Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America

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A memoir manifesto about race, immigration and assimilation how an Indian American woman navigated through her journey into the heart of not whiteness When Sen emigrated from India to the U.S in 1982 at the age of 12, she was asked to self report her race Never identifying with a race previously, she rejects her new not quite white designation, and spends much of her life attempting to become white in the American sense After her teen years trying to adapt to American culture, including watching General Hospital and The Jeffersons and perfecting recipes with Campbell s soup or Jell O, Sen is forced to reckon with hard questions what does it mean to be white, who is allowed to be white, why does whiteness retain the power of invisibility while other colors are made hypervisible, and how much does whiteness figure into Americanness Exploring hot button topics such as passing, cultural appropriation, class inequality, bias within Indian immigrant communities, and code switching, Sen offers new angles to the debate on race and immigration with emotional honesty, humor, and thoughtful criticism Sen discovers her eventual acceptance of her not whiteness is actually what makes her American, and as a mother of three not white American children, looking at their own possible future, Sen brings the reader of Not Quite Not White to imagine how America might, by the end of the century, end up being defined outside its borders, in a new diaspora. Read Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America Author Sharmila Sen – kino-fada.fr In this memoir, Sharmila Sen uses her experience of immigrating from India to the U.S to explore notions of race and whiteness The strongest part of the book is the last chapter, where she solidifies her argument and broadens the conversation Prior to the last chapter, it lacks an engaging arc or argument for me She introduces a lot of interesting ideas, like white men going native and American vs Americanized However, I wish her perspective had been a littlecontextualized and her In this memoir, Sharmila Sen uses her experience of immigrating from India to the U.S to explore notions of race and whiteness The strongest part of the book is the last chapter, where she solidifies her argument and broadens the conversation Prior to the last chapter, it lacks an engaging arc or argument for me She introduces a lo...A bold and candid immigrant manifesto Sen arrived the U.S with her parents from India when she was twelve Refused to be identified as a FOB, fresh off the boat , Sen cast off her Bengali self and immersed in striving to achieve whiteness She went to public school in Cambridge, Mass, aced it with much hard work and creative ways to learn American English, and was chosen class valedictorian the next year Entered Harvard after high school, later got her PhD in English literature from A bold and candid immigrant manifesto Sen arrived the U.S with her parents from India when she was twelve Refused to be identified as a FOB, fresh off the boat , Sen cast off her Bengali self and immersed in striving to achieve whiteness She went to public school in Cambridge, Mass, aced it with much hard work and creative ways to learn American English, and was chosen class valedictorian the next year Entered Harvard after high school, later got her PhD in English literature from Yale, then taught at Harvard A model immigrant Maybe, but Sen discovered the underlying problems with such a term Through her journey of adaptation and assimilation, she had learned that she would always remain Not White , and that no matter how much she tried to transform herself, she would always be Not Quite The duality of being both an insider and an outsider prescrib...As a Bostonian, a light skinned Middle Eastern American, a grandchild and great grandchild of immigrants, someone who had to tell my teacher the correct way to pronounce my name at the beginning of each school year, and as someone who was once ashamed to call my parents Mama and Baba who later outgrew that shame, SO MUCH of this book resonated with me Additionally, it was very cool to read a narrative in the town it took place in Notable quotations on pages XII, 147 and 175 if As a Bostonian, a light skinned Middle Eastern American, a grandchild and great grandchild of immigrants, someone who had to tell my teacher the correct way to pronounce my name at the beginning of each school year, and as someone who was once ashamed to call my parents Mama and Baba who later outgrew that shame, SO MUCH of this book resonated with me Additionally, it was very cool to read a narr...From the evocative memories of her genteel, bhadralok childhood in Calcutta, to each stage of navigating the model immigrant experience in the USA of the 80s, this is an insightful and moving memoir of a journey of discovery of self as much as culture and race.Sen narrates her journey from a very privileged life in India to that of a minority immigrant in Massachusetts From the age of 12, race becomes a part of her life as she struggles to navigate the confusing journey to becoming an American with her foreign accent betraying her light skin Not Quite, Not White is part personal history and part academic treatise, and while I wish it were a bit less academic, that doesn t diminish the importance of what Sen has to say.A...This was an enjoyable, interesting, and quick read I loved the parts of her story based in Calcutta I felt transported by her multi sensory descriptions of this part of her experience Her assimilation references were a trip down memory lane for me, and it s interesting to consider those pop culture experiences from a child s anthropological point of view I loved that she used Good Times, The Waltons, Three s Company and Dynasty to make sense of her new country Th...Sharmila Sen s personal account of her discovery of race and commitment to recognizing herself not as a POC, but as Not White as a first gen immigrant to the US She takes us from her Bengali childhood through her American studenthood to her Not White parenthood, sharply observing the role o...This was a fascinating book to me I cannot pretend that I know what being an immigrant is like or someone who isn t white This book opens a window into that world.There are a lot of parallels between Indian caste and American race, but it was interesting to l...I won this book in a giveaway It was interesting to read of Sharmila Sen s experience as a new immigrant to America, and how the concept of Race as a way to classify and divide people was different than had been her experience in India Of course, India has its own way of classifying and dividing, because wherever you go, people are people Her story of trying to figure out where she belonged, and to what group, were interesting I taught middle school in an inner city in Massachusetts, where I won this book in a giveaway It was interesting to read of Sharmila Sen s experience as a new immigrant to America, and how the concept of Race as a way to classify and divide people was different than had been her experience in India Of course, India has its own way of classifying and dividing, because wherever you go, people are people Her story of trying to figure out where she belonged, and to what group, were interesting I taught middle school in an inner city in Massachusetts, where the Sen family s...This was a really well written memoir I think the author did a great job explaining her discovery of the concept of race as a new immigrant to the US in the 1980s As a somewhat privileged woman in India, the author was used to the divisions of her world Most of the time, she came out on top She was able to look past the untouchables and slum dwellers in her community She never thought of racial divisions, but then she couldn t avoid them once coming to the USA Suddenly she is aware This was a really well written memoir I think the author did a great job explaining her discovery of the concept of race as a new immigrant to the US in the 1980s As a somewhat privileged woman in India, the author was used to the divisions of her world Most of the time, she came out on top She was able to look past the untouchables and slum dwellers in her community She never thought of racial divisions, but then she couldn t avoid them once coming to the USA Suddenly she is aware that the divisions she was used to hold no sway in her new world Her privilege is related now to her impression of an american i.e a white american , so she adapts to the role of the good immigrant I didn t agree with every characterization of white people in this book can t speak to anyone else I completely disagre...

Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America
  • 12 August 2019
  • Paperback
  • 224 pages
  • 0143131389
  • Sharmila Sen
  • Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America