An Ode to Women in the South Asian Diaspora Through Taylor Swift’s Evermore

Happy spring fellow Swifties, and everyone else I guess. As we celebrate the, in my completely unbiased opinion, best season; let’s look back on the queen of seasonal bops, Taylor Swift. 2021 was undoubtedly the year of Taylor Swift with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) dropping last spring and Red (Taylor’s Version) that following November. Who needs therapy when you can have cathartic sessions of screaming “All Too Well (10-minute version)” in your car? I’m joking, go to therapy kids.

Jokes aside, as amazing as Fearless TV and Red TV were, I can’t help but think back to the album that kicked off Swift’s 2021 reign, Evermore. Which remains, in my opinion, her magnum opus. And I know, Evermore was dropped at the end of 2020 and Swift has been reigning in the industry for years before that. Believe me, the hold Taylor Swift had on me in 2005 was unmatched. But, despite all the amazing music Swift has given us through her decades-long career, I have a special place in my heart for Evermore.

After recently moving back to my little hometown in suburban Ohio and having my early twenties wasted thanks to this panoramic we’re in, Evermore’s drop had me feeling some type of way. But it wasn’t just the way Swift perfectly encompassed the melancholic feeling of life passing us by that affected me. It was how she, inadvertently, was able to eloquently describe the South Asian American experience; specifically, the experiences of women in the South Asian diaspora.

Despite the progressive strides members of the South Asian diaspora have made, South Asian culture still remains deeply patriarchal and rooted in heteronormative beliefs. Women growing up in these patriarchal systems are told not to speak out or they’ll be deemed uncultured and alienated from South Asian communities. However, the first victims of these harmful systems are not the women born into the diaspora, but rather, our mothers, who were forced into the role due to the expectations thrust on them.

When I turned 20, my mom turned to me and said, “Veda, at your age, my parents were already looking at rishtas for me.” Many of my South Asian friends have similar stories of their mothers getting arranged marriages at 21–25 to some even getting married at 18 and having their first child at 21. At 21, my roommates and I couldn’t even take care of a plant for longer than a week, how was a 21-year-old supposed to raise a child? And I know, the argument is that it was a different time and that we’ve been raised in different environments. But what would have happened if our mothers were taught to aspire to something other than marriage? If they were told to follow their dreams first and become their own person.

This is what I thought of when listening to Swift’s “Ivy”. The song talks about lost love and having to give up that love for another. But while I was listening to it, all I could think of was the life our mothers lost and had to give up when their lives were uprooted.

Growing up, we never really give any thought to who our mothers were before we were born: they’ve always just been our moms. But recently, I’ve been thinking more and more about who my mom was before she was married and thrown into a life completely different from her own. I’m the same age my mom was when she was engaged to my dad and I couldn’t imagine having to give up my life, move across the world with a stranger, and have no time or support to grieve the life I lost or rather. My mom had no time to grieve the person she used to be.

“I just sit here and wait. Grieving for a living”

- Taylor Swift, “Ivy”

In Hindi, the word for your maternal home is called, mayaka and your husband’s home is, sasural. The idea that a woman is an outsider in her own family after getting married is so deeply ingrained in South Asian culture that our mothers were forced to push their grief down and assimilate into their husbands’ lives because there was no other alternative.

“My house of stone, your Ivy grows. And now I’m covered in you”

- Taylor Swift, “Ivy”

They formed their new identity around the shell of a person they used to be. There was no time for our mothers to grieve that girl they used to be and the youth they lost because of societal expectations. Their pain was trivialized to the point where the woman they used to be ceased to exist. And honestly, our moms are still silently pushing their own needs aside and spending all their energy on their families. Our mothers dedicate their whole lives to making sure their families thrive and ask for nothing in return — something we’ve taken advantage of for too long.

“Use my best colors for your portrait, lay the tables with the fancy shit. And watch you tolerate it”

- Taylor Swift “Tolerate It”

I originally wasn’t going to include “Tolerate It” in this article but as I was going through my monthly Evermore run-through, I realized how the story aligns with South Asian mothers. They gave up their lives for us and continue to give everything, but no one seems to take notice of the amount they do. I actually didn’t realize how much I underappreciated my mother until recently when I started doing some introspection and realized she did the best she could with what she had.

Our mothers were thrust into an environment not because they wanted to, but because of this notion of duty and keeping with archaic traditions. They weren’t allowed to grieve their past selves but still created a world for themselves. In their minds, they were creating a better life for their daughters than they had and that was left unnoticed.

“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky. Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life.”

- Taylor Swift “Tolerate It”

So often we, as third culture kids are so caught up in our own lives we don’t take a moment to look back on how much our parents gave is. And don’t get me wrong, our trauma and our hardships are valid and that represents a completely different side of the generational trauma we face. However, while we work on ourselves it's important to realize that sometimes, our parents did the best they could with the resources they were given. Generational trauma and archaic cultural norms have affected us all in different ways and if we want to stop this cycle, I think the least we can do, as we grow up, is learn to look at our mothers as people who are sometimes flawed and learn to understand them, as normal people.

“ Often father and daughter look down on mother together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not as bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate”

- Bonnie Brustow

Learning to understand and empathize with my mother comes from unlearning years of internalized misogyny that I absorbed just by being South Asian, something that I couldn’t verbalize properly until I read the Bonnie Brustow quote above. South Asian culture thrives on rigid gender norms and we’re taught to look at our fathers as the epitome of success while we look to our mothers with shame. A shame that we internalized from a young age.

Because these small micro-doses of misogyny are so ingrained in South Asian culture, young South Asian women are fed the idea that if they don’t meet a certain standard then they’re less than somehow. So yeah, we’re taught to shame our mothers — without realizing we’re all enabling a system that affects us the same way.

“’ This dorm was once a mad house’ I made a joke, “Well, its made for me.’”

- Taylor Swift “Champagne Problems”

Champagne Problems topped my 2021 Spotify wrapped and is a quintessential part of many wine-fueled jam sessions. Is it because I’m in a constant state of existential dread? Maybe. Is it because I, like the song’s protagonist, am undoubtedly fucked in the head? Definitely. But this entire idea of “champagne problems” when referring to mental illness or other “fake” problems made me realize how deep this idea runs in South Asian culture.

Mental illness is still super taboo in South Asian culture with people not willing to understand how deeply it affects someone, leading it to be dubbed a champagne problem. South Asian women bear the generational trauma of our mothers, our mother’s mother, their mother, and all the other women who came before us. As our mothers were taught to push down their feelings and put their family first, they try and teach us the same. Our family and culture come before us as individuals.

And don’t get me wrong, I love the collectivist nature of South Asian culture. That whole idea of a community providing for one another and being there to support each other is beautiful and something we should be proud of. But when that same, beautiful, collectivism is used to shame and alienate women for being themselves — that’s when it becomes problematic.

“’ She would’ve made such a pretty bride, what a shame she’s fucked in the head’, they said.”

- Taylor Swift “Champagne Problems”

When young members of the South Asian diaspora start to realize that they’re allowed to feel the way they do and start to put in the work to fix themselves, they’re seen as sensitive. This is much more prevalent when talking about South Asian women. Because, in the toxic cycle of South Asian misogyny, women are only there to be married off. No matter how successful a woman is, how intelligent, how compassionate, how empathetic — she’s still measured by how good of a wife she’ll make to her cis straight South Asian husband.

If a woman is too outspoken or focuses on her mental health, or if she drinks, wears certain clothes, or has dated someone before, or does not make herself palatable to her husband and his family in any way — then she is just there for time pass, because she is not marriage material.

And I know, I’m about to get a lot of arguments against this. Like, “Oh Veda, things aren’t like this anymore.”

Or, “society has progressed past all of this and women are working and running a household!”.

And my personal favorite is, “You only think this way because you’ve been raised in the west and are pessimistic about your culture.”

But these statements are all part of the problem. South Asian culture in the diaspora continues to perpetuate this idea of young women only being as good as who they marry and it's not made obvious by outward statements or actions — it's just what we see as we grow up.

Aunties talking about young girls who get married after, wait for it, 30 (gasp!). If a woman talks about mental illness, seeing a therapist, or taking SSRIs: people won’t say anything to her face but the second she’s turned her back the aunties gossip about how today’s kids are too sensitive. Young South Asian women start hearing these conversations at a formative age and are inadvertently told: if you’re anything less than perfect then you’re not worth it.

“But you’ll find the real thing instead, she’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred”

- Taylor Swift “Champagne Problems”

This also feeds into the whole good South Asian girl stereotype that stems from internalized misogyny. As South Asian women, we’re taught to compete with each other from a young age. Because, if one girl isn’t “good enough” for a man then another will show up. South Asian girls are taught that as long as they are: studious but not too outspoken, are cultured but not too cultured, have curves but not curvy, have fun but don’t drink or party, can hang but aren’t too flirty — then they are perfect. These unattainable standards are thrown on young South Asian women and we grow up trying to become this perfect nonexistent woman without realizing that we’re perfect just as we are — flawed and human.

On the other hand, I feel as though this is more prominent with young millennial and older gen-Z South Asian women. When we began to realize this toxic trend, we tried so hard to limit the effect this has had on our younger counterparts and I definitely see the results of that. Younger gen-Z South Asian women are so much more sure of themselves than we ever were. They go on their own journeys of self-discovery to find out who they are as a person rather than try and live up to an ideology of who they should be. It’s refreshing to see a whole new generation of powerful South Asian women emerge and take the world by storm. But at the same time it's mournful that we couldn’t have that same opportunity.

“Oh, can we please get a pause? To be certain that we’ll be tall again? Whether weather be frost.”

- Taylor Swift ft. Bon Iver, “Evermore”

While our mothers mourned the woman they were and the life they lost, we mourn the childhoods we lost trying to be something or someone we’re not. Personally, I felt as though I never really knew who I was until I let go of the idea that I needed to be validated by this standard I could never reach. When I learned to let go and understand my generational trauma that came from years of patriarchal norms, I realized who I can be and how to work towards becoming that person, but I also felt guilty. I felt guilty because somewhere I felt that I was throwing my culture aside and being selfish. Why is it that when South Asian women start to finally do something for themselves and learn to be their own people, the South Asian community decides she should be ashamed?

“I had a feeling so peculiar, that this pain would be for evermore.”

- Taylor Swift ft. Bon Iver, “Evermore”

The guilt and pain stay with us, as Swift says, evermore and it feels as though we can never get rid of it. Every time we try to enjoy our own happiness or lives our society tells us that we’re leaving our family behind. When in reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. When we’re able to heal and learn about ourselves, we’re able to decide how we fit into our culture and how to be our truest selves in a beautiful collective.

Like I said before, I love my culture and I’m proud to have grown up South Asian. I continue to critique and comment on (and publicly write about) the toxic and archaic ideologies because I love my culture. It’s about time we stop shaming South Asian for living their lives on their own terms and just let them be. I also realize that sometimes our mothers are also perpetrators of this shame and this toxic cycle, despite being victims of the same cycle. But sometimes our mothers just need a little empathy and validation as well. So, while we’re finding ourselves and realizing our worth outside of cultural validation, maybe we can try to empathize with our mothers and help them realize that their lives and experiences are just as valid as ours.

I am a big believer in finding a happy medium, if possible and I think the more we learn about ourselves and our own emotions we can start to understand where our parents come from. And like I said before, all of these thoughts and ideas came from years of therapy and trying to understand my own emotions and understanding that everyone’s journey is different and that’s ok. South Asian culture is rooted in the idea that if something is not done in the way it traditionally is then it is somehow wrong, and that’s what we need to start changing as the next generation.