Monthly Archives: October 2016

Tourism

I have not been a tourist in Latin America; I did, however visit India in 2002. I was five years old at the time, so my memory of the trip is a bit fuzzy but I was able to recall some details after speaking with my mom. What I do clearly remember is feeling a combination of awe and discomfort, at having to take in the traffic, the pollution, the strange sights (from my Americanized perspective) like seeing cows freely wandering across roads in an urban setting, and the poverty. My mother brought me along to an area called Shivajinagar–to educate me about poverty in the region–where she gave away money, suitcases of clothing, and other supplies– resources that were taken, she said, “in seconds”. She was also able to financially support the family of the man who dug my grandfather’s grave.  Therefore, the volunteerism that was performed superseded an aesthetic level given the intrinsic connection we had with the land, the people, and our experiences. We were not seen as haughty foreign saviors (to my knowledge) because we were ourselves of Indian heritage, and because my mother (who was born close to the region) did most of the interacting with the people.

However, once people learned that I was born in the United States, they began to view me through a different lens, almost treating me like a fragile doll–something that made me feel odd and embarrassed at the time. I was handled with excessive care, received more attention than I would have otherwise received, and became a source of amusement for people we met, who wanted me to speak English, just so they could hear my American accent. It has made me realize that, despite the fact that I was brown, only five, and had a name that blended in, my American privilege still clung to me and overpowered everything else about me.