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When immigrant Sandip Roy craves a diet coke, he realizes he's become more American than he imagined.....
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Piece Description
When immigrant Sandip Roy craves a diet coke, he realizes he's become more American than he imagined.....
Transcript
When on a muggy summer afternoon on a trip back to India I started craving
Diet Coke with ice I realized to my surprise that I had become American. No
one drinks Diet-anything in India and Indians, in India and in the
United States, want large sodas, no ice please.
Is that simply a morbid fear of water borne parasites lurking in the ice or
about getting the most soda for your buck? I don't know. All I know is that
my thirst for a Diet Coke with ice exposed an astonishing Americanness in
me.
The process has been so gradual I have missed the tell-tale signs. It no
longer strikes me as odd that I spell color without a u. And though I
complain incessantly about US foreign policy, when an uncle in India
lectures me on Imperialist Bully America, my hackles rise.
As immigrants, busy trying to hold onto shreds of our heritage, we don't
notice when we start caring about Americ...
Read the full transcript
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Helen Woodward
Posted on April 30, 2004 at 08:54 AM | Permalink
Review of Diet Coke
As a fellow immigrant, most everything in this commentary rings true, except the desire for diet coke, which thank god I still don't appreciate, with or without ice. The incremental changes in one's outlook, which go un-noticed most of the time, come into sharp focus during visits "home", and this piece describes this phenomena perfectly. Well-written and pithy, this essay is perfect for ATC or ME, or on a show focusing on immigration.