British-Born Asians

The confinement of British-born Asians:

Both sides of the spectrum

As a British-born Asian myself, I have always been fascinated by the reasons to which my parents felt they had to confine and shelter me from what they thought were negative influences. Many other British-born Asians have found themselves in a very similar situation. The more I talked to them about their experiences, the more I found that there was an ever-bridging gap between the two generations. This cultural phenomenon (teenagers becoming distant and elusive from their parents) is not unheard of in Western societies. However the reasons for this rift with the families of the British-born Asian is different as it involves an entire new generation being brought up in conditions and environments completely different to the parents own. The parents were born and raised in India whilst their children were born and brought up in a country entirely different... England.

For the past few generations in almost every culture, such as the ones for our parents and grandparent's generations, a lot of emphasis as placed upon creating a better, easier life for the upcoming second generation. This was the case in India. In the 60s and 70s, India saw its very first generation of citizens who were free from the control of the British. They didn't have to contend with having to fight for their own freedom as they were born into a recently freed nation.

However, as much as they valued their own motherland, when reaching the end of adolescence, it became apparent that India just didn't have the resources to meet their expectations. This was because the opportunity for jobs and promotions was very limited as many of their generation were striving for that very goal. This meant this generation of Indians were very highly motivated to succeed. Without the material distractions of today, they worked hard to finish their education.

After completing this hurdle, the next task was to go to a place that gave them opportunities that their motherland couldn't. The answer was to go to the West. Tens of thousands of Indians made the decision to uproot themselves and their families to emigrate from India to England. The goal for them was to earn enough money, to finish their education fully and then to go back home. They wanted to be able to provide for their family with a well paying job. Not many achieved this goal in the end as the vast majority stayed.

This is why England was seen as the land of opportunity for many of these people, where if you weren't afraid of hard work you had the ability to earn to support those nearest to you. British employers saw this as a golden opportunity to gain diligent employees. It wasn't easy for them. There was very limited Indian music, food, culture and religion available to them and there were other barriers, such as language problems, culture problems, discrimination and prejudice, and visa struggles. Nonetheless, their drudgery and determinism paid off. They worked long hours for less pay but they did it without complaint because in the back of their minds they were considering the upcoming generation. They never relinquished their beliefs about their religions, cultures or traditions, because, regardless of their surrounding environments, in their hearts they were fundamentally Indian.

This gave them an added unwavering resolution to work hard and to bring their own children up with the same cultural values they themselves had been given when growing up in India. However they knew that it was easier for them to learn about their culture as they had been born and raised in a country where the fundamental values and traditions hadn't changed immensely over the past many generations. This started preying upon their minds: what if the following generation rejected these cultures and values? What if being born in a new country, where the ethnicity was so different to their own beliefs, meant that the children adopted a new a new culture and thus changing the beliefs for the generations afterwards?

They were faced with an upcoming conflict with their children which would prove to be the single most challenging thing they have had to face. They weren't ignorant to their own surroundings. This "first generation" saw the many problems that came with living in a western society. Even though they were grateful to the professional success that they had been given, the still worried for their own children. They were living in a society where the sexual exploitation by the media had literally gotten out of control.

This worry didn't change when the "second generation" was born. Initially there wasn't a problem on both sides. The children were too young to be able to make decisions for themselves, which mean that their parents were able to shelter them from their surrounding environments as much as they wanted. There were so many new opportunities that were available to their children because they were living out in the West, and they didn't want their children to go without. Therefore it became the parents' primary priority to make sure that their children got nothing but the best; whether this was their education or their extra-curricular pursuits.

They were encouraged to expand their capabilities and were taken to such thing as swimming lessons and musical lessons. For these parents, they were experiencing something their own parents and the many generations before them didn't have a chance to experience: the chance to bring up their children in an environment where so many prospects were open to them. Therefore there were so many things that the first generation wanted to teach their children. However, these activities were never done at the cost of their education.

Just as it had been for their generation, they were determined to make education number-one in their children's lives. They knew form their own personal experiences that education was the primary factor to ensure success in life. They were encouraged to always perform well and the expectations placed upon them were ever increasing. If another child did better than their child did, the only way they knew how to react to this was to place more pressure on the child to do better. Failure was never an option for this generation as they had worked so hard to reach their goals.

Because they knew that it would be hard for their children to get a true sense of Indian culture as they did not live in the country itself, a strong emphasis was placed upon the conservation of Indian culture. Children were encouraged to partake in religious events and also to confine to the social stereotypes that were expected of them. Where the first generation