I had a similar debate at another blog many months ago but was reminded of it recently after a casual encounter. Earlier last month, during Diwali I met an Indian American man I know slightly who was on his way to a festive party to celebrate the occasion. He was dressed in a very elegant silk kurta. I complimented him on the same and he said somewhat irrelevantly, "The email invitation asked guests to dress in ethnic clothes, so here I am." Now, I wasn’t invited to the same party so I hadn’t seen the language in the invitation. I don’t know if the e-mail said, "Indian dress or Ethnic dress required." But I was struck by the use of the word "ethnic" by an adult Indian born American to describe the kurta. For me and according to the dictionary, the word "ethnic" bears a connotation of "minority" culture outside the mainstream. I wear saris to most formal and semi-formal occasions both when I am in India as well as in the US. To me the sari is not an "ethnic" dress although to non-Indian observers, it may be – like a fancy costume. I was therefore a bit surprised by the choice of the adjective by a man who grew up in India where men of all classes (and from many regions) sport the kurta. Or was he just pointing to its uniqueness in the sartorial culture of mainstream America?
This brings me to another observation – the use of the words ethnic and exotic in India to characterize Indian traditional clothing, art, craft and beauty. Urban Indian men and women wear both Indian and western clothing without self-consciousness. While the majority of the men dress in shirts, jackets and trousers in the workplace, professional Indian women are more likely to be seen in traditional Indian clothing than in western garb. There are indeed modes of dresses within India which are ethnic in the Indian context – peculiar to a certain region or religion. When I lived in India, I had never heard the word "ethnic" to describe most traditional Indian clothing, handicrafts or jewelery. But in the last few years during my visits to India, I have occasionally seen it being used in shop signs and heard it in conversations to include plain old saris, shalwar kameez and kurta – pajamas. These all happen to be mainstream garments in India. When did these styles become ethnic ? Or are people using it like the word desi which incidentally means national or local.
I was too polite to point this out but the use of the word ethnic to describe home grown stuff made in India was rather bemusing. Perhaps the usage is not so different from the time in my youth when the same wrong headed choice of vocabulary was reflected in describing dark skinned women who comprise the overwhelming majority of Indian women. I don’t know how it is now, but twenty five years ago, popular film and fashion magazines could not bring themselves to describe a drop dead gorgeous but dark complected Indian woman simply as beautiful. The adjectives of choice were dusky, sultry and most gallingly, exotic. How’s that for a colonial hangover? But ethnic is new for me. Exotic, ethnic – for whom and where?
I understand that in certain circumstances words and expressions can be appropriated by a group to mean whatever it wishes them to mean. (I am of an age that I remember the time when "gay" meant plain "happy") Usually the underlying motive is to take control of how one wants something personal to be defined rather than let others do it. Sometimes the purpose is to take the sting out of an outsider’s derogatory epithet by making it one’s own; such as the appropriation of the n-word by African American rappers and "queer" by gay rights activists. Sometimes however, inappropriate use of language enters common parlance out of sloppiness – probably because the word sounds "smart" or because one is too lazy to look it up in the dictionary.
Note to readers and co-bloggers: Although all references here are to India and things Indian, this is not a desi or ethnic post. It is about language. There is no doubt in my mind that the word "ethnic" is clearly wrong when applied to Indian clothing in India. But was my acquaintance in Houston too somewhat mistaken in referring to the kurta as ethnic in a conversation with me? Please don’t hesitate to jump in with your informed opinions.
Accidental Blogger 
11 responses to “Ethnic, Exotic : For And According To Whom?”
From OED, with examples from the literature and Greek script, which didn’t copy properly, excised here:
[ad. Gr. heathen, f. nation; in the LXX, hence in N.T. and the Fathers, = the nations, Gentiles (rendering Heb. nation, esp. non-Israelitish or ‘Gentile’ nation).
The Gr. was formerly often imagined to be the source of Eng. HEATHEN; hence the confused forms hethnic, HEATHENIC, which might be regarded as corrupt variants of this word.]
A. adj.
1. Pertaining to nations not Christian or Jewish; Gentile, heathen, pagan.
2. a. Pertaining to race; peculiar to a race or nation; ethnological. Also, pertaining to or having common racial, cultural, religious, or linguistic characteristics, esp. designating a racial or other group within a larger system; hence (U.S. colloq.), foreign, exotic.
b. ethnic minority (group), a group of people differentiated from the rest of the community by racial origins or cultural background, and usu. claiming or enjoying official recognition of their group identity. Also attrib.
…and so forth. The first occurrence of usage noted for 2.b. was 1945, while 1. and 2.a. are 1470 and 1851, respectively. However, I don’t know that OED always makes a point to identify the earliest occurrences. It may simply resort to the best for purposes of illustrating usage. In the case of 2.b., it’s a heading appearing in American Sociological Review.
It now appears that the question turns on the proper basis of meaning of a word, its etymological source or its evolved usage? Put another way, can or should “queer” ever again really mean simply “Strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric, in appearance or character”? This, by the way, commences the first entry for the adjective in OED, the second being “Of a person (usu. a man): homosexual.”
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It seems to me that the problem with ethnic or exotic as a descriptors lies in their ambiguity as to referent: ethnic or exotic to whom? It seems to me that the acquaintance would have done better to say that he’d decided or been told to dress in Indian or desi (given the meaning that term’s taken on; I hadn’t known its origin prior to Ruchira’s post) clothing. Of course using broad descriptors like “Indian,” tied to such a large, diverse population, has its own problems, but it seems at least like a step in the right direction: call things by what they are, rather than by referent to some perceived norm.
Without knowing the details, I’m sorry that the acquaintance was so uncomfortable wearing a kurta that he felt compelled to offer an awkward explanation.
“Exotic” probably just needs to be retired with reference to people’s appearance, whether in their bodies or their dress– it’s way to freighted with colonial political and sexual bagage.
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I think, given the context in which the word was used,i.e. as a gathering of Indian Americans in the US(?), the term ‘ethnic’ clothes implies wearing any of the accepted Indian clothes (kurta-pajama/kurta-churidhar, perhaps even dhotis, apart from saris, shalwar-kameez and lehenga-cholis). Presumably, the intent was to discourage prom gowns, little black dresses, tuxes, jeans, halter neck tops (without saris to match) and the like.
So the use of ‘ethnic’ in that particular context doesn’t seem odd to me.It does seem odd, however, that the term is being adopted in a similar fashion in India. I would think that perhaps the tendency to ape the Western media has something to do with it- with an imposition of a linguistic kind that really makes no sense. It’s not as if you routinely see women in business suits, while men may have adopted that for their work attire.
Curiously, there are areas where the original Brit fixation with ‘appropriate’ clothing persists. An example would be the Race Course Club in Chennai, earlier this year, where my son was nearly barred from entry for wearing shorts instead of trousers and sandals instead of shoes, and only managed to sneak in under the cover of darkness and a club steward ‘willing’ to look the other way. Apparently, only kids below a certain height are permitted to enter in shorts.
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Dean:
You didn’t at all answer my question. Of course I understand that certain words lose their original connotation when supplanted by a more commonly implied usage. I doubt that I will ever again see a children’s rhyme which goes along the lines:
It is a beautiful spring day / And I am feeling so gay.
My post was aimed at the incorrect usage of “ethnic” and “exotic” by an ethnic or majority population to refer to cultural issues pertaining to their own group. I mean, do the Chinese refer to Chinese food as “ethnic” and should they? Even if others do.
In the US I have seen a couple of Afro-Caribbean stores display the word ethnic in their signage. But most other minority owned businesses use names that indicate the broad regional or religious character of the merchandize: Chinese / Korean/ Indian / Pakistani etc. grocery. Halal / Kosher foods.
I think the word ethnic is completely out of place in India when applied to Indian dress, food or jewelry. Even the Houston gentleman who was on his way to the party, used it in a wrong way because he was talking to me. To neither one of us is kurta an ethnic apparel (it may be to our children). It struck me as a strange way of “othering” something that is your own. Exotic of course is totally out of bounds.
Sujatha: I know about those “pucca” British places. They have had to loosen their stiff upper lips quite a bit. But they have a thing about shorts. They no longer make a ruckus about Indian outfits. Men and women in full Indian clothing are welcome although things were different before 1947 and for a decade or so after that. Women in saris were never turned away then or now but men had to don suits and ties.
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The best thing I have ever read on the strange meaning of “ethnic” in the American context is the lengthy introduction by Harvard Af-Am studies professor Werner Sollors in the essay collection The Invention of Ethnicity http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0195050479/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-5729901-5932750#reader-link.
If memory serves, Sollers dates “ethnic” back to a 1940s sociological survey of a small New England town — perhaps it is the very same instance that Dean found for definition 2B. In any case, what was fascinating about this survey was that it grouped under the “ethnic” heading any group that was not white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. So anyone from Italian to Irish to Chinese to African-American to Jewish was considered “ethnic.” There were about 10 different groups. So associated with “ethnic” was, and in my opinion still is, an inherent sense that you are not quite the norm.
60 years later, the number of “ethnic” groups has expanded — and in some ways, shrunk. I remember in 1995 in college, when classes were shut down by demonstrators demanding a department of ethnic studies, I was somewhat hurt to find out that Jews were not considered “ethnic” by the demonstrators and did not merit study under an ethnic studies rubric. The idea of being ethnic didn’t seem to occur to Irish-American children of the 80s. Somewhere along the way the Irish, Jews, and Italians became white — don’t tell Woody Allen or Martin Scorcese though. On a more serious level, perhaps the demonstrators sense of “ethnic” requires economic disadvantage as well as “non-white” status to be considered legitimate.
So my ultimate point is that “ethnic,” as you found Ruchira, is a strange, sometimes alienating word. Its modern usage is of relatively recent coinage, and its usage always carries some kind of political argument.
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Ruchira, I recognize that I didn’t answer the question directly (or perhaps at all), but it strikes me that if one were interested in being literalistic about it, one could refer to one’s own group as “ethnic” and not violate OED 2.a. You are building the violation into your query…sort of. Of course when I hear somebody refer to “ethnic clothing” or “ethnic music” I register 2.b., not 2.a., largely because that has become the common usage. On the other hand, in a reversal of the situation you describe, I cringe at “world music,” which is usually intended to mean something like, “Overproduced pop or techno seasoned with the sounds of another culture’s ethnic, even exotic fare.” My retort is typically, “Since when was, say, Verdi, not of the world? Ergo, his is world music, too.”
Andrew, Judging from your discussion and the index entries (Paul de Man and Terry Eagleton both appearing on p.x), that Sollors piece looks mighty interesting. I’m going to guess that he bases his finding on the OED entry, but perhaps he independently confirms it.
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I would think that ethnic clothing is that belong to an ethnic group. So at least in the context of your conversation in Houston, yeah, it was ethnic clothing. Gefilte fish would be an ethnic food.
Exotic, on the other hand, renders foreign, “other,” and carries with it all that ugly colonial baggage that Anna mentions.
Where ethnic gets tricky, I think, is because of its high level of generality. You can always use more precise language and use that ethnic group as the modifier. So a kurta is Indian clothing, rather than ethnic clothing. But in some contexts it might make sense to refer to it as ethnic clothing, such as on an invitation to an Indian American party (you could, of course, instead refer to it as traditional clothing, but that doesn’t make the other usage wrong). The mistake is where people use ethnic in place of nonwhite or non-American, as with Andrew’s ethnic studies program. Without a level of specificity, of course, we’re all ethnic. Maybe this usage arises as a replacement for exotic, which people have largely stopped using because it’s offensive, but many without understanding why or how it’s offensive.
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Interesting post. I would say that you’re slightly exaggerating the comfort zone of urban Indian males when it comes to Indian wear. Sure, it is worn, but it is largely restricted to formal occasions like marriages e.t.c. I am not sure how comfortable the urban ”yuppie” is with wearing Indian clothes except as an exotic wear. The exotic elements frees one of cultural heritage and allows it to be seen as merely as a dress for social occasions. To sum it up, I am not surprised that the Indian guy used the term ”ethnic”–wrong as it is.
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it is quite common in the Indian media to read a sentence like “featuring ethnic looking Nandita Das”. It is one of my pet peeves as well.
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For those not familiar with Nandita Das, she is an Indian actress – dark skinned, cerebral and quite beautiful. Photo gallery here.
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interesting post. as an not-exactly-american indian male, i’ve always
thought of ethnic to mean traditional. so ethnic clothing would mean
traditional clothing.
but of course, how would you describe the the use of the exotic in exotic lingerie? there’s nothing
traditional about that!
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