Founder of Desi Rainbow Parents & Allies, Aruna Rao discusses growing up in India, and moving to the US in the late 1980s. She talks about raising her transgender child, and how she is now able to track the process of her child’s ability to express their identity. She emphasizes how difficult it was for her to notice some of these important expressions in real-time, as she was dealing with family traumas throughout her child’s adolescence. She is a proud LGBTQ+ rights activist, and serves on the national board of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
“It’s not just a physical transformation, it’s like a mental, spiritual transformation as well because you can’t change your body that much without transforming in every other way, too. So I see this as growth.”
ANNOTATIONS
Learn More: “Publications, Training, and Research Materials,” Family Acceptance Project, accessed January 31, 2022.
Learn More [2]: “Talking About: Family Acceptance & Transgender Youth” (Movement Advancement Project, 2019).
Learn More [4]: “Talking to Grandparents & Other Adult Family Members,” The Human Rights Campaign, accessed January 31, 2022.
TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by John Keller
Interview conducted remotely
July 16, 2020
Transcription by Chrissy Briskin
Annotations by Samantha Resnick
00:00
Okay this is John Keller with coLAB Arts, it is Thursday, July 16th at 4:20 in the afternoon. I am located in Plymouth, Massachusetts, um, and we are interviewing today–
Aruna Rao.
Great and Aruna, for the record, could you spell your name for me, first and last name?
It’s A-R-U-N-A and the last name is R-A-O.
Okay, and where are you located right now?
I am in Edison, New Jersey.
Okay, great. And we’ll just kind of start there. So, Aruna, where were you born?
So I was born in Bangalore, India. It’s now officially, I think the name’s changed to Bengaluru which is kind of, you know, it’s been ethnicized back from the colonial name, uh, but I still call it Bangalore, Bangalore, India, it’s in the south of India.
Do you mind sharing what year you were born?
1967
Okay, are there any, kind of like, stories around the day of your birth that have been told to you about the day you were born?
Uh, nothing very, there’s one thing that’s kind of sad that I remember being told by my paternal grandmother. Um, so she basically told me that my mother cried when I was born and that was because I was the third of three girls and there was a lot of expectation and pressure on my mom to have a baby boy. And when the third girl came along, it was like, you know, last shot, it’s over. And then, I don’t know whether my grandmother was telling this to be mean or just to like, you know, as a matter of fact, and when I asked my mother, she totally denied it. [laughter] But you know, it was something I was aware of. Basically, people of my parents’ generation and certainly my generation also, boys were always preferred.
When you were born, what was your kind of immediate family structure like?
So, um, I was actually like, you know, my nuclear family was my two older sisters, my parents, ah, what happened right after I was born, I think possibly within the first, somewhere three to six months, was that my dad, um, was, um, got a job that involved traveling abroad. He actually had to go work in the UK. He was in England, then in Scotland, ah, for at least three years and at that point it was, um, deemed too difficult to take an infant on a cross-continental journey and, you know, it was unusual for people to travel abroad. There were very few Indians who traveled abroad. So what my parents did was leave me anywhere between three to six month old baby, with the extended family, which was also a very common thing that used to happen, where, you know, the baby was part of the whole family. So I actually, for my first pretty much two years of my life, I assumed my grandmother was my mother, um, she was very– she basically looked after me and my aunt who was in her teens in that time, she was the youngest sibling, so my grandmother and my aunt, were really my mother, maternal figures and then I grew up in this big extended family, three story building, um, with multiple siblings of my grandmother, their families, so that involved couples with their children. So, all generations, all ages, and the house was located in one of these very busy places in Bangalore, which is a busy commercial district like downtown New Brunswick, but even more commercial than that. And, um, in those days, there was a hotel, like a restaurant basically, that’s what restaurants were called in India and still are, um, a restaurant and the front of the building which was owned and run by my family, and the back of the house was where we lived. So it was a very interesting first two years, which I don’t have a lot of recollection about, but I have great photos. And then my parents came back and we ended up being a nuclear family and essentially moving all over India when I was growing up.
4:41
So, um, when you were– you mentioned that it was your maternal grandmother that told you that story about your birth, so that maternal grandmother was part of that family structure?
Actually it was my paternal grandmother.
Paternal grandmother.
So my maternal grandmother was the one who raised me for my first couple of years.
Were there any other grandparents?
Yes, there were other grandparents, but they weren’t really present. So my paternal grandparents were in the picture, I don’t really recall having a close relationship with them. I was very close to my mother’s family and the whole extended family including her uncles and their children, because her uncles were her age and her cousins were my age. So I grew up with that context being, you know, that’s my big family.
How much older were your sisters than you?
Ah, one was five and one was seven years older than me.
And were you close with them? I mean they were always part of that nuclear family structure, they didn’t stay with other family when your parents came back?
Okay, so they left with my parents, so I didn’t really know them for the first couple of years of my life. And then after we sort of began to– my father essentially moved jobs every two years. He was a civil servant, um, so he was kind of transferred from job to job in different parts of the country. And then we moved as a nuclear family, and that’s when I began to get to know my sisters more and more and we were like any other sisters. I guess we were sort of close? We fought like cats and dogs [laughter], and, ah, we ended up being close in adulthood, but I have to say, like, growing up there was far more conflict. You’re frozen right now.
I heard you, the sound was still clear, I think the video is freezing a little bit now and again. Um, great. So your parents came back when you were two, where did you– and then your kind of nuclear family moved out of that bigger family house. Where did you go to after that?
So we moved from Bangalore in the south to, um, my first recollection, there might have been other places that we moved to that I don’t recall because I was too young, but my first recollection is being about four or five years old and being in a place called Allahabad, which is in the north of India, and it is famous primarily because it is actually supposed to be the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna, and Sarasvati, which is kind of a holy confluence of rivers in Hinduism. Essentially, like, pilgrims go there to have, you know, to bathe in the holy waters, and actually people know about the Kumbh Mela which takes place there still now, where literally millions of people come from all over the country, it’s kind of like this bizarre sort of religious show that takes place, you know, in Allahabad. It’s called the Prayag. Is, like, essentially Sangam is where the holy rivers meet, the confluence, so Allahabad was kind of an interesting experience.
Um, and you moved there because your dad got a job specifically?
Yes, yes, he started working, at that point he had actually left, yeah, I think he had left the civil service, so I think he was working for multiple public sector corporations across the country. So this one was called Triveni Structural, or something like that, it was one of those– this was socialist India. There was a lot of heavy engineering and sort of, you know, manufacturing corporations that the government owned and operated, and my dad, whose training was as an economist really, like a finance CEO for many companies, so he worked primarily in the public sector but with these kind of organizations so that’s why we moved to Allahabad.
And what was your home like there? Did you live in a house or an apartment?
It was a house, it was, um– in North India they have these really interesting houses, I haven’t seen that much of them in South India, where the house is built around a central courtyard, so it’s not so much the– I guess it used to happen, like, back in the day when women were confined, and so they wanted to be out in the sun, but they couldn't be visible outside, but that central courtyard was called the aangan and so the house was built around that, it was kind of, I guess, like a fairly standard– most Indian housing is ugly because it’s all concrete and, you know, not particularly attractive, it’s quite solid, um, but the aangan was one of my favorite places, because you could just play and lay out in the sun and, um, it was a nice house. It was a two bedroom house and it was actually very close to the Ganges, to the river, so one of my strongest memories is when the river flooded, which happened pretty much every year, sometimes it would come all the way, almost to the doorstep and the floodwaters are quite gross, I mean they are dirty, and smelly, and ugly, and I would kind of be forbidden to go anywhere near them, and I would dash out and touch the water and come back, so it was– I loved the Allahabad house, it was really lovely.
10:00
How long were you there?
I think about, like, maybe two years? Two years, three years? 'Cause I finished, um, my kindergarten and I think I was close to second grade when we left.
Ok, what was starting school like for you? Did you like school? Was it–
Yeah I think I enjoyed it. I went to, um– all my schooling was in Catholic institutions. This was the time when all upper class Indians sent their kids to Catholic schools that were run by nuns who were mostly from the UK, a lot of Scottish and Irish nuns. They were called convent schools because they were run by nuns and I went to this one, was called St. Mary’s convent school or whatever, um, beautiful colonial building, very, sort of like, in really hot weather the colonial buildings are very cool because they’re these massive stone kinds of buildings and, um, it was, um, I enjoyed school. It was kind of fun, I liked the school class, I liked going out and playing, but my very strong memories are somewhat disturbing because I think this was also– actually you know what I have a year for you because I think this must have been 1971/72, yeah it must have been seventy something because that was the time that there was the first Indo/Pakistan War, like India and Pakistan had been in wars, and there was a POW camp in Allahabad that was actually on my bus route. So when all of us kids were being bussed to school, we would pass the POW camp, and I distinctly remember passing by once where the driver stopped to let the kids gawk, but, um, they were, um, I remember seeing a body hanging from a tree. So I don’t know whether this was like a public hanging or this was something that was like, you know, escaping, I don’t know what it was, but I distinctly remember that visual, um, of like all the kids running to one side of the bus to look out and pointing and all that. So that was a pretty disturbing memory, um, it’s like that song Strange Fruit? It’s that sense of sheer wrongness and, um, very, like, stuck in my memory.
How did the other children around you respond to it? Do you remember, kind of, their responses? Were they responding similar to you?
Um, I think there was a lot of yelling, and shouting, and gesticulating. I don’t remember people being horrified– this is kind of like how people rubbernecked at, you know, crash sites. I don’t remember people being– I don’t remember people talking about it and being disturbed, I remember being disturbed.
Wow. Thank you for sharing that. How long were you– you said you had left there around the time you were five, six?
Yeah, I believe that was when we left there because Allahabad– so one of the things that is actually confusing for me is that when my dad was, kind of like, getting transferred and moving around, every time there was a new assignment, my mom would ship us all back to Bangalore. So, um, I actually at some point, before Allahabad, after Allahabad, stayed again another six months to a year in Bangalore, this time in my uncle’s house with my grandmother and went to a school there briefly. Because, again, this was– Allahabad was a big city, but some of the towns my dad went to were small towns, so my mom would go with him and set up house and setting up house was quite a big venture then. And then when she was ready, she would get the three of us back. So there were periods of time where I remember sort of– I was in Bangalore, what was I doing there? I was this age, but I think somewhere around this time we had a stint back in Bangalore.
14:08
Okay, and then what was the next place where you settled or spent time?
That was Ranchi, which was, kind of like, I guess now it’s like in a different state. The Indian geography has changed since my days, because in those days it was in the state of Bihar which is in the northeast. Allahabad is in the state of Uttar Pradesh which is in the north. Um, and Bihar essentially now is broken up into Bihar and Jharkhand, and Ranchi has gone to Jharkhand, but anyway, back in the day Ranchi was a town there and my dad worked for another corporation this time, it was called H.E.C, Heavy Engineering Corporation or something like that. I frankly don’t know what they did, they were massive enterprises because there was a ton of employees and this was a promotion for my dad. From being the second in command in his departments, now he was actually leading, he was kind of like moving up in his career, so he was I think like somewhere in the top three people in the organization at that point. So it was a big move up for our family, for my mom’s status also kind of like went up with my dad’s and we were in a bigger house and it was a lovely time for me. It was four years, and I remember this distinctly because I guess I started there when I was like– must have been second or third grade and I stayed there all the way up until I was in seventh grade. And, um, it was like a lovely house, lovely yard, I remember the trees. They were beautiful trees, full grown mature trees, a mango tree, a guava tree, a lychee tree, so, and I would spend half my time like clambering up there and sitting on the trees. Um, so I have very fond memories of Ranchi. The town was nothing much to talk about and we lived in what was called a company colony, um, so essentially the entire township, thousands of people lived in this township that was only for employees of this big corporation and, um, there was like a distinct– there was a very class-based housing, so you know of course the big house was the CEO’s and then came like the next person and houses kind of like graded down like that so this was the first time I became aware of class because I hadn’t really understood it then, but then I began to realize my dad was, like, you know, a big deal at that point, and because the house, it was a visual thing, the house was bigger than the other houses that came down the row.
What was your– you said it was the first time you became aware of class, what were some of the things you thought about it? Did you process it in a way, kind of, making that comparison with yourself or with others, and also kind of related to that, what was your social life like? Who else were you playing with or going to school with, that kind of thing?
Yeah, so, um, yeah it was very interesting to me that, um, I up till then had made no distinctions between kids of any class because it was like wow a playmate. That’s it. I knew always, and most of middle class India does have domestic help, so we always had domestic help, and so the domestic help’s kids were my playmates, and so I would be like this is my best friend because this is the kid that I play with all the time, and I began to be informed at that point– I remember my best friend at that time was, her name was Kumari, she was the daughter of the driver of the CEO who lived in the house opposite us. And so they had a little house that was like attached so the staff of, like, the big like company people lived on site. The driver’s house was attached to the CEO’s house and so Kumari was my closest playmate, and so we used to hang out all the time and I would bring her over for like meals and, um, but then what I began to notice was that I wasn’t invited to her house for meals. Um, and I didn’t quite realize it, but I guess it was like the, um, maybe her mom was like, “I’m not gonna have that, like, big head honcho’s kid coming to my house and eating.” I also– there was a whole thing about vegetarianism and caste. So my family is upper caste and they’re primarily vegetarian, and most, um, lower caste folks are not vegetarian, so there was a lot of rules about purity and pollution, and not eating in each other’s houses and depending on, like, caste status and also vegetarianism. So, I guess, I wasn’t really aware of caste at all, I became aware of caste here. And so it was kind of a privilege to grow up without an awareness of caste, ah, because it’s like white privilege, you don’t know you have it until you realize that it’s there.
Right, till you’re confronted with it.
Yeah and so social life was wonderful. Ranchi was great in terms of like, it was very safe, like you could just, like, walk around the neighborhood at all times of the day and night. I had my bike, I would bike everywhere, I would drop in on people, you know, it was kind of like a really lovely time. I remember getting into a lot of conflict with my sisters at that time because they were teenagers and I was a pesky sort of, you know, sort of third wheel that they didn’t really want when they were hanging out doing teenage stuff, and so I would, kind of like, tag along behind them and spy on them and go back and report to my mother just to be mean. It was not a very healthy way to handle conflict. But yeah, it was a really good time. I remember Ranchi with a lot of fondness now.
20:00
So, as you were, kind of like, moving ahead in school, were there any particular subjects that fascinated you or you felt like you excelled at?
For me, it was always about, um, language, I would specifically have to say English because what had happened so Kannada is my native language, um, and because we moved around in places where Kannada was not spoken, so Bangalore is the capital of Karnataka where Kannada is spoken, but the places that we moved to were all Hindi speaking places, so I learned Hindi to speak to my friends, um, and pretty much everybody else who was not part of my family, and then I learned English in school, and, um, so it became quite distinctive that I, kind of like, was given only English material to read, um, I remember that I started reading newspapers because my dad subscribed to like eight of them and they all were, like, delivered to the house, and I would read, like, The Economic Times and things like that for casual reading because it was, that was what was there. And then we had access to a library which was kind of hard in small towns. That was run by the British Council, so all my, um, all my early reading was like basically like Norse mythology and, um, you know, Viking mythology and, you know, so the [unintelligible] the classics, like the British classics, I should say. I really never found anything that was an Indian classics, told for a sort of, represented for an Indian child, other than what was told to me by my own family. My mother would tell me stories, my grandmother would tell me stories, um, comic books was where I learned Indian mythology because there was comic books, Amar Chitra Kathas, so my big thing in school was English because I loved poetry, I loved sort of like the whole, I loved reading so that was kind of like a big thing for me. I was awful at my math and science. It was a source of great shame to my family 'cause I was really bad at it. [laughter] I was following two sisters who were very bright and accomplished in terms of always like, you know, straight A students. So I would very shamefacedly bring back my report cards and sort of be like, “Okay, so I flunked math again.” And so I had to have a tutor, I flunked Hindi too, for somebody who spoke a lot of Hindi, I don’t know why. I guess written Hindi is completely different from spoken colloquial Hindi. So, I had a Hindi tutor, ah, who I disliked quite intensely, and I think I had a math tutor.
Why did you dislike your Hindi tutor?
He was pretty nasty, not like necessarily mean, but, um, he was, um, he would kind of like act one way when my mom was there. Like basically he would come in– the Tution would take place at the dining table, um, and so my mom would be sort of very respectful to him as a teacher and she would bring snacks and tea and everything and so he would chat with her very, kind of like, comfortably and everything. The moment she left, he would like, kind of like, you know, kind of give me a nasty look and just sort of like be mean in a way that he wasn’t when my mom was present. I could definitely see the difference there. So that was– so school was total problem with everything else, except with English. I loved History too. History, Social Science, those were the sort of things I enjoyed. It truly depended on the teacher a lot, too.
So you were there until seventh grade-ish? And then what was the motivating factor for leaving there?
So my dad got another job. This was like– and we actually moved back to Bangalore when I was just entering my teens. This time we also stayed in a company town, uh, my dad now worked for a corporation called ITI, I think it was the Indian Telephone Industry or something like that. And, ah, again it was like a promotion for him, so he was very happy with the job and we lived in this big company town. Again, a really good place to live. Beautiful place, it was on the outskirts of Bangalore, a sort of an older township, so lots of trees, beautiful yard, it was a really lovely place to live in.
24:32
And then you started, you obviously started in a new school as well, so then you were, ah, how old were you when you moved there?
I must have been twelve, thirteen I guess?
Okay, so what was your– what was your social network when you moved there, what was that like? What was that transition like? Who were you spending the most time with, you know, inside or outside of school?
Yeah, so it was always, it ended up being people whose parents were employed by the company because we always lived in these company towns. So, and then the bus ride here in Bangalore was about like an hour and a half. It was really like– the township was on the outskirts of the town and my school was in town.
Oh wow.
So basically the people I interacted with most were people who went to my school who rode the bus. And also lived near my house. Um, so it was mostly like people who I would say were somewhat similar to me, you know, in terms of interests and things like that, mostly neighbors’ kids, you know? This was actually started– this was the first time I built friendships that lasted for some time because previous friendships all disappeared, because we moved and this was the pre-easy telephone days. So I couldn’t even pick up a phone and call them. So there were a lot of tearful goodbyes each time we left a place and some people we kept in touch with because they were family friends and my mom kept in touch with them, but mostly all my friends are kind of, I don’t even know where they are, from like, back from pre-twelve.
Yeah. Do you– normally that age frame is also when we’re experiencing puberty and we’re, kind of like, you know, undergoing our first realization– it’s another big transition phase for us in our lives. What was that like for you?
That was interesting. I guess like, you know, at that point, like, I didn’t know that I had any power as a girl. But, this was when I began to be explicitly informed by both my dad and by other people um, around me that I had power. In my dad’s case, he was all about like, “You can do anything a man can do.” That was his big thing. He was all about like, “Think about, like, what you want to do, to study, what do you want to learn. What do you want to do for work?” And I’m like really clueless about that. My sisters knew what they wanted to do. My older sister was really brilliant, she wanted to be a scientist. My second sister was kind of like a, I guess like a really outgoing sociable person, she wanted to do marketing or management. I had no clue what I wanted to do. I wasn’t particularly good at anything, other than, like, writing, and so it was, kind of like, really heart-warming for me to hear my dad tell me that I could do anything. Um, so that power was there. And then in terms of puberty I began to notice boys, which I hadn’t really, kind of like, spent much time thinking about them before, and now it was like, “He’s cute and maybe he’s cuter.” And, um, and those were the days where it was actually, there was a huge amount of what do you call it– segregation among the sexes. So, um, you really were not allowed to spend time with the opposite sex so you had to make it happen like when you could. I remember essentially sort of furtive glances and stuff like that at the bus stop and when you were walking past. And the only boys you could actually talk to were ones that your family knew. So if your family knew them and socialized with them, then you could talk to them, otherwise, you couldn’t talk to them. And even then, there was no, you weren’t allowed to go into the boy’s bedroom or anything like that, there was a lot of, like, boundaries that were very clear. So I remember my, um, I would, kind of like, loiter afterwards to talk to somebody who was an approved boy because he was actually the son of a family friend, but if you, like, loitered on the street corner and somebody walked past or drove past and saw you, they would report to your parents. And my mom and dad would be like, “What were you doing there? You were talking to this kid for this time?” And, you know, so there were a lot of eyes on you, there wasn’t a lot of freedom to socialize, but we did that, we passed furtive notes, there were kind of like dramatic relationships and break ups that existed only in your head. So it was actually sort of sweet and very sort of, you know, tame. There was a lot of fear. The one thing that I do remember: there was this very creepy, again bus stop related, um, there was this guy who came and exposed himself to the entire group of kids standing at the bus stand. Um, and that was quite horrifying. I was quite fascinated, like, “What exactly is he doing here?” And then people figured it out and shooed him away. But, yeah, it was a very sort of controlled environment.
29:38
When you were, as you were getting older, that your father kind of said that you can do whatever you want, did you have an expectation of what you were going to do when you finished primary and high school years? Did you have a sense that you wanted to continue education, did you want to do something else, or you didn’t quite know what you wanted to do, but was there an expectation that you were going to continue with school, or what happened?
There was an expectation that I would continue with college because that was what people of our class did. You had to at least go to college. You couldn’t stop at high school. The expectation was that you would go and there was always, like in my generation, the only kind of like worthwhile educational pursuits were science and engineering. So you could, to become a success, you could either go to engineering college or you could go to medical school. Um, so those were the two paths that were considered successful. Everything else was kind of like eeehhh, you’re doing it, but it’s not worth that much because it was, essentially you would never be compensated like these two other professions would be. So my dad was really hoping and praying that I would end up going to medical school. So he would talk to me approvingly about it all the time and I’d be like, “You know what my grades are, right?” So, um, I guess he had expectations of me, but I didn’t have expectations of me. I had pretty poor self esteem about my academics. Again, because coming from a family of high achievers– so my achievement was social and writing. I would write for the school magazine, I would write for the college magazine, um, I was also perceived as attractive. I was a light skinned girl and that was pretty much like eighty five percent of beauty in India, being light skinned because essentially that is like a very colorist society and so my grandmother, my maternal grandmother who I loved deeply would stroke my hair and say like, “Don’t worry about anything. You’re very pretty so someone will marry you.” So there was one set of expectations from the women, and actually from my dad too, that you would also get married to a good person of their choosing from a good family, and on the other side there was an expectation that you would become a professional person, and on the other hand it was don’t even look at a boy, that was a total no-no. So there was some opportunities dangled in front of you but a lot of restrictions around that.
And where, what was your relationship like with your mom during this time?
Yeah I think pretty much post-puberty my relationship with my mom deteriorated. Um, so before that we were very close. I think she really, like, for her, my sister keeps accusing me, saying I’m the favorite, um, she just, like, loved me, and I think in some way, she felt a lot of guilt for the first two years of my life, so she would be really loving. But once puberty hit and I became not so amenable to being just sweet and loving all the time, it became, I was a bit of a rebel, in terms of again, wanting to hang out, go out to parties, go meet boys, um, that kind of thing which was considered not possible. So I would lie a lot about where I was going and what I was doing which is usually very benign, but she didn’t know, or for that matter think it was benign. Um, so, um, we had a very– we fought a lot, pretty much through my entire high school days, all the way through college, until I left home.
So where did you wind up going to school? So when you graduated from high school, what was your next step?
So by then, my dad had moved another job. This was still in Bangalore so we stayed in Bangalore, but moved to another company town. Um, and I went to college, which was the closest college, there were only two women’s colleges in Bangalore that were considered appropriate for middle class and upper middle class families, and this is the one that was closest to me. Jyothi Nivas. It was also run by nuns, um, and essentially like Catholic nuns, so a very similar environment to what I was used to. And I went in first– so in India, like, you have the option when you graduate high school, it actually ends at tenth grade, then you have the option to do an additional two years which was called a plus two in a school environment or go to college for that which is kind of like an intermediate pre-college program but it’s in a college, so I actually stayed in school for the plus two and then went after twelfth grade to the local college.
34:55
And what was that transition like going into that, I mean you had said you were still writing, participating in those activities.
Yeah, so I actually did really well in college. I started off with, I think this is where I found a little bit of who I am. Um, and so I actually did– I started off with, because of my dad, with a science degree process and under the assumption that I would take the medical entrance exams. So for my first year I slogged through physics and math and took the medical entrance exams, obviously didn’t get into medical school which is highly competitive, and so my dad was like, “Fine do whatever you want now.” So I switched it out for a BA in English, Sociology, Psychology, um, yeah I think that was the combination. So that was fabulous. I had three teachers, my English department was a bunch of eclectic women who really loved language and so it was like really lovely to connect with adults who had my interests– so I did really well in that. I enjoyed psychology. I liked– the sociology program was not so great, but I liked the subject, but the teaching was not so great. So, um, [unclear] I did really well and I actually started like [unclear] and I started getting really social, socially, I guess like with the right crowd, so it was kind of like being able to finally be somebody who was feeling comfortable, um, in terms of where I belonged.
Um, and then did you, how did you start making– did you start making plans for what would come next? You know, what you were going to do or where you were going to go?
Yeah, this was about the time where my dad was like, “Okay so what are you going to do next?” I was like, “Um, maybe, I don’t know,” at that point I think I was making my decisions based on a boyfriend that I had acquired in my second year of college, who, essentially I guess was bound to Bangalore. So, I actually applied to film school, uh, which was in Delhi, which was totally across, in another part of the country, and got into film school, but basically because the boyfriend was based in Bangalore, decided not to go. The stupidest decision I have made in my life I have to say, but, oh well, can’t do much about it.
It’s our life.
So I ended up staying in Bangalore and going to, getting into a Masters program in Psychology. Which I hated. It was terrible. Bangalore University was like awful, it was like, really like a stifling environment and, um, again, the faculty were so not interested in what I was about which at that point was like, you know, I know stuff and I think stuff and I was very arrogant and full of myself and they did not want to deal with me at all, so it was generally like a waste of my time and I think by the first year, by the end of the first year, I had broken up with the boyfriend. So it was like really the tragedy of my life. Now when I think about it, it was genuine anguish, but now it seems so overblown. Um, but, um, I really was heartbroken and at that point I guess it was kind of like, do you want– my mom wanted to get me married off, so that was kind of the appropriate thing to do, right? I mean the kid’s not showing much signs of like doing anything much professionally, like, let’s find a good groom and get her married. And so there was that process going on. My two older sisters were not married yet, so my dad was very against the whole idea. He was like, “She needs to know who she is going to become,” and he was very worried about my melodramatic sort of thing about the breakup which wasn’t supposed to be– I wasn’t supposed to be dating, I wasn’t supposed to be seeing anybody, but, you know, so the whole thing. So he–
Did your parents know about the relationship while it was happening or just when it was over?
They knew while it was happening and completely disapproved, I was forbidden to meet him, but of course I would meet him. Those kinds of things.
Gotcha.
That’s where the conflict with my mom got really bad because she really thought I was messing up my life and, um, it was like a very antagonistic relationship at that time.
39:31
Gotcha.
So anyway, so my dad’s suggestion– by then both my older sisters had left for the United States, um, both of them were in PhD programs here. So again, it was like, you know, my dad was like, “Do you want to do this? Do you want to like go somewhere and [unclear] so I guess it is such a sort of like thoughtless thing, but I really didn’t understand what it entailed for him and for me. For him, in those days, economically it was a huge thing to take, to send your kids out of the country. Now people have access to more of, you know, foreign exchange, in those days, it was really hard. So–
Around what year was this?
This was, let’s see, so it must’ve been like 1996/97.
So you had just completed–
I’m sorry nineteen– no it was 1987. Why am I saying ninety seven? Oh my God, that’s like, God that must be really old [laughter]. Yeah so it was 1987/88, sorry, no. Actually I started my– when I first came here it was 1989. It was the fall of 1989.
So you had just finished your master’s degree.
I actually abandoned my master’s degree halfway through and came here for another master’s degree.
Okay.
And this one was in mass communications in Temple University. And I, um, basically went there because my sister was getting her doctorate degree there and so it was like somebody’s already there to, like, see you into this country and, um, so yeah it was a pretty bewildering time. I didn’t know what was happening, I didn’t feel like I had any control, um, you know, I was just like, “Let’s take these steps and flail around and see what I want to do” [unclear] Um, so that’s how I landed up here in 1989.
So this was your middle sister or your older sister?
My middle sister, my older sister was in Virginia.
What was that like, moving to this new city, and your sister, did you spend a lot of time together kind of making–
Yeah, we were roommates. So actually, I guess this was when we rebuilt our adult relationship, because before that it had kind of been, you know, it was like fighting, then it was distance, um, but this was when we actually became really close, and, um, I began to see essentially where she was as a person rather than as just my sister, and, um, and with both my sisters, I think this was when I built a relationship, because we were finally connecting as adults with very similar life experiences and, um, so that was great. That was the best part of it, but other than that it was really, um, it was so strange, I don’t know how to describe that initial immigration experience and I guess maybe when you talk to more people who are immigrants, it is so bewildering, like your whole perspective– and again this is pre-internet, right? So it’s not like I had any– so once I left, the connection to India just stopped. It was like, you just had to quit, um, and my– I would do like maybe weekly phone calls to my parents but it would be very restricted because it cost a lot of money and, um, so I just felt like unmoored, sort of like I didn’t feel connected even though my sister was there and that was actually a real blessing, but, um, I was like looking, where are my people, where is my community? And school was, so school was interesting, I actually forgot to tell you– so the inbetween part was I had actually been admitted to Temple for, um, it was a master’s program in management. I have no idea why, I wasn’t particularly interested in management, but I guess it was one of the directions of those things, I was told to apply to this school and you did, and you got in, and you came. And within like a month or two, I could tell that this was a disaster, uh, I did not want to take accounting classes or negotiations classes or whatever those classes were, it was quite horrifying, so I think that’s when I remember saying, “Okay so I’m going to like–” my initial reaction was I’m going to get an English degree and I was talked out of it by everybody because, you know, “You’re going to be unemployed for the rest of your life.” So I was told, you know, find something English-adjacent, but not really, so, so that’s how I ended up in the mass communications program in Temple.
44:03
And did you find, did you find your people? Did you find a network or a social group?
I did. I think it was actually a good part where I finally began to find people– I mean I could connect with the content, um, you know in terms of like, it was a combination of my sociology/psychology classes, it was social sciences essentially. It was interesting, um, I could not name a lot of things that were happening to me at that time, and now I can name them I guess, uh, which was basically that I was experiencing like a total loss of privilege, from like growing up with great privilege, um, you know, class and caste privilege, you’re suddenly a nameless graduate student, um, living on, like, at that point I think I was living on six hundred dollars a month because that’s what like I had a graduate assistantship where I worked for like twenty hours a week in the university for that and, um, and basically I didn’t know what that meant to like live in a city with that little money, uh, so I was experiencing A: like the fact, okay, suddenly my privilege is gone and B: I was experiencing microaggressions that are daily lobbed at me but I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t know why they were being lobbed at me, or what exactly I was supposed to do to respond. So it was about developing a thick skin and trying not to feel diminished by that because I remember like being– like working in one of the– my assistantship at that point, I think was working in the media lab and I’m remembering like outright racism from both students and faculty, which I couldn’t name because I was like, “No no, they can’t be racist, it’s not possible.” Uh, because, you know, hey this is America, people are great and people are exceptional and all that stuff. So it was a real learning experience. I think this was the first time I learned humility in my life and it was a very humbling experience, um, to sort of be stripped of your privilege and like cast into this world so, um, I felt like both humbled and the beginnings of some stirrings of wow, this is a new world.
Hmmm. Did you you know–
Can I get a glass of water?
Absolutely, I’m going to pause and do the same, so I’ll be right back.
Ok, thanks. Um, I’m sorry, how are we doing in terms of time? I mean am I talking too much, too little?
Alright, yup we’re recording. So you had– one of the things I was going to ask kind of coming out of that first amount of time that you had spent in Philadelphia was, was there a moment that you had a realization, did you, was it a moment or was it an ongoing process where you were like, “Oh no, okay, I got this–”
Yeah that sense of sureness, no. I think I still felt quite adrift. It took a long time for me, um, for me to get where I am now. Um, it was, like, never easy for me, I think all the way through my twenties to really figure out, to feel really sure that things were good. It was feeling adrift, but not really worrying about it that much, I guess a little later, 'cause like that’s how my life was going to go.
So how old were you when you, you completed that program, right?
Yeah, so I completed that program in, um, let’s see I’m trying to think, so it was 19– well so there was some in between stuff– I ended up applying for the PhD program again feeling like a little bit of pressure from the parents because it was like my two sisters had PhDs, “Why don’t you have one?” So, um, I applied for it and pretty much toward the end of it realized that this was not what I was going to, like, actually finish, um, so I think I got out in 1993 with a master’s and a ABD, so all but dissertation. So, uh, yeah, it was a long time to stay in graduate school and, kind of like, I was kind of like switching, like, all my jobs from like working in I think the small business development center, then the– it was the– I was teaching a course in advertising and media for some reason, I don’t know why. I knew nothing about it. And, um, finally I ended up with, um, I’m trying to remember I was in a student affairs like, kind of like, department, um, on the suburban campus of Temple, eventually. But by the time I left, I had also, um, I had also kind of like gotten married in between. [laughter] So that was kind of like a big transition because I was like, okay, so I don’t know what I’m going to do but I got married, so that’s good.
49:14
So let’s take a step back [laughter], um, how did you meet your soon-to-be husband, or how did that come about?
Right, so he and I met through mutual friends when I was, um, I guess like still in, obviously I was still in Philly and he was in New Hampshire. And, um, so there was this, um, the way that social life gravitated, it was actually like a cross country kind of like groups of friends who knew each other from back home, and so people would kind of like visit each other in groups and so he was visiting Philadelphia with friends of his who were friends of my sister’s then-boyfriend, because he went to school, college with my sister’s boyfriend, now husband. So it was like one of those chance meetings and we connected, you know, obviously really well, it was, um, it felt sort of like, it was like a really nice way to feel both familiar and comfortable and also it was really exciting because he was really cute and it was like, “Wow, look we can have this relationship now.” And it was really nice, actually, I have to say, long distance relationships are great because we saw the best of each other and you know maybe once in two weeks because it was a big deal obviously to travel. It was great, I really enjoyed the whole long distance relationship. So, by the end of like, I think we dated for about a year and, um, and then I decided I wanted to get married. I guess it was more of this grasping on to like, “Okay something is going to happen. Look, now I’m going to be the good kid who gets married.” So, um, and some of it was just performing for my parents I guess because I didn’t really know what marr– I was like, what, um, 24 I guess? I don’t remember what I was, but I was 24 and I got married. Um, my husband at that point was pretty reluctant, we had only known each other for a short period of time, and “Maybe this is not such a great idea to get married right now.” And I was like, “No, no, no I’m going to tell my parents, my parents are going to be so happy,” because he’s from the right part of the country and, you know, he speaks the right language, we’re going to get married now. That was the one thing I was sure about and we did get married.
And what year was that?
Um, that was 1992 I think.
So that was, you were, you had been there, it was only two or three years you had been, three years you had been– um, did you have any strong female relationships or friendships that had been kind of created during that time?
Yeah, yeah, I made really good friends in grad school, um, there were like three women that I’m still in touch with now, um, so that is really nice. Um, you know, we basically like really formed this, it was both an intellectual and personal bond so I kind of like shared, like, the same values, and the same interests, very good to relate . So, my best friend from grad school is still someone who I love a great deal and see each other all the time now, she’s from Texas and she was a journalist and, um, had like, decided, you know, to go back to school to get her PhD, and um, really like sort of, you know, knew what she was doing. She was the opposite of me drifting around, she was like, “This is what I’m going to do and this is the area I’m going to work in.” She had everything all plotted out and, um, yeah, she’s an amazing person and I’m still very much friends with her. And then my other friend was like again, who I am still very close to is, um, from Taiwan and also kind of like, she was another one of those drifters so we connected on that. She didn’t know what she wanted to do either, so, and that’s why we’re still friends too I guess.
So what was the, kind of the– the– you got married, that happened. Did you get married in the United States, did you get married in India?
No, we went back to Bangalore and had the full nine yard Hindu wedding. Um, three days of ceremonies, um, like puja after puja, pujas are like the rituals that you get performed. Dozens of them. The entire, like basically my parents’ entire like [unclear] community extended family, friends were there. I think back in those days a thousand-person wedding was considered small or something, so it was like one of these massive events. I kind of enjoyed it I have to say, it was kind of like, you know, it was like, I had finally come home to roost. It was like okay, I left but I’m getting married, look I’m a good girl now. So there was some of that and there was a lot of approving things from, not necessarily my dad, but my mom and the rest of the family. They were like, “That’s good, you’re doing the right things now.”
54:24
What do you think your dad– why wasn’t there that from your dad?
Um, I think he was still concerned about what I was going to do with my life. So, um, he just wanted, he‘s really, for him it’s like, “I have three girls, they all need to have like really strong professional lives because it’s an uncertain world for a woman and I want to see them have like really strong professional lives.” He was kind of like a little bit, he was totally an odd duck for his time, uh, because that’s not what men of his generation wanted their daughters necessarily to do. I mean, yes, they were happy if your daughter’s a professional, but that wasn’t really the entire aspiration.
What, so I mean I guess my question is, you said your dad was different, that was kind of a different male figure of his generation, what do you think accounted for that? Why do you think he was different in that sense?
Um, I think he was actually like, I guess a part of like– a corporate part of, um, men who came of age during the Indian Independence Movement, and were strongly idealistic. Like he was really idealistic, he was actually called, um, he was a communist in his views, you know, and sort of like really wanted to change the world. He had a lot of fire in his belly and he came from extreme poverty, so for him it was like, anything is possible because I did this. He was the eldest of I think like twelve children and, um, basically when he finished middle school his dad told him, “Look, I can’t really support you anymore. Go out and find a job.” And so he essentially worked his way up to the place where he was able to support not just his parents but his entire, um, his siblings and their families. So, um, essentially all the time that he was working, he was supporting this entire, like, extended family behind him, uh, including like paying for the education of my cousins, um, you know, because his brothers, a few of them were not necessarily able to like be professionally successful. So he kind of took on that– he was the patriarch of that family basically, and responsible for everybody’s well being. So, he felt if he could do it, um, and he felt exceptional. He was quite arrogant about that, kind of like, “I am exceptional because I did this,” and so he wanted his kids to be exceptional and he really kind of, I think he believed in our abilities, um, you know, and he would kind of like put a positive spin on anything stupid that you did, saying, “Okay, look, this shows independence, this shows imagination.” So he was such a loving man and very gentle with us. My mom was the one who would smack all of us, he would always, he never raised a hand to his kids.
Um, so, did the wedding have the effect you hoped it would have? Did the marriage have the effect you hoped it would have?
Um, it did, I got a lot of like approval from the extended family. I got like, you know, as I said, my dad still had a lot of mixed feelings about what exactly is going on, but other than that I felt like everybody is happy, it made me feel secure, I guess like one of the things was coming here made me really adrift in a very sort of fundamental sense, like I felt like I had no family, even though I had my sisters, it just sort of felt really lonely so being married felt like, “Okay so I’m part of a unit now.” And we had this relationship and we were together and so that was really lovely. It was a really comforting thing to have that sense of companionship, to have someone who loves you, you love them back, it was really important to me. At points it made me feel a lot more secure, um, but I also don’t think I knew much. At 24 I was still really immature. I really was kind of not very sure about what the world was and what I was about.
58:27
Hmmm. So what was next for you? So you got married and then what?
So then after that my role changed in my family somewhat, so like I, um, I think like essentially what was happening, so I, um, I continued to try and work in this research position with my faculty member, um, who was doing all this research on Indian comic books and it was really interesting to me because this, I think I mentioned to you briefly, that like I actually learned Indian mythology from comic books, so and then I kind of started looking at it from the lens of this is like how contemporary Indian identity was built on the back of like, what we now call Hindu fundamentalism was being built back in those days by kind of like bringing together Hindu mythology with like modern India, sort of like teaching like, you know, children of the seventies and the eighties this is your primary identity, so that was very interesting to me and I was working on that project, um, at that point, and I traveled back to India a few times, doing that work and it was really interesting, I was doing a lot of recordings, uh, with people who were like, the people who actually like built the comic book industry in India, um, that was about the time that my dad had a heart attack and it was kind of one of those dramatic ones when he was in a meeting in Delhi and kind of like fell to the floor and had to be rushed to the hospital and, um, so that was when I actually left– both my sisters for multiple professional reasons couldn’t leave right then, I was the only one who was at that point actually unemployed except for doing this research project, so I went back to Bangalore and stayed with my dad for, I think it was almost like five months. In terms of, you know, again back in those days it wasn’t common to have a bypass surgery so there was a lot of logistics and things like that. We actually went to another city to have his surgery and then there was getting him back. He fell into a depression right after the surgery and. um, it was almost, kind of like, again it was a very, like, hard thing for me to see because this was somebody I really truly loved and respected and, um, I stayed there for that period of time basically to be with him and, um, that’s when my family role changed from sort of like, you know, girl who was a bit of a troublemaker to the caregiver, and that sort of became my family role in the sense that I became actually the mediator and the person that everybody would turn to when things went wrong, and somehow it felt like a lot of things started to go wrong around that time. Um, so when my dad was ill, it was kind of like one thing and then when I came back here we had some troubles with our marriage, um, you know, there were like, I felt like I didn’t really know what was happening with my husband and he, in my absence had kind of felt abandoned, um, and so we had like a period of sort of like intense fighting and disagreements and things like that, um, and this was about the time, actually I think this was about the time I got pregnant. I’m trying to think, yeah it was about like 1996/1997. Um, and so that was like basically, you know, not really something I had been thinking of and when it did happen it became like this is something that now I have to like deal with and, um, so it was a whole different set of expectations, you know, and, um, a difference in terms of what my identity became, um, and so when I think back on that time, this was also, um, I think I totally skipped the whole time where I was working in mental health right?
Yeah.
[laughter: another speaker on Aruna’s end]
Sorry we’re trying to investigate the dog. She might have disappeared. I hope not. Um, but yes, sorry, I skipped the NAMI period. I’m jumping around everywhere now. Um, so yeah, so I started– did you find her? Look in this bedroom. Oh well, I hope we find– she’s a little dog who likes to run away and we have to patrol the neighborhood looking for her [dog barking]. Anyway, sorry, so– [dog barking]
She’s angry her nap was disturbed.
Exactly, yeah, yeah. Sorry so, you know, like, I’m getting my whole trajectory wrong. I didn’t start working for NAMI yet, I had actually like, um, ‘98 I think, it was actually after my kid was born, I’m sorry. Things are really slipping by me right now [laughter]. No I did not miss the NAMI thing, there was a whole period of time where I wasn’t clear about like where I was going. So I was doing these back and forth India trips all the time, um, and so I had become the family caregiver so people would like, so my older sister in, um, she was at that point, I think like, in Virginia and then she moved to St. Louis, but she essentially had really bad back problems and so essentially was sort of like incapacitated and couldn’t do anything, so I would go visit her and stay with her too. So it was kind of this family caregiver role, which now I think about it, I didn’t really ask for it, but I got it and, um, it sort of made me feel a lot closer to people being that person, I guess I don’t really like mind it. It was actually a good role for me at that point.
Okay.
So yeah, so basically so fast forward, my kid was born 1997, and um, so I was basically handed a baby and told that this was a baby girl and, um, was told that, like, you know, essentially, well during labor there were a lot of like complications and things like that and it was kind of a difficult process and I was really thankful that this was basically all ten fingers and all ten toes and perfectly all right. But I didn’t know the gender of the baby until he was born, because at that point I believe they couldn’t get a clear read in the ultrasounds? So I didn’t have any expectations about the gender, which is I guess is good now. Then I was told he was a baby girl and, um, was essentially, I think that was a really lovely time for me to be a mom. I really, kind of like, that was a role I enjoyed. And it was, I think for the first two years of my kid’s life, it was a pleasant way to be part of his life and be like, kind of connected. My sister had a kid at around the same time, my middle sister, so we as families spent a lot of time together because she was also in New Jersey at that time. So, um, I would say that the first couple of years were kind of, you know, a great time for us. And my kid was always kind of like, very cautious and kind of like, risk averse and so it was like all, I was really fearful about him sometimes, but hoping that he would move forward with that. But there was also this sense of not having any professional accomplishment because I had really gone nowhere with my professional life. It didn’t exist at that point. And, um, so I think this was the time when I started working with NAMI, my kid was two and a half or three, it was like, okay, I’ve done this mom thing, now it’s about time I do this other thing. So I applied for jobs just kind of like, um, let’s look at all the things around me and I could be doing, and, um, this actually fit because they were looking for somebody to do their, um, educational programs and writing their newsletter and doing like their community outreach and things that I felt comfortable with because I had been volunteering with a range of groups that were like family groups before this–
And just to– what was, kind of like, what was the work of the organization? What was the background?
They did mental health advocacy, support, education, and advocacy for people with serious mental illness and their families. NAMI is a national organization, National Alliance for Mental Illness and this was the New Jersey chapter. The state chapter for essentially the whole state I guess. And there were local affiliates and pretty much they were in every county. So it was an interesting first for me because I had never been part of this environment before. And it seemed to use some of my skills and it was new and interesting, um, so I really, kind of like, I really took to it. There was also a lot of frustrated, pent up, need for me to do something, to prove myself besides being the family caregiver and a mom so, um, this was what I went into in a big way and I stayed for eighteen years. So I guess I didn’t really want to move.
68:58
So this was around ‘99, you said your child was two years old, so this was around ‘99?
Mhm, yeah. And this was also around the time that I got my citizenship. This whole process of immigration where first you apply for the green card and the green card takes a certain amount of time, so from student visa, to green card, to citizenship, so I think like 2000 was when I got my citizenship so it finally felt like okay, things are some part of my life is done and now like this is the rest of it. So I had made a commitment I guess without even thinking about it that I was going to stay in this country. So, um, it hadn’t really been this is my aspiration and I’m going to stay, so now I’m here, maybe I won’t be here sometime, but after the citizenship, I’m here. So um, yeah, that was basically a good period in terms of professional accomplishment and just kind of building this life which is like living in the suburbs, we moved from Philadelphia after we got married. We stayed in Philadelphia for a few years and then we moved to the suburbs when my kid was born and then moved up here when I started working for NAMI and my husband started working for a company in Jersey City. Um, so he moved from New Hampshire first, of course, then here. So yeah so that was kind of the short thing. So yeah, the mental health thing was interesting because it gave me a lot of insight into what had been happening with my own life and my family, like you know, it’s like when you start going to psychology classes and then you can diagnose everybody in your family, so it was kind of this discovery in some was what language was around mental health, and understanding that and being able to point out things in my life and in my family’s life that I could recognize, um, and also really lovely to work with a community. You know after a period of just being very inward looking and being with the family, to be like suddenly out there, and I began to be more strongly connected to the South Asian community, because until then I hadn’t had a strong connection, um, other than being a part of it in every which way, but um, I hadn’t made a big community around me and, um, so this was when I began to feel like working in mental health, I became connected to the South Asian community in terms of the community work that was going on around me in terms of health, immigrant health, um, and so I built programming around the needs of Asian Americans that was very satisfying, it got me a bunch of awards and it really felt like this was a really great trajectory to be on.
And how was that, what was that balance, like– starting off your professional career and having a young child and a spouse, how did you– what was that period of time like balancing those two things?
Actually, initially it was really overwhelming because I was like, I have to be in five places at the same time, you drive to the babysitter’s and then you drive here, and then you come back here, it was always rush, rush, rush. I remember for the first time in my life, I got like three speeding tickets in the first couple of months [laughter] because I was like, “I have to get somewhere now!” And you know childcare pick up is this time. And childcare was a bit of a nightmare I have to say because it’s so hard to find, um, childcare that your kid likes, and you like, and doesn’t exhaust your child. And, you know, he was pretty young at that time, so I didn’t want to leave him for hours in daycare. So I think I hit upon a combination of home daycare and afterschool care, um, and then also I think this was the period where I decided to tell my boss that sometimes I have to bring my kid in, that’s how it’s going to be because I can’t have him sitting at home while I’m here for an evening meeting. Because a lot of the community work is evening meetings, we are working with volunteers who are only available evenings and weekends, and if my husband wasn’t there which, his work was sort of like quite intensive too, so I started bringing my kid into work a lot and that was actually great because it was like, “Okay, here take a book and sit at the conference room table and color during this meeting.” So there was a sense of safety and being in an environment that allowed that, not a lot of organizations allowed that so, um, after the first year, it started to come together, I felt comfortable, my kid felt comfortable with me being out. I stopped getting the speeding tickets. It settled down quite well because there was a seamless blur of this is work, this is also work, and then going out on the weekends to events is also work, and I can take my kid along to things, I can take my husband along. So basically my husband would carry the boxes for the community fairs and festivals where you would have the exhibits up. So he would bring the boxes and then we would go and get food at the stalls. It felt good. It was a nice blending of all these things I wanted to do.
Yeah. Of the, kind of like, your life up to that point, had you imagined yourself as a mother before that point, like, how did– was it a fulfillment of something? Was it new and a little bit of a surprise?
I think it was new and a little bit of a surprise. I don’t think my thinking had really included much space for anybody other than myself. I was always thinking, “What about me? And what am I in context with the world?” I had never made space for my husband and with my, like, sisters and parents it was there but I had never sort of had another individual who was like so completely bound up with me and my life. It was kind of an amazing experience. And being an only child, it was like this sense of real deep connection and being able to like, sort of teach him stuff that I wanted to teach him, things that I would not really be able to teach anybody else. And he was such a thoughtful, sweet child, very loving. I was worried about him because I could definitely tell there were sort of deep waters ,and so there was an outward placid appearance but there were things going on inside him that were hard for him to articulate and express. When he was able to do it, he was able to do it perfectly, but it took him a long time to form those kinds of thoughts. Um, so I was worried about him getting lost in the scuffle of things that are happening in life so, um, he was really a gift in all ways and bound my husband and I very tightly as parents because even if we didn’t agree on things, we totally agreed on our responsibility as parents which was, “You brought this kids into the world, you’re responsible for the kid. And always.” I think as parents we worked really well together and still do actually.
Good. I think what I’m going to do is, I’m going to pause the recording.
[End of Recording #1]
[Beginning of Recording #2]
00:00
Okay, we’re recording now, uh, this is John Keller, it is Wednesday, July 22, 2020, um, we– I’m– this is John Keller with coLAB Arts and the Rutgers Oral History Archive, um, I am located in New Brunswick, New Jersey and this is part two of the interview with–
Aruna Rao.
Great. And just for the record, Aruna, where are you located?
I’m in Edison, New Jersey.
Edison, New Jersey. Great and we are doing this oral history interview over a Zoom call because of Covid. So, great. So, we’ll kind of pick up more or less where we left off last time and, um, where we were talking about at the end of the last recording was around the time when you had given birth to your child and you were also working full time so there was a lot of navigation back and forth between child care at work and being at home, so maybe we could pick up there. If there are any other recollections you had about that time, um, kind of thinking about it over the last week.
Sure, I think one of the things we did touch on, which I found was really difficult, I mean all new mothers have this process of trying to navigate things. A couple of things that stand out in my mind, um, I was, um, attempting to have my child be vegetarian so that was something that is kind of like a cultural value that, it’s mostly a religious value, but I thought of it as a cultural value and something that was a good sort of, trajectory for my kid, but one of the sitters, I found who I really loved, she was a sweet, loving, caring woman who had, like, a really good way of, like, handling children, and she ran a daycare out of her home, um, and she was Irish, as in not Irish-American, but an Irish woman from Ireland, with an amazing accent that I could listen to for hours. And so she had I think about three or four kids that would come to her home. So the parents would drop the kids off in the beginning of the day and pick them up at the end of the day. And I would pack, like, little rubbermaid containers of food for my kid, mostly in an Indian vegetarian diet is mostly focused on lentils, lentils and rice, rice and yogurt, vegetables, so what I considered a balanced diet and, um, initially, you know, they used to come back empty and then I started noticing that it was never eaten. So I asked Gabby the babysitter, “What happened, how come this– didn’t he have lunch?” And she said, “[unclear] really eat what you had sent, so I just gave him what I had.” I said, “What did you have?” And sometimes it was like a hot dog and sometimes it was like, you know, basically, like I don’t know, beef stroganoff, something like, essentially the meat and potatoes that she was making and she didn’t even ask me. She didn’t even say, “Is it okay if I give your kid this stuff?” I had attempted to explain to her, “I’m a vegetarian, I would like my kid to be vegetarian.” So when I told my mom this she was like “Serves you right for sending your kid to a non-Indian babysitter.” But I felt really bad about it for a little while, and then I was like, you know, it’s fine, I mean I cannot really control a lot of what happens and, you know, I keep hearing of course, of Indian kids that are raised vegetarian and go to school and college and discover the world of nonvegetarian food so, um, there was nothing much I could do, but I do blame Gabby for my kid’s still continued preference for all meat products.
How old was your child at this time?
Um, I think he started going to Gabby when he must have been like two, one and a half, two? So, um, it was kind of this process where he didn’t really know how to articulate stuff. I had tried to explain to him, but he was like, “Let’s go along with the flow.”
Sure.
And eat this yummy stuff that this woman is putting in front of me, so yeah, so I think if I had been, like, a little bit more rigid about it, I might have freaked out, but I was like, “Okay, fine, let’s leave it alone.” But that is one thing that I remember about child care, and then as he got older, it was also about the exhaustion factor. I think, you know, when we, um, when we are trying to do so much, our kids are also doing so much, and I used to feel really bad when sometimes I used to pick him up from after school care and he would fall asleep in the car, and this was like six in the evening, because it had been such a long and exhausting day from like getting up at six, and going to school, and staying late and all that, so those were things that I remember. And feeling a little nostalgic for my Indian upbringing where, you know, my mom stayed at home, where you know, there was always support of some sort, I mean we could afford help and there would be, like, somebody at home so there was never any question of my being in after school programs. So these are some of the things about American life that stood out to me, um, and of course, the fact that daily living is a grind sometimes, you know, you’re working nine to five and then you come back and there’s like dinner and then there’s laundry and cleaning and all those good things. So, I remember that being a little bit, the whole process was a little exhausting. Going to work, raising a young child, and then my husband had a pretty demanding job also, so it was not like any of us had any slack. So I’m sure many parents experience this, but I remember that as being something distinctive. The other thing I remember about this period of time, um, was that my parents used to come and go, meaning they would come and visit, and they loved being with the grandkids, and that was such a big relief for me to have my parents here and then so to be able to leave home and be able to not worry so much about care. Um–
6:27
What was your parents’– what was your parents’ relationship–
I’m sorry something happened to your sound.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah. I think it was my headphones.
Great, what was your parents’ relationship like with your child? With their grandchild?
Um, it was, you know, unconditional love. It was a lot of like very, um, a sort of like, you know, allowing– as strict as my mom was with me, she was equally indulgent of the grandchild. It was like, “Oh yeah, that’s fine, it’s no big deal.” You know, and some things that really stood out as milestones, so the child’s first bath is supposed to be like a big deal, it’s like a ritual in itself, and so in South Indian homes, the child gets like, um, basically a massage with coconut oil and then the, actually I think the first bath is right after the umbilical cord is essentially like falling off and all that. So, the, I remember my mom climbing into the bathtub in our apartment, and basically the way Indian baths are done are where, it’s kind of like on the bathroom floor which is usually a granite-like floor, and then there’s like a bucket and a mug, many times plastic but can be metal as well and then, so the baby is put on the outstretched legs, like how you sit down and then the [unclear] that’s the most secure place for the baby and that’s how the first bath is given. So my mom climbed into the bathtub and like sat down in the bathtub and did that, it must have been very uncomfortable, but those were memories that I treasure and my dad was so indulgent of my kid in terms of like any bad behavior was promptly excused and, you know, my kid was kind of like a sweet kid, he was never like loud or obnoxious or, you know, breaking things. He was more of a watcher, observant, sensitive, um, so they got along really well, and at the time my sister also lived in New Jersey, and she had a kid around the same age, so there was a nice sense of the family getting together frequently and my kid growing up with a cousin, so that was really nice. So those are some of the things I remember from that early time. The second thing that I think, um, I’m trying to remember how old he was in September of 2011, sorry September, 2001, right? September 11 was 2001? Yeah, so he was still in daycare. I remember having to go through a series of daycares, one didn’t work out, the second one didn’t work out, um, so this was a daycare in Edison, I think it was supposed to be for employees of the JFK hospital system here, but somebody had recommended it to me and so it was one of the daycares where you have to swipe to get in, there was safety in everything. So, I was at work and there was this sense of let’s switch on the TV in the conference room and, “Wow, this is happening,” and my first recollection was my husband actually worked in Jersey City and was directly opposite the World Trade Center and, um, you know, essentially my first thing was to call him and he was, “I’m watching, I’m looking outside the window,” and it was a pretty horrifying sight, I guess, you know, people remember forever and, um, my second thought was, “Oh my God, maybe this is the end of the world.” It really felt like the end of the world and that I’d better go pick my kid up right now from daycare because who knows what is next. If this can happen, anything can happen. So rushing back to the daycare from work, going to the daycare where there was still a lot of kids, because obviously parents don’t live close enough to immediately come by. This must have been about midmorning, I guess, um, and, um, he was actually– no it couldn’t have been midmorning because the kids were down for a nap, they had the sleeping bags and that they would take and then they would be down for a nap, so he was supposed to be, he was not sleeping but he was down for a nap and I was like, “Let’s go home,” and got him and took him home and just kind of stayed inside the whole day. It was like, let’s just be safe, we didn’t go anywhere and waiting anxiously until my husband came home, which was quite a, that was really long too because there were so limited avenues to try and get back, to drive back, and the next morning I remember, um, ash on our driveway, there was like a fine layer of ash on our driveway. That’s the immediate sort of physical evidence of this horrifying thing that happened. So that was one big event that I recall very clearly. The visual and the sensory things are very clear, um, and the, um, other kinds of things that used to happen, I guess I started off with like my journey of sort of noticing that my kid was different at age three where he would, um, you know, first of all ask me, first of all, he didn’t want to wear anything that was girly, so all the dresses were discarded. It was the same pair of, like, cargo shorts and the Pokémon, two Pokémon shirts so those were exchanged over and over again and they would be worn all the time, he would refuse to wear everything else and, um, then he also wanted to cut his hair really short. So I remember saying, “Okay this short and no more.” So like, going to the hairdresser and saying, “Okay, so this is an acceptable, you know, like, short haircut for a little girl, um, so no more than that,” and he would be like, “No shorter, like that,” then he would point to little boys with like, you know, the little buzz cut like thing. Um, so that I found kind of distinctive, and I didn’t really know why, I was just like, I was somewhat indulgent. I would let him wear the shorts and the t-shirts and not force dresses on him too often. Um, and at some point he started telling me about his name, which was not the name he had been given, [unclear] but this name that he had chosen for himself. And, um, this name was supposed to be our private name. Only I could call him that and I should particularly call him that in public. So when we were outside, if I’m calling him on a playground or in a store, I should use that name because that was his real name. And it was a boy’s name. So those are the kinds of things that I thought were games that we were playing, um, I really didn’t have the context or vocabulary for understanding and when it continued for some time, I got a little worried, um, I was like, “What does this mean?” And I remember talking it over with a friend of mine of like, you know, “What does this mean when he’s consistently doing this?” It wasn’t like a one-timer or like, “Oh let’s pretend.” It seemed like he was really continuing this. Um, and I think at that point, I might have started getting a little bit more, sort of like, oppressive about like, “Why don’t you wear this? And this is lovely and why can’t we grow your hair?” Um, you know.
14:04
What age– around what age were you starting to feel a little concerned?
I think this was probably sometime in first grade, so he must have been what? Five, six?
Yeah.
Um, because, um, because also, I was getting reactions from other people, right? So when it was just like him and me and our family, and everybody was indulgent about it, but one of the things I distinctly remember is a, um, Girl Scout troop he was a part of, one of the– a couple of the scouts’ moms, um, kind of button holed me one meeting and, um, and asked me. I think it wasn’t a very nice way to ask, it was like basically, “What’s the deal with the way that, you know, your kid is like dressing, and the short hair?” And I guess they expected me to have an answer? And I didn’t have an answer, I was like, “That’s just how he is, you know?” So, but I remember it not being asked in sort of a concerned way, it was more of like, sort of like, “Hey what’s up, what’s wrong with your kid?” Um, so I noticed all those kinds of things. People were reacting differently, and also the fact that he wouldn’t hang out with little girls, he’d want to go play with the little boys. So those were some of those things that began to concern me, um, but, um, I think one of the things that happened, um, by around second grade, um, I experienced a great deal of trauma in my life, when my kid was in second grade. And I sort of, I guess, got distracted about the gender issue because this seemed like a much bigger trauma. So what happened was that, um, so I was one of three sisters, um, I think as I told you, and my older sister was in Boston. She was a, um, basically she was a scientist, she was a neuroscientist, worked, um, for the Journal Neuron, which was on of the, um, as an editor, so she traveled a lot, she did a lot of you know, uh, work in different parts of the country and internationally. So on her, um, way back from, uh, a conference in California, she died on a plane. Um, not as in a plane crash, but as, uh, it was essentially something that we don’t really have any explanation for. Basically she was found dead in the plane restroom, um, by the flight attendant and, um, this was midway through the flight so they were flying over Colorado, Denver, and, uh, so they essentially brought the plane down and, from what I heard later from a physician who was on site on the plane, um, she was dead at that time, but they decided that if they said essentially, “Somebody was found dead on the plane,” everybody’d have to be deplaned, the flight would have to stop, so they said that it was an emergency and that she should be taken to the hospital. So she didn’t have a pulse and she wasn’t breathing, but they took her off the plane and took her to the hospital in Denver and, uh, where of course, they declared her dead and, um, it was one of those horrifying things where I was– at that point actually, my aunt and uncle were visiting from India and so my mom, my aunt and uncle were all home, and that day I had taken them to the, um, to the Statue of Liberty, so we had gone sightseeing and come back, it had been a long day, um, and then there was this message on the home, um, you know, answering machine, uh, asking me to call them back saying, “This is a hospital from Denver,” and I didn’t think much of it, I was like, “it must have been a wrong call,” but then I listened to it specifically it was my name, right? So I was like, “Okay, let me call. What’s this about? I don’t know anybody in Denver.” And when I called it was really like a social worker asking me, first of all, sort of telling me bluntly that my sister was dead, and asking me if I wanted to, um, donate, if she would, had said anything about donating her organs or anything like that. And it was just such a, like, a physical blow, um, and I didn’t know how to react, you know? I just had no, no concept of like what I should be saying or feeling, and I said no because I couldn’t even concentrate and, first of all, absorb the concept that my sister was dead and then I didn’t want to say, “Okay, donate her organs.” And now when I think back in retrospect, perhaps it would have been a good thing to say, but at that point, no I was so not able to comprehend that. And I remember coming out and then my uncle sort of seeing something on my face, though I couldn’t directly say it, and so I told him, um, I told my aunt, I told my mom, uh, and my mom just broke down in hysterics. Um, and, uh, essentially it was just like this horrible, long night of– and nobody wanted to tell my dad. He was actually in California with my sister at that time. So, my middle sister had moved to California by then and so my mom was with me, and nobody wanted to tell him anything. So I told my sister and then, you know, sort of whatever family that we had, my cousins, two cousins in New York City were young women who were working there, so they all started kind of trickling in and it was such a blur. Basically what I knew was that basically they told me that somebody had to come identify the body. I mean that was kind of the first thing and, um, at that point I said I would go because I really, I still couldn’t believe it, it was news and it had been delivered, but I couldn’t believe it and I wanted to see with my own eyes. And my brother-in-law said that he would fly from, um, California to Denver, so I remember, you know, my cousin booking my ticket and sort of, you know, Leo at that time was, as I said, second grade and he knew something was happening. I don’t know if anybody bothered to tell him what happened, or maybe they didn’t have the words to tell him, but I remember him– I mean I wasn’t expressing distress because I didn’t know, I was just kind of in shock. But my mom was just genuinely hysterical, and so he kept going to her and trying to hug her, and just sort of like make her feel better. And he didn’t know how to do it and, um, one of the, um, one of the rituals of respect that we have, particularly in south Indian families is, um, for elders, uh, we essentially like, um, it’s called a Namaskara, we bow to the floor, you know, essentially like when– so even now when I visit my mom and I am leaving, so I will sort of like crouch down on the floor with my forehead to the ground and then she will bless me. She will put her hand on my head, and so that’s an elder giving a blessing that’s kind of almost a ritual, like, you know, I am like below you and you are my elder and bless me. And I remember Leo doing that to my mom because he was like, “Something will make her feel better,” because these are the kinds of things American kids don’t like, and I think she had been kind of talking to him about it so he was like, “I’m going to do this and this is going to make you happy now.” But yeah, I don’t really remember anything about what, I don’t remember anything other than my own reaction at that time, it was just so blurred, but yeah, the next day we went to, I went to Denver, I met my brother-in-law there, um, we went to the morgue, um, where for the first time I actually believed because there was my sister’s corpse, um, and it was just genuinely like the most shocking, traumatic thing that had ever happened to me and, um, and I think just after that it was, you know, we decided to fly the body to Denver, I mean to California because that’s where the bulk of the extended family is. My uncle and everybody, plus my dad was there, and I think finally somebody had told my dad, um, and my sister, my older sister was his favorite, you know, no parent ever wants to admit about a favorite, but she was his favorite and he was devastated, he was completely devastated. And, um, there was the usual, we had the, um, I do remember this was the first time I ever saw a body, uh, that had been embalmed and like kind of, you know, sort of this formal western concept of displaying a body that had been, um, processed in some way because I had never seen that. The bodies I had seen before just, like, I guess similar to Jewish custom, um, in Hindu funerals, the body’s just cleaned and immediately cremated, um, nobody really waits, there’s no refrigeration, there’s no embalming, but, uh, in this case because of, you know, the process and the fact that there had been a post mortem, um, essentially, the body was embalmed [unclear] doubted her, and she was just unrecognizable. You know, the face, you know, just changes, a corpse, basically it's a wax figure. Um, so we had the funeral, we had the cremation, um, and then after that I guess it’s like a– my sister and I were just genuinely enraged, um, by that fact that there was no explanation. You know? Nobody had an explanation for what was happening and, um, so it just kind of felt like, um, we needed, we wanted some kind of closure, and I remember, you know, we kind of tried to embark on an investigation of our own in terms of, you know, calling her colleagues, um, who were equally horrified, because they had seen her leave San Diego. Calling her physician, um, you know, calling the airlines who completely, American Airlines completely clamped down, refused to talk to us. We asked, and we weren’t at that point, we didn’t have the mindset of, um, litigation, because that wasn’t really what we were thinking of, we were just looking for answers, but they basically saw this asum– as a potential like, you know, sort of lawsuit and they completely clamped down, refused to let us speak with anybody, refused to release any information, just stuck with this story of, “She was alive when was deplaned.” Um, and, um, you know if they had actually declared her, um, if they had established that she was dead when she was taken off, there would have been a police investigation, uh, which obviously they didn’t want. So they made this kind of conscious decision, you know, for somebody who hadn’t been breathing for fifteen, twenty minutes, to say that she was still alive and she could be taken to the hospital. So there was so much anger, so much rage, so much grief, I mean that’s all I remember around that time about– and helplessness, because it kind of felt like even though we were relatively privileged, we had an education, we spoke English, we weren’t like, you know, immigrants who had zero access to anything, we still couldn’t get any, um, anywhere with this. And I remember we hired, we tried to hire a lawyer, uh, which was also a really unpleasant experience. I remember going to this, um, law office in New York City where this, you know, really I guess like high powered litigator, uh, had somebody had referred to us who took on cases involving, um, airlines, um, and, um, and also, we went to two lawyers, one in San Francisco and one in, uh, New York City and, um, for both of them it was kind of almost like, it was such a cold business like angle. It was like, “This is what we think. Either this is a case we’re taking or this is not a case we’re taking.” So it was never about, “Let’s figure out what happened and sort of get some justice,” it was like, “We think we can get money from the airline or we can’t get money from the airline.” And meanwhile my sister had actually got the National Transportation Safety Board to conduct an investigation because they are involved in things, you know, like transportation disasters, um, and, um, after reviewing what the airline gave them, they basically said, “They can’t really find the airline at fault for anything either.” Um, so it was just like a matter of never having an answer, you know, what happened and how it happened. So I think that was really, that was pretty much starting, that was like, um, 2004 and starting then, um, it was just like a period of deep, deep, um, mourning, I guess for all of us and for our family and particularly for my dad. Um, so just like a few months before this happened, he had actually been, um, he had a diagnosis of cancer. He actually had Melanoma that had appeared and kind of, you know, and was very unusual for Indians to get Melanoma, so basically he had one surgery before and he had kind of continued to believe that there was treatment available for him and things like that but I think in this post, sort of, you know, my sister’s death period, that kind of just lapsed from our attention, um, and within like a few months there was a recurrence of the cancer and, um, I guess that became another sort of like frantic, running around trying to get, figure out what happened. He had two more surgeries within the next um, couple of months and, um, six months after that he died. Um, because it was just at that point, I guess, really, um, you know, I very distinctly remember the moment he decided to give up, so my sister and I were sort of like really, it was such a terrible time where our kids were young, we couldn’t really take them out of school, like I said at that point we thought we couldn’t. I guess I should have. [unclear] But what we did was take turns flying to India every month to support my dad. So we would stay there for about three weeks, come back and the next person would go and all this with like, you know, taking leave from work and trying to figure out like if our kids were ok, um, our husbands were ok, um, I guess it was a lot of like things that were just like happ- this whirlwind of events. There was no downtime, no stopping for anything and, um, I think my dad was kind of like clinging on for a long time to the idea that there would be like a cure or there would be some solution, he was a very rational, you know, logical kind of person and I guess he, at some point decided, um, you know, the treatments were worse than the– than dealing with it. So I remember I was there, it was my turn, my sister had come back and it was my turn to go, um, and I just like remember him telling me, um, you know, basically, um, “I’m ready to die, and I just want you to help me and comfort me as I’m ready to do this.” And I didn’t know what to say then because I didn’t know what to– I had no idea how to comfort him because I felt like he had been the strongest person in my life and for him to ask me for comfort was sort of an unthought of thing, um, you know, I talked to him, I held his hand, and that was the first day that he had been offered pain killers before and he had never taken them, but that was the first day he asked for morphine. Um, which was essentially the only palliative thing that was available then. And by this point, what had happened was my mother had kind of like really, she was in a deep depression and she really couldn’t help with the daily care, so we had actually moved him into my uncle’s house, um, so there was an extended family, there was some support, and my uncle is a physician and he was the one who administered the morphine and after that my dad kind of like lapsed into, I guess sort of, like mostly sleep, um, and I remember sitting up at night, um, sort of like just watching him like breathe. I mean he was still breathing at that time, um, and just sort of talking. There was a caregiver who was there, who had been, like, you know, hired to like help support with the physical stuff, and I remember talking to her about him, while he kind of like lay between us, about, you know, about his life, you know, who he was, and, um, sometime, I think again, like I don’t know, it must have been like two AM or something, like I just felt like the, sort of the– I think I heard the loss of breathing, um, so I– when I got up and I looked at him, it was kind of, he had almost, like, it was kind of like marginal breaths, but it had almost stopped and, um, and I thought about what I should do and I felt that I should tell somebody, uh, but when I woke up my uncle and he came and he tried to administer CPR, I was like, “No don’t do that, um, you know just don’t do it at this point, it’s not something I think he would want, or I would want.” Um, so it was kind of a conscious decision and so, that we let him go and, um, yeah, it was like, you know, one of the worst experiences of my life to, like, see him go because he was, you know, such a huge part of my life, truly a phenomenal person.
31:31
So yeah, so those were like the years that were really hard. They were really, really hard and I, um, you know, and life moved on after that. We tried to do things that we had to do and– but I feel like at some point my depression impinged on my child in the sense that I don’t remember, my recollection of my child at that time is a little blurry, you know, I don’t really remember that much about him during those couple of years, other that, you know, these things were still happening, there were some things that I had noticed when I was coming back home where, um, he was cutting his own hair by then. So he would take a pair of kitchen scissors and hack at his hair and, um, I would get really angry with him. I thought it was kind of like, a sort of like, a crying out for attention, and it probably was too, but it was also him like, you know, desperately trying to figure out how he could kind of feel better by just changing his appearance and, um, he would like– so then he would basically cut the hair, and since I would find it, or obviously I would notice what he looked like, but he would hide the hair under his mattress, so then I would get really mad when I was like making his bed and would notice that there was, he was chopping off his hair again and, um, so I feel really like– I really regret that time because I think that was a time when, if I had been, well everybody has regrets, but if I had been really vigilant and really noticed that this was still an issue, because by then [unclear] it had been just like a passing phase, it shouldn’t have been an issue, right? So, and I wonder, like, how much of my like, sort of disengagement also led him to decide that he was not going to try this anymore, because by fifth grade, he was pretty much presenting as a girl, you know, I think the message had kind of gotten to him.
Um, and so I think my depression slowly lifted, but it never lifted completely, and now, when I look back at it, I was like, you know, I should have done something more about my own mental health but, um, you know at that point, it just felt like I was just putting one foot in front of the other and just moving forward and there was so much grief, you know, piled up within all of us I think, my sister, my mom, and I. There was a lot of trauma that we have accumulated in ourselves and it comes out still in many ways, but I feel that, um, I made an effort to of course go to therapy, um, to sort of talk to people about it, to go to a grief support group, all the things I knew from someone, as someone who worked in mental health that needed to be done, but none of it seemed particularly effective. It just, sort of like, still felt like it wasn’t enough and, um, I guess I carried that grief for a long time. And also one of the things I have, ways I found to cope with grief, was to really work very hard. So, obviously, like, you know, you’re compensating for that and so this was about the time when things became really successful for me at work, um, and I got promoted a couple of like times, from like the coordinator I became the director, um, and so I guess in many ways I was trying to channel all this feeling somewhere and, um, around that time, I think, so we still remain close, my kid and I, but I feel that there is some things that I probably wasn’t paying attention to. One of the things that really stands out to me was in, um, fifth grade, so there was this, um, you know, the school had some kind of music program, the elementary school, but they didn’t really have anything else that was arts-related that my kid was particularly engaged in. But I remember, um, one of the, um, students, her brother had just graduated, I think from– he had some fancy degree from some, um, European university. He had a theatre degree, uh, and he was this kind of bright, young person and, um, he was either in between jobs or waiting for the next job or something. But, he offered to start a drama club for the kids, it was a smaller elementary school and, you know, I guess he was trying to, like, support his sister who was, you know, a student in my kid’s class. And, um, so there was this kind of, you know, like, there’s going to be a school play, and there’s going to be an audition, and so when my kid brought home the, um, the call for sort of like auditioning, I was like, “Do you want to do it?” and he said, “Yeah.” So I was like, “Pick a role. Which role do you want to audition for?” Because they had a list of them and he was like, “I want to be Cyrano.” Because it was Cyrano de Bergerac. And, um, I was like, “Really? You want to be Cyrano?” And, um, so he seemed to be kind of, you know, because he didn’t want to be Roxane, he didn’t want to be the beautiful woman, like, that people– that Cyrano falls in love with. He didn’t want to be Christian, because he’s not a particularly attractive character and, um, so he was like, “I want to be the hero. I want to be this person who wears a sword and, sort of like, you know, recites poetry, and that’s me.” So I was like, I was looking at him, and at that time he was presenting like, kind of like, short, he was short for his age, as a girl with a ponytail, very pretty, really like a cute little girl, and I was like, “Okay, so fine, you know, try it out.” And I kind of felt a little bad for him because I was very sure he was not going to get it, um, but he did. Um, so that was kind of like such a miraculous feeling I think for him and for me and I really, um, I’m so appreciative towards that director, Skye, I think he’s still somewhere on my Facebook, but, um, what did he see in my kid that I couldn’t see, um, and the fact that, you know, this kind of like somewhat shy, retiring, uh, little girl is selected for this part. So that was such a beautiful thing. I still recall it so fondly, um, so um, the director was a really talented young man and obviously had all these, kind of innovative ideas. It wasn’t just like having some, you know, teacher put together a drama club and do like, whatever musical type thing. It was actually a really well thought out, you know, well produced kind of thing, um, and so basically my kid was really enjoying rehearsals and he just felt so engaged, I mean you could see him just like really enjoying this and so I was like, “Wow. Things are changing for him,” because I had felt that, like, things were just sort of depressed for all of us. Like we hadn’t [unclear] joy and this felt really joyful. Um, did I lose you for a minute? Okay. So anyway, yeah. One of the things that happened at this time was really again, um, I keep thinking, you know, in retrospect everything looks like a sign, and I didn’t read those signs. So, what had happened was, um, several of the boys were kind of annoyed at my kid for getting this part because they were like, you know, “Hey. We’re boys and we should have gotten it. Who’s this upstart and why does she get this part?” So, um, one of them, basically, would repeatedly try and be like, sort of like, annoying and offensive, and one time I remember picking my kid up from rehearsal and, um, he was really like quiet and sort of like down. When I asked why, he said, “You know this kid Raymond basically told me that I was like Michael Jackson and that I was a dyke and, um, that essentially, you know, I shouldn’t have this part and I should go be like a dyke somewhere else,” this type thing. So I was like, this is horrifying, first of all that a child is doing this? Um, and the fact that he had kind of, you know, really put my child down and my child understood that this was something that was, um, you know, um, really a put down in a very effective way to cause him to doubt himself and, um, so I was like, kind of like one of the typical like, tiger moms. I called the school, I called the principal, I called the teacher, I called, you know, the director. I called everybody and essentially said, “This is bullying and it should not be allowed and you must do something about it now.” So I raised enough of a stink that, um, the kid and his father were called into the principal’s office and had to formally apologize to my kid. I actually don’t know why the father had to apologize, but yeah, the father also came and, um, I felt kind of like, you know, I mean, you know, he’s still a little kid, so I felt kind of bad about him, sort of having to do that, but I felt vindicated. This was bullying and I stopped the bullying and now it’s not going to happen anymore, but I never questioned that statement, right? So I wasn’t questioning my kid’s sexual orientation, or his gender identity, I was just like, “Oh he was bullied, and that’s what I need to react to. I reacted and I’m done.” I did my parent’s duty. So, um, it’s surprising how blind you can be to so many things and I still, I could have, I guess at that point done the research to find out more about gender identity, but again, none of this was ever like part of my– my world view. I didn’t really think about it at all.
40:53
Had it come up in your work at all?
I’m losing um, your– yeah, go ahead.
Had it come up in your work at all, prior– around that time?
No, actually surprisingly, right? Because NAMI, which I worked for is, um, a fairly old-fashioned organization. It’s– I mean the, um, the community that– that we worked with was essentially like older white folk most of the time. Um, and I was doing a lot of work with my community who certainly weren’t going to be talking about gender identity or queerness and so, while it might have been out there in the literature, I really don’t remember coming across it as– I mean I might have fleetingly thought of this as a mental illness, uh, meaning like, I might have thought of gender identity, dysphoria as, um, a mental illness, but I never associated it with my kid. So these were two separate worlds. If it happened, it happened to someone else, it didn’t happen to me or my family. So I still don’t get, like, why I thought that way, but that’s really what I believed at that point. So that was an opportunity, I guess, which I sort of missed the boat on because, you know, he was phenomenal in that role, um, you know, he made people laugh, he made people cry, uh, there was this kind of, I guess genuine joy that he felt and communicated from inhabiting this kind of role and, um, it just feels really good to know that he had that opportunity, but it ended. I mean there was a grand production, everybody came, all his friends came, it was great fun, then it’s over. He had to give away the costume or the costume was basically the big nose and a sword and stuff like that, so, um, so I think that was one period of time where I noticed something different. Um, the next phase was kind of very– he became very sort of, he conformed really to this idea of girlhood, right? So middle school typically, like puberty and the whole, um, [unclear] you know, suddenly everybody is talking about like, “I like this person, so and so, and all that.” He did all of those things. He hung out with the girls, he had good girlfriends, there was talk about boys, there were dances, there were, you know, parties, um, all those things, and I never had a clue. I mean he really presented flawlessly, um, in every way, uh, but at around, I think ninth grade, uh, was when he first kind of broached the issue of same sex attraction with me. Because again, we were– I was trying– we were talking about almost, most things, I thought. Um, so he kind of brought up the idea that he actually had a crush on a girl, and I remember like thinking about it and thinking, uh, maybe it’s a phase. You know? That was my sort of assumption. Maybe it’s a phase, and it’s okay to have these feelings, and there’s nothing really wrong with them, and maybe, you know, and again, all my book knowledge, sexuality is kind of like sexual orientation is a spectrum and you can sometimes fall in the middle of like here or there, nothing to be worried about and let’s see if it kind of passes as a phase. So I didn’t really see it as coming out, I saw it as, you know, just like some interesting phenomenon that was happening, uh, at that time. And again, it was either deliberate blindness on my part or an inability to put two things together. Um, and I think after that he didn’t really talk to me about it because he was like, “Okay, she really doesn’t get it.” So, um, and then meanwhile, one of the things that had been happening was– so fast forward a couple of years, this was I think his final year of high school where, um, I actually had an intern at that time who identified as nonbinary. I’m sorry, I’m just going to put this off here.
45:02
Sure.
And, um, this college student was somebody that I became pretty close to.
Around what time– what year was this?
Ah, this was 2015.
Okay.
Yeah, so, um, and so this person was somebody who was, like, very bright and very, you know, sort of somebody I felt like I could connect with. They were having a lot of problems with their own family. They were also Indian American, and I became, in some sense, like an elder who was sort of really supportive of them. And that’s when I began to learn about, uh, gender identity and, you know, essentially the term transgender I think was kind of fully in my consciousness at that time. And also then the fact that, the impact of family’s rejection. Um, because this person had to actually leave home. So the parents essentially like said, “Either you give up this talk or you leave home.” And this was a college student, so this kid actually left home and stayed in a shelter, uh, for a few months because essentially, they felt like they cannot be who they are at home. Um, so I remember being quite horrified at that because, it’s like my idea of like Indian families is like we will clutch onto our children with both hands at all times. So that idea of letting your child actually go, stay in a shelter, rather than saying, “Okay, fine, whatever you are is fine,” seemed like really far-fetched to me and I began to realize how common it was. Um, and, um, and how difficult it is, and through this person I met actually other kids, also college students, who identified as queer and were facing like, you know, genuine issues with family and family’s refusal to address it, refusal to talk about it, refusal to just let the kid be. Um, and then so, I saw this in the context of mental health, because that’s what I was working in, and then the student actually put together a really lovely panel, this was their project, their internship project. Um, they put together a panel on the impact of family acceptance on mental health. And I remember helping host that panel and, you know, talking about it to everyone. It seemed kind of like really, really special because it wasn’t a subject that had been addressed, um, in my community to my knowledge. And, um, and then there was even a mom of a kid from, um, from Maryland, who came all the way from Maryland, um, to talk about, um, I think at that point her daughter identified as pansexual, and so that mom was also invited to this panel, it was, you know, really well received. It went really well. So I remember I came home and talked to my own kid about it. I mean I was generally talking about, you know, like the fact that I really liked this college student who was really bright and so, you know, good at what they did. Um, so I remember coming home, like, sort of like, talking a little bit about it and, um, that was the moment when my kid essentially decided to just come out and say the words. Um, and just basically said, what he said was, “You do know I’m gay.” It wasn’t even like, you know, “Mom, I’m gay. I’m telling you this right now for the first time.” It was kind of like, almost like, “You went to where?” So it was, um, it was quite a shock to my system because what I could, kind of like, think of as my being supportive of other people is now like suddenly my issue. Um, and that was, again, I still remember feeling that sense of utter shock. It’s like, really? Wow. Who would have thought? And it was this realization that the ground was shifting underneath my feet, um, and I think my first reaction was really overwhelming fear. I really felt really fearful about, you know, my kid was going to have a really difficult life, and people are going to hate him, and people are going to say this to him. You know, will he ever have a family of his own? Will he ever, like, you know, will he ever be loved by anybody? You know, essentially I saw this, like, lonely tragic future stretching in front of him and I was horrified by that because that was so not what I wanted for my kid. Um, so that’s really I think my first reaction, which I had to, kind of like, absorb and figure out for myself. And the other thing that happened was, I was, um, told to not tell anybody else, so the coming out was only to me, and I wasn’t allowed to tell my husband, I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody else, it was like– and I basically was told that he was out to his friends as queer but didn’t want to be out to anybody else. So, um–
49:55
Did you get a sense at that time– did you get a sense of that time of how his peer network had responded to it? Or what his group of friends were, were they supportive?
Yeah, and so that was really lovely to me. He told me that the first person he chose to come out to, which was, um, this boy in school that he was friends with, um, essentially said, “Oh well. No big deal.” So it was kind of this matter of fact, you know, you’re fine, you’re just the same person whether you’re queer or not. And so I think most of his friends were supportive, um, I don’t recall anybody else. And apparently there was some efforts to date a girl in high school, again, which I was, like, clueless about because I was like, “Oh, it’s a girlfriend, it’s fine.” So, um–
Was he in public school at the time?
Yes. He was in public school here in Edison. And so the peer group was largely supportive from what I understand. Though he never, from what I recall, never really was part of any formal LGBTQ grouping in school. I mean I know there was a GSA, but apparently it was regarded as something for white kids only. Um, and so his peer group was primarily Asian, um, you know, Edison has, like, a huge Asian population, and he was– he’s a musician so his big community was band, and band was primarily Asian. And so, um, all his peers were either Asian American or Indian American, mostly. And apparently all of them were supportive, and essentially, like, made him feel like it was no big deal either way.
Um, yeah so, I sort of like, remember being like, really not knowing what next. Um, you know, what was I supposed to do next? So, when I asked him, he was like, “You don’t have to do anything. This is just me, this is how I am and–” except of course being sworn to secrecy, which was I think the hardest thing for me because my first reaction was to try to process this with other people. I wanted to talk to my sister, I wanted to talk to my husband, so that secrecy was a real drain in the sense that I was busily looking up information. I, of course, found PFLAG, um, and, um, I actually attended my first PFLAG meeting. Um, which was not a particularly helpful thing. I just felt very uncomfortable in that environment because it seemed like almost walking into a club where I wasn’t a member. So, it was like people sort of having a reaction, not really knowing what to do with me and I didn’t know what to do with them. It was kind of like, you know, I guess what I was looking for was a lot of warmth and welcome and I felt like this was more of like a sort of fairly standoffish environment where you were invited to learn, but it wasn’t like people were going to call you afterwards and say, “Hey, how are you and how did things go?” [unclear] Now that I’m on the board of PFLAG is one of my biggest like, things for them, like the chapters really need to work on, particularly someone who looks different, when they come in, there has to be this extra effort because you’re never going to achieve, you know, your diversity goals without just this fundamental change in behavior.
Um, so yeah, so I didn’t feel that PFLAG was particularly helpful, but I was still looking for information, and meanwhile my kid was applying to college. And I was very, really worried about where is he going to go to college and what does that mean, because, again, being away from us and also I thought this was a secret he was going to carry, I didn’t know whether he was going to be out in college or not. And, um, by then I think actually, I think that by the time, like, he, um, he came out sort of, and I absolved all of this, he had already decided to go to college in the south. Um, in Nashville. And, um, I was then kind of like horrified at the thought, you know, my assumption of the south, it’s kind of like a Northerner’s, like, perspective. It’s like, you know, people are going to be out there, just like constantly like, being bigoted and you know, so it was like, this is awful. He’ll be victimized in so many ways and, um, but he seemed to be fairly clear that this was the place that he wanted to go to. And, um, so I remember just, sort of like, you know, trying to be supportive but really feeling like quite lost and also like, he is an only child, uh, we were very close and for him to move away was a lot of, like– I felt very sorrowful in general about losing him, and he moved, like, rather than going to Rutgers, which was my preference, he moved all the way across to another state, and, um, so it was quite like a hard, uh, few months I remember. Well actually, it was almost a year, uh, before I finally told my husband. I think just before he was coming home for the first break, was when I finally decided to out him to my husband because I was like, I can’t really keep this secret forever. By then I had already sworn my sister to secrecy and told her and, um, and I was really advancing in other aspects of, um, I had actually done my, my search into PFLAG and found that there was an API parents group in New York City, uh, Asian Pacific [unclear] parents’ group. And, um, and actually I found a really lovely article that was talking about Clara, Clara Yoon, who is the founder of that group. She is a Korean American mom, and she has been instrumental in getting a Korean American parents group together. A national one that really does some really good work, um, around, um, you know, first of all, supporting parents, and second of all, so making the Korean community, where there’s a very strong, um, anti-LGBTQ, um, movement in the Korean churches, um, making like, you know, doing that kind of work, she was really doing exemplary work, and I found an article about her, which had her email, so I emailed her and said, you know, “Hey, I see that you are doing all this work in the Korean community and I would love to be able to do the same in the South Asian community.” And so I had– she was wonderful, she emailed me back the next day, um, and I still remember, I think we met finally after some communication and talking about things and, um, in the fall of 2017. Um, and this was after my kid had been in college, after like, I had, um, outed him to my husband, um, and that was, by the way, my husband’s reaction was also like something that we had all been waiting for, I mean, um, my kid assumed that, you know, dad was going to be, a) like really angry and, b) would threaten to cut off, like, you know, college funding unless he like told him, he had kind of built up all these things about what his dad was going to do. And my husband’s reaction was basically like complete shock first of all, but also to say that, you know, he basically called Leo up and said, “I love you and I don’t know, I’m sad that you kept this secret from me for this long, but I’ll try to support you in whichever way that I can.” So that kind of helped, you know, sort of smooth over this anxiety about what was going to happen, and also I think it made us feel very much together as a family as, you know, feeling of like, okay, so things are fine. There’s no, like, impending doom coming up, um, so now it’s about like time to figure out how we can sort of, you know, just be better equipped to– [unclear]
58:04
And then at that time the, um, sorry, uh, at that time, the coming out was still about, um, your son’s sexual preference.
About queerness. Yes, mhm. Yes.
When you’re– I was just kind of curious, going back to that moment, what grade did your son first have that conversation with you when he stated he was gay?
Um, that was in 2015. That was the final year of school.
Final year of school and then when, kind of his resistance to, to having other people know, not that, I’m not trying to get inside his head, but more along the lines of like, did you agree with that resistance? You kind of– you kind of went along with it for a period of time. Was it something that you yourself also were kind of cautious of, who you were going to tell and how you were going to tell them?
Um, I was because– I was really petrified of people’s reactions. I was worried about my mom’s reaction, uh, I was worried about my extended family’s reaction, I was worried about the community because again, like, Edison, all our friends were primarily Asian, um, or South Asian and, um, nobody I know, I knew, had a queer kid. Uh, nobody ever talked about their kid’s sexual orientation. In fact, like Indian American kids are barely allowed to date people of the opposite sex because, you know, we don’t do that and, you know, our kids are good kids. They put their heads down and study, they go to college and that’s it. That is the whole stereotype. So yeah, I didn’t– I guess I didn’t– I guess now when I think back about it, why the reluctance to talk about it. Maybe there was more that he hadn’t admitted to himself, um, and maybe there was a lot of processing, so it was easier to say this than to say, “I’m transgender.” And maybe that wasn’t really sort of formalized in his head either. Maybe it was just like a general kind of feeling and I guess like, you know, going back to his childhood, and the kind of ease with which he was able to express, you know, gender expression, um, that had gone by the time it came to high school, because he was like really living in, he was sort of living in drag I guess. Um, and, um, and this was how he felt he had to be. So yeah, maybe that reluctance had something to do with that. I didn’t think of it that way, I was just like processing, I guess, my own, I think a lot of grief, um, you know, I felt sort of sad about essentially like what the limitations of his life would be and my sort of, you know, assumptions then were like, you had to be lonely and, you know, you had to be by yourself and you couldn’t be part of a community because your community didn’t like what you were. And so I was just processing that part and I thought maybe he was also experiencing that because, um, I think everywhere both in like, you know, family and community, um, you know, there are no LGBTQ role models for little Indian kids in Edison. There was like nobody, you could sort of point to and say, “Hey, look at that person, this is a queer or trans person who went to J.P. Stevens and graduated and is now, like, you know, an aeronautical engineer somewhere.” That was, like, never, like, part of the story. It was, you know, like, “Oh such and such went to Howard and became this fancy epidemiologist,” or something but there was no question that they were straight and cis.
61:37
Yeah.
Right? So there was, like, the role models that were offered to him, or to me, were never about any kind of diversity in gender or sexuality.
So when your husband, it was a first year in college when your husband was also then, kind of became aware. Did he start going with you to any of the PFLAG events or meetings? Or start being involved in that?
No. He absolutely– for him it was like a personal interaction between him and his kid and that was it. He was like me, you know, “I’ve accepted you, nothing to be done now. That’s it. Now you move on with your life.” There’s no further steps. And of course he was not coming out to his own family, um, you know, to his mom and his brother, um, you know, that was again, like, “Let’s not talk about that.” So, his thing was like, I guess he’s like, really, um, as much as I am, like, so interested in, like, what is right and what should be done and what things could be, like, he’s like, keep your head down, do what you have to do, as long as you and your family are okay, everything else is fine. The rest of the world can be– do whatever they want. Um, so he really was, he’s never been interested in that kind of engagement. Um, and, um, I guess you know that’s very different personalities [unclear]. We are, um, we respond to, 'cause I think, um, one thing that we do agree on, um, is, as like parents, that it’s our duty and responsibility to love and care for our kid, and we also both are very involved with supporting our own birth families and you know, so– essentially he takes, as the eldest son takes a lot of responsibility for his own mother and for his brothers, and I as the youngest kid take a lot of responsibility for my mother and my sister and her family. So we feel, like, the need to sort of support our extended families, but that’s where I think the similarities stop. He’s– my husband’s not terribly interested in the community, um, and he doesn’t really, like, want to engage.
So, you started getting more involved in PFLAG and started getting more– maybe what’s the right way to say it– a consciousness of how they operated in some ways, or how they provided service. So, so, how did that, how did that consciousness or awareness of how they were doing, like, really kind of, motivate your next steps?
Yeah, so, what happened with the API PFLAG group in New York City is, a) they were, um, extraordinarily friendly and welcoming. So there was a Japanese mom and the Korean mom, Clara that I already told you about, and so we were a tiny group of people, um, you know, there weren’t, like, basically hundreds of parents, there were like three or four parents. But there was an immediate sense of comfort and closeness, so we were constantly talking we were, you know, chatting with each other, providing information to each other, um, so there was this real sense of belonging that came out of that and, uh, one of the things that happened was also sort of understanding how the, uh, how you could actually be part of the Asian American community, so my first sort of proud moment was, um, walking in the Chinatown, Asian New Year parade. This was, I think it might have been February 2018, uh, by then I had already sort of become a member of that API PFLAG. I was kind of like basically doing a lot of things with them, they had presentations and I would go, I would travel all the way to New York, like, you know, on a regular basis to be part of their meetings, so there was this sense of like, engagement with that community, so when they said, you know, that they were going to be like marching in, um, in the Asian New Year parade, I was like fine. And then I remember it being such a revelation to see all these queer and trans Asian people, like essentially the bulk of people there were queer and trans people. There were like a handful of parents, um, and just sort of being part of this whole parade atmosphere. The getting together to make signs, the getting together for eating and sort of this camaraderie and fellowship, and then marching which was just quite phenomenal because you feel like it’s– I guess it’s like what people in like, you know, military units or something feel like, you’re sort of gearing up for battle, you have your sign and you go out there and march and the reaction of the crowd is like, really amazing because, you know they are enough, I mean there was some silent spectators, like wondering what on Earth we were doing, but there were, um, there were other people cheering. Um, and particularly young people and, you know, who understood what it meant when we were carrying signs saying “I love my LGBTQ child,” or things like that, so it was just like quite, it was quite addictive. There was a sense of community, sort of being part of a radical fringe in some ways because we were so small as a group of parents and just fellowship and feeling like, you know, I am doing something worthwhile. And the API PFLAG group also introduced me to NQAPIA, which is the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance. So what it is– is a national federation of Asian American LGBTQ folks. Um, and they do some really great work, the executive director Glen is, um, personally invested in family acceptance work, um, you know, he’s a Filipino gay man who grew up, like, really attached to his family and it took many, many years to work up to finding acceptance in his own family and so now he’s like, he gets emotional and starts crying every time like parents sort of do this work. He’s really invested, so he’s been putting money and resources into, um, creating a family acceptance project within NQAPIA and I was invited to take part in that.
67:46
I was going to ask where is he based out of.
He’s in New York City. NQAPIA is national, but Glen is in New York City.
Okay.
Glen Magpantay, so he’s been, he’s essentially I think the first [unclear] executive director of that organization and he’s done phenomenal work in building a national group, um, and so essentially like all the organizations in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, there’s a bunch of Asian American LGBTQ organizations that are all part of this federation and NQAPIA brings them together in national conferences, so they stagger things, national conferences, regional conferences, and leadership summits. So every three years there’s a different program, um, and my year that I started getting engaged, which was 2017/2018, they were having their regional conferences, and so that meant that, um, I was invited to fly to, um, Chicago, uh, to Fresno, that was the California one, and to Boston, uh, and all three were family acceptance workshops that I presented with other parents where essentially all it was, was just saying, “This is my family story and this is why I support the LGBTQ community.” And it was sort of very raw because I was still frankly figuring out what my family story was at that point. Um, but it was a huge eye opener for me because I was suddenly part of the LGBTQ community, meaning like, I was meeting so many people and this was the first time I met so many trans people. I had never really, I think like had any kind of relationship with an openly trans person before, and to suddenly be confronted with this diversity of, you know, people expressing gender in all kinds of ways, it was quite like a, it was quite amazing to me. It was like, wow, somebody just flipped on, like, a lightswitch here and I can suddenly see and I hadn’t seen so much before and also the other thing that was really striking to me as somebody who sort of like is also craving that emotional connection was all these LGBTQ people were delighted to see me there. They were delighted to see the parents there and there was so much love and affection and just constantly people like approaching you and saying, “Can I hug you?” And this kind of sense of real love and seeking, um, you know, sort of like a parent’s approval. So, I’ve never been hugged that many times before I think like at any given event, so it was quite– it was very emotional to be part of that and that’s when I began to realize that it’s not just about like me telling my story or my kid, this is actually larger than all of that, into this needs to be done on a, on a kind of, you know, more organized and a bigger level for it to have an impact in the community. And that kids like, you know, of all ages, kids who were like straight out of college and there were people in their forties who were still seeking affirmation and validation from parents. So, it just felt like there should be something done, um, and perhaps I’m in the right position to do it and meanwhile, simultaneously while all this was happening, so I was going to all these NQAPIA, uh, things and saying, “Okay, I’m the parent of a queer daughter.” And, you know, “This is what my daughter is about,” and again, I would, kind of like, check in with my kid about like, what can I say about you? I think I did overshare, certainly, because I was like, so new to this and I didn’t realize this was registering with people, um, and also I didn’t kind of make that distinction, at that point, this was still my child, so I was like basically like, sharing their life with other people. And, um, so I think this was when I began to realize a little bit, like, perhaps what I was doing– like, I need to look at what I’m doing, and if I want to be an effective ally, and sort of sustain this kind of work that I was really beginning to get engaged in, I need to like, look at what it’s about. And, um, I also remember this was the time when my kid started socially transitioning. So this was probably like, first year of college, he pretty much presented like a girl, um, and, I think it was a pretty hard year because it was– he was out as queer, I think, but was just trying to figure out, you know, who he was, and also academically, he wasn’t quite sure of his major, so he would sort of, you know, like, try and figure that out, it was just, like, in general it was hard, freshman year was hard for him. It was hard for me too, because I felt like he was unhappy and I didn’t know how to support him. So those were all the kinds of, like, you know, things that were going on while I was beginning to get engaged in sort of, you know, a larger, um, activism. Um, and so I think when I started noticing differences, um, was when, um, I would, like, still do this thing about, like, outfits, there were all these, like, you know, especially, it was all about, uh, providing outfits for, um, special events. So, when he would come home for like, you know, things, like, um, for the breaks, I would be like, “So what are you going to be wearing for this [unclear], well and what are you going to be wearing for that festival, and what are you going to be wearing to this concert?” So those were the things that I was engaged in, and I would find him very resistant, um, to, “Okay, so I’m not going to be wearing this, and this is too blingy.” Yes, so I’m sorry my husband is interfering and telling me like what– no say that? You want to come and say it? Hold on, I’ll take this out.
Aruna’s Husband: Hey, how are ya?
73:30
Good, how are you?
Aruna’s Husband: Good. I just overheard the conversation, sorry I haven’t been engaged, I work from, like, 6am to 8pm on conference calls. I was just telling Aruna, like, you know, for Leo, I used to go get my own sweatshirt, sweatpants, you know, trainers as you guys call it in England, shopping, and everytime I would come back with, you know, some light blue or pink colored stuff, uh, total rejectionist– like, “Nope. Grey or dark blue. That’s the only two colors I’m going to wear.” [laughter] So I should have had a clue back then. Alright, I’ll let you guys be.
Thank you, it was nice chatting with you, thank you.
Sorry, he keeps walking around muttering on the phone, so I’m trying to use headphones so I don’t have to, like, constantly hear that, or you don’t have to constantly hear that. He really is on phone calls from like six to eight.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, so, um, sorry we interrupted the oral history.
No worries, it’s always great, a little surprise, a nice little treat right in the middle of it. Um, so, so you said that around this time your son was freshman year in college and kind of going through, going through the journey, but was there a specific moment in which they had, like, a gender identification, kind of, coming out conversation? With you? Had that already happened at this point?
No, no, so that was actually really interesting to me. So, um, so what was actually like happening in, um, in college at that time was that he was, kind of like, trying to figure out, like, exactly, like, what felt right. And it wasn’t easy to explain and it made him irritable, uh, with me, rather than, like, wanting to talk it over.
Yeah.
So rather than rejecting, “I will not wear this fancy outfit for Garba,” or, um, something like that– so it would be like, “You’re just so annoying and stop asking me this stuff.” And, you know, so it was never kind of outright like, “You are sort of, like, really pushing my boundaries here.” Um, and I didn’t quite understand that, but I began to realize, uh, I began to realize, like the difference in families with trans kids. And, it was also actually quite frightening because one of the things I saw was that many families with trans kids, the kids were themselves, dealing with a lot of mental health issues. Most of the people I met were, um, talking about how the kids had to, um, really deal with like severe, um, you know, um, issues and they were like, there was talk of hospitalization, psychiatric issues, and as one who had worked in mental health for many years, I kind of understood the severity of some of this. And I wasn’t quite clear in my head, I guess at that point whether it meant that being transgender predisposed you to mental illness, um, so I remember, kind of like, trying to explore that, if there was any literature out there about that, and it was kind of reassuring to me to know that, no, it wasn’t being trans that predisposed them, it was the impact of being trans and the rest of the world that predisposed them to this. But, at the same time, I remember feeling like, this sort of like, you know, obnoxious, um, sort of um, what do you call it? Um, some amount of, um, relief that my kid was not trans because I was like, “Okay, queerness I can deal with, it’s not that bad. This would be really bad.” So I recall that feeling, which now, I regret feeling that, but I guess, you know, maybe that’s what like parents of cisgender kids feel when they see us and all the things that we are encountering. So, um, and so what I got from Leo was not an explicit, “I am trans,” but a lot of, um, cues regarding gender expression.
So, um, and I think he was kind of like replaying in his own head, like, you know, what stuff– he’s always been, like, such a cautious kid. Like, I still tell him, when he first started climbing up and down stairs, um, he would like, even though he could walk on his own two feet, he would still sit down and then, like, pat the air to kind of like gauge how far below the step was and then kind of like slowly sort of go down. So it was always this caution [unclear] like not a big risk taker. He overthinks everything. Uh, which I guess is like a personality trait and so that’s why I so admire, like, the courage it takes to do something like this, you know? But he was thinking everything through, and at that point, I guess it was also about, I guess he, um, he was dating, um, in college as well. And I guess in relationship to dating he was also trying to figure out, like, his gender role and what, what felt right to him. And, um, I remember, um, sort of like, feeling like, you know, when he started– so first he decided to cut his hair. Um, again, that was kind of like, you know, revisiting that whole thing that happened in childhood and then he began to of course dress very differently, in a more mascuine fashion. And, um, so I was watching this. I wasn’t really getting like, sort of like, verbal cues from him about, like, this is what’s happening, that’s what’s happening, so I was just like, “Are you trans?” Um, you know, I think I just pretty much explicitly asked, um, and that’s when he kind of told me he didn’t really like labels, he didn’t want to be involved in labels, but, um, he wasn’t sure, he thought he might be a really butch, you know, lesbian, or maybe, you know, whatever, he wasn’t really clear about it. And one clear message was, “Don’t label me. Don’t label me as this or that. And I know you want to have things squared away in your head, but I really don’t want to be labeled right now.” So, I was like, this is really difficult. It’d be so much easier if he just said he was trans. And I could kind of like, be like, okay, this is what my trajectory is going to be now. And then I started exploring all this stuff about, like, so what is it about, you know, taking hormones, what is this and what is that? So I was, kind of like, doing all that research about that at this point. And, um, so I’m trying to think of, like, the timeline here. So, as I was getting, like, really active with sort of being, um, you know, an out and proud parent, um, so my kid was becoming, I guess a little bit clearer that I really shouldn’t be violating his boundaries in terms of basically talking about him. So I remember having a really good conversation in which he made it very clear that, “Yes I am your kid and yes I love you, I understand that you want to do the right thing here, but here are things that you cannot say about me, and here are the things that you should not be sharing about me.” Because I think this happened because both of us ended up going to a conference together, it was an LGBTQ issues conference and people were like, “I think I already met you because your mom has said so much about you.” So he was like, “You do know that this is not what you should be doing.” And so I really appreciate, he’s been really good at laying out boundaries to me, um, and it’s not something that Indian parents get, because we are all about no boundaries and it’s all about, like, you know, we constantly engage in our adult children’s lives and messing with them. And that’s how I was raised and, you know, I was expecting to have raised my kid just the same way, and he in his American way has informed me what he is expecting of me. And I think in some ways it makes life a little bit easier because my anxiety recedes then. He has established that these are his boundaries and I cannot be involved and I can’t be anxious about those things because I don’t have any control over them. So, um, so that was him stepping into adulthood, my understanding, trying to understand that he was stepping into adulthood, but I think the distinct change was when he, um, uh, junior year he took his– he did a semester abroad and he went to Spain. Um, and just before that I think he had kind of really, clearly decided that this was a moment for him to really sort of, do the things that he had been thinking about for a long time. So he, um, started preparing before he left for Spain and he started, um, kind of like, you know, figuring out what he was going to wear, how he was going to, like, cut his hair, um, a lot of things that like felt to me like he was kind of moving in a very deliberate direction. And, um, and at that point he was still, um, we were still calling him you know, she/her, and he wasn’t really objecting to it explicitly, but there were definitely like indications that that was also going to change, and I remember, um, so the first few photos he sent back from, uh, from Spain were of him very much masculine appearing, uh, you know, he seemed happy, he seemed to be really having a good time, um, and I ended up like, I think after, at the time the semester, this was the spring semester [unclear] so, um, I had made a plan to go visit for ten days at the end, so I would like, help him bring back his, like, big suitcases full of stuff and all that, so when I went there, um, it was quite shocking to me the physical transformation from essentially, like, he held himself differently, and he, um, just appeared differently. And so there was this kind of sense of being, like, new in a foreign country is a much easier place to make, make this step, take this step in a very sort of, you know, distinctive fashion. So, um, and that was when, like, at that point he was dating someone in Spain, and I remember, like, going out to lunch with them and, um, that’s when he basically just like told me he wanted me to stop using, um, she/her, and use they/them, uh, and I was like, “Oh my God, that’s going to be so hard,” because, you know, I’m like, again, I’m so used to doing this in binaries, but they/them seemed like what I was supposed to be doing so I was trying really hard to do it, and I was doing it really badly, so there was a lot of confrontations about that, where we were getting into fights about like, “You’re not even trying,” and I was like, “No I’m trying, it’s just like really hard.” So, um, so he was like basically coming back and then that final year of college was really fast in terms of like him deciding that this was what he was going to do, and also when he– he turned 21 that July, essentially his decisions were his own, in terms of, you know, how he was going to do it. And so I remember feeling this general sense of loss of control then, you know, like I have all these ideas, I have all this information, I want to contribute and I was pretty much, like, told, “No. I’m going to do this by myself because this is what I need to do.” But I still remember being happy when he, uh, got his first, um, T shot and this was in college, and he basically wanted me to be on the phone when he was getting it, and so I got to participate in some fashion and, um, you know, I was like, at some point or the other, like, I’m– I’m religious to a certain extent where I feel, like, some things, some rituals are really important to me, and so I had been kind of trying to observe Poojas and things like that, that would sort of focus on bringing masculine energy to his life, and so he allowed me to do that as well. So we would get on the phone, there would be a FaceTime thing and we would do that, and so it would, kind of like, I was participating in some fashion and, you know, he was– he really wanted to do this by himself, but– and, um, so I guess, you know, I was happy about that, but also feeling like this sense of like my child is really growing up and transforming, literally, you know? So–
86:02
What year was– what year– so they were in Spain in 2017?
Mhm. No, sorry, um, that as 2018, I guess.
2018, okay.
Yeah. And they, um, graduated college in 2019. And that was, again, such a big milestone, um, you know, it was really– and by then of course we had moved on from they/them pronouns to he/him because it was established that the family was really hopeless at using gender neutral pronouns and, um, it became, kind of like, you know, just like a battle that he didn’t think he was going to win, uh, which I feel bad about. Maybe if he’d stuck to his guns by now, we would have been completely comfortable, but he was basically like, “Fine use this. It’s better than being mis-gendered as she.” Um, so we, as a family, it was movement forward. Everybody, like my mother, my sister, my niece, my brother-in-law, all of us were, kind of like, the immediate family had to take these steps, um, to sort of, you know, to support, and I think in so many ways I felt very prepared for this. I didn’t, obviously didn’t feel prepared for the queerness coming out, I felt extremely prepared for this because I felt like I had done my homework and– and it’s just that he was a different person. He was older, he was more confident, he knew what he wanted out of life and, um, there was a lot of defending him to other people that I had to do to, you know, my sister was horrified at the thought of medical transition, my mother was horrified at the thought of medical transition. Everybody in general was like– I remember being in India and talking to my aunt who had raised me and she just started weeping, she was like, you know, “Just let him live in whatever identity he wants, don’t let him do anything to his body,” and it was kind of like, yeah– people don’t really get it, and people don’t, um, understand it and they don’t understand how hurtful it is for [unclear] them to hear that. Um, so I think there’s been like, for him there’s been a withdrawal from the extended family, um, because he doesn’t think that they fully support uh, who he is becoming, or has become. And it’s true, they don’t. I mean, they don’t get it, um, and I think like in some ways, now there is a lot of comfort with my sister and her family because they have been part of this journey, but everybody else is kind of observing it from afar who is not supportive, um, still doesn’t get the name right, still doesn’t get pronouns right, um, so there’s been a little bit of a separation, um, which I’m hoping at least, like, you know, people that he used to be close to like my cousins who have been very close to him, I’m hoping those relationships will come back because it becomes easier for them to accept it when he’s visibly changing, right? So if it’s, they both like, sort of look at him like he’s a train wreck and also sort of respect some of the determination that it takes to do this.
89:09
How have you responded in those situations in which you’ve had, I think, you know, that resistance, or that kind of conversation, have you been able to have that conversation with others, or how have you responded to their response?
Yeah, I think it made me very unhappy because, um, I wanted people to feel– so I think I have been in my own head, uh, been able to switch it from tragic loss to, you know, positive change, right? So that took some time for me to do, but it took me like a few years to work through all of that, but I genuinely look at my kid now and don’t see someone who has mutilated themselves, which is what, like, my family, my extended family sees, right? So I see somebody who is beautiful and whose kind of, you know, stepping out and becoming somebody that he really really wants to be and is very brave and I see this as both, um, it’s not just a physical transformation, it’s like a mental, spiritual transformation as well because you can’t change your body that much without transforming in every other way, too. So I see this as growth and, um, for me to explain it to them, uh, as such, they see this as suffering on my part. Like they feel a lot of pity towards me, um, and they see me as, like, saving face by, um, sort of putting up a brave face and, like, you know, acting like I’m all supportive, but really inside I must be suffering deeply, and I find it hard to explain to them that I’m not. You know? I mean at some point I was suffering deeply, but at that point I wasn’t talking to anybody at all about this. So, I think it’s hard and it’s made me pull back because, um, while I would like to have those close relationships I don’t feel I can with people who will just never get this. I mean, I hope they will, who knows, but particularly for the older members of the family, um, I don’t– they’re not going to live long enough to get this if they don’t get with the program now. So, um, with people like my aunt, I try to talk to them, um, on a regular basis, and I’m really careful about not sharing too many details, because I think when the details come is when people get kind of terrified, so it’s just like, all they need to know is that this is how their relationship will be with him in the future, not every detail of his life. So–
Do you find that members of your extended family are finding resources on their own, or are they really looking to you to provide all of the information that they need in order to process what’s happening with their family member? Are they going outside of you? Are they going to their own PFLAG meetings, is there any, kind of, that kind of energy happening?
Um, I would say, like, actually, most of my family is waiting for me to deliver it and I have been delivering copious amounts of information, but I’m kind of very enthused about the fact that my cousins in India, one of my cousins is a pediatrician, so she has taken it upon herself to like, um, so this is interesting, so she sends me information on transgender issues in India, but she’s not posting it in the family group. Um, or like, you know, kind of like, putting it out there like for everybody to see, so it’s like, it’s a one on one thing. So people who are supportive will send me personally supportive messages, but they’re not posting stuff in the family WhatsApp group where, you know, everybody can see. So just like last, um, uh, couple of weeks ago PFLAG did a– there was a campaign that my family was part of, my mom, Leo, and I were all featured, it was like a PFLAG ad to support Black Lives Matter and families of color and things like that and it showed in [unclear] tv stations, um, basically across the country, and then one of my cousins, like, posted in the family What’sApp group saying like, “Wow, so they’re all on TV,” some NBA channel or something. So then there was a realization on their part that this is actually larger than me and my family doing something, it’s, like, now visibility in the mainstream world. And so the people who are supportive finally posted in the general group, you know, saying how nice it was to see this, and the people who are not supportive stayed completely silent and didn’t say anything. So, um, I think it will be a journey, and it does feel like a separation in some ways from my family, and my extended family. And knowing that this may never be something that we’ll see eye to eye, um, so which makes me really grateful for my mom who is, um, now really sort of on board totally. And it is so funny, but Leo and I were talking about this, that my mom, uh, maybe it is, uh, she has a diagnosis of dementia, which is part of Alzheimer’s now, and has been sort of in the mild, early stages of the illness for some time and, um, so our theory is that now it’s like what you see is what you get for her. She sees him appearing as a masculine person and his voice has changed and she’s like, “Oh this is my grandson.” So this is not, like, kind of like, a lot of reaching back into the past and regret and grief and everything. “Here’s my grandchild, he’s being loving towards me, I’ll be loving towards him. That’s it, no need to worry about anything else.” Maybe that’s it? In which case it’s a blessing, you know, a bad illness. But, um, yeah, she’s utterly on board. My sister and my niece are, though they were, I think they were all horrified at the idea of things like top surgery and things like that, they’re really not, they don’t understand it and they don’t see it as something to celebrate, um, but at the same time when it was happening, my sister was very supportive and personally was like, offering resources, um, all these kinds of things. So I think there is some realization that like, immediate family, or immediate relatives will support and everybody else has to sort of, figure it out.
95:36
So I guess the– the kind of remaining question is how did DESI Rainbow Parents kind of come out of all of this, or what was the journey of that or what was maybe, what was the need that you saw that kind of motivated that?
Absolutely, and so the big thing there was that my, um, experience, I’m sorry you were going to say something?
I was just going to say I could do this all day long, I just wanted to be conscious of your time and make sure that you knew that it was–
Sure, what time is it?
Around 12:40 right now.
Ok. Yeah, well if you can go ‘til one, that is great. Can you go to one?
Great. Yeah.
So, the, um, the big motivation for me was a couple of things. One is, my first sort of professional success was in building something at NAMI for, um, for a immigrant community and knowing that it could be done and that it had an impact and that there was a very different orientation if you offer something that is tailored to ethnic needs than, um, you know, something that is kind of like open to all. So that was one experience that I took out of that. And, um, my own experience trying to go to PFLAG and finding that I really felt uncomfortable, um, as someone who is fluent in English, someone who is fairly acculturated, uh, if I felt uncomfortable, obviously some sort of recent immigrant is going to feel even more uncomfortable. So, my feeling was like why are there not more people like me? You know, why are there not more people like Clara? And my realization was that they are there, they just don’t have a place to come together. And so that was the whole if you build it, they will come moment. Um, and it’s true and it’s like, you know, it’s amazing. One of the most beautiful things for me is, um, just this constant finding of really supportive parents who have never, sort of like, engaged in this fashion within our community before. Like, you know, they’re all advocates in their own personal lives, and for their kid, but they’ve never really engaged in kind of a forum where we talk about our community and how our community can be changed. So that really was the impetus for starting and it started actually like let’s just do a support [unclear] group. So I did a support group in New Jersey, um, which was essentially like, finding families who wanted to be a part of it, and it’s actually a pretty nice community. We had about like twenty, thirty people who were like either parents or LGBTQ folk. I found that basically one of the biggest realizations of this for me was that LGBTQ folk are looking for this resource. Um, it’s not so many parents reaching out and saying, “Help me like figure out how to support my kid,” it’s the kids reaching out and saying, “Please support my parents.” And, um, and that became, “And please support me.” Because there are people who are dealing with years of rejection and grief. So it became about how can you build something that will serve all these needs and that will give people the, um, the ability to like, sort of like, say okay and point to other parents and say, “If they can do it, you can do it.” Um, so yeah, that’s how it started off, and it’s kind of like still coming together for me. I still haven’t, like, fleshed out a complete, um, idea. But I do know for me, my personal interests are at any given point professionally and personally have been the combination of mental health and diversity and how that intersects. And so, where I’m trying to take this is, uh, wellness for–
99:29
I’m going to hit record again on this because it finished. You had just started making a fantastic point about the connection of the, kind of the, immigrant experience as well as the conversation that was happening in that community so I’m so sorry I interrupted your thought, but if you could pick back up from where you left off.
Sure, sure. I think what I was trying to say was that, um, just being able to provide a service, not just a service, but like a community for people who felt like, um, this was a missing space, this was, um, affirmation of all our multiple intersecting identities, and people have said that to me explicitly. Like when I did the faith and family series that I did recently, um, basically someone told me, “This is the first time in my life I felt affirmed as a gay man, as a Christian, and as a Desi person. All three of me were present in that moment. And that was such a beautiful feeling.” That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here because I think for those of us– so it's different for people who still have one foot back in their country of origin. Which is, you know, um, essentially like somewhere you think like, okay, I don’t belong here, but for those of us who are immigrants and who have established that for better or for worse, we are Americans, um, there’s this sense of like, um, not really feeling entirely connected in different contexts in our lives, right? So just like for instance, you know, when I’m looking at an example for instance of mental health settings, right? So when you’re– when you see a therapist who will affirm you as someone who’s like a female, they understand gender, but they may not understand your cultural and ethnic background, or the fact that you’re a mother. So all these pieces of you that you can bring to the table, so I’m looking for a comprehensive community, uh, where we can sort of, address all of these different intersecting identities and make people feel whole, and make people feel affirmed just because they are. Um, because there’s always this sense of not feeling good enough, um, in the eyes of the world or in your family’s eyes or, you know? So that sense is what I’m looking for. The sense of community, affirmation, uh, welcome, fellowship, so that’s what the concept is.
102:07
One of the things that you had mentioned when we met previously for the pre-interview conversation was that– also the importance of, um, cultural connections right? So, aligning someone who’s from a similar background or similar native language, or similar– could you maybe talk a little about that? The importance of that or maybe examples of why it’s important or how it has worked?
Sure, um, so when I was attempting to speak to families before– so somebody would say, “Hey can you talk to my mom? Um, you know, because my mom is really having trouble figuring this out.” And so when I would talk to the mom, um, she would be like, “Ah, so you’re from South India,” and, “oh really, so this is the language that you [unclear] speak and what religion are you?” They would try to fit you into these categories. Did I lose you again? Ok. No you’re still there, ok, good. So–
Sorry, could you go back, I think that, I don’t know if it’s my internet connection or your internet connection, but you froze a little bit there, so if you could just go back to the, what the mother would ask you, the questions the mother would ask you.
Sure, so the mom would ask me like, so you know, “Which part of India do you come from? What language do you speak? What city did you grow up in?” All the things that kind of like help you place somebody exactly who they are in multiple ways and sometimes it would feel like, even with the fact that we were both south Asian, it would still not be enough of a connection because I was either, like, too westernized or had come from the wrong part of the country or didn’t know the language or, even though we were actually able to communicate in English which happens a lot with South Asians because we are carrying so many different, multiple languages, um, so I began to realize that it would be more helpful rather than me trying to sort of bombard somebody with information they were not willing to take from someone like me, it would be more helpful to try and like put people together based on what criteria they felt comfortable with. So if you’re a Gujarati speaker, put you together with a Gujarati speaker regardless of whether you could speak English or not. Um, and also like just thinking about religion because, you know, one of the big things is that different religious traditions obviously have different interpretations of what, you know, how wrong or sinful it is to be LGBTQ, so I would like want to put together a Muslim family with a Muslim family to sort of be able to speak about their experiences and, kind of, a lot of the support is not about having to explain yourself. So, not have to constantly be introducing yourself, and I think that is the discomfort that I felt within PFLAG. I had to introduce myself over and over again, because what I was, was unfamiliar. And not because of an intentionality on their part like, “Let’s exclude this person.” It’s my discomfort at having to feel like I sort of had to offer so much context for myself. So that’s really the point. To pair people so there’s less of that and more of the immediate emotional work of saying, “Okay, so I understand you’re in pain, but here are some resources, and I’ve been through this too. And I’ve come out of it okay, so you will too.” So it’s making the human connection, making sure the preceding stuff is done for you where you don’t have to talk a lot about who you are and where you’re from.
And how is that work kind of evolved?
Yeah, I think a lesson in progress right now because, um, I have actually come across people who are so completely unwilling to even consider that what their child is, is right. You can give them all the information in the world, you can give them all the data, you can tell them personal stories, but they still are not willing to get beyond that, “But why can’t he/she/they be like everybody else’s kid?” And so I think one big evolution– so when I started off, it was this kind of fairly naive idea that everybody will come around. You know it’s like an optimism, so just give people enough time, give them enough information, they’ll figure it out. But, I have come to the realization that not everybody will come around and that sometimes that is actually, actively harmful to the person to the child or adult who is attempting to sort of get the support from us, from DESI Rainbow to be subjected to this constant optimism of like, yes it will happen. So I think that’s been a very big movement for me to switch from constantly saying, “Okay, try this and try that, and try something else to make your parents understand,” to, “When do you feel that you’re done? When do you feel that this is enough? And you have to, like, protect yourself.” So, I think that’s something that is an evolving process right now to sort of like really, sort of, you know, keep people whole, so they don’t have to constantly try and prove themselves to their own families.
And then, um, one of the questions I like to ask is if there’s any sort of question or topic that you would have asked yourself that I haven’t asked you. Is there something that you thought would come up during this conversation that hasn’t come up yet?
Wow. I think I’ve covered everything. I don’t think I’ve ever talked so much about this, and I’m very excited to actually have it for me to look at, but yeah, no, I think I pretty much covered most of the major events and episodes, and finally got around to talking about DESI Rainbow as well. So I see the next– the future really being about building something that’s sustainable that will last after me, because right now it’s all sort of working off my energy. So it’s really the challenge for me now to see how it can be built into a lasting– hopefully my legacy. I don’t know in some ways and support that is available for the community when I am not involved anymore.
Um, if you’re okay, I think what I am going to do is, I’m going to pause the recording now.
[End of recording]