Hindu girlhood in the diaspora

[lovecatcadillac]

I'm writing a novel set at an all-girl Catholic secondary school in Perth, Western Australia in the year 2003. It's based in part on my own young teenage years, and features multiple POV characters, including one girl who is Hindu and the daughter of middle-class Indian migrants. I'm not South Asian or a person of colour, and I grew up with parents who were quite anti-religion, so I'm trying to be very purposeful in writing this girl's experience.

I have a handful of questions about life in the Indian/South Asian diaspora in the early 2000s, specifically regarding teen girl sleepovers, how religiously based vegetarianism might shape social excursions with friends, and recommendations for resources on how religion might factor into a 14-year-old Hindu girl's internal life.

1. In one chapter, a group of 14 year-old girls meet up during the school holidays to see a movie and grab some lunch at a Burger King-like restaurant (i.e., a low-cost fast food joint that serves beef burgers). This is based on an afternoon in my own teenage years. However, it's occurred to me that if one of the girls was an observant Hindu, she would be likely to have been raised vegetarian, and thus might not want to eat in a restaurant where even the vegetarian options might have been cooked in close proximity to beef. With that in mind, if a young Hindu teenager in the diaspora was seeing some friends, how likely is it that she would simply eat a vegetarian option at a restaurant like Burger King? If she wasn't able to eat at a burger place, would a pizza joint or a fish-and-chip shop be more appropriate?*
2. One of the key chapters in the book centres around a sleepover birthday party held at my Indian girl character's home and attended by her friends. In conversations on and offline, women from diaspora communities (particularly South Asian) attest that they were not allowed sleepovers with friends as kids. In my own childhood, I had two different friends who were South Asian (my best friend from ages 9-12 was a migrant from India who emigrated as a baby, my best friend from ages 16 on was from Malaysia and emigrated in her mid-teens). Both girls were allowed to have sleepovers: one could only have sleepovers hosted in her own home, whereas the other was allowed to stay at other people's houses. As I've conceived my character thus far, I figure she emigrated at around age 5. To write my character's parents, are there certain hallmarks of a parent from a South Asian migrant background who would be more likely to allow sleepovers, or host sleepovers in their home?
3. I've begun researching Hinduism to see how it might factor into the worldview of a young Millennial teenager who is kind, creative, a bit eccentric, accepting of others' differences and has some trouble speaking up for herself with her friends (but is learning more about what it means to assert herself). Thus far, I haven't found a lot which is from a young, female, Millennial perspective. If anyone has any insights they would like to share, or recommendations for resources (e.g., memoirs from the South Asian diaspora, YouTube/TikTok accounts, blogs, etc.), I would appreciate it immeasurably (and would, of course, acknowledge your contribution if I ever manage to publish this darned thing).

* I figure that she might be unlikely to eat fish either, but wanted to throw fish and chips there as a possible option for something that young teens in the early 2000s in Perth might eat. Sushi wasn't a common food option in the time and place the story is set, and ice cream doesn't seem right as this chapter takes place during winter.

Comments

Re: *waves from Perth*

[lovecatcadillac]

These are such great insights, thank you! And thank you also for linking to my post from your blog, that's very kind.

The scene during the school holidays is set on the Cappuccino Strip in Freo. At present, I'm picturing my characters eating at the Hungry Jack's that used to be located there, but am open to having them go to the Dome Cafe instead for hot chocolates. I'm not planning on name-dropping Hungry Jack's or the Dome as such, but it's important to me to have a certain internal consistency by having the characters patronise the kinds of places that would have been on the Cappuccino Strip in 2003. (Rather than, say, having them partake of poke bowls or boba, neither of which were available on that particular street 20+ years ago.)

That said, even though I don't have any scenes set in Perth city, your suggestions about where people ate closer to the city will come in very useful for the sequel I'm starting to mull over (which would see my characters in their mid-to-late teens and starting to wander further from home). I also really appreciated what you had to say about the kinds of junk/snack food vegetarians might eat, because that will colour not only what my character would eat on a trip out with friends, but also what she might serve for her birthday tea at her sleepover. 

Re: *waves from Perth*

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, cool, I actually lived around Freo back then myself, it was just that I went to UWA and all my uni friends were more Perth based.

My Freo-based friends weren't vegetarian, but there used to be a couple of food courts near the Freo Markets which we went to pretty regularly as teens and in the 2000s, and the Markets themselves had a lot of little food places. Both had Indian stalls but I have no idea how vegetarian friendly they were.

I don't remember Dome taking off in Freo until a bit later, but I might be misremembering. There was definitely a big Miss Maud's facing the strip. In general, as I recall it was a little less pretentious than it is now, with more Italian places, though a far cry from the pre-gentrification Freo I vaguely remember from the 80s.