Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second Generation South Asians [1 ed.] 9781593327347, 9781593326203

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The New Americans Recent Immigration and American Society

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Edited by Steven J. Gold and Rubén G. Rumbaut

A Series from LFB Scholarly Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second Generation South Asians

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Rifat Anjum Salam

LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC El Paso 2014 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Salam, Rifat Anjum, 1970Negotiating tradition, becoming American : family, gender, and autonomy for second generation South Asians / Rifat Anjum Salam. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-59332-620-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. South Asian Americans--Social conditions. 2. South Asians-United States--Social conditions. 3. Assimilation (Sociology)--United States. 4. Family--United States. I. Title. E184.S69S25 2014 305.891'4073--dc23 2013029802

ISBN 978-1-59332-620-3 Printed on acid-free 250-year-life paper. Manufactured in the United States of America.

Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

Table of Contents List of Tables ...................................................................................... vii  List of Figures ....................................................................................... ix  Acknowledgements ............................................................................... xi  CHAPTER 1: Introduction: Second Generation South Asians: Negotiating Tradition and Becoming American ............. 1  CHAPTER 2: Perspectives on Assimilation ........................................ 27  CHAPTER 3: Contradictory Childhoods: Family Dilemmas and Strategies ...................................................................... 61  CHAPTER 4: The Neo-Traditional Pathway ....................................... 89  CHAPTER 5: The Independence Pathway ........................................ 129  CHAPTER 6: The Ethnic Rebellion Pathway ................................... 177 

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CHAPTER 7: Conclusion: Family, Gender and the Second Generation .................................................................. 213  Appendix A: Methodological Notes .................................................. 227  Appendix B: Interview Schedule ....................................................... 233  Bibliography .................................................................................... 239  Index

.................................................................................... 249 

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List of Tables Table 4.1  Table 5.1 

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Table 6.1 

Factors influencing subjects on the neo-traditional life pathway .................................................................... 96  Factors influencing subjects on the independence life pathway ........................................................................ 139  Factors influencing subjects on the ethnic rebellion pathway. ....................................................................... 180 

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List of Figures Second generation baselines and outcomes. ................... 49 

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Figure 2.1 

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Acknowledgements This book is about the experiences of people who (like me) grew up with their feet in two cultures, navigating the expectations of American society while holding on to the cultural values and practices that gave us important meaning throughout our lives. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the subjects of this study, the women and men who took time away from their busy schedules to share their life experiences with me. Their generosity of time and their voices made this research project possible. I would also like to thank Professor Kathleen Gerson who guided me and encouraged me to write this book. Thanks also to Ruth Horowitz and Arlene Skolnick who provided invaluable guidance and insightful comments and suggestions. Support for the development of the book was received through a Faculty Development Grant from the Borough of Manhattan Community College-The City University of New York. I am grateful to the series editors, Stephen J. Gold and Ruben G. Rumbaut, for giving me the opportunity to share this research with a wider audience and for their helpful suggestions. Thanks also to Leo Balk, my editor at LFB Scholarly for his help and patience. My friends and family provided me with hours of encouragement, suggestions and support of all kinds. Thanks beyond words are owed to my parents, Sarwar Salam and Morshed Jahan Salam, for their love and unfailing support. My sister Anjum Salam deserves special recognition for the hours of valuable editing expertise and her substantive suggestions. Thanks also to my brother Reihan Salam, my aunt Sumshed Jahan, and my friends April Moore and Madhusree Chowdhury for their encouragement. My colleagues at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Elizabeth Wissinger, Sangeeta Bishop, and especially Robin Isserles, deserve recognition for their advice and encouragement. Finally I would like to thank my husband, David Fidler and my sons, Benjamin and Kaihan for their love, support, and understanding through every stage of this journey.

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Second Generation South Asians: Negotiating Tradition and Becoming American

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The more tradition loses its hold, and the more daily life is reconstituted in terms of the dialectical interplay of the local and the global, the more individuals are forced to negotiate lifestyle choices among a diversity of options. (Giddens 1991:5) In the thirty years since the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the United States has experienced a dramatic shift in its demographic landscape. Scholarship on this wave of immigration initially examined the experiences of the immigrants but then turned its attention to the experiences of the second generation, whose life experiences offer a window into the intersection of immigrant cultures and mainstream expectations. Unlike second generations of the past, the experiences of the post-1965 second generation have been shaped by a mainstream culture changed by the Civil Rights movement, multiculturalism, and transnational movements of people and cultural products. The nature of assimilation has changed, and the second generation experience reflects changing assumptions about what it means to be American. This study examines the ways in which one second generation group “becomes American” by analyzing their family experiences, dating and marriage choices, and the ways in which they negotiate between the culture of their immigrant parents and mainstream expectations around individualism, autonomy and the negotiation of mainstream gender norms. In much of the history of the United States, the second generation experience has been typically characterized by a push towards assimilation to the dominant Anglo-American mainstream. A number of factors, including the receptivity of the mainstream to the immigrant group, the group’s socioeconomic profile, and their allegiance to their ethnic group, influence the experiences of second generation individuals. Classic theories of assimilation focused on the struggle and 1 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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conflict inherent in the adaptation and acculturation process, but they also argued that immigrants eventually replace their ethnic culture and values with those of the dominant U.S. culture (Gordon 1964). The latter stages in this process of assimilation involved adopting mainstream cultural values and practices while rejecting the culture and values of their parents, culminating in marital assimilation, which was thought to be a measure of full assimilation into the mainstream. If marrying outside of the ethnic group signifies the final stage of assimilation, the choice of a partner, and the way the choice is made, reflects the forces shaping the assimilation process. This raises an important question about the nature of these marriage choices—does the ethnicity of partners determine the “Americanness” of the second generation individual? The analysis in this book suggests that it is only one potential element in the assimilation process and that an individual’s adoption of mainstream mate selection strategies, gender norms, and their sense of autonomy more fully represent what happens in the lives of the second generation under study. Much of the late twentieth century literature in the study of immigrant experiences focuses on the shifting meanings of assimilation and the impact of race, class, and socioeconomic context on second generation immigrants (Gans 1992; Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Portes and Zhou 1993; Waters 1996; Waldinger and Perlman 1998; Zhou and Bankston 1996; Kibria 1997). Large-scale studies of the “new” second generation reveal broad trends on economic prospects and educational attainment, while in-depth research has focused on the process of ethnic identity formation. While not explicitly addressing assimilation processes, more recent analysis of the experiences of Asian Americans and South Asian Americans have framed them within the larger framework of racial and sociopolitical contexts (Chou and Feagin 2008; Prashad 2012). While early studies provided a picture of second generation experiences and the processes by which they experience ethnic identity, they did not address the ways in which personal life decisions are linked to structural constraints and opportunities and the individuals’ subjective understandings of objective life choices. This study moves beyond the scope of much assimilation research by connecting the process of “becoming American” to questions about autonomy and individualism versus tradition and family and how these tensions play

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out in the second generation experience. The central question is: how are “American” ideals of individualism and autonomy reconciled with “ethnic” ideals of family, tradition and group loyalty? What are the ways in which parents and family experiences influence the paths that individuals take and why are some paths straightforward while others diverge? Why do certain individuals choose to accept, adapt, consider or reject some version of arranged marriage? Why do some people choose American-style dating while others choose more parentallyapproved ways of finding a mate? How do parents and families deal with gender and what strategies do parents and their children employ to work out the gender dilemmas created by contradictory expectations? Finally, how do individuals reconcile the contradictions between family loyalty and individual autonomy? Tradition may indeed be losing its hold, but it has not disappeared as much as reemerged as something to be chosen and negotiated to serve the needs of its adherents. This project, an in-depth study of the experiences of second generation South Asians, addresses these questions through the analysis of individual life narratives. These life stories illustrate the complexities of the adaptation experiences of this post-1965 second generation. The study explores the ways in which individuals negotiate ethnic identity and American identity through the lens of dating and marital mate selection. The choices these individuals make and the life pathways they take, whether heavily ethnic-identified or more assimilated, provide a deeper understanding of the assimilation process in a post-multicultural society. These choices reveal the role of family resources and strategies and the role of gender as an integral part of the assimilation process. It also contributes to an understanding of how individuals negotiate autonomy given considerable cultural contradictions between traditional and mainstream expectations. Acculturation, assimilation, and ethnic identity formation are rooted in the experiences of individuals thereby making the in-depth examination of these individual experiences critical to understanding these processes within the individual contexts in which they occur. There are many paths taken by the new second generation and it is important to study the larger economic and structural forces which shape them. However, these paths are taken by individuals and it is the goal of this study to understand why they “choose” these routes and how they navigate them. This examination provides a window into why and how those

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paths are taken to reveal the impact of broader social and structural contexts on individual life choices. The second generation cohort who comprise the subjects of this study have been called the “children of 1965” since they are the children of the first wave of immigrants from South Asia. They have come of age in a period of considerable social change in the United States and their experiences reflect the changes that have occurred in mainstream society at large. As Alba and Nee (2003) propose in their study of the contemporary American mainstream, the assimilation of immigrants has reshaped the American mainstream in the past and the mainstream is once again in the process of being reshaped culturally, institutionally and demographically. As part of the new second generation, South Asian Americans are part of this process. While on the surface, South Asians may appear to be a group that resists “full” assimilation, an exploration of their personal life choices, specifically their choices about dating and marriage, reveal them to indeed be assimilating to the mainstream. This study demonstrates that there are many versions of “American-ness” that the second generation may adopt and different understandings of autonomy they may share in their path to “becoming American.” While assimilation is ostensibly part of second generation life trajectories, this study uncovers an even more basic understanding of how individuals and families negotiate between autonomy and independence, love versus duty, and individual versus collective goals. Many immigrant parents attempt to insure family loyalty through careful and intensive ethnic socialization and many of their children choose to adapt traditional expectations in their adult life choices. Other individuals with similar upbringings will nominally consider tradition while others still reject it outright. Most subjects, traditional or otherwise, favored a high degree of personal autonomy in their adult life choices. The way that they differed was how they framed their sense of autonomy and the factors that influenced their choices, whether it was parental expectations or career demands. South Asians are viewed as a group that exerts tremendous effort to maintain their distinct cultural patterns. Given the intense ethnic socialization that many of the subjects of this study received and the considerable social capital provided by ethnic community resources, there appear to be two possible outcomes for the second generation.

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The most common outcome one might predict would be that the majority of second generation South Asians would adopt a “traditional” adult life orientation in their personal lives by favoring some form of arranged marriage while they conduct their educational and career lives in line with mainstream American expectations in order to achieve upward mobility. The other outcome would be that some will diverge from this pattern as rebels who reject this tradition and abandon a strong sense of ethnic identity and find themselves isolated from the ethnic community. This study shows that the experiences are much more nuanced and that these assumptions reflect a very surface understanding of the South Asian American experience.

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Why South Asians?: Research Subjects and Research Questions The choices and attitudes towards intermarriage or within group marriage (endogamy) yields insight into the nature of group boundaries and the nature of marriage and family norms of the parents’ and mainstream culture. Intimate relationships, particularly marriage, reflect the boundaries that separate groups in society, including the extent to which the majority group accepts members of an immigrant group. While studies of the rates and trends of intermarriage and outmarriage investigate this phenomenon on a macro-level, this study investigates the micro-level social processes and institutions that influence the strategies that the second generation adopts. This analysis uncovers the connection between dating and marriage choices and the larger process of assimilation by specifically focusing on autonomy versus collectivist ideals in the mate selection process. Examining the adoption, adaptation or rejection of traditional arranged marriage provides a lens through which to analyze the institutional contexts within which these choices are made and how they are connected to individuals’ understandings of autonomy and individualism. The decision to choose partners outside or within one’s ethnic group is also connected to the individual’s adoption or rejection of the American values of autonomy and individualism. South Asians provide an instructive case study because their marriage norms, centered around the practice of arranged marriage, are diametrically opposed to the American ideology of love and marriage as individual choices made by independent adults. How the second generation navigates this fundamental clash of cultures reveals the broader contours of the

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assimilation process. Indeed, the uniqueness of their cultural practices highlight “normal” American cultural practices in much the same way as a deviant case analysis reveals the characteristics of the normative. Immigrants from South Asia possess distinct cultural characteristics that are at times at odds with mainstream American culture. They have attempted to reconstitute themselves and their families within the context of a pluralistic society that increasingly accepts, and at times celebrates, ethnic diversity. Research on immigrants from South Asia, which until the early 2000s has focused almost exclusively on Asian Indians, has generally addressed the experiences of first generation immigrants and their educational and occupational success. It also emphasize their tendency to retain their ethnic traditions, language and religious practices. More recent studies document the nature of the second generation South Asian experience and especially ethnic identity formation. Sharmila Rudrappa (2002) examined identity and citizenship and the notion of “Indianness” in the American context. Bandana Purkayastha (2005) explored the ways in which second generation South Asians negotiate their ethnic identity through deliberate choices within their social structural and cultural contexts. Outside the social sciences, literary studies have looked at the impact of cultural products and literary works in the lives of first and second generation South Asians in a larger globalized and racialized context (Jain 2011; Mani 2012; Sharma 2010). While understanding the formations and choices made by individuals in identity construction is important, this research focuses on how the second generation creates, recreates, and transforms ethnic traditions and ethnic group boundaries specifically through their attitudes and choices about mate selection and marriage. By examining life narratives and the diversity of life choices made by the second generation, this study demonstrates how relationship choices reflect the embeddedness of the second generation experience within the larger social, economic and cultural milieu of the United States. Over the last decade, a shift has occurred from studying Asian Indians to studying South Asians. In part, this is an academic response to social activism in the context of American multicultural politics. And while the majority of South Asian immigrants are from India, a substantial minority, especially in the later waves of immigration, is from other nations of the subcontinent, making the South Asian

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category a more inclusive one. The idea of “South Asian American” is itself a recent, second-generation construction, referring to an enormously diverse group. Indian immigrants alone constitute a variety of different linguistic and religious groups. However, some research suggests that there is a unified sense of “Indian-ness” that immigrant parents wish to give to their children (Lessinger 1995). In her study of Hindu immigrant families, Kurien (1997) found that parents transmit and reinforce language, food preferences, and attitudes towards family through their participation in religious groups and activities. Immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh have a similar desire to “ethnically” socialize their children with the second generation developing a distinct sense of identity around religion and national origin (Mohammad-Arif 2002; Rahman 2011). As stated earlier, until recently, most studies of South Asian immigrants have described the experiences of Indian immigrants. The majority of South Asian immigrants are from India, and until the 1980s, there were relatively few immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh. While they may be generalized to represent the experiences of other immigrants from the Indian subcontinent because they share a common colonial history and have similar cultural practices, studies of South Asian immigrants need to include subjects from other countries to examine what differences there may be, particularly because of the differences between Muslims and Hindus. Studies have found that Indian immigrants in the United States and Canada have retained many aspects of their native culture, especially their values concerning the family, children, marriage and religion (Agarwal 1991; Segal 1991; Khandelwal 2002; Lessinger 1995; Leonard 1997). This has also been true of the transplantation of Indian gender ideologies that persist despite the prevalence of Indian women in professional and academic fields (Agarwal 1991). South Asian families have a gender and age hierarchy that places the father at the top and emphasizes modesty, humility and obedience to parents, particularly in female children (Lessinger 1995; Das and Kemp 1997; Dasgupta 1998; Segal 1998). Kaari Flagstad Baluja’s (2003) research on Bangladeshi immigrants suggests that gender role attitudes are linked to a complex array of variables, including social class, human capital, religiosity, and migration experiences.

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Individual experiences of gender role expectations vary however, in range from the extremely patriarchal to quite egalitarian (Ibrahim and Ohnishi 1997). For the second generation, gendered expectations and gender ideology are a significant aspect of individual’s experience of identity construction and intergenerational negotiations (Das Gupta 1997; Purkayastha 2005; Manohar 2008). While these studies have documented a varied range of gender role expectations in immigrant families, they have not explored the reasons for the variations and how families have developed gender strategies to adapt to their new structural circumstances, a process which will be analyzed in depth in the examination of the family experiences of the subjects of this study. Immigrants from India are overwhelmingly Hindu, with some Sikhs, Muslims, and Christians, whereas those from Pakistan and Bangladesh are primarily Muslim. As part of the British Empire, the region was one political entity with a myriad of different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. The nation-states of the subcontinent have been independent political entities for little over sixty years (and in the case of Bangladesh, just over forty) but have managed to create national identities that are meaningful to first generation immigrants. A history of wars and antagonism between India and Pakistan also contributes to a feeling of distance between immigrants from these nations. While there are many differences between immigrants from India and those from Pakistan or Bangladesh that need to be addressed in research, South Asian immigrant families as a whole may also have similar experiences and dilemmas as there are similarities in the cultural practices and value systems of immigrants from South Asia. The practice of arranged marriage and traditional gender ideology transcends geo-political borders. While small numbers of migrants from India immigrated to the United States in the 19th century, the vast majority of South Asians arrived in the post-1965 period with several waves from the decade following the Immigration Act of 1965 to the present. The subjects of this study are the children of that first wave of post-1965 immigrants. They represent a cohort of ethnic pioneers who established many of the ethnic organizations, community resources, and religious institutions that continue to serve their needs and the needs of successive immigrant cohorts. They are also a uniquely class homogenous cohort due to the nature of post-1965 immigration laws. Given the nature of

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immigration laws and the characteristics of early immigrants, with only two exceptions, the subjects of this study are middle and upper middle class professionals or entrepreneurs and not surprisingly were themselves in a similar class position to their parents. It is important to emphasize the class homogeneity of this population and the sample for this study because their experiences may not reflect the experiences of working class or poor South Asians whose experiences are likely to be mitigated by economic and social circumstances from which this group was largely removed. The term “second generation” refers to the children of South Asian immigrants. While the majority of the subjects were born in the United States, some were “1.5ers,” children who immigrated to the United States at a very young age. This second generation, like their parents, were also pioneers as they began negotiating their ethnic identity alongside their “American-ness” in communities and schools in which there were few South Asians. There were no models of how to best negotiate the two cultures as parents and children both struggled— parents in socializing their children, and the children with the pressures of balancing two, sometimes conflicting, sets of cultural norms and values. It is not surprising that this cohort inspired the term “ABCD” or “American-Born Confused Desi” (desi being a term used by some South Asians to refer to people from the Indian subcontinent) to describe the hapless second generation member who straddles both cultures but doesn’t quite fit into either. Bandana Purkayastha (2005) found that her subjects engaged in a second generation version of “being desi” in their college ethnic organizations. These college organizations provided a space for engaging in ethnic activities in a way that encourages participation by all in regional cultural practices, such as garba and bhangra dancing, making them more generally “Indian” or “desi;” the latter in the case of organizations seeking to be pan-ethnic (Purkayastha 2005). The plight of ABCDs (a term used most often in a derogatory or mocking tone by recent immigrants, who are in turn called “FOB” or “fresh off the boat” by the second generation) has recently been documented in films like “ABCD” and “American Chai” as well as in fiction, most notably the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri’s novel reflects the conflicted experiences of the second generation, including a doomed marriage between co-ethnics. The

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mainstream media has also been captivated by the life stories of this group and their marriage choices (Kantrowitz and Scelfo 2004; Bellafante 2005). The increasing visibility of South Asians has two consequences for the dominant society’s understanding of this group. The first and most positive effect is to provide visibility for people of South Asian descent in a variety of different contexts and professions. However, the fascination with South Asians’ marriage choices and the focus on arranged marriage, serves to marginalize South Asian Americans, excluding them from the mainstream because of “exotic” practices that persist despite educational and economic acculturation.

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Data and Methods This study is based on in-depth interviews conducted in the New York metropolitan area from the Fall of 2001 through the Fall of 2002 to examine the life experiences of second generation South Asians. Asian immigrants, like other recent immigrant groups are geographically concentrated in and around metropolitan areas although smaller populations are scattered throughout the United States. The New York metropolitan area, especially Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon counties and Jersey City in New Jersey, has the largest concentration, followed by Chicago, Los Angeles-Long Beach and Washington, DC (Mogelonsky 1995). The advantage of recruiting respondents from New York City and its environs is that since the city attracts people from all over the United States, the subjects were raised in urban and (mostly) suburban communities in ten different states representing various regions of the United States. The subjects resided in the New York metropolitan area, with the majority of respondents residing in the five boroughs of New York City. Ethnic enclaves in the region tend to attract recent immigrants and South Asian immigrants typically do not tend to cluster residentially (Leonard 1997), making random sampling techniques difficult. Subjects were recruited primarily through flyers distributed at events and email newsgroups of second generation organizations as well as through referrals made by respondents. To prevent skewing the sample only towards those who are connected to second generation organizations, only 25% of respondents were recruited in this way. The referrals were especially valuable in recruiting subjects not involved with ethnic organizations.

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The interviews were supplemented by participant observation of social and cultural events in the South Asian community and activities sponsored by second generation immigrant organizations. The observations yielded insights about the social networks and institutional contexts for meeting potential partners. The participant observations provide context to the analysis of life narratives and identify the cultural spaces and institutions within which seemingly independent choices about dating and marriage are embedded. They also provided the opportunity to experience the immigrant spaces within which the second generation travel, while also participating in the social and economic structures of the majority culture. I attended events sponsored by a major second generation organization, including the national convention, fundraisers for South Asian political and social service organizations, plays, art openings and other cultural events. Through personal contacts, I also attended engagement parties and weddings which provided me with additional insight into the second generation understanding of love, courtship and marriage. The participant observation also included the electronic community; I joined mailing lists, discussion groups and reviewed relevant websites of individuals and organizations. While this aspect of the fieldwork was not the primary source of data for this study, they were invaluable for understanding the social contexts within which the majority of “ingroup” interactions occur. In doing this type of field research, the investigator is part of the interaction and the research setting. This necessitates a discussion of who I am and how my own identity or perceived identity might influence the research process. It is important to note this in terms of the ways in which subjects responded to me as an interviewer and as a participant in the events I observed. As a South Asian American female in her thirties who was raised in the United States, I am of the same demographic as the respondents of this study. While I come from a Bangladeshi Muslim family, I did not identify my ethnic/religious background prior to or during the interview as I did not want that to affect responses to interview questions, especially questions around religion and ethnic identification. During the interviews, the subjects of this study viewed me as a contemporary, vaguely co-ethnic, and as an investigator who would understand their experiences from the point of view of an insider. As such, I observed that subjects freely answered

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questions without the fear of a judgment by an outsider who would not understand their ethnic culture. Many respondents would explicitly state that they felt very comfortable telling their life story to someone who had similar experiences to theirs. While that level of candor contributes to the quality of the data, there is a danger of the investigator losing objectivity in dealing with respondents who are so similar to her. The nature of qualitative research requires that any investigator examine their level of objectivity. In doing this fieldwork, I felt that I was able to have appropriate distance between myself and the respondents of the study. It is true that my ethnicity (or more accurately, my “racialized” appearance as South Asian) had an impact on the subjects, my own life experiences resulted in an insider/outsider experience in the second generation community. While in the case of most Indian respondents, I did not share a national origin or religion. I was not raised as an orthodox Muslim, and my parents were nontraditional and progressive. In that respect my ethnic socialization experiences were not typical and did not reflect the experiences of most of the Pakistani- and Bangladeshi-American respondents (or for that matter, those of Indian origin.) In addition, I have never participated in any second generation organizations other than to occasionally attend events and be aware of their activities. The second generation experience is familiar and I am sympathetic to the challenges faced by the subjects of this study and to the causes of second generation activism. However, as an outsider who can occasionally adopt insider status, I feel I was able to both understand but also to critically examine the second generation experience. Nonetheless, self-examination for bias and assumption-making was a constant during the research, analysis and writing process. The “second generation” subjects in this study include children born in the United States and those belonging to the 1.5 generation (children who immigrated with their parents below age 7) following the research of Waters (1996) and Portes and Rumbaut (1996). The central rationale for including “1.5ers” is that they have commenced their entire educational careers, including the formative elementary school years, in the United States. Most of the 1.5ers interviewed considered themselves as “Americanized” as their peers who were born in the

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United States, and felt that all of their formative years were spent in the United States. Subjects are the adult children of immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, with the majority from India. Those three countries were based on practical and demographic considerations. In the New York metropolitan area, there are pockets of communities and organizations founded by immigrants from those nations and they have been in the United States long enough that there is a sizable adult second generation population. There are immigrants in the United States from other South Asian nations, and increasing numbers in the last decade from Nepal and Sri Lanka, but at the time that the respondents’ parents were immigrating, there were relatively few South Asians from outside those three countries. Since there has been more recent immigration from other South Asian nations, it would be fruitful to study those growing communities. Out of the 60 interviews conducted, approximately 40% of respondents were male, 60% female, with an age range of 21-38 years. That age range was chosen in order to study individuals who are likely to have a dating history or be married. The respondents reflected the religious and ethnolinguistic diversity of this population though the sample skews more towards ethnic groups from the northern states of India. This is partly due to the greater access I had to the Bengali community and the higher concentration of North Indians in the second generation organizations which were observed as part of this study. Census data does not distinguish between different ethnic groups in India and at the moment there is no reliable demographic breakdown of different Indian ethnicities in the United States. However, anecdotally, many of the South Indian-origin respondents believed that there were greater numbers of North Indian immigrants in the communities where they lived and in campus and post-college second generation clubs and organizations. As stated earlier, there was class homogeneity in the sample with nearly all the respondents coming from middle to upper middle class backgrounds, and currently occupying similar class positions to their parents. While respondents were all college-educated with most of them pursuing or having done post-graduate work, the sample also represented a wide range of occupations and educational experiences. The nature of this sample precludes it from being representative of the

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second generation South Asian population as an entirety. However, in the choice of respondents, there was a deliberate attempt to obtain as wide a range of ethnic and religious groups, geographical origin within the United States, and a balance of national origins that reflect their population in the South Asian community.

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The Family Versus the Mainstream?: Situating Dating and Marriage Choices When arranged marriage is disembedded from its cultural and geographic context, it becomes transformed and “globalized” to incorporate Western notions of romantic love and individual autonomy, thereby completely upending the original structural contexts within which arranged marriage evolved as a cultural practice. As a result of this, it continues to evolve in the various contexts—both here and in South Asia—within which it is practiced, perhaps to a point where it ceases to be “arranged” marriage. In the American context, arranged marriage or “semi-arranged” marriage is not a tool for reinforcing extended family structure and the dominance of family duty over individual autonomy. Rather, it is framed by its second generation practitioners, and their parents as well, as a choice that will not only maintain ethnic culture and intergenerational harmony but also as a life-enhancing choice in which having a co-ethnic for a spouse will create a fulfilling marriage based on common cultural bonds. This “upending” of arranged marriage reflects both the global transitions in family and personal life as Giddens (1991) pointed out and the transformation of arranged marriage in the American context. Contemporary understandings of love and marriage in the United States and the culture of self-actualization are the localized influences that have transformed courtship and marriage practices of the second generation. This is echoed by many of the respondents who believed that their understandings of what they want out of life was shaped by the immigrant experience of their parents and their experiences of ethnic socialization but also the influence of American ideals of love and interpersonal fulfillment in marriage. This is not lost on immigrant parents who understand their adult children’s desire for a marriage that provides personal fulfillment, even if it means modifying or abandoning their expectations for their children. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, Ashima, the widowed mother of the protagonist,

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recognizes that her daughter will be happy with her white American fiancé in contrast to the failed marriage of her son to an Indian American woman. Lahiri describes Ashima’s guilt in introducing her son to this young women and her acceptance of the subsequent divorce:

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How could she have known? But fortunately, they have not considered it their duty to stay married, as the Bengalis of Ashoke and Ashima’s generation do. They are not willing to accept, to adjust, to settle for something less than their ideal of happiness. That pressure has given way, in the case of the subsequent generation, to American common sense. (Lahiri 2003) When divorced from the extended family structure, the primary function of arranged marriage within a hierarchical and maledominated family structure, weakens the conceptual underpinnings of traditional arranged marriage becomes weaker in new structural contexts. In this case, the character is a first generation immigrant who has adopted a concept of marriage that has at its heart, individual happiness and fulfillment. This was echoed in the experiences of respondents who witnessed their parents’ evolving understanding of marriage and individual needs. As in most traditional cultures, including the not-so-distant past of Western societies, in South Asian societies, marriage itself has a different function and meaning in which familial duty and obligations takes precedence over individual needs and desires. Marriage also serves as an important boundary between different castes, religions, and communities and endogamy insures the separation and distinctiveness of subgroups in the religiously diverse and polyglot subcontinent. In that context, arranged marriage as a practice is consonant with both family structure and the nature of a pluralistic society in which subgroups wish to remain separate and distinct. Not surprisingly, within the boundaries of the respective subgroups, class boundaries are also reflected in the arranged marriage process. Boundary maintenance is an essential function of arranged marriage and that still persists in the way that it has become hybridized in immigrant communities. The “arranged marriages” of second generation South Asians in many ways function in a similar fashion in the United States. They also function to maintain boundaries between ethnic and religious

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subgroups, often with caste and community considerations. They reinforce class boundaries where occupational status and education are used as important criteria for determining the viability of potential matches. While the actual process of arranging a marriage is different in the immigrant context, the maintenance of group boundaries in yet another multi-ethnic and pluralistic society is a key component of second generation matchmaking. This process is also taking place among a generation which grew up with the emergence of multiculturalism and a questioning of assimilation models based on the earlier experiences of European immigrants. Where difference and the maintenance of ethnic cultures is more acceptable and marital assimilation is not seen as critical to individual success (especially occupational and financial), the persistence of endogamy does not appear as a barrier to participation in American society. In addition, the model minority status of South Asian immigrants, and the valorization of the educational and occupational success of Indian immigrants in particular, appears to reward the maintenance of ethnic subcultures. Hybridized arranged marriage and endogamy are framed in the language of multiculturalism and individual fulfillment. These adaptations are taking place in an increasingly globalized world in which many individuals “pick and choose,” as described by the concept of segmented assimilation. South Asian immigrants have developed a unique method of combining ethnic solidarity with adaptation, particularly economic and educational adaptation, to the majority culture. The balancing act of meeting the expectations of the mainstream to succeed in the economic realm while maintaining some cultural values suggests that there is indeed deliberate selectivity in their life choices. Indeed, second generation weddings themselves are a hybridization of cultures, with Bollywood fantasy meeting American wedding norms (Ramdya 2010). In Portes and Rumbaut’s (1996) formulation of segmented assimilation, this leads to the outcome of selective acculturation in which immigrants choose which aspects of the native culture and the majority culture that they wish to adopt, maximizing community resources and aiming for optimal social mobility. The need to maintain religious and ethnic boundaries is adapted to the American context in new ways. Does marrying co-ethnics show a resistance to “full assimilation”? The complexity of the second generation South Asian American

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experience is highlighted when compared to their counterparts in Western Europe, an immigration context which is quite different from the United States and reflects very different structural conditions. In contrast to the subjects of this study, studies of second generation Turkish-Germans show that significant numbers of males and females marry spouses from Turkey, rather than second generation peers (Nauck 2001). This reflects negative attitudes that second generation individuals have about their German-born peers as well as migration patterns which depend on second generation marriages (Strassburger 2004). For British South Asian families who are deeply concerned with maintaining tradition, importing spouses for their second generation children is a critical means of maintaining language, family expectations and traditions (Stopes-Roe and Cochrane 1990). This contrasts sharply with the individuals interviewed for this study who expressed a strong preference for peers who were raised in the United States. The experiences of mainly working class second generations in Europe suggest that family expectations and strategies are made within the context of discrimination and constrained opportunities not experienced by the second generation cohort studied in this project. While this research is not comparative in its scope, it invites comparisons to groups in European societies who have formed communities in very different structural contexts. It may also further strengthen the argument that a combination of structural forces and familial and social class resources have resulted in very different outcomes for the second generation South Asian subjects described in this research. A major goal of this study is to understand the deeper, latent relationship between dating and marriage choices and post-1965 assimilation. It does not seek to show the relationship between in-group and out-group marriage as an indicator of an individual’s level of assimilation which would in effect hark back to earlier conceptions where marital assimilation was seen as the last stage in the assimilation process of ethnic groups. Rather, it will demonstrate that it is not the ethnicity of spouses or potential spouses that matters but rather it is the process and subjective understandings of dating and marriage choices, combined with varying understandings of autonomy which differentiates members of the second generation.

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In the initial stages of this study, the respondents were all married since the initial research questions focused on whether or not an individual married within or outside the community. However, early interviews revealed that there was a great deal of variation in the within group marriage choices. Some reflected the caste/community and other considerations that characterize traditional arranged marriages but most of them seemed to involve American-style dating and many compromises and negotiations made between immigrant parents and the second generation. This is borne out in recent studies of dating and marriage experiences of Indian Americans (Manohar 2008; Ramdya 2010). The different paths that individuals followed toward a particular choice varied greatly and represented different understandings of ethnicity and tradition. As a result, the process of choosing a mate rather than the ethnicity of who they married had become the focus of the study, as it provided insight into the relationship between an individual’s life experiences and their life choices. This shift in focus yields a more nuanced understanding of the nature of contemporary assimilation. What factors lead towards a particular life path? Here the economic or structural explanations provided by segmented assimilation theory are not sufficient and do not reveal how individual choices are made and how they are subjectively experienced. Life choices are a product of family and early ethnic socialization experiences as well as educational and career experiences and the individual’s view of their place in American society. Dating and marriage choices are linked to assimilation in their confirmation, rejection of and negotiation with traditional ethnic culture and the resultant family expectations. The nature of this confirmation, rejection or negotiation reveals a deeper process of assimilation than the idea of selective acculturation implies. The three life pathways that emerged from this study represent a “neo-traditional” and ethnic-oriented position, an assimilated “middle-of-the-road” position, and in rarer instances, a “rebellious” orientation which positions itself explicitly against traditional ethnic values: each category which emerged reflected not only the marriage choices but the subjective meanings of those choices as they are framed by different understandings of autonomy and the resolution of second generation dilemmas.

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The life pathways revealed by the narratives in this study have been shaped by structural forces, life experiences and the subjects’ adoption, adaptation or rejection of ethnic culture. The dilemmas and strategies of the second generation reveal their relationship to the mainstream and tradition, in an increasingly hybridized and mutable cultural field. Why do individuals with similar backgrounds, experiences and structural circumstances choose such varied paths? These variations will be explained by individuals’ responses to structural constraints and opportunities and the ways in which they navigate their careers and romantic relationships through negotiations around autonomy and gender expectations. Second generation South Asians are not resistant to “full” assimilation but rather they have embarked on different life pathways while embracing mainstream values around individualism and autonomy as a response to structural opportunities and the changing expectations of their families. This is something that is revealed in this study through the use of life course analysis. The expectations of parents and families are not static, they change over time and respond to new dilemmas. Families, like the immigrant families these subjects were raised in, can provide resistance to change but they can also be agents of change. In her historical examination of families, Tamara Hareven (2000) contends that as people and families encounter new situations, they modify and reshape their strategies in the context of their cultural norms and traditions. Early studies of Indian immigrants related their desire to reproduce their culture but the experiences of the second generation shows the need for immigrant parents to modify their expectations and create new strategies to deal with the opportunity structures they encounter. The immigrant parents of the subjects of this study, like the fictional character Ashima from Lahiri’s novel, recognized that their adult children’s life choices cannot be dictated by traditional expectations. This is especially true around marriage ideals versus marriage realities. Nearly every subject desired the “pure” relationship described by Giddens (1991) and their expectations around love and marriage reflect mainstream values. Like other contemporary Americans, most say they desire a relationship based around mutual self-development, intimacy and support, like the interdependence model described by Francesca Cancian (1987). This likely explains

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why many immigrant parents understand their children’s preference for second generation partners who are more likely to have similar relationship expectations. While parents may see themselves as guardians of cultural traditions, they also understand that ideal expectations may not be fulfilled and the negotiations around their children’s life choices are an extension of negotiations and compromise that likely started earlier in their family strategies dealing with tradition and changing expectations.

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The Gendered Experiences of the Second Generation The “children of 1965” grew up in the United States in a time of great transition in gender roles in the society at large. Like their American peers, my subjects are also members of the cohort Kathleen Gerson (2011) describes as the “children of the gender revolution” who experienced the tremendous shift in gender and family norms of the 1960s and 1970s, with the cultural shifts bringing changing definitions of gender, career and family options. Most of them had parents who both worked outside the home and witnessed their own parents negotiating gender roles in the family. Even subjects with traditional childhood family orientations were raised with at least a nominal sense of egalitarianism. Immigrant families in general desire success and upward mobility for their children. In order for their children, both male and female, to succeed in academic and work life, there was a need to socialize children with more egalitarian attitudes than those stemming from traditional ethnic culture. Traditional gender role expectations may have been imported into immigrant families but they do not define the experiences of second generation men or women. This reflects a high degree of variation within individual families. In this study, gender expectations will be examined as an independent factor which influences family strategies, notions of individual autonomy, and the subjects’ chosen life pathways. In the immigrant context, gender might be seen as inherently problematic and a source of constraints and dilemmas but the changing gender strategies employed by families and individuals suggest alternative possibilities for the role it plays in the experiences of contemporary immigrants. In applying a gender perspective, I hope to uncover the dynamics of gender in family experiences and how they influence adult life

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choices. Scott Coltrane (1997) describes this process: “using gender as a lens allows us to see more clearly what family members do, why they do it, and what impact gender has on people in different times and places.” In this study, changing gender expectations on the part of individuals and families reflect a response to new structural circumstances and family strategies designed to maximize opportunities for class maintenance and social mobility in the immigrant context. Much of the early literature on gender and immigration has focused primarily on the experiences of working class women and their experiences in low wage service sector employment and “care” work such in domestic service and childcare (see Glenn 1992; Sassen 1988; Romero 1992). The theoretical frameworks presented in that literature do not address the experiences of middle and upper middle class immigrants whose cultural and social capital and educational attainment channel them into higher paid professional careers. While this study does not focus on gender and work, educational and career expectations and attainment are an important variable in understanding the second generation experiences and how gender is mitigated by them. The second generation assimilation experience is an inherently gendered one, in which parental gender expectations and socialization meet with mainstream egalitarian demands. The conflict and competition between traditional gender norms and expectations and mainstream expectations form a critical dilemma that needs to be resolved first through family gender strategies and later in individual contexts. The resolution of the gender dilemma reflects parental adaptation strategies in the early part of the subjects’ lives but their later adult life choices reflect the individual’s gender strategies. The resolution of this and other second generation dilemmas influence individual pathways, whether consistent or diverging from earlier expectations. Individuals feel pressure from traditional gender role expectations but these are mitigated by structural pressures for upward social mobility—the extent to which individuals respond to these competing pressures can result in a pathway that is traditional or one which veers away from tradition.

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American

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“Tradition” and Changing Expectations: Raising Theoretical Questions Studying the assimilation process involves analyzing the immigrant’s adherence to their ethnic “traditions” and cultural values versus the adoption of the mainstream society’s culture and values. However, as Giddens points out, “tradition” is losing its hold for many as they face a diversity of lifestyle choices. This is not just a phenomenon of the West but a global one in which the structural and economic forces of the contemporary world have transformed family and personal life. Given the erosion of the importance of traditional culture, how do we address the adoption or rejection of tradition and traditional values and practices in the immigrant context? Tradition can mean different things in different social contexts and it can have a different set of meanings for individual actors. To understand how the subjects of this study deal with tradition, it is important to address autonomy. Adherence to tradition implies that individuals adopt practices because it is customary and expected. Individuals’ autonomy is limited to what limited range of choices tradition will allow. However, in the “post-traditional order” (Giddens 1991), individuals make choices based on the wide variety of options that are available to them in contemporary societies. Individuals have a greater sense of themselves as autonomous actors who have the ability to choose between options, be they “traditional” or veering away from tradition. The adult life choices of the second generation will be examined in this study through two dimensions: one is, as discussed, through the lens of gender and how traditional gender norms are dealt with in light of egalitarian mainstream values; the second is the lens of autonomy, the type and style of which will illustrate the relationship to tradition versus contemporary, mainstream ideas of adult autonomy. Arranged marriage, in its strictest form, is a traditional cultural practice for South Asians. A fixed interpretation of culture would view arranged marriage as a practice embedded in traditional family and economic arrangements and thus irrelevant or antithetical to new social contexts. In its strictest form, there is limited room for autonomy, if any, in individuals’ marriage choices. Theoretical and empirical work on mate selection systems demonstrates the relationship between practices and traditional family structure, with extended families favoring arranged marriage systems and nuclear families favoring

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autonomous mate selection processes. (Goode 1963; Lee and Stone 1980). However, given the hybridity and flexibility of the practice and its evolution in new structural contexts, tradition can be seen as still relevant though malleable and negotiated to serve the needs of contemporary transnational ethnic communities. Studies of arranged marriage practice in India over the last several decades suggest changes in the practice, where socioeconomic and educational factors have become more influential in marriage choices, rather than traditional criteria like caste and community membership, resulting in increasing numbers of “love marriages” (Ross 1961; Corwin 1971). Expanded educational and career opportunities for both men and women have an impact on individual’s personal life choices as well with social structural changes providing expanded opportunities in both professional and personal lives for South Asians, particularly the urban middle classes. The flexibility of tradition is evident in home countries as well as in ethnic communities abroad. There is, increasingly, room for autonomy in the seemingly antithetical practice of arranged marriage and those who choose it may feel they have a greater degree of choice and control than an outsider might interpret them as having. The way that the subjects of this study view traditional culture is intertwined with their life choices. Ironically, those who identified themselves as traditional have the most positive, flexible and negotiable understanding of arranged marriage. For others, tradition is either a relic that is respected but not observed or a dangerous threat to autonomy and egalitarian social and political values. What explains why some choose to embrace tradition while others see it as a relic or something to rebel against? Why do some individuals embrace limited autonomy while others do not believe in any constraints on their personal life choices? This study does not seek to reject segmented assimilation theory and therefore dismiss the importance of structural, particularly economic, contexts. Instead, it attempts to “unpack” the selective acculturation response of the second generation subjects of this study on the micro level. The guiding theoretical framework for unpacking these choices and the assimilation process is Giddens’ understanding of the experiences of individuals in “post-traditional” society and the need to interpret the actions of individuals as they navigate the variety of lifestyle choices available to them. Second generation South Asians,

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even while they felt family pressure and a pull to tradition, have been exposed to contemporary American understandings of romantic love and its connection to marriage as an intimate relationship between two individuals rather than marriage as part of a larger family system. While Giddens does not speak directly to the migration and assimilation experiences, it is a useful framework when examining life choices in an increasingly globalized world (Giddens 1999). Structural forces and the structural context of the subjects’ lives have determined the choices and life pathways available to them. Social class and community resources, combined with the relative receptivity of mainstream society, create opportunities. The choices made and the life pathways that the subjects embarked upon are framed by these structural circumstances but the actual outcomes involve a complex interplay of structure, culture and sometimes serendipitous life events and experiences. Most of the life narratives revealed that while early socialization had a significant impact on the participants’ worldviews, the effect was not always uniform. At key moments in the life course, identified as “critical life moments,” subjects were influenced by social circumstances and life events which confirmed or changed their childhood orientations. Using a developmental approach and life narratives provided insight into the significance of key life events and their interaction with structural forces to shape life choices and life orientations. The dependent variable in this study is the life pathway chosen by the second generation subject. Life choices ultimately flow from an individual’s lived experiences, the cumulative result of structural contexts, individual contexts, their outlooks, the subjective understanding of themselves as ethnic actors, and an understanding which reveals their conception and understanding of “tradition” and how it frames their life choices. As such, the life pathways chosen by individuals reflect the subjective understandings which locate the individual in American society and their relationship to their ethnic traditions. It would stand to reason that the looser the hold of ethnic tradition, the more assimilationist the life path. However, while there is a continuum of sorts, an interpretive analysis of life choices reveals a far greater level of assimilation than selective acculturation implies. It also reveals processes which are not uncovered in studies of second generation ethnic identity.

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Outline of Chapters

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As introduction, this chapter provides background information, research questions and an overview of data methods and theoretical issues for this study. The next chapter will review the literature on assimilation and the second generation as a baseline for the way this study moves beyond that literature by situating the second generation experience in the context of autonomy and egalitarianism. Chapter three describes the family experiences of the second generation and examines socialization experiences, family dilemmas and the influence of social class and structural contexts on changing family strategies. Chapters four, five and six will specifically address the three second generation pathways and include narrative data to illustrate the varied experiences which shape these life pathways. The path from childhood to adulthood is fraught with dilemmas, choices, and numerous variables which impact the course of what is often a bumpy road. Each chapter will address these and especially the gender dilemmas and strategies of each group. Finally, chapter seven will explore the complexity of the second generation South Asian American experience, especially in light of contemporary social and political contexts. It will also, as conclusion, explore the contributions of the study, discuss its limits and raise additional questions for further study.

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CHAPTER 2

Perspectives on Assimilation

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Introduction The United States has historically welcomed immigrants from around the world with the expectation that with time and the engine of generational change, they would eventually “become American.” The process by which this should take place has had a variety of idealtypical constructions depending on the nature of the population, and the historical, political, and ideological trends in the public sphere. In contrast to other nations, the ideas around what it means to be American and how one becomes American are mutable and subject to debate. In the context of the United States, the very definition of assimilation is contested as the idea itself has become controversial in its implication of the obliteration of an immigrant’s native culture and values. The historical association of the idea of assimilation with the subjugation of group identities, particularly of historical as well as new minority group identities, makes the term unpalatable to many in the context of post-multiculturalist social and academic discourse. While some scholars sidestep the potentially politicized terminology and use the term acculturation, it does not describe the fruition of the acculturation process nor does it address the realities and expectations around assimilation. In this book, that “fruition,” though it consists of pathways and not endpoints, will be examined through the lens of autonomy and gender to understand how the family and interpersonal dynamics shape the micro-level processes of second generation adaptation. Do second generation South Asians have arranged marriages, which are so antithetical to American marriage norms? By definition, arranged marriage denies autonomous choice and is rooted in traditional gender norms in which women have little to no self-determination. Do they act as autonomous individuals, conforming to contemporary American norms, or does their adherence to family and ethnic tradition supersede individual choice? The answers to these questions are complex and point to subjective understandings of autonomy and individualism that vary greatly among the respondents in this study. The focus on dating and marriage choices, where the dilemmas and strategies are likely to 27 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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be most striking, reveals the processes involved in individual life paths. Unlike some scholarship which asserts that second generation South Asians resist assimilation, I argue that the adaptive nature of these pathways do reveal assimilation to mainstream norms, given the variability and adaptability of the contemporary American mainstream.

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The South Asian Experience in Theoretical Perspective In theoretical discussions of assimilation, scholars refer to two distinct phases of theorizing: “classic” and “post-1965” theoretical treatments. Classic theories of assimilation refer to the process which had taken place from the early days of the nation until the effective end of largescale immigration in 1929. Assimilation was defined as the process by which an immigrant group replaces their native culture with that of the dominant or host society, eventually shedding their previous ethnic identity and participating fully in the mainstream culture (Gordon 1964). Several models describe the process of immigrant assimilation to U.S. culture. The “Melting Pot” model is one that has been dominant in popular consciousness, while the model of Anglo conformity is the one that has been closest to reality (Gordon 1964). The Anglo conformity model describes the adoption by most immigrant groups of the language, norms and values of Anglo American culture. For most European immigrants, especially those from Northern and Western Europe, the process was complete by the second generation because of their desire to become part of the mainstream culture and also to free themselves from the prejudice and discrimination faced by ethnic immigrants (Gordon 1964; Portes and Rumbaut 1990). According to Milton Gordon (1964), the end point of assimilation was “identification assimilation” in which the individual’s self-image is that of an unhyphenated American, a state brought about through acculturation, structural assimilation, participation in mainstream institutions, intermarriage and the absence of prejudice and discrimination from mainstream society. Theories of assimilation had focused on a process of conflict and replacement. Ethnic cultures and their respective family arrangements and values were seen as incompatible with the American cultural mainstream, resulting in conflict and an eventual resolution that replaces the ethnic cultural system with those of the host culture

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(Ramirez 1993). This pattern of conflict and replacement leads to the socially sanctioned result of full assimilation to the mainstream. While assimilation theory, as it has been dubbed by contemporary scholars, may still have a place in the popular imagination, Nazli Kibria (1993) notes that it has been largely discredited, leaving an opening for new theoretical frameworks. These newer frameworks take into account the experiences of recent immigrants especially as they occur in a social and political climate that tolerates, if not celebrates, cultural pluralism. Recent immigrants do not feel compelled to abandon or deny their native cultural norms, values, and tastes in order to become members of American society. Later sociological literature on assimilation focuses on the shifting meanings of assimilation and the impact of race, class and economic context on second generation immigrants (Gans 1992; Portes and Zhou 1993; Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Waldinger and Perlman 1998; Waters 1996; Zhou and Bankston 1996; Kibria 1997). Large-scale studies of the new second generation, as opposed to the “old” second generation from older waves of European immigration, reveal broad trends such as economic prospects and educational attainment while in-depth research focuses on the process of ethnic identity formation. Whatever the scope of individual studies, this research connects individual choices and experiences to larger social forces and structural constraints and opportunities. According to Alejandro Portes and his colleagues, assimilation in the post-1965 era is “segmented.” As with the other revisions of classic assimilation theory, the theory of segmented assimilation recognizes that there is no longer a unidirectional pathway to becoming American. Instead, immigrants encounter a pluralistic society with a complex web of social, political, and economic forces which create a number of possible outcomes, including the layers of ethnic and racial identities they may choose or to which they may be assigned (Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Portes and Zhou 1999). The individual pathways depend greatly on structural factors, such as family and community resources and the structure of the labor market. Individual outcomes are also heavily influenced by the group experiences of various immigrant populations, especially as they relate to community resources and the presence or absence of discrimination stemming from mainstream society.

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In contrast to Gordon’s description of the endpoint of the assimilation process, segmented assimilation theory describes a situation in which multiple ethnic identities may emerge, with a variety of adaptation strategies that result from the social contexts of the reception the immigrant groups receive from mainstream society. In addition, segmented assimilation pays attention to intergenerational dynamics and whether or not second generation choices and experiences are dissonant or consonant from parental expectations and how these choices relate to the complex interplay of racial/ethnic identity and social class. In some cases, the result may be blocked parental plans for intergenerational economic mobility (Portes and Zhou 1993; Rumbaut 1997). While much scholarly attention is paid to the blocked mobility faced by large numbers of immigrant children, and especially the Mexican-American children who constitute almost half of this “new” post-1965 second generation (Waldinger and Perlman 1998), it is also important to analyze the impact of social capital in immigrant communities and how it affects the life chances of the second generation. Zhou and Bankston (1996) contend that, “if ethnic communities are interpreted in terms of social capital, it becomes possible to suggest a mechanism by which adherence to communitybased support systems and positive cultural orientations can provide an adaptive advantage for immigrants and their offspring.” The Vietnamese immigrants in their study are similar in some respects to South Asian immigrants and their segmented assimilation outcome of “selective acculturation” where the immigrant picks and chooses what aspects of the native and mainstream culture to adopt or adapt. The nature of this selection process is explicitly addressed in this study, revealing it to be a rather complex process as individuals negotiate the choices available to them. At the center of the controversy over the concept of assimilation is the idea of ethnic identity and ethnic self-identification. The “old” way was to replace the native culture and self-identification with that of being an “unhyphenated” American. What constitutes being American has been debated since the nineteenth century and continues to be debated today in public controversies over restricting immigration and bilingualism. However, contemporary immigrants have entered the United States in a political and cultural moment in which they feel they

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are not compelled to relinquish ethnic identity in order to take advantage of the educational and economic opportunities available to them. While the strictest definition of assimilation requires the abandonment of ethnic identity, contemporary assimilation in practice is more complex. Ethnic identity is renegotiated into one that allows immigrants to be American while maintaining an ethnic, often hyphenated, self-identification. While it is problematic, the majority culture’s assignation of “model minority” status to South Asians may be a key factor in shaping an individual’s ethnic identification as well as their orientations towards educational and economic institutions. The economic circumstances and educational aspirations of second generation immigrants are related to their parents’ level of educational attainment and their class position. Immigration law after 1965, the period during which the first generation of contemporary South Asians migrated, favored professionals and those who emigrated for higher education. As a result, South Asians, especially Indian immigrants, had achieved model minority status. Like other Asian immigrants who fall into this stereotype, they are thought of as hard-working, intelligent and unlikely to cause trouble in either the workplace or in educational settings (Chen and Yang 1996). Thus, although they are non-white, educational credentials and model minority status have contributed to the first generation’s economic success and considerable cultural capital for the second generation. Since the arrival of the first waves of post-1965 immigrants, many changes have occurred for this immigrant community—later waves of immigrants reflect much greater class diversity and a different set of opportunity structures. While many South Asian Americans have achieved educational and career success, it is important to note that like other Asian Americans, they do experience racism and discrimination in a variety of social and institutional contexts (Feagin and Chou 2008). Model minority status must also be approached with caution in the context of the post-September 11th social and political climate, where the experiences of South Asian Americans is fraught with complexity, with overt discrimination both in face-to-face and institutional contexts becoming increasingly common. Muslim South Asians are especially vulnerable to post-9/11 discrimination (Rahman 2011; Rana 2011).

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The idea of pluralism and multicultural politics makes relinquishing of native ethnic identity appear unnecessary to participation in American life. South Asian immigrants in this first cohort have generally developed a unique method of combining ethnic solidarity with adaptation, particularly economic and educational adaptation, to the majority culture. However, the tendency to retain an ethnic identity does not mean that the immigrant is resisting “becoming American.” It may be this particular group’s strategy for assimilating to the mainstream, one that Alba and Nee (2003) have asserted, has changed in response to post-1965 immigration. The post-1965 immigration from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia changed the landscape of American society and created a different context for assimilation. In an updated examination of segmented assimilation and what it has meant for contemporary second generations, Portes, FernandezKelly and Haller (2009) analyze the ways in which second generation outcomes are dependent on numerous factors, including parental human capital and the existence of mitigating social programs. Their analysis does speak to the ways in which selective acculturation, the segmented assimilation path associated with South Asian immigrants, can lead to educational and occupational success through “authoritative parenting” and avoidance of dissonant acculturation. While the subjects of this study have parents with considerable human capital, this finding has implications for second generation cohorts without these advantages and it requires further study of younger second generation cohorts and their outcomes. While many older studies of Indian and other Asian immigrants show their resistance to assimilation, that conclusion may be misleading. In her study of Sikh teenagers in California, anthropologist Margaret Gibson (1988) describes a process whereby the second generation immigrants accommodate the mainstream. Their strategies included doing well in school, following the rules and being fully proficient in English in order to achieve economic success all the while maintaining ethnic traditions and resisting aspects of American culture that their parents find problematic, thereby resisting assimilation. As she found in her study, the immigrants are “Americanizing,” without opting to relinquish their ethnic identity. While this is an older study, it confirms the phenomenon of segmented assimilation and suggests a

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framework about the South Asian American experience that emphasizes the ways in which they maintain ethnic boundaries. However, Gibson’s work neglects the ways in which the larger American context deeply shapes life experiences. In a more recent ethnography of California teenagers, Shalini Shankar (2008) describes her Silicon Valley subjects as responding to a variety of different variables in their identity construction. Her study reveals the ways in which teenagers’ sense of identity is shaped by social class status and shifting relationships to ethnic culture within the contexts of schools, community and wider popular culture. Their lives are not bicultural so much as constantly shifting and hybridizing in response to wider cultural and social forces, local contexts, and the consumption of cultural products in an MTV and the “Desi Bling” world of music, fashionable excess and Bollywood glamor. Indeed, in the contemporary context, ethnic identification is not inimical to American-ness. Parental efforts at ethnic socialization and the strategies employed by second generation immigrants are phenomenon not shared by their cohorts who had never immigrated. In her study of Hindu immigrants, Prema Kurien (1998) finds that these efforts help immigrants to find their niche in American society: How to “fit in” but still maintain one’s cultural and personal integrity is the challenge that most immigrants in the United States face in their transition from immigrants to ethnics. Indian immigrants from a Hindu background have achieved this end by using Hinduism, albeit a Hinduism that has been recast and reformulated to make this transition possible. Religion has conventionally defined and sustained ethnic life in this country, and thus while, “becoming Hindu” may on the surface appear to be the antithesis of “becoming American,” these Indian immigrants have made the transition from sojourners to citizens by developing a Hindu American community and identity. Asserting pride in their Hindu Indian heritage has also been their way of claiming a position for themselves at the American multicultural table. Family, community and ethnic resources of immigrants can enhance or even enable the immigrant’s integration into American

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society, albeit a kind of integration that is different from that based on the older models of Anglo-conformity or the melting pot. Other scholarship has focused on the transnational experiences of the second generation, addressing the idea that strong transnational ties might represent a resistance to assimilation. However, a study of the children of immigrants in New York City (which, notably, excluded South Asians in the study population), found variation in degrees of ties to parental homelands and in most cases, respondents believed the United States to be “home” (Kasinitz et al. 2002, 2008). Bandana Purkayastha’s (2005) study of second generation South Asians emphasized the transnational nature of her subjects’ sense of ethnic identification but did not reveal a desire to return to their parents’ homeland. Transnational ties can also change over time and transnational activities do not remain constant. Peggy Levitt (2002) notes that these ties “ebb and flow” as the demands of careers, education and family change over the life course. The subjects of this study, with a handful of exceptions, had stronger transnational connections during childhood, which waned in early adulthood when the demands of schooling and careers did not allow for long trips and extended contact with relatives overseas. For most, their family and social networks were firmly grounded in the United States. While transnational ties, in varying degrees, are important in the lives of the second generation, that importance does not diminish the impact of the American context on their lives. The aforementioned theoretical discussion of the second generation experience, with its focus on assimilation and ethnic identity illustrates what may yet be still be explored in analyzing the second generation South Asian experience. Pawan Dhingra (2008) suggests that these frameworks do not address how the “liberal nation-state” shapes the second generations’ expression of both their ethnicity and their commitment to being American. Along the same lines, this study departs from the earlier literature and emphasizes the “missing” elements of autonomy and the gender dimension informed by American norms and values around independence and egalitarianism. Second Generation South Asians The children of South Asian immigrants have been raised in an environment in which it is acceptable, and in many cases laudable, to

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be socialized into their ethnic culture while growing up in the United States. However, they cannot (and in most cases do not) feel themselves to be Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi in the same ways as their parents. However intensive their immersion in ethnic culture, their socialization experiences have taken place within the American social context. The life experiences of these second generation immigrants are rooted not just in their parental teachings and ethnic community but also within their local communities and educational institutions and the opportunities and constraints that they present. Research also points to the need to understand the role of autonomy and individual choice, potential intergenerational conflicts and the ways in which the dilemmas which result are resolved. The first cohort of second generation South Asians to reach adulthood is sometimes called the “children of 1965” since their parents were permitted to enter the United States under the provisions of the Immigration Act of 1965. This legislation opened the gates to immigrants from parts of the world which had been previously excluded. Since this first wave of immigrants consisted mainly of professionals with higher levels of educational attainment than successive waves of immigrants from South Asia, this particular cohort is relatively class homogenous. Most of the subjects of this study had been raised in middle to upper middle class households. The earliest studies of South Asian immigrants focused on these families, who also tended to be from India and Hindu, like the majority of this cohort and the subjects of this study. However, while this study, like others, represents the experiences of a particular cohort, it can still illustrate how second generation immigrants from other backgrounds might negotiate their ethnic identity and their life choices, geographically removed and culturally distinct from the homelands of their parents. The major issues that one encounters in studying second generation South Asians are: (1) their experiences of ethnic socialization, (2) the conflict between traditional South Asian cultural norms and American norms, (3) intergenerational stress and conflict and (4) ethnic identity versus Americanization. Interestingly, the subtext of all these issues and a major focus of this study is the issue of arranged marriage and the parental and community expectations around it. The practice of arranged marriage, in which family and community members choose potential spouses, is at the heart of the traditional

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South Asian family system which is patriarchal in nature and in which adult children cede control over major life decisions, such as career and marriage, to their elders. Many first generation immigrants, who had arranged marriages themselves, expect their children to conform to similar, albeit modified, expectations of arranged marriage and see it as an important goal in their children’s future lives. Each of the abovenamed issues is intertwined in that ethnic socialization process, which is designed to act as a bulwark against the adoption of undesirable American norms, to maximize parental authority and children’s loyalty and hopefully minimize intergenerational conflict. Ethnic socialization is broadly understood here to mean the process by which an individual learns the norms, values and cultural practices of their ethnic group; in this case it would be that of the immigrant parents. The primary agents of ethnic socialization are parents who employ a variety of different strategies, which will be discussed further in chapters three and four, in order to provide their children with an understanding of their ethnic heritage and a sense of ethnic selfidentity. There is also an element of social control in the process, where strict expectations of traditional norms required various sanctions to maintain them. The literature on Indian Americans and other South Asians describes active efforts on the part of parents to do just this. At home, children are immersed in the language, food and religion of their parents’ homelands as part of what Joanna Lessinger (1995) describes as a bulwark against the “corrupting” influence of American society. What is taught at home is often reiterated and reinforced through religious activities outside the home. In Kurien’s (1998) study, children participate in prayer groups and religious instruction through informal family networks, as well as more formal activities through temples. In a striking compromise to American society, Aminah Mohammad-Arif (2000) describes “Sunday schools” that South Asian Muslim children attend at their local mosque, where they learn religion and the basics of reading Arabic. Back in Pakistan or Bangladesh, Friday would be the day of prayer but in the United States, it is changed to Sunday to accommodate their “American” schedules. Raymond Brady Williams (1998) asserts that when children are young, parents may transmit their culture and beliefs but as they grow older, it creates an impetus for the establishment of religious organizations and institutions. Organizations are where more formal types of socialization

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takes place. He notes that “Sunday schools, summer camps, youth groups and annual national conferences are adaptations to the American scene that help parents maintain some continuity of culture and religion with their children.” Williams also points out that religious groups often provide a safe space for intergenerational dialogue about controversial topics like dating and arranged marriage. In addition to formal and informal religious activities, most families were also involved in ethnic organizations and extended informal family friendship groups (Bacon 1996; Lessinger 1995) that provided children with opportunities to socialize with other second generation co-ethnics. In traditional South Asian societies, the extended family network forms the foundation of an individual’s social life. The immigrant family recreates this in the United States through the creation of a fictive kin network which performs much the same functions as an extended family. The second generation experience is embedded in these family friends networks, providing friendship with co-ethnics and a place to belong when they may feel marginalized in the larger society. The goal of these socialization efforts is two-fold: one is to teach children about their native culture and the other is to deepen and reinforce the closeness and obedience they see lacking in American families. In her in depth study of five Indian American families, Jean Bacon (1996) describes this: There is a sense of closeness and involvement that binds even adult children’s lives with their parents’. This bond, however, is not an explicitly emotional one, based on the sharing of feelings and thoughts. Rather, it is a kind of practical, physical engagement that creates in children a strong sense of obligation to parents, and in parents a strong sense of protection toward children. This heightened sense of mutual obligation is particularly important for immigrant parents since many of the norms, values and cultural practices of the American mainstream appear to contradict those of their native culture. The strong bond, established while their children are young, is designed to protect the family from conflicts stemming from the clash of cultures and their own minority status. Sharmila Rudrappa (2002) thus describes the home as a haven for

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immigrants and as a place where they “engender ethnicity.” She also describes the family as a place where traditional South Asian notions of gender and sexuality are taught and enforced, particularly in the control of young women’s sexuality in the face of more permissive mainstream attitudes towards sexuality as well as expectations of equality among the sexes. Other studies also show that, even when parental expectations were high for academic and career success for both boys and girls, parents often reverted to traditional notions of gender (Lessinger 1995; Das and Kemp 1997; Dasgupta 1998), with boys singled out for favor and treated with a much greater level of permissiveness. While outside the home, children are expected to conform to the gender ideology and expectations of contemporary American society but then return home to a different set of norms and expectations. This double-bind is particularly evident in female children whose parents have high expectations of academic and career success in the public world but equally high expectations of passivity and obedience to parental authority in the private sphere of the home and the immigrant social community. Gender, sexuality and the nature of family relationships are at the heart of the conflict between South Asian family norms and mainstream American society. While mainstream American society is by no means a utopia of gender equality, the idea and expectation of equality between the sexes contrasts sharply with traditional South Asian society, which favors male children and limits the activities and opportunities of female children. And while gender norms are changing in South Asia, particularly among the educated urban elite, females face greater restrictions in the family. Immigrant families have also adapted, with women working outside the home and exposing them to the outside world (Khadelwal 2002). Yet gender attitudes are difficult to shift, especially where traditional values clash with mainstream expectations and norms. Related to a more traditional gender ideology are stricter attitudes towards sexual behavior, especially as it relates to controlling the sexuality of young women. At the center of these attitudes towards gender and sexuality is the nature of parent-child relationships in traditional South Asian societies which is based on the idea that the family is greater than the individual and that children, even adult

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children, are subject to the authority of their parents. While these values are by no means limited to South Asians, as many immigrant ethnic groups share them, they contrast sharply with mainstream American views on the individual and on gender and family. Sexuality is of particular concern to parents who are appalled by the idea of adolescent sexuality or any kind of extramarital sexual expression (Khandelwal 2002; Rudrappa 2002). Aside from expectations of arranged marriage, many South Asian parents oppose the idea of their children dating because it may lead to extramarital sexual activity. In the case of their male offspring, parents may “look the other way” but daughters engaging in sexual activity is unacceptable and a potential disaster for the parents’ position in the ethnic community. Second generation South Asians are required to meet their parental expectations in the face of pressure from their American peers and from mainstream American society in general. South Asians in the United States believe that their family bonds are stronger than those of the “typical” American family. They believe that these bonds will serve them well in the face of their minority status in the United States as well as any personal crises they may experience. While the norm in the United States is that children will eventually break away from their parents, both physically and emotionally, as Bacon stated above, South Asians expect that the strong parental bond will endure even as their children mature and become adults. Immigrant parents wish to have a say in matters of career and personal life choices such as marriage (Lessinger 1995), an expectation that is problematic given the American expectation that adults have individual autonomy and ownership of their life choices. Second generation South Asians, raised in an external environment that teaches and encourages autonomy feel conflicted by familial obligation versus personal goals. While not a problem when their children are young, adolescence is the time when issues such as dating and which college to attend or what major to choose brings autonomy and decision-making to the fore. Most South Asian parents do not wish their teenage children to date, for a variety of reasons. Chief among these reasons is the expectation, stated or unstated, of arranged or at least “semi-arranged” marriage in the future, the fear of adolescent sexuality, and as revealed in this study, parents’ own unfamiliarity with the practice of dating. Decisions

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about relationships and marriage choices are particularly difficult for individuals who are caught between personal desires shaped by a culture steeped in the ideology of romantic love versus family and ethnic loyalty on the other side. When second generation individuals do date, they are secretive and want to avoid bringing embarrassment to their families (Manohar 2008). Ethnic identity describes an individual’s sense of themselves as members of a particular ethnic group. Most of the studies of second generation South Asians first focused on ethnic identity versus Americanization. For South Asian parents, the issue is deciding on which aspects of American culture to assimilate and which aspects to avoid. American cultural values and practices related to hard work and academic and financial success are admired and to be emulated while those which seem too individualistic and inimical to close family relationships need to be rejected. Having been raised in the United States, for second generation immigrants, the decisions around which path to choose is much more complex than it had been for their parents. As children of immigrants, they have to “prove” their ethnic loyalty and identification while being careful to avoid marginalization from the mainstream by being “too ethnic.” The difficulty faced by the second generation is finding the balance between being “too ethnic” in terms of the mainstream or seen as “too American” by their family and coethnics. In discussing the second generation, Karen Isaksen Leonard (1997) notes that, “the youngsters, even if born in Pakistan or Sri Lanka, can position themselves within the history and culture of the United States and engage in the construction of pan-ethnic groups, building new conceptions of ethnic and national identities in the United States.” College is a major venue for renegotiating identity as young adults encounter others who are also seeking themselves and sometimes challenging their assumptions about race, ethnicity and identity. This is certainly the case with second generation Chinese and Korean Americans who adopted the pan-ethnic concept of “Asian American” in the context of campus politics and social life (Kibria 1997). As will be discussed further in chapter five, for South Asians, college provides a place to explore their ethnic identity as young adults, independent of their parents. In addition, South Asian American youth and music cultures can contribute to the development of new forms of identity and

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racial politics which are distinct from the culture of first generation parents (Maira 2002; Sharma 2010). As is evidenced by this study, second generation South Asians feel deeply tied to their ethnic culture, but strong ethnic identification does not mean that this leads to uniform life choices and life pathways. Rather, ethnicity and identity and how they affect life choices are part of a reflexive and dialectical process in which structural contexts and life circumstances influence assimilation outcomes. The degree to which individuals are tied to their families and ethnic communities and how they see themselves as autonomous actors shapes their choices and the paths which they take in life. Mainstream norms and values frame choices about college majors, careers, and the choice of a spouse to be solely determined by the desires of an individual. However, sociology frames actors as having agency but being constrained or given opportunities by the larger social structure. For South Asian Americans, cultural expectations operate within that space between structure and agency. Where does arranged marriage fit into this analysis? In traditional South Asian arranged marriage, parents and other family members choose suitable spouses for their adult children. Individuals do not have a say in this choice and often do not see their future spouse until their wedding day. Traditional Indian/South Asian social structure, in which the extended family wields considerable influence over the lives of its members (Gupta 1979; Segal 1998) is completely antithetical to American ideals of personal autonomy. In culturally pluralistic India, even today, people rarely marry outside of their caste and community. Among the urban middle and upper middle classes in contemporary South Asia, arranged marriage is relaxing and “love marriages” do occur but endogamy is still the norm. In reconstituting themselves in the United States, South Asian families have attempted to preserve the practice of arranged marriage in some form, even though it is in stark contrast and wholly alien to the marriage norms of the majority culture. They opt for endogamy, at least in part to try to recreate the family bonds and structures of their native cultures. The reproduction of religion and language is extremely important to South Asian immigrants (Lessinger 1995; Leonard 1997; Kurien 1998; Segal 1998) and endogamy among the second generation,

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however hybridized the process of “arranged marriage” may end up being, might help them to preserve their culture in the third generation. In the classic schema, South Asian immigrants will, as a group, resist assimilation and will never be part of the mainstream because of their refusal to marry outside the ethnic group. In the updated model, they choose the path of selective acculturation in which they pick and choose which mainstream cultural values to accept and which to reject, enabling them to achieve success while maintaining their separation from the mainstream. Classic assimilation theory also suggests that greater exposure to education and increased economic opportunities would lead to outmarriage (Lieberson and Waters 1988), which indicates that South Asians are indeed actively resisting this expectation given the considerable educational and economic opportunities available to this second generation cohort. But how does this so called resistance take place and how is it experienced by the individuals making the choices? The subjects of this study demonstrate it is not resistance, nor is it automatic adherence to ethnic tradition. Rather, there are variations in experiences which are part of a process of negotiating autonomy and expectations and sometimes departing from parental expectations in dramatic ways. In observing South Asians’ endogamy, it is tempting to assume that the choice is evidence of resistance to assimilation, as implied by a selective acculturation model. But it is important to understand how “arranged marriage” has become rearticulated in the American context and how it may no longer be as foreign as it sounds. In addition, it is important to understand how these choices are being made and how they are subjectively experienced by second generation individuals who were raised in a society that values romantic love and individual choice in mate selection. In other words, these marriage choices are not being made the same way that their peers in South Asia make them but rather by individuals who consider themselves to be American as well as South Asian, and whose expectations about love and marriage are tempered by both cultures. Therefore the idea of marital assimilation is not one that can be measured only by whether or not one marries out but by how the choice is experienced. Second generation marriage choices do not so much illustrate resistance to assimilation but rather, they reveal the ways in which American social norms and ideas about love and marriage have transformed South Asian practices and reveal

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autonomy and self-reflection not evident from casual observation of this population.

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Beyond Assimilation Theory: Conceptualizing Autonomy and the Gender Dimension The theoretical work on the second generation experience has thus far focused on the degree and types of assimilation experiences and the nature of ethnic identity formation. This study seeks to move in a different direction from the literature to understand the second generation experiences in terms of the life pathways which individuals take as they navigate the life course. This analysis frames those life pathways through the lens of autonomy and gender. The nature of individual autonomy and the gender dilemmas and strategies which frame the life pathways provide an alternative perspective on the assimilation experience. The life pathways are a continuum of experiences whereby individuals maintain, ignore or reject ethnic traditions through the mainstream lens of individualism. In analyzing the interview data, three life pathways emerged, the neo-traditional pathway, the independence pathway, and the ethnic rebellion pathway. In examining the experiences along these pathways, a distinct pattern emerged in the ways the individuals subjectively interpreted their life choices and how they handled family negotiations. Interviews were coded based on their responses to questions about how they made and experienced their major life choices, including educational and career choices but especially personal life choices around dating and marriage. How they were influenced by parental and ethnic community expectations and how they described their subjective experience of their choices provided the basis for categorizing subjects. The actions and life pathways are shaped by three different types of autonomy and differences in their gender strategies and their negotiation of mainstream gender norms. Earlier scholarship on the second generation South Asian experience, like the study by Margaret Gibson (1988), implied that powerful ethnic socialization keeps the second generation on life pathways consonant with parental expectations as they resisted assimilation to the mainstream. For this study, it is not the degree of ethnic identification or the decision to date or marry partners outside one’s ethnic group that signifies adoption or rejection of the

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mainstream. Rather, it examines and focuses on varying degrees of individual autonomy and independence from family and ethnic community expectations as key indicators of “becoming American,” as individuals grapple with both the dilemmas brought about by their immigrant backgrounds and the dilemmas faced by their mainstream contemporaries. It may be true that individuals make choices which fulfill parental expectations, but are those choices made by actors who see themselves unquestioningly adhering to tradition? The subjects’ life narratives reveal that they are actors who believe themselves to be autonomous, who might be negotiating, adapting or rejecting tradition. Traditional arranged marriage demands that the couple getting married engage in traditional action, as Weber (1978) described it, where the action is not a deliberate, conscious choice but rather an unexamined conformity to the way things have been done in the past and as tradition demands. The tradition-oriented subjects of this study engage in what Weber described as “value-rational” where they make their choices as an affirmation of their values and beliefs and as will be evident, these choices are made in a self-reflective way in which the actors believe themselves to be autonomous agents. The data chapters in this book will reveal the process by which this happens. For the purposes of this study, autonomy is defined broadly and recognizes that second generation individuals are aware of themselves as actors socialized and influenced by a culture which values individualism and democracy in a way that departs from the traditional values of their parents’ native societies. In describing the relationship between democracy and autonomy, Giddens (1992) describes autonomy as the “capacity of individuals to be self-reflective and selfdetermining,” where individuals in modern democratic societies are expected to engage in the exercise of autonomous action. Autonomy, as used in this study, is the capacity of individuals to make conscious, independent choices from a number of possible courses of action. This departs from others that define autonomy as being free from external influences and control. Most notably, it departs from Dana Vannoy’s (1996) conceptualization of autonomy as “an individual’s capacity for self-direction and self-regulation independent from the expectation of others” (italics in original). The idea of autonomy described here focuses on the subjective understanding of actors who believe they are making choices independently, though not free from the expectations of

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their families and ethnic communities, which loom large in their decision-making process. They weigh their personal values and emotional and material circumstances with the expectations of others, but ultimately see themselves as active agents in their life trajectories. The expectations of their families and ethnic communities may indeed have a tremendous influence on their life choices and life pathways but they view their actions as ultimately their own. The study’s subjects revealed their subjective understanding of themselves as autonomous actors in their responses to interview questions which asked them about the choices they made around dating and marriage plans or choices. They explained the impact of childhood socialization and parental influences. As will be described below even those with a traditional orientation believed that their decision to make choices in accordance to parental expectations, were based on a selfreflective examination of their desires and values. The gender dimension adds an additional level to this analysis, and as discussed in the previous chapter, is examined differently in this study than from other studies which focused on gender inequality in immigrant family experiences. Here, the gender dimension will be examined in terms of the gender dilemmas brought about by contradictions between traditional gender ideology and mainstream American norms which promote egalitarianism. For immigrant families and their second generation children, it is not a simple matter of cultural clash with families insisting their children conform to traditional gender expectations and reject American-style egalitarianism. In the context of maintaining class privilege and achieving upward social mobility, immigrant families have had to modify or reject traditional gender norms, as will be discussed in more detail in chapter three. The pathways which individuals choose to follow are characterized not only by differences in autonomy styles but also by a variety of different strategies for dealing with the gender dilemmas that arise as they negotiate with their families and go about choosing their mates. Second Generation Pathways The primary data in this study were in depth interviews which yielded a rich source of information about the lives of second generation South Asians. The nature of the data renders a biographical or life history

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approach the most appropriate as an analytic technique. In analyzing these life histories, it was also important to consider developmental approaches to think about the ways in which life stages present different opportunities and constraints in the lives of the second generation. The early family lives of the second generation, including their socialization experiences, provided the starting point for understanding where the path to adulthood began. From these starting points, the life histories pointed to a number of different pathways that represent a continuation, modification or departure from their earlier family or childhood orientations. The life history approach begins with an objective set of experiences relayed to the researcher by the respondents within an interview structure that is constructed around a chronological narrative. In the first stage, the data that this yields lends itself to an analysis that is organized around life course stages, i.e. childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. However, an examination of these stages, through coding of emerging independent variables, revealed categories of experiences influenced by life events and larger structural factors in the lives of individual actors. Unlike what has been suggested by earlier research, the life narratives reveal two different baselines and multiple pathways. The two major starting points that emerged from the interviews were family orientations that were either traditional or assimilationist in character. In categorizing the orientations, the analysis takes into account the family’s immigration history, the parental expectations of their children, the family’s participation in ethnic religious or social activities and the type and form of the family’s ethnic socialization strategies. Contrary to the impression left by studies of first generation immigrants, the orientations of parents were not uniform but rather, represented a range of different viewpoints about how to raise their children in the United States. Even within the two categories that emerged from this study, there were variations within them which speak to the ambivalence and adaptability in immigrant families. Broadly, the traditional family orientation was one in which the family immigrated primarily for economic and career reasons and were not at first committed to a permanent move to the United States. While they recognized that their children would be raised in the United States, traditionally-minded parents expected that their children would

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continue the religion and cultural practices, perhaps slightly modified, of their native culture. Ethnic religious and social activities for these families were not only important for their obvious functions but also to reinforce the importance of the ethnic culture and ethnic community to their children. Ethnic socialization efforts were aimed at reproducing the native culture and reinforcing loyalty to the ethnic community. In most traditional families, parents discouraged or prohibited dating and had at least a vague expectation of arranged marriage or a modified form of it. In families with a traditional orientation, there was an understanding that while the United States provided many things for the family, it was important to maintain ties to the native country and to situate oneself within the immigrant ethnic community. The assimilationist family orientation is different primarily in the parental understanding that the native culture, while it can be taught and appreciated, can not be reproduced in the American context. Families with this orientation had more variation in their immigration histories, with most deciding to immigrate for a number of reasons, citing both economic and personal reasons. While they also thought it was important to teach children the language, religion and cultural practices of their native culture, the process was less rigid and gave children more choice in terms of the extent to which they wanted to involve themselves in these activities. There was a stated understanding that their children were being raised in the United States and as such, they must make modifications in their practices and also make concessions to their new home. Arranged marriage was not an expectation although parents might express a preference for endogamy. While dating might not be encouraged, usually it was tolerated or ignored and the ultimate choice was left to the second generation. Interestingly, most of the parents who represented this point of view were described by their adult children as politically and socially liberal. While family orientations are important, no family exists in a vacuum and structural factors played a role in the experiences of the second generation. In this study, the structural factors that need to be taken into account include social class position, economic conditions, the level of actual or perceived discrimination experienced by the second generation, the geographic proximity of co-ethnics, the presence or absence of family social networks and the presence or absence of second generation organizations. Overall, the social class positions of

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the respondents of this study were, with exactly one exception, middle to upper middle class. As stated earlier, the reason for this has much to do with the nature of immigration policies in the time period during which the parents of the respondents entered the United States. As will be discussed in further detail in the following chapter, class privilege and class expectations play a significant role in mediating parental socialization strategies. Even as they promote traditional ethnic values, middle and upper middle class immigrant parents also desire class maintenance or upward mobility. In fulfilling the goal of maintaining or achieving higher class status, they encouraged their children’s academic and career success, which included the promotion of values around egalitarianism and individual achievement. This strategy, perhaps unwittingly, fostered a sense of individual autonomy and selfdirection in most subjects. In the early stages of this research, it was hypothesized that the members of the second generation would represent three possible outcomes: 1) those who were tradition-oriented and favored the traditional approach to arranged marriage, 2) “new” traditionalists who transformed arranged marriage in the American context and 3) assimilationists, who abandoned the idea of arranged marriage altogether. However, further analysis of the data revealed that these early categories did not reveal the true nature of the experiences of the study participants and were inadequate for analyzing the complexity of these experiences. Firstly, they did not account for changes and shifts in individual life trajectories, as in the cases of individuals who may have started out with traditional expectations and veered away from tradition. Secondly, because arranged marriage and indeed what it means to be “traditional” has itself become transformed both in the immigrant and transnational contexts, it is important to examine how subjects chose to deal with it. Traditional arranged marriage, in which partners are chosen strictly by family members with little to no contact between potential spouses, is fast disappearing among the urban middle classes in South Asia. The experience of traditional arranged marriage or even the expectation of it was not the reality for any of the respondents in this study. The original category of “assimilationist” was inadequate as well because the degree to which individuals believed themselves to be “assimilated” or “Americanized” in their interview responses did not correlate to their marriage and dating

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choices. The life history approach also yielded data that shows the ways in which life paths diverge and change based on both the objective and subjective experiences of the respondents. In departing from the original schema, three different life pathways emerged. Starting from one of two possible baselines, they are presented in Figure 2.1 below: Figure 2.1

Second generation baselines and outcomes. Second Generation Pathways

Childhood Orientation Traditional (n=47)

  

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Assimilative (n=13)

 

Life Pathway Neo-traditional (n=33) Independence (n=10) Ethnic Rebellion (n=4) Independence (n=11) Ethnic Rebellion (n=2)

The Neo-Traditional Pathway- 55% (n=33) Describing respondents as neo-traditional refers to the flexibility and adaptation of traditional South Asian norms and values around courtship and marriage. There is not a uniform category of experiences that define the neo-traditional pathway. Instead, what steers or maintains this course of life experiences is the core idea that life choices that are consonant with parental expectations are best for them. They choose to seek out or have chosen a co-ethnic spouse because it is inherently a better choice than to be with someone outside of their religious and ethnic group. Therefore, those on the neo-traditional pathway (“the neo-traditionals”) seek out those partners—whatever the actual meeting and courtship process may turn out to be—who are of the same background. These individuals believe that a partner with the

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same background will have a shared set of expectations and cultural referents, making it more likely that they will have a successful marriage. While those are strong personal reasons for choosing the neotraditional route, there is also a strong desire on the part of most of the respondents in this category to fulfill parental and community expectations as well. The key thing to note is that these subjects want a successful, intimate relationship with their spouse, much like any other American would. With the exception of one respondent, most of the neo-traditionals did not feel that they had to sacrifice their own needs and happiness to fulfill parental expectations but rather that their choices compliment the wishes of their families and ethnic community. All of the individuals in this category started out with a traditionoriented family baseline and their childhood ethnic social networks, even through college, cross-country career moves and the onset of adulthood, had an important impact on their lives. What is critical is that in their own framing of their life choices, they see themselves as autonomous actors making a rational, self-interested decision to marry a co-ethnic and make life choices which also meet with parental approval. This self-perception is described by Rehana, a 33 year old married physician of Pakistani origin: I chose to meet people on set-ups arranged by my parents and family friends because that is what I wanted. As an observant Muslim and someone who is into her culture, it was important to me to have someone who shared my beliefs and values and outlook on life…it would have to be someone of the same background. Did I please my parents? Definitely. If I made a different choice, would they be upset? Yeah…but this is America and it’s different, it’s not like I was going to be stoned or anything. But that choice [to marry outside my culture] would have meant sacrificing my relationship with my parents, which I wasn’t willing to do. But it was my choice, based on what I thought would be best for my life. (respondent’s emphasis) Chandan, a 36 year old surgeon of Indian origin, expressed a sense of his own agency in maintaining tradition by pointing out the pragmatic, personal reasons he had for his choice:

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It’s really a rational decision if you think about it and I came to realize this as I got older. You want to marry someone who has the same values as you do and who you have things in common with. You’re also going to have less conflict about things, especially when it comes to children. You don’t have to worry about what religion or culture to raise them with. Sure, I liked to party a lot when I was younger and went out with a lot of girls, but when it comes to marriage, that’s serious. There is an overall theme of rationality and pragmatism in the decision-making process. Respondents also believe that shared values and a shared cultural heritage are the ideal foundation for a fulfilling relationship, creating a powerful incentive to maintain a course on the neo-traditional pathway. At key points in their lives, the individuals on this pathway describe making decisions, whether about college majors, careers or dating and marriage, as independent actors, but with a great deal of consideration to family expectations. As mentioned, they tend to have close ties to the ethnic community and may also have maintained connections to relatives in their family’s native country. As a result, their own values and norms are shaped in large part by these connections, which can inform their choices. This experience of autonomy is one where the individuals subjectively experience themselves as independent actors making their own choices. The degree of family and community expectations that weigh into those choices describes what might be called bounded autonomy, a form of autonomy where there are a circumscribed set of boundaries within which they are made. These boundaries are not necessarily experienced as deterministic, but rather as a filtering system that represents their values and life goals. Why do these individuals consider themselves autonomous actors when their choices seem so limited by parental and community expectations? A case can be made for bounded autonomy because of its contrast to true traditional action in the Weberian model. Instead, it is a product of the post-traditional order and the social capital and class privileges of these respondents. Like other well-educated, middle-class Americans, they believe they have the right to determine the course of their lives. This contrasts sharply to the experiences of discriminated

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and immigrant communities in Western Europe, as described in the previous chapter, where the second generation is pressured to conform to traditional expectations given the marginality they face economically and socially in the mainstream culture (Khanum 2008). The respondents in this study who chose the neo-traditional pathway are well-educated, mostly professionals, who do not frame their life choices as forced but instead negotiated and compromised. Their families and ethnic communities are a source of social capital and the receptivity of the mainstream to well-educated and upwardly mobile immigrants creates a climate in which conformity to parental and ethnic community expectations is not only virtuous, but also reinforces the positive expectations of mainstream society. In order to maintain that positive image, the respondents of this study are careful to emphasize their autonomy and the logic of their choices. They do not want to be seen as “backwards” in their choice of tradition and emphasize the degree of control they have over the choice of their future spouse. Jaya, a married 37 year old described the process: It [the process by which I met my husband] was pretty traditional because my family introduced me to him on a trip to India and it was not for casual dating. We spent time together to see if we would want to marry each other. I didn’t feel like my parents would force me to marry him. Some people think that Indians have these arranged marriages where their family picks out some stranger for them and you’re forced to marry them. If I didn’t like him, I’d get introduced to more people. Bounded autonomy is characterized by the actors believing in their own freedom to choose, even as it is framed by external expectations. The boundary maintenance associated with traditional arranged marriage is perpetuated yet at the same time transformed by the values and expectations of mainstream American society. Individuals do not emphasize the limitations placed on them but rather the choices that they have and the negotiations that they are able to make. They frame the boundary maintenance of endogamy not as a resistance to the mainstream but rather as a pragmatic strategy for finding the most compatible mate, in addition to pleasing their parents and community.

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When it comes to gender norms, those on the neo-traditional pathway saw childhood modifications to traditional gender ideology in the way they were raised by their parents. They acknowledged that in terms of status and privileges, boys had been favored, subtly or more blatantly, but that parents encouraged the same degree of excellence in their children regardless of gender and this shaped their views on egalitarianism as Jaya recalls: My parents were very traditional in a lot of ways and I think if I had a brother, he probably would have gotten away with more. But it’s not like they tried to keep me down. They pushed me to do well in school, wanted me to be a doctor, like my dad and basically I had the sense growing up that ultimately, I could do any career a boy could do.

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However, many women who chose the traditional pathway recognized that while they may be aggressive and independent in their personal lives, in the context of family and religious life, the egalitarianism of the professional world has to be modified, as in the case of Nina, a 33 year old Indian American banker: When it comes to my family, I am always the one making tea, doing things for them when I’m in their house. I’m their “nice” girl who won’t disappoint them. I go to these big events held by these Gujurati associations where the women all line up on a stage and the guys decide if they’re interested, like pieces of female meat in silk outfits. I laugh at the irony, when I get back to work, handling millions... Most of the men saw themselves as having had gender privilege growing up, a privilege that they struggle with and need to modify in their quest for a spouse, as in the case of Haroun, a 27 year old Pakistani American lawyer: A lot of us [South Asian guys] grew up getting away with a lot and spoiled by our mothers because we were boys and it’s totally unfair. And sometimes, it’s easy for me to slip into that at home—like, the women do everything. But you know, as an adult, I had to consciously, get away from that. I think I

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American probably would have turned women off, like my wife, unless I got over that.

The central gender dilemma for those on the traditional pathway is that fulfilling parental expectations and trying to maintain ethnic tradition can run counter to the more egalitarian gender norms of mainstream culture. Women face the gendered double-bind where they are expected to be “equal” in the workplace but traditional in the home; men find they have to address the gender privilege they experienced in their families in order to be more appealing to their potential mates.

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The Independence Pathway- 35% (n=21) The independence pathway is described as such because the respondents on this trajectory have come to make major life choices independently of the expectations of their parents and ethnic community. This does not mean that individuals did not place a high value on their ethnic culture but rather that their choices were not influenced by a primary desire to conform to those expectations. Career choices and a career-centered focus were especially important in steering people towards independence, especially in the case of individuals raised in tradition-oriented families who have diverged from parental expectations. In their personal lives, these respondents have had relationships in and out of the ethnic community and the married respondents found spouses through a variety of different means, from “typical” American ways of meeting people in college, in the workplace or the Internet, but they also have available to them the South Asian “party scene” or social events sponsored by second generation organizations. For many respondents who have taken the independence pathway, potential partners are found “working both systems,” in which one meets people through mainstream methods but is also open to set-ups by parents or meeting people through the South Asian “scene,” thereby providing one with a steady stream of potential partners. Working both systems maximizes dating opportunities, something that becomes increasingly important to unmarried respondents approaching their mid-thirties. Neeta, a medical resident, describes working both systems as a way of maximizing dating opportunities:

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My [non-Indian] friends are jealous—they say I wish someone would hook me up. Seriously, I am open to dating guys of whatever background, wherever I meet them. During a dry spell, I’ll totally let my parents set me up with someone, even though so far, that hasn’t worked out for me. Those on the independence pathway, not surprisingly, express a tremendous sense of autonomy in all areas of their lives, personal as well as professional, as in the case of 33 year old Farhana, a graduate student of Bangladeshi origin:

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You know, my parents wanted me to major in pre-med, but I didn’t do it. And they probably wanted me to marry a Bangladeshi Muslim, ideally, but I didn’t do that either. I told them that it had to be the way I wanted to do things, despite whatever expectations they had or their friends had. I’d have to do that career or be with that guy and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my goals. There’s a certain kind of life I want, and I make my decisions according to that. Unlike those on the neo-traditional pathway, the respondents believe that they might find what is best for them, whether conforming to or diverging from parental expectations, as reflected in one respondent’s openness to finding a partner by any means: I don’t think I have to marry an Indian but I’m definitely open to the possibility and know it would make my mother really happy. My parents are pretty liberal and accepting—my sister didn’t marry an Indian—so I know it would be okay if I didn’t and they would be happy for me. I’ve dated women of different backgrounds but right now my work schedule makes it hard for me to have a normal life so these set-ups work for me right now. My mother will send me someone’s biodata and I’ll contact and meet them for a drink or coffee... I haven’t met anyone through these set-ups that I could have a relationship with—but you never know, I could meet someone or I could meet someone some other way. Honestly, I’d like to get married soon and I’m open to however way it happens. (Sunil, 28 year old Indian American management consultant)

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In Sunil’s case, if he did meet a woman through the set-ups, he doesn’t see himself as being traditional, but rather, making a choice that worked for him, regardless of how or whom he ended up with. As he notes, he has never limited his partner choices by ethnicity nor does he believe that a co-ethnic would make an inherently better partner, but it’s a choice that might work. The type of autonomy illustrated by the respondents on the independence pathway represent instrumental autonomy, whereby an individual perceives their actions as being self-reflective and deliberate choices that seek to fulfill their life goals, independent of external pressures from their family and ethnic community. At times, their choices may not be compatible with parental and ethnic expectations and they feel that they are justified in choosing to diverge from those expectations to attain their life goals, which respondents reported to be to achieve fulfilling careers and fulfilling relationships. This type of autonomy is goal-oriented and unconstrained by what they believe might be expectations that jeopardize the fulfillment of those goals. For individuals who have diverged from a traditional family orientation, it involves negotiation with families and convincing them that they are making the right choices, both in their professional and personal life choices. Individuals raised with an assimilationist family orientation, have consistently been steered towards the independence pathway and were socialized to be autonomous in a way that reflected mainstream individualism, even while honoring their ethnic culture. The gender dilemma is resolved by these respondents by choosing to adopt mainstream egalitarian values both professionally and personally. Both men and women reported that they were raised with egalitarian values in their families or made great efforts to overcome any inequality experienced in childhood. As autonomous actors, gender equality and being able to make life choices regardless of their gender is an important value in both their professional and personal lives. They cited egalitarian values as very important in determining suitable partners, and saw the gender ideology of traditional ethnic cultures as a vestige best left in the past. The Ethnic Rebellion Pathway- 10% (n=6) While the respondents on the ethnic rebellion pathway represent the smallest group in this sample, they provide an important window into

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the difficulties some individuals have in navigating their families and ethnic community. These six individuals, 4 women and 2 men, with two exceptions, were raised in very tradition-oriented households with intensive ethnic socialization. Parental expectations played a key role in their early lives but they experienced a major shift away from those expectations in early adulthood. The path to ethnic rebellion was paved by either negative experiences or attitudes towards the ethnic community and/or a rebellion away from repressive gender ideologies. These individuals see themselves as autonomous actors making a deliberate and calculated decision to reject the traditional expectations of their parents and ethnic community, often suffering strained relations with their families. Mohsena, a 29 year old Bangladeshi American civil rights lawyer, describes her negative experiences with racism in her ethnic community: So we’d be discriminated against at school and at the workplace but then we’d go home and make negative remarks about black people or Puerto Ricans. Friends of my parents would be proud of where they lived because there were no black people there and make comments about Puerto Ricans being thieves. They would even make disparaging comments about Jews. It was just taking on the racist attitudes of American society in general and I’d be thinking, hey, white people don’t think so highly of you except that you can do certain jobs and can keep quiet and out of trouble. She was influenced by these negative experiences in her personal life and she decided to date and eventually became engaged to a man outside her ethnic community. This rebellious stance can also extend to career choices, as in the case of Vivek, a 28 year old Indian American who shifted careers from banking to teaching middle school math: It was definitely an act of rebellion to switch careers, the family was in shock. Not that they don’t respect teachers but guys aren’t supposed to do that—how are you going to make money? I have my ideals and I chose to follow them by doing this. Did I disappoint my parents? I think so but I had to do it because I love it. It’s not all about material success and all

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American these guys who go into finance, they want money but they also do it because that’s what they’re supposed to do. I gave that up.

Repressive gender ideology was another reason to push individuals on the path to rebellion:

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This is going to sound really bad but I think the reason why I’m not attracted to South Asian guys is that they’re kind of sexist. I mean not in the usual sense because these guys are educated and they expect their wives to be educated and have careers. But there’s definitely something about the way that Indian and Pakistani guys are raised that gave them a lot more freedom and made them feel more whatever, special, than girls. Like their mothers, they expect the women in their lives to do a lot for them. Also, a lot of observant Muslim guys have traditional expectations of women. (Shireen, 24 year old Pakistani American student) The respondents on the ethnic rebellion pathway had negative experiences and the sense that they couldn’t lead their lives according to the ideals of their parents and ethnic community. This caused them to veer away from tradition or even a neutral position like their peers on the independence pathway. This represents a divergent autonomy where the individual is making independent choices framed around a deliberate movement away from childhood expectations, the goal being to diverge from them. Conclusion What explains the variations between the three groups of subjects and how they diverged along these pathways? For the most part, they experienced very similar childhood experiences and had similar social class, structural and institutional contexts. What this study demonstrates is that micro-level factors and experiences, combined with opportunity structures which allow individuals different options can lead to them making different life choices. Childhood socialization combined with ethnic social networks, the existence of transnational ties, geographic separation from families or origins as well as educational and career experiences influenced whether their life

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pathways were straightforward or if they diverged. The divergence shows that early experiences are not deterministic and that second generation subjects have variability in their negotiations of structure and agency. The three pathways were taken by these individuals as a result of changing family strategies and a mainstream society that allows immigrants to exercise their options, ethnic or not. This is not to say that they do not have to navigate around their status as non-white members of a so-called model minority. Indeed, that is a topic for other research and requires a separate discussion. Rather, members of the second generation make choices around the constraints and opportunities they encounter, both in their ethnic communities and in mainstream society. The following chapter describes the family and community contexts, socialization experiences, and structural contexts which provided the baseline orientations of the second generation subjects of this study. The variations in family strategies, socialization styles and the influence of social class and the pressures of adaptation and mobility are part of the confluence of experiences which shape second generation pathways.

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CHAPTER 3

Contradictory Childhoods: Family Dilemmas and Strategies Introduction

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The family is critical in identity formation and for the children of immigrants, it plays a key role in the ways that they experience the adaptation process. Parental attitudes toward their native culture and values, and their acceptance or rejection of mainstream cultural norms and values provide the contextual basis for later life choices and trajectories. In the case of South Asians, the traditional family norms and gender ideologies of their native cultures contrast sharply with those of the mainstream United States, creating a potentially conflicted climate of family experiences and intergenerational stress. It is therefore important to discuss the influence of family context by analyzing ethnic socialization and how family experiences influence second generation life trajectories. The findings of this study challenge assumptions about South Asian American family life as it uncovers the new dilemmas faced by immigrant parents and the second generation. Family experiences and the contexts of socialization The family experiences of the second generation are largely influenced by the immigration experiences, socieoeconomic status and adjustment experiences of their parents. Consistent with the first wave of South Asian immigrants of the post-1965 period, the parents of the subjects of this study were overwhelmingly middle class or upper middle class, with most of their fathers possessing post-graduate degrees and most mothers having attained at least a bachelor’s degree. Over half of the subjects’ parents were employed as physicians or engineers, with the rest generally working in other professional, technical or academic fields. They were all voluntary immigrants who came to the United States for one or some combination of the following reasons: (1) to pursue higher education, (2) career or economic opportunities lacking in the home country, or (3) better overall quality of life. Most of the family narratives of the immigration experience were positive and 61 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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described at least one, if not all the reasons above although some were not initially sure if their immigration to the U.S. would be permanent: My dad came over here to get his graduate degree…it was one of those things that started out as temporary and then my father had gotten a job. I think the first few years, they wanted to get some money in the bank and well, they’re still here. (Aditi, age 30) They came here pretty much as soon as their immigration papers went through. It was for better opportunities, especially for us—their three daughters. And they pretty much knew that it would be a permanent thing. (Anita, age 32)

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While the majority immigrated for primarily economic reasons, there were a few cases where the subjects’ parents immigrated explicitly for freedom, whether from an oppressive family situation or from political oppression: They came to the U.S. mostly to get away from family pressures and start fresh in this country. I’m not sure if they knew it would be permanent but in addition to the freedom, my father [who is a psychiatrist] had more career opportunities and the combination of those reasons convinced them to stay. (Jaya, age 37) My parents came to the U.S. primarily for political reasons. He was a writer and a journalist and not popular with the government in Bangladesh. There was a lot of political instability and unrest so moving here, at the time, seemed like the best choice. (Mohsena, age 29) As mentioned earlier, most of the parents of the subjects of this study were middle class, and usually from urban, upper middle class families in their respective homelands. The class homogeneity of this group is unsurprising given the visa requirements for permanent residents immigrating in the period following 1965. However, while there was not much class variation, family experiences varied based on a number of different factors including parental attitudes towards

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mainstream U.S. society and structural factors such as community resources and the presence or absence of co-ethnics. While most of the immigrants knew they would reside permanently in the United States, they made a special effort to maintain ties to extended family back home. Before the days of email and affordable international long distance phone calls, this was primarily done through letter-writing and frequent visits. When asked how connected their families were to relatives in South Asia, these were typical responses:

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All of my parents’ siblings and their parents lived in India. So we used to visit every year when I was growing up. My mother and I basically spent our summers in India. In the last five years, they’ve gone every year and I’ve gone about three times. So I would say that we’re pretty well-connected. (Deepa, age 30) My mom probably speaks to her parents weekly. Her siblings all live here now. Her parents are in the process of becoming citizens (of the U.S.) so that they can come and go freely. As for my father, his entire family is over there, except for his sister. I think when I was a kid, I would go [to Pakistan] every other year. My family had and still has a lot of contact with my relatives. (Shireen, age 24) Frequent visits to visit family in South Asia reinforced ethnic socialization efforts and provided children with a direct link to their ethnic culture as well as extended family relationships, fostering transnational ties to the homeland that continues for some respondents into adulthood. Realizing the importance of these family visits, many parents funded these visits regularly. For many parents, these visits “back home” formed the linchpin of their ethnic socialization strategies, seeing the considerable expense of overseas flights as a necessity rather than an indulgence. The extensiveness and types of ethnic socialization strategies depended on parental attitudes but also on the geographic proximity of co-ethnics and access to immigrant organizations, religious and cultural institutions. While ethnic socialization can serve to reinforce family bonds, it can also create dissonance in the lives of the children, who

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face conflicting cultural practices and values when confronted by mainstream culture in their schools and neighborhoods. Immigrant family life is also characterized by parental adaptations to family roles in the United States. The traditional gender role hierarchy has had to be modified, if not abandoned, in the context of life in the United States, an adaptation which will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter. Most of the subjects’ mothers worked outside the home, many of them in professional careers. However, while mothers worked and had careers, most of them managed the household as well as their children’s educational, religious and ethnic upbringing. Mothers played a crucial role in maintaining religious rituals for the family: There was no temple nearby so going to the temple regularly wasn’t an option. But my mother did maintain a small family shrine and she did daily pujas [her morning ritual] every day. (Rekha, Indian American, age 24)

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Although I went to the mosque with my dad when I was older, my mother was the one who sat down with us and taught us suras, Arabic prayers, before the mosque had set up the Islamic Sunday school. (Asif, Pakistani American, age 30) The respondents’ mothers were primarily responsible for the spiritual well-being of their children. However, both parents were involved in their intellectual development and academic performance. While there was an emphasis on the values and fundamental beliefs from the native culture, immigrant parents weighed this against the need to raise children who had the social and interpersonal skills to be successful in American society. Children were taught to stick to traditional values at home, especially as they related to religious and ethnic solidarity and obedience to parents, while they were also expected to display the ambition and autonomy required for success in the United States. These cultural contradictions and the adaptations they require will be examined in greater detail in the next section of this chapter. While South Asian parents attempted to combine the “best” of both the native and the host cultures, how this was practiced varied greatly. One of the primary ways of reinforcing ethnic culture and values was to

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extend the process to the family’s social life. Nearly all the subjects of this study reported that their parents had an extensive social network of family friends who comprised a large, if not exclusive, part of their parents’ social lives. While many families participated in formal cultural organizations and religious institutions, these family social networks provided the core of second generation children’s social intercourse with co-ethnics. In contrast to the mainstream American norm of leaving children with a babysitter, most South Asian dinner parties included children. Priya, a 22 year old college student met her husband through her parents’ social circles at events she describes as “kiddie parties”:

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[The kiddie party] it’s this thing that a lot of people call their group of Indian friends. The kiddie party was a group of friends and then a younger generation. It was basically a whole bunch of friends who would have parties about once a month. And it’s great because it was a great source of support. These social gatherings, whether formal or informal, provided second generation South Asian children with an opportunity to socialize and make friendships with their co-ethnic peers. For the majority of the subjects of this study, there were few if any co-ethnics in their schools or neighborhoods and many families would drive distances of up to two hours to socialize with other families of the same background. Children, as well as their parents, had an opportunity to speak the native language, eat ethnic foods, wear South Asian clothing and be comfortable in a way that they would not when socializing with people from other backgrounds: They [my parents] wanted me to learn the culture but it wasn’t forced on me in any way. We spoke the language and ate the food. Mostly, it was about socializing with other Indians. My parents’ circle consisted of people from India and so it was just things I picked up [from hanging out with them]. (Jaya, age 37) There’s such a big South Asian Muslim community where I grew up, there were always parties, weddings and mehndi [henna ceremonies]. So there were always opportunities to

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wear the salwar kameez [the tunic and pants outfit worn by South Asian women] and to socialize with other Pakistani or Indian Muslim people. (Shireen, age 24) In addition to informal social gatherings, nearly all the parents of the subjects were involved in immigrant ethnic organizations. Their level of participation in these organizations varied greatly from founding and leadership positions to at least tangential involvement like attending events or getting their children involved in cultural or religious activities. The immigrant organizations tended to structure themselves along regional and religious affiliations, once there was a critical mass of people from a particular group. In the beginning, an immigrant might belong to the India Association in their area, but as more and more immigrants come into an area, they tended to form more specialized regional or religious groups, e.g. a Punjabi Sikh, Gujerati or a Tamil Association. Some of the ethnic organizations, especially as their members became more established and affluent, eventually funded and built places of worship to serve community members. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis had their own associations, uniting around common national origins and/or religion. These ethnic organizations, whatever their particular structure or level of formality, were key institutions in the ethnic socialization of immigrant children. They were founded not only to serve as socializing opportunities for adult members, but also to provide a structured place for immigrant children to interact with their co-ethnic peers. This was especially important in reinforcing the ethnic socialization efforts that parents undertook in the home. The organizations functioned on a few different levels: (1) they provided a purely social space for adults and children to interact with co-ethnics, (2) they provided the organizational backbone for cultural and religious events, (3) they provided educational opportunities for children to learn ethnic arts and culture, language or religious training (before stand alone “schools” existed), and (4) they served as a resource and social network for both parents and adult children for finding potential mates. The immigrant associations have adapted their functions over time to meet the needs of its members. In the beginning, they were focused on providing activities for children, but later many of them introduced second generation “branches” or activities to meet the needs of teens and young adult members. The following are typical experiences:

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I did learn the Koran through classes from the mosque but my parents did participate in a Pakistani cultural group as well. My siblings and I didn’t do anything cultural per se but we were dragged by our parents to the events. Now my wife drags me to cultural events. (Haroun, age 27) Our activities revolved around church. We belong to the Marthoma Church, which is an Indian [people from Kerala] congregation, a Syrian Christian Church. I participated in church youth activities all through high school and college…our church also had youth conferences so that you could meet people of the same background. (Manu, age 33)

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My parents belonged to a Bengali club and they had pujas and functions that I would participate in. I did singing and dancing and things like that. I didn’t do it after I got older but a lot of my Indian friends are kids I knew from back then. (Ananya, age 33) These childhood experiences of immigrant organizations left an impression on the second generation by providing safe and comfortable ethnic “spaces” for them to express their religious and cultural differences from mainstream American society. The need for such ethnic spaces was not lost on the second generation, who have established their own independent organizations, which will be discussed in greater detail in chapter five. New Dilemmas, New Family Strategies As families coped with the challenges of adapting to their new environment, even with supportive social networks and a strong will to preserve their native culture’s values and norms, new dilemmas inevitably emerged. The perennial immigrant desire to achieve social mobility heightens the need to address the conflicts between traditional cultural norms and values and the demands of the mainstream society to which they must adapt. Traditional South Asian family and gender norms are pitted against mainstream expectations of individualism, autonomy and egalitarianism and childrearing practices which reflect those values. What follows are the most common and pressing

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dilemmas which were revealed in the family experiences of nearly all the respondents in this study. The first dilemma is the pull of ethnicity versus the push for success, which is relevant to many immigrant families, not just South Asians. The push for success demands that individuals navigate American society and make the adaptations necessary to achieve academic, career and most importantly, financial success. Achieving the American dream requires that immigrants master the English language and display personality traits, such as assertiveness, a keen work ethic, and the willingness to break away from family to attend the better university or to accept a position in another city. While immigrants by definition are people who are willing to make such choices, there is also the pull of ethnicity, which pulls one back to the native culture’s values and keeps them in check for fear of becoming too American. For these families, the pull of ethnicity is experienced as the pull towards the family and the ethnic community and maintaining those values within the home and community, all the while adapting generally to mainstream expectations at school and work. The second dilemma is the struggle between authority and individualism. This dilemma is rooted in the conflict between the South Asian norm of parental authority and American expectations of individualism. In the traditional South Asian family structure, parents and other older relatives, have tremendous authority over the lives and decisions of children, even adult children. The practice of arranged marriage is predicated on this type of parental authority. This is antithetical to the American norm in which children, especially when they are young adults, are expected and indeed encouraged to make their own major life decisions. Children in South Asian families feel this tension early on, but especially as they enter adolescence, when the divide between their family experiences and that of other American teenagers widens even further. Parents are conflicted over how American they should allow their children to be, while acknowledging their need to fit into the host society. The third is the gender dilemma. This dilemma is one in which family members are pushed and pulled between the egalitarian norms of American society and traditional South Asian gender ideology. While mainstream American society is by no means a utopia of gender equality, the idea and expectation of equality between the sexes

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contrasts sharply with traditional South Asian culture, which favors male children and limits the activities and opportunities of female children. While gender norms are changing in South Asia, particularly among the educated urban elites, females continue to face greater restrictions in the family. Related to a more traditional gender ideology are stricter attitudes towards sexual behavior, especially as it relates to controlling the sexuality of unmarried young women. Traditional notions of gender clash with the egalitarian norms in this country. They also clash with middle class expectations of educational and career success for female as well as male children. South Asian families encourage girls to excel in those arenas and indeed many immigrant mothers are well educated and may have professional careers of their own. The ambivalence is evident and often, conflict is created, when the autonomy and individualism expected of women in educational and workplace settings clashes with a different set of expectations at home. The ways in which these dilemmas manifest themselves in individual families vary according to a number of different factors, including the nature of the family’s immigration experiences, the degree to which parents’ desire to reproduce their native cultural practices and the family’s involvement in immigrant social networks. Negative immigration experiences, such as discrimination, a strong desire to maintain “authentic” cultural values and practices, and a social life exclusively within the immigrant ethnic community results in a stronger push and pull of these dilemmas. Even when this is not the case, South Asian parents feel ambivalent about how they want to negotiate the demands of maintaining their ethnic culture and practices in the face of conflicting norms in mainstream American society. The parents of the subjects in this study were all voluntary immigrants who chose to come to the United States primarily for economic opportunity and better career and educational opportunities. However, that choice does not preclude ambivalence about the extent to which they want to become American. In the contemporary United States, what it means to be American and what it means for immigrants to assimilate has taken on a whole different meaning from what it meant to immigrants in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The highly visible celebrations of multiculturalism suggest to recent or post1965 immigrants that they may retain more than vestigial aspects of their native cultures and still be part of American society. For many

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South Asian immigrants, that means that they have the freedom to recreate or reproduce many aspects of their native religious and cultural lives in the United States. Scholars and policymakers alike suggest that it is this tendency towards cultural retention that makes immigrant groups like South Asians, as well as other Asian groups, so successful in the United States. While that may be true, the way that these choices are experienced by immigrants and their children is often marked by ambivalence and tension. While parents may have a hypothetical point of view over how they would like to make these choices, actual family experiences present a number of dilemmas that makes this decisionmaking a dynamic process. The confluence of the cultural dynamics outlined earlier and the demands and temptations of mainstream American society create a set of contradictions that are much more complex than earlier research had suggested. As discussed earlier, major elements of traditional South Asian cultures directly contradict norms and expectations of mainstream American society. Should traditional gender norms be scrapped in favor of more egalitarian ones? Should parents and children sacrifice family harmony for individual autonomy and economic success? What aspects of the native culture should be sacrificed and what are the consequences? First generation parents grapple with one set of dilemmas as they struggle to adjust to American society and make sense of their family lives. As the second generation make their way through their own lives, they deal with their own set of dilemmas, facing conflicting emotions as they deal with the negotiations and compromises they must make. Parents make choices based not only on their personal preferences but also on the ways in which their decisions will impact the future lives of their children. For most of the subjects studied, parents were willing to make sacrifices if it would help their children become successful in American society. The major areas of change in parental strategies all relate back to maximizing children’s educational success. They specifically modify traditional expectations which may hinder children’s potential for educational success and upward social mobility, an issue that will be examined in more depth later in this chapter. Parents also tended to adapt when they felt that maintaining rigid traditional expectations might lead to social and emotional problems in their children and prevent them from having fulfilling adult lives.

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One example of the way parents adapted their expectations to maximize their child’s educational success was in language retention. While most parents wanted their children to speak the native language and even arranged for formal instruction in the native language, some parents were willing to make exceptions: My parents spoke Urdu but it was not a big deal for us to speak it. In fact, when my brother was born, we consciously spoke English all the time. He was hearing impaired and the doctors suggested that he only be exposed to one language. So instead of compromising his development, my family chose to make English our primary language because that was more important. (Shireen, age 24)

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We were encouraged to learn Hindi but it wasn’t forced on us. My parents especially didn’t want speaking Hindi to interfere with our skills in English. They didn’t want us to do badly in school because of that. (Anita, age 32) This applied as well to other kinds of participation in ethnic/cultural activities—time spent on these activities could be sacrificed if it interfered with schoolwork and education-related activities. While all families adapted, it is important to note the variation across families as well as the time element—some parents were quite rigid in their early family lives in the United States but adapted over time as they “mellowed” and were willing to compromise to some extent as their children grew older. As discussed earlier, the primary motivation for first generation parents to move to the United States was economic and not as a rejection of the culture and values of their respective homelands. In establishing themselves in the United States, many immigrants felt it was important to form cultural and religious institutions and friendship circles consisting of co-ethnics in order to reconstitute a version of home away from home. Interestingly, some subjects noted that many parents re-imagined their homelands as they left it in the 1960s and 1970s, in some cases being “more Indian than the Indians”:

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American I don’t relate very well to people who are very, very Indian and I don’t mean just culturally. They live in America but they feel that they must maintain these specific ties to India. They pretend to play this game. People in India don’t feel that pressure because they just are Indian. (Meena, age 25) Our parents seem to have a very static idea of what it’s like in India, or Pakistan or Bangladesh. They think it’s like when they left there. But guess what? My cousins watch MTV and have satellite television and they date, have sex and have love marriages. Especially in the cities, young people are probably a lot wilder than my siblings and I ever were growing up in America. (Anita, age 32)

Intergenerational stress can be potentially greater in families where parents expect their children to strictly maintain South Asian cultural values and when they are less adaptable to changing circumstances:

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My relationship with my parents is civil but very distant. They’re very upset that I married someone who is not Indian and that they didn’t get to choose who I would end up with. (Meena, age 25) Like, when I would get into fights with my parents about things like dating or going out, I’d say, “well, why did you bring us here?” and then they would threaten to send us back to Bangladesh to live with our relatives. That was the ultimate threat and though I knew my parents would never actually do that, I know of people that happened to. There was a family we knew, where the daughter got really wild and had run away from home and eventually the whole family moved back to India. To me, that seemed like the worst possible fate. (Farhana, age 33) Many parents, though, were aware that children who were being raised in the United States should not be subject to the same cultural expectations as they would have if they were raised in their native country. As the subject below relates, parents adapted over time to adjust to their children’s life expectations and life choices, realizing

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that living in the United States has affected their own attitudes and expectations: I think that my parents have definitely come a long way and they’ve had to. You decide to live in this country and you want to force or have your children brought up with Indian religion or values but by default, parents need to acknowledge that by raising their kids in another country, you’re gonna have to assimilate. That’s how my parents saw it. I think they’ve done a decent job but it’s taken some time. (Aditi, age 30) This was especially true in many parents’ evaluation of arranged marriage and expectations for their children raised in the United States to have an arranged marriage:

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My mother has said to her [South Asian] peers that she doesn’t think it’s fair to have an arranged marriage for someone who was brought up in the U.S. because the norms are so different. So, while I’m sure she has an idea of the perfect person for me, both my parents have taken a step back and said I should find somebody I like and want to be with. (Deepa, age 30) Parental strategies and the decisions immigrant parents make do not exist in a vacuum but rather in the larger social context of their lives. They also play out in the relationships that parents have with their children over the course of their lives. While parents assert almost absolute control over the lives of young children, this is not the case for children as they reach adolescence and the young adult years when most families must adapt to some extent to accommodate their children’s changing lives and expectations. Second Generation Dilemmas The second generation experienced a specific set of dilemmas in their early lives and family experiences. The conflict between parental authority and adult children’s personal autonomy creates a whole new set of dilemmas as the second generation make their own life choices, which may often diverge from the expectations of the first generation. While family life and early socialization play a key role in the lives of

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individuals, they experience a variety of life events that are independent of their family and ethnic community. While it affects most individuals to varying degrees, choosing between personal fulfillment and family harmony is at the heart of second generation dilemmas. Past and present second generations have all felt a similar tension, but for South Asians, the dilemmas are all the more acute because of the conflicting cultural expectations. Even in their early lives, the subjects of this study were aware that the norms and expectations of their home lives were different from, and sometimes incompatible with the larger community and society in which they lived. For young children, this is recognition that the food they eat is different and the way their mothers dress is “strange”. Many children express dismay to their parents over their decision to give them “funny” names that teachers mangle and children tease them about. Do you throw out the vegetarian meal your mom packs you and buy a non-vegetarian cafeteria meal? Do you Americanize your name and call yourself Harry instead of Haroun or Nicki instead of Nitika? In retrospect, some of the respondents felt embarrassed about choosing to fit in while sacrificing ethnic pride. Yet they also acknowledged that when they grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, the multicultural movement had not yet normalized ethnic pride, at least in educational settings and it was not yet “cool” to be ethnic. Childhood dilemmas may be meaningful, but they were relatively minor compared to the dilemmas that would arise once the second generation reached adolescence. As other scholars have pointed out, it is during this time, even when not explicitly discussed in the family, the issue of dating comes to a boiling point. In mainstream American society, adolescence is a time when young people begin to assert their autonomy and while they provide boundaries, parents are expected to give their children the ability to make many decisions about their lives. Rebellion, though lamented, is an expected part of the teenage years. In South Asia, adolescent rebellion is not expected. Instead, it is considered to be potentially damaging to the well-being of the family as a whole. Dating is at the heart of the conflict between South Asian adolescents and their parents because the practice of arranged marriage in its traditional form is antithetical to dating. Even “harmless” dating (i.e. with no sexual activity) can set up a precedent for dating in early

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adulthood and possibly choosing partners deemed inappropriate by the family and the ethnic community. Dating also poses two other dangers, the first is hardly ever discussed and the second is the standard reason that most parents give for their dislike of the practice. The first is the fear of adolescent sexuality, dangerous because of the fear of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy but also the possibility that children’s behavior will negatively affect the family’s reputation within the ethnic community. Pre-marital sexuality, especially on the part of young women, may negatively affect their chances when trying to find a suitable spouse. The second fear is that adolescents will expend their emotional energy and time on relationships to the detriment of their academic records and their future career aspirations. Anil, a 34 year old Indian American working in the healthcare field found that while his parents were liberal in their political views, they were conservative on this issue:

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My dad said no to dating and my mom would really follow my dad’s line. He would say, “don’t have a girlfriend” because it could distract you from your schoolwork and getting good grades. Also, this was the 80s when AIDS was the big scare and they were especially alarmed by that. As their children moved away from home and attended college, many parents became more permissive but it was still not a topic they felt comfortable talking openly about. Shefali, a 25 year old hospital administrator recalls the disconnect she feels in discussing relationships with her parents: In college, they knew I dated though it was still not a topic they discussed, like, do you have a boyfriend or anything like that. But they’ll want to know about my “friends”. They definitely became more mellow but still weird about the dating thing. I tease them because they don’t/didn’t want me to date but they want me to get married…there’s definitely like a “don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of thing. The dating dilemma is fundamentally one that pits individual needs and attraction against family desires and the approval of the ethnic community. It also reflects the desire to maintain harmony in their

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relationships with their parents while also trying to have mature adult relationships. Many find the “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy to be a relic of their adolescence and one which demeans their current relationship. Many choose not to disclose these relationships to their parents until they feel that they are serious enough to lead to marriage. How the second generation chooses to navigate these murky waters will be addressed more explicitly in subsequent chapters. The second major dilemma is whether to base one’s identity through the family and the ethnic community or through individual achievement and personal life choices. Without question, nearly all the respondents of this study experienced parental expectations of high academic achievement and career success. However, they were also expected to place a high value on parental wishes and loyalty to their communities. College majors and early career choices are often influenced by parental expectations, which might be explicit or understood. When asked about his undergraduate major in college, Anil explains his choice this way: I studied engineering, of course. In those days, I was a good kid and I had no choice. Just kidding, well sort of. In India, the mentality is that if you do engineering or medicine, you’ll get a good job. But here, you could do a lot of different things because there are more opportunities. But Indian people here still think it’s safe to do medical or engineering and I compromised and did biomedical engineering and pre-med. Choosing to defy parental expectations in favor of personal fulfillment can lead to strained family relationships, as in the case of Padma, a 27 year old former journalist turned comedian: When I told my dad, a scientist, that I was going to major in English in college, he told me he thought it was stupid. When I got into graduate school for women’s studies at the London School of Economics, he thought that was okay but he wasn’t super impressed. And the whole comedy thing…they just don’t get it. They’ve been to my shows and they’re proud of me in their own way but they really don’t get my choice to do that. Their expectations of me aren’t high at this point, which makes things difficult.

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Inevitably, as children leave for college and to pursue their careers, their family ties are not as strong as they once were. This may be a “normal” part of the growing process for most Americans, but for South Asians, that process can be a particularly harrowing one as parents and adult children find ways to strike a balance. The contradictions experienced by children growing up in South Asian families do not disappear as they reach adulthood. Indeed, the identity dilemma may become more acute as adulthood places individuals in roles that are independent of their family lives. The third dilemma, the gender dilemma, is rooted in childhood experiences where traditional gender expectations clash with mainstream expectations. Mainstream American society is far from completely egalitarian and while many residual inequalities still exist (Jackson 1998), respondents themselves noted that traditional gender expectations favored males over females and were perceived by them to be unequal. The dilemma, as experienced by families and later by individuals, resulted from the clash of traditional expectations with mainstream gender expectations, which were perceived to be more egalitarian and allowed greater freedom to girls and women. The gender dilemma permeates most aspects of second generation women’s experiences and creates additional challenges, as will be discussed more explicitly in successive chapters. There are many aspects of American culture immigrants may adopt or reject. While it is expected for immigrants to choose capitalism and value economic success, what if one chooses individualism or social justice? What if the individual chooses not to have their ethnicity define their identity as their community and the larger society might expect them to? The answers to these questions are best addressed through an analysis of the role of family and the dilemmas and strategies that emerge in immigrant family life, as well as the role of autonomy in second generation life trajectories. This will reveal processes not explored in other studies. In the following section, early socialization will be examined as especially important as the baseline for later life trajectories. Socialization Strategies: Analyzing Models of Ethnic Socialization The childhood experiences related above reflect the importance of ethnic socialization in the day to day lives of South Asian families in

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the United States. In the absence of extended family relationships, parents have sought to create alternative ways of introducing and inculcating the religion, language, values and cultural norms of their native cultures. For South Asian parents, this is a very deliberate endeavor involving activities and routines both within the family household and in the larger ethnic community. While it appears on the surface that South Asian families engaged in similar ethnic socialization strategies, the findings of this study have yielded two distinct ethnic socialization models. The activities themselves are not what distinguish the two models but rather the underlying intent of the socialization practices and the way they are framed in the respondents’ lives. The first type is the cultural conservation model, which is employed by parents who wish to inculcate the native culture in their children’s lives in an attempt to reconstitute the family in the immigrant context and to shelter children from the harmful influences of mainstream American life. The second is the cultural enrichment model in which parents hope to expose their children to the language, religion, values and cultural products of their native culture without imposing rigid expectations. The cultural conservation model of socialization is consistent with families who represent a traditional baseline in the experiences and orientations encountered by the subjects in this study. The geographic proximity of co-ethnics and the availability of immigrant social, religious and cultural organizations is especially important to reinforce the socialization efforts within individual families. In its strictest form, parents present learning and living as much of the native culture as possible as non-negotiable and necessary for protecting children from the negative influences of mainstream society. When less strict, parents use immigrant social organizations as a way of ensuring that children will be disposed to feeling pride and loyalty towards their co-ethnics. Charu, a 36 year old who worked as an assistant to her father, experienced the stricter form of this type of socialization: Charu’s family moved to the United States when she was two. With a scarcity of jobs in their native Calcutta, the family immigrated strictly for economic reasons and with a great deal of ambivalence about leaving. Bengali was the sole language spoken at home. If the children spoke English, the parents answered in Bengali or in some cases would not respond at all.

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Charu’s mother also taught her how to read and write in Bengali. Their social lives were exclusively with co-ethnics with few opportunities for friendship outside the circle. While friendships at school were not discouraged, they were not encouraged either. Most of Charu’s close friends from childhood, who are her closest friends today, were children of her parents’ friends. In addition to their social network, her family followed a Hindu guru with an extensive network of devotees across the United States and around the world. Throughout her adolescence and early adulthood, Charu did not question her parents’ attitudes towards maintaining their native culture and was very devoted to her culture and religion. While they did not prohibit dating explicitly, she implicitly understood that it was not consistent with her culture and upbringing. She lived at home and attended a city university nearby. While her parents wanted her to pursue professional fields, she didn’t feel the drive or ambition and her parents supported her decision to study education. She felt that being a teacher would work well for the type of family life she hoped to have. After graduation, her parents began to use their social networks to find an appropriate husband for her. She agreed to this process as she believed that it was in her best interest to find someone of the same background. Reaching her late thirties without having found a partner suitable to herself or her parents, she questions her passivity and dependence on her parents but not the idea of staying within her community. For Charu, staying at home to attend college, and continuing to live at her parents’ home and staying within the social networks of her childhood, made it less likely that she would question her early socialization experiences which very much influenced her later life choices. However, the cultural conservation model is not the magic bullet that parents would like. Meena, a 25 year old public health researcher, eventually broke away from parental expectations: Meena was born in the United States but her parents took great pains to impart their native culture. When she was a young child, they would only speak to her in Marathi and sent her to

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a cultural center to learn how to read and write the language. She was also involved in cultural activities like music and dance. These activities were mandatory until she was in high school when academic and school activities took precedence. Meena was explicitly prohibited from dating and her parents made it clear that they wanted her to marry someone from the same background. She attended a large university with a significant South Asian population, near her home. After graduation, her parents looked to personal ads in Indian newspapers and matrimonial websites to find her a mate. Things took a very different turn when she was accepted to graduate school in New York City. The geographic distance from her parents allowed her to act on her own in both her professional and personal life. Soon thereafter, she married a Jewish American man she met online. The cultural enrichment model is an alternative that many parents adopt as a way of introducing their children to the native language and cultural practices while understanding that their children are facing pressures to conform to the expectations of American society. This model corresponds to an assimilationist baseline, which combines the need to understand one’s ethnic heritage while recognizing that second generation individuals are, after all, Americans. This does not mean that parents do not harbor a desire for their children to marry within their ethnic community nor does it mean that children are not given the same cultural opportunities. Rather, it speaks to parents’ intentions in ethnically socializing their children and it reflects a situation in which children have more choice in which activities they participate in. In dealing with the dilemmas they have in raising their children in the United States, some parents choose this less demanding route in imparting their native culture, understanding that children will ultimately make their own decisions. Anita and Sunil’s stories exemplify ethnic socialization experiences that are more relaxed and contradict the idea that South Asian parents are rigid in their attempts to “reproduce” their culture in their American-raised children. Anita and her two sisters were born in the United States and grew up in an area with a significant population of co-ethnics.

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While her parents encouraged her to learn and speak Punjabi at home, they did not force it on them especially if it caused them to become less proficient at English. There were language and cultural programs available and Anita was offered the option to participate. However, she was not interested and her parents allowed her to choose not to be involved in formal ethnic activities. Most of her interactions with co-ethnics were through social events that they occasionally attended. Anita’s mother was religious but they did not participate in any formal religious organizations and religion was something that they considered an individual choice. While her parents were ambivalent about dating, by the time it came to Anita (the youngest), they were much more relaxed and allowed her to date in high school. As she grew older, attending college and graduate school, her parents allowed her a great deal of autonomy in both her professional and personal choices. They do not expect her to marry someone of the same ethnic background and feel that it should be her own choice. While Anita has dated many different people, as she grows older, she is more and more attracted to men with a similar background and is open to marrying someone from a South Asian or Middle Eastern background. Sunil grew up in a rural university town with the only South Asians being students, professors and their families. Growing up, there were few opportunities for formal involvement in ethnic activities though they occasionally attended a Hindu temple located a few hours from their home. At home, his parents did not especially encourage them to speak Kannada and English was their primary language. His father was explicitly nonreligious and while his mother was religious, practicing religion was thought to be an individual choice for him and his sister. When he was growing up, his parents were pretty liberal in their social and political views and allowed both him and his sister to date if they chose. His sister has married a non-Indian and his parents were accepting of her choice. Sunil is open to finding a partner of any background as long as she is the right person for him. Since his career leaves little leisure time and makes it difficult for him to meet

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American someone, he’s been open to his parents or friends introducing him to women through set-ups or blind dates.

While Sunil and Anita’s experiences seem to be positive, their parents’ choices and their own choices are occurring within a larger ethnic community framework. Neither their choices nor their parents’ choices are made in a vacuum nor are they made without ambivalence. Whatever their individual personal preferences, the tensions that arise between tradition and mainstream expectations result in numerous second generation dilemmas which need to be resolved as major life decisions are made.

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Social Class, Mobility and Changing Strategies The earlier discussion of South Asian migration and the profile of this second generation cohort addressed the relative class homogeneity of this group as a result of immigration policies. Reflecting the demographic characteristics of the first post-1965 waves of South Asian immigrants, the majority of the subjects of this study were raised by middle and upper middle class, well-educated, mostly professional parents. The class composition of this cohort is hugely significant in the analysis of the second generation experience, both in the analysis of this cohort but also when thinking about successive cohorts where there is greater class diversity and a variation of class resources. Middle and upper middle class status provided the subjects of this study with cultural as well as economic resources which enhanced their educational experiences and provided a springboard for further upward mobility. Class resources coupled with model minority status is inextricably linked to upwardly mobile immigrant groups. This “protected” this cohort from some of the overt racism and discrimination faced by other, less privileged, second generation groups. Social class and class resources are embedded in family life and the impact of class status goes beyond material resources in the immigrant family. It also has a significant effect on the ways in which families negotiate with mainstream American cultural values and how they strike a balance between autonomy and family and ethnic allegiances. This extends also to mediation and adaptation of mainstream gender norms resulting from the pressure to adopt egalitarian values in the face of mobility pressures. Social class is

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important in the ways in which these mobility pressures require adaptations in behavioral and social expectations. This includes gender expectations as well as the ways in which material resources are used as part of parental strategies to consolidate intergenerational relationships and family loyalty. The first and a very critical way that social class resources influence the second generation experience is related to the communities in which most of the respondents grew up. As noted in the profile of this cohort in the previous chapter, most of the respondents lived with their families in middle class and even quite affluent suburban communities, rather than urban ethnic enclaves. Some respondents described that while their families might have lived in urban areas during the early years, most moved to “nice” suburban towns once they were school age. Class resources allowed these families to reside in safe, suburban communities with good school districts, ensuring that their children would have optimal educational resources available to them. When the family’s material circumstances improved, they tended to “upgrade” to even more affluent suburban towns with well-regarded school districts. While children may have experienced some prejudice and discrimination in these majority-white towns, they were insulated from the overt and institutional forms of discrimination faced by poor and working class second generation children in urban areas. The educational and community resources the respondents received in their childhoods provided the foundations for later educational and career achievements. Another important use of economic resources is the ways in which parents supported the launch of their second generation offspring. This use of material resources to ensure strong intergenerational ties may seem like an obvious strategy to “buy” children’s love and loyalty but the effect is subtle, as Anil describes: Ever since I was a kid but especially through college and even graduate school, my parents always put [a lot] into my education, like lessons, tuition, helping me out financially. They didn’t have to do that and most of my Americans friends…their parents didn’t do as much for them. It’s not like I feel like I have to pay them back but in a way, it makes me feel like I don’t want to disappoint them.

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Most of the respondents believed that their parents’ contributions to their education and other aspects of the “launching” as adults were connected to their South Asian values and the closeness of their family ties. Deena, a 34 year old Pakistani American engineer describes the ways she felt her parents went above and beyond most parents:

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Not only did my parents help me out in college and grad school, but after I got married, they even gave us the down payment for our first home. My [American] husband doesn’t fully get it though he’s happy that they help us. I have to explain to him how my parents do stuff like that not because they have a lot of money to throw around but because Pakistani parents feel a sense of closeness and a desire to help their children, even as adults. And part of that is, I feel a greater sense of closeness and obligation…and I don’t mean obligated in a negative way…but we [South Asians] give greater importance to our families. Other respondents described parents helping them start businesses, pay rent in the lean post-college years, buy apartments and providing other kinds of financial support. Financial support does not necessarily result in individuals acquiescing to parental expectations, nor is it intended to do so. In Deena’s case, however, respondents like her related this material support to traditional notions of filial piety and the strong intergenerational bonds typical of South Asian families. Consciously or not, this strategy of financially supporting adult children creates a web of mutual emotional and financial obligations which is framed not only in terms of family relationships but as an ethnic resource as well. This web of emotionally-charged financial obligation subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) steered some respondents towards parentally consonant life choices while still believing their choices to be autonomously made. Also, by framing social class resources as an aspect of ethnic community resources, many second generation respondents see ethnic identification and ethnic loyalty as a form of cultural and social capital which match their social and professional aspirations, making parentally- and communityapproved life choices a “rational” choice. Social class and mobility pressures are also linked to a greater tolerance for, if not outright promotion of, personal autonomy in

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second generation children. Parents understand that individualism and autonomy are linked to academic and career achievement and promoting the social skills associated with autonomy will later help their children gain admission to top colleges and an entrée to upward mobility. The challenge for parents is to negotiate a middle ground between deference to parental authority while promoting independence, with a recognition that boundaries must be created and enforced, with the common result being what Rudrappa (2002) describes as being “Indian at home and white in public.” While Rudrappa analyzes this strategy/condition in ethnic and racial terms, framing the phenomenon in terms of autonomy means that children are encouraged to be more dependent and obedient in the home while being independent and assertive in public. The degree to which parents must negotiate that boundary between the two conflicting expectations of their children depends on their orientations and their socialization strategies. Parents who are more tradition-oriented face more of a challenge in maintaining that balance in their children’s lives versus parents who have a more assimilationist orientation, for whom the adoption of autonomy and individualism is seen as a “natural” part of their children’s adaptation to American life. As described earlier, problems of negotiations and additional tension tend to arise in the adolescent years when tradition-oriented parents are likely to face greater intergenerational tensions. However, despite the potential problems, respondents’ families, as in the experiences described in this chapter, recognize that they have to adapt and frame their parenting strategies for what they feel are the optimal outcomes in their children’s lives—however narrow or wide these adaptations might be. Gender norms and expectations are another critical area where social class and mobility pressures push families away from traditional expectations towards more mainstream egalitarian norms. Both female and male respondents in this study reported high parental expectations of academic and career success. Interviews revealed that the respondents’ parents recognized that mainstream society views traditional gender norms as “backwards” and parents recognized the need to negotiate these norms in the American context. Again, this was a situation where tradition-oriented parents experienced greater conflict than parents who were more assimilation-oriented. Especially during

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the adolescent years, female respondents described the gendered double-bind where at home they were expected to be submissive “good” girls while they needed to be assertive high achievers in educational, and later, professional settings. However, promoting educational and career achievement in female children and promoting the egalitarian message of achievement resulted in important consequences for respondents, giving them resources and leverage for negotiating with tradition-minded parents. Many female respondents reported that they negotiated the freedom to partake in social and extracurricular activities and travel because they convinced their parents it would help them get into good colleges. This leveraging extends to adult experiences as well. Anjana, a 28 year old Indian American medical student feels she was able to use her educational achievements and career goals to delay marriage and negotiate with her traditional parents: So I was like, you guys wanted me to be a doctor so I can’t get married young. I’ve got to go through pre-med and then medical school and then figure out where I’m doing the residency. Because of med school, I feel like I was able to buy time with my parents. And meanwhile, I date, mostly Indian guys at this point, and I’m open to set-ups [arranged by my parents] but my parents know that I definitely can’t get married until I finish. This gives me time to have fun and figure out what I want. Upward mobility pressures required family gender strategies which promoted egalitarianism, resulting in a second generation cohort of women who feel empowered by their educational and economic success, even among the tradition-oriented. This is true in the case of Lubna, a 34-year old Pakistani American investment banker: I know that I’m going to end up with a Pakistani Muslim guy and that will make my parents happy but I feel like marriage is a big deal and I need to be picky about the people I’m introduced to. If my parents had their way, I’d marry some “nice boy” that they like. But you know, I’ve got a MBA, I make six figures, I should be able to do what I want. And I feel like as long as I’m marrying someone of my background,

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my parents need to deal with it [my taking a while to find someone]. While the gendered double-bind felt by the second generation respondents of this study should not be discounted and will be addressed in more depth in later chapters, it is evident that social class status and the pressure to promote upward mobility in immigrant children has resulted in pressures to promote a degree of egalitarianism in the second generation which is consonant with mainstream expectations and values. This change in family gender strategy to promote egalitarianism, however limited, has had an important impact on this second generation cohort. Understanding the impact of social class status and family economic resources on changing family strategies reveals the ways which this second generation cohort have navigated their adaptation experiences and developed their sense of autonomy. It also further allows for making an analytical distinction between studies which focus on ethnic identity and this study which examines other mechanisms, namely family, autonomy, and gender, which shape second generation life trajectories. In studies of successive second generation cohorts which are characterized by a higher degree of class diversity, the impact of these mechanisms may be examined as apart from ethnicity as critical factors which influence their experiences. Conclusion The family experiences of the respondents of this study reveal variation that has not been a focus of previous studies of second generation South Asians. This chapter identifies some of the ways in which family dilemmas and family strategies form the basis for second generation life pathways. Families experienced a range of dilemmas and the strategies parents employed to deal with them vary according to their orientation to tradition versus assimilation and their responses to the pressures and demands of mainstream society. In addition, this chapter reveals the impact of social class and the ways in which class resources and the pressures of class maintenance and mobility on middle class immigrant families mediate the distance between traditional, ethnic family expectations and the expectations of mainstream society. By examining family experiences through these different lenses, this

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chapter provides critical context for understanding the second generation experiences beyond ethnicity and assimilation. The following three chapters address the three major life pathways taken by the respondents of this study and will further explore whether and how the family and second generation dilemmas discussed in this chapter are addressed and resolved.

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CHAPTER 4

The Neo-Traditional Pathway

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Introduction The experiences of individuals whose lives have taken the neotraditional pathway present an important first look at the second generation experience. They appear to reflect mainstream assumptions about South Asians in the United States that they are obedient to their family and ethnic community and that they have “arranged” marriages. These subjects represent the stereotypical “ideal” for first generation parents and the immigrant community by conforming to expectations. They also comprise a slight majority of the subjects. The designation of this group as “neo-traditional” stems from the observation that their choices represent not a reproduction of South Asian cultural practices or values but rather a transformation of those norms and practices with a uniquely American character, one that incorporates an understanding of actors as autonomous. This chapter will address the social contexts for choosing tradition and examine the negotiation of traditional expectations in the face of pressures to conform to mainstream expectations of autonomy and egalitarianism. While these “neotraditionals” comprise a majority of the respondents of this study and conform both to mainstream and community expectations of second generation South Asians, this pathway is not uniform and the respondents represent a diverse continuum of experiences. Describing respondents as neo-traditional recognizes that they do not strictly adhere to traditional South Asian norms and values around courtship and marriage. Rather, the respondents on the neo-traditional pathway represent individuals who have made life choices and have partner preferences consonant with parental and community expectations. In general, they have chosen educational and career paths that reflect these expectations and most critically, they agree or have come to agree with the core idea that a co-ethnic would be an inherently better partner choice than someone outside their religious and/or ethnic group. Therefore, they seek out those partners, whatever the actual meeting and courtship process may turn out to be, who are of the same background. 89 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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The neo-traditionals believe that a partner with the same background will share a set of expectations and cultural referents, making it more likely that they will have a successful union. While there is a strong desire on the part of most of the respondents in this category to fulfill parental and community expectations, respondents believe that the life pathway is one they have chosen and believe that they have a degree of personal autonomy in their life choices. The key thing to note here is that most of these respondents stated a desire for both a successful career and a successful intimate relationship with their spouse, as much as any of their American contemporaries would. Most did not feel that they had to sacrifice their own needs and happiness to fulfill parental expectations but rather that their choices compliment the wishes of their family and ethnic community. The adult life pathways of neo-traditional respondents are marked by: 1) a modification of tradition, 2) an adjustment of their “sense” of personal autonomy and 3) a resolution of second generation dilemmas through negotiation and compromise. The dilemmas outlined in the previous chapter have been experienced by the respondents of this study, regardless of their early life experiences or the pathways they have chosen. What distinguishes the respondents and the pathways they have taken is the ways that they have chosen to address these dilemmas and the nature of their understanding of personal autonomy and the compromises that they are willing to make. The neo-traditional pathway is one paved with negotiations, and an acceptance of boundaries promoted by their families and ethnic community, and a balancing act between autonomy and family, and egalitarianism and tradition. Structural and Social Contexts of Choosing Tradition The preceding chapter presented the structural and social contexts for the childhood experiences of second generation South Asians, laying the groundwork or departure points for the life decisions that would be made later on. While ultimately, choices about dating and marriage are made by individual agents, structural and social factors can present opportunities or constraints which might influence the decision-making process. Parental socialization and the structural circumstances of childhood and adolescence are important in shaping an individual’s attitudes in adulthood, but they do not determine the life choices of

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individuals entirely. The experiences of young adulthood and the extent to which an individual chooses to tie themselves to the social networks of the family and ethnic community play an even greater role in dating and marriage choices. Choosing a more traditional route demands the availability of suitable co-ethnics for the pool of potential future partners. In a highly mobile and technologically advanced society, geographic proximity is not a major pre-condition for the availability of co-ethnics. Rather, the existence of social networks and, most notably, family and community resources will serve the neo-traditionals in their quest for the ideal mate. First generation immigrant males had relied on family to choose a suitable wife from the home country. For most of the second generation neo-traditionals, the first preference is a partner who was also raised in the United States. They rely on immigrant networks to make suitable partners available to them through a variety of strategies, which will be discussed in greater detail in the next section. Overall, the neo-traditionals share similar structural circumstances to the rest of the respondents in this study. Their level of education and career choices are similar to those in other categories and females are as likely as their male counterparts to be physicians, engineers or lawyers. For many, their educational and career aspirations and attainment have enhanced their marriageability in the ethnic community. This was the case for both males and females, who recognized the importance of professional careers in the eyes of the ethnic community. While not all the neo-traditionals explicitly discussed religion, nearly all of the respondents of this study who specifically cited the importance of religion in their lives chose this pathway in order to have a partner who will share their religious heritage and facilitate in the religious upbringing of children. Religion is a volatile issue in many places but it is especially so in South Asia where religion-fueled communal conflicts are not just a part of the history of partition but a part of contemporary life as well. Both the historical and contemporary conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia inform the ideas and opinions of South Asians, both first and second generation. While many second generation members do not feel hostility towards each other across the India-Pakistan or Hindu-Muslim divides, they acknowledge their parents’ feelings about the division and their

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unwillingness to cross the divide, as in the case of one young Hindu woman whose parents are otherwise open to her dating and marriage choices:

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I had dated this Indian Muslim guy who would have been perfect except for his religion. Our families speak the same language and we have a lot in common…we were really in love but I had to break it off because I knew there was no way my family was going to accept it. My family’s from an area that had a lot of violence during partition and where the riots happened recently and I would say that they really hate Muslims. Again, while they do not always feel the need to explicitly state it as such, it is understood that a tradition-minded choice requires marriage to someone of the same religion. For the most part, it is not so different from the desire of someone who is Catholic or Jewish to marry a co-religionist, especially as it relates to the religion of the children. However, the South Asian experience reflects deeper historical, social, and cultural boundaries that are being reproduced in the immigrant context. Immigrant organizations and social institutions, while they have adapted to and been created to respond to life in the United States, reflect these boundaries and facilitate their maintenance in the immigrant context. The main structural arrangement, which influenced and facilitated the neo-traditional pathway, was the presence of strong family and community social networks. These networks formed around groups of families, religious and cultural institutions and could be spread out over several countries. The more connected an individual is, the better their chances are of tapping into these networks. The lack of access to such networks might make someone opt against tradition, as in the case of Flora, a 30 year old Bangladeshi American graduate student: I really wish my parents could find people to set me up with like my Indian friends’ parents do. But they don’t really know people who have sons my age. Part of the problem is that when my parents moved here, there were a relatively small number of people from Bangladesh so there are fewer of us out there. And what few there are, my parents aren’t clued into

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them. And I don’t want someone who’s F.O.B [fresh off the boat] because they might want to marry me just for a green card. So, I’m not sure how I’ll meet anybody of my background unless it’s kind of random. In contrast, Manu, a 34 year old television news producer was fully able to take advantage of his parents’ connections, both in the United States and India:

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I didn’t date when I was younger but my parents thought it would be okay when I got older if it was going to lead to marriage. I met lots of girls at these youth conferences set up by my family’s church. On top of that, my parents introduced me to a lot of different women who were like daughters of friends or friends of friends. None of those panned out until I met my wife while I was on vacation in India with my parents. They convinced me to have lunch with the daughter of a friend of theirs and now we’re married. In those cases where family and acquaintances are unable to find a suitable match, other options are available. Newspapers like India Abroad and numerous websites cater to the market for finding a mate. In addition, immigrant organizations sponsor conferences, conventions and events, some explicitly to promote the pairing up of single coethnics. Many of the same organizations that had served the ethnic socialization needs of immigrant families when their children were young, now sponsor events for the second generation. The existence of these structures and the adaptability of these institutions provide the conditions within which “arranged marriage” is being transformed in the American context. As the second generation approached early adulthood, many were resolving their own issues about their ethnic identity. For most of the respondents who had been raised in households that emphasized a culturally conservative understanding of their ethnic heritage, the neotraditional route was a straightforward one. Many joined ethnic organizations on campus, and after graduation still continued to socialize with co-ethnics. When one’s social circle consists primarily of other South Asians, this choice is not seen by them as a sign of otherness or deviance. Even non-South Asian friends, more familiar

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with other cultures, are unlikely to be shocked by the choices of the neo-traditionals. Farhana, the 33 year old Bangladeshi American, noted that attitudes towards South Asian practices changed over time: When I was a teenager, my friends thought the no dating thing was really weird and when I told them my parents hadn’t met before they got married, you’d think we were two-headed aliens. But now, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal, especially now that people meet each other beforehand. A lot of people will say, oh yeah, I had an Indian friend that married someone their parents found for them. Some friends of mine joke that they have such a hard time dating that they wouldn’t mind having an arranged marriage.

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Padma, the 27 year old comedian also observed that Indian culture is much more familiar to Americans than it had been when she was growing up: It’s definitely a lot easier to be Indian or South Asian now than it was when I was a kid. Like, lots of people have been to Indian restaurants and you have all these people doing yoga and wearing bindis and Indian-inspired fashion. It’s hip to be Indian now. It’s pretty superficial, but there’s definitely more acceptance. Multiculturalism and the idea that ethnic groups should retain and celebrate their cultural practices and heritage, have also contributed to the neo-traditional route being a more comfortable choice for contemporary second generations rather than for their counterparts a century ago. Arranged marriage might be considered a “foreign” cultural practice which is the antithesis of the American system of love and marriage, but it is tolerated, if not understood, in the context of post-multicultural America. As noted earlier, the demographic characteristics of the respondents who chose the neo-traditional life pathway are similar to those who took alternate routes. This begs the question—what are the critical independent variables which influence an individual’s decision to take the neo-traditional pathway? There are a number of conditions and factors which respondents cited in interviews which are correlated,

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or at the very least appear to have a strong affinity, to the choice of this pathway. These have been discussed in the section above but require further exploration. The strongest variable is the childhood socialization experience and perhaps not surprisingly, the respondents on the neo-traditional pathway were all raised with the more traditionoriented cultural conservation model of ethnic socialization, providing the childhood baseline for this pathway. While not everyone who was raised with this baseline chose the neo-traditional pathway, all the respondents on this pathway were “groomed” at an early age to take this path, however negotiated and modified it would later become. Another key variable is the nature of intergenerational relationships, with the neo-traditionals reporting a greater level of emotional closeness, higher levels of contact and what might be described as more “attached” relationships to their parents. These attachments include financial support, frequent contact with their parents, a maintenance of ties to childhood family social networks and often, geographic proximity. Additionally, while not all of them did, these respondents were more likely to have and maintain strong transnational ties to extended family abroad. Finally, another variable might be described as their “orientation” to their ethnicity and the ethnic community. Neotraditional respondents had a generally positive view of the ethnic community, including the ethnic social networks of their childhood and tended to see their ethnicity and ethnic community as a valuable social resource. Table 4.1 compares those who veered away from tradition versus the subjects in this group (those who stayed on a tradition-oriented pathway.) It is clear that positive experiences in their ethnic communities as well as continued involvement in their family and ethnic social networks are positively correlated to the choice of staying on the neo-traditional pathway. Those who veered away from tradition were less likely to report positive experiences with the ethnic community, strong transnational ties, or religious commitment, signaling a greater distance during the young adult years to the ethnic community of their childhoods. Strong family and community ties, positive experiences and the relative lack of negative experiences kept the neo-traditionals consistently on this pathway.

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Factors influencing subjects on the neo-traditional life pathway Factors influencing life Traditional Consistently pathway Childhood TraditionOrientation Oriented Moving Away Childhood and from Tradition Adult Life (N=14) Pathway

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Table 4.1

Family/community factors Extensive social networks Geographic proximity of coethnics in childhood Ethnic involvement Positive experiences with ethnic community Isolation/limited ethnic social networks present Intensive ethnic socialization Family pressure Religious commitment Strong transnational ties Life-altering choices and events Death or serious illness of parent “Rebellion” of siblings Geographic separation from family and community Intensive career involvement Negative event/experience with ethnic community End of serious “dating” relationship or marriage Political/social activism

(Males + Females= Total) (6 + 8 = 14)

(N=33) (Males + Females = Total) (15 + 18 = 33)

4+5=9 5 + 7 = 12

12 + 16 = 28 12 + 15 = 27

5+3=8 4+3=7

15 + 17 = 32 14 + 16 = 30

2+4=6

2+3=5

2 + 9 = 11

9 + 13 = 22

3+4=7 0+2=2 1+3=4

8 + 15 = 13 10 + 12 = 22 8 + 13 = 21

1+0=1

3+5=8

0+3=3 3+5=8

6 + 8 = 14 10 + 6 = 16

5 + 7 = 12 4+5=9

12 + 10 = 22 1+2=3

2+3=5

2+2=4

0+3=3

1+3=4

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Modifying Tradition, Maintaining Boundaries Examining the childhood experiences of the second generation revealed a variety of parental attitudes and strategies towards ethnic socialization. It also revealed the ambivalence that many parents felt in raising their children in the United States. Most of the parents of the neo-traditionals used the cultural conservation model (discussed in the previous chapter) to help them in raising children who, it was hoped, would learn as much as possible about their native culture and feel strong ties to their family and ethnic community. Part of that strategy was the understanding, whether explicitly stated or tacitly understood, that their children would forgo American-style dating and marry within the ethnic community. As their children became more autonomous in their educational and career lives, many of these parents became flexible about their interpretations of tradition and employed various strategies to help their children “stay the course” and marry within the community. The high degree of individual choice available to second generation neo-traditionals and the extent to which tradition has been adapted demonstrates departure from strictly traditional arranged marriage. The intersection of parental strategies and individual choices reveals that even for traditionally-minded members of the second generation, arranged marriage, in its strictest form, is more myth or trope than reality. The critical compromise made by family and parents in supporting individuals on the pathway is paradoxically to allow for the modification of tradition in order to preserve key aspects of it. Traditional arranged marriage is as much about boundary maintenance as it is about extended family dynamics and parental authority. According to the norms of traditional “arrangements,” potential partners are matched by religion, caste, community, as well as social class and even auspiciously matched horoscopes. Ultimately, these choices reinforce and maintain boundaries between social groups in the diverse societies South Asians live in, both in the immigrant context and in their own homelands, where boundary maintenance between caste and community groups are a critical function of arranged marriage practice. This desire for boundary maintenance persists in the immigrant context as tradition-minded parents foster ethnic loyalty and steer their children towards in-group marriage. There are intergenerational negotiations about which boundaries are most

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important and variation in the willingness of respondents or their parents to compromise on the aspects of tradition they consider most important. Parental and second generation strategies are adapted accordingly. Parental involvement in the mate selection and courtship process can be placed along a continuum, with highly involved parents at one end and those with a more “hands off” approach at the other. The goal is to find a partner of the same ethnic and religious background. It may seem simple enough but in the South Asian context, that is much more complicated than an outsider may realize. Depending on the requirements of the family and any compromises and negotiations, the mate selection process may need to take into account numerous variables, as outlined above, including caste and community for Hindus or Jains or Sunni/Shia sect membership for Muslims. In general, the more specific the requirements for a potential spouse, the greater the degree of parental and family involvement. Those with greater flexibility have more options in their partner-seeking strategies. The variation in parental involvement reflects both the inclinations and attitudes of parents and their adult children. The level of involvement may even change over time, depending on the needs and desires of the son or daughter. In situations where there is a high degree of parental involvement, the process can indeed be described as matchmaking in the traditional sense. These parents usually have extensive networks of friends and family as well as ties to formal cultural and religious organizations that they may tap into in their matchmaking efforts. As mentioned earlier, these networks may be quite extensive and may involve potential matches who live across the country or in another country altogether. After tapping these networks, or in conjunction with those efforts, parents may place a matrimonial ad on matchmaking websites or in an immigrant newspaper like India Abroad, from which these following examples were found: AGARWAL Jain, 29/5’6”/130, fair, handsome, US born, MD Physician, (completed residency); seeks slim, exceptionally beautiful, accomplished girl, preferably from Maryland or vicinity.

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Hindu Punjabi family seeking attractive North Indian Medical/professional match, 22-27/5’4” + for US born handsome son, 27/6’, final year Medical student. Send recent photo/biodata. KERALA Nair family invited alliances from professionals for beautiful, US citizen daughter, 32/5’, Master in health administration, working in computer field. Photo/biodata must.

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AFFLUENT Punjabi Physician Parents seek alliance for 29 years old fair complexioned, very pretty US MD specialist daughter. MD Prefer. Caste no Bar. These ads show the variability in the criteria that parents and individuals desire in the matches. The two ads that indicate a family name, Agarwal and Nair, indicate the family’s caste/community membership and is generally a sign that they request responses from those community members. The other two ads are potentially more open, particularly the one that indicates that caste is “no bar” to a match though they clearly prefer candidates who are physicians. Interestingly, no matter what the age or career status of the prospective bride or groom, men and women are referred to as “boys” or “girls,” perhaps a vestige of the practice of arranging marriages while children are still young. Whether through advertisements or introductions through acquaintances, parents will often do an informal “background check” on the prospective bride or groom before deciding on whether a faceto-face introduction is appropriate. For the most conservative families, these introductions are a formal affair, with the meeting set up either in their own homes or the home of a family member or close family friend. More common is the passing along of email addresses and phone numbers and allowing the potentially interested parties to contact one another and decide to meet if they choose. Charu, the 36 year old Indian American introduced in the last chapter, describes the efforts of her very highly involved parents when asked to explain the introduction and set up process:

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My parents and other family members have set up most of the introductions. They find out about the person from friends or family here or in Australia [where I have a lot of family]. They also once put an ad in a paper and they screened the people for me. But the ad didn’t work out well so we’re back to friends and family and people we know through my family’s guru— he’s our religious leader. My biodata and picture gets passed around and usually someone’s parents will call my parents or my aunt. The biodata, as mentioned by Charu and requested in matrimonial ads, is a matchmaking tool for the information age. It is basically a life resume which includes all the pertinent background about an individual, including their religion, caste/community, family origins, and education. The information on it includes those basic items but also personal and professional accomplishments. Some biodatas can be quite elaborate, including website information and digital photos scanned into the document itself. While most of the second generation respondents in this study did not admit to having a biodata (while some believe their parents may have created one for them without their knowledge), it is usually needed if parents and other family members are intensively involved in the mate selection process. The moderately involved parents are less intense in their matchmaking efforts. Most of the respondents whose parents were moderately involved have dated in the past but are not currently in a relationship. There is an understanding that the son or daughter has various opportunities to meet a co-ethnic they could potentially partner with, but as long as they are unattached, they will try to introduce them to different people. Neha, a 29 year old, Indian American medical resident describes her parents’ involvement and her experience with set-ups: Once in a while, they’ll give a guy my email address or phone number and we’ll meet for a drink or coffee. None of these have worked out because the guys seem really interesting on paper—like they have these cool jobs—but they’re totally boring in person. My parents know that I’ll probably meet someone on my own but they wish I’d make more of an effort since I’m 29 and they think I’m getting kind of old… Frankly,

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with being a resident, I don’t have a lot of free time to meet guys so I kind of would like to put that off for a while even though they’re anxious to have me be married soon… I have a long vacation in a couple of weeks and I’m going to India for a bharat natyam [Indian classical dance] intensive course and my dad was telling me I should stay in New York instead and go to parties and events so I could meet someone.

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As in Neha’s case, these parents don’t employ the same intensive efforts as do the highly involved parents and tend to adapt their efforts and their level of involvement to the needs and wishes of their children. The least involved are the “hands off” parents but a minimal level of involvement is in itself a type of parental strategy. In these cases, parents tend to be much more flexible in their desired criteria for a child’s future spouse (“it’s fine as long as they’re Muslim or Hindu”) and recognize that the second generation has many opportunities to connect with each other. Events sponsored by immigrant organizations, campus South Asian clubs and second generation organizations all provide venues for such meetings. Haroun, the 27 year old Pakistani American lawyer explains his parents’ attitude and how he met his wife: My parents didn’t get involved in my personal life and knew I would find someone myself. As long as she was Muslim, it would be okay by them… I met my wife at my college’s Muslim Students Association and I knew she was the one. I told my dad about her and he told me that since I wanted to marry her that I had to treat her with respect and that he and my mother would talk to her family when the time was right. Parents who choose this approach understand that their adult children have a great deal of autonomy and that this extends to their personal lives as well. As with Haroun’s parents, they are likely to become more involved, as needed, once there is an engagement and family arrangements need to be made. For the subjects whose parents were minimally involved, they have made it clear to their parents that they intend to marry someone of the same background but that they would like to do it on their own terms and their parents have respected that decision.

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However different the parental strategies might be, one thing that all the respondents pointed out was that the ultimate choice and decision was theirs to make, a position that will be analyzed in depth in the following section. In all the set ups and blind dates that the respondents went on, it was understood that the parties involved decided whether or not to pursue it any further. The only difference, it would appear, between these set ups to any other blind date situation is the understanding that the relationship that ensues is expected to lead to marriage. Piyali, a 33 year old Indian American professional describes her courtship with her husband:

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I met my husband through something my parents set up and we basically dated. It was like any other couple dating except that we knew were getting married eventually. In fact, we were together and hadn’t set a date for a couple of years and our parents were getting pretty anxious about it. In Piyali’s case, she noted that the delay in getting married was due to her husband postponing the wedding for career reasons but her parents were concerned that the match might fall through altogether. To the dismay of hopeful parents, these matches do sometimes fall apart and the path to marriage isn’t always a smooth one. The case of Jaya, the 37 year old Indian American paralegal illustrates one such bumpy journey in the process she underwent in finding a husband: Jaya was not allowed to date and early on knew that her parents expected to have a say in how and who she would marry. While she knew she had a choice in the matter, her parents were very involved in finding an appropriate match of the same background and caste. When she turned 23, the introductions began and within a year she met a young doctor who was also raised in the U.S. After a brief period of getting to know each other, they became engaged when she was in her first year of law school. However, when she decided to drop out of law school, her fiancé broke off the engagement, saying he only wanted to be married to another professional. Her parents wanted to keep looking for a husband for her and expressed dismay over the number of people Jaya was rejecting during the introduction process. Eventually, three

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years later, she was introduced to her husband, a doctor in India, through family friends. She flew to India to meet him and married a few months later. Jaya describes the match as “semi-arranged” because she had so much choice in the matter. The choice to marry within one’s ethnic community is one that the neo-traditionals feel that they have made themselves. The decision may have been influenced by their childhood socialization experiences, parental pressures or their own desire to be with someone with a shared heritage. In some measure, it may be a combination of all three factors. However the respondents felt that the process took into account their needs, not just that of their families or community in general, and that the ultimate choice was theirs alone. It is precisely the high degree of individual choice involved that makes it difficult to call these second generation matches arranged marriages in the strictest sense. At best, the experiences of Jaya and Charu, whose families were highly involved in the matchmaking process, could be described the way Jaya herself did as “semiarranged.” In traditional arranged marriage, the bride and groom have no say in the arrangement made by family elders. In the contemporary version in South Asia, less conservative families allow for an exchange of pictures, a meeting in person and “veto” power for the individuals involved. The second generation experiences are much looser and are a result of time spent in the United States and a general trend of the weakening of arranged marriage. The practice of arranged marriage is important to South Asians because it ensures endogamy in societies where there is a great deal of variation in languages, religion and caste/community groups. This is true in South Asia itself and also evident in the diversity of the immigrant community in the United States. The basic goal is to ensure endogamy but it also serves to subvert the needs of the individual to the greater needs of the family in a culture where the extended family organizes and forms the structure of family life. Divorced from that context, arranged marriage seems to lose its purpose and its fundamental meaning. While arranged marriage is not entirely obsolete, its transformation speaks to a change in its purpose, function and indeed maybe its meaning.

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The goals of the highly varied and often quite diluted “American” version of arranged marriage are to ensure marriage within the ethnic community and also to ensure a match with someone who is “successful” in the American arena. The departure from traditional arranged marriage is most evident in the nature of the set-ups—they’re often arranged and pursued by the individuals themselves—and the nature and length of the courtship, as in Piyali’s case described earlier. These courtships and engagements look a lot like their mainstream American counterparts and unlike the relatively straightforward process of traditional arranged marriage, the process of numerous exchanges of photos/emails, set-ups, and rejections may take years to come to fruition, as in the case of Jaya. What is still salient, is the continued desire to maintain group boundaries with occupational status and social class becoming ever more important criteria. This explicit and implicit desire for boundary maintenance translates into compromises whereby individuals temper their autonomy in choosing a mate, as well as “manage” sexual and interpersonal attraction, to fit the standards for a suitable match. Despite the differences between traditional arranged marriage and the strategies employed by immigrant parents and the second generation, the myth of arranged marriage persists both in the ethnic communities who see it as a bulwark against the “American” phenomenon of divorce, and in mainstream American society’s image of South Asians in the United States. On that front, it remains to be seen how the divorce rates for such marriages will compare against the rates of the general population in the United States. Second generation South Asians have expectations of marriage which differ from their parents’ generation and it is likely that this will affect their own experiences of marital satisfaction. The recent popularity of novels and short stories by South Asian writers, both in the United States and abroad, and the wide release of films like Monsoon Wedding have heightened awareness of arranged marriage in the mainstream imagination but they do not generally tell the stories of the second generation whose experiences are much more complex. The exception is the novel, The Namesake, discussed in an earlier chapter, which included a second generation divorce, the result of an unwillingness to remain in an unsatisfying marriage. The trope of arranged marriage serves not only to further exoticize South Asians in the United States, it

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prevents a fuller understanding of the experiences of the second generation and may even serve as a barrier to full acceptance as Americans. Framing marriage choices through the lens of autonomy and gender serves to unpack the trope of arranged marriage and introduce another dimension of the second generation experience which speaks directly to their negotiation between mainstream norms and family and ethnic community pressures.

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Bounded Autonomy: Managing Dilemmas on the Neo-Traditional Pathway Parents with a traditional orientation sought to instill family and ethnic loyalty in their socialization strategies with the hope that doing so will culminate in intergenerational harmony. The desire is that adult children will live up to their expectations, including some form of arranged or otherwise in-group marriage. Whether or not an individual will stay on a path that is straightforward and expected or if they will make a detour depends on a number of different factors, some structural and institutional and some purely personal and even serendipitous. However, there is a common theme among these respondents who feel a pull towards tradition. This pull is essentially one towards their family and ethnic community, not only for emotional, affective reasons but also as a source of important cultural and economic resources. Therefore, the respondents on the neo-traditional pathway seek to maintain and strengthen these family and community ties through their life choices. The following cases represent the various journeys that were taken by the neo-traditional respondents in this study. Like most of their likeminded peers, these men and women have had very similar and intense ethnic socialization experiences. They were expected, to varying degrees, to fulfill both their parents’ expectations and that of their ethnic community. However similar their experiences may appear to be to a casual observer, the paths that they took and the way that they understand their decisions is not so obvious but rather speaks to the dynamic nature of individual experiences. What they have in common is that they all had to address the dilemmas that were identified earlier. Each of these narratives represents how respondents dealt with the dating and identity dilemmas, as well as aspects of the gender dilemma. How they negotiate them and achieve resolution depends on their

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willingness to compromise and “bind” their sense of individual autonomy to fit the expectations of the neo-traditional pathway. The concept of bounded autonomy represents the negotiated understanding of autonomy of individuals on this pathway. Respondents felt that they had a considerable amount of decisionmaking power in their marriage choices but that their choices were framed by family and community expectations which they believed they shared. A strong sense of connectedness to their families and ethnic community formed the baseline from which they could compromise and negotiate their dilemmas and make an autonomous choice that would be acceptable, indeed desirable, for all sides involved. Most neo-traditional respondents felt they had to qualify their decisions and explain to the investigator that they made these choices as willing individuals who saw their choice in terms of their own best interests, not just blindly accepting parental authority. Why the need to “feel” autonomous when it is clear that family and community expectations loom so large in the choices these individuals make? The respondents subjectively experience their life choices as made by autonomous actors, who like their mainstream contemporaries make their life decisions from a range of possible outcomes. Interestingly, the respondents saw themselves as “American,” hyphenated or not, and as such, believed that they had the right to make their decisions as independent actors, even if their choice is consonant with traditional ethnic norms and values. They view the choice of tradition as one they had made from a range of possible options available to well-educated, middle class individuals in the contemporary United States. There is also a social class dimension to this construction of life choices as autonomous. Unquestioned obedience to authority or being “forced” into arranged marriages is seen not only as archaic but also as “backward” and characteristic of uneducated, less sophisticated immigrants—with coded references made by respondents to more recent, working class immigrants. By framing their choices as autonomous, however compromised these choices might be by the demands of boundary maintenance, they signify their “American-ness” and distinguish themselves from their parents’ generation and even contemporary first generation immigrants. It also signifies their recognition of themselves as privileged, upwardly mobile individuals who, though “ethnic,” are entitled to the self-

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fulfillment and autonomy promised to individuals in the late modern, post-traditional age. Straightforward Pathways

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The life narratives outlined below represent the experiences of respondents who, like Jaya, described earlier, have remained on a straightforward, tradition-oriented path throughout their lives. In contrast to Jaya, who did not to date and married a man from India her parents had chosen, the experiences of Anjana and Anil illustrate the ways in which the neo-traditionals adopt and adapt mainstream dating strategies and negotiate with their families to expand their marriage choices. The experiences of 28 year old Anjana, an Indian American who works in healthcare management, illustrates how someone whose parental and personal expectations of tradition turned out to be unexpected in its process, if not its outcome: Anjana was raised in a religious and conservative Bengali family in an affluent, predominantly white suburb. She grew up in a traditional family where her brothers were treated quite differently and was sheltered and expected to be a “good Indian girl.” From a young age, she knew that she would be expected to marry someone of the same background and that her parents would play a large role in how that would happen. She was not allowed to date and did not date when she was younger. She attended a large public university with a substantial South Asian student population and dated casually but did not have any serious relationships. Despite her parents’ traditional orientations, she did not live with her parents after graduation and lived away from them as she pursued her career and later, graduate education. In her mid-twenties, mutual non-South Asian friends set her and her future husband up on a blind date. After a year of long distance dating while they were finishing up their respective graduate programs, they got engaged. Anjana’s parents were less than pleased with the decision as they wanted to play a part in choosing a husband for her, or at least, had the opportunity to approve or disapprove of him before they became engaged. To outsiders, it appeared that she was being a “good” girl by marrying

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American someone of the same background and religion and with good career prospects, but to her parents, choosing her own husband was in itself an act of rebellion.

After their initial disapproval, Anjana’s parents did grow to accept her fiancé and her decision. When asked during the interview why her parents would disapprove of a well-educated young man of the same background, she explained her parents’ reaction:

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Well, the first thing they didn’t like was that he is short. We’re pretty tall in my family for Bengalis so for them it was like a step down. I know, it sounds strange. Also, they didn’t like that when we got engaged, he was still a grad student, even though he was about to finish up a Ph.D. in computer science and he had really good job prospects. They said they had wanted someone already established. I think overall, though, they were upset because they did not have any control over any of it. Eventually they grew to love him but I think that was a big initial block for them. Anjana, her husband and their respective families flew back to India for a big traditional wedding with their extended families. By negotiating with her parents, she was eventually able to gain their blessing for her choice. Anjana’s choice and her parents’ compromise reflect a changing interpretation of tradition that reflects shared values and a departure from strict traditional practices. Ultimately, both sides believed that they were able to maintain the aspects of tradition they found most important—the parents ultimately compromised as they were assured of their daughter marrying an upwardly mobile co-ethnic and Anjana felt she could retain her autonomy and marry a man she chose herself. Anjana managed the dating dilemma by holding off on dating during her teenage years and by dating only casually, without her parents’ knowledge, when she went away to college. Like many other respondents, she managed the potential intergenerational conflict over dating through the “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy. It was only after college that she focused her dating efforts only on those potential partners who were from the same background who would be acceptable to her family. Even though Anjana has maintained strong ties to her

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family and ethnic community as an adult, she does not consciously feel any conflicts over ethnic identity—she sees herself as an Indian American who lives a fairly “Americanized” lifestyle in an affluent urban enclave in the Northeast. The gender conflicts she experienced in her traditional family as a child, were resolved during her college and career launch years when she pushed for greater autonomy and her parents were able to compromise. As described in the last chapter, when faced with supporting their daughters’ educational and career aspirations, parents are often compelled to modify their traditional gender expectations. By dating and choosing her own mate, Anjana was also able to choose a second generation spouse whose gender expectations were more in line with mainstream norms. Anjana and her parents did experience intergenerational conflict but they were able to negotiate a compromise that allowed them to resolve their issues. In contrast to Anjana whose parents initially felt their wishes were not considered, Anil, the 34 year old Indian American, fulfilled his parents’ expectations and then some. Although he had casually dated women of a variety of different backgrounds in college and graduate school, he knew that he would only seriously consider marrying someone of the same background, in large part because he wanted to fulfill his parents’ wishes. Anil grew up in an affluent suburb in Texas. Religion and their ethnic heritage were very important in his family and even though it was never discussed explicitly when he was younger, it was understood that he should marry someone of the same background. His parents frowned upon dating, citing AIDS and the detrimental effect it could have on his grades. Anil did not date in high school, deferring to his parents. In college, he dated casually, knowing that nothing “serious” would develop without family intervention as his family had very strict requirements for a potential mate for him. After graduate school, he moved to the Northeast for work and his parents began to look for a prospective bride for him. To his parents’ surprise, he “clicked” with the first woman they sought to introduce him to, an independent-minded journalist whose family knew Anil’s family. She was of the same background, community and caste. She contacted Anil first

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American and after dating for almost a year, they became engaged and were married.

Anil, who joked during another portion of his interview that he chose to study engineering because that was “what good Indian boys do,” felt that he benefited from the best of both worlds, making his parents happy and finding “Ms. Right” for himself:

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I wanted to be with…a woman who I could interact with on an intellectual level, who was independent and educated as well. So I didn’t want, like, an Indian wife who would stay home and cook for me…I could say that was one good thing about my family that when I did become serious about finding someone, they knew the kind of woman I wanted to be with…I liked that my wife called me first and that she was was someone who would take charge…Right away I knew I liked her because she liked college football… In Anil’s case, his parents’ traditional desires and his own personal requirements for a wife came together in his choice. However, he does wonder what might have happened if he were not restricted by tradition and questions whether it is ideal to have ethnic background, religion and caste be the guiding criteria in choosing a mate. Anil made these comments at the end of the interview when asked if there was anything he wished to add: Well, it’s kind of interesting because my wife is exactly the kind of person that my parents wanted me to marry. Someone of the same background and religion. And I wonder if my field of vision wasn’t narrowed by that. Would I have still married my wife if that wasn’t placed as the major criteria? I have two siblings who are much younger. My brother is nine years younger and he is about to marry a Chinese American woman and my parents are pretty accepting of it. And I wonder if they would have been that accepting had I made a different choice. I feel like my wife and I are very well-matched and she is the kind of person I want to be with, the decision to marry someone of the same background was chiefly motivated by the

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desire to do the right thing and do what my parents expected of me. Even having the best possible outcome, the dutiful son understands that his decision was a compromise, though in the end he believes that he made the right choice. The observation he makes at the end of the interview is very telling in that his critique of his own decision is a reflection of his upbringing in the United States and the underlying belief that ideally love and compatibility should be the major criteria in choosing a spouse. While Anil, like other respondents, stated that he was “allowed” to make the final choice, his comments showed a recognition of the ways in which his personal autonomy and the degree of choice he had was tempered by the boundaries set by his parents’ expectations. Like Anjana, as the dutiful son, Anil did not date as an adolescent in deference to his parents’ wishes but did date, without parental knowledge, casually in college thereby avoiding the potential for intergenerational conflict from openly dating. The casual dating was done with the recognition that it would not lead to “anything serious” and then when he was ready to settle down, he found the perfect match on the first set-up his parents arranged, beginning a dating-like courtship that both parties knew would lead to marriage. Thus, Anil avoided the potential intergenerational pitfalls of the dating dilemma. The identity dilemma was a bit more of an issue. While Anil identified himself as an “American of Indian descent, and also a Texan,” he questioned the level of influence his ethnicity has had on his life choices. As he reflected on the way tradition and ethnicity has had on marriage choice, he also recognized the extent to which fulfilling the role as “dutiful” son has limited his choices. In fulfilling this role, Anil also felt the strain of traditional gender expectations even as he himself adopted the egalitarianism of the mainstream. In the context of his family, as the elder son, he lived up to the traditional role of the dutiful elder son, fulfilling all his parents’ expectations. In the context of his relationship with his wife, he emphasized his desire for an equal in a mate and had highly egalitarian expectations, a quality he believed made him more attractive to his wife. In a sense, he’s resolved the gender dilemma by being traditional with his parents, but egalitarian with his wife. This egalitarianism in his romantic, professional and otherwise “public” life, in contrast to the traditional role he maintains

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in his relationship to his family of origin, allows for a better fit with mainstream society and his own orientation towards gender roles.

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The Circuitous Route Back to Tradition In contrast, the following narratives represent the experiences of those who encountered more “twists” on the neo-traditional pathway. The childhood socialization experiences of Nina and Chandan were oriented towards traditional choices and they both felt a pull towards tradition, despite the detours they had taken as evidenced by their dating choices. In both cases, family expectations and a belief that their choice would help them maintain strong family ties pulled them back along the neotraditional pathway. The experiences of Nina, a 33 year old executive working in high finance, is an example of the difficulties some members of the second generation have in making compromises that sacrifice their own happiness to fulfill parental expectations. Her decision to seek a partner of the same background was not one that she would have made without parental pressures and runs counter to most of the decisions she made in her adult life. Her story is strikingly different from the other neotraditionals in this study because of her admission that guilt, emotional coercion and racism worked together to prevent her from pursuing a different path for herself. Nina grew up in an outer borough in New York City in a family that placed a great deal of importance on their ethnic culture and religion. While she was encouraged to excel academically, her parents were very overprotective, enrolling her in a local high school rather than allowing her to ride the subway to attend an elite public high school in the city. Her parents maintained traditional gender roles in the family, with Nina’s brother experiencing a greater degree of freedom and favored status in the family. Nina was not allowed to date, though she did “sneak out” every once in a while. When she was younger, it was expected that she would marry someone of the same background and that expectation continued as she became older. She attended college and graduate school away from home and worked for a number of years in the Midwest and in Europe. She dated during those years and fell in love with an African American man with whom she has had an

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intense on-and-off relationship for several years. While she kept that relationship a secret from her parents, from hypothetical conversations with them, she knew they would never accept her marriage to a “black man.” The end of that relationship prompted Nina to choose tradition. Nina’s mother introduces her to men and encourages her to attend “matchmaking” events organized by Gujerati organizations. At the time of the interview, Nina was also casually seeing an Indian American man, though he is not from the same region in India. She hopes to meet a Gujerati, Hindu man whom her parents will approve of. Her desire to be married soon is intensified by her mothers’ serious health problems. During the interview, Nina does not disguise the difficulties she has had in making her decision, which she observes is more for her parents than for herself. Unlike most of her neo-traditional peers, Nina does not believe that a co-ethnic would make an inherently better spouse for her. However, she chose to return to the neo-traditional pathway because she believes that to maintain the strong relationship she has with her family, it was a choice she had to make since her life was so entwined with them. In this way, her choice more closely reflects the spirit of traditional arranged marriage that the experiences of her peers. Interestingly, it also represents the difficulties that otherwise-independent professional South Asians have in modifying their sense of autonomy and limiting their choices for the sake of maintaining strong ties with their families and ethnic community. While some respondents experience this bounded autonomy through what they felt were minor compromises, others, like Nina, feel that tradition requires tremendous sacrifice. The personal sacrifice made by Nina is made clear as she describes the break up of her long-term relationship and her negative matchmaking experiences: What really makes she sad is that if my parents didn’t have a problem with my ex being black, I’d be married and probably have a kid by now. We were really right for each other and I’m still in love with him… I wouldn’t call my parents racist exactly but they’ve told me that they might be okay if I married a white guy but they just couldn’t accept a black son-

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in-law. They also think it would make our family look really bad to their friends… So I go to these events where the women go up on stage, wearing numbers, and say something about themselves and then wait to see if a guy will contact them. It’s humiliating and like a glorified beauty pageant…the whole thing is frustrating so I hope I meet someone through family friends or friends of friends. Nina made it clear that her decision was an exceedingly difficult one to make. She said she placed a lot of emphasis on her career because while she hoped for the best, she was unsure about how fulfilling her personal life might turn out to be. The dilemmas she faced and the compromises she feels that she must make represent the experiences of individuals for whom the resolution of second generation dilemmas is fraught with ambivalence. Nina acutely felt the dating dilemma during her adolescence and adult years and recognized the unwillingness of her parents to compromise in the marriage choice she actually desired. In effect, the “resolution” of that dilemma was not up for negotiation given her parents feelings about her AfricanAmerican ex-boyfriend, and Nina essentially gave in to parental expectations to maintain ties with her family. The identity and gender dilemmas were resolved by maintaining a split that is typical in the South Asian experience: in her high-powered professional life, Nina is an ambitious, driven career woman, with her ethnicity thought to be irrelevant to her success. In contrast, her ethnic identity and the traditional gender expectations associated with it, are a burden she feels she must bear as part of her choice to return to the neotraditional pathway. It is especially telling that Nina noted that she relies on her career to give her the personal and emotional satisfaction she is not sure she will achieve in her marriage and family life. Her experience represents an acute form of the gendered double-bind that many woman on this pathway feel, a phenomenon which will be addressed in greater detail later in this chapter. Chandan is a 36 year old Indian American physician whose traditional choice was one he knew would eventually make. His story represents the experiences of many South Asian American men whose parents give them much more freedom in their personal lives, allowing them to “sow their oats” before they are expected to settle down. As discussed in the previous chapter, parents are less likely to enforce

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dating prohibitions and restrict the movements of sons than they are with their daughters. This extends to adulthood as long as there is an understanding that they will eventually do what is expected.

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Chandan grew up in the outer boroughs of New York City with a family who was very involved in the ethnic community. Both of his parents are educators and, his family had high expectations of him. He attended an elite university and then a top medical school. While he was not explicitly allowed or not allowed to date, he did not date in high school because he was a self-described “geek.” That changed in college and medical school, where he dated a lot, often older women with whom it was possible to have casual relationships with no expectations for anything more serious. He did not expect to have an arranged marriage and believes that if he met the right person through dating, he would have considered marriage. His parents were generally not concerned about his dating life and never met any of his girlfriends. When he completed medical school, he gave his parents the okay for introductions and was soon introduced to his wife. After a meeting and a two year engagement, they were married. Chandan was able to “play the field” without his parents being too concerned because he made it clear that when he was ready, he would marry a Bengali Hindu like himself. While they did not approve of his casual relationships, they were not as concerned as they might have been with a daughter. Chapter two quotes Chandan as he explained that he believed his choice was “rational” as shared culture, religion and similar family backgrounds would ensure harmony in his own marriage and family life. Additionally, Chandan explains that his choice represents loyalty to his parents and “rewards” them for their support of his educational and career aspirations: In the end I felt like it was the best for everyone. My parents were so happy that I married my wife and they deserve that considering everything they’ve done for me. They supported me with college and going to medical school—they did a lot more than a lot of [American] parents would do. I’m close to my parents and so is my wife, and my kids [when we have

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them] will feel a sense of connection to their culture and their grandparents. Like most other neo-traditionals, Chandan believes that he made the right choice for himself and was happy that his parents were pleased as well. He believes his life choices, consonant with parental expectations, were made autonomously. He emphasized that choosing a co-ethnic as a partner was a rational decision and one that would make his marriage and family life more harmonious. Unlike Nina, Jaya, and Anil, the dating dilemma was not so pronounced for Chandan. His parents might be described as laissezfaire in their approach to his dating life, allowing him to “have fun,” as he described it, as long as he was achieving academically. The relative freedom and autonomy he had as a teenager and young adult is typical of the experiences of many tradition-oriented men who experienced the gender privilege associated with traditional family norms. There was a tacit understanding that dating and “having fun” is to be tolerated with the understanding that they will eventually come around to tradition when it comes to choosing a wife and starting a family. Furthermore, even though Chandan was introduced to his future wife through a parental set-up, he was able to, in essence, “date” his wife during their extended engagement. While the length of their engagement and courtship is longer than the roughly one year described by the majority of married neotraditionals, this dating-style courtship presented an acceptable and typical compromise made by tradition-oriented South Asian Americans and their parents. Interestingly, about half of these married respondents, including Chandan, reported engaging in pre-marital sex during this courtship period, thus illustrating the degree to which hybridized “arranged marriage” departs from the traditional form. For respondents like Chandan, both male and female, the neo-traditional pathway requires the choice of a spouse who meets parental criteria, while the means by which they find that spouse is open to negotiation. Chandan was able to resolve his dating dilemma by modifying his criteria and engaging in parentally-approved, dating-style courtship which allowed him to get to know his future wife and satisfy his belief that his decision would be the best one for him. Chandan’s educational and career pathway represents the ideal for many immigrant parents, and especially South Asian parents. He joked

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about becoming the stereotypical “Indian doctor.” For Chandan, medicine fulfilled his desire for both a financially as well as intellectually rewarding career and he recognized that his choice was heavily influenced by parental expectations as well. His ethnic identity as an Indian American and his career and life choices represent what many believe is the ideal-typical second generation experience and he did not report identity conflicts within himself. In addition, he speculated whether his ethnic identity status might have enhanced his educational and career prospects, going into a field in which Indian Americans, as well as other South Asians, are expected to excel. The gender dilemma was another one which Chandan was able to resolve by maximizing his status and situation, both in the family and other aspects of his personal life. He recognizes that his parents were much more relaxed about the path he took because he was male and that his experiences might have been very different had he been female. While most second generation members believe that their parents did not engage in overt gender discrimination, as discussed in the previous chapter, gender distinctions are invariably at play as parents react and deal with the personal choices of their offspring.

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Variations on the Neo-Traditional Pathway The cases, described above, illustrate the variation of experiences along the neo-traditional pathway that lead to marrying or explicitly choosing to marry a co-ethnic. Why is it important to highlight the variations on these paths? For one, it reveals that “tradition” can mean many different things in the American context and for another, it shows that the “traditional” choice, however one defines it, is not the monolithic one that it may appear to be. These stories reveal that even though they may have made choices that conform to parental expectations of tradition, second generation individuals are critical of their choices and subjectively experience them within the framework of American-style courtship and expectations about love and marriage. Jaya made a particularly interesting point about dating: Even though I didn’t date I wish that I had. I honestly think it’s a good thing to date because you learn about yourself and you also learn about what you eventually want or don’t want

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in a partner. You learn how to establish boundaries and limits on what you do or don’t find acceptable. As one of only four respondents who never dated, Jaya’s experience was unusual, perhaps for the very reasons she observed. Also, the proliferation of opportunities for young people to meet coethnics on their own makes it a much more viable option. So while the outcome may be similar to a traditional arranged marriage, the process is anything but and owes more to American values of individualism and personal fulfillment than it does to family duty. Using the concept of bounded autonomy to frame individual experiences along the neotraditional pathway recognizes the subjective dimension of their experiences. These subjects view themselves as agents who have the ability to exercise free will in making their life choices, however they modify the range of choices that are available to them to conform to family and community expectations. The variation of experiences results from the constraints and opportunities that are available to the individual, for example, the degree of compromise and negotiations they can make with their families or the extensiveness of ethnic social networks available to them. There is also a variation by gender, with most tradition-oriented women reporting a more pronounced experience of second generation dilemmas, particularly the gender dilemma. Gender Dilemmas, Gender Compromise and the Gendered DoubleBind As described in the previous chapter, South Asian immigrant families must address the contradictions between traditional ethnic norms and values and those of mainstream American society. These contradictions are particularly pronounced when comparing the traditional gender norms and expectations of South Asian cultures with the more egalitarian gender norms and expectations of contemporary, mainstream American society. Immigrant parents who raised their children in tradition-oriented households were challenged to adapt their family gender strategies in order to enhance their children’s’ educational attainment and career opportunities. They emphasized achievement in both male and female children, hoping for professional success and upward mobility. As a result, the push to upward mobility

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resulted in family gender strategies which modified traditional gender role expectations. The gendered experiences of individuals raised in tradition-oriented families was characterized by: 1) a split between expectations at home and those encouraged at school and work, 2) gender privilege experienced by men and 3) a gendered double-bind and greater concern over regulating sexuality in the experience of women. These patterns were evident in the case studies presented earlier in this chapter and require further analysis and additional cases which will illustrate the gender dilemma in sharper relief. The case of Nalini, a 24 year old Indian American woman working for a high-end fashion firm in New York City illustrates the ways in which tradition-oriented families compromise their gender expectations in order to support their daughters’ career aspirations. Yet, while her family has allowed her a greater degree of freedom and geographic mobility than traditional expectations would allow, she still faces the gendered double-bind and family pressures to conform to maintain sexual purity and marry early. Nalini was raised in a traditional, religious South Indian family in an affluent suburb of a major Sunbelt city. Her family encouraged traditional gender roles in the family, with a stay-at-home mother and the expectation that she would be a “good,” obedient girl who deferred to her father and older brothers. While her parents encouraged her to participate in sports and extracurricular activities and to excel academically, she describes them as protective. They did not allow her to date and steered her towards attending a college nearby so she could live at home. The family had a wide ethnic social circle through her parents’ participation in the local temple and ethnic social networks and she was encouraged to socialize with her co-ethnic peers. The understanding has always been that she would marry young, after graduating from college and that her future husband would be someone she would meet through family set-ups. During college, she dated co-ethnics she met on campus without her parents’ knowledge. Upon graduation, she was offered a prestigious internship and later, a full-time position, in New York City. To her surprise, her parents “allowed” her to leave home though they keep in constant touch and often set her up with young men from their

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American social circle. They expect her to choose one of these young men and marry shortly. Nalini would like more time and is thinking about applying to MBA programs to hold off on marriage for a few more years. She has dated some of the men from these set-ups and feels she needs more time to decide what she wants from a partner.

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Nalini’s family attempted to balance gender expectations by giving her the freedom pursue her career goals while still expecting her to have a “semi-arranged” marriage in her twenties. While on the surface, the two might seem unrelated, it is important to point out that they are not and an important question to ask is: why do tradition-minded parents allow greater freedoms and compromise to encourage their daughters’ career aspirations? In the immigrant context and in the social world of affluent ethnic communities, career achievement is directly related to the marriage and matchmaking process. In the past, in traditional arranged marriage, a young woman’s family background, domestic abilities and her physical attractiveness would be the most important criteria for choosing a prospective bride. The contemporary marriage market for South Asian Americans demands that women have credentials and lucrative careers as well, as Nalini describes: It’s not enough to be pretty or a “good girl.” You have to have, like an MBA or a law degree or be a doctor. I think that my parents would let me hold off on marriage for a couple of years and get an MBA because it would make me more attractive as a potential wife. The competition is tough out there and I have to be like this really accomplished career woman to make a good Indian wife. It’s kind of weird, but hey, if I can have my career and do well and please my parents and get a guy who shares my culture and my religion, that’s great. Still, while Nalini sees the advantages of the split gender expectations and ways she can use it to negotiate, there are drawbacks. She still feels the tensions and pressures of the gendered double-bind which result from these split expectations and finds pressure and contradictions not only from her family but also from the co-ethnic men she meets and dates:

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Sometimes I really don’t know what is expected of me. At work, I’m all aggressive and equal but with my family, I’m supposed to be this submissive good girl who even in New York, goes to temple every week. They want me to have a career but then they’re getting anxious that I’m almost twentyfive and not married. Then these Indian guys I meet confuse me too. They want to marry a nice Indian girl but they want me to have sex with them too. That’s one of the things I find really weird. So when I have a sexual relationship, in the back of my mind, I wonder if they’re secretly taking me off the list to be a potential wife. If you sleep around too much, that’s bad too. Sometimes I’m really not sure what these so-called traditional guys really want. The guys don’t have to worry about stuff like [sex] the way Indian girls do. Nalini describes the contradiction and confusion that many female respondents who reported feeling the gendered double-bind experienced. Another aspect of the gender dilemma that she describes refers to the gender privilege that she feels her male counterparts have and the sexual double-standards she finds difficult to navigate. How are these dilemmas resolved? Like other women whose life narratives were described earlier in this chapter, Nalini resolves the gender dilemma by focusing on the positive aspects of the situation, in particular, the freedom she is allowed in the pursuit of her career aspirations. She also downplays the negatives in her belief that eventually, through her family, she will find a partner who shares her culture and religious beliefs yet encourages her career and appreciates her on a personal and sexual level: Ultimately, I think I’ll meet the right person and have the life I want. Even if I have to kiss a bunch of frogs, I know there are a lot of cool guys out there who might have traditional values like I do but are modern and Americanized like me too. Some of these guys might be kind of sexist but I think most educated [Indians] believe in equality. I’ll keep going on these set-ups because I think my family knows me really well and they’re going to introduce me to someone I’ll really click with on a lot of levels.

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Nalini’s case illustrates the complexities of the gender dimension on the neo-traditional pathway. It depicts the ways in which women on this pathway compromise and deal with the confusion and tension which result from trying to balance traditional and egalitarian demands that are made simultaneously. While there is no easy resolution to the gender dilemma, Nalini and respondents like her attempt to do so by emphasizing the ways in which they can negotiate for what they want and by downplaying the potential contradictions. In contrast, second generation men on the neo-traditional pathway need to deal with a completely different set of expectations and potential tensions, as will be illustrated next. Comparing the experiences of Nalini and Nizam, a 30 year old Bangladeshi American engineer, reveals the male-female divide in the gender experiences of South Asian Americans raised in traditionoriented families. This gender privilege refers to the favored status that male children have in the family which results in a greater degree of freedom, sometimes greater access to family resources and notably, the lack of surveillance or concern around sexuality. Nizam’s experiences further illustrate the gender privilege experienced by second generation men while suggesting that even they are subject to the pull of the egalitarianism of mainstream American society: Nizam grew up in an urban ethnic enclave in a traditional Bangladeshi Muslim family. He and his brothers had a strict religious upbringing but were encouraged to be modern and “American” in school with his parents encouraging academic success and integration into mainstream society. While his parents achieved solid middle class status, he was encouraged to work while in high school and college and help his father in the family business. There was the unspoken expectation that he would have an arranged marriage in the future and his parents discouraged him from dating in high school. However, he and his brothers had a lot of freedom to go out and the lack of surveillance allowed him to casually date and “have fun.” Ultimately, he would choose to marry through tradition. He believed his parents might want to find him a bride from Bangladesh, a prospect that he did not find appealing. While attending a commuter college, he dated co-ethnic women and decided he wanted a second generation wife who shared his

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religion and culture but would be “modern” and American, like him. His stated desire was to find a wife who is his equal, and he did. In graduate school, he met a BangladeshiAmerican, Muslim woman, also an engineer and they married despite some reservations from their families.

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Nizam described having special status in his family as the eldest male child and, like other men whose experiences have been described in this chapter, knew he had a lot more freedom than he would have had as a female. In return, he would be expected to come around to tradition when it came to marriage and settling down, much like what Chandan experienced. Yet, despite the gender privilege in the family, as he grew older he felt a pull towards egalitarianism, especially in male-female relationships: Like a lot of [South Asian] guys, I could get away with a lot. My mom basically did everything in the home, the cooking and cleaning and she was really traditional and totally spoiled me. But when I got older, I knew that’s not what I wanted in a wife. I wanted someone who shared my culture, for sure, but who was my equal and I could talk to and be with as an equal. So when I would date Bangladeshi girls, I would treat them as equals and say like I’m not looking for a woman to cook and clean for me. I have to say…that made me popular with the women…(laughing) Like Anil, who was described earlier, Nizam was seeking a wife who was accomplished and with whom he could relate to as an equal. Unlike Chandan, who took his gender privilege for granted, he consciously understood that this would require a shift in attitude and behavior on his part to convince a potential partner of his desire for an equal partner. This required another type of gender compromise where men from tradition-oriented families modify the expectations and privilege they experienced in order to appeal to egalitarian-minded, “modern” second generation women who would be turned off by men raised with traditional gender privilege. Indeed, the strategy of openly expressing egalitarian views serves to make many second generation men more attractive to women who are wary of co-ethnic men with traditional expectations. Nizam’s use of this strategy maximized his

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ability to attract a second generation spouse who shared his desire to maintain certain aspects of tradition while also valuing the egalitarian and “modern” mainstream values that are important to him. In their childhood experiences, their parents modified traditional gender expectations as they raised their children by emphasizing tradition at home while promoting egalitarianism and autonomy in public settings, like school and extracurricular activities. As previously discussed, this encouragement of egalitarianism and autonomy in “public” was a result of the push towards upward social mobility and had an additional consequence of enhancing an individual’s future chances in the marriage market. Being “traditional” at home and in the family does not mean the same thing for all respondents. A distinct male-female divide was evident in interviews with male respondents experiencing gender privilege while female respondents grappled with a gendered double-bind which often left them with tension and confusion. While female respondents on other pathways experience gender dilemmas, women on the neo-traditional pathway felt it acutely, having to resolve tensions and make compromises while staying on this path. Sexuality is another matter that is difficult to reconcile with traditional gender role expectations and traditional expectations of arranged marriage. Again, women felt a greater degree of tension and contradiction as they faced restrictive expectations of sexuality from their families and ethnic communities while getting mixed messages from potential partners. The respondents on the neo-traditional pathway have generally experienced a split in gender expectations between their families and ethnic community and mainstream gender norms, with a constant balancing act between what is acceptable to an individual on a personal level and what choices can be reconciled with family expectations. Conclusion: Compromise Strategies and Transforming Tradition This chapter shows the ways in which second generation South Asian Americans negotiate between traditional norms and expectations and their own expectations of life along the neo-traditional pathway. These are individuals who have stayed on the course which their parents charted for them in childhood. They did so because of close relationships and strong positive ties to their families and ethnic

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communities, religious commitment, and the desire for continued social and cultural support, among other factors which tie them to tradition. The individuals described in this chapter have developed strong, interconnected, and interdependent relationships with their families and the ethnic communities to which they belong, both of which they see as a critical source of emotional, social and cultural resources. The life narratives recounted in this chapter reveal the variation and complexity of the neo-traditional life pathway, one that is marked by a desire for family and ethnic loyalty while also being informed by the expectations of autonomy and egalitarianism of mainstream American society. While individuals stressed the importance of choosing tradition, particularly in their marriage choices, it is clear that traditional arranged marriage has been transformed in the American context. Analyzing the experiences of second generation traditionals reveals the ways in which individuals negotiate with their families and adapt tradition to their individual needs and goals. Parental authority is subverted in the American context, giving way to compromise and flexibility on the part of immigrant parents who recognize the importance of individual choice in the lives of their adult children. While the parents of the neotraditionals have always emphasized the importance of ethnic culture and the ethnic community, true to the segmented assimilation outcome of selective acculturation in which immigrants pick and choose between aspects of the ethnic culture and aspects of American culture. The reconciliation of autonomy with an understanding of tradition which stresses obedience to parental authority is accomplished by adopting a form of autonomy, bounded autonomy, which is modified to conform to key aspects of parental expectations while still satisfying the individual’s desire to subjectively experience themselves as free agents. Taking the neo-traditional pathway required these respondents to craft strategies which allowed them to feel a sense of autonomy while conforming to family expectations. In resolving the dating dilemma, most chose a strategy of negotiated conformity whereby they negotiated criteria and engaged in parentally-approved “set-ups” or more independent dating while maintaining boundary criteria. Many respondents who avoided dating as teenagers were able to negotiate modified, “American-style” dating in their search for a partner who would meet family criteria. Thus, while maintaining a sense of

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autonomy, they were also able to conform to parental and community expectations. The identity dilemma was resolved through a strategy of bifurcation, noted by other scholars, where individuals accepted a dual identity where they felt and acted more “American” in public and adopted a second, more ethnic-identified identity for home and family. While male and female respondents experienced the gender dilemma differently, they both used strategies of minimization and avoidance of traditional gender expectations. They downplayed the negative biases of traditional expectations and attempted to minimize potentially negative consequences through educational and career attainment. Individuals on the neo-traditional pathway have maintained close ties with families and ethnic communities who continue to have a considerable impact on their life choices. Even in the case of those “reluctantly” choosing tradition, and perhaps even more so, there are negotiations and compromises made in order to maintain mutual strong ties. Traditional South Asian marriage relies on the practice of arranged marriage to ensure endogamy in a heterogeneous society and confirms the importance of familial authority over the lives of individuals. In the American context, the idea and concept of arranged marriage has been adapted to meet the varying needs of families and individuals. The actual form of mate selection employed by respondents on the neotraditional pathway represent the various negotiations and compromises made by parents and the second generation with a continuum of experiences from modified to “semi-arranged” marriage to Americanstyle dating limited to co-ethnics. What the respondents all share is that this particular pathway represents the desire to maintain critical norms, values and boundaries while still retaining a sense of “American-ness” in the assertion of autonomy and egalitarianism. Social class resources and the privileges that come with being middle class professionals in the United States, gives them additional tools for negotiation and the ability to assert their autonomy in ways that would not be possible for those who are less advantaged or live in traditional societies. Even with bounded autonomy, these individuals, to varying degrees, are able to assert their autonomy in a post-traditional immigrant context that recognizes that they have other choices. The neo-traditional pathway is not uniform and tradition can take on a variety of different forms in the American context. Negotiating

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with families, making compromises and resolving the dilemmas that arise in the second generation experience is not always a straightforward process and may not represent the ideal choices for all respondents. This is especially true when individuals need to compromise in their life choices. In that regard the experiences of second generation neo-traditionals resembles that of other Americans grappling with the need to balance individualism and autonomy with family and professional commitments. The next two chapters address the other life pathways taken by the respondents of this study. The independence pathway (chapter 5) is characterized by a departure from life choices that are made to conform to family and community expectations, an autonomy style which reflects independence from traditional expectations altogether. The ethnic rebellion pathway (chapter 6) is marked by the desire of individuals to make life choices in opposition to the family and ethnic community and an autonomy style which self-consciously diverges from the expectations of tradition and the ethnic community. The experiences of individuals are influenced by myriad different forces and it is important to acknowledge variation while identifying the ways in which structural constraints and opportunities frame their life choices. While the subjects of this study share much common ground in their social locations, the other life pathways will reveal the complex ways in which larger social and cultural forces can lead to distinctly different sets of choices.

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CHAPTER 5

The Independence Pathway

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Introduction Individuals on the independence pathway, unlike their neo-traditional peers, have not made their life choices to be aligned with parental and community expectations. Instead they have made their major life choices independently of those expectations. While they do not reject tradition or their ethnic culture, they do make their major life choices based on what they believe will maximize their individual achievement and personal fulfillment. Their dating and marriage choices are guided and informed by their upbringing in the United States, like their tradition-oriented peers, but they depart from traditional, family-bound expectations of their personal and professional lives. The actual partner choice, in the case of married individuals, is not as important as how and why that choice is made. The individuals on the independence pathway may date or marry partners who are co-ethnics or they may not—ultimately, their choices are made not to conform to parental expectations but rather, based solely on their desire to find the best partner for them. The compromises, negotiations and adaptations made by these subjects and their families are revealed as individuals navigate the independence pathway. How do individuals manage the tension between the pull of family and the push towards autonomy? This is a struggle that all individuals face as they make their life choices as adult actors. This process is especially difficult though when one’s ethnic culture demands the subordination of individual needs for those of the family and community. Even those raised in assimilation-oriented families still feel the pull of family loyalty. Compromises and negotiations are made not just by the second generation actors but by their parents as well. The negotiations made by parents of the independence-oriented are different from those made by parents of the neo-traditionals. Not only must they cede the control that is “traditionally” theirs, they may also have to accept outcomes that are not what they would consider ideal, namely dating and marrying someone from outside their ethnic community. What are the factors which lead these individuals to question tradition and reinvent their ethnic ties in the second generation context? 129 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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The impact of careers will be examined, especially the ways in which career paths influence an individuals’ conception of themselves as autonomous actors. These career paths result in geographic mobility and exposure to different social situations and people, opening up avenues that might not have otherwise been a possibility. As discussed in chapter three, South Asian parents have similar career expectations for both male and female children and in turn career choices have impacted the lives of both men and women in this study. This is especially true for those respondents whose sense of individual autonomy in the workplace is linked to individualism in their personal life choices. Another way that individuals question tradition is through their involvement in second generation organizations which allow them to reframe their ethnic allegiances independently of their families and the ethnic communities of their childhoods. These organizations allow individuals to embrace their ethnicity on their own (second generation) terms, while at the same time giving them the ability to make social contacts with South Asian peers who may share a similar nontraditional orientation. The social opportunities created in second generation contexts are less choreographed and rigid than the matchmaking events described in the last chapter. As they question tradition, the individuals on the independence pathway seek to maximize opportunities in their personal lives much as they have done in their professional lives. Their social lives are marked by the use of many strategies for finding a partner. Some are open to set-ups by family or family friends while continuing to meet and date people outside their ethnic group, essentially working within both systems until they meet the right person for them. The adaptation of instrumental autonomy shapes the independence pathway through life narratives that reveal the ways in which individuals have veered away from traditional expectations. The discussion of these experiences will include the ways in which individuals have addressed and resolved second generation dilemmas, including the gender dilemma, and the ways in which their resolution has shaped and influenced the life pathway they have chosen. For the respondents described in the previous chapter, major life decisions centered on an idea of tradition that emphasizes the family and ethnic community and the desire for a mate who will share their cultural heritage and values. While most of the independence-oriented

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respondents feel that they have close ties to their family and ethnic community, they do not share the belief that a co-ethnic will make an inherently better partner and therefore do not limit their search for a life partner to individuals from their own background. Most of them have abandoned any notion of arranged marriage and instead have met or hope to meet a partner through the conventional (mainstream) means available though they may be open to tapping into ethnic social networks as well. In many ways, these individuals defy expectations and stereotypes about second generation South Asians. While they do not make their decisions as a result of childhood ethnic socialization, they also do not reject their ethnic culture. Independence-oriented respondents do not believe that their choice around how and whom to marry stems from a desire to rebel against their family and ethnic community, but rather one that is borne from a desire for personal fulfillment. “Independence” means different things to different individuals and for some includes being open to a partner from any background. Others might gravitate to other Indians or South Asians, regardless of their caste and community backgrounds (thus distinguishing them from the neo-traditionals who tended to have stricter criteria for potential partners) and still others have only a general criteria about religion (“whatever their background, as long as they’re Muslim”) like Americans who are Jewish or Catholic and want a partner of the same religious background. Again, the choice to restrict the criteria is often more about the individual’s comfort level and their desire to be with someone with shared values rather than a need to defer to parental or community expectations. They interpret their mate selection criteria, as a truly autonomous choice that is divorced from family or community pressure. They do not see their choices as having any obeisance to family or tradition, but rather as an independent choice that will lead to their goal of personal fulfillment. Consequently, the adult life pathways of independence-oriented respondents are marked by: 1) a departure from tradition, which is seen as old-fashioned and irrelevant to their life goals; 2) a sense of personal autonomy that is oriented to these goals, as distinct from the expectations of their family and ethnic community; and 3) a resolution of second generation dilemmas which resulted in extended negotiations with family members.

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The subjects here reveal a great deal of variation in their ethnic socialization experiences, and the educational and career experiences that led them to independence. Some of them had traditional childhood orientations while others had very assimilation-oriented experiences with parents having little or no expectations about their children’s future marriage plans. Whatever their childhood orientations, the early adult experiences, especially as they are affected by educational and career choices had, at least in part, played a significant role in their decision-making process. For some, it was an easy transition from assimilationist childhood experiences while for others, there was conflict and a need for negotiation with their family and members of their ethnic community. However smooth or difficult the path, they have all had to find a balance between family and individualism and attempt to manage the myriad of strategies that are available to them. Being open to partners outside their own ethnic group does not equal rejection of their ethnic heritage, nor does it mean that an individual will necessarily marry outside their ethnic group. Rather, it reflects the ways in which some second generation South Asians have adopted mainstream norms around love and marriage as well as American cultural ideals about personal autonomy and egalitarianism. The Pull of Family, the Push Towards Autonomy Traditional South Asian family norms require that individuals cede important life decisions to their parents or other family elders. As with arranged marriage, this has in many contexts given way to more individualism and personal choice among the urban middle classes in South Asia and among immigrant South Asians in the United States. However, family ties are still important to the second generation who often feel torn between family loyalty and individual needs. The independence-oriented respondents in this study also feel the pull of family but they have managed to make reconcile their families’ wishes and their own needs. The process is not just a matter of independent adult children changing the minds of their parents. Often it is an interactive process with parents sometimes realizing that tradition must give way to the norms and cultural practices of their adopted country. Individuals coming from a traditional childhood orientation who then take the independence pathway have a more difficult time, not surprisingly, than those who had assimilation-oriented childhood

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experiences. For many, the shift was facilitated in part by geographic separation from their families when they attended college. The physical separation from their families and ethnic community combined with the new social opportunities available to them made many re-think their previous assumptions about their personal life choices. Padma, the 27 year old comedian recalls the shift that took place in college as it related to dating and marriage:

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Our [Tamil] culture was very important to my family when I was growing up. We were taught to be good Indian girls and part of that was an assumption about who we would marry when we grew up. My oldest sister was totally a good girl— she married a guy from India. But in college, I met this Jewish guy and we dated for a few years. I told my parents he was my “friend” but then after graduating, we got engaged. It was tough for them but they accepted it. Ironically, the engagement was broken off but from that point on it was assumed that I would not have anything like an arranged marriage. There are others whose parents’ views on marriage and dating evolved over time, becoming more flexible as their children grew up and moved away. The ambivalence over how to raise their children gives way to an understanding that children brought up in the United States can not be expected to continue the practice of arranged marriage. Aditi, a 30 year old Indian American who is a vice president at a major financial institution, describes this shift over time when asked about her parents’ early expectations about marriage and dating: They would of course talk about it. Nice Indian boy, nice Bengali boy. This was when I was young but come high school, not as much. I think deep down they would have loved it if I had married someone Indian. But I think that when I got to high school and college, really, I think they just wanted me to be happy. And they were more mature to see that…I think when I was in elementary school, it would be like, no way, you have to marry a nice Indian boy but the longer they spent [living] here and the more people they saw [it’s] just the way that society goes.

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Aditi married an African American man she met while in a corporate training program. She acknowledges that while people in the Indian community at large have issues with race, her parents were very accepting of her choice. She describes mixed marriage as a common occurrence in her family’s social circle and how it has validated her choice:

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My experience has been in my generation and my family friends—there are a lot of mixed marriages. More people who have picked who they are with and most of them are not Indian. And most of them have grad degrees and professionals and a lot of them are mixed marriages. So, for me, in our generation, I don’t think that it’s assumed that it’s going to be arranged. I think that’s more of a minority. Which has made me feel great. I’m a big believer in choosing someone you want, especially because my parents weren’t arranged. The prevalence of second generation peers in mixed marriages has made it easier on parents as well, as they are less likely to be looked upon as negatively by other members of the ethnic community if a child marries out. In the parents’ view, the choice may be less than ideal but it does not mean that they will not accept it. Some of the respondents brought up the possibility that in some families, they may “disown” a child who marries outside the ethnic community. While that was not the case for any respondents in this study, nor did anyone express any fear that they themselves would be disowned, they did feel that this could potentially happen to peers who come from especially conservative families. Farhana, the 33 year old Bangladeshi American describes how when she was a teenager, her mother threatened to disown her if she married “an American”: Like when I was in high school, I wasn’t allowed to date though I did anyway. But my mom used to say that if I married an American, she wouldn’t speak to me anymore. I knew she didn’t mean it then because my parents were always pretty liberal and indulgent with us in other ways. Also, my dad wouldn’t go along with it. But I think that people do get disowned, like in especially religious families or in families that are less educated.

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The phenomenon of being “disowned” is one that was only peripherally addressed by the respondents here and certainly not an issue for any of these respondents in their own relationships with their parents, even those who had traditional expectations for their adult children. Many tradition-minded parents softened their views because, as some of the respondents have pointed out, they adapted to the changing circumstances of their children’s lives and, as a result of having lived in this country longer, grew to understand the need to modify or abandon their prior expectations. As hinted at in Aditi’s comments, social class and upward mobility also play a role as many parents are willing to compromise as long as partners are well-educated and financially successful, attributes which seem to compensate for outmarriage. There is another force operating that contributes to the change in parental expectations. Just as their children do, immigrant parents respond to changes in structural circumstances and changes in constraints and opportunities. Parents may have one set of expectations when their children are young, but are more likely to change them as their adult children choose to delay marriage, primarily for educational and career advancement before they settle down. Most of the married respondents were in their late twenties and early thirties before they married. Those who were single ranged in age from their early twenties to their mid-thirties, with the younger respondents saying they didn’t expect to marry until they reached their late twenties and early thirties. Farhana describes delaying marriage and her mothers’ happiness when she chose to marry, even though she married outside the community: By the time I graduated from college, I had had a couple of boyfriends and my parents were aware of that, though not happy. Between boyfriends, they would offer to set me up or try to look for a boy for me. My relatives in Bangladesh and their friends here were inquiring about my “marriage plans.” I think when I was younger, there was more pressure on me to try to marry a Bangladeshi, or at least a Muslim but I held them back because I was pursuing graduate studies. Education is always a great way to get your family off your back about marriage. Anyway, the years passed and I dated off and on— non-South Asians. By the time I was 31, my mom was really happy that I was engaged. In the end, it was more about me

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American being happy and with a good person and of course, the potential for her to be a grandmother in the near future.

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Farhana’s decision to delay marriage while she was in graduate school did two things. It allowed her to explore different relationships by avoiding an early marriage and it gave her parents time to evolve in their own views about dating and marriage. By the time she chose to marry out, the difficult conversations had already taken place and her parents were more accepting of her choice. While the experiences of the independence-oriented who have married outside the ethnic community show adaptation and negotiation, marrying someone of the same ethnic background sometimes also requires adaptation and negotiation. Nikhil is a 32 year old Indian American of Punjabi background who, prior to meeting his fiancée, had never dated an Indian, let alone someone of the same ethnic background. He describes how they met and the ambivalence that they both share about people seeing their choice as traditional and how their parents plan for a traditional Punjabi wedding: When I was younger, I would have never thought that I would be marrying an Indian—in college, I identified as Asian American and felt ties to all Asians. My most serious relationship before now was with a woman who was Chinese American. The fact that my [future] wife and I are both of the same Punjabi Indian background is purely incidental—we met through mutual non-Indian friends. We are by no means traditional and consider ourselves pretty liberal. So while our parents are ecstatic over our engagement, we don’t want them to go overboard in planning our wedding. We don’t want this whole traditional Punjabi wedding because that doesn’t reflect how we met and who we are. It’s funny but we haven’t had the talk yet with our parents and we’re not sure how they will react since they have their heart set on tradition and we really don’t want that. For Nikhil and his fiancée, their relationship is about their shared values and commitment to equality and liberal causes and a wedding that celebrates tradition and what they feel to be conservative values is problematic and requires negotiation with their parents. Again, this

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contradicts the idea that South Asians marry co-ethnics uniformly out of adherence to tradition or family expectations. Nikhil’s subjective understanding of his choice of partner was not at all about conformity to tradition. The one issue that appears to be non-negotiable to a number of parents is the Hindu-Muslim divide. In South Asia, Hindu-Muslim conflict has raged on for decades and continues to do so in regional and geo-political conflicts. It is an especially critical issue that divides the South Asian immigrant community, as nationhood and religion are linked in the geo-politics of the Indian subcontinent. While respondents have mentioned knowing someone who had crossed the Hindu-Muslim divide, none of the respondents in this study had married or were in a current relationship of this nature. Three respondents overall had dated across these lines but ended their relationships when they realized that there would be “no future” as their parents were unwilling to accept a marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim, perhaps revealing the limits of “independence” for some. The experiences of Shefali, the 27 year old Indian American show the difficulty of crossing that boundary: I dated this guy who was an Indian Muslim for over two years and we were, and I think still are, really in love. But my parents would absolutely not accept it. I wouldn’t say that my parents are prejudiced but they are from the part of Gujerat where they had the riots happen and they saw a lot of things growing up that make them really hate Muslims. It’s really sad because we have so much in common—he is Gujerati as well—but it just can’t happen and it really tears me up. My parents would rather I marry an American guy than someone from the same culture who is Muslim. For other respondents, it is not just parental prohibition, but rather a sense of their own comfort and an adherence to their religious values that reveal an unwillingness to cross the divide, as in the case with Nasreen, a 26 year old Pakistani American graduate student: I’ve dated guys of a lot of different backgrounds and my parents, I think would be okay with me not marrying a Pakistani. But I haven’t dated Hindus and I think that the reason for that is not just about me but for them as well. I was

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friends with a lot of Hindu guys in college when I was on the board of the South Asian organization but I think that was an unspoken line that most people were unwilling to cross. And now, I think that for me the only criteria is that a future partner be Muslim, whatever their ethnic background. For me, it’s about sharing the same values and being able to pass on the religion to any kids I might have in the future. The respondents in this study reflect the religious diversity of the subcontinent and include Jains, Christians and Sikhs, as well as Hindus and Muslims but it is the Hindu/Muslim boundary, not surprisingly given the geopolitical conflicts of the region that is most often mentioned as one that is difficult, if not impossible to cross. It is the one negotiation that many second generation South Asians are unwilling to broach and many first generation parents are unwilling to enter into. Despite the openness, most subjects appeared to selfselectively opt out of crossing this divide. The family experiences of these second generation subjects reflect the struggles that all young adults have to make as they transition their lives away from their families of origin. While this is made more difficult for them because they are dealing with conflicts that are cultural as well as generational, overall the experiences of those on the independence pathway are positive and reflect growth and adaptation on the part of both the subjects and their first generation parents. As their children became adults and their lives and careers progressed, parents adapted and their perspectives changed. While not all second generation South Asians will have positive experiences when they defy parental expectations, the experiences of subjects on the independence pathway demonstrate the adaptability of first generation immigrant parents who became more American in their outlooks than they might have predicted in the past. Critical Variables On the surface, the respondents who chose the independence pathway are demographically similar to their neo-traditional peers. What variables, then, influence an individual to veer away from tradition to independence? What influences those who had more assimilationoriented childhood experiences to continue resisting tradition despite

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the cultural resources and pull of the ethnic community? A number of variables suggest an explanation for why individuals take the independence pathway. In the case of those raised with an assimilationoriented, cultural-enrichment model of childhood ethnic socialization, there are looser ties to their childhood ethnic community and relatively loose or changing expectations on the part of their parents, not surprising given the style of socialization they chose for their children. These parents are less likely to demand adherence to tradition and are more open to compromise, making the independence pathway one that can be taken with relatively little parental resistance. Those with a traditional childhood orientation differed from their consistently neotraditional peers in that they were less likely to report a strong sense of religious commitment, strong transnational ties and more likely to report geographic separation from their family and negative experiences with the ethnic community (see Table 5.1).

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Table 5.1

Factors influencing subjects on the independence life pathway Factors influencing life Traditional Assimilationist pathway Childhood Childhood Orientation Orientation (N=11) Moving Towards (Males + Females Independence

Family/community factors Extensive social networks Geographic proximity of coethnics in childhood Ethnic involvement Positive experiences with ethnic community Isolation/limited ethnic social networks present Intensive ethnic socialization Family pressure Religious commitment Strong transnational ties

(N=10) (Males + Females= Total) (4 + 6 = 10)

= Total) (4 + 7 = 11)

2+3=6 3+3=6

3+4=7 3+5=8

1+3=4 3+3=6

0+5=6 2+5=7

2+0=2

1+ 4 = 5

0+5=5

0+5=5

1+3=4 0+1=1 0+2=2

0+4=4 0+2=2 0+1=1

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Factors influencing subjects on the independence life pathway (Continued) Assimilationist Factors influencing life Traditional Childhood pathway Childhood Orientation Orientation (N=11) Moving Towards (Males + Females Independence

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Table 5.1

Life-altering choices and events Death or serious illness of parent “Rebellion” of siblings Geographic separation from family and community Intensive career involvement Negative event/experience with ethnic community End of serious “dating” relationship or marriage Political/social activism

(N=10) (Males + Females= Total) (4 + 6 = 10)

= Total) (4 + 7 = 11)

0+0=0

0+0=0

0+1=0 2+4=6

0+0=0 3+5=8

3+3=6 3+2=5

4 + 6 = 10 2+5=7

1+4=5

0+2=2

1+3=4

1+2=3

In addition to the factors cited above, another factor is the nature of intergenerational relationships between the independence-oriented and their parents versus that of the neo-traditionals to their parents. Recall the interconnected and interdependent, close relationships of the neotraditionals. In contrast, while most of the respondents on the independence pathway reported that they had positive, close relationships with their parents, their descriptions of family ties were more likely to resemble mainstream norms of a close relationship of adult children and their parents than the intense interdependence of traditional South Asian intergenerational ties. They were also less likely than their neo-traditional peers to have daily contact with parents and are less likely to have strong financial ties to their parents. By definition, the neo-traditional pathway is one that is linked to parental expectations and the maintenance of strong, harmonious intergenerational relationships. In contrast, the independence pathway

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is marked by intergenerational relationships that are positive but not deterministic in influencing an individual’s life choices. These “looser” intergenerational ties do not mean that these respondents did not have close relationships with their parents. Most reported close, loving and supportive relationships. It is not the closeness but rather the flexibility of the intergenerational relationships that differentiate them from their tradition-oriented peers and their parents. As the independence-oriented veered away from tradition, their parents were either consistently supportive of their autonomy or adapted to their children’s increasingly autonomous decisions. This adaptation to changing expectations and circumstances, along with negotiation, was critical to the independence-oriented who believed that their parents’ willingness to accept their choices “saved” them from having to rebel. For most of them, adhering to tradition was not an option. Finally, the independence-oriented have a different view of and relationship to the idea of tradition and the ethnic community than their neo-traditional peers. Tradition is important, dynamic and open to negotiation for the neo-traditionals, while the independence-oriented view tradition as a relic that is interesting and worthy of respect but irrelevant to their needs and goals. Again, while the neo-traditionals see the ethnic community as an important social and cultural resource that is central to their lives, the independence-oriented view the ethnic community as a resource that they can tap into occasionally, on their own terms and in order to enjoy the company of like-minded co-ethnic peers. Compared to their neo-traditional peers, the independence-oriented are also less likely to have transnational family ties and do not place the family as the nexus around which their life choices and adult activities revolve. Family relationships and ethnic ties are instead part of a larger set of conditions and activities which enhance their sense of personal fulfillment. Tradition is questioned and abandoned, not out of inherent distrust but rather because of its irrelevance to the goal of personal achievement and fulfillment. This de-emphasis on tradition extended to their parents who believed that it was more important for them to have a positive relationship with their children than to risk tension for the sake of tradition.

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Questioning Tradition, Crafting Careers, and Working Both Systems Whatever their childhood orientations, subjects on the independence pathway have all questioned the relevance of ethnic tradition to their adult lives. Questioning tradition does not mean a repudiation of tradition per se but it does signal a shift away from values and practices which have no bearing on their personal or professional lives. Ethnic traditions are not central to their lives and indeed have a vestigial quality even as ethnic identity remains salient. What accounts for this questioning and shift away from tradition? Two major influences emerged from interviews with independence-oriented respondents. The first is the centrality of careers and career choices on their sense of personal development and identity, as distinct from viewing their careers as a vehicle for upward mobility and the fulfillment of parental expectations. Careers informed other life choices on the independence pathway and have shaped a sense of personal autonomy which is independent of family and community expectations. The second influence is their movement away from the ethnic community of their childhoods towards involvement and identification, to varying degrees, with second generation social and professional organizations. These organizations reflect a sense of ethnic identity which departs from first generation expectations and is framed around their needs and interests. They also provide opportunities for socializing with like-minded second generation peers and more diversity than they would encounter in the more region-specific social organizations founded by the first generation. The connection to these organizations and the second generation “party scene” they have created also provides individuals the social networks needed to craft a strategy of “working both systems” to maximize romantic opportunities. For the young professionals on the independence pathway, careers and the availability of like-minded second generation peers have a set of alternative resources for personal fulfillment, facilitating the abandonment of tradition while being able to maintain their social class status and a strong sense of ethnic identity. While the neo-traditionals tap into the cultural and social resources from their family and ethnic community, the independence-oriented have these alternatives for maintaining their sense of ethnic identification, yet on their own terms.

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The majority of respondents in this study consider their work and careers to be a very important part of their lives. As discussed in previous chapters, this is not surprising as immigrant parents stressed the importance of education and professional careers. While education and careers were important to the neo-traditionals, the career trajectories of the independence-oriented are linked to the way that they view themselves and their personal life choices. Graduate education and the demands of starting out on a professional career path have served as catalysts for the independence choice. For those who were raised in an assimilation-oriented environment, career paths served to reinforce their expectations of adult autonomy, while those who were raised in tradition-bound households had opportunities to rethink their views of tradition and personal autonomy as they moved away from their families in order to pursue their educations and careers. Career choices made by the respondents in this group may or may not reflect the expectations of their immigrant parents but they are generally undertaken in a way that privileges an individual’s career goals as distinct from and more important than the goals of their parents. Their experiences reflect the ways in which career choice, goals and opportunities can serve to weaken ties of obligation to the family and ethnic community. Padma’s decision to pursue a career in acting and comedy clearly departed from parental expectations and led her to rethink the whole project of fulfilling parental expectations in general: For years I tried to do kind of what my parents would approve of. Like, I was an English major and that wasn’t ideal but I minored in journalism because that would sort of be a responsible career. Not as good as medicine or something technical or business-related but not too “out there.” And then to get my father’s respect, I got a master’s in women’s studies but that wasn’t ideal either. So, for a few years I worked as a journalist, got some prestigious fellowships but my parents were still not satisfied so I just went for broke and followed my dream. I quit my job to pursue a career in comedy and acting… Clearly that’s not what they would have wanted for me but they come to my shows and I think my dad is proud of me in his own way. So, I figured out that I can’t live my life trying to fulfill what they want… I’ve got to do what I want

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and they come around, so now I’m pretty open with them about everything, including stuff like dating. I go out with white guys but I told them I’d be willing to meet Indian guys too. Whatever happens, I just want to be the one who decides her own fate… In Padma’s case, choosing a non-traditional career path, especially one that would be so far-removed from the expectations of immigrant parents, steered her towards the independence pathway. Her career choice also reflects the ways in which opportunities in the larger society make these choices possible. She emphasized that the increasing awareness and “hotness” of Indian Americans/South Asian Americans in the mainstream media and popular culture, allowed her to pursue her career and get jobs which she might not have been able to do a decade earlier. The myriad career opportunities available to the children of well-educated and middle class South Asian immigrants represent opportunities in the social structure creating professional and personal choices which allow them to leave the protective cocoon of their ethnic communities. Aditi was raised in an assimilation-oriented household where cultural enrichment, rather than tradition, was emphasized. Her early adult life choices, including the decision to attend college and graduate school far from home, logically steered her towards the independence pathway. She believes that the professional and social opportunities she received also influenced her decision to marry outside her ethnic community. She describes how her career led to her finding her husband: Going to business school, having a career in finance, definitely influenced my personal life. First of all, like I was very careeroriented and wanted to be powerful so I’m not the type to stick to tradition just because that’s what’s expected of me. Plus, I got to do a lot of travelling for work and got to meet lots of different kinds of people and when it came to dating, why would I limit myself when I could meet so many really welleducated and interesting people? I met my husband during a corporate training program. Other than the fact that he’s African-American and I’m Indian American, we have so much

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in common, like our educational backgrounds, our values, our goals and what we want out of life. The experiences of Khaled, a 35 year old Pakistani American filmmaker, is similar to both Padma and Aditi. Filmmaking is another career-choice that would not be considered ideal by immigrant parents and also provided him with opportunities to meet people in a way that influenced him to broaden his horizons in his personal life:

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You know, once you decide to choose a career that is so antithetical to what your parents would want—like my dad is a pharmacist and they definitely wanted me to go into medicine—then, everything else is up to question. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to defy their expectations in that way and then be like, yeah, let me have an arranged marriage and you can set me up with a nice girl from Pakistan. That just wasn’t going to happen. So my parents weren’t surprised when I found someone on my own. I met my wife at a film conference and she’s [white] American but she’s really respectful of my culture and my family and it’s working out. The experiences of Padma, Aditi and Khaled, demonstrate the ways in which careers can shape and inform choices on the independence pathway. When careers are central to an individual’s sense of autonomy and identity, it reinforces the sense of autonomy individuals feel in other areas of their lives, namely dating and marriage choices. Individuals on the independence pathway are likely to be open, in general, to the opportunities, both professional and personal, which become available to them and less likely to accept the constraints of traditional expectations. They take advantage of opportunities afforded to them in mainstream society while still being able to tap into ethnic resources, as long as they are able to exercise autonomous choice. The independence pathway is characterized by dating and courtship strategies that are similar to those available to any other heterosexual single Americans from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, second generation South Asians are also able to tap into ethnic social networks either through their families or through second generation social networks, which afford them

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additional opportunities to meet a potential spouse. The respondents in this chapter have found people to have relationships with and some of them have found spouses though a variety of different means from the “typical” American ways of meeting people in college, in the workplace, through mutual friends or even the Internet. They also have available to them the South Asian “party scene” or social events sponsored by second generation organizations. For many, “working both systems,” means allowing themselves to meet people through the mainstream, “normal” methods while also being open to set-ups by parents or meeting people through the South Asian “scene.” Both strategies are seen as a good way to find a steady stream of people to date or a potential spouse, thus potentially filling both short and longterm needs. Some have joked that their non-South Asian friends wish they had similar opportunities. Working both systems maximizes dating opportunities, something that becomes increasingly important to unmarried respondents approaching their mid-thirties. Working both systems seems natural to Deepa, a 30 year old Indian American working in students affairs for a liberal arts college. She describes her openness to a man of any background and how she hopes to meet someone: It hasn’t ever been about me dating or wanting to date someone who is Indian but more about finding someone I like. If they’re Indian and they have all the qualities I want, that’s great. If they’re not Indian and they have all the qualities I want, I can work with that too. Living in this city [as opposed to rural New Hampshire where I went to school] I’m sure I’ll find someone nice to date. It could be at a club or through friends, whatever. I don’t know if I’m as risky as some of my friends who have done stuff on the Internet or personal ads but that’s because I’m a skeptic. Other that that, I’m game for whatever. If my mom calls me up and says, hey, would you like to meet so and so, well, I’m game for that too. Other respondents have had similar stories and find that they need to be flexible about the way that they meet people given the demands of their careers. In the case of 28 year old Sunil, an Indian American management consultant, his hectic work schedule and the constant travel his work requires makes it difficult to meet people through the

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usual channels, so at the moment he has become more open to set-ups arranged by his parents. He describes his views and his experiences so far:

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I don’t think I have to marry an Indian but I’m definitely open to the possibility and know it would make my mother really happy. My parents are pretty liberal and accepting—my sister didn’t marry an Indian—so I know it would be okay if I didn’t and they would be happy for me. I’ve dated women of different backgrounds but right now my work schedule makes it hard for me to have a normal life so these set-ups work for me right now. My mother will send me someone’s biodata and I’ll contact and meet them for a drink or coffee. This is really the only option for me since the South Asian or Indian scene is not for me—they’re mostly North Indian and speak Hindi where I’m South Indian and don’t speak Hindi and they tend to be pretty clique-ish which I really don’t like…I haven’t met anyone through these set-ups that I could have a relationship with—but you never know, I could meet someone or I could meet someone some other way. Honestly, I’d like to get married soon and I’m open to however way it happens. In contrast, Sejal, a 25 year old Indian American is not thinking about marriage any time soon but found that working both systems was a good way to get through dating dry spells: This sounds pretty awful but I let my parents set me up with Indian guys whenever I don’t have a boyfriend. I’ve dated Indian guys and white guys and although I don’t want to get married right now, the set-ups are a good way to meet someone to hang out with and who knows, I might fall in love with one of these guys though probably at some point in the future, I’ll meet someone on my own. But for now, it works and it gets my parents off my back. Whatever the individual reasons for working both systems, as the population of South Asians has reached a critical mass, there are more opportunities to meet and date and perhaps find something more. For the respondents described above, working both systems means allowing

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for parental involvement in set-ups which generally follow the same pattern as described in the previous chapter on neo-traditionals. Parents exchange biodatas, or informational life resumes, and pass along this information to their children who are responsible for making the initial phone calls and arranging the meetings in person. However, working both systems also means tapping into the South Asian social scene and the organizations and social networks that are specifically meant for second generation members. Among these is the South Asian club or party scene, which is particularly salient for younger second generation members (generally below age thirty) and the proliferation of second generation South Asian organizations which provide a venue for meeting Indian Americans or South Asian Americans from a variety of different ethnic or regional backgrounds. The South Asian (or “desi”) club or party scene documented by Sunaina Maira (2002) represents a particular youth subculture which united South Asian youth around a hybrid music culture. Interestingly, even as young professionals, many of the subjects still attended clubs and events where they can be “desi” on their own terms and not be hampered by parental expectations of what it means to be ethnic. Ethnic organizations are not a new thing for members of the second generation since most of their parents were involved in them as they were growing up. However, as the second generation came of age, having had the experience of campus ethnic groups, they formed their own professional, social and cultural organizations to meet their own needs and reflect their sense of engagement with their ethnicity and the mainstream. While these groups do not explicitly exclude recent immigrants, generally organizations founded by second generation South Asians tend to attract a membership that is the same. Second generation organizations recognize that their members are both American and members of an ethnic subculture and tend to focus on the needs and interests of South Asians who were raised in the United States and are usually American citizens. Since they do not generally address immigrant concerns, except as part of their social service mission or political involvement, they tend not to attract as many recent first generation immigrants. Therefore, organizations founded by the second generation provide institutional settings that are aimed specifically at the needs or interests of their peers, making them an ideal venue for meeting like-minded individuals. These organizations

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are an essential component of “working both systems,” and provide the independence-oriented opportunities to socialize with co-ethnic peers on their own terms. Briefly, second generation organizations run the gamut from social advocacy and volunteer organizations like SAALT (South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow) to arts organizations like the SALAAM Theatre Group which was founded as a venue for South Asian performers and artists. These organizations hold volunteer events, social events like fundraisers, art exhibits and performances which provide opportunities for like-minded South Asians of various backgrounds to meet and mingle. Some of the groups are “Indian American” but may welcome other South Asians as well, while many of the groups specifically bill themselves as South Asian and hope to have members and participants who are from any part of South Asia. For demographic and other reasons, while this is changing as organizations try to reach across religious or national boundaries, the majority of the membership of these groups are Indian and Hindu in origin. However, many groups are specifically trying to reach out to a wider audience, especially given the effect that September 11th has had on the South Asian immigrant community. For our purposes in this study, it is important to look at the role of second generation South Asian organizations in facilitating the dating and courtship activities of their single members. One organization which received special attention in this study is the Network of Indian Professionals/Network of South Asian Professionals (NET-IP/NET-SAP, depending on the particular regional chapter). NET-IP/NET-SAP is ostensibly a professional organization set up to facilitate networking among young Indian American or South Asian professionals in the United States. While the organization is primarily Indian American, some chapters have members from other areas of South Asia. The organization is notable for being a large national group with 21 regional chapters throughout the United States and for having been mentioned in Jean Bacon’s (1996) work on Indian Americans in the United States. While the group did not respond to requests for information (as experienced by Bacon when she conducted her study), below is a short description developed from participant observation of the group’s annual convention which took place in Boston in 2002:

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American NET-IP/NET-SAP hosts an annual convention for all its chapters every labor day weekend which is attended by members of regional chapters in the U. S. and affiliated organizations in Canada. The convention included cultural events, including a music and dance performance, a keynote address by a Harvard Business School professor and workshops for applying to graduate professional programs. There were also lectures on geopolitical issues as well as political participation and activism in the United States and workshops on volunteerism and professional development. By far the most well attended and popular events were the city tours, the opening and closing parties and parties which took place in dance clubs offsite. The most popular attraction at the convention was the “masala” speed dating event which was organized by a company which runs South Asian speed dating events in major cities. The speed dating activity was so popular that an additional session was added as the original session was sold out before the start of the convention. The majority of the attendees are single and in their mid to late twenties, and many came in groups and specifically discussed the hope of “meeting someone” at the event. Before and during the convention, an email list was set up to help people from the same city to get together during the convention activities.

Even though NET-IP/NET-SAP bills itself as a professional organization and many of its activities are aimed at professional networking, it is clear that it also provides a forum for meeting members of the opposite sex. As one study participant observed, “NETIP isn’t supposed to be a dating scene but I have noticed that once someone gets married, they usually drop out of the organization. That’s partly because of the family commitments you have when you’re married but also because you’re no longer looking to meet someone.” Second generation organizations, depending on their focus, attract members of various ethnic and religious backgrounds and members who are traditional in their dating and marriage requirements may meet their spouses through them but they would have better luck with family set-ups or immigrant organizations which can better control for criteria such as regional, caste and community membership. The potential

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diversity of second generation organizations makes them a more promising socializing/dating pool for the independence-oriented who do not have such strict background criteria for a future mate. Respondents on the independence pathway have more mate selection options available to them than either the neo-traditionals or non-South Asian Americans. Working both systems creates more options and serves the changing needs of the second generation as they move through various stages in their careers and in their personal lives. Family negotiations and the understanding that they will ultimately choose who and how they will marry requires a degree of finesse and flexibility that will ultimately enable them to reach their goal of finding a committed relationship.

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Instrumental Autonomy: Resolving Dilemmas on the Independence Pathway Tradition has indeed lost its hold for independence-oriented subjects and been replaced by the pull of autonomy and individualism. Whether their childhood orientation was more tradition-oriented or more assimilation-oriented, these subjects were pulled towards individualism and autonomy for reasons discussed earlier and as will be described further in life narratives in this section. Unlike their tradition-oriented peers, these subjects resolved their second generation dilemmas by making choices which best represented their personal and professional goals and values and negotiating various concessions and compromise from parents. Each of these narratives relates the events and experiences that led individuals down the independence pathway, whatever their baseline childhood orientations, and illustrates the ways in which the resolution of the dating, identity and gender dilemmas differs from their neo-traditional peers. These negotiations and the assertion of their sense of individual autonomy in order to fulfill their personal and professional goals are a hallmark of the independence pathway. The concept of instrumental autonomy represents an autonomy style that is oriented towards the concrete and subjective goals these individuals have in both their personal and professional lives. This autonomy style most clearly resembles Vannoy’s (1996) definition of “an individual’s capacity for self-direction and self-regulation independent from the expectation of others.” While the independence-

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oriented generally reported positive relationships with their families, they made it clear that their life choices were made on their own terms without specific regard to familial expectations, which were changed or negotiated, or ethnic community expectations. In their interview responses, they also differed from their neo-traditional peers in having no need to justify or explain their life choices, confident in their sense of autonomy. Indeed, they regarded their sense of independence as “natural” for individuals who were raised in the United States. While they reported feeling a strong sense of ethnic identity, that sense of identification was more likely to be tied to second generation ethnic solidarity as described earlier in this chapter than the more traditionoriented ethnic communities of their childhood experiences. They view the choice of independence as one they had made from a range of possible options, including tradition. They respect and understand the life choices of their peers, and sometimes siblings, who may have chosen arranged or semi-arranged marriage to conform to traditional expectations and parental authority. However, they assert their own autonomy as a natural extension of the autonomy they exercise in their educational and career pathways. The availability of like-minded second generation peers allows them to connect with their “ethnic” side while their professional success and affluence allows them access to mainstream society. This ability to move between the “ethnic” and the mainstream and to “work both systems” makes the independence pathway especially attractive. The majority of the independence-oriented were raised with the cultural enrichment model of ethnic socialization, which was considerably less intensive than the model employed by the traditionoriented. Parents were more assimilationist in their ethnic socialization strategies. Children were exposed to ethnic culture and practices and had the opportunity to participate in cultural activities but it was not a central feature of their childhoods. Many of these parents were rather laissez-faire in their children’s acquisition of their native language and did not require their children to formally study the language and culture. It was important for these parents that children have an appreciation of their ethnic heritage and the culture of their homeland but the exposure to culture and co-ethnics in the community was seen as a cultural resource to honor and enjoy and not as a bulwark against the negative influences of American culture. Generally speaking, the

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ethnic community and religious organizations were not central to their family life as it was in the case of parents employing the cultural conservation model of ethnic socialization. Not surprisingly, individuals raised with this orientation had looser ties and less engagement with their childhood ethnic community. Additionally, their social circles are not primarily comprised of co-ethnics, as was the case for many of the neo-traditionals whose close social circles tended to consist primarily of co-ethnics. The subjects in this group who were raised with a traditional childhood orientation and then moved away from tradition generally did so as a result of a confluence of structural context, experiences within the ethnic community and life-changing events, as described earlier in this chapter. Ultimately, these individuals were willing to “rebel” against parental expectations but made great effort to maintain their family relationships through negotiation and compromise. In the end, depending on the negotiability of parental expectations, they either suffered strained relationships with their parents or were able to “make them come around,” the latter being the most common result. The majority of the subjects of this study grew up with similar structural circumstances. Coming primarily from middle class and upper middle class, well-educated families, they had tremendous class and community resources. What kept some of the second generation in a more traditional mode was a combination of the conservative influence of parents, ties to extended family members in their country of origin and an understanding of themselves as American but also as the ethnically distinct products of a multicultural society. Unlike the second generations of a century ago who were pressured to abandon their ethnic ties in order to integrate economically and socially, the members of the “new” second generation, especially those immigrants who have model minority status, feel the right to retain the ethnic traditions and values of their choosing while integrating in important ways to mainstream society. Those who moved away from their traditional childhood orientations did so as a result of loosened ties to their homeland and a decision to privilege autonomy over parental expectations. Model minority status, cultural capital as well as the norms of post-multicultural society gives them the freedom to make that choice as well.

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How do these individuals experience the movement away from tradition? The subjective understandings of these individuals reflect an allegiance to American ideals of individualism and autonomy, which are manifested not only in their work lives but in their personal lives as well. Part of this conscious understanding of their “Americanness” is a rejection of the boundary criteria of arranged marriage, especially in its maintenance of caste and community group boundaries, which they see as antithetical to egalitarian ideals. This interpretation of their life choices and preferences correlates with an understanding of ethnic culture as a potential resource and as a source of pride but not central to their lives. The rejection of the boundary-maintenance aspect of tradition most sharply distinguishes them from their neo-traditional peers.

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From Tradition to Independence Hanif’s childhood experience was traditional in orientation and the childhood ethnic socialization he was exposed to was designed to orient him towards tradition and the ethnic and religious allegiances of his family and community. However, his education and career experiences influenced his decision to veer away from tradition. For him, and others like him, a childhood that revolved around a family social circle of coethnics and formal religious instruction usually involves some expectations of tradition, however modified, when it comes to marriage and the choice of a spouse. As young adult, he began to question the assumptions of his childhood and of his family expectations. Hanif’s parents are professionals who immigrated from Pakistan in the early 1970s and settled in the New York City area. They were instrumental in the establishment of their local mosque and were active in Pakistani social and professional organizations. While he hesitates in describing his upbringing as strictly traditional, language, culture and especially religion was very important to his family as he was growing up. Hanif and his siblings were given formal religious training in his Sunday school at his parents’ mosque and also received Koranic training from a private teacher. While not encouraged to date, there were no specific prohibitions against dating and he dated a bit in high school and college. As he was

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growing up, the expectation was that in the future, he would marry a Pakistani Muslim, most likely raised in the United States like himself. At this point, that would be the ideal for his parents but they would be fine if he were to marry another Muslim, whatever their ethnic background. Hanif attended a competitive East Coast liberal arts college and then a top law school. He has worked as a human rights lawyer in the years since he graduated from law school, including a stint doing human rights advocacy in Pakistan. He feels that his work has shown him the importance of looking at an individual and not necessarily their group identity. As heads into his thirties, he feels more open-minded about his relationships and the type of partner he is seeking. He is currently dating a white American woman who is not Muslim. Hanif had always accepted the idea that he would marry a Muslim because of parental expectations but also out of a preference for a partner who shares his religious beliefs and values. However, he now questions that earlier assumption given the nature of his work, which has caused him to question ideas about group affiliation versus individual rights. As he says, he “didn’t like the idea of starting out with religion as a litmus test” for a relationship. In veering away from tradition, Hanif has had to deal with second generation dilemmas head on. The dating dilemma he experienced was similar to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ambiguity faced by other respondents and was confusing in the mixed messages it represented. While he knew his parents would not exactly approve, the pull of dating was too hard to resist and eventually shaped his belief that he needed to have a strong say in his personal and romantic life. He convinced his parents that dating was the only way he would meet partners. Over the years, he has expanded his criteria for potential dates and a potential future mate, much to his parents’ consternation. He believes that he will be able to negotiate with his parents to accept whatever choice he makes. While moving through young adulthood, he managed the identity dilemma in two ways. First, by doing human rights work in Pakistan, he was able to connect with his ethnic culture in a direct way and felt confident in his sense of ethnic loyalty. Secondly, he closely identifies with second generation peers and feels that his friendships in those circles reinforces a strong sense of ethnic

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identity without being tied to the conservatism he associates with the ethnic and religious community of his parents’ generation. Finally, as a male, he experienced the gender privilege commonly experienced by his second generation male peers. As a liberal-minded individual who believes in egalitarianism, veering away from tradition also allowed him to assert these values by rejecting the inequality associated with tradition thus resolving the gender dilemma that results from the privileged status that males receive in South Asian families. In choosing independence, Hanif resolved second generation dilemmas by crafting strategies which opened up his personal options through his career and second generation associations and by negotiating with his parents to ensure that he will be able to make the choices he thinks will best fulfill his personal goals. He believes that his experiences and his positive relationship with his understanding parents allowed him to pursue independence while maintaining family ties. Aruna, a 25 year old Indian American woman was also raised, like Hanif, in a tradition-oriented family. Indian culture and Hindu religion was a constant in her early life and ethnic socialization and her parents instilled traditional values and expectations in her and her siblings while simultaneously espousing the egalitarianism and autonomy that they hoped would maximize their educational and career aspirations. Her mother, a research scientist, served as a model for her and reinforced her own career goals. Aruna believes that her parents’ dual careers and “enlightened” expectations steered her later towards the independence pathway and made her feel more comfortable in challenging the traditional assumptions of her childhood. Aruna was raised with two brothers in a middle-class suburb of a major city in the mid-Atlantic region. Her ethnic socialization included cultural as well as religious instruction and involvement with a wide circle of co-ethnics from her parents’ social networks. In addition to involvement in the ethnic community, her parents encouraged her and her two brothers to be involved in sports and other activities in their local community. Like other parents in their social circle, Aruna’s parents had “traditional” expectations for their childrens’ personal lives. They were warned against dating as teenagers and made it clear that in the future, they would be

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expected to marry within their ethnic and religious community through some form of parental/community matchmaking, if not actual arranged marriage. They also encouraged academic excellence in their children and expected them to enter professional fields, especially scientific and technical fields. While Aruna did not date in high school, she began “experimenting” with dating while attending a prestigious university on the West Coast. She felt the geographic distance liberated her from parental expectations and she dated both coethnics she met through the university’s Indian cultural activities but also men who were from other ethnic/racial backgrounds. Aruna moved back to the East Coast to attend a doctoral program in engineering and had started talking to her parents about accepting dating and her movement away from traditional expectations. At age 25, she became engaged to her Chinese American boyfriend, also in her doctoral program and they intend to marry within a year. Her parents were initially shocked but became more accepting as they got to know her fiancé. Aruna believes that his educational credentials and being from an Asian immigrant family and thus having similar family values, made him more acceptable to her parents. In discussing her shift away from tradition as a young adult, Aruna framed her experiences in the language of instrumental autonomy: My relationship with my parents is very important to me and I’ve always been the “good” Indian girl who listened to and respected her parents. But as I got older and more, independent, especially going away to college, I decided to do what I thought was right for me. Dating in college was a real learning experience which helped me grow as a person—it was something I needed to do. And when I met my fiancé, I knew that he was the right person for me and despite my parents’ expectations, I had to make the choice that was right for me. Aruna handled the dating dilemma by choosing to wait until college to experiment with dating. The physical and emotional distance, coupled with her belief that dating was a learning experience that would enhance her development as a person helped her to overcome the

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dating prohibition that had been expected and enforced through most of her childhood. In describing her choice to marry a Chinese American man, she emphasizes the need for autonomy and moving beyond parental expectations in order to fulfill her own expectations for her life. The resolution of the dating dilemma and the negotiation she was required to do with her with parents were made smoother because of the social and cultural affinity she believes she has with her Asian American fiancé. In addition, his social class background and educational credentials were consonant with parental expectations, allowing her parents to feel more comfortable with the compromises they had to make in accepting her choice. For Aruna, and others like her, resolving the dating dilemma is a matter of rationality and autonomous decision-making—dating is a necessary part of growth and making independent personal life choices in order to have the kind of life they would find most fulfilling. The identity dilemma was less of an issue because Aruna felt that her strong grounding in Indian tradition as a child gave her a stable sense of ethnic identity. She asserts that she “doesn’t need to marry an Indian to feel like an Indian.” She feels that her educational and career choices, positive relationship with her parents and ethnic community and her knowledge and comfort with Indian culture allows her to feel “both Indian and American, in the best ways.” The gender dilemma was also not as much of an issue. Having been raised in a family with a career-oriented mother and parents who encouraged her achievement and emphasized egalitarian values, traditional gender expectations did not impede her educational and career choices. Her choice of engineering as a career field is interesting because it runs counter to mainstream gender expectations—ironically, South Asian parents often encourage their daughters to enter traditionally male career fields like computer science and engineering. Aruna defies both traditional (ethnic) and well as mainstream gender expectations in her life choices. She believes that her nontraditional career choice influenced the desire for autonomy which resulted in the move away from tradition. Her choice to date and avoid anything resembling arranged marriage also enabled her to avoid the traditional gender expectations that are associated with the arranged marriage process.

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Forging Consistent Independence While Hanif and Aruna’s experiences show the ways that career and educational experiences can cause an individual to veer away from tradition, others are on a more consistent path which originated in families that placed greater emphasis on integration into mainstream society. Anu and Sumit were raised by parents who employed the cultural enrichment model of ethnic socialization which emphasized a respect for ethnic culture while favoring integration over strict adherence to traditional norms and values. The independence pathway in adulthood is a logical progression for children raised with this childhood orientation. While ethnic culture is taught and valued, these families placed more emphasis on achievement and integration than traditional expectations. In adulthood, ethnicity is still important and valued but it is decoupled from tradition and connected to a sense of personal autonomy which is consistent with mainstream expectations of adult autonomy. Careers and partner choices are seen as decisions to be made independently of parental expectations. Whatever the outcome, the choices are framed as those which provide the individual the greatest sense of fulfillment and achievement. Anu and Sumit exemplify consistent independence, forged early in assimilationoriented families and solidified during early adulthood. Anu grew up in a family which was more assimilation-oriented and gave their children more freedom than most tradition-oriented parents. In her case, her career choices and ideas about a future mate reflect the range of choices available to individuals whose assimilation-oriented parents changed or softened expectations of conforming to parental authority and expectations. Anu was raised in a suburb of a large city in the Northeast by parents who immigrated from India in the late 1960s. While her parents were involved in the ethnic community, they did not “force” Indian culture or activities on their daughters. They encouraged their daughters to be involved in sports and extracurricular activities and had a social circle that included non-Indians. Her parents didn’t initially allow dating but her oldest sister forced the issue and they were more relaxed about it by the time Anu was a teenager. A self-described late bloomer, she didn’t date at all until college. While attending a

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large state university, she joined a sorority and her social circle was primarily the majority white fraternity/sorority social scene. After college, she took a job at a large corporation which offered an evening M.B.A. program for trainees and she had the opportunity to socialize with a more diverse group of students and coworkers. As she grew older and chose to focus on her career, she found that she found herself being drawn to Middle Eastern and South Asian men. Her parents, who had more traditional expectations when their children were younger, do not have any expectations for their children’s marriages, especially since their older daughter married a non-Indian. Anu does not feel any parental pressures to marry someone from her ethnic background. However, while she considers herself open to a partner of any background, she finds that she has lately been dating South Asian men because of what she describes as a certain comfort level she feels with men who have had similar experiences of being raised as the children of immigrants in the United States. As discussed in the last chapter, delaying marriage for career and other reasons changes and modifies family expectations but it also has an impact on the second generation individual as well, giving them time to establish their careers and adult identities. As Anu explains, “If I married someone right after college, I probably would have married a white guy because I didn’t think about my ethnicity and how it’s related to who I am until I got older.” Being exposed to a diverse group of people and having adult responsibilities for many, results in a rethinking of their sense of who they are and what they want out of life. When Anu describes her recent interest in dating South Asian and Middle Eastern men, her preferences are framed as autonomous and not to fulfill her parents’ expectations. This is especially true given that many of the men she has been interested in recently were of Muslim background, which would be problematic to say the least for traditionoriented Hindus. Her goal is to eventually marry a man with whom she has common ground or as she puts, “kinda looks like me and knows what it was like to grow up with immigrant parents.” Again, this is not to fulfill parental expectations or traditions but rather to have a partner with whom she feels a sense of commonality and shared experiences.

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As the youngest of three daughters, Anu found that her family resolved their collective dating dilemma by the time she was a teenager. Since it was a non-issue for her parents and since her social circle consisted mainly of non-South Asians, she did not feel the same sense of pressure and ambivalence towards dating. The identity dilemma is one that she tried to side-step during college when her involvement in fraternity and sorority life minimized social contact with co-ethnics. In her post-collegiate years, she revisited the identity dilemma in her desire to find a mate with whom she has common experiences. Anu feels that her sense of ethnic identity, though it is divorced from tradition, makes her open to men from many different ethnic backgrounds. The gender dilemma was another one in which Anu’s parents and sisters had largely dealt with in her early childhood. Her parents were very egalitarian and eschewed traditional gender expectations. They shielded their daughters from the gender expectations of the larger ethnic community by not limiting their family’s social circle to coethnics. As a young adult, Anu did not socialize with tradition-oriented co-ethnics and continued to avoid traditional expectations. In her educational and career experiences, Anu majored in economics and business and felt that her opportunities had not been limited due to gender discrimination. In her current dating life, she seeks out “enlightened” men and having avoided tradition-oriented members of the ethnic community both during her childhood and in her adult life, she escaped the gendered double-bind felt by so many other South Asian women. The nature of her family and early experiences minimized the acuteness with which she felt second generation dilemmas, and that is typical for others with similar childhood orientations. As a result Anu did not feel the tension and stress felt by her peers with tradition-oriented childhood experiences. Like Anu, Sumit, a 38 year old Indian American computer scientist, was raised in an assimilation-oriented household and never felt pressure to defer to parental authority in making major life decisions. His experiences are especially interesting because an outside observer might assume that he is like his traditional peers described in the previous chapter. He married a co-ethnic, despite having neither parental expectations or personal desire to marry within his culture. He

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regarded his choice of spouse as an independent decision that was unexpected and in no way a desire to conform to tradition. Sumit is the only son of academic parents. He was raised in a college town with few South Asians where he was growing up so his parents had a very wide and mixed social circle. While Sumit was taught to respect Bengali culture and religion and spent summers visiting family in India, his parents did not emphasize traditional ethnic culture in their day-to-day life. Having a career-oriented mother in the family, egalitarian values were explicitly taught. As a teenager, he dated in high school with no particular encouragement or discouragement from his parents who regarded dating as a “normal” part of living in the United States. Sumit recalled that his parents never brought up arranged marriage or had any expectations that he would or should marry someone from the same background. In college and in graduate school, he dated whites and Asian-Americans and considered himself open to a future spouse of any background. On a whim, mutual (non-Indian) friends introduced him to his wife, an Indian American who was also Bengali and also Hindu. His wife was raised in a traditional family and had to convince her parents to accept a husband of her own choosing. Sumit’s parents were surprised and delighted by his choice to marry a co-ethnic. Until he met his wife, Sumit had never dated an Indian American and considers his choice to be a “happy accident” in pleasing his parents. He feels that his choice was based on criteria he had for a spouse, regardless of their ethnicity. Co-workers and casual acquaintances always ask him if he had an arranged marriage, a question he bristles at and finds mildly offensive. Like Nikhil, the Indian American lawyer described earlier in this chapter, Sumit’s eventual choice of a co-ethnic spouse was not deliberate. The fact that he is offended by the assumption that he had an arranged marriage is especially critical for analyzing the subjective understandings of individuals on the independence pathway. Arranged marriage to them symbolizes the loss of autonomy and control that is necessary when adhering to tradition, and is the exact opposite of the way they chose to construct their adult lives. Sumit’s career and life choices reflects a goal-oriented approach to maximizing personal

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fulfillment and his choice of spouse follows his criteria for a suitable partner, choices which did not require a filter for ethnicity. Sumit’s case, and Nikhil’s as well, represents the second generation South Asian Americans who resist mainstream observers’ assumptions about them. While they do not denigrate the choices of their tradition-oriented peers, they want their choices to be recognized as coming from a different place. As Sumit notes, “If I were a [white] American who was Catholic and I married someone who was Catholic, no one would say I had an arranged marriage or those people (subject’s emphasis) like to stick together. I dated my wife, who happened to be Indian.” Sumit’s experience and resolution of his dilemmas also differ from many of his tradition-oriented peers. Like Anu, the dating dilemma was not much of an issue as he also had limited contact with the ethnic community in his youth and he also had parents who saw dating as non-problematic. Having been raised in an egalitarian household with a career-oriented mother, he did not experience the same kind of gender dilemmas as many of his peers. He recognizes that according to traditional culture, he is privileged as a male and experienced that on his visits to India and in his limited contacts with the ethnic community and co-ethnic peers. Like many of his male second generation peers, he attempts to deflect the gender privilege by emphasizing his own egalitarian values. Sumit’s experience of the identity dilemma, however, is interesting in that rather than he himself feeling the contradictions between ethnic identity and being American, he feels that he has to resist outside stereotypes and assumptions about his sense of ethnic identity. He observes that as an Indian American computer scientist, he’s a walking stereotype: I personally feel like I have a good balance and sense of who I am: I think of myself as an American of Indian descent. I have a good appreciation and respect for my heritage but I feel like I live my life like any other American who has my type of education and upbringing. It really gets to me that people make assumptions about me [like the arranged marriage thing] and pigeonhole me into this ethnic stereotype. I’m not traditional, I don’t do what my parents tell me to do (not that they would). I studied computer science because that’s what I was interested in, I married my wife because I dated her and fell in love with her. Sure there are plenty of traditional

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[Indian Americans] out there but I’m not one of them and it pisses me off that people make assumptions based on my ethnic background. Sumit’s resolution of the identity dilemma can be characterized by resistance to ethnic stereotypes. He challenges people who make the assumption that he had an arranged marriage and maintains a diverse friendship circle, despite having a co-ethnic wife who herself was raised with a traditional orientation. Unlike his peers who were raised in tradition-oriented households, Sumit does not feel encumbered by second generation dilemmas in his day-to-day life. When they do surface, he feels that he can resolve them by emphasizing his autonomy and personal goals rather than deferring to his family or ethnic community. Anu and Sumit’s ability to make autonomous adult life decisions, and their parents’ acceptance of that autonomy, is typical of subjects whose life trajectories reflect consistent assimilation. Unlike Hanif and Aruna, who chose independence despite parental resistance, their transition to independence as an adult life pathway was smooth. The difficulties come not from their families, but rather from mainstream assumptions and ethnic stereotypes about who they are and how they choose to lead their lives, resulting in a different set of frustrations as they confront these assumptions and stereotypes. For those with a traditional baseline orientation, choosing independence requires pull factors which result in veering away from tradition, culminating in the need for negotiation and parental compromise as well as a more acute awareness of second generation dilemmas. Whatever the baseline from which the subjects came to this pathway, what is clear among all these subjects is the expression of instrumental autonomy, where personal and professional goals supersede parental and community expectations and pressures. Variations on the Independence Pathway Despite what they have in common in their adult lives, the cases described above reveal the variations that exist among subjects on the independence pathway and it is important to note that variation in order to understand the complexity of the second generation experience. The first key variation is the childhood orientations of the subjects. This

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underscores a basic tenet in the life-course approach. The life course approach contends that childhood socialization does not determine adult life trajectories. The subjects in this study who were raised in assimilation-oriented families headed towards independence, a pathway consistent with the autonomy they experienced earlier in their lives. The subjects who shifted towards independence after having a traditional childhood orientation did so as a result of key experiences and decisions made during early adulthood or “launch” period. For most, this was the impact of educational and career experiences which exposed them to diverse social circles and often geographically separated them from their families and childhood ethnic communities. Even more important than the geographic distance, which was present in the case of some of the neo-traditionals described in the last chapter, was the lack of a strong connection to the ethnic communities of their childhoods. The independence-oriented also lacked the strong web of mutual familial obligation between adult children and parents common among the neo-traditionals. While they reported close relationships with their parents, these respondents made decisions independently and maintained a social and emotional life distinct from their families of origin. Again, for the consistently independent, this was a “natural” part of their transition to adulthood whereas for those with traditional family orientations, this required compromise and negotiation, often made easier through geographic separation. The situation is more complicated for those with tradition-oriented parents. These respondents noted that they began the negotiation process early, usually starting in late high school and college when they started asserting their autonomy in areas such as choosing colleges or majors. By the time they reached their “marriageable” years, they attended graduate school, started demanding careers and “worked on” their parents whose responses ranged from a continuum of total acceptance to distant, strained relations. When asked what they would do if their parents threatened to disown them if they didn’t acquiesce to parental wishes, they stated doubts about whether their parents would actually make good on that threat in the end. It is possible that individuals who believed that their parents would truly reject them might concede, as did Nina, the reluctant traditional, who was described in the last chapter. Yet these respondents believed that the years their parents lived in the United States had made them more open

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to compromise and acceptance of their children’s choices. That combined with their successful careers and attendant financial success softened the blow of the rejection of arranged marriage for immigrant parents who had hoped to maintain that tradition in the next generation. It is also interesting to note that veering away from tradition towards the independence pathway was in itself a strategy for resolving second generation dilemmas, with a greater focus on personal goals and autonomy lessening the influence of ethnic community expectations and the pressures they pose. Within both groups of respondents who took the independence pathway, there is also variation in their decision to date or marry coethnics. Unlike some of the tradition-oriented who dated outside their ethnic group but “came around” when it came to marriage, the independence-oriented were unlikely to place co-ethnicity as a criteria for a spouse. Of the eleven respondents in this category who were engaged or married, four will marry or married co-ethnics. Why do some on the independence pathway date or end up marrying co-ethnics while others do not? Where a respondent favored dating co-ethnics, they cited comfort-level and shared experience as the reason for that preference, with little regard to boundary maintenance, as in the case of Anu who stated her growing preference for dating South Asian or Middle Eastern men, regardless of religious background. In Nikhil’s case, both he and his co-ethnic fiancée felt that their ethnicity was irrelevant in their choice of each other and were uncomfortable with their parents’ efforts to plan a traditional Punjabi wedding in their honor. The instrumental autonomy style, which characterizes the choices made on the independence pathway, points to decisions made in the best interests of the individual and not in adherence to tradition or the demands of boundary maintenance. The independence-oriented are uncomfortable when outside observers assume that their choices are motivated by tradition, most clearly evident in the responses of Sumit. The remaining six who had married or were engaged to someone outside their ethnic group did so not as part of a rebellion or repudiation of tradition but rather as a matter of personal choice guided by compatibility and love. “Falling in love” replaced the boundary criteria required by tradition, even the reinvented and adapted one of their traditionoriented contemporaries. Both groups cited love and compatibility as

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the reason for their choices. For the four respondents who were raised in tradition-oriented families, marrying outside their ethnic group required negotiation with their families. Often that negotiation process started earlier than their “marriageable” years and sometimes negotiations are less than successful and result in strained intergenerational relationships. The others cite the growing number of “mixed marriages” they see among their peers and consider it as a nonissue in a society where they observe many interracial and mixed relationships; thus they frame their choice as anything but shocking or particularly rebellious. The experience of second generation dilemmas also varied among these respondents. The individuals raised in tradition-oriented households tended to feel them more acutely and have more issues to resolve than those who were raised in assimilation-oriented families. That is due not only to parental expectations but also ethnic community expectations, which were more strongly felt by those who were raised within extensive ethnic social networks. Assimilation-oriented families maintained ties to the ethnic community but tended not to have the community have as much influence over their children as traditionminded parents who considered ties to co-ethnics part of the bulwark against negative influences from mainstream American society. For the independence-oriented, part of the resolution of second generation dilemmas was loosening ties to the ethnic community in order to resist expectations that run counter to their choices. Interestingly, respondents who were raised in assimilation-oriented families experienced dilemmas exacerbated by mainstream expectations of South Asians and resolving these identity dilemmas involved resisting stereotypes and generalizations. The men and women on the independence pathway share the fundamental belief that they are autonomous actors who make choices that maximize the potential for a personally fulfilling life. They are career-oriented and apply the same sense of individual autonomy that they do in their professional lives to their personal lives. If and when their choices coincide with parental and community expectations, that is considered a bonus; where they do not, as in the case of those raised with a traditional orientation, negotiation is required and it is often a process that takes place over a period of years, beginning in early adulthood. The first generation parents of these respondents grow to

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accept these shifts and the decisions they lead to since they have always emphasized the importance of career and financial success. The autonomy and independence needed to succeed in a professional career, not surprisingly, influence personal decision-making in the lives of many second generation South Asians, an observation not lost on immigrant parents. These respondents and their parents have mutual respect for each other’s choices. The second generation subjects value the cultural and social capital they received from their family and ethnic communities but do not feel burdened by traditional expectations. Tradition-oriented parents modified their expectations, and adapted to and accepted their children’s adult life decisions, in part recognizing the role they played in their autonomy. If those parents had not adapted and chosen instead to reject their children’s decisions and threatened to cut their ties, it is likely that some would rebel while others might have reluctantly chosen tradition. As a result in many cases the independence pathway is chosen by individuals but supported by their families, with varying degrees of acceptance and enthusiasm. High academic and career achievement softens parental attitudes and reinforces individual autonomy. A complex interplay of negotiations and compromise characterize these experiences. Gender Dilemmas and Egalitarian Agendas Like their counterparts on the neo-traditional pathway, the independence-oriented have also experienced the gender dilemma that results from the contradictions between traditional South Asian gender norms, values and expectations and those of contemporary American society. The respondents with a traditional childhood orientation had similar experiences of gender dilemmas and contradictions which resulted from the parenting strategies of their parents who tried to balance the push for egalitarianism required for upward mobility and economic integration while maintaining traditional values at home. Those raised in assimilation-oriented households experienced fewer contradictions, having been raised with parental strategies which emphasized egalitarianism and integration even in the home. However, even they felt pressure from community expectations which privilege males and double standards surrounding sexuality. Female respondents experienced the gendered double-bind described in the previous chapter. What distinguishes the gendered experiences of the individuals

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on the independence pathway from their neo-traditional counterparts is the acuteness of the gender dilemma and how they experience and resolve them. The following cases will illustrate the egalitarian agendas held by the independence-oriented who not only resist traditional gender expectations but moved towards or maintained independence in order to distance themselves from the sources what they believe sexist expectations arise. Aditi, the bank vice president, felt that the traditional gender expectations of her family and her childhood ethnic community were not only unfair but antithetical to her educational and career goals. She recognized this explicitly as teenager, when she first felt herself moving away from the traditional expectations of her parents, a trend that continued through her later educational and early career experiences. Aditi was raised by a stay-at-home mother and engineer father who stressed the importance of doing well at school while being an obedient and “good Indian girl” at home. Even though she felt her parents gave her privilege and freedom relative to other parents in their social circle, she felt that her brothers had more freedom. As a teenager she started feeling the gendered double-bind and the sexual double standard. Family friends would gossip about good Indian girls “gone bad” and she increasingly felt frustrated by the double standard. With her parents, she bartered her good grades and later prestigious degrees and career for freedom and openly dated non-Indians. While her parents were accepting, responses in the community were mixed. Many of her South Asian peers, like her, married outside their ethnic group. Aditi increasingly distanced herself from her childhood ethnic community and dismissed their traditional gender expectations. As a woman in a male-dominated career field, she observed that she is no stranger to breaking through gender barriers. She dismisses the gendered double-bind felt by her tradition-oriented peers. Unlike her neo-traditional peers, Aditi says she doesn’t even feel the gendered double-bind because she doesn’t put herself in a position to feel it. When asked if she feels the push and pull of conflicting gender expectations and values, she notes:

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Honestly, I don’t feel pressured by that because I won’t let it get to me. If people aren’t being positive, I don’t associate with them. It was the same in my career. And I resolved that stuff with my parents and I refuse to feel guilty or bad about being this or that kind of woman. I was raised to be a strong, successful person and if that goes against the [traditional] Indian good girl, then so be it. I think it’s hard for some desi women who allow themselves to feel pushed around by those expectations to where they feel they have to live up to that and they’re miserable or that they rebel and feel guilty. I moved away from those kinds of people and that attitude by the time I got to college. For Aditi, and other independence-oriented women, choosing independence was part of the movement away from those expectations and attitudes of their childhood ethnic communities which are incompatible with their adult life goals and choices. Women raised in tradition-oriented families veered towards the independence pathway in large part because of a desire for egalitarian relationships and to be freed of traditional gender expectations. Their career and life trajectories were incompatible with traditional gender norms and values and thus pushed them towards independence. Women, like Anu who was described earlier, who were raised in assimilation-oriented families, also reject the gendered double-bind. Egalitarianism was promoted in their families as a strategy for integration but also as a value in and of itself. That and their relative distance from the ethnic communities of their childhoods, results in less pressure to conform to traditional expectations. Still, like most of the women interviewed for this study, they feel external pressure from stereotypical representations of South Asian women as “exotic” and “other.” This is a particularly salient issue they have to deal with in their relationships with white men or African American men. Still, many believe that they are more likely to achieve egalitarian relationships with men who are not co-ethnics. In their relationships with co-ethnic men, they are sensitive to this and explicitly seek out men with a similar orientation to avoid being put in a position to feel the double-bind felt by many of their neo-traditional peers. Like the neo-tradtional women who were concerned about gender inequality and the men who worried that their gender privilege could be

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problematic, independence-oriented men and women are concerned about gender inequality but they take the issue further. They are more explicit in their rejection of and resistance to the gender inequality inherent in traditional family structures and expectations and most expressed a desire for egalitarianism in both their professional and personal lives. The independence pathway provided for the movement away from the traditional gender expectations inextricably linked to arranged marriage and family expectations. This egalitarian “agenda” is not limited to women but also independence-oriented men who seek out women who resist traditional expectations, as in the case which will be discussed next. In contrast to Aditi, Ashim’s childhood was spent in an assimilation-oriented family with parents who themselves had disavowed traditional expectations. His family life primed him for the independence pathway and an egalitarian outlook which greatly influences his search for a partner who shares those ideals. The son of two physicians originally from the Indian state of Assam, Ashim grew up in rural upstate New York, near a small university town. There were only a few South Asians living nearby, and as a result his parents became involved with the local community and Presbyterian church, of which his mother was an active member. His Hindu father practiced his religion informally, at home. Ashim was taught to understand and appreciate his parents’ native culture and their two respective religions but was also encouraged to assimilate to their adopted country. His parents, not having had an arranged marriage and having crossed community lines in order to marry, never had any expectations of arranged marriage for their son nor did they expect or explicitly wish him to marry another Indian. His professional mother also insisted on raising their children with egalitarian values that he found unusual when comparing their family to the few Indian immigrant families he observed. His parents also did not restrict him from dating. Interested in science and encouraged by his parents, Ashim planned to study medicine and become a physician like his parents. Although he had his pick of top universities, he chose to attend a small Ivy League institution known for its liberal atmosphere. He became involved with

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the South Asian students organization on campus though it was not his exclusive social circle. After graduating from college, Ashim attended medical school and was set to begin a career in medicine. His medical career took a turn as he explored other career options and he now directs research for a biomedical technology firm. He feels that his openness and independence in pursuing a career outside of traditional medicine is directly linked to the autonomy in his personal life. He has dated women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and feels that his choice for a mate is more about the individual, rather than about their ethnic background. His is currently seeing an Indian American woman whom he especially admires because of her independence from her family and her professional accomplishments. Ashim’s family life, including his parents’ independence and the egalitarian and open attitude they espoused, primed him for the independence pathway. The unorthodox career turn he took symbolizes autonomy from the career expectations his parents had as well. However, it is his commitment to egalitarianism in his personal life that steers his dating and relationship life, he notes that following tradition is at odds with egalitarianism, “Inevitably, when you try to be “traditional,” women get a raw deal and the men are given a lot of freedom and cut a lot of slack. I think the women that I would be interested in wouldn’t put up with that, whatever their ethnic background.” His desire for an equal partner and an egalitarian relationship seems incompatible with any form of arranged marriage and he believes that he is more likely to find his match through dating. “When I talk to progressive South Asian men and women, I think they’re like me in that they’re leery of set-ups from family and they want to keep their options open plus there’s just something about the whole set-up thing that seems really sexist.” Ashim points out that there are sexual double-standards like the expectation of virginity which he finds especially egregious. “Most of the professional South Asian women I’ve met—they’re not going to grad school or med school and starting their careers and staying virgins in their thirties. There’s a lot of wink-wink, nudge-nudge with the parents and I think it’s kind of ridiculous.” For explicitly egalitarian-oriented second generation men like Ashim, “tradition” holds too many vestiges of sexism for them to

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consider any form of arranged marriage. If they meet women on “setups,” they take pains to emphasize their interest in an equal partner. This explicit concern with egalitarianism as a core relationship issue separates independence-oriented men from most of their neo-traditional counterparts. In contrast to their neo-traditional peers, egalitarianism is a major value for the independence-oriented and they are less likely to ignore or excuse or put up with the gendered double-bind. For women like Aditi, a desire for equality required the movement away from her traditional childhood orientation. Independence-oriented men were also attracted to this pathway because of a perception of tradition as backwards and potentially sexist, giving up their gender privilege in exchange for a like-minded partner, whatever their ethnic background. The goaloriented instrumental autonomy that characterizes the independence pathway is compatible with a desire for equality and a resolution of the gender dilemma which required moving away from tradition entirely. This group associates tradition with antiquated gender norms and expectations which might prevent them from achieving their career goals or seeking out the best possible partner. In effect, this coupling of uncompromised egalitarianism and autonomy and the acceptance of these choices by parents who were willing to compromise steered them towards the independence pathway. Conclusion: Strategies for Independence In contrast to their neo-traditional peers who see tradition as a dynamic resource that can be transformed to fit their needs, the independenceoriented see ethnic tradition in a different light. For them, it is part of their individual histories and a set of practices that hold little relevance in their lives. They express the view that the traditional culture of their parents’ homelands is in many ways antithetical to their lives in the contemporary United States and their egalitarian ideals. Ethnic traditions are relegated to special occasions and as such, are consumed as cultural artifacts that are enjoyed at specified times instead of as a confirmation of a way of life. They believe tradition to be a historical object and a source of cultural pride, and not as a guiding force in their lives. Similarly, they have positive relationships to their family and ethnic community but do not feel the need to conform to the traditional expectations they may espouse. They take pride in their ethnic

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identities but frame their professional and personal life choices around their own goals and sense of individual autonomy, unhindered by tradition. The individuals on the independence pathway resolved their second generation dilemmas through an assertion of their personal autonomy as they negotiated with their families. In resolving the dating dilemma, their strategy was to adopt the norms of mainstream dating, while remaining open to “ethnic options,” meeting people through family set-ups or second generation social venues. Thus, they felt that they were maximizing their potential for finding a suitable partner. The identity dilemma was resolved through a strategy which asserted a hyphenated and multilayered identity unlike their tradition-oriented peers. Their sense of identity included feelings of ethnic allegiance combined with “American-style” autonomy. Finally, their strategies for dealing with the gender dilemma included an aggressive pursuit of education and professional careers and avoiding situations where they will encounter traditional expectations. Individuals assert their autonomy through independence, though not necessarily distance, from their families. They engage in negotiation with their families, who are willing to compromise and accept their autonomous choices. By not explicitly rejecting tradition and being respectful towards the idea of arranged marriage, respondents were able to maintain close relationships with their families while asserting their autonomous choices in their personal and professional lives. The independence-oriented respondents’ interpretation of arranged marriage is that it is a relic of ethnic tradition that is to be respected, especially since most of their parents had arranged marriages, but one that is set aside in favor of mate selection that allows them to choose. Interestingly, their watered-down concession to “arrangement” is limited to blind dates arranged by friends or family but those introductions are seen as a potential dating resource that their nonSouth Asian do not have access to—there is no automatic assumption that these set-ups will lead to marriage. Indeed, many of the men and women who availed themselves of this resource put themselves “out there” while still pursuing relationships in “typical American” fashion. An interesting component of this “tradition as relic” interpretation is that it acknowledges the gender inequality and communal exclusion inherent in traditional culture. In their adoption of the gender norms of

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contemporary American society, they see the gender inequality of traditional Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi society as problematic and inextricably linked to traditional arranged marriage. In addition, there is an understanding that traditional society is notoriously rigid in its enforcement of class, caste, community and religious boundaries. In light of this, rather than accepting arranged marriage, it is set aside as a relic of the past rather than another lifestyle choice of the present. Their identity as Americans of ethnic descent values their heritage but discards the anti-egalitarian nature of traditional culture. In their cultural understandings and their relationship to ethnic tradition, the independence-oriented most closely resemble their mainstream or “white” American counterparts of their social class. They are driven by their personal goals and desire for self-fulfillment and they face the same problems of intimacy and autonomy and struggle to make the best choices available to them. Their career choices sometimes reflect parental expectations but more often they are a product of the individuals’ strengths, goals and interests. While this group of respondents do not constitute the majority of the second generation South Asians in this study, they may provide a window into successive generations of similar class background for whom ethnic tradition and ethnic culture will become even more of a cultural artifact and very likely only vestigial in nature. Individuals on the independence pathway defy stereotypes both within the community and the mainstream about second generation South Asians and indeed, any second generation Americans. They are neither blindly loyal nor obedient to their family and ethnic community nor are they engaging in a second generation revolt to reject and distance themselves away from their ethnic community of childhood. As one subject explained, “I consider myself American but I don’t think it’s healthy to shed your ethnic heritage.” Indeed, as non-white immigrants they do not have that option in the eyes of the mainstream. That, coupled with the ethnic socialization they received as children and combined with the experiences of attending school in the era of multiculturalism allows the second generation to participate and feel comfortable with their ethnic heritage while at the same time asserting their claim as Americans. Scholars of classic assimilation theory have held that intermarriage with the mainstream culture signifies a sort of end stage of assimilation

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to the majority culture. However, these subjects do not see their partner choices as being linked to either ethnic loyalty or becoming American. For them, it is about their individual values and their personal fulfillment. While they recognize that marrying within their ethnic community would make their parents happier, they are not willing to make that compromise at the risk of sacrificing their personal desires. Like most of the second generation respondents in this study as a whole, the individuals on the independence pathway place a high degree of importance on their work and career lives. The individualism and personal autonomy that have helped them in their careers have carried over into their personal lives. They do not reject potential partners who are co-ethnics, nor do they necessarily reject the ethnic values with which they grew up with. Instead, they recognize that their choices are made within the context of growing up in the United States, with its values of individualism and personal fulfillment and feel that they must make these choices based on their own set of criteria. Ethnic traditions and ethnic culture are there as a point of pride but not as the fundamental guiding forces in their lives. They do not feel that they must sacrifice ethnic loyalty for their own personal goals and are open to forging lives based on their understandings of what it means to be “ethnic” and American at the same time.

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CHAPTER 6

The Ethnic Rebellion Pathway

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Introduction The phenomenon of second generation revolt, in which members of the second generation reject the culture and language of their parents in order to become “more” American, is a well-documented one. However, the rebellion which will be described in this chapter is not a contemporary version of second generation revolt. Instead, it is one in which individuals reject not their ethnicity but what they see as problematic about ethnic tradition and immigrant ethnic culture. The respondents have taken the ethnic rebellion pathway because the personal and political experiences they have had in their lives changed their relationship to the families and ethnic communities of their childhoods. The forces which have influenced them have resulted in their rejection of family and community expectations in a conscious way. While the actual number of ethnic rebels is quite small—only ten percent of the total number of study participants—their life experiences are instructive because they have personally given a great deal of thought to the contradictions and conflicts between traditional South Asian norms and values and how they manifest themselves in immigrant culture and American notions of social justice, equality and individualism. Studying the ethnic rebels adds to our understanding of the ways in which second generation South Asians reflect the complexity of political and social viewpoints in contemporary American life. Understanding how they came to this pathway also reveals the impact of divergent autonomy, where individuals assert their sense of personal autonomy in opposition to aspects of the ethnic community and ethnic tradition which they explicitly reject. The ethnic rebels may have started out with similar baseline experiences to their neo-traditional or independence-oriented peers. The factors which made a difference in their life paths generally occurred in late adolescence and in the transition to adulthood, periods which have been described earlier in this study as critical life moments in which individuals make key decisions that impact the course their lives may take. The separation from parents and the ethnic community 177 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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of their childhood during these transitional periods enabled the individuals to develop the personal and political views that would lead them away from tradition altogether. What leads them to diverge from their childhood baselines? Most of the individuals described in this chapter have chosen careers that are somehow geared towards public life, from journalism to public health to public interest law. Involvement in campus politics or participation in campus ethnic organizations led to activism after college and the decision to choose careers in which they felt they could have a positive impact on the world. In contrast to the majority of the respondents in this study, for many of the ethnic rebels, financial security and career stability were not a factor in their career choices and many felt that their parents would have been happier if they had chosen more lucrative careers. Their commitment to their social and political principles trumped the financial security and occupational prestige that immigrant parents want for their children. Their politics and career trajectories were shaped by an autonomy style which consciously diverged from the values and expectations of their tradition-oriented childhood experiences. Defying parental expectations of career choices is just one of the reasons for family tensions that result from ethnic rebellion. For individuals who were raised in households with traditional orientations, rebellion means rejecting many of the core ethnic values with which they were raised. For them, and even those who grew up with more assimilationist experiences, rejecting tradition altogether might be mistaken for a rejection of their family and ethnic community. Like their peers described in the preceding chapters, the ethnic rebels must also engage in family negotiations as they make their major life choices. Where many of their peers have made compromises, the ethnic rebels have made their decisions independent of family opinions and instead must negotiate to maintain or salvage family ties in light of them. In some cases, even the most traditional families accommodate their children’s decisions, whereas in other situations, the parent-child relationship becomes permanently strained. By incorporating the themes of the two “sources” of rebellion— politics and family conflict— the emergence of divergent autonomy will be explored. The ethnic rebellion trajectory is a response to the darker side of tradition, where the respondents felt compelled to rebel

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in the face of experiences and expectations which seriously conflicted with their own worldviews. Like their peers, these respondents experienced second generation dilemmas, and often felt those dilemmas acutely, but for them, their resolution required a rethinking of family and ethnic expectations and ties and a movement away from them. The adult life pathways of the ethnic rebels are marked by: 1) a rejection of tradition and traditional expectations, 2) the development of an autonomy style that explicitly and consciously diverges from family expectations and, 3) a resolution of second generation dilemmas which require a break from family and ethnic community expectations. Finally, the chapter will address egalitarianism and the gender dilemmas experienced by the ethnic rebels whose experiences of inequality and restrictive gender expectations reinforced their path to rebellion.

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The Structural and Social Contexts of Rejecting Tradition The two preceding chapters presented the social and structural contexts which produced the neo-traditional and independence orientations to dating and marriage choices. The early experiences of the ethnic rebels are not fundamentally different, for the most part, from their other peers. The ethnic rebels who will be described in this chapter have had similar childhood socialization experiences to those of their peers. Where the ethnic rebels diverge from those of other second generation South Asians is the ways in which they processed and evaluated their early experiences as they entered adolescence and early adulthood through the lens of later life experiences. While all the ethnic rebels feel a strong degree of loyalty to their ethnicity, what they also share is a negative evaluation of immigrant recreations of ethnic and religious tradition in the American context. The table below shows the structural factors discussed in previous chapters and their presence/absence for the ethnic rebels. Having the smallest number of subjects in this category, the table below can provide only a brief snapshot of the structural sources of rebellion. However, a few key factors do stand out.

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Factors influencing subjects on the ethnic rebellion pathway. Assimilationist Factors influencing life Traditional Childhood pathway Childhood Orientation Orientation Choosing Ethnic Choosing Ethnic Rebellion Rebellion

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Table 6.1

Family/community factors Extensive social networks Geographic proximity of coethnics in childhood Ethnic involvement Positive experiences with ethnic community Isolation/limited ethnic social networks present Intensive ethnic socialization Family pressure Religious commitment Strong transnational ties Life changing events Death or serious illness of parent “Rebellion” of siblings Geographic separation from family and community Intensive career involvement Negative event/experience with ethnic community Political/social activism

(N=4) (Males + Females= Total) (2 + 2 = 4)

(N=2) (Males + Females = Total) (0 + 2 = 2)

2+3=5 2+3=5

0+2=1 0+2=1

1+3=4 1+1=2

0+2=0 0+0=0

0+0=0

0+0=0

2+3=5

0+2=2

2+3=5 0+0=0 0+1=1

0+0=0 0+2=2 0+0=0

1+0=1

0+0=0

0+1=0 1+3=4

0+0=0 0+1=1

1+3=5 2+3=5

1+1=2 0+1=1

1+4=5

0 + 1= 1

Religiosity and religious affiliation are one major way that the ethnic rebels differ from their neo-traditional peers. While they all culturally identify with their religious upbringing (and profess to a “spiritual” feeling of affiliation), only one of the ethnic rebels, a woman

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of Pakistani Muslim origin, actively practices their religion. This is in stark contrast to the neo-traditionals, many of whom cite religion (and affiliated concerns such as vegetarianism) as a primary reason for their orientations. The ethnic rebels, including the practicing Muslim, believe that religious “traditionalism” is problematic in building coalitions in the South Asian immigrant community. They believe that the religious enmity of the subcontinent may be reproducing itself in the immigrant context. To the ethnic rebels, religious traditionalism serves not only as a barrier to political unity but also to personal choice and individual happiness, especially as it restricts partner choice. Adherence to traditional religious values is also associated with political conservatism, which most of the ethnic rebels are opposed to both here and in their parents’ homelands. Another interesting difference between the ethnic rebels and the other categories of respondents in this study is a heightened awareness of discrimination both within and towards the ethnic community and in the United States in general. While many respondents mentioned childhood and later experiences of discrimination (especially in the period just after September 11th), the ethnic rebels were less inclined to shrug those experiences off and were more likely to see them as part of larger social problems in the United States. Mohsena, the 29 year old civil rights lawyer, recalls her experiences while attending a prestigious private school in New York City: The discrimination was there even if it wasn’t always so overt. It was more social and the way that you were treated in general. I tended to hang out with the “token” scholarship students, who like me were also outsiders. I related more to the other minority students than the [white] girls from privileged backgrounds. The ethnic rebels also cited the racist attitudes that they witnessed within the ethnic community towards other minority groups. Recall in chapter 1 that Mohsena related the negative attitudes of her parents’ friends towards African Americans and Puerto Ricans. She described how the immigrant community adopted mainstream negative stereotypes and expressed racist attitudes despite their own minority status. The racist attitudes within the immigrant community towards other minorities groups seemed to go along with the insularity and

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boundary-enforcing that the ethnic rebels associate with traditionalism at its worst. Questioning tradition is at the heart of the ethnic rebel experience and resulted from the fact that the majority of the ethnic rebels were raised with a culturally conservative understanding of their ethnic heritage and with tradition-oriented childhood socialization models. That questioning itself may in itself be the basis for the rejection of tradition, especially as they witnessed the negative aspects of it, as one woman did while volunteering at a battered women’s shelter for South Asian women while she was in college:

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I was already starting to question “traditional” notions of gender and obedience but it really hit home to see women who were beaten be told by their families that they should stay with their husbands for the sake of family honor. The other thing that seemed so hypocritical was that Indian organizations refused to let our group set up a table at events because they didn’t want to give a negative impression of the community over what they considered to be a problem only for a small number of people. Tradition and honor and reputation was more important than trying to alleviate the suffering of who knows how many women. The negative experiences with tradition are a result of the structural location of many of the ethnic rebels within the ethnic communities in which they were raised. They were not outsiders who rebelled but rather, individuals whose families were very much part of immigrant social networks. If they chose to, they would have been able to avail themselves of those networks in the search for a life partner but they consciously chose to distance themselves from that aspect of their upbringing. As youngsters, many of them participated fully in ethnic activities and social organizations and many continue to remain close to many of their second generation childhood friends while at the same time divorcing themselves from what they consider to be the negative aspects of the immigrant community. Additionally, it is important to note that the ethnic rebels, with one exception, do not feel strong transnational ties to their relatives in South Asia or other parts of the world. Their lives, whether mingling with co-ethnics or participating in mainstream culture, are oriented to

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life in the United States. That separation from the family structure in the parental homeland further distances them from traditional ethnic culture and makes them more likely to be critical of the negative aspects of South Asian culture and society. Overall, the educational experiences of the ethnic rebels were also not very different from their peers. They too were influenced by strong family and community expectations to excel in their academic and work lives. Most attended prestigious universities and place a great deal of importance on their careers. However, one of the striking differences is that the actual career choices were made in highly individualistic ways, often as a result of their strong political and social beliefs and values rather than as a desire to achieve financial success and fulfill the immigrant dreams of their parents.

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Politics and the Rejection of Tradition Adolescence and early adulthood are critical life moments in the life of any individual but it is especially so in the case of individuals who straddle two, often conflicting, cultural expectations. Adolescence is a time of boundary-testing and experimenting with a newfound sense of autonomy. While this is an expected part of an American teenager’s life experiences, it is not the case for second generation South Asian teens whose familial relationships may become considerably strained as a result of this “normal” adolescent boundary-testing. Early adulthood can also be fraught with conflict and anxiety given that traditional South Asian cultural expectations emphasize familial duty over individual autonomy, even for adult children. While their neotraditional peers have generally fulfilled parental expectations and their independence-oriented peers have negotiated compromise (or faced little resistance from assimilation-oriented parents), the ethnic rebels have made choices that run counter to parental and community expectations. Unlike the independence-oriented who have neither embraced nor rejected tradition, choosing to be open to a variety of possible outcomes, the ethnic rebels made a conscious choice to reject tradition, including expectations around dating and marriage choices. For many of those individuals, their political involvement and social activism provided a catalyst in their choice of life orientation and prompted a shift from tradition to rebellion.

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The personal life narratives which follow deal with the experiences of ethnic rebels who have given high priority to their personal political views and political involvement, both of which have permeated their professional and personal life choices. In these cases, their personal and political viewpoints were so strong that they were willing to face potential alienation from their families and ethnic community in order to make life choices that reflect their values. Their resolution of second generation dilemmas steered them towards autonomous choices and an unwillingness to negotiate and compromise in the face of family resistance. The experiences of Kalyani, a 37 year old Indian American represent an almost ideal type of the ethnic rebel experience. Railing against a repressive and conservative upbringing, her social and political activism prompted her initial rebellion and has informed most of her major life decisions. Kalyani was raised in a strict Tamil Brahmin home by parents who favored a culturally conservative model of ethnic socialization of their children. She grew up in an affluent suburb in the Northeast and her family was very involved in going to the Hindu temple and socializing with the local Tamil community. Her family’s social life was dominated by interactions with co-ethnics. She was encouraged to excel at school, with an eye towards a professional career and generally fulfilled that expectation. Her strict household did not allow for much freedom and experimentation in her teen years and college was the first time she was able to exercise independent decision-making. She attended a large, wellregarded university and became involved with left-leaning campus social organizations, including the Asian American organization on campus. In the meantime, she grew distant from her parents whose traditional beliefs and disdain for other minority groups became increasingly problematic for her. She knew that she would not have anything resembling an arranged marriage and specifically dated people who were not of the same background, usually non-white as well. After graduating from college, she decided to pursue a graduate degree in the social sciences, focusing on immigrant activism. This was a blow to her parents who expected her to pursue a

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more lucrative professional career. Upon receiving her master’s degree, Kalyani became involved in community health organizations and currently works in that field. Along the way, she met and married an African American man with whom she has two young children. While her parents did not “disown” her, they were extremely displeased with her choice and reluctantly accept their grandchildren. Given their racist beliefs about American minority groups, Kalyani feels that they have come a long way. While she identifies with her ethnic heritage, she feels it is extremely important for minority groups to reach out to one another for the greater good. She herself very much identifies with the African American experience, especially as it relates to the experiences of her children and the problems they may face. Being physically away from her parents during college and graduate school allowed Kalyani to form opinions and ideas and make decisions independently of her parents. Her experience of her parents’ racist attitudes and their conservatism, in many ways, may have pushed her past the independence pathway and towards rebellion. To that end, her personal life decisions were made more as a reflection of her personal and political activism rather than the “come what may” manner that the independence-oriented prefer. Having been raised in a strict household, Kalyani’s adolescent response to the dating dilemma was simply to conform to her parents’ expectations in order to avoid conflict. However, with her burgeoning independence in her college years, she challenged those expectations and openly dated men from different ethnic groups as a way of asserting her newly expressed personal and political views. In her childhood, she experienced the identity dilemma acutely as she struggled to be the “good Indian girl” at home while excelling in school and trying to fit in. Her involvement in campus politics and organizations in college prompted her to develop a politicized ethnic identity unburdened by traditional expectations. The gender dilemma wrought by conflicting family expectations also weighed heavily in her childhood and adolescence. Adopting left politics and egalitarianism was a response to perceived and actual inequality she experienced as a child. She describes these dilemmas and her responses to them:

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A lot of the problems I had as a kid and as a teenager was trying to be what my parents wanted me to be and then dealing with all the stuff you have to deal with as a kid growing up in America…add to that discrimination and being made fun of for being different and it can add up to some tough experiences… I feel like, you have two choices. You can withdraw into your tribe [ethnic community] and accept things the way they are or you can get active. I dealt with my issues by getting involved and not accepting what I thought was wrong with the Indian community. For Kalyani, the resolution of her second generation dilemmas required a disengagement from the expectations of her childhood ethnic community and her family as her personal and political views began to diverge sharply from theirs. Rather than compromise the values she adopted in her early adult years, she made choices without negotiation, accepting the consequences. Kalyani and others like her resolve second generation dilemmas by making choices that are consonant with their values rather than being open to compromise, thus asserting and reinforcing a sense of autonomy and egalitarianism consistent with their politics. The experiences of Mohsena, the 29 year old Bangladeshi American are in some ways similar to those of Kalyani but her life trajectory differs in key ways. If Kalyani’s sheltered upbringing was designed to result in parental obedience, then Mohsena’s life was one that nudged her in the direction of social activism and social justice. Mohsena’s family emigrated from Bangladesh in the mid 1970s when she was a toddler. Though her family was educated, middle class and comfortable, political tensions prompted her journalist father to immigrate to the United States. After a few years in the U.S., her father moved back to Bangladesh part-time to pursue his career. This resulted in the de facto separation of her parents and her and her sister being raised by a single mother in a working class section of New York City. Her mother raised her in a nontraditional manner and emphasized the importance of education, pursuing a scholarship for her at a prestigious girls’ prep school. While Mohsena enjoyed the educational advantages of attending the

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school, she experienced racial and class tensions and felt kinship to the other minority students in the school. After graduating from high school, she attended an elite college and went on to attend law school after that. Throughout college, Mohsena was involved in organizations that worked for social justice, which in large part influenced her decision to attend law school. She works for a nonprofit organization which works with immigrants. Currently she is advocating for immigrants detained in the aftermath of September 11th. The post-September 11th climate for South Asian immigrants is an issue of particular concern for her in her work and personal life. The people she works with do not generally share her political and social leanings but she feels it is important to work for them. On the personal front, while her peers faced parental proscriptions about dating, her mother was more open and allowed her to make her own decisions about her personal life. Her fiancé, who is Puerto Rican, shares Mohsena’s political views and commitment to social justice. While Mohsena’s family experiences differed greatly from Kalyani’s, she too observed racist attitudes in the immigrant community. This was something that she very specifically rejected in her own life. It is important to note that, as reflected in Mohsena’s experience, ethnic rebellion does not boil down to rebellion against parents and family but rather, it is a rejection of what an individual sees as the conservatism and often-times, the hypocrisy, of tradition as it is reconstructed in the immigrant context. Ironically, most of the immigrants Mohsena assists in her capacity as a civil rights lawyer would not share her personal views but she feels that they are nonetheless deserving of social justice. She also points out that, “my working on their behalf may make them change their gender expectations and how they think about their own daughters in the future.” It is interesting to note that Mohsena’s particular interest in social justice and liberal social values do put her in a position to influence more conservative members of her immigrant community because they rely on advocacy from people like her.

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As a result of being raised in a nontraditional immigrant household, a result of her father’s absence, Mohsena’s experience of second generation dilemmas differed from most of her peers. While her parents did not explicitly prohibit dating, she understood that were she “caught” dating as a teenager, her family would be ostracized by the conservative Bangladeshi immigrant community. In addition, the social world of the elite private school and its attendant dating opportunities were largely closed to her. The lack of opportunity among her peers and the fear of community disapproval explain her decision not to date as a teenager. This changed when she attended college away from her family and ethnic community. The distance provided dating opportunities and her attitudes shifted, much like Kalyani’s, as a result of her involvement in campus politics and activism. Mohsena became involved with men of different backgrounds and found the whole premise of arranged marriage and having religion and ethnicity as major criteria for a long-term partner incompatible with her political and social worldview. As a result, she actively pursued relationships with non-South Asians. Mohsena’s open relationship with her mother allowed her to pursue her dating life and resolve the dating dilemma knowing she had the support of her family. At this point, the threat of community disapproval had lost meaning for her as she believed she had moved past wanting approval. The identity dilemma was one Mohsena struggled with as a teenager, isolated from her prep school peers as the “token brown girl,” and not fitting in with the ethnic community either. It was largely resolved through her political and social activism and her work as a human rights lawyer: As an adult, I realized that it doesn’t matter what other people think. I am very connected to my ethnic heritage—proud to be Bengali and a Bangladeshi. I don’t think I could deny it. Between my name and how I look, I am not allowed to just blend in. I help South Asians in the work I do. Probably most of them wouldn’t approve of my life choices but they are grateful for my help. I feel I do a lot for my community and it strengthens my sense of who I am. Mohsena’s sense of ethnic identity is divorced from tradition and is not bound up in her personal life choices, like her choice of a non-

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Muslim, non-Bangladeshi spouse. It is, however, tied to her social activism and her service to the immigrant community, whom she acknowledges may not approve of her choices but accepts her assistance and admires her loyalty. As Mohsena mentioned, she believes that her presence in the immigrant community can help change their gender attitudes and help them develop a more egalitarian outlook when thinking about their own children, as her parents had. Her intellectually-oriented parents encouraged her accomplishments and shielded her from traditional gender expectations as a child. This helped her to resolve her gender dilemmas in her adult life by rejecting community expectations and making educational, career, and personal life choices which defied traditional expectations. As discussed in previous chapters, the children of South Asian immigrants, regardless of their gender and parents’ socialization approaches, are encouraged to excel in their educational endeavors and pursue professional careers. Many of the respondents in this study cited their parents’ influence in the choice of their careers, noting especially a desire for them to choose those which are credentialed and financially rewarding. Pursuing a career that is not financially rewarding is by itself an act of rebellion, flying in the face of parents who chose to immigrate precisely for better economic opportunities. This is certainly the case for Vivek, a 28 year old Indian American whose family immigrated from Tamil Nadu in southern India. His educational trajectory pointed to a career in a prestigious and lucrative field which he chose to abandon in favor of more idealistic goals. Vivek was raised in an affluent suburb of a Midwestern city. His parents raised him with a culturally conservative approach, emphasizing the importance of religion, family and their ethnic culture. Vivek’s educational experiences were unusual in that he was identified early on for his talent in math and science and graduated early from high school and college. In part because of this, Vivek’s social life was unusual and dating was not really possible since he was considerably younger than his classmates. After attending a prestigious graduate program in mathematics, he joined a financial services firm where he earned a very good living. He enjoyed his experiences at the firm until he was laid off. During this period, Vivek used the free time to travel and “find himself.”

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American After he returned from his travels, he decided to pursue a different career path and became an inner city mathematics teacher. In terms of his personal life, though he is currently single, Vivek feels the biggest issue in the choice of a partner is that they share his social and political values, especially as it relates to his vegetarianism and his commitment to the ethical treatment of animals. While his vegetarianism began as part of his strict Hindu upbringing, it is more than a routinized cultural practice but rather a part of his philosophy of life. He understands that his life and career choices are not typical of his co-ethnics, he feels that it is the right choice given his views.

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Like the other ethnic rebels, Vivek does not reject his co-ethnics and has an active social life with other second generation peers. He struggles to understand the notions of traditionalism that immigrants try to recreate in the United States and wonders about the implications for future generations: It’s difficult for other people to understand this obsession with marrying someone of the same religion, caste and ethnic background. I mean, I can understand that if you are from some threatened group, it’s important to do that as a matter of survival. I understand that if you’re Jewish, you might be concerned about intermarriage because you want your people and your culture to survive. But come on, there is no shortage of Indians in the world. And then, what’s going to happen with the next generation. Most of my Indian friends aren’t really great at speaking their native language, so how are they going to teach their kids? What will the next generation experience? The situation changes with every generation and I think we’ll eventually become more and more Americanized regardless of how traditional we try to be. Vivek’s career as well as personal rejection of the typical immigrant expectations resulted from his rethinking of those expectations and an evaluation of them in light of his ethical and social worldview. While his parents are generally supportive, they do hope that he will eventually “outgrow” his idealism and fulfill their initial expectations.

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There is also a gender dimension to Vivek’s rejection of tradition. Being a teacher, especially at the elementary school level is a feminized profession and not one that would allow him to support a family in the upper middle class lifestyle that the parents of prospective Indian brides expect for their daughters:

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It would be okay if a woman decided to be a teacher because her husband would have a more lucrative career and they could afford to have the nice house and car and all that. But if you’re a guy and you’re not making the big bucks, that’s much less acceptable in the “marriage market.” If and when I settle down, I have to find a woman who’s okay with that and doesn’t have that sense of a guy being the big provider. As described in chapter four, the neo-traditionals who sought out partners through parental arrangements and matrimonial ads emphasized their careers and their earning potential. Income and occupational status are important for both men and women but as men are seen as the primary breadwinners, their income or potential income is especially critical for obtaining a good “match.” Interestingly, Vivek’s actions are seen as rebellion not only by his parents’ generation but his own second generation friends as well. Choosing an idealistic over a lucrative career demonstrates that a small but symbolically significant minority of the second generation have moved beyond the economic anxiety typical of immigrants to seek careers and options that are open to any other Americans. Vivek’s dilemmas became heightened in his decision to veer off the professional and personal pathway that was expected of him by his family and ethnic community and the three dilemmas are intricately connected. His sense of ethnic identity was bound up in being the successful, young Indian American of recent magazine articles and his gender dilemma, not really a dilemma in the past, emerged in his switch to a “feminine” career choice. Vivek’s ethnic rebellion is not so much around dating and partner choice but around the career expectations bound up with being an Indian American man. His resolution of all second generation dilemmas is through embracing the vegetarianism, spiritualism and anti-materialism of Hindu religion as a means of crafting a new sense of ethnic identity. One that is rooted in egalitarianism and an interest in humanity:

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Sure I made a lot of money when I worked in finance but did I make a difference in the world? I think I’m doing that now. I know a lot of other [Indian Americans] probably think I’m crazy and probably a lot of women are not going to want to marry me because I don’t make the money that I used to but hey, I want friends and a partner who get what I’m doing and shares my values. Like, being a vegetarian and believing in animal rights and caring about people. So, when I meet the right person, she is going to be an interested in a partner, not just someone who brings home the bacon… I wouldn’t eat it anyway (laughs)… Vivek has resolved his dilemmas by pursuing a path consistent with his spiritual and ethical values. He maintains close ties to his family and his co-ethnic peers while avoiding those whom he feels are negative about his choices and too caught up in material understandings of success. For most of the ethnic rebels, the rejection of tradition has also resulted in a rejection of traditional religious values but not all the ethnic rebels reject their religious beliefs. For Shireen, a 24 year old graduate student of Pakistani Muslim background, religion is an important part of her ethnic and social identity and informs many of the choices she makes in her life. While she does not wear a hijab (headscarf) and does not pray the requisite five times a day, Shireen considers herself a practicing Muslim. This includes fasting and praying during the month of Ramadan and observing modified dietary laws and practicing a version of her religion which she describes as “the Muslim equivalent of Reform Judaism.” Interestingly, she feels that her Muslim identity was solidified in the aftermath of September 11th when she felt solidarity with other Muslim Americans who faced increased scrutiny, discrimination, or worse. She credits the fact that her parents raised her with religious instruction and cultural exposure that was not overly strict or authoritarian in nature. Rather than rejecting her religious beliefs, Shireen’s ethnic rebellion is a rejection of the insularity and literal interpretation of cultural and religious tradition by many of her co-ethnics. Like Kalyani, exposure to campus social and political activism shaped her life choices thus far.

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Shireen grew up in a suburban-like setting in an outer borough of New York City, the child of two physicians. Her parents were very involved in the Pakistani immigrant community and were instrumental in the founding of the local Mosque where she and her siblings received religious instruction at their Islamic “Sunday” school. While culture and language were important, Shireen believes they were not forced upon her or her siblings. Muslim identity and religious identification were more important than Pakistani culture. While she would not describe her upbringing as overly strict, she was discouraged from dating and encouraged to excel academically. In high school, she became involved in her school’s South Asian student organization and began to identify herself with other South Asians and other Asian Americans regardless of their religious background. She attended a large well-regarded state university where she became involved in the South Asian student organization and worked to include the culture of Muslim and other non-Indians in the Indian Americandominated club’s events and literature. She became involved in the development of the Asian American studies program at her university and formed coalitions with other Asian American groups. In addition, in the summers, she volunteered with South Asian women’s groups, including those providing assistance for victims of domestic violence. In college and after, she has dated several non-South Asians. At 24, she considers herself too young to think about marriage but feels that in the future the choice must be hers alone. As for her career choices, while her parents would have preferred she had chosen law or medicine, she has chosen to pursue a graduate degree in an area which will allow her to provide community and mental health services to South Asians and other immigrant groups. While Shireen’s parents wish that she had made different choices, they acknowledge that having grown up in the United States, she was bound to make her own decisions about her life choices. Shireen’s “rebellion” was to retain her faith in Islam while rejecting traditional Islamic practice, including the wearing of the hijab and a rejection of the gender inequality she sees in traditional Islam.

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One of the major reasons she believes for not choosing a co-ethnic as future spouse is the issue of gender inequality:

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But there’s definitely something about the way that Indian and Pakistani guys are raised that gave them a lot more freedom and made them feel more whatever, special, than girls. Like their mothers, they expect the women in their lives to do a lot for them. Also, a lot of observant Muslim guys have traditional expectations of women. Rather than rejecting her religious beliefs and values for a secular viewpoint which would be compatible with her social and political worldviews, Shireen chose to reject the notion that faith and social activism are incompatible. She shares this viewpoint with many South Asian Muslim friends who are similar in political view and her faith and hopes that someday they will no longer have to defend their rejection of tradition. The primary way she resolved her identity dilemma was by identifying with others who feel a strong ethnic and religious identity yet reject orthodoxy and social positions which clash with their progressive social values. Having not dated during her high school years, she resolved the dating dilemma in her young adult years by feeling confident in her faith and ethnic identity and viewing dating as a personal choice, independent of the demands of others and as a way of asserting her newfound sense of autonomy, crafted in opposition to the conservatism of her childhood ethnic community. As she described earlier, Shireen is keenly aware of the gender inequality present in her religious community and has resolved the gender dilemma by explicitly rejected those aspects of Islam that clash with her egalitarian values. Her dating life and life choices are informed by these dilemmas and reflect her strategies for resolving them. Varieties of Rebellion The stories above illustrate the various ways of thinking about rebellion and what it means to individual actors. For Kalyani and Mohsena, rebellion was a conscious decision to choose careers in social justice and the personal choice of marrying individuals from “non-model” minority groups. Vivek’s rebellion centered on the choice of an idealistic career that reflected his social and ethical views, while

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Shireen chose to hold on to her Muslim faith while consciously rejecting traditional Islam and what she feels are its attendant gender inequalities. In all four cases, the political and social views of the individuals had an impact on their current life pathways and the ways in which they resolved their second generation dilemmas. Kalyani and Vivek veered from traditional childhood orientations to decidedly non-traditional adult life orientations. The shift occurred for Kalyani during the critical life moments of college and early adulthood when the separation from her parents and her sheltered childhood allowed her to absorb the ideas and values she adopted from her campus political and social involvement. Her political and social beliefs resulted in a questioning of her parents’ values and a rejection of a traditionalism she found problematic at best and hypocritical at worst. Vivek’s catalytic event was the loss of his job in the financial field and a desire to reconcile his career choices with his ethical and social values. The nature of their rebellion is an explicit choice to reject familial and community expectations about their personal lives and their careers by choosing a different path from the one that they were socialized to accept. Mohsena and Shireen describe their childhood orientations as less traditional and the socialization strategy employed by their parents reflects the cultural enrichment model in which parents wish to transmit their native culture while recognizing the need for and the inevitably that their children will assimilate much of the mainstream culture. Their rebellion was not aimed at their individual parents but rather their ethnic community’s expectations of the second generation. While their upbringing is similar to many of their independence-oriented peers, unlike them, they chose to consciously reject the immigrant community’s idea of tradition in part because of the political and social orientations which were largely shaped early on by campus activism. While the families of the ethnic rebels did not reject them, they did not approve of their children’s life choices and the directions that their lives took. The political, social and ethical values that the ethnic rebels described pointed to the paths they eventually chose and while they did reject many of their family expectations, the rejection was more social and political than a “personal” rejection of their family’s expectations and values, as is the case for the subjects who will be discussed in the next section.

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Family Conflicts and the Costs of Rebellion While the political and social worldviews of the ethnic rebels just described played a central role in their current life orientations, in some cases the rebellion stems from personal experiences of disillusionment with tradition. Such is the case for the two ethnic rebels who will be described in this section. Both individuals were raised with traditional childhood orientations that were reflected in ethnic socialization experiences favoring the culturally conservative model. Throughout their childhood and adolescence, they assumed their lives would follow a parentally-approved path and expected little conflict between their personal desires and parental expectations. However, the shift toward ethnic rebellion occurred as a result of catalytic events at key critical life moments which forced a reevaluation of their earlier assumptions and altered the course of their lives. Having fulfilled parental expectations through the early part of their lives, these ethnic rebels chose to eventually put their personal desires above the wishes of their family and ethnic community, thus representing another pathway to rebellion. Most of the neo-traditionals who grew up with parents who employed a cultural conservation model of ethnic socialization made choices which here consonant with parental expectations and values. Throughout her childhood, Meena, a 25 year old Indian American, assumed that her tradition-oriented childhood would lead to a predictable future of choosing a parentally-approved career and a partner also based on their preferences. She would have considered herself an unlikely ethnic rebel, until separation from her parents resulted in a shift away from tradition. Meena was born and raised in metropolitan Chicago in an area that has a large Indian American population. Her family has been very active and involved in the ethnic community, having membership in both cultural and religious organizations. Meena herself participated in cultural activities and learned to read and write Marathi, the native language of her parents, at a cultural center in her community. Her parents made it clear from the time she was a young girl that while there were many aspects of American society that were positive and to be emulated, Indian cultural and religious

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values were most important in their lives. This also included expectations about whom she would one day marry, right down to subcaste. Her parents explicitly forbade her to date and she did not date at all through high school and most of her undergraduate college years. She attended a nearby university and lived at home as a commuter student. This was in part because of the financial aid package offered by the school but also because her parents preferred that she live at home. She majored in pre-med, following her parents’ desire for her to be a physician. In her senior year of college, Meena decided to “live a little” and dated casually, both Indian and non-Indian men. Also in her senior year, she decided that she wasn’t suited to a career in medicine and became interested in public health. After graduating, she applied to graduate programs and was accepted into a well-regarded program in New York City. This was her first opportunity to live independently of her parents and once she moved away, she began to assert that independence in her personal life. Even as her parents began the search for a husband and placed matrimonial ads in immigrant newspapers, Meena was searching for someone on her own. The distance from her family allowed her to consciously reject the traditional assumptions she shared with her parents for most of her life. She met her husband through an internet dating site on which they had both placed ads. They met, became engaged and married within the course of a year. Her parents were extremely unhappy about her choice and the circumstances of her marriage. They did not pay for her wedding, which is customary for South Asian families. While they did attend her wedding (given by her husband’s parents), they refused to participate in the celebrations and currently have a very distant relationship with their daughter. Their daughter’s marriage choice was a greater disappointment to them than her choice to abandon medicine. Meena describes herself as having been a “good” Indian girl for most of her life but shifted her life orientation in part as a result of the independence she felt being geographically distanced from her family and the ethnic community of her childhood. The physical distance helped galvanize her own plans for her life:

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American I think that being away from them helped. I was never too much into the “let’s keep everyone happy at the expense of my own happiness” attitude. I saw how women in my family, especially as they got older, were very unhappy with their lot in life. They did everything for their families and put off a lot for themselves and at this point, they’re like, why did we do this?

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Interestingly, Meena believes that she would have rebelled if she had grown up in India where the issue would have been making life choices in general rather than whether or not she would marry an Indian. She feels that the experience of immigration had the effect of making her parents more conservative than they might have been otherwise. She thinks that some in the second generation are compelled to rebel against this artificially-created conservatism of immigrants. She describes her thoughts when asked if her parents would have had more control over her life if she had grown up in India: In a way, I think they would have had less. A lot of my aunts and uncles, at least on my mothers’ side, are pretty progressive and I think that if we stayed in India, they would have had more of an influence on my parents. I think when people move to America or England, they tend to overcompensate for leaving their homeland and get like, ultra, ultra Indian. Part of the fear that my parents had, which came true, was that I wouldn’t marry an Indian and obviously, if we lived in India, that wouldn’t have been an issue so they might have been more relaxed. The act of immigrating makes first generation parents feel pressure to preserve the culture of their homelands and pass it along to their children. The tactics they employ in order to recreate their culture in the United States may be successful in many situations but they can also create conditions for rebellion, especially when parents are seen as inflexible and unwilling to compromise. In her case, as with most of those on the ethnic rebellion pathway, parental resistance to compromise compelled her to actively rebel as she was unwilling to put her parents’ desires above her own. For Meena, resolving the identity dilemma meant a rejection of what she describes as her parents’

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“artificial” conservatism and not conforming to immigrant community expectations of ethnic loyalty. She sees her ethnicity as important but not central to her life and certainly not the sole force in driving her personal life choices. Meena’s strategy for resolving the identity as well as dating and gender dilemmas is to separate herself from her family and ethnic community, both geographically and emotionally. While she maintains contact with her family, she understands the distance is a result of her own decision to marry an “outsider” and recognizes that while it saddens her, that it is “probably healthier for me.” Unique among the respondents in this study, Amit, a 37 year old Indian American, is divorced and has remarried. His ethnic rebellion came later than for the others whose life stories have been described here because it came after he had in early adulthood chosen a traditional life path, a choice that did not play out the way he and his family had hoped. The end of his first marriage served as the catalytic life event which changed the direction of his life from that point on. Amit was raised in a religious and conservative family, the only child of professional parents, in the suburbs of New York City. His childhood ethnic socialization reflected his parents’ cultural values and included a great deal of involvement in immigrant religious and cultural organizations. While his parents discouraged him from dating, they turned a blind eye to casual dating in high school and college, knowing he would do the right thing and marry an Indian girl when the time came. Amit himself was pretty certain that he would eventually marry someone from the same ethnic and religious background though he didn’t believe that it would be an arranged marriage. While he didn’t consider himself “traditional” in other ways, he did believe that such a choice would be best for himself and his family in general. As the only child and only son, there was a great deal of pressure on him to live a life that would fulfill his parents’ expectations. His career choice of medicine fit the bill in terms of career and he expected his personal life to also meet with his parents’ approval. The traditional and expected choice became even more important after the sudden death of his father a few years after he graduated from college. Since he was the only source of emotional support for his widowed mother, he felt it was

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Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American even more important to marry an Indian woman who shares his strong sense of commitment to his family, and understands his close relationship to his mother. As he was completing his internship, Amit began to actively look for a partner through second generation social circles he was involved in and met his first wife at an ethnic conference. Initially, his mother and extended family were very pleased with his choice but the situation soon soured. His wife grew resentful of the time Amit spent with his mother and the extended periods of time that her mother-in-law stayed with the couple. Eventually the marriage broke down because his wife felt that he was not devoting his full energy to their relationship and marriage and they divorced within a year of being married. For the next year, Amit focused on his career and stayed out of the dating pool. He eventually met and married a woman of European descent.

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In the period following his divorce, Amit was forced to think about what it meant to follow tradition and how it affected his life thus far: The whole reason why I always thought I would marry an Indian girl was basically for my parents and because I thought it would mean we would have the same ideas about family. The irony was that my relationship with my mother in part broke up my marriage. Also, maybe I was so concerned about finding someone my family would like, I didn’t pay enough attention to whether or not we were truly compatible. Other than the fact that my first wife also wanted to marry someone of the same background, she wasn’t “traditional” at all. She was like any other American woman, for better or for worse. After my dad passed away, it was really important for me to make choices that would make my mother happy but after my divorce I starting thinking that I had to do what makes me happy. And most of my Indian friends who grew up here are not really traditional—sure they want to marry someone of the same background but that’s basically where it ends. So I wasn’t going to make any more personal sacrifices for a “tradition” that doesn’t even really exist.

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Tradition turned out to be illusory for Amit and his dashed expectations for his own life led him to question the initial choice he had made. The second time around, he consciously rejected tradition as it had failed both him and his family, who had high expectations of the match. He explains that his mother had also changed her mind about his life choice: My mom, who obviously didn’t get along with my first wife, really likes my second wife [who is not Indian] and is surprised at the way things turned out. I think she thought that if you make the right match, everything else works itself out but my first wife turn out to be just like “those American girls” that she used to warn me about. I can’t say that my mom is entirely happy with my choice—she probably would have wanted me to try again with another Indian girl but she does understand that marrying an “American”, meaning white, girl is not about rejecting my culture but about rejecting this bogus idea that tradition is going to bring you happiness…Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a self-hater, my closest friends and the people I hang out with most are the Indian kids I grew up with. I don’t want to be white or forget my culture but I don’t think that my choice in a wife reflects my loyalty to my people, if you will. Amit’s ethnic rebellion was not the result of politics, idealism or the desire to be independent but what he felt was the failure of the traditional path. The culturally conservative childhood orientation coupled with his father’s death served to consolidate his initial traditional choice. For most of his life, he did not question the expectations of his parents and like his neo-traditional peers felt that the traditional choice was best for him as he would have a partner with whom he would have the shared experience of growing up as a second generation Indian and who would “automatically” share the same values about family life. His divorce forced him to think about what he really wanted in life and evaluate tradition in his current context. The resulting evaluation led to the rejection of tradition in his later life choices. While his mother has accepted his current wife, there were costs to Amit’s rebellion:

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It’s been tough for my family in terms of dealing with their friends and community because in their eyes the divorce was a failure on their part because I guess they didn’t help me make the “right” choice. My extended family has been disappointed as well and while on the surface they accept me and my wife, there’s till this underlying thing. I guess, it’s like my life can be used by their kids to justify not marrying an Indian. Like they’re gonna say, “look at Amit, he married an Indian girl and they got divorced.” So that’s put some pressure on my mom and my family. I’d like to think that if my dad were still alive, he would be okay with things but I wonder about that too sometimes. There are times I might feel a little guilty for thinking only about my happiness but you know what? I was a good son the first time around and look how that turned out. Until his divorce, Amit’s life pathway seemed straightforward. His identity and his choices were bound up in the traditional expectations of his family and ethnic community. After divorcing his Indian American wife, he faced new dilemmas as he sought out new relationships and worked on rebuilding his life. He consciously separated his sense of ethnic identity from his choice of partner, and embraced mainstream dating strategies, rejecting boundary maintenance for personal fulfillment. He states he often “felt cheated” by family expectations, which he feels steered him to make the wrong choices which led to his divorce. The Costs of Rebellion While Meena and Amit’s ethnic rebellion was largely a personal matter and therefore had the greatest impact on their relationships with their families, the others too have faced personal costs as a result of their life choices. The major cost of ethnic rebellion is a sense of distance from their families and the ethnic communities in which they were raised. In Kalyani’s case, her parents reluctantly accepted her rejection of tradition and while they embrace and love their grandchildren, they are still ambivalent about her decision to marry an African American. Kalyani’s parents feel that they are judged by their social circle as a consequence of her choice, creating tension in their relationship. For Mohsena, the disapproval came not from her immediate family but her extended network of family and family friends here in the United States

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and in Bangladesh. While Shireen has experienced general acceptance from her parents, the future remains to be seen as she has not yet married. In her case, the disapproval may come more from other Muslims who disapprove of her rejection of orthodoxy and her refusal to let religion or ethnicity guide her life choices. While Vivek’s choice of an idealistic versus lucrative career displeased his parents, he feels more alienated from his second generation friends who still work in the financial field and do not understand his decision to put ethical and social values above a lucrative career. In essence, the decisions of the ethnic rebels reflect their willingness to risk parental and community ostracism that result from their divergent choices. Recall in chapter five that some respondents described a fear of being disowned by their families if they married outside their ethnic group or made other choices that disappointed their parents. Having been raised within a culture that values family duty and familial relationships above all others, it is a powerful disincentive to make choices which places those relationships at risk. The neotraditionals placed family harmony and the values they shared with their parents above pure free will. Reluctant or ambivalent neotraditionals, especially, made their choices out of a fear of severing family ties. The independence-oriented had the luxury of not having a strong point of view for or against tradition and generally achieved successful negotiations with parents who were willing to accept whatever decisions they made. The ethnic rebels took the risk and accepted the consequences of diverging from tradition. Divergent Autonomy and the Darker Side of Tradition The ethnic rebels see ethnic tradition as a potentially dangerous set of norms and expectations. For them, it is neither a resource that they can shape to their needs nor is it a quaint cultural artifact that is harmless in its vestigial nature. Rather, they view “tradition” as a barrier to a fulfilling life and as antithetical to their life choices and politics. Arranged marriage, as a key traditional practice, reflects a recreation of the boundary maintenance and communalism practiced in their parents’ homelands. Tradition and arranged marriage represents what they believe are the most negative aspects of ethnic culture. Maintaining ethnic tradition with its sets of norms and expectations, is a key goal of the South Asian immigrant community in

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the United States and the majority of the ethnic rebels grew up with a very conservative understanding of tradition and a clear expectation of their adult adherence to parental expectations. The ethnic rebels see this tradition, and particularly arranged marriage, as a constraint rather than a resource and opportunity to achieve mobility. Unlike their neotraditional peers who embrace their version of tradition and connect it to what they feel is best about American society, the ethnic rebels see the negative aspects of tradition. It is the experience of the darker side of the ethnic community that compelled the respondents on this pathway to adopt an understanding of personal autonomy which consciously diverges from the expectations of their family and ethnic community. This autonomy style is framed as an explicit rejection of the expectations which conflict with their political, social and/or personal beliefs and values. The boundary maintenance and its inherent anti-egalitarian nature are critical negatives of tradition and is a flashpoint for rebellion and divergence. The communalism of traditional culture in the homeland is replaced by an adoption of racism and an even greater emphasis on class discrimination. Kalyani experienced this from the ethnic community in response to her marriage to an African American man. While arranged marriage in South Asia maintains community, religious or caste “purity,” it may perform a similar function in the United States though it is rarely admitted openly. Like any diverse social group, ethnic communities are not monolithic and what Kalyani experienced does not reflect all Indian or South Asian Americans—recall in the last chapter that Aditi, the Indian American banker also married an African American man and found acceptance from her family and ethnic community. Indeed, what this suggests is that it is the second generation subjects’ experiences within their own family and ethnic social networks which compel them to rebel. This makes the difference between choosing the path of independence or the path of rebellion. Where the family and the ethnic community is open to nontraditional choices and compromise, individuals are free to be independent and freely “instrumental” in their personal life choices. If individuals, like the subjects in this chapter, feel strongly about their opposition to expectations incompatible with their own values and life goals, and their families and ethnic community are unwilling to compromise, they are likely to rebel rather than conform.

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The concept of divergent autonomy represents autonomy which is framed as a reaction and response to what is perceived by the subjects to be negative aspects of the ethnic community and of traditional expectations. The majority of the respondents on this pathway started out with a traditional baseline orientation and were raised with the expectation that they would fulfill parental and community expectations, including some form of arranged (or “semi-arranged”) marriage. They veered away from tradition as a result of new influences and the new circumstances they experienced as adults. In contrast to the consistently traditional subjects, these individuals felt increasingly constrained by traditional expectations and found that they conflicted sharply with the direction their lives were taking, as Kalyani observes: At some point when I was in college, I realized that I just couldn’t fulfill my parents’ expectations. They were very concerned with being Tamil and Brahmin and they had a pretty fixed idea about the life they wanted for me. I really couldn’t reconcile their racist attitudes with my strong interest in social justice. I guess I was rebelling but it wasn’t just for the sake of rebelling, like how teenagers rebel but it was a conscious decision for me to reject that. And I guess I decided that my decisions in life, including marrying an AfricanAmerican man, had to be ones I believed in. I think I really wanted to make a life that was different than that. The two respondents, Mohsena and Shireen, who were not raised with traditional baselines rebelled more against the expectations and the assumptions of the immigrant ethnic community, rather than their own families. As Mohsena notes, it is not her own family that views her as rebellious but rather the immigrant ethnic community which she, ironically, serves: My family is pretty supportive of me but I definitely get disapproval from the Bangladeshi immigrant community. But I knew that I’d be facing that early on and despite that, I think it’s really important to the help the community. Most of them have a lot of disadvantages that I think is partly what keeps them so closed off and so traditional. It’s true though, that I

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live my life in a way that goes against a lot of the expectations that the community has for second generation young women—be a “good” girl, marry a boy your parents choose for you and of course, be a doctor too. This self-conscious decision to diverge from ethnic tradition and community expectations is chiefly what differentiates those on the rebellion pathway from those on the independence pathway. While the independence-oriented make decisions based on an instrumental desire for personal fulfillment, the ethnic rebels have chosen their path in response to perceived and actual inequities and conflicts with the ethnic community. While some negotiate with their families as they diverge, others employ strategies of distancing and avoidance as their lives move away from their expected paths. The high levels of education and professional achievements of the ethnic rebels also facilitate their divergence as they are not dependent on their families for economic survival. It also allows the political and social activists among the rebels to retain the advantages of model minority status and become incorporated within the larger community of liberal activists. Interestingly, the “Americanness” that the politically-oriented of the ethnic rebels have assimilated to does not represent “the American dream.” If the American dream represents an apolitical belief in capitalism, private property and material success, then most of the ethnic rebels reject that as well. With the exception of Amit and Meena, whose rebellion primarily resulted from personal choices and experiences, the ethnic rebels have assimilated into the activist left, identifying themselves as feminist and choosing idealistic life paths which are in contrast to materialistic mainstream American culture. The American ideal which they aspire to is one that is engaged and politically-oriented. Like their other second generation counterparts, their understandings have been formed within the context of multiculturalism. While the neo-traditionals feel themselves to be American but ethnically-oriented and separate, and the independenceoriented believe that all options in American society are available to them, the ethnic rebels have developed an identity which recognizes the need to reject ethnic tradition even as they wish to maintain a strong ethnic identity. Overall, the subjects of this study have adapted to the diverse norms and values of the United States, whether it is for fighting

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for social justice or fighting to lead a life that is personally satisfying or both.

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Gender Dilemmas and the Rejection of Tradition For most of those who chose rebellion, particularly among the female respondents, gender inequality largely shaped their rejection of traditional expectations. As discussed in previous chapters, individuals raised with tradition experienced conflicting expectations, gender privilege for males and a gendered double-bind for females, both resulting in second generation gender dilemmas. Even where families were relatively egalitarian in outlook, the inequality was still present in the immigrant community as a whole. In contrast to the independenceoriented who perceive mainstream society as mostly egalitarian, many of the ethnic rebels are acutely conscious of and deal with inequality not just in the ethnic community but in mainstream society as well. As such, the rebellion pathway is marked by a desire to explicitly challenge gender stereotypes, as Vivek had in his unorthodox choice of career. The rebels state that they are keenly aware of the persistence of traditional gender ideology, despite the academic and career achievements of second generation women. While many of the neotraditionals adopted a strategy of downplaying the gender inequality inherent in traditional norm, preferring to believe that is has been expunged in “their version” of tradition in the contemporary American context, the ethnic rebels emphasize the residual inequalities which persist in the immigrant context. As Shireen observed earlier, traditional gender norms persist, especially in the arena of family and intimate relationships. Vivek’s teaching career is seen as a career unsuitable for a man whereas it would be acceptable for his female second generation peers. In effect, by interpreting traditional culture as inherently patriarchal and antithetical to equality between the sexes, the rejection of “tradition,” and veering away from tradition is also a rejection of inequality and exclusion. The ethnic rebels deal with the gender dilemma by making life choices which diverge from gender stereotypes in the ethnic community, as well as mainstream society. Vivek’s decision to leave finance and pursue a teaching career, a traditionally “female” profession, is one that defies gender expectations all around and he was

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and is conscious of that fact as he pursues relationships with women. Shireen rejects the inequality she sees in traditional Islam while resisting mainstream stereotypes of Muslim women. Amit rejected the role of “dutiful son,” expected of male South Asian children while losing some of the gender privilege that is associated with that role. Unlike the neo-traditionals, they do not feel the need to downplay or justify the gender inequality in the ethnic community and unlike the independence-oriented, they do not dismiss as irrelevant the existence of the gendered double-bind. Rather, as the life narratives in the chapter describe, the ethnic rebellion pathway is marked by divergent choices which acknowledge inequalities and the need to confront them.

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Conclusion: Defying Expectations, Maintaining Ethnic Identity While the ethnic rebels described in this chapter represent a small number of the total respondents in this study, their experiences illustrate and highlight key findings about the second generation South Asian immigrant experience. The first is that the ethnic rebellion of this second generation is very different from ones of the past century and it is a reflection of the effects of multiculturalism on contemporary notions of identity and the assimilation experience. The second is that the experiences of the early adult life transition have a greater impact on individuals than childhood ethnic socialization. Lastly, while the life experiences of the ethnic rebels were similar to their peers, political involvement and/or the presence of life altering events shifted their life pathways in ways that early scholarship on this population may not have anticipated. As was stated at the very beginning of this chapter, the ethnic rebels of this second generation differ from those of the past because their revolt did not involve a rejection of their ethnic identity in favor of a completely assimilated “American” one. For Kalyani and Mohsena, ethnic identity played a key role in their politics and their career choices with both women working with co-ethnics and in pan-ethnic alliances. The ethnic rebels were educated and grew up as multiculturalism had a growing impact on American educational institutions and on mainstream American society in general. And while there have been backlashes from all sides of the political spectrum against multiculturalism, there is a general understanding that cultural pluralism is a normal part of contemporary American society. That

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backlash coupled with the fact that South Asians, like many other post1965 immigrant groups are “visibly” different i.e. nonwhite, they are unable to “blend in” like European immigrants had in the past. Assimilation, as described in most of the current sociological research, is a very different process for these “new” Americans and one in which there are a variety of different potential paths and experiences. One of the ways in which this research differs from the early literature in this area in that it does not find that the second generation, through the use of intensive childhood ethnic socialization strategies, is necessarily in agreement with first generation notions of tradition and commitment to in-group marriage. Much of the early literature is about the experiences of first generation Indian immigrants who expect that intensive ethnic socialization of their children will result in children who share their values. Those studies do not address the potential backlash as happened with the ethnic rebels described in this chapter. In fact, a culturally conservative model of ethnic socialization may set up a backlash in a way that a more laissez-faire approach may not. First generation parents who refuse to negotiate and compromise and adult children who refuse to conform can lead to the rebellion pathway. As described in previous chapters, most of the second generation was raised within large social networks of co-ethnics and the presence of those networks and formal cultural and religious organizations were seen as a form of resistance to the negative influences of mainstream American culture. However, that resistance does not necessarily extend to adult life transitions and it does not account for the need to assert autonomy in the face of tradition and parental expectations. Respondents whose views tended to mirror their parents’ orientations had a smooth transition where the bulwark appears to have worked. But it may have worked because those individuals were themselves inclined towards that position and their life experiences served to support their traditional orientation and not because of the “protection” of childhood ethnic socialization. What sets the ethnic rebels apart from the neo-traditionals is not a difference in their childhood experiences but rather the events and choices of their early adult years which forced a shift away from ethnic tradition. What sets them apart from their independence-oriented counterparts is that they have developed a distinctly oppositional orientation to their ethnic community and what they view to be the

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darker side of ethnic tradition. While the rebels have embraced the American values of egalitarianism and individual freedom, they do not reject their ethnicity in an attempt to become “white” or more “authentically” American. Rather, they fully understand their minority status and feel a sense of ethnic solidarity. The ethnic rebels have assimilated, not by wanting to blend into the mainstream, but through their desire to fully participate in American political and social institutions. Their personal life choices, including their dating and marriage choices, reflect their larger beliefs about equality and individualism. The strategies employed by individuals who have chosen the ethnic rebellion pathway represent a resolution of second generation dilemmas which requires a complete rethinking and rejection of the expectations of their families and ethnic communities. They resolve the dating dilemma by rejecting arranged marriage entirely and often chose to geographically distance themselves from their families in order to date and choose partners on their own terms. Their resolution of the identity dilemma is through a strategy where they assert their ethnic identity combined with an oppositional stance against the aspects of the immigrant community which they find objectionable—an ethnicallybased yet oppositional identity, often opposed to problems they find in both mainstream and immigrant communities. Their strategies for dealing with the gender dilemma involve openly identifying bias and inequality in the immigrant community and making decisions which defy parental and community expectations, as Vivek did. These strategies represent an individuals’ assertion of autonomy in defiance of tradition and the rejection of compromise. Their strategies and choices do not fit either mainstream or first generation expectations of second generation South Asians. The ethnic rebels represent another, if rarer, style of assimilation among second generation South Asians. Their choice to reject arranged marriage in any form and to reject any sort of boundary criteria around ethnicity is part of a self-conscious personal choice to resist ethnic expectations that they feel either do not reflect their politics or do not lead to their best relationship options. This resistance and rebellion does not make them more assimilated than their neo-traditional and independence-oriented peers. On the contrary, their life orientation is one that does not reflect the path we generally expect of model

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minority ethnics who assimilate in an “ideal” way. Their contrarian stance distances them from their childhood ethnic communities and also makes them stand out in mainstream society. However, the ethnic rebels still benefit from the educational opportunities and from social class privilege and the model minority treatment of well-educated South Asians. Interestingly, in the changing context of the postSeptember 11th world, the ethnic rebels and their political activism may have a greater role to play.

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CHAPTER 7

Conclusion: Family, Gender and the Second Generation

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More than most of us, members of the second generation know that their parents’ ways cannot always be their ways. Nor can they unreflectively take up an American culture they are only beginning to understand. Instead, they must choose among the ways of their parents, of broader American society, and of their native minority peers or, perhaps, create something altogether new and different. (Kasinitz, Mollenkopf, Waters and Holdaway 2008:356) Second generation South Asians share many common experiences, but their internal diversity diverges from popular images of a model minority that keeps to itself and adheres to “traditional” cultural practices. How is this diversity of life choices linked to structural forces in the second generation experience? How do family experiences, combined with the structural contexts within which they are embedded, influence the life pathways individuals take? As the quote above suggests, there is a great deal of complexity in the second generation experience and the findings of this study suggests that South Asians are indeed creating something new based on family experiences, the existence of transnational ties, structural pressures and a changing mainstream culture that offers a wide range of paths to becoming American. The central question of this study focused on how “American” ideals of individualism and autonomy are reconciled by a second generation grappling with “ethnic” ideals of family, tradition and group loyalty. Using in-depth life history interviews revealed that there was a great deal of variation in the ways in which individuals responded to the tensions between the expectations of their family and ethnic communities and those of mainstream society. By focusing on subjects’ experiences and choices around dating and marriage, this study highlights the ways in which expectations about autonomy and gender frame the assimilation process. Unlike other studies which focused on ethnic identity and Americanization or economic and educational 213 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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integration, this study very explicitly examined dating and marriage choices in order to understand how the second generation negotiates between ethnic and mainstream expectations. Nancy Foner and Philip Kasinitz (2007) note that arranged marriage is an “extreme case” where immigrant norms conflict sharply with mainstream norms and that changes are occurring in response both to mainstream culture’s pressures but also changing norms in the immigrants’ countries of origins, with “semi-arranged” marriages becoming increasingly common. The subjects of this study demonstrate the process by which this change has occurred as they made their choices through negotiation and compromise in the face of competing cultural expectations. The marriage choices of the second generation must be understood in the context of a larger continuum of experiences which includes their early family, educational and career experiences. What emerged from these life histories are life pathways that steered individuals towards lives which are either consonant with, independent of, or divergent from parental and community expectations. These pathways, analyzed through the framework of autonomy and the lens of gender, revealed the different ways that second generation subjects have adapted to mainstream norms and expectations. Arranged marriage may be a reality but it has also served as a trope in discussions of South Asians in the United States. While there is no denying that South Asians deal to varying degrees with pressures to marry co-ethnics, the mainstream interest in arranged marriage in popular culture and imagination continues to relegate them to the status of other, a marginalization that separates them from the rest of society despite their purported success. By examining the adaptation or rejection of arranged marriage, this study reveals the complexity of the ways in which structural and cultural forces impact personal life trajectories. While individuals see themselves as autonomous actors, they face pressure from their families and also from the larger social structure. The South Asian experience in the United States is not a monolithic one and it is important to see the implications of this study in the context of a changing social landscape and increasing stratification within the South Asian American population. The findings of this study suggest that family and social class operate in complex ways in determining the life pathways of second generation

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South Asians and it is important to recognize the importance of material and cultural capital in immigrant experiences. Scholars of segmented assimilation continue to find the ways in which the second generation experience is influenced by material and cultural variables (Portes, Fernandez-Kelly and Haller 2009). What this study does is reveal the mechanisms through which family and social class influence outcomes in this second generation cohort.

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Family Strategies, Social Class and the Push to Assimilate Whether immigrant parents were traditional or more assimilationoriented, they all developed family strategies which fit their new life circumstances, making compromises and developing new norms. During their childhoods, the subjects of this study were shaped by changing parental strategies which emphasized socialization into ethnic culture but also promoted educational achievement with an eye towards future career success. In order to push achievement for girls, they relaxed some traditional gender expectations while subtly and not-sosubtly retaining others. Through the adolescent and early adult years of their children’s lives, many conceded more and more parental authority and they accepted greater autonomy, a byproduct of the push for success. In most cases, traditional arranged marriage was a casualty of this reluctant concession to growing autonomy. Firstly, there was the phenomenon of delaying marriage or even the beginning of the arranged marriage process because of extended educational and career launch periods and secondly, there was greater acceptance of the desire of the second generation to have a hand in this most critical of life choices. Why change family strategies and why make these concessions? The structural circumstances and the desire and pressure for their children to achieve upward mobility pushed immigrant parents to change their strategies and soften their expectations in order to maximize their children’s potential for future success. In the case of very tradition-minded parents, this inadvertently led to a greater degree of assimilation than they perhaps expected when they first immigrated. The more integration- and assimilation-oriented parents expected to change their parental expectations and strategies and were less surprised or disturbed by the eventual choices made by their independence-oriented adult children.

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The social class position of these families played a crucial role in their overall family strategies, including their gender strategies as they reflect the structural pressures and opportunities available to this group of immigrants. The parents of the subjects of this study were middle and upper middle class professionals with high levels of education and considerable cultural and social resources. While respondents reported facing varying levels of discrimination as non-whites, they nonetheless described childhoods in which their social class protected them from the more overt discrimination faced by less economically advantaged immigrants. That coupled with the model minority status accorded to them within institutional settings made for a suitable pathway to upward mobility and greater acceptance in mainstream society. In order to maximize their children’s potential, immigrant parents used family strategies not unlike others in similar social class positions. Drawing from the family literature, one can see parallels between the childrearing and socialization strategies used by the immigrant parents of this study to those of the middle and upper middle class parents studied by Annette Lareau (2003) who described a pattern of “concerted cultivation” in which parents wished to “develop” their children and provide them skills which would help them achieve success in educational and institutional settings. Concerted cultivation requires resources—parents have to provide educational and extracurricular opportunities, often at substantial cost. Instead of living in urban ethnic enclaves, parents chose to reside in affluent suburban communities with highly rated school districts and/or sent their children to private schools and encouraged their involvement in ethnic as well as other forms of extracurricular activities. In order for their children to achieve success, they faced the same social class pressures as their nonimmigrant contemporaries. These parents employed an “ethnic” variation of concerted cultivation which, like the parenting style described by Lareau, resulted in their children having higher expectations of autonomy, negotiation skills as well as a sense of entitlement. This was especially true of many subjects of the traditional pathway who felt that since they were basically fulfilling their parents’ expectations, they deserved some degree of autonomy and choice, thus leading to semi-arranged marriage. Making this connection is important because it illustrates the ways in which immigrant parents, feeling the same pressures as other middle and upper middle class parents, will

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adopt strategies designed to maximize their children’s potential. This is the case even when those strategies may be at odds with traditional expectations, norms and values and may later contribute to their adult children demanding a greater degree of autonomy than they had planned. Thus, these adaptations in family strategies illustrate, as Pawan Dhingra (2008) notes, how people can be “ethnic” and adopt ethnic strategies while at the same time furthering their Americanization. Family gender strategies are also part of that pressure to adapt in order to maximize the economic success of second generation children. Other studies of the second generation experience have findings that contrast with the experiences of the subjects of this study. Zhou and Bankston (2001) found that the gendered treatment of children have resulted in greater academic achievement in girls rather than boys because the greater level of obedience required of girls resulted in their greater diligence in school. Using panel data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, Feliciano and Rumbaut (2005) found that young women had higher educational expectations, attainment and aspirations. This was not the case here, where the academic expectations, attainment and aspirations of both boys and girls were tightly monitored by families with uniformly high expectations for both sexes. In contrast, Kibria’s (1993) study of Vietnamese families found that girls were not always allowed to take full advantage of academic opportunities if the more academically rigorous school was far from home. This was not typical for the subjects of this study. In these studies and others, the data included immigrants from working class and poor backgrounds where aspirations may not always meet opportunities and eventual attainment, and where gender operates differently as a result of social class. The parents of these subjects were greatly concerned with the control of female sexuality and retained the traditional expectation of female chastity, however the push to success and mobility felt by these upwardly mobile families often required that young women be given greater freedom in order for them to achieve educational and career success. Immigrant families do not exist in a vacuum and they are not only shaped by the mainstream society to which they immigrated but they also influence and are influenced by the ethnic communities to which they belong. The subjects described their families as being part of large

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ethnic social networks, often extending transnationally, which include immigrant families in similar social circumstances and facing similar pressures. In the immigrant context, these communities are concerned as much with the material success and status attainment of their members as they are with maintaining their ethnic culture and sense of group identity. First and second generation ethnic organizations boast of their community members’ success and within the social milieu of upwardly mobile immigrant families, parents develop strategies and negotiate with their children for the best possible outcome. Semiarranged marriage and even American-style dating of co-ethnics have become accepted because the practice has become so widespread in the immigrant community. Even more traditional parents begrudgingly accept that they will have to either modify arranged marriage or accept American-style dating as long as their children marry co-ethnics. There is an understanding by these parents that their successful adult children will push for greater freedom and control over their lives and that it is necessary to adapt. In addition, the other social contexts within which middle class and professional immigrant parents travel also push them to adapt. As Foner and Kasinitz (2007) observe, immigrant parents with higher levels of education and economic status are more likely to engage in accommodation strategies, possibly as a result of greater exposure to American colleagues and co-workers than their counterparts with less education in low wage jobs. Family strategies are inevitably shaped by the social structural contexts within which they are made. The immigrant parents of the subjects of this study developed socialization strategies and adapted their childrearing practices and expectations in order to accommodate the demands of their social class and upward mobility pressures. As well-educated immigrants with considerable class and community resources who recognize the opportunity structures available to them, these parents hoped to achieve a balance between emphasizing ethnic culture and group loyalty and pushing their children to succeed in mainstream society. For the most part, they were able to achieve that balance, but this study shows that there is a great deal of variation in how families and their adult children achieved this. Often this occurred through negotiation, compromise and sometimes a departure from parental expectations altogether. The life pathways of these respondents demonstrate the ways in which culture and social class operate with

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opportunity structures to influence not just the economic but also the deeply personal outcomes of the second generation.

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Changing Contexts, Changing Lives Sweeping global changes in family and gender norms as well as a social context which accepts greater diversity of family forms, have all shaped the experiences of the second generation South Asian Americans of this study. The men and women whose lives are described in this book had experiences similar to those of their mainstream contemporaries in the post-traditional order that Giddens (1991) described. While in past generations, there was “tradition” to adhere to, individuals today have a great range of choices which they make out of a confluence of different factors, both personal and structural. The social structural context within which these individuals grew up included: 1) a mainstream society changed by the large influx of new immigrants starting from the late 1960s onward, 2) social class resources which advantaged them over less affluent members of the second generation, 3) less overt discrimination from the receiving culture, and 4) a relatively open opportunity structure afforded to the children of educated, “model minority” immigrants. In addition, they were able to take advantage of considerable community resources and ethnic social networks which enhanced their ability to exercise “ethnic options” while integrating economically, socially and culturally into mainstream society. Rather than being a hindrance, their status as second generation Americans, combined with their social class and community resources, gave them more options in their personal and professional lives. Individuals recognize that they face a variety of constraints from both their families and ethnic communities and the broader society, but despite the dilemmas they experienced as second generation immigrants, they sought to assert varying degrees of autonomy. Rather than feel a sense of dichotomy between being “modern, Western, American” and “ethnic, traditional, South Asian,” individuals felt entitled to being both ethnic and American, asserting their ethnicity vis à vis the mainstream and asserting their “American-ness” in ethnic contexts. In doing so, they reflect what Pawan Dhingra (2008) describes as the “American right to be Indian,” while conforming to what he calls the manifest elements of the liberal nation-state which

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includes the idea of the autonomy of individuals. It is this assertion of autonomy, as well as a desire for more egalitarian gender norms, rather than actual marriage/courtship process or partner choice, which reflects the second generation’s assimilation to the mainstream. Add to this the notion of the intersections of race, class and gender and the contemporary contexts of globalization and transnational connections. These intersections and contexts must be taken into account in understanding the experiences of South Asian Americans across generations (Purkayastha, 2009, 2010). Regardless of ethnicity and family national origins, the children of immigrants and non-immigrants alike must forge ahead on an adult life path lined with constraints and opportunities. Like their American contemporaries, they must choose between careers, levels of commitment to their families and various ways of dealing with the dilemmas one encounters while attempting to fulfill their life goals and expectations. Analyzing the experiences of these second generation subjects using a life course perspective allows us to approach the assimilation and adaptation experience as part of larger life course transitions that individuals experience as they navigate adulthood and partnering. The structural constraints and opportunities provide individuals with dilemmas but also ways to resolve them as they use the resources they have at their disposal to navigate between “ethnic” and “American” and traditional expectations versus autonomy and egalitarianism. There are some caveats that must be presented given the nature of this sample and the characteristics of the population in general. The sample is very class homogenous as a result of a strong cohort effect. The immigration laws under which the subjects’ parents immigrated to the United States allowed entry only to professionals and the highly educated. The structural contexts of these subjects’ lives are based on their high levels of family and community resources and their educational experiences attest to that. Their family social class position and parental occupational status tended to shield them from more overt forms of discrimination and from experiencing the working class struggles, poverty and educational inequality faced by so many in the second generation. The successive waves of South Asians immigrating in the 1980s, 1990s to today are diverse in their educational and social class backgrounds and the second generation from those later cohorts

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are very likely to show variation in experiences based upon those factors. The working class and poor children of some of these later immigrants, including the children of undocumented South Asians, will doubtless be facing a different set of challenges and a different set of family constraints and educational and professional opportunities. In addition, since the study was not based on a random sample of this population, the findings can not be generalized, though they are broadly consistent with other studies of second generation South Asians. It is especially true that these findings can not be generalized to second generation South Asians from working class and poor families and as that cohort matures, studies will need to include their experiences. In order to fully understand the experiences of second generation South Asians, it will be important for future studies to examine the life experiences of these successive cohorts of second generations as they come of age. In addition to a greater level of social class variation, there will be other effects to examine. These interviews were conducted not long after September 11th and it is very likely that the postSeptember 11th climate will have had an influence on the experiences of later cohorts of second generation South Asians, particularly Muslim immigrants who have experienced increased discrimination, profiling and heightened scrutiny. It is possible that Muslim South Asian Americans may feel a greater sense of marginalization from mainstream society, a situation which could lead to looking inward towards the ethnic community or even becoming radicalized as some second and third generation Muslim immigrants have in Europe and the United Kingdom. However, given the growing prominence of successful second generation South Asians, it may also be possible that later cohorts, even those less privileged, will take advantage of the model minority status established by the earlier cohort and employ ethnic strategies that enhance their chances for upward mobility. While this study contributes to the understanding of micro-level processes in assimilation, it is limited in its ability to explain the experiences of a growing and diverse population. It is important to consider the impact of race and class in studying the South Asian population especially in the context of the larger social, political and economic climate which has seen many changes since this study was initially conducted. Divisions within the South Asian community,

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economic decline, the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment and the postSeptember 11th “new normal” must be explored as avenues of research.

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Visibility, Inequality, and the Post-September 11th World The subjects of this study are the children of the first waves of post1965 immigration. Like others in that cohort, their parents were largely professional and middle class and that afforded them advantages which contributed to their own educational and career aspirations and success. Successive waves, entering under different immigration categories including the so-called “lottery visas” as well as increasing numbers of undocumented immigration have led to growing heterogeneity in the social class and legal status of South Asians in the United States. On the one hand, while there is increased visibility of successful South Asians in popular culture, media and politics, there is also growing inequality within the larger population of South Asians. In addition, even class or model minority status has not protected South Asians from the increased surveillance and scrutiny of people who fit the profile of potential terrorists in the aftermath of September 11th. The so-called “war on terror” has resulted in many South Asians experiencing discrimination, ranging from heightened scrutiny at airports to detention and deportation. These new contexts call for a reframing of how South Asians must be studied and increased attention needs to be paid to emerging efforts at mobilization. While the earlier waves and their second generation children represent and often embrace the model minority ideal, there are growing numbers of South Asians who are less privileged, often clustering around urban or suburban ethnic enclaves and experiencing more pronounced discrimination. While the dominant ethnic and professional organizations founded by earlier waves of immigrants may embrace the model minority ideal, newer social movement organizations have emerged to address social problems and discrimination. It is interesting to note that many of these social movement and social advocacy organizations are often the work of the second generation cohort studied in this project and several subjects were involved directly in social justice or advocacy work in the South Asian community. For many second generation South Asian Americans, college activism later translated into the support of organizations which recognized the need for advocacy for marginalized

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and/or exploited South Asians. This is in contrast to groups founded by the first generation which tended to focus on their getting access to economic opportunities in the United States. Indian organizations founded by earlier first generation immigrants fought to be classified as “Asian American” in the 1980 census, essentially for recognition of their minority status (Espiritu 1992). This was an important strategy, laying the groundwork for potential discrimination claims and for access to affirmative action programs. However, they were engaging in what Monisha Das Gupta (2006) critiqued as “place-taking” politics which accepts the dominant hierarchies and the premise of majority/minority relations. Das Gupta’s study highlights the alternative “space-making” claims of groups marginalized by mainstream immigrant organizations which address the social problems, like gender violence, homophobia, and economic exploitation, which mainstream immigrant organizations were not keen to acknowledge. Doing so might disrupt the model minority image that pre-September 11th immigrants embraced. Vijay Prashad (2000), in The Karma of Brown Folk, argued that the model minority status of Indian Americans and other South Asians was inherently problematic. With their educational and economic success, they were given the status of “whites on probation,” until which time they engaged in activities which would cause them to lose their model minority status, a tenuous position in the American racial hierarchy. Over the last two decades, the increasing visibility of South Asian “success stories” and a fascination with “Indian” culture and “exotic” practices like arranged marriage in media accounts and popular culture, have firmly established them as a model minority but also as “forever foreigners” (Tuan 1998). There is an entire body of literature that addresses the ambivalent racial position of South Asians (Kibria 1998, Morning 2001; Thangaraj 2012) as neither black nor white, with racial self-identification itself a complicated matter. Some South Asians, namely those who have achieved academic and professional success, have perhaps achieved the probationary whiteness Prashad describes. But what happens when increasing numbers of South Asians do not fit the model minority narrative? Given Prashad’s analysis of their model minority status allowing them to be whites on probation, what are the implications for South Asians after September 11th and what does it mean overall for the South Asian community?

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Will Muslim and less privileged South Asians be “racialized” in a way that makes them inherently marginalized? Middle and upper middle class South Asian Americans with professional status embody the model minority stereotype of the “pre9/11” conception of “Indians” as hardworking immigrants who conform to mainstream expectations. Some, like CNN “TV Doctor” Sanjay Gupta, comedians Kal Penn and Mindy Kaling and political commentators Fareed Zakaria and Reihan Salam, not to mention governors Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley embody South Asian success and entry into the mainstream. But many South Asians, especially those in urban and suburban ethnic enclaves like Queens, NY and Edison, NJ, and working as taxi drivers, newsstand clerks and small business owners face a different set of structural pressures. They are also more likely to face overt discrimination and hostility. To complicate matters, many working class South Asians are also Muslim and have faced increasing discrimination, scrutiny and surveillance (Rahman 2011). Given the research focus of this book, it is especially important to recognize and understand that the second generation children of less privileged South Asian immigrants will likely face a different set of challenges and opportunities and different family contexts from which they make their life choices. In order to fully understand the experiences of second generation South Asians, it will be important for future studies to examine the life experiences of successive cohorts of second generations as they come of age. Shalini Shankar’s (2008) study of Silicon Valley teenagers demonstrates the ways in which greater access to cultural products, transnational ties and the emergence of “Desi Bling” culture has created a different set of contexts for contemporary South Asian American second generations. Since Shankar’s subjects were comprised of the children of educated, middle or upper middle class immigrants, there still needs to be attention paid to the second generation children of working class and poor immigrants. In addition to social class variation, the current political and economic climate will likely have an impact on the second and even third generation. The interviews for this study were conducted not long after September 11th and since then more South Asians, especially Muslim immigrants, have experienced increased discrimination, profiling and heightened scrutiny. Will working class South Asian

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Americans be able to capitalize on model minority status or will discrimination and diminished economic prospects lead to downward mobility or even political radicalization? Working class Muslim immigrant communities in Europe have experienced greater marginalization over the last decade and it remains to be seen what patterns will emerge in the United States. Further studies are needed to explore these possibilities.

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Conclusion In the 1990s and 2000s, media interest in arranged marriage, Bhangrastyle pop music and Bollywood-influenced fashion brought South Asian culture to the mainstream. It is the particular curiosity of arranged marriage and its seeming incompatibility with assimilation that inspired this study and provided new insights into the second generation experience. Life history data provided richly detailed narratives which revealed the importance of both social class resources and individual agency in the life pathways individuals take. Using the framework of autonomy and the gender perspective demonstrated the ways in which individuals adapt and negotiate based on the choices made available to them and the choices they themselves create. This study provides a starting point for understanding the ways in which larger cultural and structural contexts affect the lives of second generation individuals and the choices they make. Cultural, social and economic contexts are always changing and shifting and it is important to address the ways in which they affect individual as well as group outcomes. Racial politics, the “war on terror” as well as the tough economic prospects of the last decade may well have diverse impacts on contemporary second and third generation cohorts as they struggle to find their place in American society. The challenge for these subjects lies ahead, as they negotiate with their spouses, and try to fulfill the dual expectations of their ethnic communities and of mainstream society. They and their children will have to navigate the new challenges and opportunities they face. Those who married outside their ethnic community will have the additional challenge of raising bi-cultural children, yet they will do so in a society in which mixed families are increasingly common. Truly, these second generation subjects reside within a changing mainstream, but they are

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also responsible for changing the mainstream and its expectations as they “create something altogether new and different.”

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Appendix A: Methodological Notes

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Sampling and Interviews The subjects of this study are the children of immigrants who arrived from the South Asian nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh between 1965 and 1980. As described in chapter one, those nations were chosen as they represented the primary “sender” nations during that time period. The subjects comprise a purposive sample of South Asians Americans who grew up in various regions throughout the United States and are currently residents of the New York metropolitan area. In order to ensure variation among the study participants, they were recruited through a number of different venues which included first and second generation ethnic organizations, South Asian arts and professional organizations, and religious venues. This was done through the posting and distribution of flyers at venues and events as well as through email newsgroups and newsletters. To prevent skewing the sample, no more than five participants were chosen from any one source. In addition to these recruiting techniques, interviewees were asked to provide referrals for anyone they knew who might be eligible to participate. These referrals were especially valuable in capturing those individuals who may not participate in South Asians events or organizations, resulting in a modified “snowball” technique where no more than one person would be recruited from a single subject. Surprisingly, once the study began, “word-of-mouth” began to spread through social networks and email groups with individuals contacting me to inquire about the study. In choosing participants for this study, I was careful to select for variation and to roughly reflect the population of South Asian immigrants in the United States. As with any non-random sampling techniques, there is concern about “hidden” subjects or subjects missing from this sample. Not uncommon in a study of this type, there were potential subjects who agreed to participate and cancelled and their data as well were “missing.” This is a valid concern and this study was neither exhaustive nor is it generalizable. However, the use of various sources and techniques to recruit the sample was designed to maximize the variation of subjects and address some of these concerns. The great variation in subject responses reflects this study’s attempts to capture as 227 Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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Appendix A

much of this population as possible given the limitations of nonrandom sampling. All the interviews were conducted between the Fall of 2001 through the Fall of 2002. Interviews were conducted in person and in English, with the average interview ranging from one hour to an hourand-a-half and taking place in a pre-arranged place and time. They were given a background sheet to fill out and then were asked questions from a semi-structured interview schedule (see Appendix B). Interviews were tape-recorded, except for one participant who declined to be recorded and asked I take notes instead. The interviews were my only in-person contact with the subjects, with subjects contacting me again only to provide a referral. The semi-structured interview was designed to elicit information about the subjects’ overall life experiences and was organized around family immigration experiences, childhood ethnic socialization experiences, gendered experiences and overall educational and other experiences through different stages of the life course. As a qualitative and exploratory study, the interview schedule reflects the principles of the grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967) where theoretical issues were expected to emerge from the data. Transcribed interviews were coded by themes which emerged in the interviews, uncovering the importance not only of the objective experiences and circumstances but also the subjective observations and statements the respondents had made reflecting on their life experiences. Subject Characteristics I interviewed sixty individuals, with approximately 40% male and 60% female participants, an age range of 21-38 years and a median age of 30. Three quarters of the of the sample (n= 45) were of Indian national origin and the remaining one-quarter were subjects whose family national origins were in Pakistan (n=10) and Bangladesh (n= 5). The Indian sample was over 80% (n= 36) Hindu, with the remaining subjects identifying themselves as Jain (n=2), Sikh (n=3) Syrian Christian (n=2) and Muslim (n=2.) Of the Indian-origin sample, approximately 70% were from northern Indian regional groups (Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi, Assamese) and approximately 30% from southern Indian regional groups (Tamil, Malayalee, Marathi, Kannada/Telegu). The U.S. Census does not break down Indian

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immigrant populations by regional and ethnolinguistic group so there is no systematic data on this variation and therefore this study’s goal was to include as much variation as possible given the limitations discussed earlier. Most of the subjects were born in the United States, with 10% of subjects (n=10) born overseas and considered to be 1.5ers, as discussed in chapter one. The married and single subjects were roughly evenly divided. All the subjects had at least a bachelor’s degree , with nearly 80% having completed a master’s degree or terminal professional degree. In this study, I describe the majority of the subjects as middle class or upper middle class. This refers to their social class status in the families of origins as well as their current class circumstances. This descriptor was used to describe the subjects’ lifestyles and life chances, not necessarily based on family or current income but rather on their parents’ and their own socieoeconomic circumstances. Parental occupations and the subjects’ own educational attainment and occupation, along with their current incomes were used to construct a broader understanding of the subjects’ class circumstances. The social class dimensions of the second generation experienced emerged as an important element not just in the subjects’ economic aspirations and attainment but also in their personal lives and their understandings of autonomy and egalitarianism. Participant Observation The primary data for this research project was 60 semi-structured interviews. In addition to interviews, during the year between the of Fall 2001 to the Fall of 2002, I conducted participant observation in social and cultural venues habituated by second generation South Asians. Chief among these was a weekend spent at the annual conference of the Network of Indian/South Asian Professionals (see chapter five for details). I also attended Bhangra music events, comedy clubs, gallery openings, plays, charity and volunteer events as well as weddings and wedding-related events. Among the organizations whose events I attended were SAALT (South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow), SAJA (South Asian Journalists Association) and Sakhi (a domestic violence organization) as well as South Asian-related events at the Asia Society. The goal of the observation was to understand the social context of second generation South Asian experiences. These

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events were also events where singles hope to meet potential mates so it was important to understand the ways these organizations and events, whether by design or as an unintended function, facilitate or frustrate individuals in the mate selection process. My attendance at these events were also part of my recruitment strategy but they also served as an important window into understanding the “meeting and dating” strategies of the second generation. It was also quite telling that married participants rarely attended such events, revealing the importance of second generation participation in the dating lives of individuals who preferred co-ethnics but rejected traditional arranged marriage.

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Insider/Outsider Position in Field Research As I discussed in chapter one, the characteristics and conduct of an investigator is an important issue. As 1.5er South Asian American, my racialized appearance results in the subjects perceiving me as a coethnic. Although my name is typically Muslim, many of the nonMuslim respondents were often unable to place my background and assumed I was “Indian.” Prior to the interview, I did not reveal my family religious or national origins background in order to prevent any discomfort that may arise among Hindu participants who, if they perceived me as Muslim, may temper their comments about HinduMuslim relations. I remained as neutral as possible during interviews though I noted in subject comments that they felt that I was less likely to judge their choices as a perceived co-ethnic. This was especially true of tradition-oriented subjects who expressed frustration over American intolerance of even “semi-arranged” marriage. As a non-practicing Muslim from a secular-oriented family who was raised with an ethnic social network that was primarily Indian and Hindu, I am used to being an insider/outsider in the South Asian community. Other than for this study, I rarely participate in the second generation South Asian community in the New York area so I am not “known” to subjects, giving me a neutral and anonymous quality to subjects, hopefully minimizing some potential bias. My insider/outsider status could have been a potential issue in data analysis as well. My knowledge of the culture, religion and communities of South Asian immigrants was advantageous but potentially problematic as well. To address these concerns, I constantly engaged in a process of self-reflection and worked sought external

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advice to understand and process these concerns. The grounded theory approach was important here to allow theory to emerge from the data. Much of my analysis was focused on the subjective understandings that respondents had about their experiences, rather than categories based on objective criteria I applied from a pre-existing theoretical framework.

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Appendix B: Interview Schedule Interview Cover Page Partcipant #: _______ Date of interview: _____________ 1) Participant’s age: ________ 2) Sex (circle): Male Female 3) Highest level of education completed: _____________________ 4) Household Income: ____ a. Less than $25,000 ____ b. $25,000-$49,999 ____ c. $50,000- $74,999 ____ d. $75,000-100,000 ____ e. over $100,000 5) Occupation: ____________________________________________ 6) Year participant’s family immigrated to the United States: _______

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Participant’s age at immigration (if not born in the U.S.): ___________ 7) Country of origin of family (and/or of participant’s birth): ______ a. India ______ b. Pakistan ______ c. Bangladesh 8) Religion of participant’s family: ______ a. Hindu ______ b. Muslim ______ c. Sikh ______ d. Christian ______ e. Other (specify): _______________________________ 9) Marital Status: ______ a. Single ______ b. Married

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9a) Answer, if married: Age of spouse: ________ Occupation of spouse: _________________________________ Ethnicity/religion of spouse: ____________________________ Interview Questions:

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I’d like to start by asking you about your family’s immigration experiences and where you grew up.  Where are your parents from?  What religion are they?  What ethnic or regional group so they belong to?  What motivated them to move to this country?  Did they know they would reside here permanently?  How connected is your family to relatives in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh?  How often did you visit there? Next, I’d like to ask about how your parents taught you about their native language and culture and religion.  What language (or languages) did you speak growing up?  Did your parents encourage you to speak (language)?  Did you attend any classes in your native language?  What kinds of “ethnic” activities did you do as a child?  Did you do any formal (take classes, lessons, etc.)?  How much importance did your parents place on transmitting their native culture to you? What did they do to encourage your involvement, if any?  How important was religion to your family? Did you participate in many religious activities  Did your parents belong to any religious or ethnic organizations? If yes, please describe their involvement.  To what extent did your parents socialize with other Indians (Pakistanis, Bangladeshis)? Describe their ethnic social circle. At this point, I’d like to ask you some questions around marriage and dating and how your parents dealt with those issues.  Did your parents have an arranged marriage? Tell me more about their views on arranged marriage.

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Appendix B        

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

235

When you were growing up, did they have any expectations about whom you may marry and how you (or they) would choose your future spouse? What were your parents’ views on dating? Was there a difference in views between your mother and father? Did you think your parents’ views about dating would be different if you were male/female? Do you feel that they treated you a certain way because you were a boy/girl? Have your parents expressed any serious opinions about your potential future mate? If so, when and what were their expectations? How did you feel about your parents’ expectations? Have your parents’ views on dating and marriage (as it relates to you) changed over time? If yes, please explain. Overall, how would you describe your relationship to your parents? If there anything else you would like to add about your family life?

At this point, I’d like to ask you about your experiences in school, your neighborhood and community growing up as well more recent educational and workplace experiences.  What were your experiences in elementary school like? Were there other South Asian children in your school?  How did you relate to your teachers?  Describe your experiences in junior high/middle school. How would you describe your social and academic life? How did you relate to your teachers then?  Tell me about your high school experiences- both academic and social.  Describe the town(s) and neighborhood(s) where you grew up. Were there any other South Asian families there?  Did your family socialize with the people in the neighborhood? Did you participate in any community activities other than at school?  Where did you go to college? Why did you choose (college/university)?  What was your major? Why did you choose that?

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236          

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

    

Appendix B What did your parents think of what you studied? Did they have any influence in your choice? Did you participate in any campus activities? If yes, please describe them. Were there many South Asians at your school? Did you participate in any activities with them? Did you go to graduate school? If yes, describe your decision to attend graduate school. Tell me more about your career path. Describe your workplace and your relationships with coworkers, employers, managers, etc. Are you satisfied overall with your career. Ask additional career-related questions in response to above. If you were to describe your social life, does it revolve more around work, family or friends? Please elaborate. Now, I’d like to ask you about your dating history and how you came to choose your spouse. Did you ever “date”? Tell me more about that. How did your parents feel about that? How did they influence your choice to date or not date? Ask subject questions about their dating history. If they have not/do not date, ask about how they met/intend to meet their (future) spouse. Ask about parental expectations and its influence over their choices and their current or most recent dating and/or courtship experiences. If single, tell me about your family’s involvement (or lack of) in your finding a husband/wife? How do you feel about their involvement and what are your expectations? If married, tell me about your parents’ involvement (or lack of) in your meeting your spouse? Describe the whole process of when you met your spouse to when you decided to marry. Are your ideas about love and marriage similar to your parents? Explain. Has dating and marriage ever been a source of conflict between you and your parents? Do you think if you had grown up in India (Pakistan, Bangladesh), you would have made different choices in your life? What about in finding a mate?

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Do you think your relationship with your parents would be different? Do you think they would have more authority over your life decisions?

Now, I’d like to ask some questions about how you identify with your ethnic heritage and culture.  How do you identify yourself, ethnically?  Do you and/or your spouse (if married) participate in any ethnic organizations? Why or why not?  To what extent do you socialize or identify with peers from your ethnic group? Tell me more about that.  Do you consider yourself or your family “Americanized”? What does that mean to you?  If you have children or are planning on having children, how do you expect to raise them (in terms of your ethnic culture)? Tell me more about that.

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Thank you so much for your participation in this study. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

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Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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Index Ethnographic methods, observer bias, 11-12 European second generation experiences, 16-17, 225 Gender, career expectations, 21, 130 discrimination in the family, 117 double–bind, 54, 86, 87, 114, 119, 118-121, 124, 207-208 gendered experiences, 2021, 119, 168, 228 gender roles, 8 traditional ideology, 8, 2022, 27, 38, 45, 53, 64, 69-70, 77, 85, 109, 223 Giddens, Anthony, 1, 14, 22, 24, 219 Higher education goals, 41, 7677 Hindu/Muslim divide, 91-92, 137-138, 184–186 Immigration policies, post-1995, 1, 6-7, 8-9, 48, 61 Indian immigrants, 7, 13, 16, 19, 31, 33, 209 Intergenerational relations, 72-73, 140-141 Language, 17, 28, 36, 41, 47 Mainstream society, attitudes towards South Asians, 10 Changing contexts of, 32 Marriage, See arranged marriage Matchmaking, 16, 98, 100, 130

“ABCD” (American–Born Confused Desi), 9 Arranged marriage, 5, 15-16, 2223, 27, 35-37, 39, 4344, 47-48, 105-108 resistance to, 162-164 semi–arranged marriage, 14,39, 103, 120, 126, 152, 214, 216, 218, 230 Assimilation, 2–3, 4, 16-18, 2832, 34, 41-43, 215 See segmented assimilation Autonomy, 43-45 Bangladeshi, 7, 11, 12, 35, 55, 57, 122, 188 British South Asians, 17 Careers, 159, 173-174, 178 College: choosing a major, 41, 51, 76 college activism, 185, 222 dating in, 51, 109, 111, 115, 133, 157, 165, 193 Community experiences, 65-66 1 “kiddie parties,” 65-67 Cultural capital, 31, 39-40, 153, 214-215 Dating, 3, 14, 17-18, 26, 37, 38, 47-48, 74-75, 97, 111, 116-117, 125, 133, 145146, 149-151, 155, 158, 187-188, 210, 213, 218 Ethnic identity, 2-3, 5-6, 24, 28, 29-32, 34-35, 40-40, 43, 87, 93, 109, 114, 142, 152, 206, 213 Ethnic socialization, 77-82 249

Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second

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250 Middle class, 61, 83 Model minority status, 16, 31, 223 Multiculturalism, 1, 16, 206-208 Muslims: Muslim identity, 192-193 post–September 11th experiences, 221-225 South Asian Muslims, 36 Neighborhoods, residential patterns, 10, 65 The Namesake, 9, 15, 104 Organizations: immigrant, 66-67 second generation, 148-151 Outmarriage, 5, 42, 135 Pakistani, 7, 8, 12 Parents of subjects, 61-64 dilemmas, 67-70 social class and mobility, 70, 82-86 socialization strategies, 7782 Premarital sex, 65 Racism: experience of, 31, 82, 104 racism towards other minorities, 112 Religion, 36-37 Research design, 10-13 Sampling strategy, 10, 227-228 Second generation, U.S., 1-32

Index Second generation South Asians: activism by 12, 222 development of identity, 4041 dilemmas, 73-77 Segmented assimilation, 16-18, 23, 29-30 Sexuality, 37-39 Social class, 9, 13, 215-216 South Asia: countries in, 13 marriage practices in, 22-23 South Asian Americans: activism of, 13 class differences, 9, 13 construction of category, 8– 9 immigration experiences of, 6-10 model minority stereotype, 16, 31, 223 post-September 11th experiences of, 222, 224-225 youth culture of, 9 Tradition, 3, 22-23 “post–traditional order,” 2223 Transnational ties, 34, 58, 63 Upward mobility, 48, 70, 82-86 Values, 22, 38, 44, 64 White Americans, 223

Salam, Rifat Anjum. Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American : Family, Gender, and Autonomy for Second