It’s no wonder just about every woman in America seems to have an opinion on Elizabeth Gilbert’s opus of self-discovery that led her on a journey through Italy, India and Indonesia.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the plot, it goes something like this: Woman is unhappy in her marriage and gets divorced. Woman needs some serious perspective and takes a year-long trip around the world (woman is also a well-paid writer). Woman eats carbs in Italy, connects with her spiritual side at an ashram in India, and finds love again thanks to an elderly healer in Indonesia.

If you’re thinking that the concept of eating pasta in Italy and meditating in India doesn’t sound especially astounding or revelatory, well, you’re right. For better or worse, the countries where Gilbert travels and the people in them are backdrops in a larger drama of self-discovery that borders on self-indulgence.

But at book clubs, cocktail parties and coffee shops across America, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ has crept into the space that ‘Sex and the City’ has filled for years, reigniting one of the great feminist debates of our time: “Is it really a story of empowerment if a woman goes from one man to another in her quest for self-discovery?”

Regardless of how you feel about Gilbert, she’s grappling with an emotional hot-button issue – that is, struggling to reconcile feminism with hopeless romanticism; and what society expects of women with what a woman wants for herself. She’s certainly not the first person to tap into this – it hearkens back to controversial female protagonists in Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying” and Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours”.

A funny thing happens, though, when a book becomes as popular as “Eat, Pray, Love”. It becomes simultaneously loved and hated. Why is that?

In the case of “Eat, Pray, Love”, Elizabeth Gilbert’s story of self-discovery – however self-indulgent you may find it – is a personal journey. Yet over time, perhaps because most readers can relate to the subject matter on a personal level, Gilbert’s story somehow came to be seen as prescriptive or even representative of all single women in their 30s.

This isn’t Gilbert’s fault. In fact, you see a similar phenomenon with Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club” or Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” being turned into “quintessential” stories about the Asian- and Indian American communities – both of whom, in reality, encompass an extremely diverse set of people and experiences. When a certain point-of-view is under-represented in the mainstream, people tend to lionize the strongest (and perhaps loudest) of these voices.

Today, some women idolize “Eat, Pray, Love” so much that they’re trying to experience the journey for themselves – literally. Following the movie, there was an increase in women retracing Gilbert’s steps through Italy, India and Indonesia.

For a moment, let’s put aside the fact that following somebody else’s journey completely misses the point of self-discovery. It’s clear that Gilbert hit a nerve – inspiring some women and offending others with her brand of travel and introspection.

When it comes to traveling, Gilbert often gets so lost in her own perspective that she misses the complex world bustling around her. Each country gets reduced to a single word (Italy is ‘eat,’ for example). Sure, it’s a good literary device, but it’s a shame India gets reduced to “pray” as Gilbert holes up in an ashram for months without seeing any of the country. It feels like a metaphor for the book as a whole.

I’ve come across plenty of other criticisms – Gilbert treats the people she meets like supporting characters in her life play; she sweeps in and tries to solve their problems with deep pockets but without deep understanding; she boxes herself into ashrams and expat communities so she doesn’t have to make sense of developing countries.

I can understand these criticisms. But I also believe we’ll never know Gilbert’s true experience of Italy, India and Indonesia – or what might’ve been if she hadn’t been writing a book. Would the people and places she encountered along the way still seem like the setting, characters, and plot in a carefully-wrought story?

Then again, perhaps that’s just the beast that comes with writing a personal memoir – trying to fit your dynamic relationships and experiences into a narrative that ties up all your loose ends and turns the beautiful mess of life into a neat little package for someone else to unwrap and examine.

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and in-coming Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina.

In January, Nikki Haley will become the second Indian American governor in U.S. history, following closely in the footsteps of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. The comparisons between the two started the second Haley emerged as a major contender: both were born to Indian immigrant parents in the South, both go by American-sounding nicknames and converted to Christianity, and both are considered rising stars in the Republican Party.

But the comparisons to each other aren’t nearly as interesting as how they fit into the larger Indian American community. Primarily concentrated in large urban centers on either coast, a majority of the Indian American community – that is, approximately 60 percent of those registered to vote – identify as Democrats, and an even larger percentage identify with a religion other than Christianity (such as Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, or Buddhism).

Not surprisingly, many Indian Americans – whether Democrat or Republican – are trying to piece together why the first two politicians from their community to rise to this level of prominence are so similar to each other, and so different from the bulk of the community. What do Jindal and Haley’s elections actually mean in a larger political context?

In order to answer this, first we need to understand why we try to fit them into this context in the first place. Why does any member of a minority feel invested in seeing someone who looks like them succeed, when we may have nothing in common other than our parents’ country of birth?

At the most basic level, there’s something inherently selfish in this – if someone from a similar background can achieve something, perhaps we can too. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s the idea of breaking through a glass ceiling – once it’s been cracked wide open, the sky’s the limit for others from a similar background (whether it’s women, African Americans, Asian Americans, or any other group that’s historically been under-represented). Right?

But the reality is, I – like many other Indian Americans – have very little in common with Jindal and Haley, other than our parents’ “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” immigrant success stories. In fact, it seems easier to cite our differences: It’s our geography, it’s our religion, and it’s even the fact that our parents come from vastly different backgrounds and communities in India’s diverse landscape.

Yet at the same time, I can’t help but watch their careers like a hawk. Why is that? I don’t want to be a politician. Perhaps it’s because I want to believe what New York Times columnist Matt Bai argued about them, particularly Haley, earlier this year:

“What’s notable about Ms. Haley’s campaign, like that of Mr. Obama and other candidates, is not just that she has breached a racial and cultural barrier, but that she doesn’t feel the need — or the desire — to talk much about it … We are attracted to the idea that they have transcended ethnic boundaries and reaffirmed the American ideal … we do not expect them to dwell on their stories in the way that ethnic candidates of a previous generation routinely did.”

But throughout Bai’s article, he consistently uses Christian candidates as his examples. He doesn’t talk about Jews, Hindus or Muslims who may feel like their identity can’t be thrown into the rink if they expect to get elected to political office on the scale of Haley and Jindal.

That’s the real story. Jindal, a Christian, abstained from voting on a resolution to recognize the historical significance of the Hindu and Sikh holiday of Diwali. And Haley, who previously identified with both Sikh and Christian traditions, changed her Web site during her gubernatorial bid to say she is definitively a Christian – perhaps a response to questions about “which God” she believed in.

What Bai fails to ask is, do these candidates choose not to discuss their ethnic backgrounds because it’s simply not a big deal, or is it for the exact opposite reason? Would Haley stand a chance of getting elected as a Republican governor in the South if she identified as a Sikh? Would she have gotten Sarah Palin’s endorsement?

That being said, Haley and Jindal are certainly remarkable politicians who were elected based on their merits – regardless of their ethnicity.

But at the same time, it’s hard to blame the Indian American community for watching them closely, and with intense curiosity. Aside from speculation that Jindal could run for a presidential bid in 2012, he and Haley raise an important question that all immigrant communities are constantly struggling to answer: When do we move from assimilation to acceptance?

The year 2010, it seems, was not the time.

While this sense of unity is deeply important, the APA label lumps together people with origins from countries as diverse as China, Vietnam, and India. If we hold each of these countries under a microscope, we see a whole new level of diversity – a variety of languages, dialects, and cultures that exist within each of these nation’s borders. When people from these countries migrate to the U.S., the language and cultural differences from home don’t just go away. They take on a new dimension.

Alaric Bien is Executive Director of the Chinese Information and Services Center (CISC). The Center offers ESL classes, employment training, senior programs, and a variety of other services to the Chinese community and under-served immigrant populations in the Seattle area. During his tenure, Bien has seen the reality of language dynamics manifest itself in his own community.

“When CISC first started in the 1970s, we primarily served a Cantonese-speaking, lower-income community in Seattle. Today, we also offer services to the more Mandarin-speaking, higher income community that lives on the Eastside … We’ve had to offer new services to match the changing reality of immigration patterns,” he said.

Similarly, “there’s a regional difference [from India and South Asia] that plays itself out in the Seattle area,” said Amy Bhatt, a PhD candidate at the University of Washington and an oral historian for the South Asian Oral Histories Project.

Bhatt notes that South King County is home to a well-established, working-class South Asian community where north Indian languages like Hindi and Punjabi are primarily spoken. This stands in contrast to the South Asian community on the Eastside, which is high-income and has recently built up with the rise of the tech industry. There, south Indian languages like Tamil or Telugu are more prevalent. As a result, South Asian organizations offer different types of programs in Kent than they do in Bellevue.

But not every community has an organization with the scope and training to handle increasing linguistic diversity. According to Bien, offering language-specific services is more important than ever. “One-third of Bellevue’s population is foreign-born, but one-third of the services aren’t focused on them,” he said. “There are a lot of mainstream organizations doing great work, but they don’t reflect these changing demographics.”

Part of why these types of organizations are so important is that they don’t just offer language services. They also offer cultural training to help immigrants – who may already know English – learn the “language” of assimilation. Above all, they help build community amongst people who might not have much more in common than a country of origin.

Kathy Ho is Program Director for Community Action Research and Empowerment (CARE) at Seattle’s Vietnamese Friendship Association (VFA). Her project aims to overcome linguistic and generational divisions within the Seattle Vietnamese population to create a sense of community. In particular, she wants to improve communication between the younger and older generations and teach better civic participation.

“We had a forum about a month ago to talk about the future of the Vietnamese community [in Seattle], and a group of elders were there,” said Ho. “They were very happy to see younger people doing something positive for the community. “The event was also bilingual. We translated everything so from English to Vietnamese and vice versa, so it created a real sense of community … This was a big success, since our community has been so fractured.”

This success shows that while language can be divisive, it also can bridge gaps and create a sense of unity across generations. CISC offers cultural counseling for parents in addition to ESL classes and after-school programs for kids. One of their programs guides first generation parents – who might be less familiar with English and the American school system – help their children achieve social and academic success.

As first generation parents learn to adapt to a new country and cultural context for survival, children are increasingly learning their parents’ mother tongues as a preservation of identity. Alaric Bien observes, “For earlier second and third-generation kids in America, they didn’t become interested in learning Chinese until they were much older because they didn’t want to stand out as being different … Nowadays, being bilingual is cool.”

Amy Bhatt is seeing the same shift within the South Asian community.

“There was a greater compulsion to fit in for previous generations, and they weren’t as interested in holding onto their language because they needed to assimilate to survive … People in the U.S. know a lot more about countries like India now than they did 40 years ago,” said Bhatt. “Today, the community is much more diverse and you see a lot more effort in retaining the language and culture.”

Arundhati Roy raises provocative and sometimes uncomfortable questions in her latest collection of essays, “Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to the Grasshoppers” (Haymarket Books, Oct. 2009). In many ways, the book is a searing account of how India’s new global image is masking some unsavory and dangerous paths down which the country’s democratic institutions are headed. But it also serves as a reminder that democracy alone isn’t a be all and end all to solving the world’s problems.

Readers are likely to remember Roy for her 1998 Booker Prize-winning novel “The God of Small Things”, a magical debut set against the backdrop of Communism in 1960s Kerala, India. While “Field Notes on Democracy” might seem like an odd departure, during Roy’s 10-year hiatus from fiction, she produced a number of impassioned essay collections examining the concepts of empire, democracy, and the politics of power worldwide. She’s been anything but quiet.

For those who don’t have much of a background in South Asia, “Field Notes on Democracy” might seem shocking and even overwhelming at times. It doesn’t sing the praises of India’s shiny new call centers and malls, its emerging middle class, or the benefits of the globalized marketplace. Rather, it’s a report card on India’s performance as “the world’s largest democracy” – and according to Roy, there’s room for some serious improvement.

She cites leaders, political parties, media outlets, and gruesome events in India’s recent history – some obscure, others infamous – that are likely to leave readers wondering, “Why had I never heard about this before?” And that’s precisely the point. Roy questions why some events (like the terrorist bombings in Mumbai last December) grab the world’s attention, while others (like the 2002 state-led violence that incited the Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat) get swept under the rug. In fact, Roy makes the case that these two events aren’t unrelated, and actually tie into other violent events in India’s past.

But it’s important to note that Roy’s beef isn’t with India on the whole. If anything, her ardent criticisms seem to come from a deep love for her country, its people, and humanity in general. She posits that India’s promise of democracy has been one disappointment after another, marred by corruption, communal violence, socio-economic inequalities, and even its strategic relationships with countries like the United States.

That’s not to say she thinks democracy is inherently bad. On the contrary, she challenges readers to think about where such a lofty concept goes awry. She does think that “democracy should be the utopia that all ‘developing’ societies aspire to,” but suggests that adopting democracy is very different than already living with it. She’s not talking about knocking down the house and rebuilding it from scratch. Rather, she proposes some remodeling: “The system of representative democracy – too much representation, too little democracy – needs some structural adjustment.”

That being said, this is first and foremost a book about India as a democracy, and will likely resonate most with those who have an existing knowledge of or vested interest in South Asia. At times, it seems Roy ends up preaching to the choir, surfacing issues for readers who are likely to feel as outraged as she does about the injustices that happen in the face of development. But Roy’s voice is still essential, if only because she stands as an important counterpoint to the widely held belief that the free market is curing all that ails India.

So, should you pick up “Field Notes on Democracy” and give it a read? Yes, but with the caveat that you might not fully understand the roots of the religious conflicts and political turmoil that she writes about – and that’s okay. The big picture she paints is an important one to understand, especially as India emerges as a major global power. For readers who have some more time and an interest in understanding these issues, “India and South Asia: A Short History” by David Ludden serves as great background reading.

Last, but not least, Roy ends the book with a tantalizing nugget – her first piece of fiction since “The God of Small Things.” The short piece, entitled “The Briefing,” is a powerful allegory that serves as a poetic ending to a direct, no-holds-barred book.

Arundhati Roy, noted novelist and political essayist will read from “Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers” on Monday, March 29 at Town Hall Seattle located at 1119 Eighth Ave.. Presented by Seattle Arts & Lectures with Elliott Bay Book Company. For tickets & information, call (206) 621-2230 or visit lectures.org.

It’s an apt time for Irene Khan, Amnesty International’s first woman and first Muslim Secretary General, to release a project called: “The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights.” The book – part textbook, part memoir, and part treatise – passionately argues that the root of poverty isn’t just about money; it’s about human rights.

Secretary Khan, who’s based out of Amnesty International in London, sat down for an interview with the International Examiner during the Seattle leg of her book tour:

1.) What prompted you to write this book at this moment in your career?

Very early in my book, I talk about the story of a South African woman named Rose. I was confronted with her story in my first few weeks as Secretary General of Amnesty International. As a lawyer, I was struck by the fact that the best laws of the land could not protect this woman because she didn’t have a bus fare to go to the magistrate’s court and get a protection order against her abusive husband.

That got me thinking about the issues other than income that keep people poor – discrimination, insecurity, their inability to influence policies … I began to realize that you have to take a holistic approach to human rights if you are going to help people overcome violence and poverty.

2.) Part of your work at Amnesty includes launching the Demand Dignity campaign, which is largely about giving a voice to the poor. What do dignity and voice mean to you?

Dignity is what gives us respect for ourselves as human beings. That’s why I see human rights not as ends in themselves, but as tools to promote human dignity so that people can live decent lives.

Voice means – first of all, having information, and secondly, being able to use that information to influence those in power and take part in decisions that affect your life.

3.) A major focus of your book seems to be the gap between measures of economic growth and the reality of human rights in a country. Can you talk about why you find this divide to be problematic?

Economists will argue that economic growth has pulled a lot of people out of poverty by creating jobs, improving the economy, and so on. And I’m not denying that economic growth does that. What I’m saying is that there are also other consequences of economic growth that actually marginalize some people and increase inequalities.

Let’s do a simple calculation. If there is 10 percent growth, the person who earns $100 will make $110. But the person who earns $40 will make $44. So the difference actually increases – the difference is no longer $60, it’s $66.

The other consequence of economic growth is that it does not necessarily address some underlying problems of poverty. You can invest in agriculture, and that increases the crop yield for the poor farmer – but he is still a landless peasant at the mercy of his landlord. You can build a school, but this does not automatically ensure that girls will get as good an education as boys.

4.) How can the economist and the human rights advocate work together?

I would say that most economists today recognize that you can’t only take an economic approach to poverty. The problem is, even though economists agree to that, it’s not being translated into practice for two or three main reasons:

First, some countries don’t recognize education, health, or housing as human rights. Here in the U.S. right now, you have a debate on healthcare and whether that is a right, even though it’s in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Second, some countries believe you have to suppress civil and political rights in order to progress, like China.

Then there are people who simply say that the market will take care of it – that economic growth will shoulder the problem. What economic growth actually shows is that the poorest are the last to benefit from a boom and the first to be hurt by a bust.

5.) Is there anything you would’ve liked to explore in greater detail?

I would like to explore more the whole issue of empowerment. How do people take control of their lives and make a difference? There are many different examples of it around the world, and it’s happening at the grassroots level. To better understand the process there would help us use human rights as a breakthrough strategy for development.

Despite the very negative spiral of poverty, there are so many good stories to tell. There is optimism. There is hope.

That was the reality of adolescence for Jay Bansali (name changed to protect identity), whose Indian American roots brought a specific set of challenges to coping with bipolar disorder.

“There was this general attitude among Indians that if people knew, it would embarrass or shame the family,” he said.

But this aspect of Bansali’s story isn’t unique to the South Asian American community—in fact, this seems to be a common thread regarding mental illness in many Asian American communities. “For many of the people we serve, the concept of mental illness is unheard of … it’s just not talked about,” said Natividad Lamug, the Education Coordinator for the Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS) in Seattle.

This is what makes Bansali, now in his mid-20s, so different – his family proactively helped him seek out and receive professional treatment at an early age.

Statistics suggest that Asian Americans have a lower rate of mental illness compared to other ethnic groups – but this can be misleading. Asian Americans are also less likely to seek help, thereby under-reporting mental health issues.  This is consistent with the fact that Asian American women have the highest suicide rate in the U.S. amongst females between the ages of 15 and 24.

“The labeling of Asian & Pacific Islanders with the false stereotype of the ‘model minority’ – highly successful, well-educated, and upwardly mobile – exacerbates the cultural stigma surrounding mental illness,” said Betty Hong, executive director of Asian Community Mental Health Services (ACMHS), in a news brief. “The stigma is so great that it prevents those who may need support from seeking treatment altogether.”

Bansali felt directly affected by the stigma attached to this stereotype: “I guess their [my family’s] expectations of me were immediately lowered from being someone great who excels in life to someone who could just function with their illness on a day to day level.”

It is this context that makes culturally specific counseling so important. But it also comes with challenges, like trying to address the vast diversity of Asia and Asian Americans. ACRS’s slogan is “Hope and opportunity in 30 languages,” offering services primarily to East and Southeast Asians. But they also see people from South Asia, and have the ability to work with interpreters when necessary.

But as Natividad Lamug points out, regardless of what part of Asia a client comes from, trying to understand their different needs is always a long process. For example, clients who are refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia may have higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, as a result of war in those countries. Similarly, Asian Americans will have a different cultural context to their treatment than Asian immigrants.

The training manual from the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association (NAAPIMHA) addresses this in greater detail: “A clinician who is unfamiliar with the nuances of an individual’s cultural frame may incorrectly judge as psychopathology those normal variations in behavior, belief or experience that are particular to the individual’s culture.”

Lamug also notes that clinicians need to realize that their clients may seek alternative treatments. “Often, people might see mental illness as arising from a misalignment with the gods or because of spirits. They may seek help from religious leaders, rather than getting medical help,” she said.

In some ways, one’s cultural background can also play a role in treatment. For example, a study by UCLA on recovering from schizophrenia showed that having a strong, supportive home environment and community could help prevent relapse. The family values that are prevalent within many Asian cultures have the potential to help those who are struggling with mental illness – once the cloud of stigma is lifted and there’s openness to discussing the illness itself.

The root of combating these stigmas is education. ACRS and Sound Mental Health offer a variety of services and programs for people in the Puget Sound area who are living with mental illness, as well as for their families and communities. Gayle Johnson organizes a series of community forums at Sound Mental Health designed to raise awareness around mental illness. “We’re open to suggestions from the community about what programs might help – so if you have any ideas, please share them with us.”

For now, there are small, encouraging signs of change for Jay Bansali. “The men in my family don’t really ask me about my illness even though they know about it, like it doesn’t exist. But the women have learned to talk to me about it openly, like there is no stigma or shame.”