
Unruly Immigrants
Rights, Activism, and Transnational South Asian Politics in the United States
Monisha Das Gupta(Author)
Duke University Press
Will be published approx. on 31. October 2006
Book
Hardback
336 pages
978-0-8223-3858-1 (ISBN)
Description
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.
Reviews / Votes
"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)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-3858-1 (9780822338581)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Monisha Das Gupta
Unruly Immigrants
Rights, Activism, and Transnational South Asian Politics in the United States
E-Book
10/2006
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€208.99
Available for download
Person
Monisha Das Gupta is Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies at the University of Hawai'i.
Content
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Encounters 1
1. Terms of Belonging 27
2. Contests over Culture 56
3. Law and Oppression 82
4. "Owning Our Lives": Women's Organizations 109
5. Subverting Seductions: Queer Organizations 159
6. "Know Your Place in History": Labor Organizations 208
Conclusion 237
Notes 261
Works Cited 275
Index 299
Introduction: Encounters 1
1. Terms of Belonging 27
2. Contests over Culture 56
3. Law and Oppression 82
4. "Owning Our Lives": Women's Organizations 109
5. Subverting Seductions: Queer Organizations 159
6. "Know Your Place in History": Labor Organizations 208
Conclusion 237
Notes 261
Works Cited 275
Index 299