The War on Terror and South Asian American Narrative Representation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anantha Sudhakar
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Asian American ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
South Asians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Asian American Literature ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
Muslim Communities

The social and political conditions actuated by 9/11 have been a major catalyst for new literature, television and film about South Asians and Muslims in America. Stemming from a 2001 speech by then-president George W. Bush, the concept of the “War on Terror” has served to rationalize the domestic regulation of Muslims, while also validating the need for US imperialist and capitalist expansion. Where US government discourse highlights first-person narratives that figure America as a benevolent global protector of freedom and democracy, South Asian American fictional and non-fictional narratives posit critiques of Islamophobia and the US security state. Spanning a breadth of genres and styles, including the paradigmatic 9/11 novel, the bildungsroman, comedic satire, dramatic monologue, magic realism, documentary film, and urban fiction, South Asian American literature and media highlight narratives of interfaith and cross-racial solidarity. The imaginary worlds of these texts confront the injustices of US imperialism and the global War on Terror for Muslim communities both in the United States and abroad. At the same, South Asian American representation engaged with the impacts of post-9/11 politics and society has enriched understanding of the complex lived experiences of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Americans, as well as those of Indian Americans who are Muslim or trace their ancestry to the Sikh-majority state of Punjab. By centering the perspectives of those communities most affected by detention, xenophobia, and surveillance, post-9/11 South Asian American literature and media reveal how the exigencies of history produce new forms of narrative and cultural practice.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Himanee Gupta-Carlson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Asian American ◽  
South Asians ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
Auto Ethnography ◽  
Race And Religion

The introduction introduces the central themes of the book and highlights its significance. It opens by exploring the wedding of the (a Hindu female of Indian ancestry) to a white, Christian male and places racial and religious tensions embedded in that event within the larger context of race and religion as organizing forces in American life. The introduction also describes auto-ethnography and discourse analysis, and discusses how these methods are used throughout the work. It also offers a profile of the South Asian American community in Muncie and of South Asians in the United States.

Animating Gandhi

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shilpa S. Davé
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
South Asians ◽  
The United States ◽  
White Masculinity ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
American Character ◽  
South Asian Americans ◽  
Asian History

This chapter discusses how the Indian American character is the accent or the suburban “sidekick” character to the dominant narratives of young, white masculinity that are prevalent in American culture. The representation and use of the historical figure Mohandas Gandhi in the MTV animated series Clone High revisits and challenges American representations of Asian Americans and South Asian Americans as model minorities. The use of the historical leader Gandhi as a teenage “geek” sidekick without recognition of how Gandhi fits into South Asian history and influences South Asian American communities shows how American stereotypes dwarf any other representation of South Asians or South Asian Americans in the United States.

Reading South Asian American Literature

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajini Srikanth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
Global Vision

“South Asia” is the term used to refer to that part of Asia that comprises Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. South Asian American literary studies emerged from the ethnic studies movements in the United States during the late 1960s. Asian American literary studies has analyzed poetry, fiction, memoir, and drama by writers of South Asian descent living in the United States, first by looking at the principal thematic impulses found in the writings and the literary techniques employed by authors from the early 1900s into the 21st century. Scholars have also argued that the worldviews and representations of South Asian American writers, sometimes considered within the category of “postcolonial” literature rather than multiethnic literature, gesture beyond the narrow confines of genre, nation, religion, ethnicity, and culture. South Asian American literary studies illuminates these texts’ unexpected connectivities, global vision, and entwined histories and highlights how those who read them have the opportunity to enlarge their consciousness.

Selling the East in the American South

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivek Bald
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Asian American ◽  
American South ◽  
South Asians ◽  
The United States ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
Southern States ◽  
American Orientalism ◽  
The American South ◽  
Commercial Network

This chapter discusses the complex racializations and negotiations of South Asian sailors who jumped ship in Southern and Northeastern seaports and became entrepreneurs who traded ethnic notions within the larger cultural economy of Orientalism of the time. This early history expands the South Asian American narrative to include a group of previously unknown migrants who lived and worked in the United States as early as the 1880s. It points to the significance of the cultural and economic context of turn-of-the-century American Orientalism within which they were able to establish a viable commercial network. Moreover, it reveals different trajectories of migration from the subcontinent—trajectories that South Asians followed through the Southern states and into the economic and cultural orbit of the Caribbean and Central America.

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