Not so Exceptional

When I was 30, a well-intentioned, non-Indian adult suggested I write a letter to my mother, let her know how she had made me feel for decades – get it all out. I smiled and said, Indian daughters don’t do that.

Written mostly as a letter to her mother, Prachi Gupta’s memoir They Called Us Exceptional and Other Lies That Raised Us is a very personal account of an Indian American immigrant family – a family that is simultaneously typical and one that is as far from average as imaginable.

The author’s paternal grandparents emigrated to Canada in the 1960s; her father grew up in Canada, her mother in India. After a few years in California’s Silicon Valley, Gupta’s family moved to New Jersey and Pennsylvania where father practiced medicine and her mother was a stay-at-home mom and wife. A younger brother rounded out the family. As Gupta describes,

We had perfected the delicate alchemy of culture, family, and work that resulted in happiness and success in America.

Behind this facade, Gupta describes a hellish family life – a controlling father’s psychological abuse and violence towards family members and himself, a mostly submissive and at times seemingly disengaged mother, and a brother – her best friend, who internalizes most of his emotions, leading to tragic consequences.

Please note that reading parts of this book may be difficult and triggering for those who have experience with physical abuse, self-harm or suicide in their family.

For the author, her father’s problems and family’s issues stem from the model-minority myth, the idea that Asian Americans were (are?) exceptional – highly educated, successful and wealthy. Their drive to achieve made Indian Americans ‘good’ immigrants, assimilated yet retaining their culture, at least those parts that fit in with American culture. Interspersed with the unsettling descriptions of her family life, Gupta offers more explanations – British rule, the Indian caste system, the American immigration system, sexism and racism – all of these and more are reasons why her father, mother and brother behaved as they did and where their perceptions of self and lack of self-worth originated. At times Gupta seems to also attribute her family’s mental health issues to these larger forces.

It’s difficult to review a memoir – someone else’s story, their memories, their truth.

It’s harder still to read a memoir whose pages could have been taken from one’s own diaries, describing scenes from my family life, raised as I also was by [north] Indian immigrant parents in Canada and the US.

The thing about memoirs – two people experiencing the same or similar events and feelings, who even hear almost the same words, can come away with two uniquely different reactions and perspectives. For me, Gupta’s memoir is a mix of ‘Haven’t we all had some version of that experience as children of immigrants?” and ‘There is something very serious going on in this family that has little to do with racism, sexism, colonialism or any other ‘ism.’

I did empathize with the author and early in the memoir remember feeling, it was supposed to get easier with more and more of us here, right? No. Each family, immigrant or not, and its journey is unique. Sharing and hearing the stories of other families is valuable, but, in my experience, can’t explain or serve as a handbook for others.

Gupta’s memoir becomes quite repetitive as she moves into adulthood, tracking with the author’s inability to break the cycle of rebelling against her parents and going back again and again for approval and support. The most impactful incidents of her father’s anger and [irrational] control are narrated early in the book – by giving example after example, chapter after chapter Gupta sounds like a teenager needing to vent. I also found it hard to follow when, at what age certain incidents happened – high school, childhood, college? Did her age matter? To this reader, yes, because through much of the book Gupta sounds like a child, acting out and blaming others. All of this takes away from her story.

There are also incongruities – certain things didn’t gel. For example, Gupta speaks of isolation, not belonging, being surrounded by white people “alienated from my cultural heritage and its history.” But, earlier, when describing her grade or middle school years, Gupta writes she looked forward to weekends – their desi life, Sundays in Hindi school, meeting other north Indian families, temple visits, classical dance lessons, and the staple of desi life, Diwali functions. She also hangs out with other Indian-American girls in high-school so maybe the cultural isolation Gupta writes of was by choice after leaving home.

As Gupta moves into adulthood, repeatedly blaming racism and sexism seems to become a crutch. For example, equating safety with sexism when her father tells her to carry a cell phone when running alone because she could get raped, seems over the top. Years later having the same reaction to carrying pepper spray for protection seems childish.

As I read, I hoped Gupta got help, counseling – she does, finding a brown professional who, for the most part, seems to reinforce the author’s own views. I wish Gupta had spent more space on how most mental health professionals – white Americans, may not have been able to help Indian immigrants such as her mother or brother. While it makes sense on the surface, does it still hold true? At what point do race or cultural experience not matter in such professions?

I also waited for Gupta to ask ‘Would the memoir of a white or [fill in the race/ethnicity] family with the same mental health history and issues read similar to hers?

The brightest parts of Gupta’s memoirs are about her brother Yush – the bond they shared as children grows stronger as they move into young adulthood and is heartwarming. Gupta seems to have a better grasp of her brother’s personality, perhaps because they were so close as children and continued talking and meeting often. They do eventually grow apart, unfortunately, as Yush’s views diverge from hers and she feels he has become more like their father.

When They Called Us Exceptional was first published and reviewed, I skipped it. The ‘model-minority’ theory doesn’t resonate – my family’s expectations had little to do with being Indian, most parents want their kids to do well in school and not end up in jail. Also, growing up, being Indian was ‘exotic.’ Sure, [white] people stared at my sari-clad mom and aunties, and then asked “Aren’t you cold?!” (long-johns under petticoats are magic!). I was fortunate to not have experienced blatant racism – until I moved to Texas in my 20s (no, I really don’t speak Spanish) and again after September 11. Mostly, though, I wasn’t keen to read another account about horrible Indian parents who ruined their children’s lives.

Why review this memoir, then? At the start of the book, Gupta, addressing her mother, says she needs to write this book so that the next generation doesn’t try to gain acceptance by believing in the myth written by white America. Near the end, after making an effort to learn about her cultural history and realizing she doesn’t come from a “long line of Gods”, Gupta says she sees her job now is “to allow those who come next the freedom to be ordinary.” While Gupta’s memoir is a compelling read and a story that must have been difficult to write and share, I don’t think it can or should help young Indian-Americans navigate their personal and unique journey. It is one daughter’s, one family’s story – important, significant but, theirs and theirs alone.

Another take on this book: Susan’s review