BECOMINGNEW YOitKEitS

ETHNOGR.APHIESOF THE NEW SECOND GENEMTION

PHILIP KASINITZ, JOHN H. MOLLENKOPF, AND MAltY C. WATER.S, EDITOR_S

RuSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION, NEW YORK The Russell Sage Foundation

The Russell Sage Foundation, one of the oldest of America's general purpose foundations, was ' established in 1907 by Mrs. Margaret Olivia Sage for "the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States." The Foundation seeks to fulfill this mandate by fostering the development and dissemination of knowledge about the country's political, social, and eco- nomic problems. While the Foundation endeavors to assure the accuracy and objectivity of each book it publishes, the conclusions and interpretations in Russell Sage Foundation publi- cations are those of the authors and not of the Foundation, irs Trustees, or its staff. Publica- J tion by Russell Sage, therefore, does not imply Foundation endorsement.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES For Basya Xiaoshan Kasinitz, Robert E. Denham, Chair Katie Xiaorong Bayly, Harry Quang Bayly, Alan S. Blinder Jennifer L. Hochschild Cora B. Marrett Christine K. Cassel Timothy A. Hultquist Eugene Smolensky Maggie Chun Ning Bayly, Thomas D. Cook Kathleen Hall Jamieson Eric Wanner and Mira Chun Kasinitz John A. Ferejohn Melvin Konner Mary C. Waters Larry V. Hedges -all "1.5 generation," albeit of an unusual sort- and Emily Gerson Mollenkopf Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data -4th generation (more or less)- Becoming New Yorkers : ethnographies of the new second generation I edited by and the very different America they will inherit. Philip Kasinitz, John H. Mollenkopf, and Mary C. Waters. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87154-436-9 I. New York (N.Y.)-Ethnic relations. 2. New York (N.Y.)-Race relations. 3. Ethnicity-New York (State)-New York. 4. Minorities- New York (State)-New York-Social conditions. 5. Children of immigrants-New York (State)-New York-Social conditions. 6. lntergenerational relations-New York (State)-New York. I. Kasinitz, Philip, 1957- II. Mollenkopf, John H., 1946- III. Waters, Mary C.

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5. For a full description of the Russian Jewish sample, see Kasinitz, Zeltzer-Zubida, and Zoya Simakhodskaya (2001). 6. The proximate host is the group to which the receiving society assigns immi- CHAPTER 13 grants-the waiting category in the minds of the individuals in the receiving society.

REFERENCES COSMOPOLITAN ETHNICITY: SECOND-GENERATION Alba, Richard. 1985. "The Twilight ofEthnicity Among Americans of European An- INDO-CARJBBEAN IDENTITIES cestry: The Case ofltalians." Ethnic and Racial Studies 8: 134-58. ---. 1990. Ethnic Identity: The Transformation ofWhite America. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. NATASHA WARIKOO Brodkin, Karen. 1998. How the jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Gans, Herbert. 1979. "Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cul- tures in America." Ethnic and Racial Studies 2(1): 1-20. Gold, Steven J. 199 5. From the WOrkers'State to the Golden State: jews ftom the Former Soviet Union in California. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. the applicant is a white person within the meaning this section he is en- Hurtado, Aida, Patricia Gurin, and Timothy Peng. 1994. "Social Identities: A Frame- If of titled to naturalization; otherwise not. ... A high caste Hindu, offull In- work for Studying the Adaptations oflmmigrants and Ethnics: The Adaptation of dian blood, born at Amritsar, Punjab, India, is not a "white person. " Mexicans in the United States." Problems 41: 129-51. Social -U.S. Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 1923 Kasinitz Philip, Aviva Zeltzer-Zubida, and Zoya Simakhodskaya. 2001. "The Next Generation: Russian Jewish Young Adults in Contemporary New York." Working paper 178. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Keefe, Susan Emley 1992. "Ethnic Identity: The Domain of Perceptions of and At- tachment to Ethnic Groups and Cultures." Human Organization 51: 35-43. Mittelberg, David, and Mary Waters. 1992. "The Process of Ethnogenesis Among Haitian and Israeli Immigrants in the United States." Ethnic and Racial Studies URING the 1920s, Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian immigrant to the 15(3): 412-35. D United States, attempted to become a naturalized citizen under a law Nagel, Joane. 1994. "Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Iden- that gave the right of naturalization to "white" residents. The U.S. Supreme tity." SocialProblems4l(l): 152-76. Court eventually denied Thind's right to citizenship, based on his nonwhite Ogbu, John U. 1990. "Cultural Model, Identity, and Literacy." In Cultural Psychol- status, in spite of arguments that scientific racial classification systems at the ogy: Essays on Comparative Human Development, edited by James W. Stingier, time placed northern Indians in the category of "Caucasian." Richard A. Shweder, and Gilbert Herdt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Since the time ofBhagat Singh Thind, race has had a strong impact on the Orleck, Annelise. 1987. "The Soviet Jews: Life in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn." In experiences of immigrants, although today's immigrants have less interest in New Immigrants in New York, edited by Nancy Foner. New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press. pushing for identification as "white" in all spheres of their lives. Arturo Var- ---. 1999. The Soviet jewish Americans. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. gas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Sales, Teresa. 1999. "Constructing an Ethnic Identity: Brazilian Immigrants in Appointed Officials, suggests that, "to the extent that being white means be- Boston, Mass." Migration WOrldMagazine 27: 15-21. ing American, we [Latinos] are white. But at the same time, we don't have to Waters, Mary C. 1990. Ethnic Options: ChoosingIdentities in America. Berkeley: Uni- deny being Latino as much as before because we've had a significant civil versity of California Press. rights movement, and politically we're still one block" (quoted in Moore and Fields 2002). In this chapter, I explore the relationship between race and eth- nic identity through the experiences of second-generation Indo-Caribbean 362 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity 363

teenagers. I ask: What happens to the identities of second-generation youth often influences ethnicity as well. Indo-Caribbeans are racially South Asian who do not fit into American white or black categories, who are not easily yet ethnically West Indian, and this complexity was evident in how they dis.. identified racially, and who live in neighborhoods in which no ethno-racial cussed their identities.3 group dominates? Cornell and Hartmann (1998, 82) also look at the thickness versus tbi.ft;., I used second-generation Indo-Caribbean teenagers as a case study in an ness of identities, or "the degree to which an ethnic or racial identity organif4 attempt to answer this question. lndb-Caribbeans hail mostly from Guyana the social life of the group." This notion of the depth of ethnic or racial idea:. and Trinidad. Their ancestors came t~the West Indies during the nineteenth tity is relevant to my research as well, although I used thickness to mean the and early twentieth centuries as indentured servants from India to work on thick presence and expectation of ethnic identity assertion in general ratheJ' sugar plantations. Through in-depth interviews with thirty-one teenagers in than the thickness of particular identities. I found that thick identity does~ the New York City metropolitan area and a school ethnography in Queens, I necessarily parallel racial assignment. That is, my respondents had thick ideu!' explored the identities of second-generation Indo-Caribbean teenagers, who tides that were more asserted and multivalent than assigned and unitary. are South Asian by race, West Indian by ethnicity, American by nationality, and Hindu, Christian, and Muslim by religious background. The interviews THEORIES OF IDENTITY discussed self-definitions of identity; tastes in music, dress, and Hindi movies; and social networks. I found that Indo-Caribbean youth had multivalent, In Ethnic Options, Mary Waters finds that white suburban Catholics who are "thick," and fluid identities that could not be categorized simply. This cosmo- second-generation or higher have "symbolic ethnicity": ethnic identity that is politan ethnicity, as I call it, was thick, like black racial identity in the United chosen and can be turned off or on according to convenience or cultural States, because it influenced all aspects of life.' Thickness, or salience, in this trends or for any other reasons (Waters 1990; Gans 1979).4 This group fits context describes the presence and expectation of ethno-racial identity rather the traditional straight-line assimilation model, meaning that by the third than the weight of particular identities.2 generation the community has become part of mainstream white America in Simultaneously, cosmopolitan ethnicity is chosen and multifaceted, like its social networks, culture, and economic status. The white suburban Cath- the symbolic ethnicity of white ethnic communities (Gans 1979; Waters olics ofWaters's study choose to display their ethnicities only sometimes, such 1990; Alba 1990). Its cosmopolitanness stems from the influence and pres- as during ethnic holidays. Because no racial differences with dominant Amer- ence of cultural forms and individuals from a diversity of ethnic and racial ican society mark white Catholics, they are able to choose when to take on an groups. Four main factors led to cosmopolitan ethnicity: cultural back- ethnic identity-for example, displaying Irish identity on St. Patrick's Day- grounds in multi-ethnic societies; the multi-ethnic environments in which and when to simply be ''American" with no hyphen. Thus, for Americans Indo-Caribbean youth lived and attended school; an absence of economic whose ascriptive identities do not mark them as marginalized, ethnicity is op- competition to solidify ethnic boundaries; and a race that was neither black tional (Waters 1990; Appiah 1996). What happens, then, to ethnic commu.- nor white. Finally, gender strongly influenced the ethnicity choices made by nities that are not white? the Indo-Caribbean youth I interviewed. In Black Identities, Waters (1999) describes the identities ofblack West In- dian New Yorkers. She finds three modes of identity for the chil~renof black West Indian immigrants: African American identity, largely associated with CONCEPTUALIZING RACE AND ETHNICITY living in poor or working-class African American neighborhoods and with Stephen Cornell and Douglas Hartmann (1998) recognize that race and eth- oppositional identity; ethnic identity, largely associated with living in mosdy nicity are socially constructed categories, and they distinguish race and eth- white suburbs and involving a distancing from African Americans by empha- nicity in three main ways: ethnicity is based on claims of shared history, sym- sizing ethnic identity; and immigrant identity, largely associated with recendy bols, and descent, whereas race is based on perceived physical differences; arrived immigrants. Waters argues that the racial hierarchy of the United ethnicity is usually self-asserted, whereas race is usually assigned by others; States quickly subsumes the ways in which immigrant and second-generation and race more commonly reflects unequal power relations. In this study, I fo- black youth identify and that the master status of black racial identity quickly cused on ethnicity by exploring teenagers' self-described identities as well as affects their self-conceptions. Although race defines a strong identity for their social and cultural habits. I recognize, however, that racial assignment second-generation black West Indians, within black identity the youth still 364 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity ••••

make choices about how they construct a black identity, shaped largely by the *'A1.· environment in which they live. THE CASE OF INDO-CARJBBEANS Although Chinese, Mexican, and Indian immigrants have come to the I chose to use second-generation Indo-Caribbean youth in New York GltJ*; United States since the nineteenth century, discussions of race in America a case study to understand how nonblack and nonwhite immigrants'~·· have traditionally focused on the black-white racial divide of the urban stand themselves as Americans in a multi-ethnic environment. Because ~.,., Northeast. On the one hand, if we think that racism affects blacks more sig- able second-generation South Asian community exists in New York ~~ nificantly than other groups, especially with respect to interpersonal discrim- could observe whether Indo-Caribbean youth identify with other S:Mif6 ination and residential segregation (Massey and Denton 1993), then we Asians, with Asian Americans more broadly, with black West Indians ~ might expect nonblack minorities to be less affected by their nonwhite status association African Americans, or with all or none of the above. We mighN1S and in general to show less desire to create an explicit, strong identification pect, given South Asians' status in the United States (Indians have the hi8br with one group, as is the case with the white ethnics in Waters's Ethnic Op- est median income, and the model minority stereotype is often applied,.,. tions (1990). On the other hand, individuals who are neither black nor white South Asians)/ that the second generation would have an incentive to mMt often elicit assumptions of foreignness, even if they are second-generation or into the South Asian community, which is very similar to Indo-Caribbean tc;o. higher (Tuan 1998). This may prevent them from moving into a mainstream ciety in the West Indies but also very different. Also, if ascriptive race conthl- ''American" culture-whether black or white-and hence they may cling to ues to dominate American society, we would expect Indo-Carib beans to iden- what Waters (1999) calls an immigrant identity, even in the second genera- tify most with the South Asian diaspora. On the other hand, if ethnicity tion and beyond. The effect of a multi-ethnic environment, however, might predominates, Indo-Caribbeans might identify more strongly with West 1n:. be quite different. dians as a whole. I look at self-identifications as well as at how identity man., ifests itself in consumption and taste preferences and in social networks. MULTI-ETHNICITY INDO-CARJBBEAN HISTORY What happens in the multi-ethnic environment? This question is motivated by the increasing preponderance of multi-ethnic neighborhoods in certain ur- Indians have a long and complicated history in the West Indies. The relli- ban areas, such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami (Alba et al. 1995; tionships of Caribbean Indians with India have at times and in certain aspects Frey and Farley 1996).5 Richard Alba and his colleagues (1995) found that be- been strong, and at other times quite tenuous. After slavery was abolished in tween 1970 and 1990 the New York City metropolitan area experienced a 1833 in the West Indies, companies began importing indentured laborers sharp increase in multi-ethnic census tracts and a decline in all-white tracts. In from India (as well as from other countries) to meet the labor needs of plan- fact, the most frequent racial combination found by these authors was mixed tations formerly run by slave labor, mostly in Guyana and Trinidad. The last neighborhoods of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Sixty percent of resi- boat of indentured servants from India arrived in the Caribbean in 1917 dents in the New York metropolitan area lived in one of these neighborhoods (Vertovec 1992). By 1924 300,000 Indians had arrived in Guyana and or in one that was white-Hispanic-Asian. 6 Consequently, public schools in ur- Trinidad, roughly 80 percent of whom stayed in the Caribbean (Williams ban America, especially in immigrant-receiving cities such as New York and 1970; Vertovec 1992). Another 100,000 settled on other Caribbean islands Los Angeles, serve an increasingly diverse student body. Gary Orfield and John (Birbalsingh 1993). Black-Indian strife sometimes erupted, a result of colo- Yun (1999) report an increase in the number of schools with three or more nial attempts to divide and conquer people along racial and religious lines racial groups and an increase in the diversity of the schools that students of (Prashad 2001). Planters often used Indian workers to undercut the deman4Js color attend. Multi-ethnicity creates a situation in which no one ''American" or of black workers, and in Trinidad planters and colonial rulers organized the "ethnic" way of being predominates over others. Many of the chapters in this economy so that blacks lived largely in urban areas and Indians in rural areas volume vividly describe multi-ethnic environments in New York City (see (Kale 1995; Prashad 2001). Culturally, Indo-Caribbeans blended their di;. Karen Chai Kim, Foerster, Malkin, Marwell, and Trillo). An interest in under- verse Indian cultures and eliminated the solid caste system of their Indian standing the effects of the multi-ethnic environment on teenagers' construc- heritage (Vertovec 1992). tions of ethnic and racial identity motivates this study. Some points of interracial and interreligious solidarity existed between for- 366 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity 367

mer slaves and indentured servants. For example, Hindu, Muslim, and Mro- teen. The two exceptions were thirteen and twenty. Finally, I visited many co~ Trinidadian working people all participated in Trinidad's hosay festival, which munity organizations, including a campaign office, religious institutions, and originated in a Muslim festival commemorating the death of Hussain, the youth groups. The interviews focused on teenagers' constructions of their iden.. grandson of Mohammed (Prashad 2001). By the late nineteenth century, tities, both through how they understood themselves and through their beha.. however, colonial rulers had cracked down on the hosay festival and begun a iors. I used two main aspects of behavior to illuminate the accul~ policy of "cultural development" by inviting orthodox Hindu and Muslim process: taste or cultural preferences and social networks. leaders from abroad to Trinidad in attempts to break solidarity between In- ,:l," dian Muslim, Hindu, and (largely Christian) black Trinidadians. Further-

more, as many Caribbean Indians bought land from emancipated slaves, they RESEARCH CONTEXT .•

gradually became a land-owning class and hence attracted resentment from ~'refrom Guyana, my neighbors are from-some are from Africa, some are Mro-Caribbeans, especially in Guyana. Thus, a somewhat contentious his- from Puerto Rico, I believe someone'sfrom China, down the street, so when tory between Mro- and Indo-Carib beans began many years ago and was fuel- we all come together we talk about our cultures and our differences. If we ed in part by colonial desires to divide the people of Guyana and Trinidad. have a religiousfonction, a jundi [the Indo-Caribbean term for a Hindu re- ligious service], we invite all the neighbors over because they're very interested This history led to the current makeups of Guyana and Trinidad, where 51 in seeing what we do and the beliefi that we have. And ifthey have a JUnc- percent and 40 percent of the populations, respectively, are oflndian descent. tion, we'll go over there [to] see their cultural background. Political strife in Guyana and the 1983 economic recession in Trinidad led large numbers of West Indians, including those of Indian descent, to migrate I call the neighborhood in which Harrison High School is located Ethnic;.. to the United States, three-fourths of whom settled in New York City (Foner town. As discussed earlier, new trends in immigrant residential patterns, es-- 2000; Vertovec 1992). Today, Richmond Hill, Queens, has become a com- pecially in port cities such as New York, have led to a rise in multi-ethnic etl:- mon destination for Indo-Caribbean families. Accurate statistical informa- vironments. Ethnictown was once a largely Italian and Irish middle-claSs tion on this community remains elusive, owing to the lack of an obvious cat- neighborhood. Recently, middle-class Indo-Caribbeans, first from Guyana egory on census race and ancestry questions. 8 One indicator of the scale of and now increasingly also from Trinidad, are moving into Ethnictown, many Indo-Caribbean migration to the United States is the fact that about 240,000 from a neighboring and more predominantly Indo-Caribbean neighbot· Guyanese and Trinidadian immigrants live in New York State, according to hood.10 The neighborhood's census tract indicates a mixed community: 15 the 2000 census. Overall, however, slightly more than 10 percent of them percent of the residents are non-Hispanic white, 10 percent are black, 19 per- mark "Asian Indian" as their racial identity. If the second generation is the size cent are Asian Indian, and 25 percent are Hispanic (U.S. Department of of the first generation (as is the case for the United States as a whole), then at Commerce 2000)Y My anecdotal experience suggests that the vast majority least 50,000 Indo-Caribbeans live in New York State (U.S. Department of of the Asian Indians by race in the neighborhood are ethnically West Indian.11 Commerce 2000). The other Asian Indians are more recent immigrants from South Asia, most of them Punjabi Sikhs. The area is middle-class, with row houses along the resi- METHODOLOGY dential streets, many with American flags alongside flags from Puerto Rico, Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, and many other countries, as well as West Indian In addition to a month-long ethnography at Harrison High School in Queens, Hindu prayer flags. Along one of the main avenues of the neighborhood lie I conducted thirty-one in-depth interviews.9 I met approximately half of my re- shops that cater to the Indo-Caribbean community, selling West Indian meat spondents through contacts with community leaders and a subsequent snow- pies, curries, rotis, saris, and all sorts of music (especially Hindi film songs, soca, ball sample. The other half were students recruited at the high school of my chutney soca, reggae, Hindi remixed music, and Punjabi bhangra).13 ethnographic research. Nineteen respondents were second-generation, four Harrison High School is also diverse. According to the New York City Board were 1.5-generation (immigrants who came to the United States before age of Education's statistics, in 2001 Harrison High's student body was 12 percent twelve), and eight were more recently arrived immigrants. I interviewed fifteen non-Hispanic white, 31 percent non-Hispanic black, 31 percent Hispanic, and young men and sixteen young women. All lived in Manhattan, Queens, Brook- 26 percent Asian and other, largely mirroring the surrounding neighborhood. lyn, or Jersey City. All but two respondents ranged in age from fifteen to nine- The school has a reputation for being safe and secure, and indeed some students 368 Becoming New Yorkers CosmopolitanEthnicity 369 explained that safety was the reason they had moved to the school after feeling swer. If it was "Where are you from?" I would say, "Here." Or "Where unsafe in other Queens and Brooklyn high schools. The school was vastly over- are your parents from?" I would say, "Guyana." "What are you?" I would crowded; at dose to four thousand students, the school operated at 170 percent say, "Indian," obviously, because I have a Hindu background. of its capacity. The school principal identified this as the school's number-one problem, and one that pervaded every aspect of student life, from classroom This young man, as well as others with similar responses, expressed little tO no overcrowding to no lunch breaks to difficult extracurricular scheduling. There confusion, consternation, or conflict with the multiple aspects of his identity; had been a sharp increase in the number of poor children attending Harrison Responses also changed depending on who was asking the question. Chrflt High School. In 1998 only 11 percent of the student body was eligible for fed- age sixteen, had a Guyanese mother and a mixed white father: 1/ erally subsidized free lunch at school. By 2000 that percentage had grown to 34 percent, including 58 percent the entering ninth- and tenth-grade students. of When I'm hanging out with the Indian kids, I say I'm white, but when Thus, the school was in a state of transition, trying to deal with overcrowding I'm hanging out with the white kids, I say I'm Indian .... If anybody 1Jt and to manage a student body that hailed from fifty-seven different countries. makes fun of white people, I be like, "Hey, I'm Indian, look at me, I'm Indian!" Or if they start making fun of Indian people, I say, ''I'm white! Don't you see my father?" ... I can choose, I can kind of choose. FiNDINGS

In the following sections, teens insightfully describe the multiple aspects of In addition to different responses for different questions and different si"" their identities. uations, teens recognized that their self-definitions also changed over time. Rich, a nineteen-year-old recent immigrant from Trinidad, put it succinctly: IDENTITY "When I was in Trinidad I was considered ... Indian. Now it's, like ... peo-- ple come up to me asking if I'm from the Middle East, from India ... so it's, Ifyou're GuyaneseIndian, you're not really Indian . ... I never reallyfelt like like, your identity changes. Your identity is affected by other people ... peo- I fit in with groups ofjust Indian kids . But at the same time, you're not ... ple's views on your identity." exactly Caribbean, just becauseyou have that Indian background, so it's a very unique kind of other thing. Rich no longer thought of himself as Indian, in part because others associ· ated Indians and Middle Eastern immigrants with negative behaviors. That is, When asked about their identities, second-generation Indo-Caribbean youth his ascriptive identity changed when his environment changed. Surveys that ask gave quite diverse answers. 14 Individuals reported giving different answers de- dosed-ended questions about ethnic identity miss this dynamic aspect of eth.;. pending on the specific question asked, who was asking, and where they were nic identity. Many studies do acknowledge the changing nature of ethnic iden· in New York City when asked (see also Butterfield, this volume). It is inter- tity over time (see Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Waters 1999), but not across con· esting to note, however, that none said simply, '~erican."Race and ethnic- texts within the same individual (for an exception, see Harris and Sim 2002). ity dearly play important roles in the lives of these youth. The multi-ethnic Although most teens seemed comfortable in their multiple, contextual environment seemed to create a situation in which individuals were expected identities, many did describe frustration with others' attempts to categorize to have some kind of ethnicity, although the lack of a dominant ethno-racial them. For example, when I met Roma, she wore a summer dress, an Indian group allowed for less rigidity in the color line. bindi on her forehead, and had long, painted nails with designs on them, a Because of the contextual nature of identity, questions about religion, na- style made popular in New York City by African American women. A recent tionality, culture, race, and so on elicited quite different responses from these high school graduate, she exuded self-confidence and a strong sense of iden· young people. One second-generation Guyanese young man, age eighteen, tity; she also had strong feelings about others' attempts to categorize her: said explicitly:

Just to make things easier for people, I'll be like, "Yeah, I'm West In- I say I am American as far as my nationaliry would go. But if anyone dian." They'll be like, "What island are you from?" I'm like, ''I'm not asks, "I am Indian," or, "My parents are from Guyana." I consider my- from an island, I'm from part of South America." They're like, "Oh, selfWest Indian .... Different contact, different question, different an- you're Hispanic," and I'm like, "No, I'm not Hispanic, I'm Indian," and 370 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity 311

they're like, "Oh, you're from India," and I'm like, "No, I'm not from In- with an ascriptive racial identity (although clearly many do try!). When • dia. I'm Indian, but I'm from South America!" ers try to box them in racially, many youth resist those racial assignments. Thus, Indo-Caribbean identity cannot be easily understood as a discrete Roma's frustration stemmed from others' inability to allow for a flexible, ethnic or racial category with solid boundaries. Second-generation ~ multivalent identity, not her own confusion. In fact, she later said, "I consider comfortably move in and out of multiple aspects of their identitiesj .tt., myself to be more Indian than West Indian. Because West Indians are more adopt different aspects of their identities in different contexts, and they fdlitt like Trinidad, Jamaica, you know? The islands, that's West Indian. We're not others' ascriptive definitions. This was true of both the young men and the 16 West Indian." Although Roma was American by birth and citizenship, people young women I interviewed. : \1ii frequently asked about her background, and she was often mistaken for A look at taste and consumption practices may help us develop a deepei Latina. Like Asians and Hispanics, who are seen as neither black nor white, understanding of the ways in which Indo-Caribbean youth overtly expM!i Roma fell into a category of perceived foreigner, even though she was born in their identities. the United States.

Denise, a tenth-grade student, reported having to explain the difference :f'< between East and West Indians. 15 When asked how she responds to questions CONSUMPTION AND TASTE:MUSIC, DRESS, AND MOVIES about her background, she said: Sociologists have discussed the use of consumption as a means of social dif• ferentiation or a marker of social status (Veblen 1912; Bourdieu 1984). Con- I say "Indian," and then I say "West Indian." Some of them don't even sumption may be multimotivational rather than based simply on a desire f6t know. As soon as they hear "Indian," they think from the Middle East social distinction, conspicuous consumption, or rational choice (Friedman and Pakistan and· India, things like that. So I tell them "West Indian." 1994). A person's consumption patterns can help us understand his habitus Then they know from the Caribbean, Trinidad .... Some of them don't and ethnic identity (Lipsitz 1994). The choices that youth make are not nec- know the difference between Indians, East and West. essary outcomes of their ethnic backgrounds, nor do all individuals of the same background make the same cultural choices (Appiah 1996). Howevef; Denise patiently taught others about the different "kinds" oflndians. Sim- taste and cultural patterns provide another lens through which to understa.rld ilarly, one thirteen-year-old respondent who lived in Jersey City, which has a the construction of ethnic identity and cultural forces. Indeed, respondents much smaller West Indian population than Ethnictown's, had a teacher say to linked their cultural interests to their identities. For example: "The type of her, '"No, you're not [Indian].' I was like, 'Yes, I am! How are you going to music that I listen to has something to do with my identity, like especially the tell me that I'm not Indian?' And he goes, 'Urn, well, Guyana is in South Indian music, you know. That's who I am, and that music helps me relate to America, and India is, you know, in Asia.' I was like, dude, he's just closed- who I am .... And then my American music helps me realize that I'm also an minded, he doesn't really know anything." It seems that she had to teach her American.'' teacher about West Indian history for him to accept her asserted identity. The The cultural taste and consumption patterns of second-generation Indo- older sister of this young woman once was forced to call herself "Hispanic" on Caribbean youth demonstrated a facility and comfort with myriad cultural a school form by a teacher when the teacher heard that Guyana is located in forms. Music most commonly provided a forum in which youth could dab- South America. Respondents stubbornly maintained their asserted bound- ble in multiple styles and even create new forms by mixing different genres. aries of identity, even when frustrated by others' assignments to different This fluidity reflected the multi-ethnic environment in which respondents identities. lived, as well as the multi-ethnic societies in the West Indies from which their Race, then, did not play the same role for these youth that it does for many parents came. In terms of ethnic Indian clothing and Hindi movies, girls ex- black youth, whose ascriptive racial identity pervades most aspects of life pressed much stronger interests than boys, possibly reflecting the fact that in through strong assumptions and prejudices about black youth in the larger American culture South Asian female cultural styles-such as henna tattoos, society. In contrast, finding a box in which they can place Indo-Caribbean bindis, and sari fabrics-have become popular in mainstream culture. In con- youth is often confusing to others. Indo-Caribbeans cannot easily be pegged trast, South Asian males are stereotyped as cab drivers and newspaper sellers 372 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity 373

and have become common targets of racial profiling since the World Trade while carrying an American flag. Stacey's family environment was one that Center attacks. made it possible to blend American patriotism with popular Indian culture. For these Indo-Caribbean youth, music generally seemed to take on the ex- Music The nature of music provides for the most flexibility in terms of taste pression of a diasporic sense of self, which in some ways was part of being a and consumption. Music production is cheaper than movies, perhaps provid- New Yorker, especially in multi-ethnic Queens. ing more room for hybridity and new, unconventional styles. Diverse radio stations in New York City provide a forum in which to hear many different Movies and Clothing When I began my research in Queens, I quickly styles of music easily. Mrican American, second-generation, and immigrant found out that DVDs have led to an increased interest in Hindi movies in the New Yorkers exchange music, language, and dance styles to both participate Indo-Caribbean community. More careful probing, however, suggested a in diverse musical scenes and create new hybrid forms (Kasinitz, Mollenkopf, gendered pattern of interest in things Indian with respect to clothing and and Waters 2002). Most of my respondents had quite diverse musical tastes. movies. Teenagers' taste for ethnic Indian clothing paralleled their interest in One respondent "listen[ed] to hip-hop and Indian music, and a little bit of popular Indian movies-girls more commonly and more enthusiastically re- soca and reggae. And maybe Spanish, maybe salsa." Another respondent ported an interest in and preference for Hindi films as well as ethnic Indian mixed Indian and West Indian music (soca) while changing it slightly, creat- clothing than did their male peers. Perhaps this difference is due to the film ing something altogether new: "Me and my brother, we have a CD mixer, so content, since most Indian movies are epic love stories, with lots of drama and we put beats into the Indian music to make it fun and stuff. ... Indian mu- songs interspersed. 19 Regardless of the origin of this gender difference, it in- sic with beats at the back. ... You can add a little soca, soca beats." fluenced cultural identity. Girls generally described their interest in Hindi With this hybrid music, neither racial nor ethnic identity dominated, yet movies as stemming in part from a desire to learn about their "culture." For both had a strong influence on teens' musical interests. Generally, respon- example, one girl, when asked to explain her interest in Hindi movies, said: dents listened to all kinds of East Indian and West Indian genres of music. They thus created a boundary-albeit quite fuzzy-around diasporic South I guess lately I've grown more into the culture, I don't know why.... I've Asian and West Indian musical styles through their musical interests.'7 The come to appreciate it more now than when I was younger.... [In the Day Jam that I attended exemplified this boundary. An Indo-Caribbean past my parents] would listen and watch their movies and we'd be laugh- dance club in Queens organized alcohol- and smoke-free parties for high ing at them. And then a few years later I'm the one who's watching the school students on weekdays when there was no school. On the day I at- movies, I'm the one who wants to dress up, I'm the one who wants to go tended a Day Jam, the vast majority of music that I heard was soca, calypso, out and get Indian COs. Hindi film songs, bhangra, and reggae. I also heard some hip-hop tracks, however, and the typical shoulder moves of Punjabi bhangra dancing melded Another explained that "Even though these stories are made up, a lot of into the hip-hop moves that are not so different. East Indian and West Indian them have a lot of cultural value. As in Pardes, it showed like how women music styles loomed large in the everyday lives of these youth, yet no single were brought up, how women were, you know ... how they were supposed type of music defined their musical tastes; what defined their tastes, in a to be respected, in certain areas that a lot of women nowadays don't grow up. sense, was diversity, fluidity, remixing, and a lot of choosing. 18 ... [They] brought a lot oflight into my culture." Even the daughter of the Parents influence the diverse musical interests of youth. Indo-Caribbean founder of a Hindu church reported learning about Hinduism and Indian immigrants come from societies where calypso, soca, Hindi film songs, and culture through Hindi movies. 20 Teenage girls' equation of culture and Bolly- chutney soca (Hindi lyrics over soca beats) are all popular. Stacey, a seventeen- wood (as the Hindi film industry is known, named for its center in Bombay) year-old living in Manhattan, heard many types of music at family parties: looks to an Indian culture based in India rather than in the Caribbean for "au- "Indian music or reggae ... Spanish music too." The family get-togethers thentic" Indian-ness. Stacey attended were on her Guyanese mother's side. Her white father lis- Hindi movies suggest normative guidelines for behavior for young tened to techno, another favorite of hers. After September 11, Stacey orga- women, who are expected in many ethnic communities to maintain culture nized a dance performance in which she and her friends dressed up in red, for their future families (Kurien 1999; Khan 1995; Suarez-Orozco and white, and blue langas (an ethnic Indian outfit) and danced to Indian music Suarez-Orozco 2001; Maira 2002). Indo-Caribbean youth had picked up on 374 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity 37~

gendered ideas about culture and tradition, even if they resisted them. Tasha, them own convenience stores .... I have no problem with them person- ally, but a lot of people do I think people get a kick out of the way · .... ~:~ a fifteen-year-old Guyanese American, disliked watching Hindi films with .' Indians are, the way they speak .... [Do you ever face any kind of racism her parents because her parents used the films as lessons in behavior: or discrimination?] Sometimes, but that's because they think I'm either, they think I'm Indian ... and they discriminate against Indians ... I'm <\!;; [One movie] was about family ties, and how the girl was really close to different. I dress differenrly. I pretty much give it away that I'm not In- her parents, and then she made her parents ashamed and then tried to dian ... but what I don't like is if they call you Indian, then they mock .: climb back up to that ladder to be with her parents. So, I watched that Indian. with my parents, and my parents were like, "So you see how close fami- lies are? You see how this is?" I'm like, "Yes, Mom, yes, Dad." When asked about his background, Henry identified as Trinidadian, and sometimes West Indian, but never Indian. Indian identity seemed quite prot;.. Boys reinforced traditional notions of Indian womanhood found in Bally- lematic for him, and he seemed to notice a larger cultural association of In- wood movies. For example, when asked to explain her statement that boys dian male identity with low-status work like driving a taxi or running a COAle like "more traditional" girls as girlfriends, Katherine told me: "Guys are sup- venience store. He made it a point, then, to set his boundary to exclude posed to have this macho attitude ... and being traditional is more sensitive. "Indians," in part through his style of dress. Generally, male respondeaa ... They expect us to be traditional in our culture ... and guys are supposed tended to adopt more urban black cultural styles than their female coun~ to be hard." parts. In her research with South Asian American young adults in New Vorl. In terms of ethnic clothing, only Hindu respondents reported having In- City, Maira (2002, 58-59) also found that, "for many second-generatio~ dian clothes, which were worn to church, weddings, and other religious oc- men, hip-hop style connotes a certain image of racialized hypermasculi.U., casions. Among Hindus, girls much more commonly had Indian clothes. that is the ultimate definition of cool. ... A male body that exudes toughness Moreover, many young women reported gaining their sense of style in Indian might well counter ... stereotypes of Indian Americans." This distancing it clothes from Hindi movies. Bollywood clearly influenced these young perhaps exacerbated by the increasing incidence of racial targeting of South women's taste in Indian clothes. Asian-looking men since the World Trade Center attacks. Many young men Boys, on the other hand, often distanced themselves from Indian cultural reported some kind of racial harassment in direct response to September ll. forms outside of music. Asha compared herself to her thirteen-year-old Thus, Indo-Caribbean young women created a boundary around being younger brother: "When I go to functions, when my parents have prayers ... Indian with respect to clothing and movies, whereas Indo-Caribbean young is when I wear Indian clothes .... But my brother, forget it, as soon as the re- men disidentified with "Indian" in these cultural realms, recognizing the lack ligious function is over, he goes and changes as quickly as possible. He doesn't of "subcultural capital" associated with Indian male cultural identity in con.:. want to be ... seen in that." temporary America.22 Indo-Caribbean youth live in a cultural milieu in which Asha, a second-generation Trinidadian, later told me that if she and her it is fashionable and a source of subcultural capital to be a South Asian mother began to watch a Hindi movie at home, her father would join them woman, but to be a South Asian male is to be seen simultaneously as a ter- only on occasion, and her brother would leave the room right away. A few rorist and as a worker in a position of low power, such as convenience store boys did report having worn ethnic clothes as young boys, but not anymore: owner or taxi driver (La Perla 2002). This environment pushes females--of- "Teenaged guys usually wear khaki pants and a white shirt [to the mandir]. ten seen as keepers of culture and tradition in any community-to identify ... Young little kids will wear the kurta and stuff, but teenagers, they don't." strongly with things Indian, and males to have weaker identification with In- One eighteen-year-old young man I met, Henry, sported a large gold cross dian cultural forms and to prefer urban Mrican American cultural identity. around his neck, baggy jeans, and Timberland boots, a style made popular by Mrican American hip-hop artists.21 He spoke with an urban black cadence, explaining that: SOCIAL NETWORKS In addition to taste and consumption, social networks reflect a community's mode of adaptation to a new environment. Milton Gordon (1964) described It's hard for an Indian to say he's Indian .... Because a lot of people down being Indian, because a lot of Indians are cab drivers, you know, a lot of incorporation into the dominant society's social networks as structural assim- 376 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity

ilation, suggesting that this type of assimilation takes much longer than cul- were many ethni~social ~ircles at schoo~, they themselve~ hung o~tvrit&:tl tural assimilation. His further distinction between primary ties and secondary the groups and dtd not snck to one. Chns, who had a whtte Amencan ~ relationships is akin to Mark Granovetter's (1973) distinction between strong and a first-generation Guyanese mother, explained the situation: ' · and weak ties. In this model, integration with the host community in primary relationships indicates more structural assimilation, often associated with so- The Spanish kids hang out with the Spanish kids, the Indian kids hang cial mobility (Gordon 1964). Weak ties lead to more dispersed networks that, out with the Indian kids. Usually, they all stick together. Like, after for example, provide individuals with access to job prospects that they would school you see one corner, they'll have all Spanish kids, the next corner not be able to secure from strong ties (Granovetter 1973). Here I explore who will have black kids, you know, they don't really mix around too much. Indo-Caribbean youth define as their "in-group," and the degree to which ... AI; soon as the periods change you walk through the hallway you al- ready know "Oh, all the Spanish kids are gonna be over here, all the In-' their peer relationships are ethnically integrated. dian kids are gonna be over there, the black kids are gonna be over Social networks tell a story of identity different from the one told by taste there." Usually I'm by myself, but I have Spanish friends and black

and consumption. When describing their closest friends, respondents invari- friends also .... Like, on my way to class I go to each group, "What's go- : ~ ~ ably identified Indo-Caribbean peers. Also, seven of the ten teens in dating ing on," and stuff. relationships at the time of our interview were dating other Indo-Caribbean 23 youth. The others dated a diverse group of peers, although no one's partner I often spotted Chris wandering the halls between classes, indeed chatting had an East Indian or Afro-Caribbean parent. When asked whether it was im- with kids of diverse races, styles, and dispositions. This seeming contradictioa. portant to him or his family that he date or marry a particular type of person, makes sense if we think of ethnic cliques as loosely formed circles of friends one young man responded that, because his parents "want to keep their cul- whose boundaries are fluid and dynamic. Perhaps the multi-ethnic environ.. ture, and the trend oflndian and Guyanese going," he felt that he could date ment enabled youth to take pride in this diversity of relationships. or marry another "Indian Guyanese" only, not a black Guyanese or an Indian Some tension did exist between Indo-Caribbeans and East Indians wh.oae from India. Clearly, "Indian Guyanese" holds strong meaning in the family of families had recently arrived from India, Bangladesh, or Pakistan. One yourig this boy, regardless of his future partner. Most respondents, however, had man explained: "You got the real India, India-India people, then you have UJ quite ethnically diverse friends in their secondary relationships. For example, Guyanese and Trini or whatever. We separated like that.... We don't really when asked whether he had any South Asian friends whose families were mess with them, you know, we're not too fond of them." from the Subcontinent, one young man said: "I have pretty much friends East Indian students also kept Indo-Caribbeans at a distance. After seeing from every background. Puerto Rican, Dominican, Jamaican, Indian, Arabic, many girls dance to Hindi songs at the school talent show, I sat down to Chinese, Vietnamese, European, everything." lunch with some East Indian students. I asked them who the girls in the tal- Another young woman explained that she had one best friend, a fellow ent show were, and I was confidently told by Virender, a Punjabi Sikh who Indo-Guyanese girl, and many diverse friends with whom she socialized but grew up in Kuwait until age fourteen: "They're not Indian. They're West In- did not share her deepest thoughts: dian." "How do you know? Are you sure?" I asked. "Yeah, we're sure," replied Mona, Virender's Bangladeshi friend. Virender then explained: "The [East] I have a lot of friends .... But she [her best friend] is someone that I Indian girls are more ... well, shy." From the tone ofVirender's and Mona's trust, tell everything to .... The other friends I like to go shopping, I'll voices, I understood that they expected good, morally upstanding girls to be go have lunch with them, clubbing and stuff. ... [They're] West Indian, shy. Karen Leonard (2000) finds a similarly antagonistic relationship between mixed Spanish, and they're also black, and Indians from India. descendants of Punjabi immigrants to California from the early twentieth century and more recent immigrants from South Asia. Early Punjabis' identi- Thus, for second-generation Indo-Caribbean teenagers, the boundary for pri- ties as "Hindu" included Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims as well as the descen- mary relationships included only Indo-Caribbean peers, but secondary rela- dants of mixed Mexican-Punjabi couples. South Asian immigrants arriving in tionships came from all ethnic groups. California in the post-1965 wave, however, challenged the former group's At Harrison High School, many respondents reported that although there claims of Hindu identity, suggesting that the descendants of the early immi- 378 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity

was, • grants were not "authentically" Hindu. The two communities remain largely it's almost like home, because back in Trinidad the culture like, everything was diverse, cosmopolitan There's, like, the different separated. Similarly, the Indian identification I saw with Indo-Caribbean .... celebrations that they have, like Divali [a Hindu holiday], like Eid girls' consumption and all teens' music tastes did not carry over to Indo- [the Muslim holidays], they have the Mrican celebrations. Everyone, Caribbean teenagers' social networks, which generally did not include East even though you're Indian, you're black, you're Chinese, you take Indians. part in the celebration and everyone in the whole [town], they're celebrating. f ,\ DISCUSSION "'~ Another told me that her mother wore a sari and then a white w~ Unlike many Afro-Caribbean immigrants in New York City who take on ei- gown at her Hindu wedding. Having a background in the West lndiesJw:l ther a distinctly African American or distinctly West Indian identity (Waters given the parents of these teenagers a facility in navigating multiple e~ 1999), Indo-Caribbean youth in New York City did not take on a unique, traditions, and their children learned quickly from them and their unitary identity. However, Indo-Caribbean youth's identities as immigrants surroundings. and sometimes as East Indians were stronger than the symbolic ethnicity of Religious intermarriage among respondents' parents was quite common. white suburban ethnics (Waters 1990), in part because they were keenly and at least half of my respondents reported more than one faith in their fam- aware of their nonwhite status. Indo-Caribbean youth developed cosmopoli- ilies, most commonly through intermarriage (of ethnic Indians of di.fferent tan ethnicity: fluid, multidimensional, and thick identities. Perhaps a blend of faiths) but also through conversion. One family had three children and foUr Gordon's (1964) melting pot and cultural pluralism best describes ethnic faiths: the Trinidadian mother's background was Muslim, but the fathe!lilllf identity in this context. Indian music played over hip-hop and soca beats, a her children were Christian, Hindu, and Sikh; all were Indo-Trinidadian ex~ diversity of secondary friendships with intra-ethnic primary ties, Indian cept the Sikh man, who was an Indian immigrant. The Hindu child, Mecna, dances to the recent hip-hop hit ''Addictive" alongside spoken word and tra- reported: I" ditional rock at the high school talent show-these are just a few illustrations of this fluidity. These multiple identities manifested themselves in different I have so many different religions.... I go to Catholic school ... my fa- ways and in different contexts for Indo-Caribbean youth, who generally felt ther is Hindu, half my family is Muslim, I've been to Hindu temples, comfortable moving among myriad cultural influences and identities. I've been to Sikh gurdwaras, I've been to the Catholic church, I've been I see four factors that prompt this fluidity of identity: having a cultural to the mosque .... I fasted during Ramadan, I fasted during the Hindu background in West Indian multi-ethnic societies; living in a multi-ethnic holy month, I fasted the Christian month. I'm faced with so many dif- ferent religions and races. It's cool. ... I like it like that. New York environment with limited local exposure to South Asians from the Subcontinent; lacking economic incentives to identify with one single ethnic group; and being of a race that is neither black nor white and not easily cate- Surely such cultural mobility creates an environment in which children gorized by others. 24 Gendered stereotypes of South Asians in the larger U.S. develop skills to move easily between cultures and identities. Boundaries context led to different manifestations of this cosmopolitan ethnicity for appear to have been redrawn; in South Asia, both during the nineteenth Indo-Caribbean boys and girls. century (when most Indo-Caribbeans' ancestors arrived from India) all~ today, religious intermarriage has been uncommon and has brought great social stigma. In contrast, Indo-Caribbean families quite frequently and MULTI-ETHNIC CULTURAL BACKGROUNDS comfortably have interfaith marriages. Perhaps the boundary line of iden~ The families of my respondents came from Guyana and Trinidad, both of tity shifted from religious identity in India (to the exclusion of other reli- which have roughly equal numbers of ethnic Indians and blacks (in addition gions) to Indian identity in the West Indies (to the exclusion of blacks). to descendants oflaborers of other countries, including Portugal and China). The secondary migration to the United States appears to have led to a sec- Steven, an immigrant who was now in eleventh grade, told me that he liked ond boundary shift, such that race is no longer as essential as it is in the Ethnictown's diversity because West Indies. 380 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity .i.

MULTI-ETHNIC NEIGHBORHOOD AND SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT though it does not force these choices to be simple or static. An example.,_-.•. vides a good illustration of the thickness of ethnicity in the multi-ethnic ~· As described earlier, urban America's population is increasingly diverse. The ronment. One day at Harrison High School I met an Italian American ~· populations ofEthnictown and many neighborhoods like it in New York City woman hanging out with two Hispanic friends. She told me about het"~. are multi-ethnic, and no ethnic or racial group constitutes a majority. One panic boyfriend and then asked her friends for the latest Spanish songs ..... tenth-grade student who explained that she had gone to multi-ethnic schools were listening to through their headphones. The young woman's hairstyle- all her life described her neighborhood: similar to those of many Hispanic girls in the school, and she discussed.the• Spanish she was trying hard to learn with them and in Spanish class at school. Well, we're Trini [Trinidadian]. I have a neighbor that's Guyanese on one She embodied the need for ethnicity in the multi-ethnic environment. Bfti.. side and Spanish, Mexican on the other side. So it's pretty diverse. I have nicity for her, however, needed a group to identifY with, and since very finr Italians across the street. I have Indians around the corner. They're all ethnic Italians attended her school, she was adopting a Hispanic ethnicity. ,i mixed, like Mexican and Venezuelan and Portuguese all in one house- . j ''! hold, and Puerto Ricans and Dominicans and Guyanese Indians. Yeah, t.• they're all mixed. THE ABSENCE OF AN ETHNIC NICHE

Susan Olzak (1983, 355) describes ethnic mobilization as "the process by Thus, there is no obvious neighborhood group into which Indo-Caribbeans which groups organize around some feature of ethnic identity ... in purs\IU might be expected to assimilate. of collective ends." This mobilization often results when ethnic groups oc- Although in the United States there are 1.8 million ethnic Indians and cupy particular niches in a job market such that competition for jobs 1»- fewer than 100,000 lndo-Caribbeans, Harrison High School's neighborhood comes tied to ethnic identity (Bonacich 1972; Patterson 1975; Waldingc:r has many more lndo-Caribbeans than East Indians. This leads to a situation 1996). My research suggests that there is no ethnic job niche for Indo- in which some East Indian immigrants in the school are mistaken for West Carib beans. Of the respondents who gave their parents' occupations, no Indian, as reported by many East Indian immigrant students (much to their more than two reported any occupation aside from mothers who worked in. chagrin). Generally, a weak South Asian identity in the United States makes the health industry, mostly as nurses. Even so, fewer than one-third of re- for a less obvious American racial group with whom Indo-Caribbean youth spondents' mothers worked in health-related occupations. Unlike their Afro. can identifY. Caribbean counterparts, Indo-Caribbean immigrants have not occupied a The multi-ethnic environment has two important effects. First, it makes strong ethnic job niche, perhaps owing to their small numbers, in spite of for a more accepting environment in which residents and peers generally having an ethnic business enclave. With no clear economic incentive to mo- tolerate diversity; no one group is able to dominate the environment over bilize and consequently cling strongly to one identity, Indo-Caribbeans have others. One Hispanic young man I met at Harrison High School told me moved toward a cosmopolitan ethnicity. that he transferred to the school from a predominantly black school. Be- cause he was one of a small minority of Hispanic students at his former BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE school, he experienced frequent racial harassment and eventually requested a safety transfer to Harrison, where his average shot from 65 to 93. The I think we'rein the middle of white and black. We-reright in the middle. I young man attributed the safety at Harrison to no one group being in the don't know. I guess we're considered black, because there'sonly white and black in the world. majority, so that no group could dominate and pick on minorities. He was -junior, age 17 careful not to single out black students for blame at his old school, however, pointing out that, "when whites were in the majority, they did the same With an ascriptive racial identity that is neither white nor black, Indo- thing to black kids." Caribbean youth have neither the privileges that come with whiteness nor the Second, the multi-ethnic urban environment creates avenues for the ex- master status of blackness in American society. Moreover, others could not pression of ethnicity and a simultaneous expectation of it. That is, the envi- easily categorize the Indo-Caribbeans I interviewed-they were often mis- ronment encourages individuals to assert their chosen ethnic identities, al- taken for Arabs, Latinos, or East Indians. As Junior suggested, if there is only 382 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity ~~

black and white in the world, then he is black, or a person of color. But he be- dian. Maira (2002, 123) points out that invitations to South Asian Americd gan by placing himself between black and white. Indo-Caribbean youth did club parties in New York City often request "proper or elegant attire" for mea report instances of racial discrimination, especially in largely white areas, and and "ethnic attire" for women. More generally, women in diasporic commW. in response to the World Trade Center attacks. Yet race did not define every nities often are expected to maintain cultural identities within the home, aspect of their identities, as demonstrated by their contextual accounts of how while men focus on the work world or the public sphere (see Butterfield, this they identified. volume). Nancy Lopez (this volume) describes the ways in which the public: I argue that Indo-Caribbean youths' racial identity in contemporary school environment racializes second-generation Dominican men and women America lies between white ethnics, who have thin asserted identities, and quite differently as well. Mrican Americans, who have thick identities that are largely assigned. The presence of ethnicity in the lives of Indo-Carib beans is thicker than the sym- bolic ethnicity that Waters finds in second-generation white Catholics, in CONCLUSIONS part because they are assigned a nonwhite racial identity. In its nonwhite sta- In this chapter, I have described the formation of a new type of ethnic iden- tus, Indo-Caribbean identity is assigned. In this respect, Indo-Caribbeans tity, which I call cosmopolitan ethnicity. The second-generation Indo- share experiences in the United States with many Latinos, Arab Americans, Caribbean teenagers I met crafted their multidimensional identities through and East Indian Americans, whose racial identities are not obvious to most their self-identifications; their tastes in music, ethnic Indian clothing, and outsiders and who consequently do not experience the strong ascription Hindi films; and their social networks. I found that most teens expressed in- of black racial identity, yet who are also clearly assigned nonwhite racial iden- terest in multiple types of East Indian, West Indian, and American music. tity. However, one stable identity does not pervade every aspect of Indo- Their tastes in ethnic clothing and Hindi films were gendered-girls ex- Caribbean life, and indeed, a defining characteristic is the fluidity of the pressed more interest in things Indian. Finally, primary social networks re- boundaries of identity for this community with cosmopolitan ethnicity. mained in the Indo-Caribbean community, while secondary relationships were quite diverse. Four main influences lead to these cosmopolitan ethnici- GENDER_AND SOUTH ASIAN IDENTITY ties: family backgrounds in multi-ethnic societies; multi-ethnic school and neighborhood environments; an absence of ethnic niches in the job market; Gendered stereotypes in the American popular imagination also affect Indo- and racial identity that is neither black nor white. Different degrees of sub- Caribbean identities. Some of my male respondents linked Indian identity to cultural capital associated with Indian male and Indian female identity in powerlessness and the negative stereotypes associated with Indian male iden- contemporary America influence the manifestation of cosmopolitan ethnicity tity in the United States. Many told me that the Indian (meaning Sikh) stu- for boys and girls. dents in their school were often picked on because of their turbans.25 After Cosmopolitan ethnicity has emerged alongside the breakdown of the bi- September 11, the young men with whom I spoke frequently cited incidents nary schema of race in black and white that has dominated racial politics in of being targeted as suspected terrorists-quite the opposite stereotype of the America. Scholars have already begun to look at ethnic enclaves as alternative weak, bullied teenager, but a negative image nonetheless. spaces to black and white neighborhoods. Specifically, segmented assimila- These negative associations contrast sharply with the increasing popularity tion theory predicts assimilation patterns based on residence in middle-class, of "Indo-chic" in women's fashion, including henna tattoos, sari fabrics, largely white neighborhoods, poor and largely black neighborhoods, or eth- bindis, and more (La Perla 2002; Maira 2002). Orlando Patterson (1975) nic enclaves (Portes and Zhou 1993). However, the assumption that youth suggests that the context of reception and the economic structure affect the choose one group to which they will assimilate, based on a homogenous resi- way in which ethnic communities choose to incorporate in new environ- dential environment, no longer holds weight for many children of immi- ments. Although Patterson's argument applies to economic conditions in the grants, for two reasons. First, when no majority group dominates an immi- host country, we can think more generally of contextual influences in the host grant's neighborhood, assimilation can move in many different directions, so country, which would include media representations, neighborhood makeup, that the old question of "assimilation to what" takes on new meaning. Also the school environment, and more. Mainstream popularity and subcultural youth in the multi-ethnic environment make many different choices and are capital give young women greater incentive than young men to identify as In- influenced not only by neighborhood peers but also by media images, popu- 384 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity 385

lar culture, and dominant gender roles in their communities and the larger Third, ethnic identity need not be either symbolic or thick-it can beboth society. Second, unlike the outcomes suggested by segmented assimilation simultaneously, as it was with my respondents. That is, the importanee and theory, the cultural forms to which an ethnic group assimilates may or may salience of ethnic identity does not preclude an individual expressing differ- not mirror the social networks, identities, or even values of the group. The ent identities in different contexts. This is especially true of nonblack minori- different social processes may unfold quite differently, as they do for Indo- ties, whose racial identities matter in the larger society in that they are marked Caribbean youth. Choice is important, but individuals no longer necessarily as nonwhite, but whose racial statuses are more ambiguous and hence Ic:Ss choose between but among different ethnicities; moreover, choices are fluid, strongly ascribed than those of black Americans. Beyond their status as dynamic, and contextual. racial minorities, they can and often do choose to construct multidim~~

Hence, when studying the incorporation of immigrants' children, re- sional identities. .. searchers should disaggregate culture, identity, values, and social networks, Today's multi-ethnic environments encourage the development of multi- rather than assume that the different realms always mirror one another. Each valent ethnic identities rather than assimilation into either a unitary Ameri- unique lens tells us something about the available scripts for a community. can culture or an ethnic identity. Immigrants to the United States and their For example, social networks tell us more about the local environment and children increasingly encounter diverse cultural forms and ethnic identities. the choices available to youth, whereas consumption involves popular culture and a dialectic between existing ethnic boundaries and the new environment and media images in addition to the local environment. Also, unlike what ensues. I argue for the careful study of multi-ethnic environments for a better segmented assimilation theory suggests, a young person's taste for hip-hop understanding of contemporary immigrant incorporation and would suggest music need not signal assimilation to an oppositional culture and its values. that the multi-ethnic environment shapes ethnic identity in new ways. Fi- We are likely to witness an increase in cosmopolitan ethnicity, owing to the nally, my empirical observations of cosmopolitan ethnicity suggest a more changing urban landscape in immigrant receiving areas; increasing interest in normative question: how should we think about identity to allow form~ Third World culture, especially in fashion and popular culture; and increas- individual self-actualization? ing numbers of immigrants arriving in the United States from multi-ethnic Anthony Appiah (1996, 104) suggests that "racial identity can be the basi$ societies such as the West Indies and Brazil. This new form of ethnicity sug- of resistance to racism; but even as we struggle against racism ... let us not let gests a need to reevaluate former notions of identity. I posit three shifts: eth- our racial identities subject us to new tyrannies." In other words, we should nic identity is not unitary; individuals exert choice with respect to identity; not limit any group, whether defined by ethnicity, race, gender, religion, or . and identity can be simultaneously symbolic and thick. other affiliation, to a particular set of cultural scripts traditionally associated First, if youth no longer feel compelled to ding to one aspect of their iden- with that group-for example, jazz or hip-hop for Mrican Americans, or tities, then we no longer need to think of identity as unitary and definitive of Hindi movies for South Asians. Rather, we should allow for the fluidity, con- the individual. Perhaps identities then become part of the different roles and tingency, and fracture of identities (Appiah 1996). Similarly, David Hollinger faces that individuals take on in different performances in a Goffman-like (1995) suggests a "postethnic" perspective on the future of ethnic boundaries dramaturgical model of social interaction (Goffman 1959). That is, given in America, situated between pluralism's inherited boundaries and the volun- that the youth I studied expressed security and no "identity crisis" with their tary, multifaceted dynamism of "cosmopolitanism. "26 Like Hollinger and Ap- multifaceted identities, we should question the notion of ethnic identity as piah, I feel optimistic that these rich environments will promote immigrant one coherent, essential core of the individual. incorporation and self-actualization in ways that greatly enrich American so- Second, individuals choose different types of identity in different realms of ciety and its newcomers. their lives, as I observed in the differences between Indo-Caribbean young I hope that future research will explore the influence of the multi-ethnic men and women, as well as in the differences in individual identities in dif- environment on the identities of other nonblack minorities, such as South- ferent situations and realms of life. The element of choice, however, should east Asian Americans, Latinos, and Arab Americans who do not identify as not blind us to the hegemonic power of the dominant society outside of the white or black. I suspect that a similarly cosmopolitan ethnicity will emerge. local context that youth encounter. The dominant American society still priv- The perceptions and ethno-racial ascriptions of peers and community mem- ileges white, native status, although the power in this identity is shifting, es- bers would provide yet another understanding and perspective on the con- pecially at the margins. struction and negotiation of identities in the multi-ethnic environment. 386 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity 387

grants often leave large port-of-entry cities (such as New York, Boston, or Los I am grateful for comments and guidance on this research from Mary Angeles) for cities such as Atlanta, Seattle, or Orlando. Thus, port-of-entry Waters, Gwen Dordick, Orlando Patterson, and Philip Kasinitz. I have also benefited from the helpful comments of participants in the Multi- cities are becoming increasingly multicultural and younger, while cities that disciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard Univer- draw internal migrants-mostly in the Rocky Mountain area, the Southwest, sity, funded by the National Science Foundation. and the South-may not have the same multiculturalism. 7. The South Asian community, however, is bifurcated. Earlier immigrants tended to be middle- and upper-middle-class professionals. Today South Asian NOTES immigrants come as both professionals and low-skilled workers. The segment of the community interacting with urban youth tends to be those of lower 1. David Hollinger (1995) uses the concept of cosmopolitanism to mean some- socioeconomic status. thing quite different. He distinguishes cosmopolitanism-voluntary, multiple 8. For example, we might expect Indo-Carib beans to mark "Asian Indian'' for race identities that recognize the dynamism of groups and new cultural combina- and a West Indian category as one of their ancestry choices. However, the 2000 tions-from pluralism-identities shaped by inherited boundaries that at- census shows that there were more immigrants born in the West Indies who tempt to protect and perpetuate existing cultures. He suggests that a postethnic identified racially as Asian Indian than there were individuals who indicated identity, somewhere between the two, signals a "critical renewal of cosmopoli- anywhere in the West Indies as part of their ancestry who identified racially as tanism in the context of today's greater sensitivity to roots" (5). Postethnicity Asian Indian, suggesting that some lndo-Caribbeans did not mark a West In- resonates with my notion of cosmopolitan ethnicity in its recognition of fluid, dian category for their ancestry, and others did not mark Asian Indian for their changing, asserted boundaries amid strong roots in inherited ethnic bound- race. Thus, there is no accurate way to measure the size of the community us- aries. Postethnicity, however, is more normative than descriptive and suggests ing census data (U.S. Department of Commerce 2000). somewhat weaker ethnic roots than what I am describing. 9. I have changed the names of the high school, its surrounding neighborhood, 'I 2. This definition of"thickness" or "salience" is slightly different from Cornell and and my respondents, in the interest of confidentiality. Hartmann's (1998) and Stryker's (1968). Cosmopolitan ethnicity involves a 10. Note that the relationship between the Italian establishment and the more re- thickness or salience of ethnic identities overall rather than the thickness of a cently arrived Indo-Caribbeans in Ethnictown has sometimes been contentious. particular ethnicity. In other words, individuals are expected by their peers to In a much publicized 1998 incident, an Indo-Caribbean teenager was beaten un- invoke an ethnic identity when making social and cultural choices about, for conscious by a group ofltalian youths shouting racial epithets (Sengupta 1998). example, music, religion, and dating. 11. Another 29 percent identified with either more than one race or "other" on the 3. Although official census categories do not include "South Asian" as a race, I 2000 census. would argue that in American society today ascriptive racialization causes Indo- 12. Note that lndo-Caribbeans most commonly mark "Asian" and "Asian Indian" Carib beans to be seen as Asian Indian-or more generally, South Asian. in the race census category, but many also mark the "other" category. Some of 4. Catholic Americans have not always been seen as white in American society. my respondents reported being instructed by community leaders to call them- For example, during the second wave of immigration to the United States, the selves Asian when asked about race, indicating that the choice was not obvious. Irish and many Italians were seen as a different race from mainstream Anglo- Thus, even though these statistics give some sense of the demographics, they Saxons. By 1965, however, the racial line was drawn between "Caucasians," in- probably do not accurately portray the exact makeups. cluding Irish, and "blacks" Oacobson 1998). 13. Soca is a blend of West Indian calypso and soul. Chutney soca is a mix of soca 5. Alba and his colleagues (1995) define a multi-ethnic neighborhood as one with and Hindi film and folk songs. Bhangra is traditional Punjabi folk music that a presence of two or more racial groups; presence of a racial group is defined as has become quite popular in the young South Asian American community. at least one hundred members of that group in the neighborhood, as reported 14. Specifically, I asked, "When others ask, 'What are you?' what do you tell by the census. William Frey and Reynolds Farley (1996) define a multi-ethnic them?" All understood this to be a question about ethno-racial identity. area as one "in which two or more of the three minority groups (Latinos, 15. By "West Indian" I mean anyone who has a parent born in the West Indies. By Asians, blacks) make up a greater share of the metropolitan area's population "East Indian" I mean anyone who has a parent born in South Asia-India, Pak- than of the national population." According to this definition, in 1990 there istan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, or Sri Lanka. were thirty-seven multi-ethnic metropolitan areas in the United States. 16. Other research on gender and second-generation identity (L6pez 2002; Rum- 6. Some research suggests that this trend is specific to traditional immigrant- bam 1996; Waters 1996) suggests that girls more commonly and more suc- receiving cities. Frey (1996) finds that low-income, less-skilled domestic mi- cessfully maintain bicultural identities than their male peers. 388 Becoming New Yorkers Cosmopolitan Ethnicity 38,

17. Fredrik Barth (1969, 6) first introduced the notion of boundary maintenance "Neighborhood Change Under Conditions of Mass Immigration: The New York in ethnic identity, suggesting that "ethnicity is a matter of social organization City Region, 1970-1990." International Migration Review 29(3, Autumn): above and beyond questions of empirical cultural differences: it is about 'the so- 625-56. cial organization of culture difference.'" In other words, because ethnic groups Appiah, K. Anthony. 1996. "Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections." distinguish themselves by maintaining boundaries between each other, bound- In Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race, edited by K. Anthony Appiah aries are the salient markers of ethnicity rather than the cultural contents and Amy Gutmann. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. within those boundaries. Barth, Fredrik. 1969. "Introduction." In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social 18. Also interesting was the diversity of youth who attended the Day Jam, which Organization of Culture Difference, edited by Fredrik Barth. Prospect Heights, ID.: included significant numbers of Mro-Caribbeans, Indo-Carib beans, East Indi- Waveland. ans, and whites. Birbalsingh, Frank. 1993. "Introduction." In Indo-Caribbean Resistance, edited by 19. A video store owner in Richmond Hill confirmed that girls more commonly Frank Birbalsingh. Toronto: TSAR. rented and bought Hindi movies than boys, and one respondent observed that Bonacich, Edna. 1972. "A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market." even in Trinidad mostly girls watched Indian movies. However, this is not the American SociologicalReview 37: 547-59. whole story: cinema audiences in India are largely male. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the judgment ofTaste. Trans- 20. Although "temple" is most commonly used in the United States to refer to lated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Hindu religious institutions, most Hindu respondents used the terms mandir Cornell, Stephen, and Douglas Hartmann. 1998. Ethnicity and Race:Making Identi- (the Hindi word for a Hindu place of worship) or "church" to refer to their ties in a Changing World. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge Press. places of worship. Foner, Nancy. 2000. From Ellis Island to ]FK· New Yorks Two Great Wzves of Immi- 21. Note that identification with Mrican American culture did not necessarily en- gration. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. tail identification with or even acceptance of Mrican American people, which I Frey, William H. 1996. "Immigration, Domestic Migration, and Demographic address in the section on social networks. Indeed, Sunaina Maira (2002) finds Balkanization in America: New Evidence for the 1990s.'' Population and Develop- that East Indian American youth appropriate black cultural styles while main- ment Review 22(4, December): 741-63. taining a sense of superiority toward Mrican Americans. Frey, William H., and Reynolds Farley. 1996. "Latino, Asian, and Black Segregation 22. I take the notion of"subcultural capital" from Sarah Thornton (1996), who de- in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Are Multi-ethnic Metros Different?" Demography fines it as "hip ness," akin to Bourdieu's ( 1984) cultural capital but within youth 33(1, February): 35-50. cultures. Friedman, Jonathan. 1994. "Introduction." In Consumption and Identity, edited by 23. This figure resonates with the national figure of 70 percent of Asians in the Jonathan Friedman. Chur, Switz.: Harwood. United States marrying other Asians (Waters 2000). Gans, Herbert J. 1979. "Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cul- 24. Note that not all four factors are necessary for a cosmopolitan ethnicity. Rather, tures in America." 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