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

Das Gupta, Monisha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 082233898X ISBN 13: 9780822338987

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2006

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"Unruly Immigrants is a brilliantly written study of feminist, queer, and labor activism among post-1965 South Asian immigrants in the United States. These transnational activists confront issues of rights, citizenship, and identity to mount challenges both within and outside their communities against the monolithic positioning of South Asians as 'model minorities.' This book is a path-breaking contribution to South Asian diaspora studies."--Linda Carty, Africana Studies, Syracuse University

"Unruly Immigrants makes a vital contribution to the fields of Asian American and South Asian diaspora studies by detailing the multiple strategies by which post-1965 South Asian progressive organizations in the United States have contested notions of citizenship, belonging, authenticity, and culture."--Gayatri Gopinath, author of Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures

"This book is especially worthwhile in understanding social justice organizing; the intersection of immigration and race with gender, queer, and labor activism; and critiques of the neoliberal state relative to immigration . . . In particular it is a significant addition to the literature on Asian-American activism and on social justice organizing."--Pawan Dhingra "Contemporary Sociology "

Synopsis:

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 - such as fair wages or protection from violence - 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 developed new models of immigrant advocacy. They have sought rights that are mobile rather than rooted in national membership; they have advanced their claims as migrants rather than as citizens-to-be.Creating social justice organizations, they have inventively constructed a trans-national 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 north-eastern United States, looking at how these groups developed, how they envisioned their politics, and the conflicts that emerged within the groups over questions of sexual, class, and political identities.She explores the ways that women's organizations defined and responded to questions of domestic violence as they related to women's immigration status, the construction of a trans-national South Asian queer identity and culture by people who found themselves marginalized by both mainstream South Asian and queer communities in the United States, and the efforts of labor groups who sought economic justice for taxi drivers and domestic workers by confronting local policies that exploited cheap immigrant labor. Creatively 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 082233898X
• ISBN 13: 9780822338987
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 332