Non-Hispanic white Americans are not native to the US, and I don't see a reasonable basis for concluding that non-Hispanic white culture should be the "native" or "default" culture in the US.
Sure, it might be the dominant culture — but there are other subcultures like Black or Hispanic cultures that are pretty strong here. Would you feel comfortable asking how to stop a group of Black coworkers from going to a restaurant that serves Black cuisine, or Hispanic coworkers from going to the local taqueria? If not, then why are you singling out Indians?
> I don't see a reasonable basis for concluding that European-American culture should be the "native" or "default" culture in the US
Like it or not, it is the dominant culture especially in professional environments. If you want to have a conversation about why that is the case, what else it could be, etc. thats fine! But it's not the kind of conversation I'm looking to have here.
> Would you feel comfortable asking how to stop a group of Black coworkers from going to a restaurant that serves Black cuisine, or Hispanic coworkers from going to the local taqueria?
If they are doing it to the detriment of the overall business yes! - the line of reasoning follows for a predominantly Black business that is having a White enclave forming. Or a Hispanic cultured business with a Slavic enclave forming. Even more importantly a multicultural environment which is having 1 group overtake it. It's fundamentally a job of business leaders to set the tone and direction of company culture - and this is one aspect of it.
At least sometimes it's not, which is why the OP feels so excluded and is asking for tips on how to navigate the clearly unfamiliar feeling of not being able to just "fit in" as part of the dominant culture.
The reality is that the US is a melting pot with a lot of subcultures, and you should learn to navigate those subcultures instead of demanding that they conform to some mythical default.
Maybe next time the OP should show some curiosity about what their coworkers are joking about, and shyly ask for a seat at the table. I have done it plenty of times.
That seem to be the major difference between Western and non-Western countries; we're more cognisant of things like racism/being excluded and have taken steps to try to resolve it - you do not get the same in many other countries at all.
It seems it's much more acceptable to be exclusionary and racist if you're non-white, sometimes.
Yep 100% this is the only decent solution OP has barring leaving the company. It leads to really interesting conversations and you get to learn a lot about a huge portion of the planet's population. Some people go out of their way for these experiences. But it also shouldn't be forced on someone who just wants to collect a paycheck.
It's good to experience new cultures and stretch out of ones comfort zone!
But cultural similarity is also the strongest form of bias in office dynamics.
So, it's great if people go to Indian restaurants. It's not great if people only go to Indian restaurants. It's not great if people only go to steakhouses.
And it's especially not great if colleagues don't make efforts to include less culturally similar colleagues in events, whatever the cultures in question.
The word Hispanic comes from Hispania meaning "Iberian Peninsula", which, I have news for you, is in Europe. They are hardly native to the USA either.
That is usually a characterization used by non-Hispanic white people; hence my reply referenced non-Hispanic whites. I also wanted to highlight that they would probably be tolerant of an unfamiliar Hispanic white in-group at their company, but weren't tolerant of a South Asian one.
When Hispanic mix with Irish, or English, or French or North European, they are simply called "white". A lot of Spaniards are as much "white" in their aspect as one could ask for. They are just labeled as "non white" for outdated reasons but people always chuckle about it. Is just silly.
Also, weren’t Solutreans brown skinned?
There is nothing organic about that.
Personally I have no experience with Indian co-workers, but I do know that Black and Hispanic people do not exclude whites at all. I have only great experiences with them.
Then to where is it native? Don't deny a culture its existence just because it isn't the first culture to arise within a particular area. Example: Mormon culture and religion is "native" the US despite certainly not being the first culture in the area.
You can certainly make a claim that Mormon culture is "native" to Utah, but I think at 200 v/s 5000+ you can expect that claim to be contested.
Weird exclusion; Hispanic white Americans aren't native to the US either; their ancestors came from Spain.
