India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England PDF
Preview India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England
INDIA ABROAD INDIA ABROAD DIASPORIC CULTURES OF POSTWAR AMERICA AND ENGLAND Sandhya Shukla PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD COPYRIGHT2003BYPRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS PUBLISHEDBYPRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS,41WILLIAMSTREET, PRINCETON,NEWJERSEY08540 INTHEUNITEDKINGDOM:PRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS, 3MARKETPLACE,WOODSTOCK,OXFORDSHIREOX201SY ALLRIGHTSRESERVED LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA SHUKLA,SANDHYARAJENDRA. INDIAABROAD:DIASPORICCULTURESOFPOSTWARAMERICA ANDENGLAND/SANDHYASHUKLA. P. C.M. INCLUDESBIBLIOGRAPHICALREFERENCESANDINDEX. ISBN:0-691-09266-4(ALK.PAPER)—ISBN0-691-09267-2(PBK.:ALK.PAPER) 1.EASTINDIANS—UNITEDSTATES.2.EASTINDIANS—ENGLAND. 3.EASTINDIANS—FOREIGNCOUNTRIES.I.TITLE. E184.E2S582002 305.891'4041'09045—DC21 2002035550 BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATAISAVAILABLE THISBOOKHASBEENCOMPOSEDINSABON PRINTEDONACID-FREEPAPER.∞ WWW.PUPRESS.PRINCETON.EDU PRINTEDINTHEUNITEDSTATESOFAMERICA 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 For My Parents and For Tom CONTENTS INTRODUCTION GeographiesofIndianness 1 ONE HistoriesandNations 25 TWO LittleIndias,PlacesforIndianDiasporas 78 THREE AffiliationsandAscendancyofDiasporicLiterature 132 FOUR IndiainPrint,IndiaAbroad 175 FIVE GenerationsofIndianDiaspora 213 EPILOGUE PresentsandFutures 249 NOTES 253 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 303 INDEX 305 INDIA ABROAD INTRODUCTION GEOGRAPHIES OF INDIANNESS I NA“MILLENNIUMSUPPLEMENT,”theAugust1999issueofNa- tionalGeographicfeaturedasetofarticlesonglobalization.Onthe coverwasaphotographoftwoIndianwomen:onedressedinatradi- tionalsari,goldjewelry,andflowersandtheother,herdaughter,cladin a vinyl bodysuit (see fig. 1), with the title “Global Culture.” The same photographalsoappearedinsidethemagazine,withacaptionthatread, inpart,“SOPHISTICATEDLADIES.They’rewell-off,welleducated,widely traveled, fluent in several languages.... The global marketplace for goods,information,andstyleistheircornerstore.”1Thoughthewomen wereapparently“Indian,”thepicture’ssignificancewasdescribedbythe magazine’s editors in more global terms: “Goods move. People move. Ideas move. And cultures change.” We are in a new moment, suggests a magazine that has served as a prime vehicle for middlebrow cultural representation, and that moment can be read through a chaotic Indi- anness. Lest difference get out of control, readers in the United States have NationalGeographictohelpordertheirperceptions.2Remarkingonthe millenniumtheme,theeditorconfessedsomeanxietyaboutthegrowing association between globalization and cultural homogenization, while adding:“Butforthemoment,atleast,itisstillarrestingtoseethejuxtapo- sition of different societies, as men in Shanghai carry around a life-size MichaelJordancutoutoraLosAngelesartisanappliesOldWorldhenna designs to a woman’s hand.”3 And indeed, a kind of ironic, tongue-in- cheekdetachmentisthemoodoftheimagesinNationalGeographicthat suggest difference. Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh is suspended fromaropeinfrontofthefamousHollywoodsigninsouthernCalifornia inanimageappearingasidethetitle“AWorldTogether.”Inanotherpho- tograph,withacaptionnotingthesignificantpopulationofThaipeoples inLosAngeles,alargegroupoffullyrobedBuddhistmonkseatsbreakfast ataDenny’srestaurantamidseemingnonchalancefromotherdiners. About a third of the photographs accompanying the National Geo- graphicseriesfeaturesomekindofIndianness. Thisfact,alongwiththe decision to frame the issue with the image of the Indian mother and daughter,certainlypromptsustoconsiderthecentralroleofIndiannessin thebroaderproductionofinterpenetratingglobalism,wherenationalities comeintodirectcontactandyetremainhighlydiscrete.Anoverlypolar- 2 I N T R O D U C T I O N Figure1. TheNationalGeographicofIndiaonthemove (copyrightJoeMcNally). ized sense of the traditional and the modern, unsurprisingly, is signaled by the cover, in images—familiar and shocking—of exotic femininity. Heightened ironies are signaled by the appearance of Coca-Cola signs, tubesofColgatebrandtoothpaste,andaninflatableAmericanastronaut amid Mumbai’s shack houses, small villages, and a Bangalore shopping mall.JuxtapositionhereisavisualstrategythatgivesAmericathemark ofcommercialmodernity,andIndiaandothernon-Europeannationscul- tural(andeconomic)difference;thepenetrationsofeastbywest,aswell asofwestbyeast,retainsomemeasureofcontrast.Still,thephotoshint atthepossibilityofanationalIndiannessbeingreinventedthroughcom- moditycapitalismthatcanilluminatethegoverningthemeofgoodsand people moving, cultures changing. Dislocations and reconstructions of India in a global context begin to expand the field of representational possibilities,even beyondthecategoriesof “here”and“there” inwhich themagazinetraffics. India onthe move andIndianness remadeare central concernsof this book.WhileNationalGeographiccannothelpbutexhibitresidualinter- estintheprojectofidentifyingwherethenationanditsculturesare,India Abroad seeks to thoroughly disturb that sensibility by explaining how migrant cultures express global belonging in multiple national spheres.4 EchoingamajorIndianimmigrantnewspaperinNewYork,Iusethetitle G E O G R A P H I E S O F I N D I A N N E S S 3 “IndiaAbroad”toevokeamobileand dynamicnationthattakesshape inspacesfarremovedfromaterritorialstate. India,thisbook’s“national geographic” is thus not a precise location of homeland, nor a singular motivating impulse, but instead a heterogeneous imaginary that draws energyfromhistoricalformationsofcolonialismandpostcolonialism,dis- coursesofdiversity,andexercisesofbureaucraticpower. Likeallnations,Indiaisfreightedasmuchwithmetaphoricalpossibil- ityaswithgeopoliticalpresence.Secure,now,intheinsightthatthenation hasalways beenunderproduction,scholars inSouthAsian studieshave beenabletodevelopsophisticatedanalysesofcomplexsocialformations andculturesofresistance.5Sinceworkonimmigrantshasneededtoover- comethefixationonlandsofsettlementasdefiningitsobject,andstudies ofdiasporahavetakennationtomeanhomeland,therehasbeenagreat dealofemphasisonhowIndianmigrantsdeveloprelationshipswiththe Indian nation-state.6 But some of the constructedness, the fictiveness, of nation in cultures of migration can be lost when Indians are too thor- oughlylinkedwiththeircountryoforigin.Certainlyassociationsbetween Indians and the Indian state abound, in transnational capital flows, in politicalmovements,andinsocialrelations,buttheargumentImakehere is that the excesses of “India” in the space of Indian diaspora suggest morethanlong-distancenationalism.Isuggestthatitisthroughabroadly symbolicIndiathatIndianscanseethemselves notonlyasnationalsub- jectsofamodernworld,butalsoascitizensofpostwarUnitedStatesand England—nations that themselves are undergoing processes of recon- struction. As India is built abroad in what we might see as the “contact zones”7 of migrant cultures in unstable first-world spaces, a new set of discoursesforcitizenshipandsubjectivityarecreated.Ultimatelyadiffer- ent sensibility of how one can live in a multicultural space is performed notonlyforIndians,butalsoforotherAmericanandBritishpeoples. There are 1.7million people in theUnited States today whoclaim In- diandescent.8Whilethenumberitselfissignificant,evenmorestrikingis how recently the migrations that created this heterogeneous population tookplace:largelyafter1965,whentheImmigrationandNaturalization Actwaspassedtocreatelessraciallydiscriminatorystandardsforentry. England’sIndianpopulationiscloseto1million,ahugeportionofwhich is attributable to migrations after the mid-1950s; at 1.9 percent of the population, it represents the largest ethnic minority.9 The Indian immi- grant, in both the United States and England, is a presence in daily life, in urban and suburban residential communities, in business and educa- tion, and even in politics. The postwar period, of roughly fifty years, in whichIndiannesshasbecomelocallyvisibleandrecognized,hasbeenone of quite dramatic transformations in the world: massive movements of peoples,theunfoldingconsequencesofcolonialismandpostcolonialism,
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