DESIS ON A SPECTRUM: THE POLITICAL AGENDAS OF SOUTH ASIAN AMERICANS A Thesis Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Sheena Sood May 2019 Thesis Approvals: Dr. Michelle Byng, Advisory Chair, Sociology Dr. Kimberly Goyette, Sociology Dr. Rebbeca Tesfai, Sociology Dr. Sangay Mishra, External Member, Drew University i © Copyright 2019 By Sheena Sood All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Desis and Racial Minority Politics: Disrupting Assumptions of Ethnoracial Solidarity By this point in the Twenty-First century, many of us have likely heard the following at least once in our familial circles or social networks: “2042!” (give or take a few digits), “The year that people of color will be the majority! People of color are going to unite, and whites will no longer be in power!” Before beginning my data collection process in 2015, while I understood racial solidarity could not be implied through a mere sense of shared cultural consciousness as people of color, I still felt a glimmer of hope that a “majority people of color” population could shift the nation away from a historically (and reemerging) white supremacist legacy. By the time I finished collecting data, reminders about this demographic shift were ubiquitous. They surfaced in conversations with participants – and in my broader social and academic networks. Now, as my dissertation comes to a close, my mind gravitates to a specific “people of color” subgroup that is the focus of this study. I contemplate what role South Asian Americans,1 often referred to as Desis, will play in this significant transformation. The South Asian diaspora includes people who trace their roots to multiple nations, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and who have migration histories connected to Africa, Europe, North America and the Caribbean (Hoeffel et al. 2012). When contemplating Desi’s relationship to racial minority politics amidst the potential demographic changes in this nation, I am further skeptical that the 1 While I understand the term “American” includes the Caribbean, Latin America, South America, North America and Canada, I utilize the term “United States of America” and “America” interchangeably in this paper. Hence, the term “America” refers to the United States of America. iii category of “ethnoracial identity” is enough to motivate Desis toward common cause with other groups of color. Rather, a range of issues and categories beyond racial or ethnic identity motivate how they position their political interests in the U.S. Throughout this study, I argue that our understanding of Desi political interests can be better understood through integrating the “assimilation” and “racialization” theoretical models in a paradigm I identify as the “assimilation-to-racialization continuum.” Current analyses from social science literature are incomplete because they gravitate toward flattened identity-based understandings of Desis. The “assimilation-to- racialization continuum” directs social scientists toward a more holistic understanding of Desis’ divergent interests: it illuminates how politics get activated in subgroups, along the margins, and fragmentally – rarely through a shared ethnoracial experience. Across a range of racial and ethnic identity groups, public and mass media attention toward a specified ethnoracial community favors individual political elites and public service representatives, often while disregarding the interests of subgroups and those on the margins (Beltrán 2010; Mishra 2016; Taylor 2016). When mainstream media concerns itself with “South Asian Americans” and “politics,” it generally highlights Desi elites in public service positions (for instance, conservatives who align themselves with the Republican Party such as Nikki Haley, Seema Verma, and Ajit Pai; or liberals who align themselves with Democratic values, such as Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal and Kamala Harris). These high-profile individuals are presumed to represent the interests of the entire Desi community. While some reports focus on everyday Desis’ political participation and civic engagement trends, even these endeavors undertheorize the Desi political interests at the subgroup level. Accounts that complicate Desi political values iv remain centered on electoral politics, for instance sharing that although a majority of South Asian Americans “lean left” on political issues, their prominence is felt across party lines – both as spokespeople and representatives of the Trump Administration and Republican Party and of former Obama Administration and Democratic Party (Mangaldas 2017; Posner 2012). While these accounts allude to Desis having diverse values, they focus on diversity through an electoral rather than a multi-dimensional lens that also considers grassroots and protest politics, erasing Desi interests at the fragments. On the one hand, the fact that news agencies and researchers are concerned with the political interests of South Asian Americans is impressive, especially since the white- black binary has traditionally dominated the literature on racial politics in the U.S. On the other hand, it concerns me that these reports on South Asians (and ethnic/racial groups more broadly) make such homogeneous claims about their political engagement. These portrayals assume racial and ethnic minority groups to operate as a cohesive unit, or “ethnic bloc,” that shares a political consciousness. Left out of mainstream social and political discourse are the agendas that represent sectors of South Asian America. While it is true that Desis are “flexing their political muscle” more so than in past decades (Rouse 2017), the need to document the political interests of South Asians in ways that do not presume ethnoracial solidarity is becoming more urgent, notably as the population grows, and becomes more socially- and economically- stratified. Issues of immigration and displacement, socioeconomic class, educational background, nationality, occupation, religion, gender, sexuality, and language interact with and influence their politicization. These factors inspire my study of four South Asian political organizations, and my analysis of each group’s political agendas and alliance-building efforts. While these v four organizations do not represent the totality of South Asian political interests, each group represents a distinct constituency of South Asian diasporic members living in the U.S and engages in unique political advocacy and leadership development activities. The following research questions anchor my study: 1) What are the political agendas of South Asian political organizations?; 2) What major political activities do they engage in to address those agendas?; 3) In what ways do they share similarities and differences with other groups included in this study?; and 4) What is the nature of the alliances and/or coalitions they participate in within and outside the South Asian community? The first organization, the Washington Leadership Program (WLP), cultivates the political leadership of future generations. WLP promotes educational leadership and political awareness by organizing internship programs in Washington, D.C. for South Asian college students. The second organization, South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), is also based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. SAALT advocates on issues affecting Desi communities through a social justice framework, often in U.S. Congressional and national policy circles. Through the National Coalition of South Asian Organizations (NCSO), SAALT supports a membership-based network of 54 political organizations that run advocacy campaigns and offer social services to their members. The third organization, Seva New York (Seva), is a community-based organization located in the Richmond Hill neighborhood in the borough of Queens. Focusing on the mobilization of residents in the South Asian and West Indian enclaves of Richmond Hill, Seva addresses the needs of one of the most under-resourced immigrant neighborhoods in New York City. The final organization, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), is a community-based organization – also in the borough of Queens but in the vi Jackson Heights neighborhood. Their mission is to mobilize a membership base of low- wage South Asian workers and youth around economic, immigrant, racial, education, gender, and global justice campaigns. DRUM organizers train low-wage immigrant workers to see themselves as agents of change, influence policy, and build campaigns that fight for long-term societal transformation. In order to understand how these four organizations articulate, activate and construct political agendas and alliances with their respective set of constituents, I conducted in-depth, semi-structured one-on-one interviews with organizational leaders and rank and file members. I supplemented these interviews with participant observations of key events and meetings. These interviews were conducted with employees, working and non-working members, and board members of each organization between July 2015 and August 2016. Specifically, I interviewed 12 leaders from WLP, 9 leaders from SAALT, 8 leaders from Seva NYC, and 11 leaders from DRUM.2 In total, that amounts to 40 in-person interviews. Overall, the data in each chapter illuminate each group’s unique approach to activating a political agenda and mission, responding to periods of racialization, evolving their programs and objectives, breaking/marking