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Title: Living in America by Roshni Rustomji-Kerns, Rashmi Sharma ISBN: 0-8133-2378-9 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: April, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: Great!!!
Comment: For centuries, people from the Indian subcontinent have been on the move. They migrated to Southeast Asia and East Asia as emissaries of trade and religion. They traveled to the outposts of the British Empire in Africa, the Caribbean, Guyana, and the Pacific Islands as indentured laborers. They journeyed to North America as students and swamis, laborers and merchants.
Living in America offers snapshots of the South Asian diaspora in North America. Written with panache and passion, some of the experiences strike a resonant chord in the soul of the reader. Bapsi Sidhwa, for instance, wryly narrates harrowing encounters with American immigration officials. Kirin Narayan evokes the remorse and anguish of the native, returning from the motherland. Javaid Qazi examines the psyche of the unemployed professional, a victim of corporate downsizing. Chitra Divakaruni poignantly recalls the plight of poor Sikh laborers in California at the turn of the century.
Particularly outstanding vignettes deal with culture conflict; not the traditional conflict between the dominant white culture and the immigrant value system but an interesting variation of the old theme, namely, the clash of values between South Asian immigrants and South Asian-Americans.
Minal Hajratwala pleads with immigrant parents for compassion and acceptance of their bisexual offspring. Tahira Naqvi depicts the betrayal and shame of a Pakistani family when their daughter weds an American boy. Jyotsna Sreenivasan portrays the frustrations of an Indian-American school girl with a classmate just arrived from India. Rajini Srikanth captures the anger and tension that emanate from a South Asian American woman seeking space and privacy from her immigrant counterpart.
The writings in this anthology are not gut-wrenching "ghetto" tales or soul-searing "barrio" experiences. Instead, they reflect the yearnings and concerns of a predominantly middle class, English speaking, educated South Asian community straddling two cultures and struggling to define its identity.
While the ethnic profile bolsters popular stereotypes of the model minority, it doesn't quite explain their relative anonymity in the social fabric of American life. Does the low social visibility of South Asian- Americans imply successful assimilation? Did the acculturation process begin in the American universities, where most of them spent their initial years? Or, is it a marginalized existence of accommodation without assimilation?
Demographic changes have made it harder for South Asians to maintain a low profile. The more recent immigrants are often not as well educated as the relatives who sponsored them. On arrival, they enter the work force, eschewing university life for a paycheck. Many end up as service providers, driving taxicabs and manning toll-booths, making them vulnerable to racial confrontation. A more insidious change stems from the aging of the community. As more retired professionals join the ranks of senior citizens, what will their twilight years be like in America?
Perhaps the next anthology will reflect these shifting trends and the response of the South Asian-American community to the new challenges
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Title: Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell ISBN: 0345383958 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 10 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0140157379 Publisher: Granta Books Pub. Date: November, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin ISBN: 067974472X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Playing In The Dark : Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison ISBN: 0679745424 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 27 July, 1993 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by Dalai Lama, Howard C. Cutler ISBN: 1573221112 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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