21:48.390 - 01:22:02.000

add anything before we finish. No, I think we've covered a lot, and feel free to throw away as much stuff as you want. Because this–this will be— No worries.

01:22:02.590 - 01:22:10.980

Thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed, and have a great rest of your day. You too, Emily. Thank you. You're welcome, okay, bye bye. Bye bye.