Ethnic routes to becoming American : Indian immigrants and the cultures of citizenship / / Sharmila Rudrappa

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910973589103321
• Autore: Rudrappa Sharmila <1966->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New Brunswick, NJ, : Rutgers University Press, c2004
• ISBN: 0-8135-5613-9; 0-8135-3638-3
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (251 p.)
• Disciplina: 305.891/4073
• Soggetti: East Indian Americans - Cultural assimilation; East Indian Americans - Politics and government; East Indian Americans - Social conditions; Immigrants - Political activity - United States; Immigrants - United States - Social conditions; Citizenship - United States
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-231) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1: Introduction: Locating South Asian Americans -- Chapter 2: Finding Our Home in This World: Abuse Survivors in Apna Ghar -- Chapter 3: Workers at Apna Ghar -- Chapter 4: The Indo American Center: "Integrating the Best of Both Cultures" -- Chapter 5: The Politics of Cultural Authenticity -- Chapter 6: Becoming American: The Racialized Content of American Citizenship -- Chapter 7: Not White in Public, Not Ethnic at Home -- Chapter 8: The Cultural Turn in Politics and Community Organizing -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author.
• Sommario/riassunto: How does an immigrant become an ethnic American? And does American society fundamentally alter because of these newcomers? In Ethnic Routes to Becoming American , Sharmila Rudrappa examines the paths South Asian immigrants in Chicago take toward assimilation in the late twentieth-century United States, where deliberations on citizenship rights are replete with the politics of recognition. She takes us inside two ethnic institutions, a battered women's shelter, Apna Ghar, and a cultural organization, the Indo American Center, to show ; how immigrant activism, which brings cultural difference into public sphere debates, ironically abets these immigrants' assimilation. She interlaces ethnographic details with political-philosophical debates on the politics of recognition and redistribution. In this study on the under-researched topic of the incorporation of South Asian immigrants into the American polity, Sharmila Rudrappa compels us to rethink ethnic activism, participatory democracy, and nation-building processes.