What is gained and what is lost in America?

[GOTFIVEONIT]

What is gained and what is lost in America?

By Abdur Rehman, Urdu Times, 11 March 2004.

Translated from Urdu by Muhammad Jehangir.

It was 1996. After offering Friday prayers, I saw a man sitting in a brand new Lincoln outside the mosque. He seemed to be waiting for someone. I had the feeling that I knew him. He came out of his car all of a sudden and moved towards me. He called me by name, shook my hand very warmly and introduced himself. He refreshed my memory, reminding me of the small clothing store he owned in Karachi (Pakistan) where my family used to shop. He told me he had a big business and a house in a posh neighborhood and invited me and my wife for dinner the following Sunday so we could talk.

When we arrived for dinner, instead of taking us inside through the front door, he took us through the garage to show us, with great pride, four late-model cars – a Lincoln, a BMW, a Montero and a Honda Accord. He showed us the entire house, which was expensive and tastefully decorated.

I congratulated him on his business successes, but when I asked about his children he became sad. With tearful eyes he said he had three sons and a daughter. “My daughter married a white American and my eldest son married a Mexican. We don’t see much of him, but my two other sons who are in college are still single and live with us.” For him, America is a cruel country: “Look, this country has snatched my two children from me. What should I do with wealth when I am deprived of my family? I will repent coming to America my whole life.”

Countless Pakistani families living in this country face similar tragedies. The new generation of Pakistani Americans are lost in this society; they are completely oblivious of their culture, values, customs, traditions and religious identity. Greed for wealth has created a gulf between parents and their children. The younger generation are lost in this open society because they are obsessed with becoming wealthly and negligent of rearing their children properly.

Marriage has become a huge problem for Pakistani immigrants here. While parents want to marry their children according to their wishes, the kids want to choose their own life partners. Besides, in the United States, when a person becomes 18 years old, they become legally independent and parents can no longer control them.

After interviewing several parents, it became evident that whenever a marriage proposal comes for a daughter, the girl usually rejects it, waiting for her ideal man. The same thing happens with male youths. The problem is especially acute with those who have U.S. citizenship. Young women simply reject a Pakistan-born partner on the grounds that she cannot live with him due to differences in thinking. Conversely, males holding U.S. citizenship prefer Pakistan-born girls.

Another problem is the expectations families have for a daughter’s partner: they aspire to marry them to a doctor or an engineer, knowing full well that this cannot happen for every girl. Marriage proposals for girls come only when they are young. As they become older, the proposals stop coming; prospective families know that the girl’s family expects too much. The girls become middle-aged and unfit for marriage.

Because well-off Pakistani immigrants avoid mixing with their middle-class compatriots –consequently, middle-class Pakistanis stay away from them – the marriage problem is more acute in the upper class. Although they have a lot of wealth and send their children to the best schools, they don’t pay much heed to their children’s family future. Therefore, their sons and daughters marry on their own, without caring if their spouse is black or white. They have little religious education. As a result, they have gone astray, oblivious of their culture, customs, traditions and religion.

Pakistani immigrants in this country must interact closely with each other in order to tackle the complex problem of marriage. Such interaction would afford their children the opportunity to meet each other and build bridges of understanding. Unfortunately, there is no social center for the Pakistani community here [Houston]. Besides the one or two Eid Islamic festivals celebrated in the city twice every year, there are no programs to bring the families together.

Pakistani immigrants living here will also have to come out of their complexes of caste, creed and ethnicity and look for appropriate matches with others Pakistani Muslims; Islam allows this. Parents would be well advised to betroth their children to reasonable matches during their school years. Their marriages could be solemnized once their children reach universities. This would allow their children to concentrate on their studies as well as to develop greater understanding with their life partners.

Some parents do not want to talk to their children about marriage until their schooling is over. This thinking is also flawed. What would happen if they married a non-Muslim while in school? It is unreasonable to deprive your children of marriage for too long in a country where sexual material is abundantly and openly available over television, radio and the Internet. If they are studying medicine, they will be 30- or 32-years-old by the time they complete their education. This is not a big deal for the males, but getting an appropriate match for a female at this late age becomes very difficult. Even if such a person is found, he is usually a middle-aged widower or divorcee who is not acceptable to the girl. It is not unusual for women this age to abandon their plans for marriage. If the girls are betrothed during their schools years, this problem can be avoided.

Parents must always take into consideration the family background before betrothing their girls. They must also take into confidence the elders of the community, contact local mosques and Islamic scholars to make sure that they are seeking a relationship with honorable people and not become victims of fraud. Besides, at least one distinguished personality of the city must be made a witness to it so that if any future any dispute should come between the two families, it can be amicably resolved.

[MossadConspiracy]

so many desis go crazy about marriage, as illustrated by the author of this article and the people he's talking about

the problems relating to marriage seem so much worse with pakistani and indian immigrants when compared to other groups..

[LEGALEAGLE]

MossadConspiracy said

so many desis go crazy about marriage, as illustrated by the author of this article and the people he's talking about

the problems relating to marriage seem so much worse with pakistani and indian immigrants when compared to other groups..

thanks for your informed opinion.

[MossadConspiracy]

you're welcome

[LEGALEAGLE]

MossadConspiracy said

you're welcome

sarcasm is wasted on you as Arabesque has already proved...

[MossadConspiracy]

Its usually best to ignore it when acknowledging it serves no purpose

ws

[MoonStar]

I don't think the problem of kids going astray has to do with America, I'm sure many of us know people back in the motherland who married nonmuslims/hindus. And it's more prevalent there since in the West you'd be of a different race and culture which sets you apart while back in India/Pakistan if you're not religious, then there isn't much of a difference between a nonpracticing Muslim and a nonmuslim, race and culturewise. And marrying according to the parent's wishes doesn't always end happily as the article seems to imply. If the father in the article didn't care to teach the kids about what was important in life, then he shouldn't be sad or surprised at who they marry.

[LEGALEAGLE]

MoonStar said

I don't think the problem of kids going astray has to do with America, I'm sure many of us know people back in the motherland who married nonmuslims/hindus. And it's more prevalent there since in the West you'd be of a different race and culture which sets you apart while back in India/Pakistan if you're not religious, then there isn't much of a difference between a nonpracticing Muslim and a nonmuslim, race and culturewise. And marrying according to the parent's wishes doesn't always end happily as the article seems to imply. If the father in the article didn't care to teach the kids about what was important in life, then he shouldn't be sad or surprised at who they marry.

Moonstar very true.

My cousin does interfaith work for the community and he was telling me about how lots of Muslims in Birmingham made their money by selling wines etc in their shops.

So they would leave their kids to mind the shops and now all their kids are drinking. They've made the money and lost their kids.

[GOTFIVEONIT]

MossadConspiracy said

so many desis go crazy about marriage, as illustrated by the author of this article and the people he's talking about

the problems relating to marriage seem so much worse with pakistani and indian immigrants when compared to other groups..

you are absolulty right. because you see desi people are aliens from another world. thats the only explanation i can come up with to explain thier crazy behavior like the fools from third rock from the sun.

[GOTFIVEONIT]

LEGALEAGLE said

Moonstar very true.

My cousin does interfaith work for the community and he was telling me about how lots of Muslims in Birmingham made their money by selling wines etc in their shops.

So they would leave their kids to mind the shops and now all their kids are drinking. They've made the money and lost their kids.

and that was actually the point that the author was making. i was surprised to read that some old desi uncle wrote this, he was basically chastising the middle aged folks from his generation. thats good that he originally wrote this piece in the Urdu Times. funny my dad always reads it.

[Variable]

Damn America, letting children decide their lives for themselves and marry people of other ethnicities.

[ChotooMotoo]

what's wrong with Pakistani's marrying people from other ethnicities or cultures? Why are they restricted to marrying only related Pakistani's? Aren't Pakistani's the ones who cry the most about racial descrimination in the USA?

[GOTFIVEONIT]

ChotooMotoo said

what's wrong with Pakistani's marrying people from other ethnicities or cultures? Why are they restricted to marrying only related Pakistani's? Aren't Pakistani's the ones who cry the most about racial descrimination in the USA?

nothing wrong. What's wrong is when you marry outside of your faith. When there are plenty of Muslim's available as potentional spouses, why marry outsiders?

[ChotooMotoo]

GOTFIVEONIT said

nothing wrong. What's wrong is when you marry outside of your faith. When there are plenty of Muslim's available as potentional spouses, why marry outsiders?

All this article talks about is the peoples ethnicity. It doesn't stress anything about their religion. It seems the parents weren't all that religious anyway. I've Pakistani's who could care less their daughter-in-law's religion, so long as she's thin and pretty, and produces children.

[GOTFIVEONIT]

ChotooMotoo said

All this article talks about is the peoples ethnicity. It doesn't stress anything about their religion. It seems the parents weren't all that religious anyway.

Well that's where you are wrong. the article did stress the importance of religion, so that future generations will be raised as Muslims. Sure the author is an old man, and interacial marriages is not something that they are used to and certainly would not approve of. But when from the article, when the author was discussing on how many second-generation kids ran off to marry outside of thier faith, thats what he meant by how they married whites or hispanics etc. Meaning they married kaffirs. Thats why thier parents dont see much of them anymore.

I've Pakistani's who could care less their daughter-in-law's religion, so long as she's thin and pretty, and produces children.

If she was black, trust me they would care. Im an Indian Muslim, there are plenty of Pakistani parent's who would look down on us, some would be dead against it, because they want thier kids married to people from thier own city, thier own ethnicitys i.e. punjabi, sindhi etc. so that's not entirely true.