Growing up in the capital city of Guwahati, Assam, life was marked by recurring floods and occasional violence, shaping a unique resilience in middle-class girls like us. We were taught two critical lessons with utmost seriousness: never to venture out carelessly during curfews and to focus intently on our studies, so we could secure a place in prestigious colleges in Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore, which were seen as beacons of opportunity where one could escape the daily violence that we were accustomed to in Assam. When I was a teenager around the years 2006 to 2012, I went to convent school with strict instructions for picking up the “correct way” of speaking English, and pushing to go to the colleges in the capital city of Delhi helped.
As the years went by and I got older, eventually moving from Assam to Delhi in 2012 to attend undergraduate classes at the University of Delhi, I did not have a strong desire to study in the field of literature. I believed I was better suited for a career in international relations or law. When I talked to other students who were also in the field, they shared a similar opinion that there was no benefit in studying literature. We questioned why anyone would care about the stories from a so-called violent, insurgent-populated fringe of the country that was at times believed to be outside of even the common imagination of the nation-state itself. The Northeast and its states were seen by the rest of the country either as an “unsafe,” chaotic zone in complete disarray or as a romanticised, tribal, untouched region where people grew tea and consumed a variety of insects and animals.
Before delving any deeper into the topic at hand, I would like to contextualise the Northeast for our readers and its significance within South Asian geography. The Northeast is almost seen as an appendage to mainland India because of its geographical and cultural distance from the mainland. Sharing 90 per cent of its border with other countries, the Northeast Indian region lies toward the easternmost frontier of subcontinental India, connected to it by just a tiny strip of land commonly known as the “chicken neck,” which is only 60 kilometres long and 22 kilometres wide. The Northeast region of India comprises eight diverse states – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and Sikkim. These states are geographically and culturally liminal, situated at the crossroads where South Asia transitions into Southeast Asia. Despite being grouped under a common administrative label, the Northeast is anything but homogeneous. Its ethnocultural diversity challenges the simplified perceptions often held by people in central India, who tend to portray it as a region afflicted by insurgent violence or inhabited by “untouched and romanticised tribals” far removed from civilisation.
Being Assamese
The belief was that to hail from a place like the Northeast, people need to be in powerful positions, not storytellers and readers of literature. The belief was proven to me when I was living in Assam, and I couldn’t find the texts I needed for my competitive exams. We also struggled with the inaccessibility of daily information about the world around us. The news reached us a day late, with national newspapers getting delivered to us the next day. The chicken neck, it seemed, was the only link connecting this region to the larger nation-state, both geographically and in the broader imagination of those outside. We were the periphery. The 2000-plus kilometres between Delhi and Assam were not just geographical but also ideological and educational.
The peripheral, like Assam, is linked with physical appearance. The label “Northeastern” becomes a loaded term, imbued with a host of racial assumptions and stereotypes that affect every aspect of life – from social interactions to economic opportunities. Appearance hence becomes a central theme, emphasising how physical traits are often a more significant determinant of societal interactions and perceptions than cultural or geographic origin.
While the historical meaning of Northeastern referred to individuals from various Indigenous and tribal communities within the eight states for administrative ease of the colonial government, it eventually led to Northeastern peoples being categorised and racialised under the term “Mongoloid.” The term is colonial, and it conflates populations from other Himalayan regions with similar racialised histories. This racial category invariably carries the connotations and baggage of racism; if I exhibit East Asian features, I am often subjected to racial slurs like “chinky.” In mainland India, particularly in places like Delhi, my dominant identity is that of a Northeastern, emphasising my Mongoloid features or the fact I don’t look like the quintessential Northeastern despite being from there. At times, it feels as though my identity is reduced to my biological appearance.
When preparing to finally make the move to Delhi in 2012, while ruminating over what subjects to choose as the focus of my undergraduate studies, I came across a lecture by writer and translator Aruni Kashyap, who was inspired by Toni Morrison’s fiction, particularly her novel Song of Solomon (1977). Kashyap discussed the importance of bringing “peripheral” spaces like the Indian Northeast into focus and conversation. Kashyap emphasises how Morrison’s work inspired him: “It underlined my faith in books by telling me that what is kept hidden by the world at large, could be illuminated by common human experience.” I realised that choosing literature as my field of study was the right decision. It offered me the opportunity to illuminate the voices of the Northeast that are often seen as peripheral and liminal. Literature offered the possibility to challenge conceptions of the “peripheral” itself.
Sugar, Smoke, Song
Reflecting on these complexities, I recall my first encounter with Reema Rajbanshi’s Sugar, Smoke, Song (2020), which was when I moved to the United States for further research in Anglophone literatures by Northeast-origin writers. Written by an American born to immigrant parents from Assam and raised in culturally vibrant places like the Bronx and Miami, the text caught my interest as an academic and writer. The structure of the text, that of a loosely connected novel comprised of nine stories, did such a novel thing with a form that we do not usually see from most South Asian narratives. The first two stories – “The Ruins” and “BX Blues: A Dance Manual for Heartbreak” – focus on Maina’s unresolved emotions related to pain, loss, jealousy, and misunderstanding. The next three stories – “Ode on an Asian Dog,” “Swan Lake Tango,” and “The Stars of Bollywood House” – revolve around Jumi, whose personal issues mirror Maina’s. The interconnected stories further explore the lives of Assamese immigrants in the Bronx, highlighting the struggles of growing up as a first-generation, motherless, dark-skinned Assamese in a racist environment.
The final four stories –“The Carnival,” “Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughter,” “Sugar, Smoke, Song,” and “One Tiny Thing” – are set in Davis, California; Brazil’s countryside; and Davis again. The change of settings offers a brief respite, yet the toxic environment shared with the protagonists remains palpable. By the end of the nine stories, Rajbanshi’s readers gain a vivid understanding of the Assamese immigrant experience, marked by historical and sociopolitical challenges imposed by both British colonialism and the Indian government.
Rajbanshi masterfully blends in the personal histories of grief and the need to leave a place too close to one’s heart, only to realise that the “American dream” is a lie for immigrants without money or cultural connections to hold it up. The storyline depicts how people from Assam face a dual curse of racism in India and a failure to achieve the American dream due to their liminality. But it is not the bitterness that she chooses to focus on; it is the resilience of people like Jumi’s father that sets the tone of this text. Along with the strong sense of grief, and the continuous ashes of past decisions smoldering and burning through the characters, the text shows that one can tolerate it if the singing carries on. Because the immigrants are finally like “wanderers who climb slowly on board, to return to carnival that’s throbbed up once more. The tents, the fires, the dancing folks. We will pass from this living land to the next, and without words, with eyes open, we will wish. To go further, to rest a bit, then press on.”
Reading Rajbanshi helped me use the personal to shed light on the political and see how the so-called “peripheral” can be made central. I read about Assam, the place I come from. For me, Rajbanshi revealed some of the familiar colonial constructs that surrounded me growing up. I learned that these colonial constructs continue to persist, creating a tripartite classification within the Northeast. Some of the colonial classifications include tribals, often deemed “backward”; nontribals indigenous to the region, viewed historically as “more civilised”; and a diverse group of migrants, including labourers and government officials. These state-created categories intersect with other identities based on ethnicity, tribe, language, and kin, yet they often supersede them, continuing to influence the social fabric. The Indian nation-state simplifies Northeast communities, perpetuating the sociopolitical bifurcation of this region from the rest of India.
Rajbanshi openly addresses the resentment Northeast Indians feel toward their treatment as racially and culturally inferior by the rest of India. However, her primary focus is on the multifaceted hardships of building a new life in places like the Bronx. Each story delves into how past traumas affect future generations, poisoning their lives if left unaddressed. Rajbanshi critiques the dual curse of the American dream and racism, particularly in the title story, where she explores the compounded difficulties faced by Yusuf, a Black man from Ethiopia. Through these narratives, Rajbanshi establishes the intersectionality of the immigrant experience, revealing shared challenges and the pervasive absence of hope in a fundamentally racist society. But the immigrant characters go on by being resilient and supportive of one another, understanding that they face the same challenges in varying degrees in a racially segregated society.
For instance, in the short story “Ode to An Asian Dog,” Rajbanshi poignantly explores racial, cultural, and class identities, weaving them into a multiracial love story that magnifies the personal and social implications of being visibly different. Rajbanshi crafts a narrative in which protagonists Jumi and Walt embody the intersectional complexities of race and class identity within the South Asian diaspora. These characters’ physical appearance becomes a critical lens through which the text explores racial identity and discrimination.
Experiential racism
Rajbanshi writes, “When they stood newborn before the mirror, [Jumi] said, ‘We look different.’ [Walt’s] swimmer’s body, all shoulder and leg, had the Nordic height of Punjab, the lithe lines of Chinese script.” This passage highlights how the protagonists’ appearances are crucial to their identity and experiences, emphasising the story’s exploration of racial and cultural differences. “[Jumi’s] gymnast’s body, called childlike, had the sturdy look she’d found in books like ‘The Tribal People of India.’” Jumi’s immediate recognition of their differences underscores a recurring theme in Rajbanshi’s work—the stark visibility of racial characteristics that set the characters apart from both their own communities and the mainstream. This awareness of difference is critical, as it prefigures the challenges they face in navigating both their personal relationship and the external world, where such differences become points of contention and conflict.
Rajbanshi’s portrayal of the characters is nuanced, avoiding one-dimensional representations. Jumi is not just an immigrant navigating a predominantly white society but also an individual distinct within her own community due to her Northeastern features. A pointed scene in which Jumi encounters Walt’s father, a Punjabi named Mr Singh with roots in North India who exemplifies the stereotypical mainland Indian perceptions of the Northeastern people, further illustrates this complexity. The scene encapsulates these prejudices vividly:
He was relieved, he whispered, to meet a humble girl, asked why she looked Thai, said he’d forgotten his Hindi. Jumi settled on a vinca bed and began the well-worn lecture: “We’re Indo-Burmese. We have indigenous traits. Assam was the last part the British added to the Raj.” Mr Singh gave the well-worn response: Disney bug eyes, mid-air freeze. Later at the kitchen counter, he rambled on about growing up with Andaman tribals. “A people,” he shook a forkful of pork, “nearly extinct.” Walt laughed and thumped his chest to “Witch Doctor,” as if he were one himself.
Jumi’s attempt to assert her identity and provide education about her background clashes with Mr. Singh’s dismissive and stereotypical reactions, highlighting the pervasive ignorance and prejudice that people from the Northeast face, even from other Indians. Walt’s reaction, a mix of discomfort and overcompensation, also reflects his own struggle with his mixed heritage, indicating internalised racism and the complex layers of identity that both characters navigate. Rajbanshi’s character, through her very appearance and the diverse racial traits, embodies this experiential racism – felt but difficult to explicitly define or confront within the parameters of legal or formal discourse. So, appearance here is explored as a smouldering issue that brings to the fore the facets of Indian racial prejudices that exist within the society.
Narratives like Rajbanshi’s critically informed me about the broader stories of race and identity within the South Asian diaspora in the United States. Growing up, I experienced the racialisation of my regional identity. Being from the Northeast meant that I was often ascribed and tied to a borderland status, a legacy of colonial categorisations. Rajbanshi helped me think about the universal from a local and almost provincial standpoint. Stories with complicated backgrounds talking about intersectionality and solidarity taught me resilience, which is one of the factors with which immigrants can push forward. Resilience is important for people like me, people who are made to believe we are on the “periphery,” and hence “invisible.”
Tina Borah is a graduate student in the Department of English at the University of Georgia.
This essay originally appeared in LARBPublab.org, the official magazine of the Los Angeles Review of Books Publishing Workshop on June 26, 2024.
Sugar, Smoke, Song: A Novel, Reema Rajbanshi, Red Hen Press.
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