Tent Cities In The USA

As the economic downturn continues, the tent cities are emerging in various places like California, Nevada, Ohio, West Virginia and Georgia. Currently there are about one million homeless people in the USA. Previously homeless people were considered as drug addicts, sick, mentally disabled and uneducated people who did not have any relatives, friends or family. Now the middle class is joining the ranks of homeless people. These people owned homes during better economic times. When the home prices collapsed and their mortgages adjusted upwards, these people simply could not afford the houses.

Many people who lost their jobs were unable to make mortgage payments and lost their homes to foreclosure. Looking at various video reports on the television and you -tube, I saw the majority of people in these tent cities were white Americans. Most of the people interviewed in these reports were working people without any drug addiction or sickness.

I observed closely for any South Asian people among these tent city residents. I scanned the videos of tent cities in various parts of the USA but I could not find any South Asian faces. This aspect was confirmed by the statistics that showed only 1% of the homeless in the USA belong to Asian Americans.

I am sure there are poor South Asian people in the USA. However it seems like these people have received shelter with their friends, relatives or other community members. There is also a possibility that these people have gone back to India or Pakistan to avoid homelessness in an alien country.

In this write up I have tried to look deeply within our South Asian culture that avoids the slide into tent cities. I also believe that this cultural connection will last only a few generations. The succeeding generations will merge into this vast ocean of humanity in the USA. The best scenario would be the retention of the certain values from the East and impact the prevailing culture of the USA.
Here are the cultural values that I believe contribute towards the lack of homelessness among South Asian Americans.

Saving Habits

The habit of saving money makes a big difference in the lives of South Asian people. This may be due to the lack of security in the new country. Most of South Asian people save even if they are making the minimum wages in the USA. The savings rate of South Asian people living in the USA is much higher than the average American worker.

Savings gives them options to buy home, business, investment and provide the needed security during tough economic conditions.

Americans spend their money to buy new homes, cars, vacations and other high tech items. During the boom years when the home prices went up, many people refinanced and cashed out their home equity. When the home prices came down then these people did not have money left after spending the equity on other items.

Social Stigma

The people settled in the USA from South Asia cannot face the criticism of their larger community if brother, son, daughter, mother or father are living in a homeless shelter while the person is living in a grand house or a small apartment. The friends and relatives will openly condemn the person whose parents are out on the street even if they do not have good relationship with them. This comes from a long tradition of ethnic, tribal or caste based community conditioning where survival depended on mutual co-operation. These people may fight, curse or abuse one another while living together but they will never kick them out from their homes. The kids can stay as long as they want with their parents and most the parents still tolerate them even if they are facing financial hardship.

A small group of South Asians have already detached themselves from the larger ethnic community. They have accepted American values of individualism. I have seen such people living alone without the burden of social interaction.

Strong Family Ties

South Asian immigrants come from traditional joint family system. Back home it is difficult for young people to buy their own homes early in their career. They are forced to live in a joint family system sharing the home. This teaches them the value of interdependence.

As long the parents are alive the joint family survives.
After the parents pass on, the siblings expands towards independent family units. The larger family retains the memory of joint family system and they invariably take care of their siblings in the times of need.

In the USA, right from the childhood the people are expected to develop independence instead of interdependence. Each child is provided with his own room, toys, music and television. So early on the person develops individual ownership attitude. The value of sharing, love, care and concern does not seem to develop as compared to joint family system. Joint family is now becoming out of style in the affluent segments in South Asia. In that segment a very similar pattern of human behavior is emerging as we commonly see in Europe and the USA.

Communication

Communication for me is the key to any relationship. The people in South Asia love to talk and communicate. This is their national hobby. The people in the Western Society are relatively silent. For example, a person in India , Pakistan and surrounding countries will come out and talk to the grocer for a few minutes and find out about his family, parents, brothers and sisters and he will know most about their problems, challenges and other issues of people..
In Western countries, a son comes home after years and says hello Dad and goes straight to his room. During his stay at his parent’s house, he stays in his room doing his own things, meets his parents for short periods and after a week says good bye and goes for years again.

In the Europe and USA people communicate only when required. In one of the tent cities, they showed a couple who did not tell their two sons living in other states. If there is a communication then most people try to help in the hour of need.



All people currently living in the tent cities must have close relatives who can provide temporary residence. I have seen people coming to the USA and living for years with their close relatives.

In the global village, the East and West divide is getting blurred. People everywhere can accept or reject anything that does not suit them. I believe that American people in general would be better if they try to learn the value of savings and caring for their close relatives. This will greatly help the human misery and suffering particularly for the children living in the tent cities.