Sandhya Shukla. India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Extract

Sandhya Shukla has written a highly interdisciplinary comparison of Indian diasporic cultures in Britain and the United States. Specializing in Anthropology and Asian American Studies, she is particularly strong on historical and literary text analysis. She says, “The relational aspects of a range of texts and experiences, which include historical narratives, cultural organizations, autobiography and fiction, musical performance and films, are of paramount importance in this critical ethnography” (20). Contending that the Indian diaspora confronts “a simultaneous nationalism and internationalism,” she is celebratory about India and “formations of Indianness,” and uses phrases like “amazing force” and “wildly multicultural” (17). Her exploration shows “the tremendous impulse to multiple nationality that Indianness abroad has made visible” (14) and, “the amazing persistence of Indian cultures in so many places” (22).