"Young, brown and down:" Second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans constructing their ethnicity in New York
Item
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Title
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"Young, brown and down:" Second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans constructing their ethnicity in New York
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:93a3fc51cc59:11279
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identifier
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11702
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Creator
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Bacchus, Nazreen Sameena,
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Contributor
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Hester Eisenstein
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Ethnic studies | Womens studies | Assimilation | Identity | Immigration | Race Relations | Religion | Second-Generation Americans
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Abstract
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This study offers a new approach to understanding the role of nostalgic performances carried out by second-generation Indo-Guyanese Americans through ethnic institutions as a route into the American mainstream. The Indo-Guyanese are an Indian Diaspora group who arrived in the Caribbean during the Indian Indenture and who have been "twice removed from India." They have limited or no ability to speak Hindi, but their religious beliefs (Hinduism and Islam) have enabled them to maintain certain Indian traditions (e.g., wearing saris). However, they have also adopted several Caribbean cultural practices, such as musical tastes, that have augmented their cultural hybridity. There has been a significant Indo-Guyanese migration to Queens, New York since the early 1990s, which has led to the creation of an Indo-Guyanese ethnic enclave which facilitates the provision of cultural goods, services and houses of worship. Taking Gans' (1979) concept of symbolic ethnicity a step further, my research shows how the American born children of this unique immigrant group carefully select traditions from their hybrid mix of Indian and Afro-Caribbean cultures to attain racial recognition in New York. Additionally gendered expectations significantly shape the Indo-Guyanese identity. Gendered pressures create and augment disparities between men and women in the second generation as they move towards negotiating their ethnicity within the American mainstream. Inter and intra-generational gendered expectations usually place women in the position of maintaining ethno-religious traditions, which may set limits on their ability to achieve an assimilation status similar to second-generation Indo-Guyanese men within the American mainstream. Therefore, I show how New York provides a space for ethnic navigation and negotiation with gendered constraints.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
