If an alien currently gets insight into an immigrant situation playing in the US, then Netflix Show MO Will act as a good entrance. Except, it can motivate the foreigner to believe that no Indian immigrants in the US are legal or illegal.
MOPalestinian-American Comic Mo Amer with a semi-autocratic comedy, Egyptian-American-American Remi Yusuf, finds out the life of ‘Mohammad’ Mohammad, whose family is two decades ago as two decades ago as Palestinian refugee from Kuwait Houston had reached. Through two sessions, the series has captured hopes, dreams, despair, deceit, inhumanity, discriminatory cultural practices, etc., which define immigrant experience. Mo’s family is the vehicle through which the debate on immigration in the US is taken to different parts of the world in an airy, easy way. Unlike military aircraft filled with illegal immigrants.
Where are Indians?
Mo Houston grew up, speaking Arabic, Spanish and English, and filled his life to take care of his family after his father’s death. Their struggles are everyone’s struggles, only their family’s unspecified position. His social circle is filled with other migrants in America – between African, Hispanic, Arabia and all others.
But, what about Indians?
It is interesting that despite living in Houston, the largest South Asian population in the US, the MO has managed to clarify them in both seasons. For example, Mo has succeeded in clarifying October 7, 2023. According to the 2020 census, Houston is home to around 165,000 Indians, the seventh largest in the US.
On culture and division
After the Hispanic and Vietnamese immigrants, the Indian Houston accounts for the largest immigrant community. So why does Mo never interact with one? He grew up in the suburb of a working class in South-West Houston, which was the most cultural and ethnicly diverse school district in the US in 1996. In 2006, a news report on Alef explained it in a sentence: “47,000 students in the district speak around 70 tongues.” Nevertheless, we do not see a single Indian in Mo’s immigrant universe.
Can it be due to cultural island that Indians are famous for immigrants (in)? A 2021 Carnegie Survey found, “Indian American -especially first generation members – to socialize with other Indian Americans. Internal, the social network of Indian Americans, compared to the Indian region (state) of religion Another relevant discovery in context is that “partitions in India are being reproduced within the Indian American community”.
Is this, then it is possible that Indian migrants, primarily select minimum conventional engagement with the community of Hindu, Mo? Maybe, therefore, Indians do not even have a footnote in the story of Mo.
Mo is not completely innocent, either. Devotees are uncomfortable with the idea of embracing non-Muslims in the bottom of the family. Religion decides its world vision as “Stateless” Palestinians as their regional identity. Yusara, Mo’s mother, rejects her relationship with Mexican Maria, who wears her Catholic religion on her sleeve as a tattoo. When Maria starts a rebound relationship with a Israeli-Jewish man, she calls the cow, she does not know that Mo will not be able to forgive it, thus it becomes easy for her to move forward.
A ‘aristocrat’ immigrant
Or, perhaps this lovely story of immigrant realities in America has another explanation for the absence of Indian migrants. The 2023 Pew Survey suggests that the average income of immigrant Indian homes is “average domestic income between Asian Americans”. So, Mo’s tattoo artist friend, who is also doubling as an emergency surgeon, is surrounded by his bullet graz, and his codeine dealer, a partner, Husler, a person of Southeast Asian/Chinese origin. This immigrant is the underbeli of American society that creates the universe of Mo.
Mo, however, is a ‘aristocratic’ immigrant. He finds out that when he first spends time in a cartel and later in a “coeot” dungeon in Mexico, there is a potentially illegally holding with an American dream. Even though Mo’s family is struggling financially, he did not have to travel to life for America. However, many of those who were currently deported in India had to be done. After paying a heavy amount – almost as much as Nick, Rolling Stone Figure of $ 10,000 cited by Mo’s childhood friend. Nevertheless, when landing in the US region, has the mule the shared grief of the “Dunky” route forgot in the race to realize the American dream?
According to the World Bank, India received $ 125 billion in remittance, a much more significant amount than $ 71.92 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2023-24. Unspent immigrants, living and working under the fears of exile, send a large part of their earnings back home. Perhaps this is why Indians often do not do gaming arcade and clubs that Mo and their friends often get upset. And those who can do this, they like to socialize among themselves.
Whatever the reasons, the absence of Indians from this saga of immigration is specific and demands to think about the house and the world.
(The author is a Delhi -based writer and academic.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
