1. ~ From Indian-American to “American Indian” ~
T’was the hot and humid weather of India that really made me jump ship and land in America for
graduate school. My transformation from an Indian-American to an “American Indian” is not because of
the decade of Navajo influence in NM. It’s because I’ve become Americanized by baptism in rooted
community, an immersion in the raw culture, life and love, of America. I couldn’t help it. I’m surrounded
by beauty and I’m surrendering to its warm, deep fragrance.
For the past 13 years, I’ve lived and explored different parts of the San Francisco Bay area in
California. When I embraced the community of Bayview Hunters Point in southeast San Francisco with
its minority-majority population of mainly African-Americans, my life changed. Some regard the
community as a place to fear and avoid. Too much poverty, crime, violence, and drugs they say.
Guess what?! I found more community here in the Bayview in the first 12 months than all 12
previous years in other parts of the San Francisco Bay area. I live in “Quesada Gardens, The Most
Beautiful Street in SF!”™. We’ve seeded, nurtured and are harvesting more social capital than all the
financial capital that banks in our neighborhood are sitting on, without lending. That’s Red-Lining 2.0. for
you.
I can relate to the Latino, European and the Asian (non-Indian) population. But the grandmothers
and grandfathers of African-Americans I befriend here have an eerie familiarity with grandparents from
India. The retired teacher grandma who wont talk to you when you see her until you give her a hug, after
which she’s smiling like melted butter. The grandpas with classy hats shake their head in peaceful
disapproval when they see young people do foolish things. They’re my people too, with soul.
I pass by the cheesecake bakery on my street and poke my head in to say Hello. I see old friends
listening to a distant time and chilling with James Brown or Etta James as they waft out of the warm
jukebox. I’ve discovered a facet of the old American South right here and I think I’ll continue panning
and dig further.
My connection to the history and state of the African-American people is informed more by these
21 years in the country. Some insights emerge as I swim upstream in the genealogical waters. Father’s
father was a village chief in the fertile farming delta state of Andhra Pradesh, the rice bowl of India. He
collected taxes from the farmers for the British during their “trading” days. They put up sweet signs in
their occupied colony like, “Dogs and Indians not allowed inside”. Ordinary Indians could not even
queue, board or sit at the back of the same bus. The Maharajas and other Indian royalty had gilded
locomotives and ivory combs. Then a steely, determined barrister educated in England was thrown out
from a train in South Africa due to a melanin mismatch. He called upon Indians to walk to the sea
nonviolently and make salt for themselves, to protest the unfair taxes. A sea of humanity fasted. They
marched and brought freedom for a few nations, at the stroke of midnight. Dr. MLK, Jr and his associates
held the same ground, with integrity, a few decades later to unleash civil rights.
The solidarity with a distant culture didn't just inform, it transformed. When the 6-day old
granddaughter of a community friend in public housing was being exposed to 2nd hand smoke from crack
cocaine and City Hall is unresponsive, we Occupy City Hall. Mic Check! MIC CHECK!!
It’s getting hot and humid here too…… but I’m in bliss with a blues harmonica in my lips.
Sudeep Motupalli Rao, San Francisco, California,
December 9, 02011