SUMMER READING SUGGESTIONS Local author reflects on SARATOGA LIFE photo byJim Gupta-Carlson
WRITTEN BY HIMANEE GUPTA-CARLSON
Book cover designed by Megan McCausland
O
ne gift I’ll remember from 2018 is publication of my book Muncie, India(na): Middletown and Asian America. The book is based on research I began in 2003 on the small South Asian American community in which I grew up. That community was made up of immigrants from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh who settled in Muncie, Indiana, beginning in 1966, and their children. I was one of those children; my parents were among the first of these immigrants to make Muncie their home.
I moved to Saratoga in 2010 to join Empire State College’s faculty. In my first months here, I fell in love with the Saratoga Farmers’ Market, Broadway, and the many natural springs. I bought a 1840s farmhouse in Greenfield and began helping my husband convert our backyard to a farm. I had lived all over the U.S. but was fairly sure Saratoga would become home. Saratoga is my home. But home is not always peaceful; it’s often fraught with conflicted thoughts, high emotions, and strife – which Muncie, India(na) and my life in Saratoga show. I have been praised for my writing, coordination of the Franklin Community Center’s food pantry garden, and involvement with the Saratoga and Greenfield farmers’ markets. I also have been called “the brown girl,” been racially profiled, and ignored at times. I have open-minded and open-hearted friends here – and have met some bad eggs.
Muncie is famous for its reputation of representing “typical America.” It was studied in the 1920s by Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, and their book, Middletown: A Study in American Culture, became a best-seller. The popularity of this book indelibly inscribed the small-town Muncie life the Lynds portrayed upon America as a whole.
An underlying theme in Muncie, India(na) is affect – felt knowledge. I use affect to analyze feelings of anger and humiliation that come from being treated with disrespect, as undeserving or less than equal. The goal is to bridge differences through shared conversations about racism and religious tensions. My book lets me help create such conversations.
Their typical America, however, was flawed. It ignored a resilient African American community that had been part of Muncie since the early 19th century as well as America’s strong multi-ethnic immigrant fabric. It also ignored the tribal groups that were displaced in opening Indiana up to white settlement. I challenge this portrayal of typicality through interviews, historic research, and memories of growing up brown, Indian, and Hindu in Muncie.
When I arrived in Saratoga, Muncie, India(na) was a sketchy draft. I read that draft. I saw what it held and what it needed. I added, subtracted, wrote, and rewrote through two hurricanes, two presidential elections, births and deaths among my friends and their families, growth in our local food and farming scene, and numerous snowstorms. This experience makes it a book about Muncie and a book of Saratoga – a gift to share. SS
Often, I am asked: How was my life in Muncie like my life in Saratoga? How might Muncie, India(na) help others understand racial and religious differences in their own towns?
Muncie, India(na) is available at Northshire Books. To arrange for an author reading, contact Himanee.Gupta-Carlson@esc.edu.
144 | SIMPLY SARATOGA | JULY/AUGUST 2018
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