by Maureen Nandini Mitra
-India/USA-

Arthur Yee wants a son.

“It’s important. As the oldest son in my family, it’s my duty to continue the bloodline,” says the Los Angeles based media professional whose wife, Kimme Setzo, is three months pregnant. Though he’d love to have a girl too, not having a son would diminish his status in his extended family, he says.

Yee comes from a traditional Chinese family that immigrated to the USA in the 1970’s. Like most first generation immigrants, his parents still cling to the cultural values of their original homeland where social norms favor sons. Hence parental pressure on Yee and Setzo to produce a boy is great. Setzo, though personally neutral about the gender of her forthcoming child, also hopes her first-born will be a boy, “just so that the pressure will be off.”

by Maureen Nandini Mitra
India/USA

In March this year, a court in the northern Indian state of Haryana sentenced five family members to death for killing a young couple who married within the same sub-caste. It is the first time an Indian court has awarded such a harsh penalty in an honor killing case. But, even as women’s rights activists are hailing the decision as a landmark judgment, honor killings continue unabated and defiant khap panchayats - village councils that order such killings – are calling for an amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act to fit their beliefs regarding sub-caste and inter-caste marriages.