Disrupting, (Re)Claiming, and Browning the Color Line: Desi–South Asian Americans in Higher Education

• In Event: 67.058 - Dismantling Institutional Racism in Asian American and Pacific Islander College Student Experiences

Abstract

Purpose: In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B.Du Bois (1903) argues that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line...the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.” However, more often than not mainstream and dominant discourse around race and racism in higher education contexts (and beyond) speaks to racial formation within a Black-white bi-normative paradigm exacerbating the invisibility and erasure that Asian Americans and Islanders endure in the academy. In endeavoring to highlight the marginalization and exclusion of Asian Americans, several scholars (Chang, 2003; Cheryan & Monin, 2005; Kim, 2012; Haney-Lopez, 2006; Maeda, 2011; Museus & Kiang, 2009; Suzuki, 2002; Takaki, 1998; Wu, 2002) have captured the experience of being “Othered.” Unacknowledged in these essentializing discourses are the culturally-sustaining narratives and lived experiences of Desi-South Asian/American students in higher education; this study addresses that gap.

Theoretical Framework: A myriad of contentious de/colonial histories embody the essence of Desi-South Asians in the United States (Haney-López, 2006; Iyer, 2015; Prasad, 2000). As new Americans, Desi-South Asians negotiate external and internal socio-political-cultural realities such as class, nationality, citizenship, immigration, colorism, casteism, classism, and religious differences among other forms of prejudices (Bhatia, 2007; Joshi, 2006; Maira, 2002; Patel, 2007; Purkayastha, 2005). Their transnational journeys of dislocation and relocation innocently and ultimately introduce them to the racial politics of the “other” that straddle and privilege a mono-racial Black-White binary. For being unacknowledged in the “other,” Harpalani (2013) using critical race theory examined and theorized that Desi-South Asians experience “ambiguity, ambivalence, and awakening.” Relying on Harpalani’s DesiCrit framework and Accapadi’s (2012) Asian American identity consciousness model, I rely upon my Par/Desi ontoepistemologies as a cultural insider to illuminate the experiences of my participants.

Methods and Sources: Employing a de/colonizing, arts-based contemplative approach (Bhattacharya, 2015; Smith, 2012), I interviewed 11 Desi-South Asian American Generation 1.5 college students at a predominantly white institution. Through 33 one-on-one interviews (two hours each = 66 hours), I (while occupying a Par/Desi ontoepistemological positionality) illuminate how my participants disrupt, (re)claim, and brown the color line to negotiate our presence in the American racial landscape.

Results: I will share my participants’ abilities to negotiate and understand their own simultaneous racialization as the “other,” as “Asian American,” as “South Asian American,” and as “Desi American” while maintaining native and indigenous sensibilities. In (re)claiming their presence in the racial color line, their pluriversal consciousness will speak to their dynamic and frequent dislocation and relocation that “endear” as well as “other” them in different socio-cultural contexts (home, friends, college, etc.) they are situated in any given moment.

Significance: Scholarship exists about the South Asian experience in the United States and yet gaps remain in our understanding of the Desi-South Asian/American college student experience. In addition to making key contribution to the college student literature, this study expounds DesiCrit theory through a Par/Desi ontoepistemological framework.

Author

• Vijay Kanagala, Salem State University