Daily Times

For most of my early years in the US, Independence Day -the fourth of July- was my favourite holiday. First, it was a non-denominational holiday and, second, it involved some particular type of food. That as a Lahori is one thing I liked about the US: most major holidays have a certain style of food attached to them. For the fourth it is of course the outdoor barbeque. Nothing elaborate, just basically hot dogs, hamburgers, large amounts of potato salad and coleslaw. The best part was when my children were still in school. The early afternoon barbeque had full participation by the children and, very often, neighbours and friends were also invited.
Very early on in my rather busy professional life I realised that the only way I could make sure that I had a frequent meal with the entire family was to make the food myself. A barbeque helped me do that and so it was always a pleasant part of my monthly routine,which became more certain during holidays like the fourth. Inviting friends and neighbours over was an important way of becoming a part of the local community. Many of our Muslim friends often refused to invite neighbours because they did not wish to serve alcoholic beverages. Frankly, it was my Pakistani friends whooften insisted on some ‘whiskey paani’ (whiskey and water) as a libation to accompany their barbequed food. Non-Muslim friends and neighbours were not only happy with nimboopaani(lemon water) or Rooh Afza but were quite intrigued by them.
Another easy trick I learned to impress my neighbours with was to take some chicken pieces and marinade them overnight with yogurt mixed with some red coloured tandoori marinade and then barbequethe chicken along with the compulsory hot dogs and hamburgers. For years my neighbours and later on parents of my children’s friends,who attended these barbeques, would talk of the “excellent”tandoori chicken they were served. Personally, I have always felt that these occasional barbeques were much better at making a Pakistani-Muslim-US family accepted by our neighbours than all the interfaith dialogue seminars we could have attended. Frankly, a well-cooked piece of tandoori chicken goes a long way.
The barbeque on the fourth was followed by the necessary afternoon siesta and then, just before sunset, the entire family would collect some heavy bed sheets (khes) and some pillows and go down to the local high school grounds to watch the fireworks. The bed sheets would be laid out on the ground along with a few pillows and the family would await the excitement of the fireworks. An important part of these forays was that the children would often walk around and introduce their friends’ parents to each other. Here, dear reader, you might have noticed my emphasis on meeting, greeting and inviting neighbours and our children’s friends and families over to our house for barbeques. This then would often be reciprocated by invites to our invitee’s homes further down the road. Even though our children have long since graduated from high school, some of the friends we made as a family during those days are still very close to us, especially to my wife.
For many Pakistani-US citizens and other Muslims, 9/11changed everything. But what has changed the most from my perspective is the ever-increasing paranoia exhibited by Muslim communities as well as the xenophobes on the other side. I must admit that but for the inevitable hassle of going through the immigration checkpoint at US airports, I have never felt any discrimination either for the colour of my skin or for my name. And I must admit that neither have my children nor my wife, and even for that matter my siblings and their children, ever reported any discrimination. But then we do live in New York City’s (NYC’s) suburbs in a relatively liberal area. My basic point so far has been that if, as immigrants to a new country, you are willing to accept without reservations your neighbours as social equals then they will also reciprocate. There is a great amount of diversity among the US citizens around us. As outsiders we can become a part of the multicultural and multi-ethnic fabric of US society but first we must learn to put aside our fears of assimilation.
One of the statements that my Muslim friends often make is about how ‘tolerant’ they are and how tolerant our religion is. True, but then I remind them that as Muslims and as Pakistanis, when we came to the US, we did not want to be just tolerated but rather we wanted to be accepted as equals. I would be entirely incensed if our US friends went around telling us that they were only too happy to tolerate us inspite of all our different appearances, beliefs and behaviour. So, as a minority community in the US, most of us were accepted as long as we followed the law and contributed to society in a positive way.
And on this fourth of July, I must address a recent decision by the Supreme Court (SC) of the US concerning ‘same sex’ marriage. From a religious point of view, Muslims as well as most devout Christians find this decision problematic. Homosexuality is considered a sin by most Muslims. But then so is consumption of alcohol and pigs, sex before or outside of marriage and the giving or receiving of interest. Yet most Muslims who live in the US do not avoid people indulging in such behaviour for if they did they would have to live in ghettos of their own kind. My advice to my Muslim friends is that just because we do not agree with a particular way of life, we should, if we can, put aside our biases and accept any other minority that follows the law and contributes positively to society.

The author is a former editor of the Journal of Association of Pakistani descent Physicians of
North America (APPNA)