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East Indians as Familiars and Partial Others in New York

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02757206.2012.649033

1477-2612

Narmala Halstead,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Abstract This article provides accounts on Guyanese East Indians in New York to consider particular problems of migrant belonging. Prior to migration, these migrants did not generally understand America to be a site that would overemphasize their ethnic identities or position them as outsiders. In the Guyanese homeland, East Indians negotiate between distinctive and non-distinctive identities which allow them to be familiars beyond the group and to belong within a redefined West. However, in the migrant setting, these spaces shift through the ways different aspects of migrants' identities are newly privileged. This shift insufficiently considers the ways East Indians belonged through contrasting contexts in Guyana and overburdens women and young people to maintain a cultural boundary. East Indians draw on past practices of being critical of each other to engage with and/or overturn the ways they appear in fixed categories of authentic culture or decadence. In these unexpected forms of belonging, they re-position themselves as partial others to critique and/or to become "newly exotic". Keywords: East IndiansNew YorkGuyanaMigrantsAuthenticity Notes In one instance, there is a performance of culture as "religious-ritualistic" expressions based on the expectations of a remembered past (see Knowles 2009 Knowles, R. 2009. "Performing Intercultural Memory". In The Diasporic Present: The Case of Toronto. In Performance, Embodiment and Cultural Memory, Edited by: Counsell, C. and Mock, R. 16–40. NewCastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. [Google Scholar]) and a performance in relation to everyday settings (see Goffman 1969 Goffman, E. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, London: The Penguin Press. (1969) [1959] [Google Scholar] [1959]). The idea of performativity in this article "extracts" an identity that is both publicly ritualistic and a critique of those expressions. Thus, while there is a performance in terms of certain rituals and a performance in relation to everyday settings, both these settings are marked by "appreciation" of the ways particular identities emerge. East Indians step back to observe this space even while being a part of it. This self-knowledge and critique contributes to a different assemblage of performance as part of everyday settings beyond the presentation of self. It is how the self cannot be recognized in everyday settings: these expressions are attempts to isolate, integrate and/or question different aspects of their identities. In the process, East Indians also note the performative spaces which emerge. The term "America" is variously applied in this article and follows the usage by East Indians. This extends a bounded idea of West where East Indians inhabit a Western social imaginary. In related interactions, Foner notes that Jamaicans in New York saw themselves both as distinct from Afro-Americans and as being able to have better relations with Whites than the Afro-Americans were able to have (1998: 178). Thus, the emphasis on their ethnicity was a new experience for the Jamaicans in the migrant setting. This may be further considered in terms of how young people from different groups find a common space of belonging through their interactions with American brands and by de-emphasizing ethnicity as discussed in Halstead (2002 Halstead, N. 2002. Branding perfection: Foreign as self; self as 'foreign-foreign'. Journal of Material Culture, 7(3): 273–293. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Similarly, the description of Guyanese as "twice migrants" to the USA (see Khandelwal 2002 Khandelwal, M. 2002. Becoming American, Being Indian: An Immigrant Community in New York City, New York: Cornell University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 30; cf. Bhachu 1985 Bhachu, P. 1985. Twice Migrants: East African Sikh Settlers in Britain, London: Tavistock Publications. [Google Scholar]) on the basis of being the descendants of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Indian immigrants would bear some rethinking: these origins do not allow for a homogenous collectivity. The focus here differs, for instance, from Sanjek's work on another Queens locality, Elmhurst–Corona, which brings out how different groups participate to allow for political inclusivity (2000). It also differs from studies which consider the ambiguity of racial or ethnic self-categorization as contested claims of belonging in particular ethnic groups (see, for instance, Abe 2006 Abe, K. 2006. Identities and racism of Puerto Rican migrants in New York City: An introductory essay. Transforming Anthropology, 14(1): 83–88. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Chain migration of families from Guyana greatly defined the re-settlement in Richmond Hill and nearby localities. See Alison Shaw (2000 Shaw, A. 2000. A Pakistani Community in Britain, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd. [Google Scholar]: 27) for related discussions on Pakistanis in Britain. See Halstead (2008b Halstead, N. 2008b. Violence past and present. 'Mati' and 'non-Mati' people. History and Anthropology, 19(2): 115–129. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) for discussions on how ethnic tensions were politically orchestrated and the ways Indian distinctiveness was culturally performed both to affirm a separate culture and to include outsiders (see also Halstead 2009 Halstead, N. 2009. A landscape of respect relations. Television, Status, Houses, Home Cultures, 6(1): 19–41. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, in Guyana, the USA is seen as a privileged migrant destination (see Halstead 2002 Halstead, N. 2002. Branding perfection: Foreign as self; self as 'foreign-foreign'. Journal of Material Culture, 7(3): 273–293. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In the mid-1990s, the idea of America decadence arose through the televising of a soap opera, The Young and the Restless, although this decadence as being specifically American was contested. This extends the idea of difference as bodily inscribed in terms of constructions of sex and gender (see Morris 1995 Morris, R. C. 1995. All made up: Performance theory and the new anthropology of sex and gender. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24(1): 567–592. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) to bring out the construct of persons as those different from ethnic and cultural bodies. See Amit (2002 Amit, V. 2002. Realizing Community. Concepts, Social Relationships and Sentiments, Edited by: Amit, V. London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) for a conceptual revision of community, discussion of its contested nature and accounts on its continuing viability as a shared set of experiences. They noted that this term allowed respondents to bypass the dualism of what being American meant to them. "A 'New York' identity embraced the dynamic cultural activities familiar to them, but not necessarily the larger white society" (2002: 1034). Everyday wear is typically shirts and trousers. The traditional wear is the Indian Kurta and dhoti. Official caste was eroded in the then British Guiana in the nineteenth century shortly after the arrival of East Indians (Jayawardena 1963 Jayawardena, C. 1963. Conflict and Solidarity on a Guianese Plantation, London: Athlone Press. [Google Scholar]; Smith 1996 Smith, R. 1996. The Matrifocal Family, Power, Pluralism and Politics, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]: 9). In this regard, the explicit boundary between a traditional migrant self and an American other is collapsed. In the case of migrants from India, there is a different emphasis on tradition and "becoming American" in Khandelwal's accounts where she notes "…few women were inclined to reject wholesale their cultural traditions for American social patterns and values" (2002: 124). Religious festivals are officially acknowledged and certain areas are cordoned off for the celebration of particular festivals. This is a Guyanese term for a long, complicated account. By virtue of its development into a tangled narrative, it has also entered into the language as an account which challenges the listener's ability to hold attention or to accept it unquestioningly where "real life" can appear as fiction. The story here brings out both this complicated narrative and the efforts of those who are watching it unfold to distance their "real lives" from it. Pseudonyms are used. There are tremendous changes in Guyana with an increasing focus on prosecution for domestic violence in 2010. Men, however, have a role to maintain respect in communal settings through their public attitudes. Common-law unions are seen as "proper marriages" where these have been conducted through religious rites in Guyana: US sponsorship requirements have brought this practice into question, particularly for older couples who married before religious practitioners were widely licensed to conduct marriages. A lime or liming has disreputable connotations in the respectability–reputation dichotomy in the Caribbean (see Miller 1994 Mintz, S. W. 1996. Enduring substances, trying theories: The Caribbean region as Oikoumene. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2(2): 289–311. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 171; Olwig 1995 Olwig, K. F. 1995. Global Culture, Island Identity: Continuity and Change in the Afro-Caribbean Community of Nevis, Philadelphia, PA: Harwood Academic Publishers. [Google Scholar]: 69; Wilson 1969 Wilson, P. 1969. Reputation and respectability: A suggestion for Caribbean ethnology. Man, 4(1): 70–84. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]): the term explicates particular forms of wildness for those who have strayed from Victorian morality. In more recent times, this activity has also gained acceptance as a form of socializing (see also Eriksen 1990 Eriksen, T. 1990. Liming in Trinidad: The art of doing nothing. Folk, 32 [Online] available at http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Liming.html (accessed 10 June 2008) [Google Scholar]; Halstead 2009 Halstead, N. 2009. A landscape of respect relations. Television, Status, Houses, Home Cultures, 6(1): 19–41. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). They have since moved out of the locality.