■"I Want My Hyphenated-Identity MTV: Videos conquered America, and then the world. What's left? Something in between," by Deborah Sontag, New York Times, 19 June 2005, p. AR2.

MTV already has channels in India, South Korea and China. Now they'll have hybrid versions for second-generation Indians (MTV Desi), Koreans (MTV K) and Chinese (MTV Chi) here in the states. Hip hop and rap will figure prominently in all three channels. No surprise there, as it's become the current young generation's preferred cultural vehicle for expressing all the usual alienation and angst of growing up in the modern world. The big distinction here is the stylized content and the focus on the politics and sociology of identity. Make young people feel like they belong, no matter the niche, and they don't become angry, disassociated and desirous of change through violence. Instead, they find their own way and on that basis feel a lot of freedom, which-quite frankly-is far more about economics than it is politics.

Again, recalling my piece in the Baltimore Sun a while back regarding the ever-diversified face of globalization, this is yet another example of why no one will confuse globalization with Americanization in coming years.

To me this is also a clear indication of New Core status: when you're so inside the Core's main economy (the United States) that MTV gives your nationality its own hybrid channel.

What does "desi" stand for? One theory is "doctors earn significant incomes."

Move over Carson Daly, here comes Niharika Desai.

. . .

David Geoge, via Tom's webmaster, interrupts. . .

"Desi" is not an acronym. Itís a word that Indians use to refer to Indians. DEH ñ see. Like Lucyís ex husband. Why do I know? I work with Indians. One day we were talking about a new employee, an American born kid but ethnically Indian. They referred to him as ìABCDî. I asked what that meant. American Born Confused Desi was the answer. It refers to the disconnection that some ethnically Indian kids grow up with in the USótorn between the very conservative culture of their parents and the (ahem) MTV world around them here. Culture flows in both directions. MTV flows in, but conservative Indians are also moving here too, little islands of the old world plugged into the new one.

Tom responds: the "theory" explanation in the story was actually a joke made up by a first-generation Indian. They like to tweak the typically successfull second-gens