R. Rahman,’ ” she said, noting her love for the popular Indian composer
R. Rahman,’ ” she said, noting her love for the popular Indian composer “As we were chatting, he talked about going to an A.R. Rahman concert, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s great, there’s hope, he likes A. About two months after matching on the app, they met for coffee in San Francisco. A few months later, he met her parents over dinner in San Jose. By , they were engaged. They in her parents’ backyard in San Jose. “You can connect really, really well with a person who is from a totally different culture, I 100% stand by that,” she said. “But I wanted it to be easier for me. It’s so nice when you have a person who can articulate the emotional nuances of being from two different cultures and feeling understood and feeling accepted in that.” One of the original behemoths in South Asian online dating is Shaadi. Founded in India in 1996, its name translates to wedding. By their mid-20s, South Asians in the U.S. and abroad often are ducking and dodging suggestions to assemble a Shaadi profile, and jokes about mothers creating profiles for their kids remain evergreen. Still, the website, and newer apps, serve an enduring need. As in most immigrant communities, the generation of South Asians raised in the U.S. often contends with an eternal negotiation of bridging motherland and current land. “American society is very individualistic. These are ‘supposed’ to be your own , an associate professor of sociology at City University of New York. And so the idea of arranged marriage is absolutely the furthest thing you can get from American expectations of dating and life “In South Asian culture, you consider your family in the choices that you make,” Salam added.