Ravi Jain | Minorities within minorities

Tall, Skinny, Mocha | Widening the scope of resources for South Asians on campus

By Ravi Jain 08/31/15 9:31pm

It seems to me that there is no other group of people on Earth as obsessed with the profession of medicine as the Indian-American community. Of course, it’s possible to associate others with the same values and parenting styles that might lead their children down the path to become a physician, but not to the extent that almost everyone is convinced that success involves little more than an M.D.

When I decided I was no longer interested in medicine, most of my friends didn’t blink an eye. Then again, most of my friends aren’t of South Asian descent and haven’t grown up with the mantra of medicine ingrained in their minds by parents with high expectations and aspirations for them. My extended family, however, responded in a predictably unsupportive way. “How will you make money?” “No other career can compete with medicine in the level of prestige, mobility and financial viability,” they’d claim defiantly.

My parents went as far as claiming that “as an Indian, [I] won’t be respected if [I am] not a physician.” I laughed that off, thinking of the countless TV shows and movies I’d seen featuring an Indian physician: Did those characters command the respect the medical profession supposedly earns, or did they — with their sing-songy accents and earnestness — serve to perpetuate stereotypes about the Indian-American community that as far as I could see were not that far from reality?

I am Indian-American and I have no immediate plans to be a doctor. (My parents see the word “immediate” as an indicator that I might start taking science classes in a few years.) I used to have a lot of anger directed toward both my community and others, frequently aroused by the various microaggressions which often came up in conversations about career planning. Why was I constantly having to defend myself? Why did it seem as though everyone was waiting for me to fail, only to wield triumphant smiles as I resignedly sign up for organic chemistry in my late 20s?

Presently, my career choices are often influenced by the same shallow — yet unfortunately important — values of viability and sustainability that I once scorned. At one point, as I sorted through various leaflets in the Career Services office, I found myself discarding without a second glance those professions that offered no job security or decent pay. I soon tasked myself with shedding the bitterness and actually attempting to determine what field(s) most appealed to me, and how I could get there.

I have, more often than not, made the mistake of assuming that an Indian American pursuing medicine has chosen to do so primarily as a result of parental or familial influence, and has little internal, self-motivated desire. It is my own narrow-mindedness that has embarrassed me on multiple occasions when I might make a sarcastic remark about the overwhelming number of Indian physicians and be met with a hurt and offended response from a sincere pre-med.

A multitude of factors — Penn, my parents, my own personality — have all suggested that I would reach a certain level of manic desperation in my pursuit of the perfect career. Fortunately, I am not unique in experiencing stress related to my post-graduation plans, nor am I the only person — Indian or otherwise — who has opted against a parent-approved and highly encouraged route in life.

However, it is often difficult for me to find solidarity with other South Asians, because networks for South Asians who pursue “nontraditional” career paths, i.e. anything in the humanities or social sciences, are not prevalent on campus. For instance, there is no “South Asian Students in the Social Sciences” (SASSS), or more generally, campus organizations that cater to the interests and needs of these students. There might only be a few of us, but we’re still here.

RAVI JAIN is a College junior from Syosset, NY, studying economics. His email address is jainravi@sas.upenn.edu. “Tall, Skinny, Mocha” appears every other Tuesday.

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