What’s it like to be a Nepali living in New York?
Jackson heights, a whole neighborhood in New York filled with Nepali restaurants and shops apparently wasn’t enough for people to acknowledge the existence of the country “Nepal”. People still assumed that Nepal was either a part of India or was India. Being Nepali in New York meant being identified as either Indian, Mexican, Bangladeshi, Filipino or Pakistani. Thus, through this booklet I intend to highlight how exactly a Nepali person feels in Jackson heights.
Shown below are some pages:
This page includes a game where you answer a question and follow the green string for yes and the red string for no. All the questions are very vague and also consists of some common stereotypes of “Nepali and Indian” people. All the answers lead up to the question “Oh, so you’re from India?”. This emphasizes on how every Nepali person is asked this question no matter what they answer.
This page features a faceless, a face with no facial features, woman on one side and four faces on the other side. The four faces are of varying skin tones and have different facial features. These faces perfectly fit the face of the featureless woman and can actually be stuck using the velcro. This page highlights how Nepali people have a lack of identity and people just stick on an identity for them. Hence, the actual action of sticking a face on highlights how the action of assumption literally feels.
This page contains an envelope with a puzzle inside. The scannable QR code gives the people a sense of what the puzzle is supposed to look like and helps form the puzzle. The puzzle basically forms a person trapped inside and is created using words of a self made poem. The poem can be easily read on a device using the QR code. The poem revolves around identity crisis and the feeling of being trapped. Similarly, the image formed in the puzzle showcases how trapped a Nepali person feels.
