From Nothing: Interview with Generation Zero author and sociologist Sabreet Kang Rajeev, Part One
Discussions on sociology and writing a resonant book on the blue-collar immigrant experience
Sabreet Kang Rajeev is a first-generation Indian American of Sikh descent. Sabreet is a full-time Social-Science researcher and holds an MA in Sociology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and BA in Sociology from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is currently completing her doctorate at the University of Baltimore.
Throughout her life, Sabreet experienced the beauty and struggle of being part of a blue-collar immigrant family, and she is driven to raise awareness and empathy for a minority group of Indian Americans who do not historically come from educational or economic privilege. Generation Zero is her first book.
Por Jaijongkit:
Before we get into questions about your book, Generation Zero, I know you study sociology. I would love to hear more about what you’re working on now.
Sabreet Kang Rajeev:
I love sociology. Sociology is the study of society, and I am a big dweeb on understanding why people do the weird things that they do in the societies that they are in. Everything that we do is learned behavior. While there’s lots of interesting things that happen from a psychological perspective, sociology is so fascinating because you can really put anyone in a different scenario and they turn out completely different. I’ve always been a person that wants to learn about why people act the way they do.
What I do now: I’m in healthcare services, so I work for Medicaid services and I’m constantly trying to figure out if health insurance the federal government is providing to people makes sense to [the customers]. I know from the government perspective, they write a policy or a law and they think people are going to get the care that they need, but it really doesn’t work that way. [nervous laugh]
Jaijongkit:
Reading your book, I could tell your younger self was really perceptive to reactions and social dynamics. Since understanding behavior has always been a big part of your life, how did your experience and interest in sociology help you write your book?
Kang Rajeev:
I think it not only amplified things I was really good at, but it made it easier for me to understand a lot of things. First of all, writing a book is a very emotional journey. Sometimes I pick up the book, read a page, and think “Did someone possess me?” because whoa, some of this stuff I can’t imagine having written.
If you think about how trauma happens to immigrant individuals–first generation, second generation, whatever generation you want to call yourself–sometimes you spend your whole life in that trauma and you don’t even realize you’re in a traumatic experience.
I think sociology gave me the social science to understand the institutional knowledge, but also more importantly, how people are feeling in different ways. I basically did a case study analysis on my own life. [laughs] Growing up, all those stories in the book are ingrained in me as much as my identity is. I grew up with these stories and my dad telling me how he jumped ship to come to America. When I sat down to write the book, I was like “What does this story actually mean?” and I was able to parse out the themes around them.
[Sociology] definitely helped me see people and the stories and their perspective in a critical lens. If I was not in this profession, I probably wouldn’t have written about it as critically as I have.
Jaijongkit:
Yes, [that answer] does give more insight into the theory behind [the book]. What drove you to write the book? How did you know that this was a book that needed to be written?
Kang Rajeev:
The true answer is that I was brushing my teeth and went, “This is it. I need to write this book.”
But there was a lot that happened before that. I was very happy with everything that was happening in my life but I was up at night thinking about things: my parents, everything that has ever happened that has led to this point in my life, our collective lives, and the lack of representation in the media around this issue.
I consume a lot of books, I consume a lot of media around my experience since I was just trying to understand, “Am I alone? Are there other blue-collar families out there who are working really hard, just trying to have the best experience that they can? Who are these invisible heroes out there, and can I just find a friend that understands?” Because everyone else around me is known in mainstream society as the model minority myth, so it was really hard for me to feel that I really belonged anywhere. Which was–a-ha!–the immigrant experience in a nutshell.
But I couldn’t let it go. Every time I had a thought, I would write it down on a notecard and wonder if I would find something about it. And I wouldn’t. How many undocumented individuals that have come to America and their parents were able to stay? And I was like “Wow, these stories aren’t told” and why aren’t these stories told? Because people are afraid to talk about their citizenship statuses.
I was trying to find this information to satisfy a calling in my heart. I realized that I was writing facts, like the law, and immigrant processing, and I realized this is boring as hell. Who wants to read any of this? So when I was brushing my teeth I realized I had to write a story about my family. It's such a unique but at the same time such a common story, but the biggest thing that drove me to write it is that I’m not afraid. I truly am not afraid to write about things that we hold very deeply in our heart and don’t want to talk about from a societal perspective, especially in the Asian community.
I have dealt with so much stuff in my life where I’m like, “I’m going to write this book, I’m gonna write it truthfully, honestly, and I’m not gonna hold back. I’m gonna write about how I felt, how other people felt about the situation, what their struggles were and maybe it would be something that would help somebody.” And my goal was to help one person to feel that they belong. And I’ve heard that it helped a lot of people understand that they belong wherever they want to belong.
Jaijongkit:
The story is as much about your family as it is about you. And as you said, you weren’t afraid to not pull punches. In that vein, how did your family feel about the book being written?
Kang Rajeev:
The great thing about this book is that it was a close-hold document. [laughs] My parents and my extended family knew that I was writing the book. The best thing about writing a book, and the worst thing about writing a book, is that people think you’re writing about their life story. Like “Hey make sure you talk about your great-great-great grandfather and the importance of blah.” But really, my vision for this book was to be multi-dimensional and for people to realize that there are no victims in this story, that everyone is a victim of their own situation.
What I would do was fact-check with my parents. There’s so much that I left out because of how intense my dad’s story is, he could have a trilogy of books. But the parts that I felt really mattered to the American story I pulled in. At the end of the day, what really tied this whole book together was the theme of “We are here to provide you with a dream, to do whatever you want for my brother and me.” It was constantly reminded to us: every sacrifice, every struggle, every opportunity that was destroyed or achieved was related back to that thread. So I pulled all the stories related to that.
But when I wrote drafts of the book and I asked people to read it, how they reacted actually surprised me. Friends, family, everyone, and especially the family of four (so me, my mom, my dad, my brother) and how they read the book. They were more in awe of how I was able to put it together and they really felt like it was not only a story of their lives, but also helped them understand fully the totality of the experience we felt together as a family. And everyone has called me brave, which is good.
Jaijongkit:
How did you get the book published?
Kang Rajeev:
I had a few things together, pitched it to publishers, got it accepted by a publisher, then had it set to release. I didn’t do traditional publishing because the narrative there is very controlled. From the beginning of this book, [the narrative] was never up for question. No one could tailor this book to be about A, B, or C. The way it has been narrated, the themes, the structure of the book has all solely been done by me. And that’s how I know the book would be received the best way with the target audience.
So when I was pitching, I guess call it confidence for being really up-front, I was like “This is the book. Let me know if you want to be involved with the blue collar workers of South-Asian Americans.” And it kind of did catch a lot of eyes for that.
Resources for learning more about Kang Rajeev and Generation Zero:
This piece is the first of two segments capturing the interview with Sabreet Kang Rajeev. If you liked what you read, be sure to subscribe above and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @invisibleasians to stay updated on Politically Invisible Asians!