Desi Land , livre ebook
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English
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2008
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289
pages
English
Ebooks
2008
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Publié par
Date de parution
27 octobre 2008
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9780822389231
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
2 Mo
Desi Land is Shalini Shankar's lively ethnographic account of South Asian American teen culture during the Silicon Valley dot-com boom. Shankar focuses on how South Asian Americans, or "Desis," define and manage what it means to be successful in a place brimming with the promise of technology. Between 1999 and 2001 Shankar spent many months "kickin' it" with Desi teenagers at three Silicon Valley high schools, and she has since followed their lives and stories. The diverse high-school students who populate Desi Land are Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs, from South Asia and other locations; they include first- to fourth-generation immigrants whose parents' careers vary from assembly-line workers to engineers and CEOs. By analyzing how Desi teens' conceptions and realizations of success are influenced by community values, cultural practices, language use, and material culture, she offers a nuanced portrait of diasporic formations in a transforming urban region.Whether discussing instant messaging or arranged marriages, Desi bling or the pressures of the model minority myth, Shankar foregrounds the teens' voices, perspectives, and stories. She investigates how Desi teens interact with dialogue and songs from Bollywood films as well as how they use their heritage language in ways that inform local meanings of ethnicity while they also connect to a broader South Asian diasporic consciousness. She analyzes how teens negotiate rules about dating and reconcile them with their longer-term desire to become adult members of their communities. In Desi Land Shankar not only shows how Desi teens of different socioeconomic backgrounds are differently able to succeed in Silicon Valley schools and economies but also how such variance affects meanings of race, class, and community for South Asian Americans.
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Publié par
Date de parution
27 octobre 2008
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9780822389231
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
2 Mo
desi land
teen culture, class, and success in silicon valley
shalini shankar
Duke University Press
Durham and London 2008
∫2008 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$ Designed by Katy Clove Typeset in Quadraat by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
appear on the last printed page of this book.
contents
Preface and Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction: Welcome to Desi Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
∞California, Here We Come, Right Back Where We Started From . .
≤Defining Desi Teen Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
≥. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Living and Desiring the Desi Bling Life
∂Desi Fashions of Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
∑Beingfobulous on Multicultural Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
∏Remodeling the Model Minority Stereotype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
πDating on the DL and Arranged Marriages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
∫In the New Millennium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Appendix 1: Student Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Appendix 2: Faculty Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Appendix 3: Parent and Relative Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Appendix 4: Student Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Glossary of Hindi and Punjabi Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
vii
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preface and acknowledgments
In 1998, when I first landed in Silicon Valley to survey my field site, it was a very di√erent place than it is today. I had arrived at the height of the tech bubble, when Internet stocks were soaring, venture capital was flowing, and talk about start-ups andipos was inescapable. The events, person-alities, and institutions presented in this ethnography reflect the energy of this newsworthy moment. When the dramatic crash of the tech market occurred in April 2000, it took months, if not years, to gauge all of the collateral damage. Although some locals joked about the inevitable fall of ‘‘dot-communism,’’ most Silicon Valley residents hoped it was a tempo-rary setback rather than a more enduring end to the frenzy of growth and profiteering. My subsequent visits in 2005 and 2007, however, indicated that this time had indeed come to a close. The optimism for advancement that underpinned this era, however, has not disappeared altogether. The chapters that follow focus on the lives of Desi youth whom I met as teenagers in high school. They examine select aspects of Desi teen life, and while they foreshadow teens’ transition into adulthood, they treat teenage years as important in their own right. Throughout, I foreground youth voices, perspectives, and stories as teenagers. My discussion of this pre-9/11, tech-centered period analyzes aspects of class and community forma-tion as well as of success and upward mobility. It is particular to this time period but also contextualizes these processes in broader debates of race, class, and diaspora in America. My account of this dynamic era concludes by revisiting teens years later and looking at how the calamitous events of 2000 and 2001 have changed life for Desi teens and their communities.
Preface and Acknowledgments
The Silicon Valley teenagers and families in this ethnography have my unending gratitude. Their generosity exceeded all of my expectations. My deepest thanks go to Aman, Amandeep, Amar, Amun, Amber, Amrit, Annie, Archana, Arsh, Ashdeep, Bicky, Chinni, Chirag, Derek, Dhana, Dicky, Farhana, Fatima, Happy, Harpreet, Inderjit, Japneet, Je√ery, Jessie, Jessie, Kabeer, Kamalpreet, Kiran, Kiran, Kiren, Kiron, Kishan, Kunal, Lakshmi, Mandeep, Mandeep, Manjot, Manpreet, Minal, Nafisha, Nata-sha, Natasha, Neelam, Neera, Navjit, Nilofar, Parijat, Pooja, Punam, Rahul, Rajney, Raman, Raman, Rehana, Robby, Ruby, Runa, Samir, Shalini, Sha-ria, Shireen, Shirima, Shivali, Shivani, Shraddha, Sim, Smita, Spandan, Sukhi, Sumeiya, Usha, Vasanta, Vanya, Zahed, Zayba, and their families and friends. To the families who adopted me as a daughter, thank you for your boundless generosity; it meant the world to me. Numerous school faculty helped make this project a reality, and I am grateful to Allison, Ben, Bruce, Chris, Chris, David, Fred, Jan, Jim, Jim, Josh, Lata, Marilyn, Marta, Michael, Mike, Paul, Rashawn, Ray, Sandie, Sandra, Stuart, Terry, Tim, Virginia, and, in fond memory, Aida. I would also like to thank those in the Bay Area who helped me to establish this project, especially Ved Vatuk, Vishal Ramani, James Freeman, Sam Rao, Ray McDermott, Raka Ray, Raba Gunasekara, and the sta√ of the South Asia Archive at UC Berkeley. At New York University, my greatest debt of gratitude is to Bambi B. Schie√elin, who continues to be a tremendously supportive and intellec-tually generous colleague and friend. I have also benefited greatly from working closely with Faye Ginsburg and Fred Myers, both of whom have provided invaluable commentary and longer term insights on my re-search. I also thank Andrew Ross and Arvind Rajagopal for their close reading of the dissertation on which this manuscript is based. My col-leagues at Binghamton University, especially Jean-Pierre Mileur, Charlie Cobb, John Cha√ee, Lisa Yun, Pamela Smart, and Douglas Holmes, have been very supportive of my work, and I thank them for their generosity. Support for this research was provided by a Social Science Research Council (ssrc) International Migration Program Dissertation Research Fellowship. Write-up funds were provided by a Spencer Foundation Dis-sertation Fellowship on Research Related to Education, New York Univer-sity June E. Esserman Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, and a Binghamton University Dean’s Semester. Thanks also to the American Institute of In-
viii
Preface and Acknowledgments
dian Studies for funding a Hindi Intensive Summer Program in Udaipur, India, and tossrca Predissertation Workshop Fellowship. In its for initial stages, this research was influenced by my work at Education De-velopment Center / Center for Children and Technology, where I devel-oped a more nuanced understanding of how youth become invested in their education and use the tools available to them. This research is also shaped by my time as a volunteer atsaya! (South Asian Youth Action) in Elmhurst, New York, and I thank the youth atsaya! and Sayu Bhojwani for sharing their time and perspectives. I am thankful to Ken Wissoker for being a thoughtful and encouraging editor, and to Courtney Berger and Mark Mastromarino for their editorial assistance. I am also very grateful to Purnima Mankekar for her intel-ligent, insightful review of this manuscript, as well as to the anonymous reviewer who o√ered helpful suggestions. Special thanks to Jillian Cav-anaugh for reading and commenting on numerous versions of this work, coining the title phrase ‘‘Desi Land,’’ and being a fantastic colleague and friend since the day we met. Tejaswini Ganti o√ered very thoughtful feed-back on this manuscript and other work and has been supportive through-out this endeavor. I also thank Susanna Rosenbaum for her close engage-ment with this work in its dissertation form and her companionship while I was writing it, as well as Matt Durington for commenting on an earlier version of this manuscript. Portions of this work have been presented at conferences, published in journals, and discussed at length with numer-ous colleagues. My deep appreciation goes to all who engaged with the research presented here, especially Lila Abu-Lughod, Patricia Baquedano-Lopez, Don Brenneis, Robert Culp, Josh de Wind, Yen Le Espiritu, Steven Feld, Nancy Foner, Donna Gabaccia, Susan Gal, Steven Gregory, Webb Keane, Aisha Khan, Madhulika Khandelwal, Don Kulick, Jayati Lal, Karen Leonard, Adrienne Lo, Owen Lynch, Sunaina Maira, Daniel Miller, Raza Mir, Robin Nagle, Kirin Narayan, Kent Ono, Vijay Prashad, Angela Reyes, George Sanchez, Helen Schwartzman, Michael Silverstein, and Jack Tchen. Any oversights, errors, or omissions are my own. This work has also benefited from feedback from my dissertation writ-ing group, Maggie Fishman, Melissa Checker, Wendy Leynse, Peter Zabi-elskis, Jessica Winegar, and Steve Albert; and the Spencer Fellows cohort, Eileen Anderson-Fye, Rebecca Zarger, Lance McCready, and Jennifer Co-
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