One of my favorite childhood memories was celebrating Holi in India. A picture in my kitchen at home immortalizes the moment: vibrant colors gleaming on my face as yellow, red and pink became indistinguishable from one another. The air is tinged a bright orange, and the concrete parking lot below the balcony is barely perceptible in the flooding of red sloshy water, plastic bags of color floating across it.
When I saw the mass entry of students dressed in white and holding color packets into WU, as we typically do during Holi, my mind was seized by evocations of these old memories. For a fleeting second, my heart was tinged with a hint of regret that I had missed such an opportunity to celebrate my culture. Growing up in a small town in Mississippi, I rarely experienced opportunities to glimpse my culture and its various celebrations in the mainstream. On important holidays, I would attend school concealing the bursting excitement within my heart.
Seeing that the joys of Holi were shared with a greater proportion of the Duke community through the Wayne selective living group (SLG) celebration — which, as implied by the fact that it took place in the middle of the day on Saturday in a field, was a “darty” — sparked wonder within me. I was thrilled that the “mainstreaming” of the event enabled not only more South Asian individuals to celebrate their own culture but also more individuals from other cultural backgrounds to learn about this unique cultural and religious event.
While I champion intercultural festivities, I feel obligated to also acknowledge the harm that can be perpetuated when these events do not fully acknowledge the full cultural significance of an event. When what seems to be a majority-white institution, such as an SLG, organizes a cultural event (as Wayne made explicit through their Holi banner) that is primarily celebrated by people of color, they incur the risk of diminishing the event’s cultural significance. While the Hindu Student Association also hosted a similar event, their Instagram explicitly acknowledged it as the “festival of colors.”
The SLG turned it into an event simply to have fun, which is great, but allows individuals to have fun without understanding the full context of the event they are attending. They can also further marginalize the stories of communities that have long endured histories of cultural appropriation and oppression, as South Asia did for centuries under the British Raj.
Events that completely discount the cultural significance of celebrations while continuing to hold them under the same name represent a much larger power dynamic that continues to exist between white people and people of color, which is further perpetuated by such cultural appropriations.
My culture is not for cherry-picking: You cannot simply pluck the parts that seem fun and forget the rest.
I would be remiss not to acknowledge the fact that as Indian, Hindu people, we do the same thing. We erect Christmas trees in our homes without knowing that the tradition originated in 16th century Germany, where Christians lit up trees as a celebration of the solstice. We adorn ourselves with the four-leaf clovers of St. Patty’s day without realizing that it celebrates the life of Saint Patrick, using the “shamrock,” better known as the four-leaf clover, to explain the Holy Trinity.
Yet, both of these holidays have been integrated into broader culture over time as potentially secular as well. Christmas is celebrated culturally by non-Christians because it is a fundamental part of Western culture, with secular customs as well as religious customs. The same holds true for St. Patrick’s day, which has been transformed into a celebration of Irish heritage and culture, with secular parades and icons.
This is not the case for Holi, which has not been mainstreamed into American culture in the same way. In the United States at least, it remains a fundamentally religious holiday celebrated by Hindus to commemorate spring, love and the triumph of good over evil through bonfires, throwing color and food. The colors themselves represent various things. Red symbolizes love and blue symbolizes Lord Krishna, the Hindu god of compassion, protection and love.
Various colors hold great significance in Hindu tradition, and when we color each other, we are wishing that the power of these symbols be imparted unto our fellow human beings. When these colors are thrown around meaninglessly, without explicit acknowledgement and awareness of their immense religious importance, it not only desecrates traditions that have been upheld and cherished by millions for centuries but also robs ourselves of the opportunity to be spiritually and emotionally enriched by their deeper meaning.
It is wonderful that through this event, Duke students were provided an opportunity to partake in the rich cultural celebrations while also enjoying themselves.
But when this fun is prioritized at the cost of cultural and religious sensitivity, we deprive ourselves of meaningful connections with other people and cultures. We further perpetuate legacies of cultural appropriation and destruction from centuries of colonization when we marginalize the context of celebrations.
What might be a fun “darty” for you is of immense religious and cultural significance to someone else. To forget that dishonors the shared responsibility we have as Duke students to not only honor our diverse backgrounds but to also honor each other.
Advikaa Anand is a Trinity junior. Her columns typically run on alternating Tuesdays.
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Advikaa Anand is a Trinity sophomore and an opinion managing editor of The Chronicle's 119th volume.