The ‘model’ minority

The work of Shamita Das Dasgupta, an iconic figure within the anti-DV world, has been described previously on this blog. In this article, she introduces a special issue of the journal Violence Against Women, which focuses violence against SA women.

She begins by describing the first major wave of South Asian immigrants who came to the US in 1965 as a result of eased immigration regulations. These immigrants were a largely homogeneous group of educated and technically trained individuals. Soon after arriving, they established themselves as an economically and socially successful community, and earned the ‘model minority’ moniker. Preoccupied with living up to this title, these immigrants suppressed all problems within the community, such as substance abuse, violence, and unemployment.

This picture changed over the next two decades. The nature of the SA immigrant community grew more heterogeneous due to the arrival of family members, small business owners, and refugees. Dasgupta reports that the first wave of immigrants was disdainful of the less financially established newcomers. When problems did arise, they quickly blamed any problems within the SA community on the later, ‘other’ immigrants, or they held pathological individuals responsible.

The first major DV related incident in the community occurred in 1981, when a young mother murdered her husband after years of intolerable abuse. The SA community was quick to dissociate themselves from her, and the woman found herself without any support or assistance from her community. It was in response to this shameful episode that the first anti-DV voices within the SA community spoke up.

In the following weeks, we shall discuss several articles about issues pertinent to DV in our community. Since, as Dasgupta says, “Neither the vociferous denial of the community nor the indifferent marginalization of the larger society can invalidate the distinct voices of SA women…”, all of these articles share two features – first, a recognition of the unique and distinct identity of SA women, and second, a recognition of the reality of their experiences.

[For more information, see: Dasgupta, S. D. (2000). Guest Editor’s Introduction. Violence Against Women, 5(6), 587-590.]