Anita Raturi sprinkles flour on the counter to roll aloo parathas, Indian flatbread with a potato filling, for lunch while her 2-year-old son presses buttons on his Disney Jungle Book, filling the kitchen with mechanical animal noises.

Anita Raturi of Sycamore Twp. spent part of her childhood in India. Her children are Karthik, 2; Ketika, 13, and Ketan, 16. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        Her long, black hair loosely braided, she wears two gold bracelets on each hand and a mangalsutra, a necklace with a gold pendant. The jewelry are traditional symbols of marriage for an Indian woman.

        But her manner of dress is strictly American. Beneath her knee-length denim dress, a black tank top reveals the letters “U.S.A.”

        “I'm a person of two cultures,” says Dr. Raturi, who divided her childhood between the Indian city of Lucknow and Minneapolis.

        Dr. Raturi is one of many ethnic immigrants in the Cincinnati area who have tried to hold onto some of their native culture. While most immigrants say they feel comfortable in U.S. society, many make a conscious effort to preserve religions, languages, customs and attitudes in their own lives and for their children. The trick often is finding the right balance between their native and new cultures.

Ed Chen, 11, makes a bird out of color dough at the Chinese Culture Learning Center. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

        The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) cannot say with certainty how many immigrants are arriving in Greater Cincinnati. They do track how many become citizens. INS documented 5,859 citizens who were naturalized in Ohio in 1998; 2,404 in Indiana; and 586 in Kentucky.

        But the numbers are likely much higher because citizenship records do not include the children of immigrants born in the United States, those here through marriage or other family relationships, or immigrants with green cards. It also does not include undocumented immigrants working and raising families on U.S. soil.

        Roger Daniels, a specialist in immigration history and ethnicity at the University of Cincinnati, says the experiences of recent ethnic immigrants and those who came from Europe in the early 1900s are very similar.

        “Different groups learn to operate in different ways, and there's usually an element within the group that wants to retain the culture,” he says.

        “Most people in the U.S. have faced some kind of prejudice. People of color face more. What almost never gets looked at is class as well as ethnicity or race.”

        An educated, affluent Asian would have an easier time in American society than an Asian refugee working in a garment factory who speaks no English, he says.

        Dr. Raturi says an immigrant's class often shapes his or her preconceptions of the United States and therefore, the ability to adjust upon arriving. Upper class Indians, she says, have been exposed to other cultures but don't want to relocate if it means having to give up their lifestyle. Those from the middle class respect the American work ethic but tend to be more conservative.

Need a "balance'

        “Most Indians have to have a balance just to live,” says Dr. Raturi, of Sycamore Township. “For some, it's being extremely Indian, almost to the point of exclusion. They think Americans have no morals, and everything is dangerous. They are stuck in a time warp with very conservative views on what behavior is acceptable.”

        But there are also those immigrants who reject all traces of their ethnicity, who won't practice their religion, speak the language or cook the foods they ate growing up, she says.

        The most successful immigrants find a way to balance old and new cultures, she says. “They celebrate the Fourth of July as well as Diwali,” she explains, referring to the Hindu New Year.

        While ethnic immigrants may find harmony by blending native and new culture, they say they are never accepted as fully American.

        Despite living in the United States for 22 years, Majed Dabdoub, a Palestinian born in Lebanon, says he still plays the role of Arab ambassador. He says he would rather educate others about his culture than change himself.

        “You're still considered immigrants,” says Mr. Dabdoub, president of the local Arab-American Association. “People still ask you where you're from. You can't run from these things. The first step is for people to be proud of who they are.”

        Most people are very accommodating once they are aware of another person's beliefs, Mr. Dabdoub says. For example, his colleagues point out foods that he should avoid at luncheons because they remember that he is Muslim and cannot eat pork.

Not always so easy

        Not all beliefs are as easily accommodated. Many immigrants feel isolated in a society they find to be intolerant of extended families.

        Gloria Milord, president of the board at Su Casa Hispanic Ministry Center, says Americans are so accustomed to living in nuclear families that the mention of cousins, parents, grandparents and children living in the same house in Hispanic countries often raises eyebrows.

        “Sometimes you have 12 people living under the same roof,” says Mrs. Milord, a social worker at Beech Acres in Anderson Township who is originally from Panama. “In this country, everybody believes in being independent and getting out of the house when you're 18.”

        Immigrants leave behind their extended family, homes, friends and everything familiar. At Su Casa, Mrs. Milord says, “They find that "Here is someone who speaks my language, who looks like me,' and that makes a big difference.”

        Indian, Asian, Arab and African cultures also embrace extended families. When these immigrants come to the Unites States, they become isolated.

The lunch bunch

               Dr. Raturi, who teaches public administration courses at Northern Kentucky University, developed her own way of bringing new Indian immigrants together. She makes them lunch.

        She got the idea in 1993, she says, when she struck up a conversation with a young Indian mother as they stood outside a Kroger trying to decide whether to dash through the rain into the parking lot.

        “She gave me her baby while she ran to the car,” Dr. Raturi remembers. “It gave me a jolt because I realized she was so lonely. Yes, we're in the Midwest and yes, I have a pleasant face. But can you imagine handing your baby to a total stranger?”

        Realizing the isolation the mother and other Indian women were facing, Dr. Raturi began hosting monthly luncheons for anywhere from five to 20 women. At first they tried talk to her like she was a surrogate mother or an older sister, she says, but eventually they began to rely on each other. As a result, Dr. Raturi has scaled back the luncheons to every three months because the women now visit one another regularly.

        Dr. Daniels says the number and concentration of immigrants from a given country in a community are crucial to determining how the culture is retained.

        For example, French Canadians speak a different version of French than do Parisians because the language of the two groups evolved on separate continents. The same is true of American English and British English.

        But the descendants of Muslims and Jews who came to the United States in the early 1900s had a hard time keeping their religions because they did not have enough members to create a place to pray as a group, Dr. Daniels says.

Community often lacking

        Benjamin Uwakweh, former president of the Nigerian Association of Greater Cincinnati, says not having a large group of family and friends can be an adjustment for students going away to continue their studies. To replicate the idea of an extended family for students of Nigerian descent, the association has been trying to create an e-mail network so kids who grew up in one community can stay in touch when they go to separate colleges.

        A youth group of about 50 kids has also been established to have older students teach younger ones how to communicate respectfully with each other and with their elders, Dr. Uwakweh says.

        For example, it's improper in Nigeria to refer to elders — even siblings — by their first name unless it is preceded by a title of respect. In the Ibo language, “dede” is the title for males and “daa” for females.

        The reverence for elders carries over into religion, says Dr. Uwakweh, who also heads the construction sciences department at the University of Cincinnati.

Customs die hard

        Most Nigerians, regardless of their faith, practice some element of ancestral worship, Dr. Uwakweh says. They often perform a ritual to invoke the spirits of their ancestors at the start of any major event. The practice may not be a part of their chosen religion, but they do not wish to offend or neglect the ancestors' spirits.

        “It is contrary to Christianity, but they still do it,” he says.

        Sola Osinbowale, a Methodist who has lived in the United States since she was 7, says her family attended an Anglican church when they lived in Nigeria.

        “Any time there's a big event, we make sure to remember our grandparents,” says the 20-year-old biology major at Ohio State. “Not so much our great-grandparents, but you might get a different answer if you talked to my parents. But my grandparents, they are always on our minds, what they would want.”

Maintaining kids

        For some immigrants, holding onto important beliefs means maintaining ties to their homelands. Some are able to visit home so their kids can see where they grew up and develop a face-to-face connection with relatives.

        Frequently, though, an overseas telephone call bridges the gap between visits. But for a child educated in an American school, talking to a grandparent who doesn't speak English means learning to speak more than one language.

        Mr. Dabdoub, a structural engineer with the City of Cincinnati, says he had to make sure his children became as comfortable with Arabic as they were with English.

        “I made a mistake with my son. I mixed Arabic with English,” he says. “With my daughters, I decided to speak only Arabic.”

        He explains that because his children must speak English at school, in the workplace and to their mother, who is American, they would soon stop mixing the two languages and use only the one needed in most of their daily encounters. By requiring them to speak to him in Arabic, he says, he has ensured that they will be fluent in both languages.

Keeping language important

        Linda Tsai, who came to the United States from Taiwan in 1986, says her children could speak in English, Taiwanese and Mandarin before they started preschool. The kids had to speak English at school, so she made sure they attended a separate Chinese school for three hours every Sunday for 10 years so they could learn to read and write in Chinese.

        She says they resisted at first because Chinese characters and grammar are completely different from English, and one reads from top to bottom instead of right to left. But she wanted them to be able to talk to their family on the phone during Chinese New Year.

        “Here, relatives are far away, so it's impossible to get together,” says Mrs. Tsai, a computer programmer for Anthem Prescription and former president of the Cincinnati Chinese Cultural Learning Association. “So that's why I say you have to keep your Chinese.”

        Mrs. Tsai says her kids enjoy a mix of American and Asian cultures. They cook authentic Chinese food at home and order pizza a lot, she says. The trips to Taiwan every other year are now less frequent because the kids want to visit other places on vacation.

        “We call them American-born Chinese,” she says of her kids. “I think my kids grow up here with a totally American life. We try to adjust ourselves to live here.”

        Her 13-year-old daughter, Belinda, has taught traditional dance at the Chinese school and faces the occasional stereotype that all Asians are smart and play instruments, but says that for the most part, her American friends don't make her ethnicity an issue.

        “I guess I don't think about it a lot,” she says. “But when my kids grow up, I want them to know about their Chinese background.” But she adds that she knows less about it than her parents do, and worries that maybe she won't be able to pass it down.

True to her roots

        Ms. Osinbowale, whose family is part of the Yoruba tribe, says it's important for her to stay true to her Nigerian roots but recognizes the struggle to keep culture meaningful for future generations.

        “Even with me I can see it's been diluted. I think it will be difficult passing it down to my kids as well,” she says. Then a smile creeps into her voice. “Hopefully, a lot of time with their grandparents will take care of that.”

        But for most of the ethnic immigrants in the United States, nationality is more complicated than checking one box on the Census form. As much as they identify with their heritage, their culture is also American, says Mr. Dabdoub.

        “I live in this country, I vote, I practice my rights, I pay my taxes,” he says. “But I cannot forget where I came from.”

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