Doing the Desi Thing: Performing Indianness in New York City (Studies in Asian Americans)
by Sunita Sunder Mukhi
Category: Performing Arts

This book is a vivacious inquiry into how Asian Indians in New York, or Desis, as they describe themselves, perform Indianness, or Desiness, in several cultural variety shows that are mounted in New York City: The Indian Independence Day Parade and Cultural Program, the South Street Seaport Deepavali Festival, the Sindhi Divali Show in Queens, and the variety shows of the South Asian college students of New York University.Along with the fact that these community cultural productions underscore Desiness (i.e., that these are songs, dances, foods, and crafts for the non-Indian to see, learn from and consume and for the Desi to reminisce, enjoy, and be validated by) these productions reveal a tense negotiation between the preservation of Indianness and the assimilation to US American life. Indeed, though the traditional, touristic kind of Indianness may be touted by certain elite groups, this type of Indianness is simultaneously being deconstructed and subverted by other Indians who assert theirown, sometimes opposing views of what it means to be Desi. This work utimately demonstrates that Desi identity is ephemeral -- it constantly needs to be manufactured and begs to be performed.