I started this post about a year ago. I left it unpublished having not found clarity to my thoughts. Having struggled with vocabulary for the GRE exam, I had a sense of what is invloved in the spelling competition. I appreciated the effort put in by the young kids who manage to spell out arcane words that nobody has heard and they do all this under the glaring eyes of the TV spolight and pressure from fellow contestants. The first few years I saw this contest on TV, I felt deep sympathy for the kids. The stress was very visible on the faces of the contestants. It is hard to not notice that majority of these kids are geeky looking and more so that they belonged to the minority South Asian(Indian) community. Over the years the geekiness of these kids is replaced by a witty sense of humor in some of these kids. That was a welcome change.
The South Asian kids have dominated the event(ever since I have been following it) and their participation has grown over the years. Eight out the last twelve winners were of Indian origin. Here are some links on 2010 spelling bee champion
Spelling bee winner part of Indian-American streak
Veeramani wins for Cleveland
Washington Post Image gallery on National Spelling Bee
It is astounding if you see the statistics of how many Indian kids make it to the top and win it. Consider this, last year 14 out of 41 spellers in the semi-finals were Indian Americans. This year(2010), an estimated 30 Indian americans will compete among a total of 273 - 11 percent in all. This is a big if you know that Indian Americans are about only 1% of the US population. The winners of the last three years were all Indians. In 2008 it was Sameer Mishra from Lousiana, in 2009 year it was Kavya Shivashankar from Kansas and this year it is Annamika Veeramani from Ohio. The list of all the champions so far can be found here
However every success by an ethnic minority surely leads to stereotyping and mockery of the group by regular folks and mass media alike. I know the sterotypes associated with successful children of immigrant parents - they have pushy parents, not well rounded, book worms, geeky etc. Here is a recent article by Washinton about spelling bee contestant stereotypes - 'Spelling bee participants work to dispel the stereotypes'. While trying to find the stereotype on Indian parents, I found a clip from a famous sitcom Goodness Gracious Me. You can view it here or embedded video below
To see the sterotype associations, one just has to view the comments on any of the articles covered in the major news websites to see how much negativity is fostered by people. The negativity is fostered in International portals as well as in Indian websites by both Indian and Non-Indian readers alike. Here are some excerpts of some negative comments on news about kids of Indian origin winning
Belittling the efforts is a comment at slate.com -
Rote memorization is a waste of time. They should focus on more creative problem-solving skills: science, math, even art and literature. Thankfully, neither I nor any other Indian kid in my area cared about the spelling bee.
Mockery in a comment at nytimes.com
14 year old Anamika Veeramani from Ohio won the National Spelling Bee. She won when her opponent was unable to spell “Anamika Veeramani”.
Ethnic insult at rediff.com
Indians are best "parrots"..they can like parrots memorise words and keep uttering..rediff reporters are junk..
Jon Stewart, with all due respect for the topics he covers, could not avoid the stereotype either. But his daily show takes aim at everybody and that he what he does best-satire on current affairs.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Headlines - Asian Fusion | ||||
| ||||
Brushing aside the stereotypes, the competition itself is gaining in popularity and was telecast live primetime on abc this year. The journey to primetime has been slow but is aided by the documentary Spellbound made in 2002 which was very popular. In 2005 there was a movie titled 'Bee Season' staring Richard Gere. Then in 2006 the movie 'Akkelah and the Bee' starring Lawrence Fishburne was also based on the Spelling bee competition. Spelling Bee is now mainstream and covered as a sporting event on ESPN every year.
Popularity is good as it brings exposure to the competition and hardwork of the kids. But the real question stills remains. Why are Indians so good at Spelling Bee? My Google search did not give me a closure.
Here are some links to what I found myself looking for answers to the above question. I answers ranged from
Silly by joe six packs at Yahoo Answers! -
How come indians or east asians always are the winners of Spelling Bee?
to sensible at Slate - Why Are Indian Kids So Good at Spelling?
and rumination at The Root -
Is Spelling a Cultural Activity?
While success can bring stereotypes, it can also bring patronizing people to the front. Look here - Indian Americans: The New Model Minority. You can find refutation here -Nobody's Model Minority
I am still looking for answers. Let me know what your thoughts are on this.
---------------------The End-------------
What to know more, here are some more links
Striving in America, and in the Spelling Bee
Once again, yet ANOTHER Indian kid wins the National Spelling Bee
Spelling Bee contest in US: Indians cast a spell
Kansas gal Kavya Shivshankar bee-comes spelling princess
W-I-N-N-E-R! Desi Kid Wins Spelling Bee, Again
2 comments:
Hi. I'm not Indian, but I found your post interesting. Why are Indian kids so good at spelling? I suspect that no ethnic group is really any better at spelling than any other--it's just what each group tends to focus on. In college, one of my best friends was the daughter of Indian immigrants. She was born in India but moved to the U.S. when she was 3 or 4. I saw first-hand how pushy her parents were. Both she and her sister were valedictorians of their high school, but I'm not sure they had any choice (where their parents were concerned).
My friend always wanted to be a doctor, and her parents had apparently told her, "If you don't become a doctor (or something similar), you're nothing." They treated her like a child, and even as a college student, she was expected to be in her dorm room at 8 p.m. every night to take her mother's call. She was also expected to go home on weekends and was not allowed to date. She was basically her parents' rag doll. In fact, sometimes her mother would even call her "prostitute," even though she never dated, much less did anything more intense.
My friend felt so much pressure from her parents that she continually froze on the MCAT. Or at least I think that's the reason. She took it 4 times but inexplicably couldn't do well enough to get into medical school. I suspect if her parents had had a more "hands off" attitude, she would've done just fine.
Based on what I witnessed in my friend, I think the best answer to "Why are Indian kids so good at spelling bees" is: "Who cares? Are the kids happy and having fun?" I suspect the majority of these kids are puppets and being manipulated to win the spelling bee for the glory of their parents. It almost sounds like child abuse to me. Of course, that isn't unique to Indian parents--lots of kids in the NSB probably have pushy, manipulative parents. But it seems to me that Indian parents in particular often have a high degree of insecurity and a deep need to validate themselves, so they latch on eagerly to the spelling bee. Ultimately, though, all that success won't bring security or confidence or happiness--in fact, in the long term, it probably brings more unhappiness and misery.
Anyway, while the success of all the Indian kids at spelling bees is admirable, I can't help but wonder sometimes if it isn't just a fancy form of child abuse.
I just found an article on the Web that discusses why Indian kids might do so well in spelling bees. It's interesting and kind of amusing:
http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/column_why-indian-nerds-cant-rap_1173324
Post a Comment