Desi dreams
Subtitle: Indian immigrant women build lives across two worlds
By: Ashidhara Das
Publisher: Primus Books
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Delhi
Language: eng
Number of pages: 162
ISBN-13: 9789380607474
Subjects: East Indian Women; Social conditions; Economic conditions; Women immigrants
Description: Focuses on the construction of self and identity by Indian immigrant professional and semi-professional women who live and work in the US. The focus in this anthropological fieldwork is on Indian immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area. They have often been defined as a model minority. Indian immigrant women who have achieved entry into the current technology based economy in the Silicon Valley value the capital-accumulation, status-transformation, socio-economic autonomy, and renegotiation of familial gender relations that are made possible by their employment. However, this quintessential American success story conceals the psychic costs of uneasy Americanization, long drawn out gender battles, and incessant cross-cultural journeys of selves and identities. The outcome is a diasporic identity through the recomposition of Indian culture in the diaspora and strengthening of transnational ties to India.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 151-157) and index.