COMMENT: The Pakistani-American conundrum —Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain

Most of the Pakistani-Americans watch Bollywood movies, have their parties catered by Indian food places, buy their children’s jewellery and clothes from Indian jewellers and outfitters when the time to marry them off comes and yet strive for some semblance of a Pakistani culture

Recently there have been some
questions raised in the US about the ‘Pakistaniat’ of certain events at the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-descent of North America (APPNA) convention held in Dallas, Texas earlier this month. This convention is probably the largest gathering of Pakistani-Americans and visiting Pakistanis in the US. This year around 5,000 people including physicians and their families, vendors from the States as well as from Pakistan attended.

At the convention what raised the ire of some of the more conservative types was a ‘cheerleading’ display. Since I was not present at the convention, I can therefore not really comment on the actuality of what happened. I am however a little surprised that nobody found the ‘colours of Pakistan’ fashion show that took place at the APPNA convention objectionable.

What is Pakistani culture and how can we the Pakistani-Americans project it and pass it on to our children is a question that has vexed me for quite some time. After all, I have lived in the US for many decades and have helped my wife raise three rather well-adjusted Pakistani-American children into adulthood.

If anybody asked me, what is American culture, I would not be able to come up with a concise answer. The same is equally true about trying to pinpoint what Pakistani culture in Pakistan is these days. Leaving aside for the meantime the question about Pakistani culture in modern day Pakistan, I would like to dwell a bit on Pakistani culture in the US.

But for the native Amerinds, all citizens of the US today are immigrants that brought with them the cultures of their homelands. That the US is a melting pot of different cultures is therefore undeniable. But if I tried to figure out what the Italian American culture in the US is at this time, Italian cuisine, some Italian music and of course the Godfather movies would sum it up as far as I am concerned.

There are of course cultural enclaves in different parts of the US where relatively recent immigrants still revel in the culture of their native lands. In the Miami area, the Cubans have a rather strong presence, and then there are other areas where recent immigrants have set up replicas of their home countries.

In my home state of New Jersey, Edison (a city in central NJ) area has become a veritable South Asian enclave. One can see women walking around in the evening in saris, men in ethnic dresses and restaurants and fast-food joints abound that serve ‘Indian-Pakistani’ food and probably outnumber all other types of food places. Strip malls in Edison have more Indian-Pakistani clothing and jewellery stores than the usual Gap and Macy stores.

That is the conundrum that many Pakistani-Americans face. Most of them watch Bollywood movies, have their parties catered by Indian food places, buy their children’s jewellery and clothes from Indian jewellers and outfitters when the time to marry them off comes and yet strive for some semblance of a Pakistani culture.

But then what is Pakistani culture? From the perspective of a Pakistani-American I must admit that when it comes to presenting a uniquely Pakistani aspect of our culture in the US, I am at a total loss. The Indian presence is so overwhelming that it is virtually impossible to extricate any Pakistani presence from the canopy of ‘Indianism’. As far as food, music, clothes and the movies are concerned, there is little difference. That of course leaves two areas where Pakistanis and Indians do have some demonstrable difference, religion and sports.

The recent Pakistani win over Australia is something that all Pakistanis, hyphenated or otherwise can celebrate. Perhaps as cricket becomes more internationalised, Pakistani-Americans of future generations will take it up and even become involved in the sport teams from the land of their origin while following this sport.

The other factor is that of religion. In trying to establish a Pakistani ‘identity’, many Pakistani-Americans have turned to religion in a big way. Pakistani immigrants from the 60s and the 70s were brought up in a religious environment that was considerably more relaxed than it is now. Born-again Muslims and some of the recent immigrants have however adopted a style of Islam that is quite different from what many of us were used to while growing up in Pakistan.

This adoption of a more conservative brand of Islam tends to isolate those segments of the Pakistani-American community that subscribe to it. Many of them now avoid parties and social events where non-Muslims might be present, do not attend mixed gatherings and send their children to Islamic Sunday schools where they learn the conservative and often an aggressive brand of our faith.

In a normal world, this would not be problem. After all, Christians of different denominations as well as conservative Jews have been doing this for generations. The difference however is that the aggressive brand of Islam is universalist and tends to undermine the loyalty of its believers in the country that they live in. In a post-9/11 US this is problematic.

As a result we are seeing a dichotomy within the Pakistani-American community. The concept of a Pakistani culture is now being replaced for a segment of this group by an Arab-Islamist culture driven by religious extremism. Unfortunately, this style of religion puts considerable emphasis on the concept of ‘violent’ jihad. The consequences of this evolving change in attitudes is sadly becoming manifest in rather tragic ways and influences the reputation of the community at large.

The Pakistani-American community is still a ‘young’ immigrant group and in time it will evolve and hopefully find a proper balance between the cultural and the religious values of the land it left behind and those of the country it now lives in. Until then we will all just have to muddle along.

Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com