Gender and ethnic identity among second-generation Indo-Caribbeans
2005; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01419870500158752
ISSN1466-4356
Autores Tópico(s)Socioeconomic Development in Asia
ResumoAbstract Abstract This article discusses second-generation Indo-Caribbean (West Indian of Indian descent) teenagers' ethnic identities, through a look at their taste preferences and self assertions of identity. Both Indo-Caribbean young men and women draw from multiple influences on their identities. In terms of tastes in clothing and movies, however, girls are more interested in things Indian, and in "Indian culture". Boys, on the other hand, choose to distance themselves from an Indian identity. Three factors explain these gender differences in choices about ethnic identity: (1) different media images for South Asian men and women; (2) a school context lending different levels of peer symbolic status to perceived Indian boys and girls; and (3) a gendered process of migration by which women maintain stronger cultural roots in the new country. The findings in this article point to the need to pay attention to gender differences when considering ethnic incorporation. Keywords: Cultureethnic identitygenderraceSouth AsiaWest Indiesyouth I am grateful for comments and guidance on this research and article from Mary Waters, Gwen Dordick, Orlando Patterson, Cybelle Fox, and the anonymous reviewers for Ethnic and Racial Studies. I have also benefited from the support of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University, funded by the National Science Foundation. Notes 1. Waters (1999 Waters, Mary C. 1999. Black identities: West Indian immigrant dreams and American realities, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) is a notable exception. In Black Identities, Waters describes differences between second-generation West Indians' ethnic identities depending on whether they live in largely African American neighbourhoods—leading to African American identity—or mixed areas—leading to West Indian ethnic identity. 2. Swidler (1986 Swidler, Ann. 1986. 'Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies'. American Sociological Review, 51(2): 273–286. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) defines culture as 'a "tool kit" of symbols, stories, rituals, and world-views, which people may use in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems', (p. 273). 3. In this article I use 'South Asian' to mean the diaspora from the Subcontinent (including Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indo-Caribbeans, etc.). I use 'East Indian' to mean those whose parents were born in South Asia, and 'West Indian' to mean those whose parents were born in the West Indies. 4. Chutney music derives from Indian folk songs, with a distinctive Caribbean sound. 5. A holiday commemorating the day that Indians first arrived in Trinidad. 6. Verma (2000 Verma , Neena 2000 'Arrival, Survival and Beyond Survival': Indo-Trinidadian Quest for Political and Cultural Ascendancy , PhD Dissertation . Department of Sociology, University of Toronto [Google Scholar]) points out that the recent influence of Hindu nationalism in Trinidad brings a more traditionally male-dominated ideology. The degree to which women take on traditional gender roles due to this influence, however, is unclear. 7. Guyana's leadership has alternated between the People's Progressive Party, a largely Indo-Guyanese party, and the People's National Congress, a largely Afro-Guyanese party. Similarly, in Trinidad the two major political parties are racially separated between the largely Indo-Trinidadian United National Congress and the largely Afro-Trinidadian People's National Movement. In both countries (especially Guyana), many elections have been contested and have resulted in increased racial tensions. 8. Another 10% marked Other. 9. In the 2000 Census a greater percentage of immigrants born in the West Indies identified racially as Asian Indian than did individuals who indicated anywhere in the West Indies as part of their ancestry, suggesting that some Indo-Caribbeans don't mark a West Indian category for their ancestry, and others don't mark Asian Indian for their race (US Census 2000). Some respondents in my study reported being instructed by community leaders to call themselves Asian when asked about race, indicating that the choice was not obvious to them. 10. Afro-Guyanese in New York may get subsumed into 'West Indian' or 'black' identity and hence excluded from 'Guyanese' in these accounts. The use of 'Guyanese' for Indo-Guyanese also calls into question the Census data indicating that only 17 per cent of Trinidadians and Guyanese in New York are Asian Indian. 11. I have changed the names of the high school, its surrounding neighbourhood, and my respondents, in the interest of confidentiality. 12. Many indicated more than one religion through parents of different religious backgrounds and conversions. In these cases I counted the religion that was predominant in a respondent's life, or both if two were equally present. Hence, the total number of religious identities is greater than the number of respondents. 13. Indo-Caribbean term for Hindu religious service. 14. The relationship between the Italian establishment and the more recently-arrived Indo-Caribbeans, and Punjabi Sikhs in Ethnictown has sometimes been contentious. In a much publicized 1998 incident, an Indo-Caribbean teenager was beaten unconscious by a group of Italian youths shouting racial epithets (Sengupta 1998). More recently, in July 2004 an elderly Sikh man was beaten unconscious by a group of five whites outside an Italian restaurant. 15. Another 29% identified with either more than one race or 'other' on the 2000 Census. 16. Soca is a blend of West Indian soul and calypso. Chutney soca blends soca with Hindi film songs and Indian folk songs. Bhangra is a traditional Punjabi folk style that has become quite popular in the young South Asian diaspora. Today, hip-hop beats are mixed into the fast bhangra beats, which has a particular style of dancing associated with it (for a description of the South Asian dance club scene in New York, see Maira (2002 Maira, Sunaina. 2002. Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture In New York City, Philadelphia: Temple University. [Google Scholar])). 17. School statistics provide no way of breaking down the black population between African Americans and immigrant and second-generation blacks. I met a significant number of both African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans at Harrison High. 18. Given the large number of Punjabi Sikhs in the area and the males' visibility from wearing turbans (and the small number of Bengalis), it is likely that the DJ incorrectly understood the Punjabis present to be Bengalis. This was quite surprising, given that most students (including non-South Asians) in the school knew that the East Indians in the school were mostly Punjabi. In fact, at Harrison High they were known simply as Punjabis, perhaps so as not to confuse them with the Indo-Caribbeans who sometimes were called Indian. 19. Bollywood is the nickname for Mumbai's (formerly known as 'Bombay') film industry. 20. A video store owner in Richmond Hill confirmed that girls more commonly rented and bought Hindi movies than boys. One respondent observed that even in Trinidad mostly girls watch Indian movies. 21. For example, in the recent release Om Jai Jagadish, the heroine is a traditional woman who always wears ethnically Indian clothes, speaks only Hindi, and follows her husband happily. The two evil women in the movie are clearly more Westernized. One, an Indian American woman (already fallen because she is American), marries an Indian man and fusses over needing clean water when she moves to India. The other, a real estate agent who sports pantsuits to go with her short hair, deceitfully sells off a traditional joint family's ancestral home for her own profit. 22. Although 'temple' is most commonly used in the US to refer to Hindu religious institutions, most Indo-Caribbean Hindu respondents used the term, 'mandir' (Hindi word for Hindu place of worship) or 'church' to refer to their places of worship. 23. Bindi is a form of make-up that South Asian women often wear. It comes in the form of a sticker placed on the forehead. Bindis, as well as ethnic clothing, are available in the South Asian shopping areas of New York City. 24. In addition to Punjab, East Indian students at Harrison were from Bangladesh and other parts of India and Pakistan. However, because many Punjabi Sikh students wore turbans, all East Indians were understood to be Punjabi, whether or not they wore turbans or were in fact Punjabi or Sikh. It is interesting to note that in Indian society Punjabi Sikh men have quite the opposite stereotype: formerly belonging to the warrior caste, they are seen as tough fighters, similar to the hypermasculine stereotype that African American men face in contemporary America. However, in the mixed school environment at Harrison, this hypermasculinity was not visible enough for young men to adopt it as an alternative form of toughness to the African American 'thug' image. 25. Note that East Indian students also keep Indo-Caribbeans at a distance. After seeing many girls dance to Hindi songs at the Harrison High School talent show, I sat down to lunch with some East Indian students. I asked them who the girls in the talent show were, and I was confidently told by Virender, a Punjabi Sikh who grew up in Kuwait until age 14 that They're not Indian. They're West Indian. 'How do you know? Are you sure?' I asked. Yeah, we're sure, replied Mona, Virender's Bangladeshi friend. Virender then explained, The [East] Indian girls are more…well, shy. From the tones of Virender and Mona's voices, I understood that they expected good, morally upstanding girls to be shy. 26. Identification with African American culture does not necessarily entail identification with or even acceptance of African American people. Indeed, Maira (2002 Maira, Sunaina. 2002. Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture In New York City, Philadelphia: Temple University. [Google Scholar]) finds that East Indian American youth appropriate black cultural styles while maintaining a sense of superiority towards African Americans. 27. Somewhat in contrast to the US, South Asians in the UK are predominantly Muslim (3.1% of England's population is Muslim; in contrast, 1.8% of the population is Hindu or Sikh (UK Census 2001)), and a stereotype of Islam placing severe restrictions on South Asian women seems to dominate over Indo-chic in the popular imagination of Great Britain (Brah 1996 Brah, Avtar. 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]; Gillborn and Gipps 1996 Gillborn, David and Caroline, Gipps. 1996. Recent Research on the Achievements of Ethnic Minority Pupils, London: Office for Standards in Education. [Google Scholar]). 28. Women do not just maintain culture in migrant communities; for example, in India itself, women much more commonly than men wear ethnic clothing to work and in the public sphere. More generally, the female figure often serves as the symbol of a nation—for example, Bharat Mata (Mother India) or Mother Earth. Additional informationNotes on contributorsNatasha WarikooNATASHA WARIKOO is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology, Harvard University
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