"Couch potatoes and super-women": Gender, migration, and the emerging discourse on housework among Asian Indian immigrants

Journal of American Ethnic History

Volumn 27, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 71-99

  Bhalla, Vibha ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61449099659     PISSN: 02785927     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (95)

1. Ms. Subbi Mathur, "Couch Potatoes and Super-Women," India Abroad, April 26, 1991, 3
2. Numerous studies have focused on tensions within immigrant families that occur after migration. Some of these are Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly and Anna Garcia, "Power Surrendered Power Restored: The Politics of Home and Work among Hispanic Women in Southern California," in Women in Politics in America, ed. Louise Tilly and Patricia Guerin (New York, 1991), 130-49
3. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Issei, Nissei, War Bride: Three Generations of Japanese American Women in Domestic Service (Philadelphia, 1986)
4. Sherri Grasmuck and Patricia Pessar, Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration (Berkeley, CA, 1991)
5. Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions: The Mexican Experience of Immigration (Berkeley, CA, 1994)
6. Nazli Kibria, Family Tightropes: The Changing Lives of Vietnamese Americans (Princeton, NJ, 1993)
7. and Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo, ed., Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends (Berkeley, CA, 2003)
8. Nancy Foner, "The Immigrant Family: Cultural Legacies and Cultural Changes," International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 961-74
9. Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions
10. Kibria, Family Tightropes, 112-21
11. Census of Population: General Social and Economic Characteristics (Washington, DC, 1980), T-79
12. Census of Population: General Social and Economic Characteristics (Washington, DC, 1990), T-105
13. See Madhulika Khandelwal, Becoming American, Being Indian: An Indian Immigrant Community in New York City (Ithaca, NY, 2002)
14. Prema Kurien, "Gendered Ethnicity: Creating a Hindu Indian Identity in the United States," in Gender and U.S. Immigration, ed, Hondagneu-Sotelo, 151-73
15. Prema Kurien, Kaleidoscopic Ethnicity: International Migration and the Reconstruction of Community Identities in India. (New Brunswick, NJ, 2002)
16. Padma Rangaswamy, Namasté America: Indian Immigrants in an American Metropolis (University Park, PA, 2000)
17. Sheba George, When Women Come First: Gender and Class in Transnational Migration (Berkeley, CA, 2005)
18. Aparna Rayaprol, Negotiating Identities: Women in the Indian Diaspora (Delhi, India, 1997)
19. and Arpana Sircar, Work Roles, Gender Roles, and Asian Indian Immigrant Women in the United States (Lewiston, NY, 2000). The majority of these works, however, do not explore the factors that motivated these changes. Consequently, it appears that changes within Indian families occurred as a natural progression without any accompanying tensions
20. George, When Women Come First, 77-117
21. S.S., "Disgusting," India Abroad, February 10, 1978, 10
22. In a period of three months, seventeen people responded to S.S.'s letter. These included four women, nine men, and four persons who chose to remain anonymous by signing their letters with initials
23. Mrs. A. Q. Hoque, "Indian Wives," India Abroad, March 17, 1978, 10
24. Meera Mitra, "Indian Wives," India Abroad, March 17, 1978, 14
25. Shailaja Kambli, "Indian Wives," India Abroad, March 25, 1978, 14
26. Kumari Kalpana R. Jhakur, India Abroad, December 2, 1983, Life & Leisure section, iv
27. During the decades of the 1970s and the 1980s, there were a considerable number of Indian students in the U.S. According to Open Doors: Report on International Educational Exchange (New York, 1975), in the academic year 1974-75, there were 9,660 students from India in the U.S.; a decade later, the number was 14,610
28. Eight people responded to this letter and in contrast to the first debate, six were written by women
29. U. Radhakant, "Not So Fragile," India Abroad, December 22, 1983, Life & Leisure section, iv
30. Sundari Ramachandran, "Cooperation the Key," India Abroad, December 22, 1983, Life & Leisure section, iv
31. U. Radhakant, "Not So Fragile."
32. Raj Prasad "Family Link Enhanced" India Abroad, January 27, 1984, Life & Leisure section, iv
33. Sundari Ramachandran, "Cooperation the Key."
34. Pooja Mahajan, "On Team Spirit," India Abroad, December 22, 1983, Life & Leisure section, iv
35. Sarojini Reddi, "Blame the Men," India Abroad, December 22, 1983, Life & Leisure section, iv
36. Occupations are gendered. According to Joanna Liddle and Rama Joshi, Daughters of Independence: Gender, Caste, and Class in India (London, 1986), 72-73, in independent India, the medical profession, along with teaching and social work, were considered suitable professions for women, resulting in many middle-class women becoming physicians. Many of these female medical professionals migrated to the United States through arranged marriages
37. Sarojini Reddi, "Blame the Men."
38. Ina Hathi, "Help the Women."
39. Farhat Biviji, "Superwoman Balances Career, Family," India Abroad, January 22, 1988, 3
40. Latha Kumar, "Choices, Not Clichés," India Abroad, March 4, 1988, 3
41. Sunita Saxena, "Choices for Working Indian Women," India Abroad, February 26, 1988, 3
42. Sharmila Nambiar, "A Wife's View on Wifehood" India Abroad, March 15, 1988, 3
43. Ammini Murthy, "Working Couples Can Play Fair and without Conflict," India Abroad, March 15, 1988, 3
44. P. Ramanathan, "A Husband's View of Wifehood" India Abroad, January 11, 1991, 3
45. Ammini Murthy, "Working Couples," 3
46. Sharmila Nambiar, "A Wife's View," 3
47. Ammini Murthy, "Working Couples," 3. A study by Krishnendu Ray, "Meals, Migration, and Modernity: Domestic Cooking and Bengali Indian Ethnicity in the United States," Amerasia Journal 21, no. 1 (1988): 105-27, is the only work that I have come across which offers insights into the Indian immigrant - or, to be more specific - the Bengali immigrant kitchen, its foods, and the ways food habits were changing as a result of migration
48. Marita Gonzalves, "Men Who Share the Chores," India Abroad, May 3, 1991, 3
49. Jayant Shah, "Indian Wives," India Abroad, March 17, 1978, 14
50. M. P. Patel, "Indian Wives," India Abroad, March 25, 1978, 14
51. Dharam Jit Jigyasu, "Woman's Place," India Abroad, December 22, 1983, Life & Leisure section, iv
52. G. Modi, "How to Break Up a Marriage," India Abroad, February 19, 1988, 3
53. Viresh Sharma, "Who Says Husbands Do No Housework," India Abroad, February 19, 1988, 3
54. Sangeeta R. Gupta, ed., Emerging Voices: South Asian American Women Redefine Self, Family, and Community (Walnut Creek, CA, 1999)
55. Khandehval, Becoming American, Being Indian
56. Johanna Lessinger, From the Ganges to the Hudson: Indian Immigrants in New York City (Boston, 1995)
57. Kurien, "Gendered Ethnicity," 151-73
58. Rangaswamy, Nomasté America
59. George, When Women Come First
60. Rayaprol, Negotiating Identities
61. Sircar, Work Roles, Gender Roles, and Asian Indian Immigrant Women in the United States
62. and Sathi S. Dasgupta, On the Trail of An Uncertain Dream: Indian Immigrant Experience in America (New York, 1989), all emphasize the absence of domestic help and the substantial increase in women's domestic work
63. Sonia Shah, "Three Hot Meals and a Full Day at Work: South Asian Women's Labor in the United States," in A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in America, ed. Shamita Das Dasgupta (New Brunswick, NJ, 1998), 206-22
64. Maxine P. Fisher The Indians of New York City: A Study of Immigrants from India (Columbia, MO, 1980), 61, 62, and 66 also details the elaborate meals that were served to hundreds of people at Indian community events, religious, cultural, and social
65. Shamita Das Dasgupta, "Introduction," in A Patchwork Shawl, 1-7
66. Sayantani Das Gupta and Shamita Das Gupta, "Women in Exile: Gender Relations in the Asian Indian Community in the United States," in Asian American Studies: A Reader, ed. Jean Ye-wen and Min Song (New Brunswick, NJ, 2000), 324-37
67. Anannya Bhatacharjee, "The Habit of Ex-nomination: Nation, Women, and the Indian Bourgeoisie," Public Culture 5, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 19-44
68. Margaret Abraham, Speaking the Unspeakable: Marital Violence among South Asian Immigrants in the United States (New Brunswick, NJ, 2000), 9-15, 19-23
69. The emergence of middle-class women in the Indian work force was a relatively new phenomenon that became more common after India's independence in 1947. The following works provide insights into the lives of Indian middle-class women after independence: Carol Chapnick Mukhopadhyaya and Susan Seymour, ed., Women, Education, and Family Structure in India (Boulder, CO, 1994)
70. Rhoda Lois Blumberg and Leela Dwarki, India's Educated Women: Options and Constraints (Delhi, India, 1980)
71. and B. R. Nanda, ed., Indian Women from Purdah to Modernity (New Delhi, India, 1976)
72. G. N. Ramu, "Indian Husbands: Their Role Perceptions and Performance in Single- and Dual-Earner Families," Journal of Marriage and the Family 49, no. 4 (November 1987): 903-15
73. Parminder Bhachu, "Identities Constructed and Reconstructed: Representations of Asian Women in Britain," in Migrant Women: Crossing Boundaries and Changing Identities, ed. Gina Buijs (Oxford 1993), 99-118
74. Sunil Bhatia, American Karma: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Indian Diaspora (New York, 2007), 100-11
75. Khandelwal, Becoming American, Being Indian, 123-34
76. Arpana Sircar, Work Roles, Gender Roles, and Asian Indian Immigrant Women in the United States, 135-48, 215-22
77. Dasgupta, On the Trail of an Uncertain Dream, 131-87
78. My research on Indian immigrants in metropolitan Detroit indicates that many professional women were encouraged by their families to focus on their professional education; consequently, they did not know how to cook
79. Sharmila Rudrappa, "Disciplining Desire in Making the Home: Engendering Ethnicity in Indian Immigrant Families," in The Second Generation: Ethnic identity among Asian Americans, ed. Pyong Gap Min (Walnut Creek, CA, 2002), 85-112
80. Bandana Purkayastha, Negotiating Ethnicity: Second-Generation South Asian Americans Traverse a Transnational World (New Brunswick, NJ, 2005), 87-116
81. Karen Isaksen Leonard The South Asian Americans (Westport, CT, 1997), 145-68
82. Karen Leonard "The Management of Desire: Sexuality and Marriage for Young South Asian Women in America," in Gupta, ed., Emerging Voices, 107-19
83. Jean Bacon, Life Lines: Community, Family, and Assimilation among Asian Indian Immigrants (New York, 1996)
84. See Purkayastha, Negotiating Ethnicity, 87-116
85. Bacon, Life Lines, 75-201
86. Manisha Roy, "Mothers and Daughters in Indian American Families: A Failed Communication?" in Dasgupta, ed., A Patchwork Shawl, 97-110, highlights the pressures Indian parents put on their children to become professionals
87. Sangeeta R. Gupta, "Walking on the Edge: Indian American Women Speak Out on Dating and Marriage," in Gupta, ed., Emerging Voices, 120-45
88. Diya Kallivayalil, "Gender and Cultural Socialization in Indian Immigrant Families in the United States," Feminism and Psychology 14, no. 4 (November 2004): 535-59
89. Anju Jain and Jay Belsky, "Fathering and Acculturation: Immigrant Indian Families with Young Children," Journal of Marriage and the Family 59, no. 4 (November 1997): 873-83
90. Sudha Sethu Balagopal, "The Case of the Brown Memsahib: Issues That Confront Working South Asian Wives and Mothers," in Gupta, ed., Emerging Voices, 146-68
91. Raji Swaminathan, "Relational Worlds: South Asian Immigrant Women Talk about Home/Work," in Immigrant Women of the Academy: Negotiating Boundaries, Crossing Borders in Higher Education, ed. Mary V. Alfred and Raji Swaminathan (New York, 2004), 89-104
92. Balagopal, "The Case of the Brown Memsahib," 146-68
93. Rashmi Luthra, Coverage of Women's Issues in the Indian Immigrant Press: A Content Analysis, Women in International Development Series, Working Paper no. 138 (East Lansing, MI, 1987)
94. Maria Mies, Indian Women and Patriarchy: Conflicts and Dilemmas of Students and Working Women in India (New Delhi, India, 1982), argues that Indian women are rarely confrontational; instead they negotiate delicately within the system
95. Chitra Banerjee Divarkaruni, "We the Indian Women in America," in Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America, ed. Sunaina Maira and Rajni Srikanth (New York, 1996), 268-70