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Queens Immigrant Story:
By
Angela Montefinise For the past 10 years, Queens College Professor Madhulika Khandelwal has made Queens her laboratory for a study on the Indian population of New York City, observing and interviewing immigrants from Richmond Hill, Flushing, Jackson Heights, and Eastern Queens to get a comprehensive look at the group’s collective experience.
This
past month, the New Delhi native released the results of her work – the
book Becoming American, Being Indian: An Immigrant Community in New York
City – and said, “This book is basically a study on Indian
immigration in New York City with a focus on Queens . . . It’s the
immigrant story from the perspective of immigrants, as well as a look at
what’s happening in Queens.” She
describes the book as a case study that uses research, historical
interviews, and extensive field work to piece together a glimpse of the
City’s Indian population, which she said is “as diverse as the American
population.” She said, “Indians don’t identify themselves solely as
‘Indian.’ They identify with their region of India, with their religion,
with their language, and with their cuisine . . . . The Indian population in
Queens is very diverse. It’s not just one group. It’s truly a
Diaspora.” Although
Khandelwal uses Queens interviews and research to look at the City’s
Indian population in a general sense, she does explore the population at a
neighborhood level in one chapter. She explained, “So far, the Indian
networks have not been geographical. You won’t find all Indians in
Flushing, for example. They organize more on the basis of their cultural
backgrounds. An Indian group in Floral Park might identify more with an
Indian group in Texas than a group in Jackson Heights.” She
explained that in the Eastern Queens neighborhoods of Glen Oaks, Bellerose
and Floral Park, the dominant group is Malyalee, while in Richmond Hill, the
dominant group is Punjabi. “In India, there are 20 official
nationally-recognized languages. These are not dialects, they are separate
languages. Then, there are regions, and each region corresponds with a
different cuisine,” she said. “In
America, people think that Indians are just one group. When I first came to
America 18 years ago, I didn’t know what curry food was,” Khandelwal
said, “I had never heard that word. But everyone kept giving it to me, so
I said, ‘What is this?’” Indians
struggle with the “vast differences” between American culture and Indian
culture, and she said, “For immigrants, that’s probably the number one
issue they feel. They feel Americans don’t understand their culture. There
is a sense of gap there, but when you think about it, Americans have so many
cultures to understand, it’s understandable why there’s a gap.” In her research, she said she discovered that while many Indians are professionals, many are getting work in non-professional sectors, contradicting the trends of the 1980s, when Indians came to the United States for work as doctors and nurses. She said, “There are an increasing number of Indians acting as store clerks and taxi drivers and things like that . . . There is also an increasing number of younger, progressive Indians who organize taxi drivers or store clerks. We’ll hear more from them in the future.” In
addition, she said that Indians are moving East “in search of better
housing,” and “A highly-educated Indian may come to America and not be
part of the upper class. It’s a different class system . . . Now, many of
those people have adapted to this country and are moving into bigger and
nicer houses.” She
said they move into Eastern Queens neighborhoods like Bellerose and Floral
Park as soon as they are economically secure, and said, “They live the
American dream, too.” The
book looks specifically at culture, religion, careers and class, family and
gender, Indian organizations and different Indian generations, or a look at
the children of immigrants and the parents of immigrants who join the family
after they are settled. Khandelwal said, “It’s interesting to look at
elders who have to adapt to American culture . . . . I’m a historian by
discipline, and I use oral history in this book to tell the story from the
immigrants’ mouths. The goal was to a paint a picture of their struggles
and successes, and I’m happy with the result.” Khandelwal
is currently the director of Queens College’s Asian American Center, and a
professor in the school’s urban studies department. She returned to the
school this year after teaching there from 1987 to 1997, and she said,
“They brought me back in a way.” While
doing her research for the book, she lived in Flushing, but she currently
lives in Nassau County. Still, she said, “I think of myself as a Queens
person . . . I figure I spend most of my days there, so it’s alright.” The
book is available in book stores and on Amazon.com. |
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