Indian American Identity Formation as Conceptualized Through Interactions in the Schooling Space

• In Event: Roundtable Session 42
  In Roundtable Session: Orienting Asian Pacific Islander Research Through an Ethnic Lens

Abstract

While educational research uses pan-Asian approaches to examine student experiences in school, scant attention is paid to Indian American students. Through a postcolonial framing situating participants as “space invaders” who forge diasporic identities, this study utilizes critical ethnographic case studies with five (n=5) Indian American students in a central Texas high school to investigate how interactions in school inform their identities. While students do not feel racially different, a pervasive school culture of academic achievement links with race to become an Othering device, questioning students “Indianness” and fostering negative dispositions towards school. Participants pick and choose moments of ‘safe’ cultural expression and maintain Indian social networks in exercising agency to feel belonging in the school space.

Author

• Venkat Ramaprasad, The University of Texas - Austin