Rachel Finley
Professor Haslip-Viera
The Peopling of New York
16 March 2013
Uprooted: The Story of Suprita Datta
Despite Suprita Datta`s Indian citizenship, biryani obsession, and bi-weekly coconut oil hair treatments, she does not feel particularly connected to India. Instead, she prefers to be known for her life in New York City and, specifically, Bronx-raised adolescence. But Datta does not fit cleanly into either the mold of immigrant or American. Her interest in other countries and her passion for human rights, particularly those regarding females, will not allow her to slip into a position where her defining factor is her Indian immigrant status.
Datta was born on March 1, 1994 in Calcutta, West Bengal, but lived with her grandparents and older brother, Sohom, in a small village called Katwa until she was five years old. Datta`s mother was in Calcutta studying to be a doctor in the United States during this period of time. She was already a foreign medical graduate, but in order to get her visa to travel to the U.S. she had to take exams to prove her medical aptitude. Datta`s father was helping her mother study during this time, so the viable option was to have Datta and Sohom stay with her grandparents since they owned a successful clothing shop in the village. Datta`s grandfather acted as head of the household, as is customary in India, and he often took Datta and Sohom on long walks around the village and familiarized them with Indian customs.
Datta`s mother was the first to leave for the United States in 1997 to secure a job and an apartment. For the first few months, she lived in Kansas with her husband`s sister while she applied for hospital jobs all over the country. A hospital in New York City was the only one who offered her a job. In the hopes of getting money to bring her family to the United States and to support herself financially while she waited for her residency to come through, Datta`s mother took any job she could find, even working in restaurants as a busboy. She returned to bring Datta, Sohom, and her husband to New York to make a better life and give her children the best education possible.
The Indian education system differs from the American one in that it emphasizes memorization and testable skills. When Datta entered school as a kindergartener, she already knew how to read, write, and do basic math. The American system focuses more on understanding information and applying that to other areas of life. The American system also incorporates more time to be creative and for students to learn things at different paces. Datta`s mom saw the value in this education, which is why it was so important for her to give her children the chance to learn in that environment.
The family moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, beginning what Datta describes as “the hard years.” Like many immigrants before them, the Datta household dealt with insufficient heating and a tiny living space. The sleeping space was too small to hold the whole family, so one cot was placed near the hallway, and another was placed in the kitchen. After seven months, the family got a computer. “The computer desk was one of the biggest things in our apartment at that time,” Datta said.
Space was not the only issue for the Datta family. “We moved to a part of the Bronx where there were no other Indian immigrants there at all… but that isolated them because they did not have anyone to share experiences with,” Datta said. Datta also struggled with spending so much time with parents after not seeing them for the majority of her life. “In the span of 24 hours, I had moved halfway across the world and was living with my parents, who I did not really know that well,” Datta said.
Though Datta`s parent`s original plan was to make New York their permanent home, they never really found their niche in New York City. Datta`s father learned English in a classroom setting but never attempted to speak in fluently while in America. His fluency in Bengali and medical degrees in India made it difficult for him to return to the basics of learning a language, or culture. Their homesickness for their parents and friends back in India sparked Datta`s father to move back to India recently.
Datta`s assimilation into the culture was surprisingly easy despite her very different life in the Bronx. She picked up English fluently in a matter of months and almost immediately made friends at her elementary school. They connected over American pop culture and shared values. One of these values that Datta clung to was the emphasis on women’s rights. The New York City view of women is not the standard in the patriarchal society of India, nor is it the standard in Datta`s own home.
“My mother was the breadwinner for a very long time and you would expect that the title of breadwinner would come with the title of head of the household, but it didn`t,” Datta said. From a very young age, Datta witnessed her mother put herself in the second position to her father. When Datta was 12 years old, the family got a checkbook in the mail. On the top left hand corner, Datta`s mother`s name was printed first with her father`s name underneath. Datta`s father had the checkbook sent back and reprinted so that his name was on top.
Throughout the Indian culture, this sort of deference to the male may be considered normal, as Datta grew older, she found this to be increasingly wrong. The American culture of equality among romantic partners is still something Datta holds to the highest respect so, for a long time after she had assimilated into American culture, she could not understand why her parents did not see this sort of skewed power structure as something bad. When Datta reached early adolescence, she began to realize the innate cultural differences between her parents and herself. Though she did not agree with the way her parents perceived women, she could see how they could think this way given thousands of years of patriarchy.
Returning to India with these views proved challenging. As an elementary student, Datta still thought of India as home because it was her place of birth, the place where she took long walks with her caretaker. During adolescence, home became the Bronx. Trips to India were speckled with re-introductions to her cousins who she had not seen or spoken to in five or six years.
These cousins held completely different beliefs and values than the ones Datta held, including how to behave in social settings. During family gatherings, Datta stuck out from her India-raised cousins because of her outspoken nature. At a family wedding in India a few years ago, Datta and Sohom were goofing off and laughing hysterically when their uncle came up to them and told them that they seemed like the happiest people at the wedding compared to their demure cousins and aunts.
This same sort of outgoing nature also got Datta into trouble in India. During the same trip, the Datta family was going on a stint across town and decided to take a rickshaw, or a passenger cart powered by a running man. The rickshaw was empty so the family got inside and Datta got into the seat in the front, beside the cart-driver. The cart-driver stared at Datta until she got out, and she later realized that women were not allowed to sit in the front seat.
“Over the years I have always had a problem with feeling grounded, since I have been up-rooted so many times. As I grow older I, question everything; it is hard to see what the end goal is since there is no standard to follow… but at the end of the day, you just take it all in and then go from there,” Datta said.
Datta`s experiences with the treatment of women in India only fueled her interest in international relations. She plans on concentrating in global healthcare development as an undergraduate and going to medical school in New York City. She is open to the possibility of practicing medicine in the Bronx or possibly India. Datta hopes to influence the healthcare community as a world leader and serve as an example to women all over the world. “Moving here has just made me question every thing that I have done, but having that freedom to question allows me to set goals that others would believe are unattainable,” Datta said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYigd7XuP2k&feature=youtu.be
