The Impact of Education on South Asian American Identity Negotiation

December 2018

A thesis submitted to the

Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

In the Department of Sociology

of the College of Arts and Sciences

by

Shobha Pai Kansal

B.S., B.A., Indiana University

2010

Committee:

Derrick Brooms, Ph.D. (Chair)

Earl Wright II, Ph.D.

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of the South Asian diaspora on identity formation for

Generation Z women. While much of the extant literature focuses on the experiences of second- generation Generation Y individuals, I investigate how Generation Z college women make meaning of the role of education in their lives. This research considers how the role of education and cultural expectations shape identity negotiation of children of immigrants during their time in college. The participants constitute a range of immigrant generations—between 1.5- and third- generation—South Asian Americans within the United States. While there is research on the impact of the "model minority” designation among this group, there exists a gap in the literature pertaining to the intersection of identity and experience. Using data from 15 qualitative interviews with participants, I share analyses around participants’ personal focus on education throughout their lives, the importance of parental influence as it relates to their education, and their perceptions of independence that they gain as a result of education. These findings bridge a gap in the literature on how South Asian women use their time in college to explore the meaning of education and how these reflections enable them to negotiate their identity.

KEYWORDS: South Asian women; college (or higher education); racial and ethnic minorities; identity; model minority

ii

iii Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to my thesis advisor, Dr. Derrick Brooms, for his continual guidance and mentorship throughout this process and for thinking about my personal and professional well-being. I would also like to thank my other thesis committee member Dr. Earl

Wright II who has influenced me to think about the long-term trajectories of my research and who always role models humility in his academic and personal demeanor. Thanks to Dr. Jeffrey

Timberlake whose perspectives on immigration have caused me to submit my work to numerous conferences where I received invaluable feedback. An additional thanks to Dr. Rina Williams from the Department of Political Science whose subject-matter expertise has allowed me to think about my work within an interdisciplinary space, in addition to the invitation to participate on expert panels, allowing me to think critically about my work and give back to the University of

Cincinnati community.

I am also very grateful to my research participants for their candid perspective – giving voice to you all was an honor, and I thank you for your time and investment. An additional thanks to the University of Cincinnati, the Department of Sociology, the College of Arts and

Sciences, and the Kunz Center steering committee (Professors Carlton-Ford and Casanova) for the 2017-2018 grant that allowed me to conduct this research with its associated expenses. On a personal note, I would like to thank my husband, Jagan Kansal, for the never-ending support in completing this thesis prior to the birth of our first child. A special thank you to my parents Dr.

Bipin Pai and Mrs. Vrinda Pai for providing my sisters and I such an enriching, well-rounded life in the United States. We are forever grateful for your ongoing commitment to our personal, academic, and professional pursuits. I would also like to thank my sisters, Kavitha Pai Mehta and

Priya Pai Osman, for your never-ending support of my goals and ambitions. The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not represent the views of any supporting agencies.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1

Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………….5

South Asian Diaspora in the United States………………………………………………..5

Understanding and Defining South Asian Identity………………………………………..6

Meaning of Education……………………………………………………………………13

Theoretical Frameworks…………………………………………………………………………15

Methods…………………………………………………………………………………………..17

Participants……………………………………………………………………………….19

Data Collection…………………………………………………………………………..21

Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………………….22

Researcher Positionality………………………………………………………………….22

Limitations……………………………………………………………………………….23

Findings & Discussion…………………………………………………………………………...24

Personal Focus on Education Throughout One’s Life...…………………………………24

Parental Influence on Education………………………………………………………....27

Perceptions of Independence as a Result of Education………………………………….31

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….34

References………………………………………………………………………………………..38

v INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this research study is to understand South Asian identity development in the United States. I specifically want to understand how cultural expectations have shaped the ways in which Generation Z South Asian women negotiate and manage their identity and decision-making processes as young adults. I use education as a point of examination to understand the interplay between the role of identity on education. My areas of focus specifically touch on (1) what impact the South Asian diaspora has on families in the United States, (2) how cultural expectations shape how South Asian youth negotiate their identity during college, and

(3) how Generation Z’s experiences can be compared to that of former generations.

Studying South Asian Americans is important given that they are the fastest growing immigrant groups in the United States, with more than 3.4 million people tracing their backgrounds to South Asian countries (U.S. Census 2010). Even though South Asian Americans have played a large role in the fabric of United States history, their stories often fall short of representation (Wong and Halgin 2006; Lung-Amam 2017). The goal of this study is to give voice to the youngest adult-aged group of South Asians in the Generation Z birth cohort, or young people who were born after 1995 (Remus 2015).

Taking generation into account is one of my primary goals within the context of this research study. I wanted to account for the experiences of multiple immigrant generations – the second and third generation who were born in the United States, as well as the foreign-born 1.5 generation (Portes and Rumbaut 2001). To date, the majority of literature on South Asian

Americans has focused on either the second generation or the immigrant generation. Within this study, I seek to understand if there are large intra- and intergenerational differences among the

Generation Z birth cohort of South Asian American women. While there has been an increase in literature about South Asian identity within the most recent few decades, Das and Kemp

1 (1997:23-24) are correct in asserting that “unlike other Asian American groups, South Asian immigrants have not been studied by social scientists to any appreciable degree.” While South

Asians experience the general problems of Asian Americans as being “marked as foreign,” they do not conform to mainstream U.S. phenotypic definitions of what it means to be “Asian”

(Khandelwal and Akkoor 2014:278).

This study necessitates the focus on interdisciplinary work across multiple topic areas: identity, culture, gender, immigration, and education. Looking at any of these axes of classification in isolation neglects the specificity needed in considering how the range of micro structures like families to macro structures like the nation-state affect one’s identity development

(Dhingra 2018). I center the experiences of college-aged South Asian women in my research for three primary reasons. First, there is a dearth of literature on South Asian women in educational research, Second, I wanted to understand how gendered expectations mattered in South Asian women’s educational experiences. Lastly, I wanted to be able to build on the learnings from former studies on South Asian women’s experiences of different birth cohorts. In terms of the age range of participants and focusing on college-aged women, I consider the time during one’s college experience to be one where there is temporal proximity to childhood and family experiences, but a stage in life that also allows for physical and social independence away from one’s family.

My long-term goals for this research are to conduct a mixed-methods, longitudinal analysis for my dissertation. I would like to re-interview my current participants to assess the similarities and differences in their responses towards identity during a different life stage, while also looking quantitatively at family structure, occupation, and education level of both parents.

Although my work focuses on South Asians, I have also taken a look at other groups’ immigration and acculturation experiences in order to draw up on parallels across identity

2 formation across ethnic groups. Scholars in many fields have studied identity. Therefore, I seek to explain how multi- and interdisciplinary the notion of identity is. Stuart Hall (1990) explains how identity is an ongoing, incomplete production in the construction of self.

I have conducted a thorough literature review sheds light on topics of how second- generation South Asian youth negotiate their identity in the United States. There has, specifically, been extensive work done on how South Asians fall under the “model minority” designation and how this can impact how they view themselves and the ways in which educators and advisors may stereotype them (Wong and Halgin 2006; Vaidhyanathan 2000; Shen, Liao,

Abraham, and Weng 2014); however, I investigate deeper why South Asian women have been categorized by this stereotype in literature. Dhingra (2018) investigates the parental viewpoint of meaning-making of education with South Asian culture by trying to understand why education is important. Dhingra states the following:

Contrary to common assumptions, education is not parents’ main priority, whether due to structural factors or cultural reasons. Instead, they are responding to and motivated by a sense of intense competition. One must be competitive in order to outshine others and avoid a life of nothingness. (p. 313)

Within the context of my interviews, I was curious to see how this notion of competition emerged among the Generation Z participants, given that most of their parents’ demographics were similar to the sample in the 2018 Dhingra study. I purposefully did not ask participants about competition specifically, but there were explanations as to how this was relevant in discussions with their parents. The idea of concerted cultivation also emerged as an underlying theoretical frame. Although not focused on this ethnic group specifically, Lareau’s (2011) concept of concerted cultivation describes how middle-class parents attempt to provide their children with experiences and opportunities to aid in their development and success.

Additional theories on South Asian identity development relevant in this query are Du

Bois’ (1903) “double consciousness,” Goffman's (1959) dramaturgy, and the impacts of

3 Bordieu’s (1984) social and cultural capital. Qualitative and quantitative research suggests there is strong emphasis in South Asian culture on family, education, and success (Dav 2012; Lung-

Amam 2017; Somerville and Robinson 2016). Further research is needed to bridge the gap in literature on how this specific birth cohort of South Asian women form, manage, and develop their identities in college and how they use college as an opportunity to study areas of interest to them and grow in interpersonal ways. In addition, there is a gap in how social media and new- age forms of technology and development impact how communities, both in physical and virtual form, create opportunities for identity negotiation and socialization. Within the context of this study, I will treat education as an independent variable which informs my participants views on identity, the dependent variable (Abdelal, Herrera, Johnston, McDermott 2009). While unpacking identity proves to be a large endeavor, but I will discuss the concept of identity from multi- and interdisciplinary standpoints and explain how many schools of thought offer deeper exploration for future research.

In educational settings, South Asians are constantly navigating stereotypes about how they are only adept in disciplines like science and technology and not as likely to succeed in non-

STEM majors in the social sciences and humanities (Collison 2000). Like in Collison’s (2000) work, they are often thought of as being the other Asian. Therefore, it is important to understand the acculturation and identity formation experiences. While often falling under the Asian umbrella, South Asians are “trying to forge a new identity as an ethnic group in the United

States” (Collison 2000:22). Thus, the current study adds to our understanding of how South

Asian American women use their educational experiences both within the classroom and through their total college experience as a way to discuss their identity.

4 LITERATURE REVIEW

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) report, Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups 2017:

the total college enrollment rate for Asian 18- to 24-year-olds has been higher than the rates for their White, Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native peers, as well as their peers of two or more races, in every year between 2005 and 2015 (NCES 2017:iii).

Additionally, in 2014, the same report notes “a greater percentage of undergraduates were female than male across all racial/ethnic groups. The gap was narrowest for Asian students (52 vs. 48 percent)” (2017:iii). I begin with discussing the South Asia diaspora in the United States to create context for how immigrant experiences initially shaped achievement perceptions. I then discuss cultural identity of South Asians and the “model minority” stereotype, and lastly I end by discussing the meaning of education within South Asian culture. Through this study, I demonstrate where literature currently exists and where there are opportunities to explore other dimensions of the topic.

South Asian Diaspora in the United States

Defined as a watershed moment in American immigration policy, the 1965 Immigration and

Naturalization Act attracted mass immigration from Asian countries. Intended to attract highly skilled labor, the Act did just that. This massive influx of migrants from South Asian countries marked the beginning of the new-age diaspora to the United States. Most immigrants from these countries came to further their educational opportunities in specific fields including science, engineering, and medicine (Khandelwal and Akkoor 2014; Coward, Hinnells, Williams, and

Brady 2000). The 1965 immigration act also brought about a reframing of South Asian identity negotiation in terms of how immigrants managed their social and cultural capital once in the

United States.

5 This identity negotiation included high hopes for educational advancement and opportunities. With their intent to pursue educational opportunities in well-paying fields, South

Asians were able to move into (upper) middle class positions across national borders. South

Asians began assuming occupations as doctors, engineers, and scientists. Within the context of the United States, this afforded them the opportunity to join the upper-middle class. They have since remained in this position of being one of the most finally successful ethnic groups in the

United States (Coward et al. 2000; Lung-Amam 2017). Indeed, markers of the high achievement of Asian Americans includes “high incomes, educational qualifications, professional occupations and suburban residence” (Finn 2009:280). Understanding if these markers have stayed consistent or changed over time continues to be an area of inquiry within this body of research.

Understanding and Defining South Asian Identity

Defining Identity

It is important to define the term “identity” prior to discussing the specificities of what constitutes South Asian identity. My interviews covered a vast array of questions ranging from topics about immigration, culture, politics, social media, and education. Although the focus of this study is to investigate the role of education in identity formation, participants often cited and described their multiple identities given the interconnectedness of this phenomenon (Dhingra

2008).

In order to understand how identity is constructed, I begin with sociological literature from Berger and Luckman (1967). In The Social Construction of Reality, they explain how our individual knowledges and understandings of the world around us become our individual realities. These realities then turn into ways in which we make sense of the social world around us. Using a social constructivist approach, we come to understand that humans are agents within

6 the social world who create ongoing and continuous meanings to structures within society.

Identity is one of these structures, which undergoes continuous dynamic changes. Henry Hale explains how identity is defined by “a person’s relation to the social world and represents a self- positioning within it” (2004:466). Therefore, because identity is not a “stable state of mind” it is then “inherently dynamic” (2004:466).

Other sociologists also use the idea of ethnic groups to define how people are grouped together for form into identity associations. In his argument Weber (1978) explains that ethnic groups are social constructs. Weber also states that ethnic groups consist of human groups “that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration” (1978:398).

Similarly, Chandra (2006:400) extends this line of inquiry to explain how ethnic identity groups are determined by “descent-based attributes.” These attributes are ones that are acquired genetically and include phenotypical characteristics like skin color, hair type and height. By following these definitional parameters, ethnic identity is, then, constitutive of many properties; the notion of ethnic identity is a broad construct. This definition is appropriate for South Asians given that this group is centered around a descent-based way to group people of similar backgrounds. Brubaker (2000) even goes so far as to suggest that we need to go beyond groupism when studying ethnicity.

South Asian Identity

Among South Asians, Desi is a self-describing term that refers to persons from countries such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh who constitute the general makeup of South

Asia. According to Khandelwal and Akkoor (2014), the term “'desi' has currency in among second-generation South Asians. It is an inclusive category that cuts across lines of nation,

7 religion, caste, [and] language” (as cited in Shankar 2008: 4). Through the remainder of this study I use the term desi interchangeably with “South Asian.”

The self-designation desi is used by multiple generations of South Asians and has cultural significance as described by Vaidhyanathan (2008:B6); in Hindi, the literal translation of the word desi is a “person of the soil.” It also signifies “someone who identifies his or her roots somewhere east of the Khyber Pass, down slope of the highest Himalayas, and east of Burma. It posits a bond of imagined kinship, invoking alliances that cross thin borders of hostile nation- states” (Vaidhyanathan 2008:B6). The notion of desiness, he goes on to mention, ties together this group of people who have a common grounding of the same history and roots from the same general area of the world.

While much of the South Asian world historically has faced international conflict, this term “emphasizes assumed affiliation with a distant nation-state over cultural alliances”

(Vaidhyanathan 2000:B6). Vaidhyanathan goes on explain that instead of using more specific terms like Indian, Pakistani, Hindu, or Muslim, terms like desi enable a more fluid designation for a second-general culture that is being continually formed and shaped in the West. More importantly, this desi bond elicits a common respect for people within this group that transcends any culture strife from the old world. Though desis may “speak different languages, wear among this group of individuals (Vaidhyanathan 2000:B6).

South Asian Cultural and Social Capital

While the following study by Aldous is based off a Canadian population, the importance of parental human capital consistently points to parental education as a powerful predictor of post- secondary attainment within the South Asian community. Parents who are highly educated know not only how to get along in their new countries of residence, but logically, know the “benefits in getting better jobs.” As a result, they use the cultural capital that they possess to be “more

8 encouraging and insistent that their children do well in school” (Aldous 2006:1637). With the

Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 and the preponderance of educated South Asians entering careers that also provide them with monetary advantages, these parents are able to invest mentally and financially in their children’s ability to perform well in a school setting and later on to pursuing college educations.

Social learning theory indicates that the extent to which education is valued by parents causes an expectation of nothing less from their own children (Aldous 2006). This is accomplished when parents provide children with resources and the means to become successful. The result is their children also come to value positive academic achievement. All of this results in the next generation acquiring social capital (Aldous 2006). The fostering of “close intergenerational relations in [immigrant families]” is “conducive” to children pursuing and succeeding in higher educational settings (Abada et al. 2009:202). Having this family structure and support provide parents with the ability to closely monitoring their children, thereby eliminating the chance for children to participate in delinquent behaviors. Instead, the hope is that their children will channel their energies, instead, towards their academics and pursing educational excellence (Abada et al. 2009).

Understanding pre-immigration beliefs is also helpful in considering this notion of social and cultural capital acquisition in the United States. Bhattacharya and Schoppelrey (2004), who focus on Indian immigrants, specifically, state that education is highly valued not only for professional development but also because it provides economic security. Most importantly, however, is the notion of being able to improve the social status of one’s family’s by gaining access to quality education and having the desired outcome of securing education credentials.

According to these researchers, this all results in “enhancing family pride” with the importance of one’s family’s opinion of themselves as being paramount within desi culture (2004:85).

9 Pre-immigration beliefs of the first generation were shaped by the experiences and contexts from their homelands that they brought to their new countries. The expectations of life success, then, were deeply intertwined with the ways in which parents discussed success with their children. These expectations rest on the belief that upward mobility could only be achieved through academic success, parents’ views from when they immigrated continued to intensify over time. The concept of the looking-glass self then became about fulfilling a reality that one’s parents set forth for them. Education was the way these realities of success would be realized for the entire family and “the source of life success… changed from the parents to their children”

(Bhattacharya and Schoppelrey 2004:89). Therefore, an important part of working with immigrant families is knowing to what extent the fulfillment of these dreams affected a child’s view of themselves in terms of their overall development (Bhattacharya and Schoppelrey 2004).

Striving for academic achievement has since become the overarching stereotype for how South

Asians are grouped with other Asian Americans.

With the 1965 Immigration Act and the preponderance of educated South Asians entering careers that also provide them with monetary advantages, many immigrant parents were able to invest mentally and financially in their children’s ability to perform well in a school setting and later on to pursuing college educations. Therefore, this phenomena rests on Bourdieu’s argument that the “knowledges of the upper and middle classes are considered capital valuable to a hierarchal society” (Yosso 2005:70). On the other hand, when parents lack the monetary and non-financial capital, one can argue that these parents lack general resources that enable them to teach, guide, and prepare their children for advancement in university and college settings

(Abada and Tenkorang 2009:201). Though there is not much literature about this initial wave of immigrants occupying lower-than middle class social locations, it is important to consider the wide spectrum of capital that is transferred intra- and inter-generationally.

10 Managing the “Model Minority” Stereotype

Encompassing more than just South Asians, Asian Americans have consistently been labeled model minorities or “successful minorities who have quietly moved to the pinnacle of success in various contexts through hard work and determination” (Wong et al. 2006:38). Although many

Asian cultures’ philosophy of life places great importance on the two-way exchange of a parent’s expectations of their child’s accomplishments and the child’s desire to realize their parent’s dream of life success through educational achievement, it is important to understand how this stereotype can negatively impact one’s identity formation. With this educational achievement comes the ticket to continual upward social mobility (Bhattacharya et al 2004). The success stories in the United States rest on the way in which people have managed and navigated this stereotype.

It would behoove future researchers to understand the reasonableness of parental expectations with regards to educational achievement and, more importantly, to understand the child’s perceptions of these life-long expectations. As stated by Vaidhyanathan (2000:B5), “the benefits [of the stereotype] are clear. The costs are not. That’s where some of the best recent scholarship comes in.” Defining the parameters of this model minority stereotype becomes paramount in understanding the blessings and burdens placed on students that receive this label.

This label has been viewed as being a double-edged sword. Some research suggests that “in terms of academic adjustment, the model minority stereotype appears to protect against the detrimental effect of discrimination” (Kiang, Witkow, and Thompson 2016:1366; Wong and

Halgin 2006). Because this definition focuses on excellence, it initially seems that it would be a compliment and would help to serve as a motivation. However, it comes at a cost when stereotyping students who may fall short of academic and professional excellence as defined by the stereotype.

11 While focused on a broader group of Asian Americans, it is important to note that Wong and Halgin (2006) uncovered a similarity with South Asian Americans. They note that, “Many

Asian American students feel a tremendous responsibility to their families, which often runs counter to an American philosophy that it is good to explore and pursue individual academic and personal interests” (Wong and Halgin 2006:43). These children feel a strong pressure to make decisions in the best interests of their families, thus reflecting well on the family as a whole.

Many of the decisions they believe impact the reputation and respect of their family include their choice of major and areas of study when they enter college. By not living up to these cultural expectations, Asian Americans “may believe they have failed” (Wong and Halgin 2006:43).

Understanding the double-edged nature and misconceptions of this stereotype is important to professionals who work with Asian American students in the space of health, academic, and career counseling. Living up to these ideals of the model minority stereotype can put immense pressure on students who might not be “succeeding” per these expectations. In addition, students who are not vocal about getting the support they need may also suffer in silence since it may be assumed they are doing fine. While assuming that all students feel this type of pressure is problematic, counselors and advisors must ensure that they are treating each student as an individual and “not assume that all Asian Americans have the same experiences”

(Wong and Halgin 2006:48).

Overall, managing this model minority label and all of the stereotypes that go along with it is

“much more a bane than a blessing for Asian Americans” (Wong et al 2006:47). Because individuals within each Asian American subgroup has a different lived experience or standpoint, making assumptions about their family background, educational achievement, and future goals can be harmful. Using the term “model minority” to prematurely label someone pigeonholes

Asian Americans, characterizing them in a way that assumes they will behave in certain

12 Meaning of Education

In understanding identity formation, extant literature explains the pressures on Asian Americans and how these pressures manifest across subsequent generations of South Asians (Wong and

Halgin 2006; Das Gupta 1997). With broad interests in many subject areas, research indicates that many Asian Americans do not always select majors intended to direct them into occupations based off interests (Shen et al. 2014). When looking at “life, physical, and social science occupations, [Asian Americans] represent from 13.6% to 33.3% of biological, medical, and chemical or material scientists compared with only 3.2% of psychologists. Thus, [Asian

Americans] may perceive restrictions in their range of occupational choices” (Shen et al.

2014:241).

In terms of choice congruence, there has been research with Asian Americans that have shown that when they choose to pursue overrepresented majors, there was much lower interest they had than when they were pursing underrepresented majors in the artistic spaces. This mismatch of interest and choices for majors and professional careers can be explained by many cultural factors, such as “parental pressure, acculturation, ethnic identity development, occupational outlook, and value of prestige” (Shen et al. 2014:241).

The same is true as when funneling down to the South Asian cultural level. Although focusing on South Asian Canadians, many second-generation students in the study conducted by

Somerville and Robinson (2016) felt a pressure to prioritize and pursue academic majors and careers. The majority of participants “expressed pressure to become a doctor, lawyer, accountant or engineer and reiterated the emphasis their parents placed on work ethic and academic success”

(Somerville and Robinson 2016:107). Exploring how these perceived pressures have impacted academic and personal pursuits sheds light on family dynamics that influence decision making.

13 Much like the broader Asian American group, these tensions of academic pursuits were based on their parents’ concerns of “securing a good job” and an even greater emphasis on

“family pride and garnering respect within the ethnic community” (Somerville and Robinson

2016:112). These expectations could result in undue pressure placed on students as they are selecting their academic directions. More research is needed that investigates children’s perceptions of the reasonableness of parental expectations regarding educational achievement.

This aspect may be especially salient when children are failing in school as the resulting strain in family relationships and roles may increase acculturative stress for both parents and children. As mentioned earlier, family conflicts can lead to negative consequences such as dropping out of school, socializing with deviant peer groups, and substance abuse among children. Future research is needed to delineate the predictors of acculturative stress among both parents and children (Bhattacharya and Schoppelrey 2004).

In summary, understanding the South Asian diaspora and the ways in which it has influenced the importance of capital acquisition is a key theoretical framework for this study.

Social and cultural capital literature helps to explains reasons for immigration, while also contextualizing perceptions of educational attainment for South Asians. Defining identity was also a key focus of this literature review. This research study supports the literature on capital theory while also opening up further exploration of the “model minority” myth specifically regarding education within the cultural identity literature. The study also extends the discussions from the literature on the importance of education within the South Asian culture by exploring the ways in which South Asian women make meaning of education in their lives. Given the current scope of the literature, I will use the findings of this study to dimensionalize the intersection of how education informs identity. stereotypical ways. It dismisses them as individuals (Wong and Halgin 2006).

14 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS

In this study, I use two frameworks, double consciousness and presentation of self, to help understand and analyze South Asian women negotiate and make meaning from their educational experiences. In particular, these two frameworks help contextualize the constant and ongoing negotiations they are situated in as they pursue their educational goals, respond to parental expectations, and develop (and expand) their sense of self.

The ‘double consciousness” of the second generation

W.E.B. Du Bois (1903), in his book The Souls of Black Folk in the chapter “Of Our Spiritual

Strivings,” introduces the notion of double consciousness where he writes “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of the world that look on in amused contempt and pity” (p. 45). This double consciousness was a brutal reality to Blacks in the United States where they always felt their “twoness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” (1903:45).

Because of this fragmentation of sorts, there was a longing to have a singular identity. Du Bois explains that the American Negro “simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a

Negro and an American” (1903:45). One would have to asunder one’s consciousness in order to survive this world of duality.

Children of immigrants are socialized into two cultures: the one of their parents and the one of the social world surrounding them. Therefore, they also experience this duality. They are taught and exposed to the cultures of their parents and they are also learning and assimilating to the culture of the broader American society. While most parents try to “inculcate ethnic pride and awareness” their children are also learning how to identify as being fully South Asian and fully American (Das and Kemp 1997:28). Based on the class and educational privilege afforded to them by their cultural backgrounds, South Asians live this twoness differently than what Du

15 Bois evoked. Vaidhyanathan (2000) explains this duality, but in a different sense. He cites how

Du Bois focused on what it feels like as an African-American to be a "problem" and how South

Asians are looked to as being “a solution.” There is still a constant struggle that many second- generation South Asians experience. Although they are typically exposed to their parents’ ethnic backgrounds and have “not lost their identification with their roots,” this knowledge of one’s upbringing does not “coexist comfortably with what they understood be 'American'” about themselves (Das Gupta 1997:575). South Asians face the challenge of managing multiple identities with having grown up in the United States. In addition, the experiences that they have encountered may not be those that their parents can relate to, creating possible friction and collision between the ideals that their parents espouse versus those that they have created for themselves. Thus, this South Asian American identity is one that requires further understanding.

For instance, in a qualitative study of Asian American college students, Trieu (2018) found that the majority of respondents asserted “some variation of hyphenated American or strictly

American identity” (p. 527). Other relevant sociological theories explore how this identity understanding occurs through a performative lens. One such theory is that of dramaturgy.

Dramaturgy and performance of self

Goffman (1959) expounds on the idea of dramaturgy to explain the nature of social interactions, self-presentation within many different layers of the outside world, and the self-negotiation that takes place in each of these situations. The theoretical framework of dramaturgy explains how we, as social beings, negotiate interactions with both the outside world as well as ourselves.

Dramaturgy insomuch offers tools for us to delve deeper into the notion of identity development due to the performative nature of human behavior. Our need as humans to perform impacts how we must always engage with our front stage audiences. The major takeaway of this framework is understanding how other ethnic minorities also navigate this notion of performance (Lopez

16 2002). Some of the participants introduced the idea of doing well academically in order to make their parents proud. Succeeding, or performing, excellence then becomes a way in which they were able to show commitment to their academics and professional endeavors.

The framework of dramaturgy, specifically the aspect of performance, becomes pivotal in further exploring Asian Americans as a broader group, who have consistently been labeled as being a model minority. Many Asian cultures’ philosophy of life places great importance on the two-way exchange of a parent’s expectations of their child’s accomplishments and the child’s desire to realize their parent’s dream of life success through educational achievement.

Furthermore, when Asian Americans embody the behaviors of a model minority student, they are giving off an image that they are succeeding academically because it is an expectation from the broader audience that they succeed.

METHODS

Over the course of three months during summer and fall 2018, I conducted one-on-one, semi- structured qualitative interviews with participants of South Asian backgrounds, specifically

Indian- and Pakistani-American college-aged women. My choice in choosing this age range was so that I could capture these women’s young-adult experiences immediately after high school.

Given that this could be some of their first times living away from their families, I wanted to investigate how their college experience afforded them a different type of independence in thinking about their life decisions and how those decisions would impact their views of themselves. I chose qualitative interviews as a method of analysis for a number reasons. One- on-one interviews allow for participants to more fully open about their individual experiences about cultural and ethnic identities since the goal of the research was to give voice to a group that has not been consistently studied in social science research (Ragin 1994). I initially considered

17 conducting focus group interviews and decided against that because I did not want participants to be guarded in the way they spoke about their backgrounds, especially if those experiences did not align to that of other focus group participants. I was also very cognizant about how competition plays into the educational context of many first-generation parents of South Asian descent (Dhingra 2018). Additionally, previous studies about South Asian identity have successfully used one-on-one qualitative interviews to discern individual experiences of South

Asian women (Baugley et al. 2016; Finn 2009).

I conducted all of my interviews on a university campus, which was accessible to my participants. Most of the interviews were conducted in private study rooms in the main campus library, while only two were conducted in an office space on campus when no other individuals were in the room. I wanted to have conversations with the participants in places where they felt open to speak about themselves and their life experiences with little to no interruption. I gained access to my participants in multiple ways. The first was through the South Asian American

Student Association at this institution, although no direct recruiting outcomes came from this channel due to the timing of my IRB approval in the summer of 2018. I leveraged a personal connection with a fellow research assistant (not of South Asian descent) from my work on a separate project. I was traveling with this research assistant and was describing my work, when she mentioned that she knew many South Asian women who she thought would very much like to participate in this study.

In following up on our conversations, I sent her my IRB-approved recruiting blurb and she circulated it via email among 10 young women. I got immediate responses from seven of these women. The rest of my eight participants came from snowball sampling recommendations of the original seven participants. At the end of my interview, I asked each individual if she knew of anyone else who would have been interested. Minutes after my interview with her

18 concluded, Deepika 1, as an example, sent me multiple names and contacts of friends who said they would be very interested in speaking with me without having shared specifics about questions I asked her. While I was initially skeptical of using a snowball sampling approach, I have concluded that this method of sampling was highly effective because former participants were able to speak positively about their experience in talking with me. Snowball sampling allowed me to create more immediate rapport with participants since they knew that former participants who had referred them mentioned their positive experiences in speaking with me

(Aurini, Helath, and Howells 2016).

Participants

The participants included 15 South Asian college-aged women between the ages of 18 and 22. Although there exists diversity amongst this categorization of what it means to be South

Asian, I still wanted to keep the cultural group open and not narrow down to subcultures of just

Indian-American participants as a way to offer intragroup comparisons. All of the participants identified as being Indian- and Pakistani-American, and among these, three participants even used the terms South Asian or Asian when asked what their ethnicity or nationality was within the context of the interview. When asked about their gender, all responded “female.” Asking about gender was a deliberate choice that I made when constructing the interview guide. I wanted to ensure that I was not misgendering my participants who all appeared to be female- bodied, while also being able to use gender as a component of my participants’ identities if the notion of gender was introduced by themselves within the context of our conversation. Because education was the prime focus of the study, it was important to understand their majors and areas of study at the university. Across the 15 participants, 10 were physical science majors, three were social science majors, and two were business majors. By asking all participants about their

19 parents’ background, I was able to analyze the ways in which these young women’s upbringing and their parents’ achievements factored into how they think about themselves and education.

This group also included participants who identified across a range of immigrant generations—1.5 to third generation. My assumption approaching the interviews was that all would likely be second-generation, meaning that their parents immigrated to the United States and that they were born here. This was not the case for all of my interviewees. These participants ranged between first- and third-generation, which alluded to the diversity of immigration waves from people of South Asia to the United States. While often considered immigrants of the post-

1965 wave of immigration, South Asian immigrants encompass great diversity in immigration experiences. The diversity of my participants was representative of South Asian immigrants within the United States. Out of the 15 participants, four considered themselves first-generation

American since they were not actually born in the United States. Three of the participants considered themselves third generation if at least one of their parents was not born in a South

Asian country. And, two participants considered themselves of mixed-generational background if their parents did not share the same immigration generation. The rest of the six participants identified themselves as second generation.

One focus of my participant criteria was to include women from the Generation Z birth cohort. First, this birth cohort among South Asians is under-researched and fills a gap in the current research and literature around this ethnic group. Second, I wanted to glean the nuances of experience and how identity is shaped by the time in which people were born. The nuances of one’s immigration-generation experience are what I was interested in capturing within the context of this particular study. Third, by matching on birth cohort and focusing even more specifically on those who were in college during this first round of interviews, I was able to develop strong analytical findings from understanding identity development for college-aged

20 women. One of my exclusion criterion was to not include first-year college students in my sample. My assumption was that temporal distance between a participant’s pre-college and during-college experience would allow them to be more thoughtful about their time in college affecting the way in which they thought about themselves. Because identity changes based on environmental changes, my questions helped me uncover how my participants’ relationship to their college environments changed and impacted their views of identity (Hale 2004). Because I also asked participants to share about their pre-college experiences, I chose to interview non- first-year students. My belief was they did not have enough time to situate themselves in college to provide

Data Collection

After reviewing the consent guide with each of the respondents, all of them were comfortable with my recording their interviews. Because of the semi-structured nature of the interviews, I did use an interview guide, but I felt comfortable in asking questions in a different order than what was on the interview guide, probing more deeply on certain questions, or even seeking clarification. I met with my advisor Dr. Brooms after having conducted the first three interviews, and he gave me great direction on my interviewing technique, as well as ways in which I could make it known to participants at the beginning of the interview that I may ask them to clarify meanings. I did not want to assume I knew what my participants were saying.

Lastly, I asked each participant to select a pseudonym by which they would be identified within my research. Two participants chose the name “Deepika” and two others chose “Ava.” I have simply called them Deepika 1 and Deepika 2, and Ava 1 and Ava 2 based on the chronological order in which I conducted each of these interviews—and as a way to honor their choices.

After the conclusion of each interview, I provided my participants with the agreed-to incentive of a $20 Amazon gift card. Within hours of the conclusion of an interview, I captured

21 field notes. I then sent each interview off to a transcription service Rev.com to create verbatim transcripts.

Data Analysis

Upon receipt of the transcription, I listened to each audio recording along with the transcription to ensure that there were no spelling or contextual errors. To avoid any bias in the way I thought about my coding scheme, I began analysis only after all the interviews were complete. After all were completed, I conducted line-by-line coding of each of the interviews. In this process, I began to identify patterns across similar words, themes, and responses (Berg

2009). Additionally, I used a grounded theory methodology in order to develop my findings through analysis of the interview data (Strauss and Corbin 1994). When commonalities emerged across the interviews, I was able to group them together under a broader thematic umbrella.

Researcher Positionality

My positionality in this research is extremely important to discuss and consider. As a

South Asian American female, I have lived my entire adult life being keenly aware of the intragroup differences across South Asians in growing up around and having a robust South

Asian social circle in college. I also found myself more curious about how South Asians and

South Asian Americans are stereotyped in academic spaces during my time in college. I wondered why there was not as much representation in certain majors over others during my time as an undergraduate student at a large Midwest university. Furthermore, my interest in investigating the model minority myth unfolded both during my time in college and even in my professional life. Upon returning back to graduate school, I wanted to understand how college- aged women were using their college experiences to understand more about their own identity and how was their exposure to different forms of social media and interaction informing these experiences.

22 Participants engaged me in discussions of my identity both prior to and after the actual interview. I saw and understood these discussions as opportunities to build rapport with the participants. In particular, being of South Asian identity seemed to place some of the women at ease while at the same time increasing their interests in my research and participating in the study. Weiss (1994) gives two reasons for matching between the interviewer and participant:

“acceptance of the interviewer by the respondent and a greater likelihood that the interviewer would be able to understand [the respondent]” (p.136). My field notes capture some of the conversations between myself and participants, especially after we concluded, which included them asking me about what I studied during my college years, why I chose to come back to graduate school, and if I were married or not. In addition, I was expecting during the course of all of the interviews, and it was physically obvious by the end of my conducting of interviews that I was pregnant, so participants often asked me about that, as well. I was glad to share these personal details and was pleased that respondents felt this level of comfort with me.

Limitations

My sample is limited to one geographic region within the Midwest, and it does not account for geographical variations in experiences for all South Asian American women in the

United States. Because many of my participants were from the Midwest with geographic proximity to the university that they attended, I am not suggesting that their experiences are representative of other geographic locales in the United States. A final consideration of limitations was the number and intragroup diversity of my sample. Although there was diversity of socioeconomic background, there was not such diversity across ethnic subgroup variation since all of my participants identified with being of either Indian or Pakistani descent. For future research, I will keep these limitations in mind and consider how they can impact outcomes and findings.

23 FINDINGS & DISCUSSION

Based on the analysis of my 15 one-on-one interviews, my findings focus on South Asian identity negotiation. This research sought to understand the ways in which college-aged South

Asian American women make meaning of education in their lives. All of the participants cited the importance of education in their lives. Three dominant themes emerged from my discussions with the participants: (1) Personal focus on education throughout one’s life; (2) Parental influence on education; and (3) Perceptions of independence as a result of education.

Personal Focus on Education Throughout One’s Life

Every participant mentioned that education played an influential role in their lives.

However, when I inquired more, I came to discern that attainment was more than just a priority for educational advancement and took on a more personal role through participants’ discussion of the role of education in their lives. Furthermore, the role of education extended beyond the confines of an academic setting. When asked about the role education played in her life, Ananya explains:

Oh my. It's kind of like the biggest part of my life. Um, I personally identify as a student for life. So. I think that education is something that I want to continue having. Whether it's in my career or not. But just in terms of my life right now, it's kinda surrounded as like school is my number one priority. And that's kind of how it's always been.

Ananya suggests how intertwined education has been in her personal identity construction within her life and her schooling experience (Uy 2018; Asher 2002). Like a number of other participants, she imagined her current focus on education to be a lifelong endeavor, one that she prioritized up to her college years and one that informed how she foresaw her future orientations.

However, understanding cultural expectations of daughters within South Asian culture is important (Das Gupta 1997). Moving away from their societal expectations of how women should be allows for the use of education as a way to show commitment to a future. When considering why education was so important to her, Anaya went on to explain:

24 I am a huge believer that education effects um, not only yourself and your family, but also your society. So, I think, like, if we were to look at any of the world's problems, one of the biggest factors that could solve pretty much all of them is education. Um, along with health and food, but that's another story [laughs]. So, I just think that, like, being educated gives you, like, some validity to your voice. And allows you to do more than you could've done without it.

When I asked participants what education meant to them, their answers suggested that education took on a greater role than just one in an academic context. Similar to Trieu’s (2018) findings, education helped expand participants’ identities and understandings of self. Luna was one such participant who spoke of how education has contributed to who she is:

I think education has opened so many doors for me… I think it's made me the person that I am. I think, like, even just not academically. I think education has given me, like, opportunities to go and learn about other things in, like, the world. It’s, like, given me the opportunity to join different clubs or take, like, different classes that I wouldn't usually take to, like, build not only my academic thinking but I think also, like, my world view thinking… I think it's, like, build ... it's built my character in a way that's far beyond just academia.

Luna, like many other participants, described their involvement in multiple extracurricular activities. While I did ask about their involvement in South Asian American activities and clubs, many participants cited the importance of learning opportunities outside the classroom. The participants noted that these activities helped them build on both their academic and world view thinking (Trieu 2018). When I asked them why it was important for them to learn outside of the classroom, many participants discussed issues like feminism and how knowing more about the world around them would enable them to have more equality in their post-college experiences, whether that was in the workplace or in graduate school.

Outside of extracurricular activities, participants also cited other peoples’ experiences to explain why it was important for them to make the most of their academic pursuits. Danielle used her father’s situation to explain how she made sense of the meaning of education. Her

25 father immigrated to the United States through a sponsored visa via family member who was already in the U.S., and was not a part of the first wave of immigrants post-1965. She explains:

In terms of my education... like, having a dad who, like, didn't finish high school, just because he didn't have the opportunities back in India and stuff. Like, that definitely pushed me. Like, I have to go to high school. And like, I have to get my Bachelor's degree. And then, like, you know, pursue a higher education.

Almost all of the participants cited the importance of getting advanced-level degrees as it related to furthering their educational opportunities and securing professional ambitions like medicine, especially for the participants who were science majors. Luna, for example, talked about the entire degree process for becoming a doctor:

So, I want to be a doctor and, you know, clearly to be a doctor you need to, you know, take the MCAT, you need a degree… and then after that you need to get into medical school and before you even go to residency you have to finish and get your M.D. And then after you finish your M.D., you have to go to residency and you still have to complete that program. So [education is] pretty much, like, the only key that I have to get, like, a career and a life. And I think that goes to say for anything that you want to do in this country. You need an education.

She internalized the emphasis on following this process to become a doctor as the way in which she could accomplish her professional goals. For Luna, like many of the participants, it all rested on getting an education. Therefore, for her, it became a personal focus, which would allow her to dedicate time to academic and extracurricular activities in order to achieve these goals. Luna’s narrative connected with that of other participants who believed that education was pivotal for them being able to succeed both in an academic setting, but also as adults who would then be able to obtain high social standing once they became professionals (Asher 2002; Ocampo 2014).

In discussing the idea of professional success, the participants believed that education would provide them with even better chances of securing job prospects, which would allow for them to provide the same types of opportunities to their future families. Furthermore, in the minds of the participants, future success relied almost solely on hard work through educational and professional attainment.

26 Parental Influence on Education

Given the emphasis of how literature has focused on parents’ role in their children’s education, I wanted to understand how parental roles influenced their educations. While I did not ask directly about parental influence, I did ask my participants what the most influential factors were when it came to education. Gia stated, “probably my parents.” She went on to explain:

Just because, so when I was in middle school to high school, I kinda just like, not that it came easy to me, but I kinda just like blew it off, and I was just like, oh whatever. And then um, my dad first year of college like, I was originally neuroscience, like I was pre- med or whatever… But my dad was like, ‘this is so important. Like, this is like your future, like I can give you everything in life but I can't give you, like, your education. Like, it's harder for you because like you're a girl and not a lot of people are gonna take you seriously so like you really need to like, buckle down.’ And I was like, ‘oh, yeah, you're right.’

Gia’s father’s statement introduces a belief held by some immigrant parents on the gendered- based reactions they received from others. Even at a middle school age, Gia was one of multiple people in the study who had moments in their pre-teenage years that affected their opinions about the importance of education. As Lopez (2002) notes, some of this socialization may contribute to the gender gap in educational attainment in the U.S. For participants in my study, these early gendered messages about education provided them with motivation to work hard in school and college. The participants who received these types of messages found them to be motivating because they saw them as a form of equality that their parents wanted for them. By making them aware of gendered expectations that they might receive from others in society, the parents of the participants were drawing attention to societal expectations that might be cast upon them.

Other participants also cited middle school as a time when they were able to understand how important education was through conversations with their parents and family members. Ava

2 explains how her parents’ beliefs influenced her notion of the importance of education while not forcing her either:

27 Well, it's always been really big just because my parents have always… kind of instilled in me the belief that like hard work and education is the way to, you know, your dreams or whatever they may be. Um so, I've always been pretty big on that, but I don't think my parents ever like forced me to do anything. It was also kind of like intrinsic the same time.

However, keeping their parents’ experiences in mind was also a recurrent theme that emerged from 10 of the 15 conversations. Given their varied immigrant experiences, participants’ parents constituted a range of professional and educational backgrounds. However, based on the women’s narratives, it seems that parents’ hard work was not lost on their daughters. Making one’s parents proud was also a central idea in the ways in which parents played a vital role in their daughters’ educational experiences. Gia explains the role of education in her life:

I feel like it's... shaped me, especially in, like, the path I wanna do like when I'm older and stuff like that. And it's very important not just to me, but also for me to make my parents proud. In a sense of like, they came here with like, little to nothing, now they've made something out of it, but I also want to make them proud. Like, they didn't come here for no reason.

The importance of parental connections with their daughters emphasized the gendered phenomenon that emerged throughout the course of the conversations with participants.

Regardless of what their parents’ experiences were, the participants focused on the how it was important for them to succeed, not only because of the hard work that their parents had to undergo in order for them to have comfortable lives in the United States, but also because they were aware that women faced more inequalities as it related to educational and job attainment.

These women internalized these messages and them as a part of their educational scripts and used them as a source of personal motivation and pride. Using education as a source of personal motivation and pride allowed for these women to cultivate alternative forms of social and cultural capital during their college years (Yosso 2005).

The idea of pride also links back to the projection of self-effort. Engaging in educational achievement was one way in which performative behaviors were reflected in my participants’

28 behavior and how there was a consistent management of behavior to achieve success in an academic context (Goffman 1959). While some cite the intrinsic importance of education, there was an extrinsic, dramaturgical component, as well. Academic performance and their outcome on positive life outcomes conflates the notion of pressure. The issue of academic pressure is double-sided when participants felt as if they must meet academic expectations set forth by their families (Asher 2002). The duality of this situation is that they are performing front stage behavior for the sake of impressing the broader community, and this front stage behavior could perhaps be greatly misaligned with backstage sentiments of one’s own ability or need for assistance. For example, in the back stage, a student may feel as if she is struggling but cannot ask for help in order to maintain the appearance of being smart and academically gifted.

This performance occurs not only in a broader sense within an educational setting, but also within a familial setting where the expectations of one’s family causes the ongoing act of demonstrating success and pursuing academic goals that align with that of their parents. Because former generations immigrated to the United States with varying levels of education background, their reasons for immigrating to the United States were based on opportunities to give their families more than what they had (Finn 2009). Jane explains her father’s rationale about the importance of receiving an education:

So, education has always been pretty important to me and, like ... my family just because, like ... again, like, my dad was, like, ‘I worked hard to be here. Like, without having, like, gone to college, like, I don't want you to have to work that hard.’

Jane’s father believed that having an education afforded his daughter the chance to succeed without working as hard due to the belief that education gives you opportunities other than hard work, alone. The idea of having resources also came up with Deepika 2’s explanation of her parents’ immigration experience. Deepika 2’s parents were small business owners. When asked about influential factors around her education, Deepika 2 explains:

29 I would say my parents for the most part because they always, like, taught me that, ‘If we can get a Master’s degree back in that time with what little resources we had, now we give you, like, the opportunities to do whatever.’ They're just, like, whatever you do, just be good at it. And be somewhere to the point where you can stand in a room and just feel accomplished and not feel like, ‘Wow, I wish I had done more.’

The front stage setting also creates a forum of maintaining and upholding appearances.

Per Goffman, “‘appearance’ may be taken to refer to those stimuli which function at the time to tell us of the performer’s social statuses. This stimuli also tell us of the individual’s temporary ritual state, that is, whether he is engaging in formal social activity, work or informal recreation,”

(Goffman 1959:24). Deepika 2 alludes to appearance of academic accomplishment in this example. For her parents, who worked hard to get an education and open up a small business in the United States, it mattered to them how their daughter was perceived and how she perceived herself. Luna’s parents, on the other hand, were more overt about voicing their opinions on the importance of education. She explains the factors most pivotal to her educational experience:

Definitely my parents for sure. They always hammered down education as being, like, the number one priority in our family, um, because it got them from [Pakistan] to here. Um, and they just saw it as, like, basically the biggest safety net tool. Um, pretty much, like, anything that you could ever need they thought that education was the most important thing, and I agree with them. Um, and them and I guess just, like, the community I grew up in. Um, like, all the Pakistanis that I knew most of them were physicians. Like, their parents. Um, and they also had, like, a huge emphasis on education.

By describing her experience in the aforementioned way, Luna was able to take me backstage to demonstrate the educational pressure that she faced. While she did not characterize this pressure in a negative way, Luna demonstrated how she was able to transform this pressure into a motivational factor that enabled her to see her education as being a source of security. In order to better understand this relationship of performance and external interpretation, it is important to know how South Asian woman situate themselves from a class standpoint. Jess also spoke to the importance of having a certain level of degree or job, alluding to the importance of belonging to a particular class of professionals. Giving off a certain appearance of status was a

30 common theme what Finn (2009) describes as South Asian female participants using the term stability to describe “parents’ interest in their children becoming professionals” (p. 289). Luna was surrounded by physicians growing up, so the construct of stability to describe her desire to attain a professional career was evident in her explanation about the role of the community. Like the participants in Finn’s study, Luna, similar to other participants in this study, used terms like

“safety net” as a proxy for “stability” to talk about professional or class positioning (Finn 2008;

Asher 2002). In efforts to maintain the same class positioning and lifestyle that was provided to her by her parents, Luna alludes to an interest in being able occupy a similar upper-class positioning as that of her family and members of the Pakistani community in which she was raised. This demonstrates the leveraging and transmission of social and cultural capital that resulted from having associations with the broader South Asian communities in which these women were raised.

Perceptions of Independence as a Result of the Future

The role of education in creating space for independence was a theme that has yet to be explored fully in South Asian identity research. Given the somewhat homogenous treatment of

South Asian Americans in past literature, the focus of this ethnic group was often that of success and the model minority stereotype (Dhingra 2018). However, there is a considerable intragroup variation among South Asians, and as such, they should not be treated as a monolith (Buckley

2018).

Raina falls among the group of South Asians who came from a family that experienced financial hardship as she was growing up. She explains how education also played a very central role in her life, but for different reasons than the other participants:

Education to me is like the ability to stand on my own two feet. So… having a degree or having knowledge on something, like, I'll be able to use that in the future when I'm working… no matter where I go I'll have my degree with me. And, so, I'll be able to get a job. And then jobs to lead to money, so being able to provide for myself. Like, I never

31 wanna be like afraid of when my next meal is going to be there. Like if there's gonna be food on the table and like if the electricity goes out, like I don't want to see that anymore. Like I just wanna, like I wanna be out of that situation. I wanna be… independent. And have that for myself.

Raina went on to explain the specifics that led her to valuing education so highly. She spoke about how her mom, who did not have a degree, had to rely heavily on her father for money since he was the breadwinner of the family. Her mother instilled in her that it was important that she be able to provide for herself and not just rely on her husband or partner to do so. This idea of independence comes from both the gendered division of labor within the family and young women’s ability to discern what this could mean for their future (Lopez 2002). Moreover,

Raina’s mother never wanted Raina to feel like a burden to others, as she felt to Raina’s father.

Raina also spoke to the value of what she believed could happen to continue moving forward.

Being able to affirm her gender identity as an “independent woman” was central in Raina’s view of being able to provide for herself given her mother’s struggles as an immigrant to the United

States (Lopez 2002).. She explains how this realization came to life in her childhood:

I guess just like getting kicked out of our house, like ... Being on the street and seeing like if you don't pay the bills you don't have a house. So I've seen that like you need- like I need education to keep going forward. If not like it's just a backward like downward spiral like ... Like I'll be the same eight-year-old on the street. So just like getting a degree. It's so important to me.

The importance of an educational degree was also suggested by Maddy, as well. Maddy was born in India and immigrated to the United States at a young age. Her father’s immigration preceded that of her mother’s and hers. Having come to the United States at a young age offered

Maddy a unique perspective on the notion of independence by way of an education. She goes to explain:

So, it's like that comfort of being able to, like, promise yourself a future and being able to be independent, and I love [that]. I just hate relying on people, and I think I have since a young age. So, at this point like education's just something that I'm able to, like, convince myself that as long as I have it and I have a good foundation on it… I'm able to take care of myself, and I don't have to rely or depend on anyone else to take care of me.

32

The idea of independence was coupled with the idea of future happiness, as described by Jess, who was born in the United States and the daughter of two doctors. She believed that having an education offered positive outcomes for future relationships and more stable job prospects

(Asher 2002). Jess was one of three participants who initiated the topic of marriage as it related to education. When I asked her about the role of education in her life, she described it as the following:

A huge part… my parents are like super huge on everyone getting educated in our family and that's, it's just um, we have seen our distant family that aren't educated. You know, we've seen, you know, problems with that… in terms of marriage, as well, where that can be kind of difficult. So, it's super huge to my parents.

When I asked her to explain why her parents thought it could be an issue in the future for her marriage prospects and her life in general, she explained:

Education… makes you wiser. You go through experiences at college and just those experiences versus someone who gets a job straight out of high school and doesn't… I think that it makes a huge difference. Your experiences, then your choices in life, your paths. I also believe like, there's a certain respect that you get also, like later on in life. You know, with family, friends, and just other people you meet, you know. If you say, "Okay, I have an education" or, you know, like, this is what I do, it's like, "Oh wow okay, so you know, they have a good head on their shoulders.”

There are three key points to Jess’ comment. The first key point is that she believed there would be growth that would emerge continuing on with higher education after high school versus immediately entering the work force. Secondly, although there was a personal sense to achieving certain levels of education, Jess also alluded to a performative nature. As multiple other participants also mentioned a similar viewpoint, Jess explains the importance people valuing her educational attainment because it meant that they would take her more seriously. Last, having a good education correlated with someone who had a “good head on their shoulders” suggesting that the prioritization of education enables one to receive life experiences over and above just the academic setting.

33 Education played a significant role in the ways that participants viewed independence and future happiness. Although there was a financial aspect in being able to provide for oneself, there was a larger set of examples on how the idea of independence was a byproduct of education and strong careers. Education played a foundational role for future plans; however, the ways in which education played a personal role is a noteworthy finding of this research. By explaining their parents’ financial and professional situations, the women in this study continued to believe in the importance of education in their lives.

CONCLUSION

This research contributes to the literature on the role of education in the lives of South

Asian Americans. The goal of this study is to understand how Generation Z young women, in particular, make meaning of education during their time in college. Past literature on this topic has focused almost primarily on the second-generation experience (Finn 2009; Dhingra 2008).

However, there exists greater intra-generational diversity across this ethnic group and birth cohort. The study was designed to analyze the ways in which college-aged participants discussed their identities in relation to their educational experiences. I also focus on the role of cultural expectations across this group with regards to education.

I have examined ways in which the diaspora has impacted families in the United States, how immigrational differences across the group play a role in intragroup diversity, and how time during college allows for the study participants to think personally about the role of education in their lives. Although all of the participants stated that education played a very important role in their identity construction of self, a variation of reasons as to why education was important emerged through my interviews. These differences offer a comparative lens to the qualitative data gathered from past generations of second-generation South Asian immigrants. 10 out of the

15 participants stated that their parents or families directly influenced their experiences and

34 outlook on education. The data also provides evidence that although there are steadfast conceptions of education among participants, there was diversity in their responses as to what shaped their constructs of education. Some participants used their own parents’ immigration struggles as a way to leverage education to create more stable futures for themselves while other participants used their parents’ upper-class attainment as a motivation to sustain this for themselves in the future.

Much like other literature about cultural minorities, this study suggests the importance of not portraying South Asian Americans as “a monolith rather than a heterogeneous group with multiple intersecting identities” (Buckley 2018:e111) Because South Asians possess intragroup variation, it is important to consider how differences in family backgrounds have shaped the experiences of subsequent generations of South Asian Americans. This research sought to build upon past research on second-generation South Asians to Generation Z South Asians who ranged from 1.5 to third generation to understand how identity informed their views of education (Portes and Rumbaut 2001). My assumption was that there would have been more overt use of terms like

“model minority” but none of the participants used this term, which could suggest that younger generations are not as exposed to the term as former generations were. One of the participants did provide an explanation as to why she thought this notion existed. Shivali explained how she experienced academic pressure as compared to other South Asians with whom she grew up:

I feel like with like Indian kids growing up, it always seemed magical. Like, they just took a test and got 100 percent. And then to see them talking about their struggles and being like, "I have to make a calendar. Like my every minute is scheduled, and I'm like, “it is hectic for all of us. It's not like just… the snap of like your fingers. I think every time I struggled in school I felt less Indian, because I felt like I was supposed to just do it perfectly… and it would just like come into my head. So, I think watching them made me realize. I was like, "Okay, like you actually have to try in school and like that's okay."

This idea of trying hard academically was brought up over five times by different participants.

Those who were not born in the United States experienced different academic pressures because

35 they were believe by their teachers that they had limited language proficiency, although this was not the case for them personally. Therefore, while not called out specifically by its term, the idea of the model minority myth still bears significance in the ways in which people conceptualized achievement, much like Shivali’s example of feeling “less Indian” when she felt as if she was struggling academically.

Drawing on Du Bois’ (1903) frame of double consciousness, most of the young women stated that they did live in this world of twoness when managing their multicultural identities across multiple friend groups. One future exploration of this work would be to understand to what extent this management of multiple identities positively or negatively affects educational pursuits during college. Employing Goffman’s dramaturgical frame allowed me to analyze the importance that participants played on how others viewed their educational attainment. While it was important for them to obtain certain educational degrees, it also hinged on the notion that it provided them credibility with the outside world. Then notions of cultural capital (Bourdieu

1984) and concerted cultivation (Lareau 2011) go hand in hand when discussing aspects of how parental involvement played a role in their educational outlooks.

For first-generation immigrants, providing their children with cultural capital like access to suburbs with good schools, but also cultural and religious education, was one way in which they enabled their children to be culturally well rounded (Bordieu 1984). Interestingly, parents of the participants who were second-generation South Asian Americans were not taught much about their cultures since their immigrant parents were focused on assimilation and

Americanization (Portes and Rumbaut 2011). One of the participants, Shivali, cited this as being her family’s experience. She went on to explain that her mother, who immigrated from England, was raised with speaking their mother tongue and taught her children and spouse (Shivali’s

36 father) because her mother believed it was important that they all know about their culture. This passing on of cultural capital from an ethnic standpoint also proves the continued importance of

The unique perspectives of both 1.5 and third generations were captured in this study, which have yet to be done in South Asian American literature. Given the birth cohort of

Generation Z, understanding their unique perspectives as it relates to the importance of education for their futures is important given that they are on the verge of entering the job force and pursuing professional school currently or within the next 5 years. While it was not surprising that all of the participants cited the importance of education, the reasons as to why they thought education was important for them, personally, bears considerable weight. My assumptions going into the research were that participants would talk about how education would make them more attractive partners in terms of marriage, but the opposite proved to be true from my findings.

Participants who talked about independence expressed that their educational pursuits were for themselves and not needing to rely on anyone else in order to provide themselves with financial security.

Understanding how Generation Z South Asian American women make meaning of education in the United States fills an important gap in the literature that has yet to understand the makeup of this group as well as their constructs of identity negotiation. I have used education as way to discern how their identities informed these participants’ outlook on education and the ways in which they speak to their times in college about they made sense of the role of education to them personally. Interviewing college-aged young women afforded me the opportunity to understand their individual perspectives, hence why I believe it is important to see how their viewpoints either hold or change over the upcoming years. This study only looked at perspectives on education as outcome of identity, but it is important to understand other intersecting axes in the future like culture and gender.

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