Growing up, I was aware that the world of my parents’ childhood was different from mine. Traditional households in India (and in the Indian American community in South Florida) seemed messy and complicated, with everyone always around and deeply immersed in one another’s business. No one seemed bothered about privacy. That had its share of drawbacks, to be sure, but we also enjoyed, even counted on being intertwined with one another. The nuclear families I saw around me in Miami seemed, in many ways, the exact opposite, with privacy and independence placed in high regard.
