Gender organization in Immigrant Families: The case of Punjabi families in the United States

• In Event: The Nation and Beyond: Re-thinking Punjabi Identity across Space and Time

Abstract

Using the case study of two immigrant families from the northwest Indian state of Punjab, I explore how immigration decisions impact the ways men and women negotiate their roles within the family in individual and relational terms, and its impact on the immigrants’ patterns of settlement. More specifically, I look at the distribution of advantages and disadvantages between men and women in the context of family migration and its subsequent influence on immigrant adaptive trajectories. The methodology for this project is a combination of ethnographic and semi-structured interviews conducted with Punjabi immigrant families in New York as well as families with migration aspirations and return migrants who live in the Punjab. The findings of my research advances knowledge in the following areas: a) it sheds light on the gendered adaptation of rural immigrants from relatively privileged backgrounds (caste and socioeconomic backgrounds), b) expands research on the identity formation of this understudied immigrant group from South Asia, and c) analyzes how the intersections of patriarchy and family migration shape immigrant identities and settlement patterns.

Author

• Diditi Mitra, Brookdale Community College