A Part, Yet Apart: South Asians in Asian America. Asian American History and Culture Series

As people from the cultures of the Indian subcontinent increasingly participate in the complex and often heated debates about race and ethnicity in the United States, they confront questions about naming and claiming an identity that designates their group in this country. To be sure, claiming any single identity omits, perhaps threatens to obliterate, the significant political, historical, economic, and religious differences between their countries of origin. However, the term South Asian is growing in acceptance among people in this country who trace their heritage to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Maldives because it acknowledges common interests while it allows for difference. This construction process parallels the gradual acceptance of the term Asian American by peoples primarily of East and Southeast Asian ancestry who found abundant reason to claim a shared identity in dealing with officialdom and an apparently intractable racism in this country. In time, Asian American has become a designation of collective pride for a wide range of peoples. In academic institutions and society generally, there are vexed questions about the term's inclusiveness and the dominance of established groups over more recent ones. A Part, Yet Apart: South Asians in Asian America concerns itself with the extent to which South Asian Americans are and ought to be included within Asian America - as that term is applied to academic programs and admission policies; grassroots community organizing and politics more broadly; and critical analyses of cultural products. Taken together these essays form a spirited dialogue on the dilemmas of identity politics, coalition building, and diasporics. The essays in this collection consider the extent to which South Asian Americans are included within "Asian America" as the term is applied to academic programs and admissions policies, grassroots community organizing and politics, and critical analyses of cultural products. The essays are: (1) "Within Kaleidoscope Eyes: The Potential (Dangers) of Identitarian Coalitions" (Deepika Bahri); (2) "The Limits of (South Asian) Names and Labels: Postcolonial or Asian American?" (Lavina Dhingra Shankar); (3) "The Racial Gap: South Asian American Racial Identity and the Asian American Movement" (Nazli Kibria); (4) "Pahkar Singh's Argument with Asian America: Color and the Structure of Race Formation" (Min Song); (5) "Crafting Solidarities" (Vijay Prashad); (6) "At the Crossroads: College Activism and Its Impact on Asian American Identity Formation" (Anu Gupta); (7) "From Campus to Community Politics in Asian America" (Sumantra Tito Sinha); (8) "The Call of Rice: (South) Asian American Queer Communities" (Sandip Roy); (9) "Ram Yoshino Uppu;un's Campaign: The Implications for Panethnicity in Asian America" (Rajini Srikanth); (10) "A World Apart: A Reading of South Asian American Literature" (Ruth Yu Hsiao); and (11) "Min(d)ing the Gap: South Asian Americans and Diaspora" (Samir Dayal). Each essay contains references. (SLD)