As I finished up my fourth month here in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, India, I noticed how much my research project has transformed since I began pursuing my research questions seven years ago as an undergraduate. Being able to live in Dharamsala, where the majority of my primary source evidence comes from, has truly expanded my analysis of Tibetan political activism in India. Dharamsala, India is the “political capitol” of the Tibetan exile community and houses the Tibetan Government in Exile and many of the prominent Tibetan grassroots organizations such as the Tibetan Youth Congress, the Tibetan Women’s Association, and the Students for a Free Tibet. Growing up in a Tibetan resettlement camp in Nepal and being raised in the United States as a Tibetan American citizen, living and interacting with Tibetans in India has given me a clearer understanding of what it means to live in a diaspora.

A lot of Tibetan youth from the West visit Dharamsala to take Tibetan language classes and immerse themselves in a tight knit Tibetan community that they otherwise could not experience living in the U.S or Europe. Besides being able to conduct research here, I was very excited to finally be around other Tibetans and to speak Tibetan. Now that it has several months living in Dharamsala, my Tibetan has not dramatically improved as I imagined. I did notice, however, that most older Tibetans here have a main assumption and expectation of Tibetan youth from the West when it comes to language and identity. First, they expect Tibetan youth from the West to be fully westernized and lack fluency in Tibetan. Interrelated to this point is that they do not think Tibetan youth from the West care to be politically active nor care about preserving their culture. The main expectation is that Western Tibetans who visit Dharamsala should practice her or his Tibetanness in all aspects. As much as that sounds encouraging, I felt like I had to “go native” to legitimize my research on Tibetan history. And for Tibetan women, “going native” requires we dress the part. For example, all the women who work at the exile government complex, where my office is, have to wear a Tibetan traditional dress while the men who also work there, do not have to. So although I am a researcher from abroad, I was also expected to wear one because I am Tibetan. Now, I did wear it the first two months but I just decided forced performance isn’t my thing so I’ve opted to wear it only a couple of days out of the week. I’m probably getting side-eyed by my Tibetan male colleagues but I think making progress on my research is a much better measure of how serious I am as a Tibetan scholar!

The highlight of my Fulbright Fellowship thus far has been the mentorship I have receiving from a respected Tibetan historian, Genla Tashi Tsering. As someone who aspires to work as tenure-track professor, I hope to be able to teach Tibetan American history courses and have a comprehensive understanding of 20th century Tibetan history. Genla Tashi Tsering was super helpful in providing me with a list of primary and secondary sources that would be useful for my syllabus and for my dissertation chapters. There are not many Tibetan scholars that live in the West…just a lot of dharma centers and Buddhist monks. Living in Dharamsala has given me the opportunity to meet Tibetan scholars and to learn from them. I feel that I could read all the books on Tibet but to be in conversation with other Tibetans on these same books provides a different level of engagement. One of the best moments was meeting and getting to have an informal dinner with poet-activist Tenzin Tsundue, writer Bhuchung Sonam, and other Tibetan intellectuals. I got to share my research project and got to hear about their viewpoints on the current state of the Tibetan Freedom Movement.

I try to write daily about primary source findings, interactions at the office with my colleagues, sub-arguments for my chapters, and day to day life in McLeod. I think it is very important to record all aspects of what I do during my Fulbright because it could provide a holistic analysis for my dissertation. I am also aware that just because I am Tibetan, it does not mean that I can speak for Tibetans in India. And it has become obvious that the cultural difference I carry as a Tibetan from the West shows that I need to be mindful about how I develop my historical interpretation of Tibetan political activism in India. Overall, I am looking forward to creating more memories and getting more work done in the next five months.