Thesis
Racial incorporation of Asian Indian immigrants in the United States
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2012
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/101599
Abstract
Previous immigrant literature has shown that Asian Indians migrating to the United States after the 1965 immigration laws reform had high level of education, which helped them to achieve high occupational positions. They gained entry into the most affluent segments of the U.S. society and a nomination as a model minority. However, none of the existing literature, whether in communication or other disciplines, examined the racial incorporation of this community. In recent years, scholars suggested that the landscape of racial/ethnic categories is shifting, primarily due to the increasing numbers of immigrants threatening the future dominance of the white majority. Therefore, to remain dominant, the white majority is expanding its racial boundaries, thereby transforming/appropriating non-black minorities into the majority group status. To understand the identity construction of the Asian Indian immigrants in the United States, this study uses the framework of racial incorporation and intercultural translation to analyze how immigrant identities are incorporated in a manner that racial advantage is propagated through temporal, cultural, and situated processes of absorption within the dominant racial formations. Twenty-eight Asian Indian immigrants were interviewed. The interviews were semi-structured, open-ended and in-depth. The interviews were taped totaling approximately 45 hours of interview and 320 single spaced pages of transcription. The transcripts were analyzed through discourse analysis. The findings demonstrate that the Asian Indian participants strategically constructed their identity to claim closeness to whites and differentiated themselves from non- whites in order to create a superior subject position in the U.S. structured racial formation. Further, it demonstrated that the participants aligned themselves with whiteness in their perceptions of other non-white groups.
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Details
- Title
- Racial incorporation of Asian Indian immigrants in the United States
- Creators
- Somava Pande
- Contributors
- Jolanta Drzewiecka (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525145401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis