scholarly journals Neighborhood Walkability and Walking for Transport Among South Asians in the MASALA Study

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 514-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Kelley ◽  
Namratha R. Kandula ◽  
Alka M. Kanaya ◽  
Irene H. Yen
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Asian American ◽  
South Asians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
Neighborhood Walkability ◽  
Asian Men ◽  
Walk Score

Background:The neighborhood built environment can have a strong influence on physical activity levels, particularly walking for transport. In examining racial/ethnic differences in physical activity, one important and understudied group is South Asians. This study aims to describe the association between neighborhood walkability and walking for transport among South Asian men and women in the United States in the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study.Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014 using the baseline dataset of the MASALA study (N = 906). Mean age was 55 years old and 54% of the sample was male. Weekly minutes spent walking for transport was assessed using a questionnaire adapted from the Cross-Cultural Activity Participation Study. Neighborhood walkability was measured using Walk Score, a composite index of walkability.Results:After adjusting for covariates, with each 10-point increase in Walk Score, South Asian American men engaged in 13 additional minutes per week of walking for transport (P = .008). No association was observed between walkability and walking for transport in South Asian American women.Conclusions:Results provide new evidence for how the effects of environmental influences on walking for transport may vary between South Asian men and women.

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.

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.

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.

Category Crisis: South Asian Americans and Questions of Race and Ethnicity

1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-320
Author(s):  
Susan Koshy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
South Asians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Community ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
South Asian Americans

The identity of South Asians in the United States has proved to be problematic, both for the self-identification of the group and for the identifying institutions and popular perceptions of the host society. As a result, a certain exceptionalism (commonly indexed as ambiguity) has come to attach itself to the historiography of South Asian American racial formation. This exceptionalism, in turn, has formed the ground for two competing constructions of South Asian American racial identity that wield significant influence today. One view, represented by some of the major immigrant organizations and reproduced by many middle-class immigrants, stresses ethnicity and class and denies or mitigates the historical salience of race for South Asians in the United States. This position emphasizes the anomalous status of South Asian Americans among racial minorities and embraces the rhetoric of a color-blind meritocracy. The second position, associated mainly with scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences and with some activists, treats South Asian color consciousness as equivalent to white racism and criticizes the immigrant community for denying its own blackness. These critics advocate that South Asian Americans politicize their identity, like their diasporic counterparts in Britain, by forming coalitions with other people of color. Ironically, both positions tend to construct racial identification as a choice, inadvertently reproducing the American ideology of self-making and possibility in discussing one of the social arenas where it has been least applicable.

Domestic Violence Victimization among South Asian Immigrant Men and Women in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 088626052110152
Author(s):  
Abha Rai ◽  
Y. Joon Choi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
South Asian ◽  
South Asians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asian Immigrant ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Violence Victimization ◽  
Immigrant Men ◽  
South Asian Immigrant

Domestic violence is a pernicious social problem in the United States and a cause of national concern. The South Asian culture disempowers individuals experiencing domestic violence from recognizing and reporting victimization. Structural inequities may also discourage reporting victimization. These issues have led to inconsistent findings of domestic violence prevalence rates. Additionally, domestic violence studies with South Asians in the United States have predominantly focused on women, omitting men from this purview of research. The purpose of this study was to examine domestic violence victimization rates as well as their correlates among South Asian immigrant men and women. The sample for this cross-sectional study included 468 South Asians across the 50 U.S. states. Descriptive statistics were used to establish rates of domestic violence victimization. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to examine the correlates of domestic violence victimization. All of the sociodemographic information was added in step 1, and acculturation and gender-role attitudes were added as covariates in step 2. The most prevalent type of domestic violence victimization was physical violence (48%), followed by emotional (38%), economic (35%), verbal (27%), immigration-related (26%), in-laws related (19%), and ultimately sexual abuse (11%). Prevalence rates were higher for women than for men in each type of violence. According to the logistic regression results, education, generational position, family type, and employment were significant correlates of domestic violence victimization. Prior to development of prevention programs by community agencies, it is essential to understand the nature and prevalence of domestic violence experiences among South Asians. The victimization of men in addition to women adds to the novelty of this research study and paves the way for practitioners and scholars to engage in conversations about providing both male and female victims of domestic violence with the needed resources and support. The article will discuss implications for research, practice, and policy.

Muncie, India(na)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Himanee Gupta-Carlson
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
South Asians ◽  
Diaspora Studies ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Auto Ethnography ◽  
Racial Ethnic

The book is a study of South Asian Americans in Muncie, Indiana – the author’s hometown. Muncie is the small Midwestern city made famous for being “typical America” through the Middletown studies. The book is among the first studies of the South Asian American community in Muncie as well as small-town middle America more generally. It situates the experiences of Muncie’s South Asians within the larger context of scholarship in Asian American Studies, racial and ethnic studies, postcolonial/diaspora studies, and the Middletown archive. At the heart of the book is the question: What does it mean to call one’s self an American is one is non-white, non-Christian, and/or non-U.S. born? It uses an interdisciplinary blend of auto-ethnography, and discourse analysis to argue that a failure to account for the racial, ethnic, and religious diversity of America has left behind a false legacy of what defines an American. It shows how the Muncie South Asian American community has sustained itself through extraordinary friendship and resilience, qualities which allowed the members of the community to negotiate internal differences among Indians and other South Asians to make a home in a city – and a nation – that renders them non-American.

From Multiculture to Polyculture in South Asian American Studies

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-204
Author(s):  
Vijay Prashad
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Asian American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
South Asians ◽  
Asian American Studies ◽  
Asian America ◽  
Southeast Asians ◽  
South Asian American ◽  
American Book

In 1997, Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation (Maira and Srikanth). This was unexpected, not because of the quality of the book, but principally because of the little attention hitherto given to those who write about the “new immigrants” of the Americas (including South Asians, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, Africans, and West Asians). Prior to 1997, scholars and writers of South Asian America had been known to skulk in the halls of even such marginal events as the Asian American Studies Association and complain about the slight presence of South Asian American panels. That complaint can now be put to rest.

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.

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