Best,

 Devak 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Nanua 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Monday, December 2, 2019 — 3A

Behind the leaderless revolution

Dear Hasan,

Arabic food... but make it vegan

White-washed

ELIZABETH HO
MiC Columnist

I don’t like the term “white-
washed” as it is applied to people 
of color. Sure, we can say that 
Hollywood 
is 
white-washed 
— PoC stories and characters 
are frequently replaced with 
white ones — but to say that PoC 
themselves are white-washed is 
degrading.
Many times I’ve heard remarks 
such as, “She’s in a sorority, so 
she’s basically white” and “He’s 
not one of us because he grew up 
in an all-white neighborhood.”
Once, I was called white-
washed by a classmate after 
she found out that I listened to 
punk rock (AKA “angry white 
boy music”). She was suggesting 
that only white people could 
enjoy that kind of music, which 
is a backward way of thinking. 
Another time, I was called a 
“banana”— yellow on the outside, 
white on the inside — for liking 
Starbucks. 
Although I was eventually 
able to make light of these 
experiences, I’m aware that 
others may take great offense 
to being called white-washed. 
And on a more serious note, 
we shouldn’t think of people as 
having less of a claim to a certain 
identity just because they don’t 
conform to our stereotypes. 
A problem that is particularly 
relevant to the Asian-American 
community is thinking that 

someone isn’t “Asian enough,” 
or, in extreme cases, a culture 
traitor, if they don’t speak their 
immigrant 
parents’ 
native 
language. I worry that we are 
pressuring 
people 
to 
other 
themselves rather than establish 
a genuine connection to their 
heritage for the sake of being 
accepted by their fellow PoC.
This business of calling people 
white-washed seems to stem at 
least in part from resentment. 
I recognize that some PoC are 
more easily accepted by white 
America than others. Further, I 
admit that I would be frustrated 
if another Asian-American was 
treated better than I was because 
she appeared more aligned with 
white ideals. The situation would 
be unfair, but I would be wrong 
for being frustrated with her as 
an individual, especially if I didn’t 
know much else about her. I 
would be wrong to invalidate her 
experience. How she acts could 
be a result of her upbringing, 
over which she had little control 
(as little control as I did over my 
own upbringing), and I’m not 
even considering the possibility 
of cross-cultural adoption. 
Instead of judging people 
for who we think they are, 
maybe we need to address the 
structures and practices that 
favor white normativity in the 
first place. Maybe we also need to 
address our internalized racism, 
including our biases about what 
belongs to whom. 

In 2014, the streets of Hong 
Kong erupted with the nascent 
Umbrella Revolution. Led by 
activist Joshua Wong and his 
student organization Scholarism, 
the protests consisted of the 
79-day peaceful occupation of 
Central, an important financial 
and tourist district. The name of 
the movement is derived from the 
use of umbrellas as an adaptive 
measure for protestors to protect 
themselves from tear gas deployed 
by the police. The Umbrella 
Revolution 
demonstrated 
the 
lengths 
that 
the 
government 
would go to in order to suppress its 
people. The Umbrella Revolution 
protested Hong Kong’s lack of 
true universal suffrage: a new bill 
stated that the chief executive was 
to be elected from a collection 
of candidates approved by the 
Chinese Communist Party.
In June 2015, the electoral 
reform bill was rejected by the 
legislative council.
Four years later, the Hong Kong 
government presented another 
controversial bill: a new law that 
would allow Hong Kongers to be 
extradited to mainland China. The 
frightening implications that the 
extradition bill could quash future 
pro-democracy movements were 
all too real with the arrest of key 
pro-democracy activists earlier 
in the year. The people of Hong 
Kong joined together in protest, 

including 
a 
record-breaking 
turnout of 2 million protestors 
(the region’s total population is 7 
million).

 

There is a key difference 
from the 2014 protests: these 
new protests are leaderless and, 
rather than a united movement, 
seem to be the result of several 
movements linked together by 
the same ideology. The protests 
vary in nature from peaceful and 

authorized to civil disobedience 
to vandalism and violence against 
the police.
In 
a 
piece 
for 
Quartz, 
Wong writes, “Instead of rallying 
behind one leader or leading 
body, Hong Kong citizens are 
all working together. In real 
time, we’re coordinating using 
online forums, word of mouth 
and organic, collective action, 
without the impetus of traditional 
movement leaders.”
Much 
of 
the 
collaboration 
is 
through 
Chinese-language 
websites, 
but 
non-Chinese 
speakers can still view and 
participate 
in 
the 
movement 
through bilingual websites like 
the subreddit r/HongKong on the 
American social network Reddit. 
Boasting a membership of over 
230,000 users, the subreddit is 
frequently updated with photo 
and video evidence of incidents 
of police brutality. As in the 
2014 Umbrella Revolution, this 
year’s protests have been marked 
with numerous cases of police 
reacting with increasing force. As 
a criticism of the police’s response 
to the protests, numerous groups 
have called for a “sixth demand”: 
the disbandment of Hong Kong’s 
police force. However, there are 
concerns 
that 
the 
protestors 
may have more to fear from the 
mainland government.
Carol Anne Goodwin Jones of 
the Hong Kong Free Press reports, 
“The violence in Hong Kong in 
recent weeks has led to fears 
that Beijing is gearing up for a 

crackdown against the protesters. 
Direct intervention by Chinese 
forces is permitted under the 
Basic Law, Hong Kong’s ‘mini-
constitution’, 
if 
Hong 
Kong 
declares a state of emergency 
– which it hasn’t yet done. The 
garrison 
of 
China’s 
People’s 
Liberation Army stationed in 
central Hong Kong was recently 
reinforced and the People’s Armed 
Police has been seen massing and 
drilling just over the border in 
Shenzhen. This lends credence to 
what the protestors see as a ‘last 
stand’ to save the city they call 
home.” 
Already 
in 
their 
18th 
consecutive 
week, 
the 
2019 
protests show no sign of stopping. 
On Oct. 6, 2019, Chief Executive 
Carrie Lam employed emergency 
legislation to enact a ban on face 
masks. The masks have thus 
far allowed many protestors to 
remain 
anonymous. 
Opposing 
this law as one that may cause 
the police to also target the ill and 
those with respiratory problems, 
the protestors continue to wear 
masks to their march. Many now 
sport signs or alternatives to the 
usual face mask that reference the 
ban. 
The future of the protests 
remains uncertain, but Wong 
believes 
that 
no 
matter 
the 
circumstances, 
the 
protestors 
won’t stand down until their 
demands are met. Wong states, 
“Hong 
Kongers 
will 
never 
surrender, 
because 
we 
have 
nowhere else to turn.”

I’ve been meaning to reach out to you for a 
while now. I even contemplated writing you a very 
thoughtful instagram DM about how much I enjoy 
and appreciate your work and everything that you do 
to represent the Indian-American community. But 
the thought of sliding into your DM’s weirded me out 
a little. So instead, I’m going to let you know in the 
most normal and least awkward way possible: a very 
public Michigan Daily article. Plus I’ve missed a few 
meetings and haven’t written in a while, so this works 
on multiple fronts.
Funny enough, I was introduced to you by my Dad. 
For context, my Dad is a lot like Najme, in the sense 
that he’s a Dad, he’s Indian and still works with the 
intensity and passion that he had when he immigrated 
to America. He might be one of the hardest working 
people I know. Actually, on second thought, that 
might be my mom, considering that she had to raise 
me. But we digress. My Dad usually comes home from 
work and enters our house on what seems to be a 
very serious conference call, or he is just upset about 
something. Therefore, I was quite surprised and a little 
concerned when my Dad came home laughing on a fall 
day during my junior year of high school. He then told 
me to stop working on my math homework because 
he heard a really funny story on the Moth radio hour 
where the comedian was speaking Hindi and that I 
had to hear it. Now, for anyone who has parents who 
are engineers or maybe just Asian can appreciate the 
rarity of this moment. On most days, the opposite 
would happen and my dad would start teaching me 
how to do my math homework because of his lack of 
faith in my public school education.
He led me to our home office, found the story on the 
Moth’s website and soon enough, your voice started 
playing from our home computer as you told your 
prom story. On my first listen I remember thoroughly 
enjoying the story, but I remained skeptical. On one 
hand, there weren’t a lot Indian-Americans in show 
business. So as much as I enjoyed your story, I wasn’t 
sure if I’d hear anymore of your material in the future. 
On the other hand, I was very convinced that our prom 
experiences would be entirely different and your story 
was just an outlier. And even though I didn’t have 
a “trusty huffy,” when I found myself driving back 
home in my mom’s Chevy Malibu at 2 a.m. in drenched 
clothes after playing hours of BeanBoozled in my 
friend’s basement, the only thing I thought about was 
your story (you can imagine how my prom night went). 
Since my junior year, you’ve also delivered with 
your time on The Daily Show, your Netflix special 
Homecoming King and now with Patriot Act. 
Listening to your work eventually opened my eyes to 
something unique. It was the first time I had heard a 

person talking about their cultural identity in such a 
confident and relatable way. And even though I felt like 
I had a pretty good understanding of my culture, I still 
had a really hard time trying to express it and talking 
about it with other people, especially when I started 
high school. 
People don’t give you enough credit for how well 
you talk about your identity and the Indian American 
community. Being a second-generation immigrant 
is a very personal thing and can turn out to be an 
incredibly strange to talk about. Especially when 
you’re growing up and trying to figure it out for 
yourself. For example, in elementary school, one of the 
most common questions I’d get asked is why I didn’t 
eat beef. I’d also occasionally get made fun of whenever 
my mom would pack me Indian food for lunch while 
all of the cooler kids ate their Lunchables and wore 
clothes from the Gap. But in hindsight, you’ve got to 
give kids that age the benefit of the doubt. No matter 
how sensitive the topic, if an elementary schooler sees 
something they haven’t seen before, they’re going to 
ask you multiple inappropriate questions and throw 
tantrums for fun. They’re just curious kids who don’t 
know any better.
My dad’s job took my family to Bangalore, India for 
three years, which meant that I would attend middle 
school in India and move back to Ann Arbor halfway 
through the eighth grade. Questions of my cultural 
identity never really came up, because for once, I was 
part of a majority. I went to an international school 
where most of my issues came just from the experience 
that is middle school. Plus, I got really familiar with 
my culture and where my family was from. I got to 
experience a lot of the same things my parents did 
growing up. It was the first time I got to celebrate 
holidays with more family members than just my 
parents. When it was time for me to move back, I was 
a little nervous and sad because of the relationships I’d 
lose. But for the most part I knew moving back to Ann 
Arbor would be like a homecoming and that I could 
just pick up my life from where I had left it. However, 
I had not thought about how much living in another 
country for three years could change you.
I found this out in the most brutal and 
uncomfortable way possible. My very first class on 
arrival was Ms. Jender’s American History class. We 
were learning about the Trail of Tears and she asked 
the class for a volunteer to read a passage. Obviously, 
no one immediately volunteered and so Ms. Jender 
decided to wait until one of us did. I made the mistake 
of breaking the deadlock and read a passage that 
described some pretty horrifying things in a very thick 
Indian accent that I had picked up (Like, I’m talking 
multiple c’s guys). But by the time I was done reading, 

I looked up and the whole class held in their laughter. 
They all finally broke, when a guy from the back of the 
class said “Hey Apu! Thank you, come again!”. And at 
first I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. 
But in hindsight, that guy was just a dick, there really 
isn’t a doubt in my mind about that. 
In fact middle schoolers are probably the most 
terrifying people you could interact with. This isn’t 
solely from experience with dealing with other middle 
schoolers, it’s also from thinking about the stuff I 
was capable of doing myself. They’re at this weird age 
where we’d expect them to be at least a little mature, 
but anyone who does expect this is almost immediately 
disappointed.
Ironically, my first week in Ann Arbor was probably 
the week I felt most away from home. It was like 
everyone forgot that I had lived the majority of my life 
in Ann Arbor. Every teacher introduced themselves 
to me deliberately speaking in slow motion and over-
enunciating every word assuming I didn’t know 
English. A kid also told me they felt bad for me because 
they had seen Slumdog Millionaire. The funny thing 
is that when I had just moved to India and told people 
I was from America, everyone would look at me 
surprised that I wasn’t overweight because they had 
seen the movie Super-Size Me. When I then tried to 
explain to them that Ann Arbor was actually a nice 
place and that it was near Detroit, they would then 
respond in horrified expressions because the movie 8 
Mile was somehow popular amongst middle schoolers 
in India. So the stereotypes really go both ways on this 
one.
When I talked to my parents about this, my dad 
didn’t really react and told me to just wait it out and 
that things would come around. My mom, on the other 
hand, reacted in a completely opposite way. We started 
listening to NPR a lot more in the car and she would 
often make me repeat sentences or short phrases 
in Terry Gross’s accent. Using this accent, she also 
refused to talk to me in Hindi around the house (this 
rule excluded my dad or relatives on the phone). She 
also bought me a lot of clothes from American Eagle 
because she thought that would help. And for my first 
two years of high school, it really became a situation 
where I’d leave my cultural identity behind at home 
and when I went to school I just tried to do normal 
high school activities and do anything I could to fit in.
But something strange happened sometime 
between my senior year of high school and now. All of 
a sudden I’m really having my moment as a person of 
color. Going to college in Ann Arbor while also being 
from here has been a somewhat interesting experience. 
Because besides being deprived of fun, spontaneous 
college memories because your parents want you 

to live at home, I’ve been able to have very different 
relationships with this city as I age. And I don’t know 
if it just took 2-3 Indian restaurants or more hot yoga 
places to open up, but suddenly the cultural identity 
that I have worked to keep low-key has suddenly 
become very interesting to all of my friends. My 
friends come over to me and ask me questions about 
my culture (that aren’t offensive), like I’ve been leaving 
them out of the world’s best kept secret. Earlier this 
week in one of my classes, my friend asked me where’s 
the best place to get Samosas in a manner that someone 
would buy drugs at a public library. 
Other questions/remarks include “Hey I love the 
food at Cardamom, you must be so lucky eating Indian 
food at home” (I am lucky to eat Indian food at home 
because my mom makes it. And according to her if 
your favorite Indian dish is “Chicken Tikka Masala” 
or “Butter Chicken” from Cardamom, then you really 
aren’t eating Indian food. I’ll let you figure the rest out). 
“Where’s the best place to get Chai tea” (If you call it 
“Chai tea”, then you don’t deserve to know). “Is hot 
yoga, like, authentic?” (I don’t actually have an opinion 
on this one, so I guess the verdict is still out on this.) 
Now that I’m writing all of this down, I’ve realized 
that I’ve really become a real life version of a Yelp page 
for all things Indian. And honestly, I don’t mind it that 
much. I love the fact that I can share my culture with 
different people. Just make sure to give my reviews 5 
stars, don’t be shocked if I don’t know something and 
don’t be awkward about it. I’m not an encyclopaedia 
and nor should I or any other person of color be 
obligated to talk about their culture if they don’t want 
to. But I did start to sort of act like one. Maybe just a 
little.

A little over a year ago, I 
made the decision to switch 
to a vegan diet. This change 
has improved my mental and 
physical health, but it also 
had the people around me 
questioning my decision. My 
friends and family would 
ask me why I did it and how 
long I was doing it for, but my 
least favorite question of all is 
“what do you even eat?” These 
questions revealed to me that 
many of the people in my life 
thought that without animals, 

I could not sustain myself. My 
family members even saw this 
lifestyle change as a threat to 
my culture. They believed that 
a vegan diet meant I could no 
longer enjoy my mom’s Arabic 
cooking and that it would take 
away from my “Arab-ness.” 
All of these negative views 
of veganism are rooted in an 
innocent lack of knowledge, so 
in an attempt to combat that 
ignorance I will share some of 
my favorite Arabic vegan dishes 
that both sustain me and keep 
me in touch with my roots! 

This dish, though typically 
stuffed with meat and rice, can 
also be made by stuffing the 
grape leaves with vegetables 
and rice. I prefer to eat this 
cold, however some eat it 
warm as well.
The list of vegan Arabic 
dishes does not end here. 
There are so many vegan 
options in this cuisine, and 
even more options in other 
cuisines as well. Vegan food 
exists everywhere, you just 
have to look for it.

This classic dish is simply made of 
chickpeas, tahini, and garlic, making it 
vegan. It tastes amazing on its own, and 
even better with pita bread. 

This is another classic dish with the central 
ingredient also being chickpeas. It is a great 
meat substitute and when paired with tahini 
sauce, its flavor is unmatched.

ELIZABETH LE
MiC Columnist

NOOR MOUGHNI
MiC Columnist

The 2019 protests hinge on a 

common set of five demands:

1. Full withdrawal of the 

extradition bill.

2. A commission of inquiry into 

alleged police brutality.

3. Retracting the classification of 

protesters as “rioters.”

4. Amnesty for arrested 

protesters.

5. Dual universal suffrage, 

meaning for both the Legislative 

Council and the Chief Executive.

Read more online at 
michigandaily.com

Photo Courtesy of Archana’s Kitchen
Photo Courtesy of Archana’s Kitchen