Unruly Immigrants , livre ebook

333

pages

English

Ebooks

2006

Écrit par
Gupta Monisha Das Gupta Das

Publié par
Duke University Press

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333

pages

English

Ebooks

2006

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

31 octobre 2006

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822388173

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

In Unruly Immigrants, Monisha Das Gupta explores the innovative strategies that South Asian feminist, queer, and labor organizations in the United States have developed to assert claims to rights for immigrants without the privileges or security of citizenship. Since the 1980s many South Asian immigrants have found the India-centered "model minority" politics of previous generations inadequate to the task of redressing problems such as violence against women, homophobia, racism, and poverty. Thus they have devised new models of immigrant advocacy, seeking rights that are mobile rather than rooted in national membership, and advancing their claims as migrants rather than as citizens-to-be. Creating social justice organizations, they have inventively constructed a transnational complex of rights by drawing on local, national, and international laws to seek entitlements for their constituencies.Das Gupta offers an ethnography of seven South Asian organizations in the northeastern United States, looking at their development and politics as well as the conflicts that have emerged within the groups over questions of sexual, class, and political identities. She examines the ways that women's organizations have defined and responded to questions of domestic violence as they relate to women's immigration status; she describes the construction of a transnational South Asian queer identity and culture by people often marginalized by both mainstream South Asian and queer communities in the United States; and she draws attention to the efforts of labor groups who have sought economic justice for taxi drivers and domestic workers by confronting local policies that exploit cheap immigrant labor. Responding to the shortcomings of the state, their communities, and the larger social movements of which they are a part, these groups challenge the assumption that citizenship is the necessary basis of rights claims.

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Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

31 octobre 2006

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822388173

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

Unruly Immigrants

Unruly Immigrants Rights, Activism, and Transnational South Asian Politics in the United States

monisha das gupta

Duke University Press Durham and London 2006

∫2006 Duke University Press

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Typeset in Adobe Jenson by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

For my mother, Karabi Das Gupta, who helped me take my ﬁrst steps in feminism

contents

109

159

208

255

261

275

299

Acknowledgments

introduction: Encounters

chapter1: Terms of Belonging

chapter2: Contests over Culture

chapter3: Law and Oppression

chapter4: ‘‘Owning Our Lives’’: Women’s Organizations

chapter5: Subverting Seductions: Queer Organizations

chapter6: ‘‘Know Your Place in History’’: Labor Organizations

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

acknowledgments

This book is the product of the insights, commitments, passion, and vision of the activists whose work makes social justice possible. My heartfelt gratitude goes to all those who participated in this project and sustained it with their unwavering belief in its importance. My comrades and friends in South Asian Women for Action have lived this project with me. I owe my politics and my thinking on social change to these incredible women—Serena Sundaram, Riti Sachdeva, Ramani Sripada-Vaz, Kalpana Subramanian, Hardeep Mann, Sameeta Ahmed, Sunu Chandy, Latha Ravi, Lina Sheth, Karen Vasudavan, Sunita Mani, Falu Bakrania, and Maya Rege. The circle of love with which they surrounded me in Boston has traveled with me. While Laurie Prendergast was not part ofsawa, she hung out with us, and I am glad she did. I have beneﬁted immensely from her love, care, wisdom, and her superb indexing. The friend-ship that Bhairavi Desai has extended to me has been an unexpected gift. I have learned much from her about organizing. She and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance Organizing Committee taught me one of my most important lessons— the place of compassion in political work. A number of activists based in the academy have also supported my work. Becky Thompson committed herself to seeing this book in print. She gave me my ﬁrst tutorials in publishing, and my dissertation was reborn as a book in her living room. Each chapter has beneﬁted from her valuable feedback and con-stant encouragement. Linda Carty’s rigorous attention to questions of political

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