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Diaspora: Keeping Nepali Identity Alive in the Diaspora By Puru Subedi
(Author is the President of International Nepali Literary Society (INLS), based in Washington D.C. More information about him and INLS is available at http://www.inls.org) What Comprises an Identity? Who am I? What am I? What attributes define me? These are great questions one asks of oneself. Answering them to the self is critical to lead a normal and productive life. Ultimately, it is our own sense of who we are that invokes our actions and how we spend our lives. Thus these are very important questions and answers. If you identify yourself as a person who will never murder anyone; you are likely to not commit such a crime in your lifetime. If you identify yourself as a strong person; you are bound to utilize your maximum strength to fight with your environment. If you identify yourself as a vegetarian, you are very likely not to eat meat. If you identify yourself as a Nepali; you are bound to be interested in Nepali language and culture. Also, if you express Nepali cultural properties, e.g. speak Nepali and have a Nepali look, others will identify you as a Nepali. Let's explore more. Identity, in other words, is a sense of self that produces consistent behavior within a person. If I spoke Nepali once; that alone doesn't become part of my Identity. But if I consistently try to speak Nepali, even if I don't know how, this is because of my identity as a person who is interested in speaking Nepali. To put this yet another way, an identity of a person is sense of the self that is consistent across long duration of time. The sense that changes from moment to moment is not part of a person's identity. When others define our identity they might define by our name, age, sex, skin color, hair color, height and various interests at first sight. These primarily involve physical attributes used to distinguish oneself from others. Example, when someone says, "Nepalis are honest, hard working, and brave individuals", he or she is stating shared identity of certain group of people, namely people of Nepali origin. As can be seen from examples above; there are two kinds of identities. 1) Personal identity: attributes that define a person; and 2) Shared Identity: attributes that define a group of related people. How do we preserve our identity? It is easy to preserve personal identity. If one identifies himself as a hard working father, for example, he could consistently work hard and continue to be a father of his children. He will have preserved this identity. Preserving shared identity, however, requires higher level of thinking and organized activity. For example, let's take Nepali identity. Question is: how do we Nepalis consistently be honest, hard working and brave individuals? If individuals of Nepali origin behave contrary to stated identity; we will have failed to preserve our shared identity. Only way to preserve is to constantly remind ourselves of our true identity through Nepali literature, education, Nepali cultural cues and organized activities for the purpose. It is indeed harder to come up with an answer to the question "Who am I?" in a deeper sense that encompasses shared identity. In order to clearly specify our identity, we have to talk about our people and experiences that formed us. In essence, we have to talk about our system of behaviors, beliefs, customs, traditions, language, religion, family systems and values that we share in daily lives. These boil down to our language and culture. Our culture is our identity. Our language and literature are integral part of our culture. If we are not able to preserve our culture and language and pass it on to our succeeding generations, it is certain that they will have identity problems. The communities around the world are becoming more and more diverse all the time. With increased amounts and varieties of information, people, and situations that our children will find themselves in, they must have a firm grasp of who they are and what their culture is. Without such a grasp of self and identity, their lives will be ruled by insecurity and fear. Therefore, it is essential that we work hard to keep our identity alive so that it can be transformed from generations to generations. We basically have to establish language, cultural education programs and make a habit to follow our tradition. First of all, since parents are recognized as the first and most important teachers of children, the educational process has to start from home. We have to speak our language to our children and teach them about our customs, traditions, family systems and values at home. Second, the community has to establish a formal way to teach our language, literature and culture at the various levels i.e kindergarten, school and university so that children, youth, scholars can gain the knowledge and possibly some of them will continue the educational process by teaching generations after them. But with so many things to attend to, the typical parents are not able to allocate the time and resources to a serious effort to help their children become literate in our language and culture. Teaching language and culture becomes a low priority job for most of parents as we try and stay afloat in the sea of daily responsibilities. Thus, even with the best of intentions, most of us are simply not able to create a home environment conducive to teach language and culture. Is there help from Nepali community associations? Yes. The good news is that International Nepali Literary Society (INLS), a Washington D.C. based organization devoted to Nepali language and literature lunched a Worldwide Nepali Education Program about a year ago to promote, preserve and create awareness of Nepali language and culture through out the world. The program has following major goals: 1. To setup Nepali language education projects at various communities worldwide. 2. To facilitate obtaining High School language credit for Nepali as a second language. 3. To work towards the establishment of Nepali language program at major Universities. INLS has been running a School of Languages and Cultures of Nepal in Washington D.C. as part of DC Nepali Education Project (DCNEP) under its Worldwide Nepali Education Program in collaboration with local Nepali organizations and concerned parents for a year now. It has developed nine year curriculum that includes kindergarten, school and college level classes. Each class meets once a week for one hour during the academic year. The school offered three Nepali language classes and one Nepali folk dance class in Fall 2002 and Spring 2003 semesters. Nineteen students graduated from the School with one year course of study on May, 2003. INLS plans to transition this successful Nepali School model to other Nepali Diaspora in North America and around the world in collaboration with local community organizations. INLS is collaborating with Rocky Mountain Friends of Nepal (RMFN) in Colorado to open the School in Denver, CO and Boulder, CO by July, 2003. Nepali Diaspora should be concerned about keeping our Nepali identity alive. I would like to strongly request you to get involve in preserving languages and cultures of Nepal. If you or your local community organization is interested in opening a community school in your city, INLS can provide everything you need to get you started. I suggest you to contact INLS at info@inls.org to discuss the details. More information about INLS Worldwide Nepali Education Program can be found at: http://www.inls.org/nepali Puru Subedi President, International Nepali Literary Society (INLS), Washington D.C.