Abstract
As it happens, I was in the midst of reading this book during my travels in Greece where I encountered Bangladeshi young men hawking umbrellas at the foot of the Acropolis. I learned about their identity when I stopped to talk to one of the young men to help quell an argument between two of them. They, too, are part of the diaspora that Rahman writes about and I was keenly aware that the altercation between the young men would leave a poor impression on the hordes of tourists and could be bad for business. As an older woman of the broader “South Asian” diaspora, I felt some responsibility to do what my grandmother would have done and talk to them about their behavior. I am neither Bangladeshi nor Muslim. I use this episode to highlight a point that gets lost in Shafiqur Rahman’s understandable plaint that Bangladeshis are often subsumed under something else: it is difficult to easily identify the specific ethnic or national background of the very broadly defined category of “South Asian.” I have lived with the enigma of identity all my life as a displaced “South Asian” and, in the United States (as elsewhere in my travels), it is routine that people do not know where to place me. I came to this book then with an array of experiences as “other” in many national contexts, and reading the book evoked mixed emotions—recognition, frustration, annoyance, and amusement, among others.
The Bangladeshi Diaspora in the United States After 9/11 reads much like the thesis it is derived from, which hampers the flow of the narrative. It is broadly about the Bangladeshi immigrant experience in the United States in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and is based on in-depth interviews (27 males, 21 females, all documented immigrants between the ages of 18–60, and mostly first generation immigrants) and focus groups (1 full and 2 semi) in New York City and Carbondale, Illinois, locales chosen in part for convenience. Carbondale is where the author was a student and New York is a major destination point for Bangladeshis. Rahman notes that the different sizes of the communities afford a comparative dimension of the immigrant experience, especially as it pertains to assimilation. Rather than specific research questions, the author considers “issues. . . : roles of diasporic media, internal diversity of the community, and the articulation of identity and citizenship of Bangladeshis in the U.S.” (p. 3).
The introductory chapter identifies key concepts that the author considers (e.g., diaspora, transnational community, religious identity) but does not lay out a clear theoretical framework. Rahman chose to use “transnational community and diaspora interchangeably”—a problematic choice in that the notion of diaspora, unlike that of transnational community, can suggest lack of connectedness across space and time. Indeed, as part of the “Indian diaspora” of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—most Indians in the Caribbean (including my own family) lost connections with their ancestral homeland—a function of illiteracy, impoverishment, and repressive policies of colonial governments (Grahame 2004; Laguerre 1985).
Conceptually problematic distinctions also occur in the methodological discussion. Rahman has undertaken an ethnography but the discussion of ethnography is weak, especially the consideration of “native ethnography” which the author claims to be utilizing. There simply is not a sufficient consideration of how “traditional ethnography” is less “contextually grounded” than “native ethnography.”
The chapter on the history of Bangladeshis in the United States provides some useful demographic data on this population: they are largely male and young, mostly employed in the service sector, and a fairly large proportion hold college degrees. Many recent arrivals are the beneficiaries of diversity visas that were instituted in the 1990s. This historical overview, however, also brings to the fore the conundrum of concepts such as ethnicity, culture, and nationality, to name a few. These are often conflated in the public discourse and sometimes in the social science discourse. Bangladesh is a relatively new nation-state (late twentieth century), comprised mostly of ethnic Bengalis. Bengali culture and ethnicity are used interchangeably with Bangladeshi culture in the book. Bangladesh is primarily Muslim as are most of the Bangladeshi immigrants. Interestingly, the one Hindu Bangladeshi family Rahman tried to interview rejected his overture due to the persecution they had experienced as religious minorities in Bangladesh. Future work might want to explore differences/similarities of minorities within a given diaspora.
Among the more compelling findings are responses to the post 9/11 backlash (Chapter Four) and the construction of a desi identity among the youth of the second generation (Chapter Eight). The expression of fear after 9/11 is palpable—one that I relived in reading these accounts: I was fearful of leaving my home to go to any public place besides my workplace in the immediate aftermath. Respondents reported being acutely aware of how they could be perceived, so their behaviors had to be beyond reproach. Some experienced a crisis of identity while still others (especially second-generation) found an “awakening” of their Muslim identity and in the process sought more knowledge about Islam. The consumption of mass media seemed to engender more fear, not surprisingly, because of the “othering” in which the mainstream media was complicit. Many Bangladeshi-Americans are keenly attuned to the fact that, as Muslims, they are under surveillance and thus not positioned to participate fully as American citizens.
As it was for earlier immigrant groups, there are generational differences and conflicts among Bangladeshi immigrants. While first-generation immigrants express a longing for “home,” second-generation Bangladeshi youth, especially the college students, construct a desi identity that differentiates them from their counterparts in Bangladesh and their first-generation parents. This comes as a surprise to Rahman due to his unfamiliarity with the term. The college students he interviewed appear to find a consciousness of kind among the broadly-defined category of second-generation South Asians (Indians primarily, but also Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans) who live in North America—they see themselves, religious and national differences notwithstanding, as people who share commonalities of food, culture, and music. While they embrace these commonalities, they also hold on to their sense of being Bangladeshi and Muslim, reinforcing the notion of identity as multifaceted.
The exploration of the community as a transnational one comes in the discussion of media and engagement with Bangladesh (Chapters Five and Six). Among the tools that enable a transnational community are communications technologies—cheap calls, the internet, and 24-hour mass media. There are generational differences here, too. First-generation immigrants are more likely to be directly engaged with “back home” and are more interested in keeping abreast of political developments in Bangladesh. The ability to engage contemporaneously does not displace the first generation’s imaginings of “home” which they use to “discipline” their children in terms of behavior, dress, and so on. Ironically, those very media are in turn used by the children to contest their parents’ version of “home.”
Given the relentless focus on gender relations within Islamic communities post 9/11, any treatment of such communities must consider the issue. In his treatment of gender, Rahman focuses on the role of women, asking women a general question about their life as a woman in the United States. He should have asked a similar question of men—about their role as men in the United States. He quotes at length from two of his male respondents on their views of women and men’s relationships within families—one felt that there is a loss of respect, while another remarked on the style of dress women wear (jeans or salwar kameez). Women talked about “freedom” and in sometimes unexpected ways—for example, first-generation women spoke about freedom of movement and the freedom to not have to answer to family members (in-laws) about their comings and goings. On the other hand, a couple of women who had arrived in the United States with young children described a life of constraint due to no extended family to help with child care so they could go out to school or work. These constraints were imposed not by patriarchal ideology but by the structural conditions they faced in the United States.
The book required a heavier editorial hand: it is at times repetitive, suffers from awkward phrasing, and a tedious list of media sources that Bangladeshis use. Overall however, this book provides some needed insight into a relatively new, largely Muslim immigrant population. It offers a view into a community whose identity is multifaceted. While the media tend to paint Muslims as an undifferentiated mass, Rahman’s study shows us a group that is comfortable with their Muslim identity while being wary about the surveillance they are under and how they are viewed.