dressing for success

i love where i live.

it's one of the few places in the world where diversity truly exists.

for instance, when i go to the gym, i marvel at all the different types of people i see -- brown-skinned, yellow-skinned, white-skinned, black-skinned, red-skinned. people just do their own thing, completely absorbed in their own thoughts and unaware of the fact that they are doing something fantastic and inspirational:

they are living out multiculturalism in its truest and best form -- accepting difference without even realizing it.

i think it's really cool.

my town has a respectable indian-american population (as well as vietnamese-american, russo-american, etc., populations -- didn't i say my city was great? :) ). whenever i see a woman wearing a sari out and around town, i think about one of my undergraduate english professors. she was not one of the most spectacular lecturers i've ever heard, but i loved her and was quite fond of her. she was considered to be one of the "tougher" graders in that particular department -- although i never found that to be particularly true. but of course, that's because i actually did all the reading and writing that was required. seriously, that's all it takes in order to get a good grade.

:-T

the professor was an indian-american woman who had immigrated to the united states to attend college, then to get her ph.d., in english lit. she had arrived into the country along with her loving husband, and they both ended up teaching at the small college where i ultimately met them.

my professor had hair that was long and beautiful. i would say that her hair was long enough that it reached the back of her knees, and it would swish gently as she walked. she always wore a sari to class, and they were very beautiful garments. because winters were often harsh and icy there, she often wore her saris coupled with sturdy snow boots, a sight that i often found humorous yet cute and endearing whenever i saw it.

anyhow, since my undergraduate college is located in the beehive state, you can imagine how many opportunities the people over there have to see diversity, let alone women in saris. as you can imagine -- not very many. unless you took a class from this particular professor. :-T

during my time there (not very long -- two years; as an over-achieving azngrrl, i finished college in three years, the first year having been spent at a california community college :-T), i heard every now and then inklings and rumblings from students about her attire and appearance. and i think they were harder on her, as a "tough grader," because she was such an easy target. her appearance marked her off as different, and so her teaching style was viewed as "different" as well, albeit not in the kindlinest sense of the word.

but i enjoyed having her as a professor very much. she spoke with an indian accent that was soft and lilting, and i always found her voice pleasant even when she led class discussions about dark topics, such as the imagery in or authorial intent behind sylvia plath's poem "daddy" or t.s. eliot's "the lovesong of j. alfred prufrock." seriously, it's been years since i sat in on that one class i took from her, but i still remember those lectures quite vividly.

but like i said, it is not so much her teaching style that i remember most, because her teaching style was just rather . . . average.

rather, she was an inspiring figure mostly because of her sari.

i had a meeting with her once about a paper i wanted to write for her class. we were discussing possible theses that i could explore, and somehow, the conversation veered towards the issue of diversity -- since, obviously, we were ethnic minorities at that particular school. i think that was still only my first year living in that state, and so i think i expressed to her some frustration because of how i felt i was perceived and treated because of my ethnicity and how powerless i felt in the face of it.

it's the beehive state. not only that, but it's one of the more conservative, smaller towns in that state. if you aren't white and aren't mo', or if you're not among the working class hispanic population of the town, then it sucks to live there. and no, i'm not talking about the capitol city, which is actually a cool place to live. it is another town -- o-town.

in response to my complaints, the professor told me a story about herself and about her sari.

she once gave a presentation. i can't remember what she said the topic was, but i'm sure it had to do with her specialty -- post-modernism and post-colonialism. anyhow, for the event, she wore a sari, as she usually does. and after her presentation, someone came up to her and asked her why she wore a sari. "this is america," the person said. "shouldn't you try to look more american?"

and the professor told me that, in response, she drew herself up and said, "no. i am an american, and i will wear what i want. and i like to wear my saris."

i can totally imagine her saying it like that. she was a very soft-spoken and dignified lady. i think she was actually in her sixties at the time i took her class, although she looked to be in her late forties or early fifties, at most. she never raised her voice, did not use strong language, but she could get her point across when she wanted to.

she passed away a few years ago, during my first year of law school. she was the first person in my life whom i knew to pass away. i was affected by it. i only happened to find out about her death by pure happenstance, when i was up late one night browsing through the local news (this was way before my days as a google feedreader). it was still my first semester as a 1L, and you can imagine how stressed out that first semester was for me. :-T but i remember that i was shocked and filled with grief. she was too gentle, too loving, too kind to die. . . . and i had never, ever really told her how much she had helped me and impacted me.

that very night, i drove the forty miles to the undergraduate college. to this day, i don't know why. but i did, and i snuck into the humanities/social science building. i climbed up the dark stairs to the third floor and flipped on the lights in the hallway outside the door of her office. i saw that people had already begun to pay their respects by leaving notes, cards, and gifts at the door that she would never pass through again. i read a few of them and felt emotions rising in me. then i went and found a scrap of paper and pencil and began writing a poem in free verse for her.

i'm no poet, really, and i don't remember what i wrote. i just remember the image that came in my head as i wrote it: the professor sitting cross-legged on top of a hill with her long hair winding neatly down over one shoulder. her posture was very much like buddha sitting contemplatively and quiet under a tree after finally attaining enlightenment. when i finished the poem, i taped it onto her door along with the other notes and cards that had been affixed onto it.

i did not have much of a very personal relationship with her -- not as personal as a few other english professors i had there with whom i still have pretty good friendships. but i think about her often these days, every time i drive around town or am out and about and happen to see a woman wearing a sari.

isn't that what the american dream is all about?

the american dream isn't solely about selfishness -- that is, it's not just about working hard to achieve a particular materialistic or socio-economic goal. it's about more than that. a part of it, at least at this point in history, is all about achieving complete multi-cultural diversity. not to the point where everyone who comes here ends up looking exactly like each other -- but rather to the point where everyone can remain as different as can be while still living the american dream.