Life lines : community, family, and assimilation among Asian Indian immigrants / Jean Bacon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bacon, Jean Leslie, 1962-

Contributor:

Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

East Indian Americans--Cultural assimilation--Illinois--Chicago.

East Indian Americans.

East Indian Americans--Cultural assimilation.

Ethnicity.

Illinois--Chicago.

East Indian Americans--Illinois--Chicago--Ethnic identity.

Chicago (Ill.)--Social conditions.

Chicago (Ill.).

Physical Description:

xv, 295 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.

Summary:

Bacon's study centers upon the engrossing portraits of five immigrant families, each one a complex tapestry woven from the distinctive voices of family members. Attended by extensive field work among community organizations and analysis of ethnic media, Bacon exposes the interplay between the dense social interactions of family life, the primary locus of the experience of "Indianness, " and the stylized rhetoric of "Indianness" that emanates from the world of voluntary associations and the ethnic press. This inventive analysis suggests that the process of assimilation which these families undergo parallels that experienced by anyone who conceives of him or herself as a member of a distinctive community in search of a place in American society.

Contents:

I Public Life 15

2. The Question of Worldview 17

3. Organizational Life in the Indian Community 22

4. Organizations of the Second Generation 44

5. Problems Talk: The Rhetoric of Adjustment in the Immigrant Press 59

II Family Portraits 75

6. Family Life 77

7. The Nagars: Duty and Heart 85

8. The Iyengars: Historical Indians 118

9. The Kumars: Compromise 148

10. The Shenoys: Alternative Identities 167

11. The Shankars: Searching for a Close Family 201

III Family and Community 223

12. Families: A Model of Intergenerational Change 225

13. Families and Organizations: A Division of Labor in Support of Community 245

Appendix A. Organizations of the Indian Community 255

Appendix B. Some Notes on Method 259.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-281) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Sabin W. Colton, Jr., Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

0195099729

0195099737

OCLC:

33819318