In post Proposition 187 and Proposition 209 California, there is immense pressure on all Californians to take positions on issues such as affirmative action, immigration policies and practices, “color-blind” futures, and indeed on race itself. Discussion on such issues among the Indian-American communities in Southern California (of which I am a part) has brought to light a certain reluctance to acknowledge a racial identity for oneself and for the community at large. What is refused by nearly all upper and middle class South Asians is not so much a specific racial identity but the very idea of being raced. The only identity that is acknowledged is the cultural and ethnic one of being no more and no less than “Indian-American”; when pressed, the commonly offered affiliation approaching a racial category that is seen as acceptable is “Aryan.”
A Cure for Discrimination? Affirmative Action and the Case of California Proposition 209
