young adults novels

HONORED THAT MY ESSAY IS INCLUDED IN THIS GROUNDBREAKING NEW ANTHOLOGY: JUST YA

AMAZING NEWS! A groundbreaking new YA anthology (grateful that my essay LETTER FROM YOUR NEW PSYCHIATRIST is included) will be live on September 2nd, and FREE off the Open OkState site. The paperback will eventually be available anywhere books are sold for the cost of printing and any bookseller mark-up. Thank you Sarah Donovon, editor, for your hard work and dedication on this incredible project!

From the introduction:

“JUST YA: SHORT POEMS, STORIES, & ESSAYS is a collection of open licensed,

non-revenue seeking literature about inclusive, affirming, justice-oriented

ways of being and the incredible capacity of youth.

The texts here are short so that they can be read and studied in one

class period. They are online so that teachers and students can freely print

and share the texts. Authors explore topics that can be in conversation

with/against canonical texts typically taught in high school classrooms.

This offers a rationale for teachers to bring in youth-focused texts to

update their curriculum and shift their framing with contemporary

perspectives. This collection is organized in themes around identity, love,

land, world, and futures (see Table 1.) that we see in conversation with the

required canonical texts and youth interests. And the forms are selected to

inspire student writing in a variety of forms, including creative fiction and

nonfiction.”

A DIFFERENT BEAST

My heart hammered in my chest when I read this Buckminster Fuller quote: “What can I do that isn’t going to get done unless I do it, just because of who I am?” GITA, definitely GITA—the first YA fiction about the realistic beginnings of the fallout of prolonged, repeated childhood sexual trauma, an entirely different beast than the fallout of circumscribed sexual trauma. A different beast I’ve spent 20 years helping many of my patients begin to tame (it’s always a lifelong task). A different beast I’ve endured, survived, and still tame daily. A different beast that needs to be exposed in the YA world, the way Judith Herman first exposed it in all of its biological complexity in the nonfiction world in her seminal book TRAUMA AND RECOVERY:

Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Page 119.

CHECK OUT THE HAWAII BOOK & MUSIC FESTIVAL! I’LL BE REPPIN’ YA LIT & MENTAL HEALTH ON 4 PANELS.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO TAKE FROM MY CULTURE (YOGA), DON’T F&*@ IT UP!

Cultural appropriation is generally defined as the dominant culture stealing aspects of a minority culture, such as fashion, music, traditions, symbols, etc. It is often viewed as harmful, especially since it stems from colonialism and oppression.

Personally, I think the concept is taken too far sometimes. It’s not that I’m down with the disrespectful stealing of another’s culture, but I think the sharing of cultures can be beneficial. It can promote tolerance and empathy if done right.

I’m the first person in my Gujarati immigrant family to be born in America and honestly, there are times I feel Indian, times I don’t. There are times I feel American, times I don’t. And the culture I most identify with is hip hop culture, a culture born out of the black experience in New York City. Hip hop culture has influenced me in many positive ways and at times even saved my life. I’m thankful to hip hop, so much so that I gave it a central role in my debut young adult novel, Rani Patel In Full Effect. I intend no disrespect to the founding black culture, only gratitude. Hopefully, I succeeded in giving it the mad props it deserves.

I don’t relate to most aspects of my Gujarati Indian culture. But I do relate to yoga, a Hindu tradition that encompasses physical, mental, and spiritual practices. I focus on the physical and mental aspects in a Westernized way in a Western studio. For me, yoga, like hip hop, provides tremendous relief to the internal anguish that still plagues me given my family of origin issues. This, and because I’m a psychiatrist, I’m overjoyed that many people in the West practice yoga and find it helpful.

Not all Indians feel like that. There are Indians who consider westernized yoga to be harmfully appropriated, especially given the high commercialization of it and how far removed it’s become from ancient Indian philosophy and purpose.  

More recently, I’ve felt the sting of this cultural appropriation in my yoga classes. But for me, it’s quite specific. Usually, I’m the only Indian person in class and when I hear practitioners, mostly women, talking about being on “detox juice cleanse diets,”  “going vegan,” “deciding to quit all carbs,” or praising each other on weight loss, I feel angry. I mean do these people know that 15% of India’s population is undernourished? Do they know that most Indians in India are lacto-vegetarian? Do they know that it’s highly disrespectful when they talk about bodies like pieces of meat (which of course, they don’t eat)? Do they know that they’re perpetuating misogyny? I wonder if they talk to their children, especially their daughters, like that. More than angry, that makes me sad and scared for the future.

The worst was when a frequent practitioner began reeking of ketones during and after class. I know the smell from medical school and residency training and from my work with eating disordered patients. It’s not normal. Simply put, it represents the body breaking down. It can be dangerous, even fatal. It was common knowledge that this particular practitioner had been taking 3 classes a day. Every single day. Without eating in between. And not eating very much of anything all day. Personally, I found this to be the ultimate in disrespectful appropriation of yoga. I’m no expert on yoga philosophy, but I know for sure that it’s not meant to be harmful. And then how healing is it if a fellow practitioner dies in class because privilege allows them to take 3 classes a day and choose not to eat?

I expressed my concerns to the practitioner and the studio. I’m happy the studio made positive changes to their policies to assist practitioners in making more balanced, and less deadly, yoga choices.

I’m still all about sharing culture, but not about letting entitlement and privilege turn someone’s culture into something toxic.