Identity Dub: The Paradoxes of an Indian American Youth Subculture (New York Mix)
Author(s): Sunaina Maira
Source: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Feb., 1999), pp. 29-60
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Identity Dub: The Paradoxes of an
Indian American Youth Subculture
(New York Mix)
Sunaina Maira
Harvard University
The crowd thickens on the small dance floor at S.O.B.'s, a world music club and
the venue of BhangraBasement, the first regularbhangra night at a mainstream
club in New York, hosted by the ubiquitous DJ Rekha. The insistent beat of the
dhol, the percussion base of the traditionalNorth Indian folk dance known as
bhangrain Punjab,pounds out over the techno and reggae tracksreverberating
amidst the tightly packed bodies. Shoulders shrug and arms flail in semblances
of bhangramoves, here, far from the wheat fields of the Punjab, far from the
Californianorchardswhere early Punjabimigrants first settled in the early 20th
century.
Tonight, most faces are various shades of South Asian, but there are a few
African Americans and whites getting down on the dance floor, too, for this is
one of the few bhangraclub nights thatdraws a noticeably racially mixed crowd.
One of the past BhangraBasement events featureda booth with mehndi,lacy designs in henna, tracedon palms by a young white woman riding the currentfascination with Indian "body art."On this night, there is an appearanceby a live
dhol drummer"all the way from Lahore,"his yellow turbanand sequined kurta
presumably authenticating the Indian elements of this musical fusion. The
drummerhas an astonished,if delighted, expression on his face, as if simultaneously bewildered and excited by his performancefor a frenzied crowd of young
South Asian professionals and partygoers, women in hip huggers twisting their
arms in movements learnedpartly from Hindi films and partlyfrom other bhangra nights like this, perhapsin college or at the Indian remix music parties that
began springing up six or seven years ago. A young turbanedSikh man leaps
onto the stagebesidethe sweatingmusician,spinningandbouncingwith acrobatic,
break-dance-likeagility. Jumping back into the crowd, he is joined by another
young Sikh man, and as the crowd parts in a rapt circle, the two men circle
aroundeach otherin exuberantlycoordinatedprecision.Then threeyoung women
who have various degrees of classical dance training come forth, challenging
CulturalAnthropology 14(1):29-60. Copyright ? 1999, American Anthropological Association.
29
30 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
what has been up to now an exclusively male, Punjabi performance.Their enthusiasm is no less vigorous. The partyhas most certainlybegun.
Second-Generation Indian Americans in New York
As Indian immigrantsin areas with dense populations, such as New York
City and New Jersey, expand in number and establish local communities, their
children have gradually entered mainstreaminstitutions, such as schools, colleges, and the workplace, and have increasingly become more visible (Leonard
1997; Lessinger 1995). Their coming of age has been accompaniedby the creation of an increasingly visible youth subculture, as heraldedto the mainstream
by recent articles in the local news media and documentariesby local independent filmmakers.'An article in the New YorkTimesby Somini Sengupta focused on the large contingent of second-generation South Asian American
youth who are"rootedin hip-hop and Hindi pop" of the "musicand club scene,"
noting thatyoung South Asian American "deejays and partypromoters"are the
"creatorsand caretakers"of this subculture(1996:1). This story and other articles in the mainstream media have hinted at the ways in which this Indian
American subculturehas become a new site for the collision of identity politics
and the marketingof ethnic styles.
In this article, I examine the emergence of a second-generation Indian
American youth subculture that revolves mainly around the use of two commodities, music and fashion, as displayed and performedat parties in Manhattan. My interestis in linking an analysis of these elements of second-generation
popularcultureto the specific identity questions thatloom large for second-generationIndianAmericansand in locating these two dimensions in particularhistorical and cultural contexts. The article draws on my interviews with Indian
American college students in Manhattan who have grown up in the United
States and come from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds,from lower middle to uppermiddle class. The subculturethat has sprungup aroundIndian music remix includes participantswhose families originate from othercountries of
the subcontinent,such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka,but I dwell here
on IndianAmericanyouth because my researchhas focused on theirexperiences
in particularand because issues of ethnic identity play out in specific ways for
different national and religious, not to mention regional, groups; at the same
time, I also note the pan-ethniccharacterof these events when relevant.
Thediscussionhereis basedon my fieldworkin New YorkCitywhichfocused
on the ways in which ethnic and gendered identities are negotiated by secondgenerationIndianAmericans in late adolescence and young adulthood.I did intensive interviews with 35 IndianAmerican college studentsin New York, both
men and women, some of whom lived on campuses in Manhattanand some
whom commuted from their homes in Queens or New Jersey.2About half belonged to families who representedthe early wave of post-1965 immigrationto
the United States from South Asia, made up of graduatestudentsandprofessionals, whereas the other informants' family histories illustratedthe later influx of
less affluent or highly educated immigrants who often come through family
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 31
reunification visas and struggle to find employment and financial stability. My
study initially focused on the strategies that second-generation Indian Americans use to negotiate the multiple identities performedin the contexts of family,
college, and work, but in the course of my fieldwork I realized the importanceof
popularculture as a local context in which the students were creating and enacting ethnic, racialized, class, gender, and sexual identities. I began talking to Indian American college students about their perceptions of this second-generation subcultureand began attendingdesi (South Asian) partiesand club nights in
Manhattan.3This essay offers some initial reflections on this fieldwork.
An analysis of youth subculturesheds light on the question of negotiating
identities for two reasons: one, because it is an importantcontext in which college students socialize with one anotherand in which they are simultaneously
socialized into a particular,local culture of second-generation Indian Americans; and two, because it is a context in which the culturalcontradictionsof second-generationethnic identity are, literally and symbolically, enacted. In addition, there are several paradoxes embedded in this youth culture that have
intriguedand sometimes puzzled me andthat, I will argue,provide importantinsights into the intersections of ethnic authenticityand gender ideology.
Indian Remix Music and the Manhattan "Desi Scene"
The creationof this IndianAmericanyouth subculturein Manhattanhas, in
part,been madepossible by the presenceof a largelocal Indianimmigrantcommunity. New York City currentlyhas the "largestconcentrationof Indians [of any
metropolitanarea] (about ten percent of the total 1990 population in the country)" (Khandelwal 1995:180). According to the 1990 census, New York City
had 94,590 Indianresidents, out of a total of 815,447 in the United States. While
the earlier wave of Indian immigrants,who arrivedin the late 1960s and 1970s,
had spreadto the suburbsof America,in the 1980s and 1990s there was a significant influx of South Asian immigrantsinto Queens and New Jersey. A vibrant
second-generationpopularculturehas emergedin Manhattanwhich drawssecondgenerationIndian Americans from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and
even Pennsylvania.
For the purposes of this study,popular culture broadly refers to "generally
available artefacts"and "social processes" associated with these commodities,
with the particularobjects andrelationshipsvarying, of course, with social context and historical location (Strinati 1995:xviii).4 In New York, second-generation Indian American popularcultureis centered aroundmusic and dance, specifically the fusion of American hip-hop, rap, techno, and reggae with Hindi
film music and bhangra.5This music is remixed by Indian American, generally
male deejays who perform at the parties hosted at various clubs by Indian
Americanpartypromoters,young second-generationmen and women who have
helped providea contextfor a specificallysecond-generationIndianAmericansubculture.
Every weekend there are several parties on college campuses and, more
often, at clubs or restaurantsrented by Indian party promoters and filled with
32 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Figure 1
Desi youth mix bhangra moves with the pleasures of the dance floor at a Manhattan
party. Copyright Srinivas Kuruganti. Used by permission.
droves of young South Asian Americans (see Figure 1). They move to the beat
of the latest remix spun by an Indian American deejay and gatherin cliques and
couples, the women attiredin slinky club wear-tight-fitting shirtsandhip-hugging pants or miniskirts-and the men in hip-hop-inspired urban street fashion-the signature Tommy Hilfiger shirts and baggy pants-or the requisite
jackets and slacks. Many in the crowd are regulars on the partycircuit, whereas
others make occasional appearances.In conjunction with the fusion of musical
genres, this subculturesometimes involves the performanceof a culturally hybrid style. Instances of this include the juxtaposition of hip-hop fashion with Indian-style nose rings and bindis-traditionally, powdered dots, and, more commonly, small felt or plastic designs, worn on the forehead-and performing
ethnic identity through dance, as in the borrowing of folk dance gestures from
bhangrawhile gyrating to club remixes. Indian American women were sporting
bindis long before Madonnadid, but they now do so in the context of commodified ethno-chic, with mehndi kits-"Indian body art"-and bindi packets
sprouting in clothing stores, pharmacies, street fairs, and fashion magazines.6
Bhangra remixing constitutes a transnational popular culture in the Indian/South Asian diaspora;it emerged among British-bornSouth Asian youth in
the mid-1980s and since then has flowed between New York, Delhi, Bombay,
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 33
Toronto, Port-of-Spain,and other nodes of the South Asian diaspora(Gopinath
1995).
While this "remix youth culture"has emerged in other urbanareas in the
United States thathave large Indian Americanpopulations, such as Chicago and
the Bay Area, these expressions are necessarily shaped by local contexts. There
has not as yet been much comparative work on this topic, but it is clear that the
New York setting lends certaindistinctive features to this youth culturein Manhattan:the system of rotating"parties"that are not attachedto a particularclub
or physical space but are hosted at different sites by partypromotersor producers working in association with particulardeejays is typical of New York clubs.
The popularityof specific music genres is also often localized; DJ Tony, of TS
Soundz in Chicago, pointed out to me thatNew York deejays favor remixes with
rap music, and participantsin this youth culture tend to adopt a more overtly
"hoody," hip-hop-inspiredstyle (see Sengupta 1996). In Chicago, by contrast,
house and music with a heavy bass is more popular, while in Canada, where
Tony says the bhangraremix "scene" first began in North America, reggae and
rhythmand blues mixes are preferred.In the United Kingdom, South Asian artists have moved on to mixing bhangra mixes with jungle, a frenetic "drum 'n
bass" dub that has only recently begun to filter into the music played in New
York. I want to note that an analysis of the music and lyrics in these remixes
would offer importantinsights into this youth subculture,but I concentratehere
on how social actors create and perform identities using the elements and contexts of popularculture(see Taylor 1997 for an ethnomusicological treatmentof
South Asian musical fusion in the United Kingdom).
Subcultural Studies and Second-Generation Youth
Viewing this IndianAmericanyouth music and youth style as productsof a
subculture draws on the particulartradition of cultural studies associated with
neo-Marxist theorists in the United Kingdom, particularly their early work,
which is useful in its integrationof ethnographic approacheswith political critique.7According to JohnClarke,StuartHall, and othertheoristsof the Birmingham school, individualsbelong to a sharedsubculturewhen thereis "a set of social rituals which underpintheir collective identity and define them as a 'group'
instead of a mere collection of individuals. They adopt and adaptmaterial objects-goods and possessions-and reorganize them into distinctive 'styles'
which express the collectivity [and] become embodied in rituals of relationship
and occasion and movement"(Clarkeet al. 1976:47). Ritual, in this perspective,
is used in the sense of a cultural practice that mediates between "enduringcultural structuresand the currentsituation"and expresses but also re-creates and
challenges social identities embedded in power relations (Bell 1997:79). Thus
looking at second-generation youth as part of a subculture allows for a larger
picture of their responses as a collective. The term youth subculture refers to a
social group that is distinguished by age or generation, but theorists of youth
subculturesalso note that the category of "youth"is one that is socially and culturally constructedand has often been the focus of debates over social control as
34 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
well as a marketingprinciple for the music and fashion industries (Clarke et al.
1976). The Birminghamtheorists strategicallychose to use the termsubculture,
ratherthanyouth culture, because they arguedthat the latterdescriptorobscured
the links between the culturalconstructionof youth as a distinct category andthe
creation of a "teenage market";the concept of a "subculture,"in their framework, was embedded in a deeper structuralexplanation of the dialectic between
"youth"and youth industries (Clarkeet al. 1976:16).
While participantsin this Indian American subculturein New York were
much more likely to speak of sharinga "culture,"or of learningabout their "culture,"thanto explicitly use the termsubculture,the word scene in theireveryday
parlance-as in "the Indian partyscene"-refers to what the Birminghamtheorists would call a subculture.Needless to say, desi youth were well aware of the
collectivity indexed by the notion of a subcultureand discussed at length the distinctiveness of social life organized around Indian remix music or parties.
Among the Indian American college students I interviewed, some were more
closely identified with this subculturethan others, and those that were spoke of
belonging to a social network of desi youth, across and beyond college campuses, who gatheredregularly at these events and came to know one another.
Understandingthe dynamics of a subculture and its rituals helps explain
why a popular culture based on music in particularhas such strong appeal for
youth. Simon Frith writes that "for young people ... music probably has the
most importantrole in the mapping of social networks, determining how and
where they meet and court and party"(1992:177). In other words, in societies
with commercialized popular cultures, demonstratingloyalty to and adopting
the styles associated with particulargenres of music-using productscirculated
and advertisedby the music, fashion, and media industries-has become a ritual
that is importantin the socialization of youth. Frith argues that by providing a
subtle and complex means of individual and collective expression, music "is in
many respects the model for their involvement in culture, for their ability to see
beyond the immediate requirementsof work and family and dole" (1992:177).
Frith's insight also suggests thatsubcultures,or expressions of distinctive identities organizedaroundparticularritualsor commodities, exist in relationshipto
the broadercontext of "culture,"the web of social meanings, relationships, and
material experiences that form a largerbackdropagainst which particularsubcultures are defined. Popular culture is laden with existing ideologies about
youth that are racialized, gendered, and classed, but it also offers an arena for
youth to reappropriateor symbolically transgressexisting racial, gendered, and
class boundaries.
This notion of popularcultureprovides the basis for the well-known argument of the Birmingham school that youth subculturesare based on rituals that
resist the values inherent in the dominantculture, or the "overall disposition of
culturalpower in the society as a whole" (Clarkeet al. 1976:13). The creationof
a subcultureis understoodas a response to the personal, political, and economic
crises that youth confront on the brink of adulthood and as a means to resolve-at least symbolically-the contradictionsof the "parentculture,"or the
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 35
larger, adult group from which youth subcultures are derived (Clarke et al.
1976:13). This argumentwas used to explain the emergenceand significance of
youthsubculturesin postwarBritainthat were particularlyappealing to workingclass youth in the context of postwar redevelopment and rehousing that polarized the laborforce and underminedthe communal spaces andkinship structures
of working-class families and neighborhoods. Simultaneously, there was a
growth in the leisure industrythattargetedyouth as importantconsumers of music, fashion, and mass media.
Early subculturaltheorists were particularlyinterestedin decoding the political implications of youth style and socialization. Emphasizingthe interpretation of rituals and symbols, they drew heavily on structuralistand semiotic approaches (Cohen 1997:157). Dick Hebdige contends that subcultures that
revolve aroundthe use of commodities, such as fashion and music, have a symbolic dimension infused with political meanings not always obvious to the outsider, or adultobserver.He writes that "the tensions between dominantand subordinate groups can be found reflected in the surfaces of subculture-in the
styles made up of mundaneobjects which have a double meaning"(1979:2-3).
He suggests that,on the one hand, these signs act as markersof difference for the
dominantculture,but "on the otherhand, for those who erect them into icons ...
these objects become signs of forbidden identity, sources of value" (1979:3).
The Birminghamschool's approachto subcultureshas met with some criticism from cultural studies theorists who point out, rightly, that this school of
subculturaltheory often overinterpretedsocial action in terms of resistance and
symbolic resolution, therebypresenting a too-neat analysis (Cohen 1997). Frith
argues thattheorists of popularculture have sometimes been guilty of "a relentless politicizing of consumption, . . the constant misreadingof the mainstream
as the margins"(1992:180). Overestimatingthe political significance of popular
cultureandunderestimatingthe complexity of the aestheticaspects of youth culture, these theorists have in fact projected their own myths onto youth culture.
Angela McRobbie, while emphasizing the value of the "structural,historical,
and ethnographic" approaches of early cultural studies research, cautions
against the "dangersof pursuinga kind of culturalpopulism to a point at which
anything which is consumed and is popular is also seen as oppositional"
(1994:39). Other theorists have similarly argued that early subculturalstudies
privileged politicized interpretationsof youth style and glossed over the contradictions and conflicts within these subcultures (Clarke et al. 1976; Thornton
1997b). Feminist critiques have also pointed out that this early researchde-emphasized, or even misinterpreted,the role of women and girls, focusing instead
on male, working-class youth and portrayingfemales as more passive or identified with the "mainstream"(McRobbie 1991; Pini 1997; Thornton1997a). Contemporarysubculturaltheorists and researchershave a more complex vision of
subcultures,but some acknowledge that the basic tenets of subculturaltheory
are still useful. As Sarah Thornton summarizes, "Subculturalideologies are a
means by which youth imagine their own and other social groups, assert their
36 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
distinctive characterand affirm that they are not anonymous membersof an undifferentiatedmass" (1997b:201).
A contemporaryyouth subculturethat has been used to illustratethis argument, and that is part of the backdrop to emerging Indian American youth
cultures, is hip-hop. Tricia Rose (1994a, 1994b) views the language, style, and
attitudeof hip-hop as expressing a critique of the condition of urbanyouth who
face unemployment, racism, and marginalizationin a postindustrialeconomy.
She suggests that rituals of clothing and the creation of a distinctive hip-hop
style show not only an "explicit focus on consumption"but offer an alternative
means of attaining status for urban African American and Latino youth who
have limited opportunitiesfor social mobility (1994b:82). Rose also describes
hip-hop as a hybrid cultural form that relies on Afro-Caribbeanand African
American musical, oral, visual, and dance practices. Thus it weaves a commentary on existing circumstances with references to ancestral cultures from the
Afro-Caribbean diaspora to create a "counterdominant narrative" (Rose
1994b:85). Rose's analysis emphasizes a reading of hip-hop as a gesture of resistance by youth who are marginalized by existing political and social structures, echoing the interpretationsof earliercultural studies theorists. A focus on
subculturesas sites of resistance is an approachthat has been problematizedin
cultural studies and needs to be grounded in social and historical particularity,
as Rose does. It is thus worth noting at the outset the obvious differences and
similarities between the youth culture Rose describes and the Indian American
"remix"subculturein New York City.
The Indian Americanyouth in this study occupy very different class locations from the black and Latino youth with whom Rose is concerned. They are
also racialized, and racially position themselves, in ways that sometimes diverge from, and at other times overlap with, the racial categories assigned to
black youth. However, Indian American youth have appropriatedsome elements of hip-hop from urbanblack and Latino youth culture in fashioning their
own second-generationstyle, particularlythe use of clothing, of dialect, and of
musical bricolage. Hebdige points out that, as in the case of punk in Britain,the
meanings attached to these styles often become redefined once they are commodified and recuperatedby the mainstream.And yet the IndianAmericancase
is interestingbecause some themes from hip-hop, such as the negotiation of contemporaryand ancestralcultures, also resonate with second-generation youth,
but in a different way.
By sampling Indian music, second-generation Indian Americans draw on
sounds from Hindi movies and Indianmusic that their parents introducedthem
to as children in orderto inculcate an Indian identity. By remixing this with rap
and reggae and donning hip-hop gear or brand-nameclothes, they display the
markersof ethnicity and materialstatus used in a multiethnic, capitalistic society. However, the particularways in which ethnic or class identities are signaled
depend on the specific local community and its racial and ethnic composition.
Two IndianAmericanwomen who had grown up in Florida remarkedto me that
the adoption of hip-hop style in New York was new to them, coming from areas
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 37
where African Americans were less visible and where debates over racial discrimination focused more on Cuban American and Haitian American populations. By contrast, youth who grew up in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut and who had access to an Indian American social circle often said that they
began going to "Indianparties"while in high school. Within this local area, too,
exposure to racial and class diversity varies a great deal depending on the particular community and the family's economic resources and social networks.
To understandthe nature of the identities being constructed in this remix
popular culture, and to demonstratethe limitations of a too-easy interpretation
of resistance in this subculture,I first outline the cultural contradictions facing
the second generationthat are enacted at "desi parties"in Manhattan.
The Social and Material Logic of Remix Subculture
For Indian American youth, musical remixes and urbanfashion are materials with which to construct, and display, a seemingly hybrid identity that symbolically juxtaposes Indianand urbanAmericanpopularcultures. The early Birmingham theorists viewed youth cultures as attempts to symbolically resolve
the tensions between the larger group cultures to which they belong and their
own generationalconcerns. For Indian American youth, it is easy to see this diasporic musical remix as an attemptto mediate between the expectations of immigrantparentsand those of mainstreamAmerican peer culture by trying to integratesigns of belonging to both worlds. One of the themes runningthroughthe
findings from this study is that the immigrantgeneration's desire to preserve an
authenticethnic identity lingers in the second generation,for whom being essentially Indian becomes a markerof cultural and even moral superiority. Yet Indian American youth are, simultaneously, positioning themselves in the racial
and class hierarchies in the United States and coming of age in contexts shaped
by public institutions such as schools, colleges, and the workforce. A uniquely
Indian American subculture thus allows second-generation youth to socialize
with ethnic peers while reinterpretingIndianmusical and dance traditionsusing
the rituals of American popularculture.
Phil Cohen argues that such a subcultureis seductive to youth because it
helps to ideologically resolve the paradoxes or conflicts between the different
social spheresthat they occupy by enacting an option that may not be possible in
actuality (Cohen 1972, quoted in Clarke et al. 1976:32-33). However, this mediation of cultural conflicts is not entirely in the realm of the imaginary, as Cohen and others suggest-it does offer some immediate possibilities for resolution. Because this popular culture revolves around events that are almost
exclusively attendedby South Asian youth, it is often condoned by parentswho
would be more hesitant to allow their children to go out to regularclubs or parties with non-South Asian friends, especially while they are still in high school
or living at home. Manisha, a young woman who grew up in New Jersey, said,
I thinkfor the partyscene, overall,I thinkthey like us to go becauseit keepsyou
hanging out with the Indians. I think they're realizing that . . . you know, it's not
38 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
like all theseIndiansarethatgood, andthatthe fightsgo on, andIndiansactually
do drink,andtheydo stupidthings,a lot of otherstuff-but I thinktheyprobably
figurethatthatstuff goes on in all partiesso we mightas well have it with other
IndiansthanwithAmericans.
Parental approval, at least initially, seems to have been a largely unintended
benefit for youth, but it also plays on the idea bestowed by the immigrantgeneration that identification with the ancestral culture is "good" and "innocent"
whereas the influence of American culture is "bad"and "corrupt."Yet, up to a
point, these youth are disrupting this moralized dichotomy by mixing the hallowed strains of Indian music, heard on Sunday mornings with families, with
American club music and-to the dismay of many of their parents-adopting a
style createdby urbanAfrican American youth.
Dharmesh,whose family lives in New Jersey, remarkedthatIndianAmerican youth who grew up with blacks and Latinos, and even some who did not,
often acquire "the style, and the attitude, and the walk" associated with these
youth on coming to college. Identification with hip-hop culture is not a simple
outcome of class background,as Sujata, who grew up in Connecticut, pointed
out when describingIndianAmerican "homeboys":"A lot of them are like total
prep school, but they put on a, like, it's this preppie boy-urban look, you know,
it's like UpperEast Side homeboy, you know. Huge pants, and then, like, a nice
button-downshirt,you know."
"Hipness,"it becomes apparent,is of premiumvalue within this youth subculture: "being in the know" carries with it a certain status, or subculturalcapital, associated with being "cool." This underlying social logic of subcultures,
Thornton (1997b) argues, is objectified in the display of the "right"width of
jean legs, crop of hair, or use of dialect. Young men who are deejays are equated
with even higher degrees of subculturalcapital; not only do they make money
from their "gigs," but they are also presumed to confer higher social status on
their girlfriends.8
Thornton's theory of subculturalcapital also helps to address the ambiguous role of class differences within this Indian American youth culture. She argues that for some subcultures, class differences are purposefully obscured by
uniformexpressions of style, language, or music; in some instances distinctions
of taste may even emulate or romanticizeworking-class youth style. Both varieties of "fantasiesof classlessness" are more complex, andpotentially more problematic, than Thorntonsuggests, and some of the contradictionsin enactments
of class positioning will be explored later in this article. But it is importantto
note that in this subculturea young man from a working-class family in Queens
might to all outward observations be dressed, speak, and move in exactly the
same way as the son of an engineer from an affluent Connecticutsuburb,and the
two might not be easily distinguished based on these broad strokes of style visible in the crowd.
However, this does not mean that no material distinctions at all operate in
this youth subculture;on the contrary,the commodification of hip-hop, and of
youth style in general, has meant that the value of brand-name"gear,"such as
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 39
jackets and shoes, is carefully noted by youth who are in the know. The economic dimension is important to keep in mind because, as the Birmingham
school argued, the use of music and fashion to express identities in adolescence
is an option made available by particularindustries who target youth as eager
consumers. In addition, as Clarkeandhis colleagues pointed out, an overemphasis by theorists of youth style on the leisure activities of youth obscures the fact
that many youth are also necessarily concerned with school and work.
For youth in this subculture,fashion labels are symbols of buying power,
but in some contexts it is the subculturalfashionability of an iconic item of style
that is more important,regardlessof the "authenticity"of its label. So Hilfigerwear does not need to be the "real"thing on the street, but the distinctive bands
of red, blue, and white do matter. Rose writes, "Hip-hop artists use style as a
form of identity formation thatplays on class distinctions and hierarchiesby using commodities to claim the culturalterrain.Clothing and consumption rituals
testify to the power of consumption as a means of cultural expression. Hip-hop
fashion is an especially rich example of this sort of appropriationand critique
via style" (1994a:36). Rose argues that for urban,working-class, or poor youth,
sporting mock gold jewelry or "fake" Gucci and other designer emblems is a
way of parodying, and perhaps challenging, the affluence of those who can afford to flaunt the "real"thing. Yet, in a subculturethat includes upper-middleclass as well as less affluent youth, there are in fact those who sport the "real"
labels and who notice others who do and do not. One young man pointed out to
me that it would be obvious to others thatthe jacket he was wearing cost a hefty
sum of money, and he in turnwould certainly know the price of someone else's
brand-nameboots or backpack. It would be facile to say that class distinctions
have disappearedinto subculturalappropriationand mimesis. If anything, there
is a second discourse of authenticitydovetailing with that of essentialized ethnic
identities: that of the material value of goods and of class status. These distinctions are played out within an IndianAmericanpopularculture wherein notions
of authenticitycontain illuminating paradoxes,as I will argue later. The expressions of both material mockery and musical remix make more complex, but ultimately fail to undermine,the reification of ethnic identity and materialstatus.
What is obvious to many is thatthe adoption, and adaptation,of hip-hop, a
style initially associated with economically marginalized youth of color, now
crosses boundariesof class and race. Vijay, who went to a private high school in
Manhattan,recalls:
My friendsweremostly,I'd say,Jewishkids,andAsiankids whowereintosortof
like a hip-hopsortof sceneor anythinglike that,wannabehoods,basically,andif
you wantto be hoods, you know,quotingSophoclesthatwe'd learnedin class.
Which is funny. Because, I mean, it was mostly ... kids from the prep schools
aroundthe area ... and they also did the same thing.
As Vijay points out, Indian American youth are not the only ones appropriating
urban African American and Latino style; other Asian American and white
youth from urban as well as suburbanbackgroundshave claimed the hip-hop
40 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
look and dialect, and the music, fashion, and media industrieshave helped make
this part of U.S.-if not global-youth culture. It is apparentthat the appeal of
hip-hop is a morepervasive phenomenonand is a languageincreasinglyadopted
by youth who are middle class, white, or suburban (Giroux 1996). As Rose
observes, "Black style throughhip-hop has contributedto the continued blackening of mainstreampopularculture"(1994a:82).
Sunita, who has been going to "Indianparties"since she was in high school,
commented that, for her Indian American peers, "identifying with hip-hop is a
little more rebellious" than adopting other youth styles "because it's not the
norm associated with white culture."She pointed out that the use of style often
becomes an act of defiance against parents,particularlythose who belong to the
wave of Indianimmigrantswho came to the United States in the mid-1960s and
1970s and were highly educated professionals and graduatestudents. Sunita's
comments echo the views of researcherswho argue that, for the most part, this
immigrantcohort identifies with the ideology of "white middle-class America"
(Helweg and Helweg 1990; Hossain 1982). The more recent wave of South
Asian immigrantsthat has been arriving since the 1980s, partly as a result of
sponsorship by relatives who emigrated earlier, has generally been less economically privileged and educationally qualified than the earlier cohort and
more concentrated,at least initially, in multiethnicurbanneighborhoods(Khandelwal 1995; Lessinger 1995).
The meanings of this appropriationof black style obviously have different
implications for youth depending on the particularracial and class locations
they occupy. The emulation of urbanAfrican American style has complex connotations thatmust be situated in the economic andpolitical particularitiesof its
appropriation,on differentialsof privilege and mobility.9Although hip-hop culture is now commodified and crosses class and racial boundaries, Sunita, for
one, finds this identification through style to be "superficial"if not based on a
sharedracialor class politics. While there are small groups of youth within most
of the South Asian American student organizations in New York who are more
politicized and more interestedin building alliances with otherminority student
groups than the majorityof their Indian American peers on campus, what most
of these student organizations share is an emphasis on performing an Indian
American, or nascent South Asian American, identity based on traditionalarts
or religious celebrationsin an ethnically exclusive social space. The largerbackdrop for second-generation Indian Americans who are involved in this youth
culture is one in which identification as Indian American is generally not a political stance, let alone a position of solidarity with other youth of color.
Sunita commented furtherthat, in her view, many youth immersed in this
popular culture"at the back of their minds are thinking, this is not long term."
She reflected thatthe appropriationof what is perceived by the mainstreamto be
an oppositional style is mediatedby the often unstated,but always present, location of class status and remarked,"I know for me there's this cushion, my parents are supportingme, they're paying for my college ... you know [the identification] is only up to a certain point, there are big, distinct differences." Unlike
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 41
the creatorsof hip-hop, the college studentswho participatein the Indian remix
subculturearenot necessarily using it to recognize limited options for economic
mobility. Most IndianAmericanyouth I have spoken to do not view this popular
culture as resistance to a system of economic and racial stratification; on the
contrary, they seem bent on succeeding within that system. Although they are
aware thatas youth of color they are often targetsof racial discrimination,many
do not believe thatwill translateinto economic discriminationin their own lives.
The context of bhangraremix youth culture in New York, or more generin
the United States, stands in contrast to that in Britain, where the late
ally
1970s and early 1980s saw a "new symbolic unity primarilybetween AfricanCaribbeanand Asian people" throughidentification with the category "Black"
(Sharma 1996:39). This identification, Sanjay Sharma notes, was a political
project involving "autonomous, anti-racist community struggles in Britain"
(1996:39). However, the coalitional label, Black, "hada certain way of silencing
the very specific experiences of Asian people," a category used in the United
Kingdom to refer primarily to those of South Asian descent (Hall 1991:56,
quoted in Sharma1996:39). Bhangraremix emerged as a "new Asian dance music" that re-emphasized an "Asian identity"as a possible racial location but still
one that, in Sharma's view, "continues to be intimately tied to rethinking the
possibilities of the Black anti-racistproject"(1996:34). Keeping this contrastin
mind is instructivebecause it is a reminderthathybrid South Asian popularculture in the diaspora is not inherentlysubversive but is differentially politicized
depending on the historical, economic, and national context of particularimmigrant communities.
In New York, the college studentsI spoke to who participatedin this youth
subculture generally seemed to envision a future in which connections with
other people of color did not necessarily play a role. More important,they hoped
to move into professional, well-paying careers in order to realize their immigrant parents' aspirations for upwardmobility. However, this subculture is not
populated only by the children of upper-middle-classSouth Asian immigrants.
Some of those who flock to desi parties come from families belonging to the
more recent wave of lower-middle- and working-class South Asian immigrants
entering New York and New Jersey. Second-generation youth who grew up in
racially diverse, urban neighborhoods often know what it is like to be racially
harassedandarealso sometimesmistakenlyidentifiedas black or Latino.'
Across class segments, however, identification with African Americans is
laced with the legacy of tensions between second-generation youth and immigrant parents springing from issues of racial identification. South Asian immigrants often transplantantiblackprejudicesfrom the subcontinent that are reinforced by the black-white lines of U.S. racialization and the scapegoating of
African Americans by new immigrants(Kondo 1995; Mazumdar1989; Morrison 1994; Singh 1996). These contradictionsare challenged, in a personal context, by young women who have been in relationships with African American
men and who spoke of the racist censure they faced from their parents and the
largerIndianAmericancommunity.While there certainly are second-generation
42 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
youth who have an oppositional stance to the antiblack,model minorityleanings
of the immigrantgeneration, it remains to be seen whetherthis position will be
sustained as they move into the workforce,marry,and build theirown social networks. Jeffrey Melnick observes that the crossing of racial boundariesthrough
music tends to wane as adolescents move into adulthood and is "temporally
bounded by the fact that ... teenagers have to grow up into a labor economy
deeply invested in racial division" (1996:227).
Nationalism, Regionalism, and Violence
The racial and class positionings implicit in this subculturearejust two of
the multiple levels of identification operating simultaneously at these parties in
New York. Indian American youth enact or challenge a host of allegiances in
these spaces: the South Asian label of many campus student organizations;the
exclusively Indian American composition of many social networks among
youth; and the regional clustering of community organizations and youth
"gangs."In addition,these layers of identification are contouredby experiences
of gender and sexuality. The intersection of these different identities in the
popular culture created by second-generation youth is not always a peaceable
coexistence.
Desi partiesin New York have the reputationof being the scene of regular
outbursts of violence among party goers, both men and women. Some informants resented what they saw as a negative portrayalof IndianAmericangatherings by the media and complained about club managersrefusing to book Indian
events for fear of unseemly disruption.Yet these same youth acknowledgedthat
these fights were indeed a common occurrence and that they themselves were
left feeling frustrated.Sharmila, who had been involved in organizing parties
sponsored by her campus South Asian student organization, found that the image of males associated with these parties is "more aggressive. ... And more
fights, always more fights. Now there's fights at every party. It's just like this
whole-oh! it's scary to me because everywhere you go, there's fights."
People pointed to different explanations for the ugly brawls that ensue and
that sometimes bringin the police. Some attributedit to an aggressive sensitivity
to perceived "disrespect"-macho defenses of slights against girlfriends or
women's fury over aspersions on their character-while others chalked it up to
drunkenness.DJ Baby Face, who has been spinning at Indianparties for almost
a decade, pointed to another possibility that suggests the troubling side of nationalistic solidarity. As I talked to him at a party held at a club on a "regular"
(i.e., not ethnically specific) night, with a racially and ethnically diverse crowd
mingling in the fluorescent tunnels of the cavernous club, DJ Baby Face commented, "Here, it's mixed, they're Indians, but also whites, blacks. You don't
see Indianscreatingtrouble.But you just get a bunch of Indiansin a room all together, they feel powerful, you get fights breakingout. Here, no fights will break
out." According to Baby Face and others who participate in "the scene," the
creation of an exclusively Indianor South Asian social space may have also provided an outlet to a macho, nationalistic fervor or even to a more particularistic
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 43
regional jingoism. For example, commenting on the violence, Sharmila said,
"Because people bring it down, like, [assertive] 'Well, I'm Gujarati, we're all
Gujaratis,' or 'we're all this.' ... Malayali, and Gujarati, and all of the songs,
'We're Gujaratis!' And people will say, 'Oh, come on, give it up, Gujaratis,' or,
'Come on, give it [up] Pakistanis,' 'Come on -,' and because people are saying
that it brings up ... more division." Desi parties are spaces in which not just panIndian identification but regional allegiances and linguistic groupings, such as
Gujarati and Malayali, are often visibly expressed. The passion aroused in many
of Punjabi and Sikh descent by the sounds of the dhol drum used in bhangra is an
obvious testament to the persistence of regional identifications in the second
generation. A flier for a bhangra remix party at New York University hosted by
the United Sikh Association "proudly presents Mera Desh Punjab," which literally means "my country is Punjab" (although, testifying to the translocal nature
of loyalties in diaspora, the flier also describes the local deejays as "putting
Queens on the map"). John, whose family is from the Malayali-speaking Christian community in Kerala, said of his Sikh friends,
So they love it, that's their music, they feel more invigoratedby that. And everyone
else who prefers the Hindi [film music remixes] to this, you know, but- ... I
think Sikh men love Punjabi music, or Punjabis in general love the bhangra, you
know, and they want to just get up, which is good, it's good. And when the bhangra
comes on, that's my cue to leave, because I don't want to get involved with the
jumpin' up and down, and I can't do that.... You always see some people leave
when thatcomes on, and there's anothercore of people coming onto the dance floor.
The dance floor literally becomes a space that is claimed and reclaimed by
the different regional identifications that have been transplanted to the United
States and that still filter into the second generation. Some young men and
women, especially those who had grown up with strong regional networks, said
that they would like to marry someone who shared their regional background,
not just another Indian. Social cliques, too, are often bounded by regional identities, and those who belong to them talk of occasional intersections, such as "a
trend of Malayali boys going with Gujarati girls." Layered over the competition
for cultural authenticity, then, are conflicts between the pan-ethnic, national,
and regional identities that are adopted by, and re-created in, the second generation.
Mediating Multiplicity
For IndianAmerican youth in New York, creating a "cut 'n mix" style indicates the influences of the varying social and material contexts in which they
have come of age, including the different cultural spheres in which they have
been socialized and their class backgrounds.Hebdige writes that "style in subculture" is composed of "gestures,movements toward a speech which offends
the 'silent majority,' which challenges the principle of unity and cohesion,
which contradicts the myth of consensus" (1979:17). A consistent, noncontradictoryidentity seamless with the largercultural context in the United States
is not always possible for teenagers from immigrant families-nor for other
44 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
youth, for that matter-and research has pointed to the multiple identities and
cultural dissonance that Indian American youth manage daily (Agarwal 1991;
Bacon 1996;Gibson 1988; Maira1995, 1996; Wakil, Siddique,andWakil 1981).
Analyzing the "intermezzoculture"produced in the fusion of bhangraand
reggae in Britain,Back arguesthat"in the alternativepublic sphereof the dance,
liminal ethnicities are produced which link together different social collectivities" (1994:19, quoted in Sharma 1996:36). However, hybridity, though fashionable in theoryand also literally in "ethnicchic," is not always easy to live, for
families and communities demandloyalty to culturalideals thatmay be difficult
to balance for second-generationyouth. Theoretical valorizations of hybridity
do not always hold up on the ground, where the contradictionsof lived experience challenge binaries of authentic/syncreticcultural identities. While Indian
American youth move among multiple social and cultural spaces, there is, in
fact, a degree to which this mediation of cultures happenslargely on a symbolic
level, and after the party is over, youth must returnto the real constraintsof interacting with their parents, peers, and communities. Furthermore,this youth
subculturedoes not provide an all-encompassing stage on which to enact ethnic
identity, and for many it can express only one, if perhapsan important,aspect of
their identity.
Sharmapoints out that"liminalethnicities," if createdat all, may be limited
to the "transitoryand contingent spaces of the dance floor" (1996:36). Some
youth still switch among multiple identities as they did when moving between
high school and family, only now perhaps they change from baggy pants and
earringsthatthey wear among peers to conservative attireon the job, or from secret relationshipsat college to dutiful daughterson visits home. Ravi noted the
"two sides" that most of his second-generation peers display, one for "Indian
parents"and the other for public spaces outside parentalscrutiny, and laughingly mused aboutthe literal "switching"of these situationalidentities symbolized by clothing:
to the pointwherea coupleof girls [goingto parties]wouldchangein the caraf-
terwards, which was funny. I found that hilarious, but I could see it happening.
They would wear a nice long shirt when they went out, but the shirt would come
up to the midriff, halter, you know? Or they'd wear it underneathbut a sweater
over it, and the sweater comes off all of a sudden, and all of a sudden their pants
come off and it's a skirt. So I mean, there's definitely that side.
Ravi, and many other young Indian Americans I interviewed, suggested
that this switching from demure to provocative style was a practice familiar to
most second-generation youth but about which there was often a tacit understanding of secrecy from parents. Some commented that parents who were initially largely oblivious to the rites of bhangra parties now understood, to some
extent at least, that this exclusively desi space was not free from the supposedly
contaminating influences of "American" popular culture, that is, alcohol, socially liberal mores, and assertions of female sexuality.
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 45
But to leave the analysis at this is too simplistic a reading of what is going
on. This subculturemay express a symbolic mediation of different identities, but
it is not without internal contradictions;one cannot simply assume that the fusion of these two cultural styles representsthe desire for a hybrid identity. The
whole of a subcultureis always greaterthanthe sum of its parts-there is always
something in the mix that disruptsa too-coherent interpretation.
'Hoods and Hoochy Mamas: The Innocence of Tradition
A revealing source of tension within this Indian American world of dance
parties and social gatherings is the contestationof heterosexual and gender roles
and of racial identifications performedin these spaces. Many informantsspoke
of the perceptionamong their peers thatfor women, beauty was inextricably associated with fair skin, the "long black hair-type thing"thatmirrorsthe alluring
image of Indian film actresses-icons familiar to many in the second generation-and, often, a thin body, in keeping with dominant ideals pervading fashion and media.1'Once again, racialized notions of attractivenessseem to shape
notions of desirability and to re-encode the color-based racism that many immigrantsbring with them from India (Mazumdar1989; Singh 1996).
For Indian American men, however, there seems to a somewhat wider
range of physical images of desirability, although these are no less racialized
than for women. Among young men who frequent the desi party scene and who
grew up in New York or New Jersey, the "look" is contoured along the lines of
urbanhip-hop style: slack jeans, baggy T-shirts, Hilfiger colors, and hair that is
close shaven or shorn undera mop of locks. The language, verbal and nonverbal,
that many of these youth use also echoes the cadences of hip-hop dialect and
gesture. Sharmila noted that for many second-generation men, hip-hop style
connotes a certain image of racializedmasculinity that is the ultimate definition
of "cool": "South Asian guys give more respect to African Americans than to
whites because they think the style is cool. The guys look up to them because it's
down [fashionable]. They think, 'I'm kinda scared of them, but I want to look
like them because they're cool.' " Ravi, who began going to Indianpartieswhile
in high school in California and has continued to do so in New York, reflected,
"The hip-hop culturehas just really takenoff. It's really appealed to the Indians,
maybe just listening pleasure, the way it sounds, I guess. Maybe the toughness it
exudes." Black style is viewed as the embodiment of a particularmachismo, the
object of racialized desire and, simultaneously, of racialized fear.
Some may argue that Indian American men are drawn to symbols of
"tough" masculinity to counter the popular construction of South Asian, and
more generally Asian American, men as somehow effeminate, an emasculated
image drawn from orientalizing stereotypes that feeds into caricatures of
"nerdy"whiz kids and scientists (Dasgupta and Das Dasgupta 1997). Yet very
few of the young men I spoke to felt thatthe formerperceptionwas very relevant
to their own constructions of Indian American masculinity; while some did
speak of being pegged as model students in school, they did not-at least consciously-connect this to the lure of hip-hop. According to what these Indian
46 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Americanyouth have to say, it would appearthatit is the powerful appealof hiphop music and style and the coding of blackness as hypersexual, ratherthan the
negative perceptionsof Indianmasculinity, that drawsthem to hip-hop, as is the
case perhapsfor many other American youth.
Furthermore,for young men, images of desire seem to be in collusion with
markers of material status. As noted earlier, several pointed explicitly to the
need for men to flaunt brand-namegear to signal their buying power and thus
their appeal in the dating market.The behavior of Indian American men, however, is not read as a markerof ethnic authenticity.Although men who project a
sexualized, or promiscuous, image were often criticized by the women I spoke
to as being unreliable and not the best choice for long-term relationships, they
were never described as being somehow "less Indian"for their hypersexuality.
Images of sexuality and style for Indian American men are seemingly not as intimately intertwinedwith issues of ethnic authenticityas they are for women.
Many note that a" 'hoody," or streetwise hip-hop, image is not considered
as appealingfor women in this subcultureas it is for men, and the pervasive image of desirable femininity rests on less-androgynous-looking, designer-inspired New York fashion. Provocative clothing styles are often popular for
women at Indian parties; tight-fitting club wear, in its latest incarnation of
slinky hip-hugging pants, halter tops, and miniskirts, is often worn to allow a
flash or more of leg or midriff. Some sport a diamondnose stud or nose ring in a
nod to ethnic style.l2 More common is a cosmeticized appearance-blackrimmed eyes, dark lipstick, and arched eyebrows-and an emphasis on slimness, if not thinness.
Notions of style and body image are embedded in deepercontradictions in
the definitions of Indian American gender roles and sexualities that are played
out in this space and are contested by some who find them constricting. Manisha, whose friends are mainly African American and Latino, often dresses in
hip-hop gear-with a gold "Om"pendant dangling aroundher neck-and reflects, "Guyscan get away with [the 'hoody look], but girls who are considered
'cool' dress prettier.I thinkthe guys are intimidatedby that [girls with a hip-hop
look]; it's takenas a sign of being closer to Latinos or blacks, of being outside of
the Indian circle, as I am....
the guys may think we're rougher or not as sweet."
This "sweet,"more conventionally feminine look, with "long, straighthair," is
also rife with contradictionsbecause there is an ambivalence aboutthe appeal of
"innocent"femininity that creates yet another doubling in these enactments of
desire (see Figure 2). Although most men observe that the demure, feminized
image is consideredmore appropriatefor IndianAmericanwomen thanhip-hop
style, modest femininity in turnis passed over at partiesfor women who perform
a more sexualized style on the dance floor. Obviously, women can derive great
pleasure from dressing in a way that allows them to assert their sexuality, and
some may quite deliberately choose to flaunt such a style. Yet these same
women are considered "loose," that is, not the type of IndianAmerican woman
a man would like to marry.John commented on the attributesof women whom
Indian Americanmen would ideally like to date:
INDIANAMERICANYOUTHSUBCULTURE47
Figure 2
Ethnic yearningsand other desires.CopyrightSrinivasKuruganti.Used by permission.
More Americanized and more outgoing, [going to] the parties and this and that,
that type of person. But at the same time that type of person is not-the stereotype,
probably. If they're really into that whole party scene and only want to go out,
chances are, I don't know how they're going to take care of their families . . when
they're put in that position. I mean,... I guess they're more wild and they're more
promiscuous, and you know, Indian men, now, when they're young, like that,
that's what their mind is focused on.
Several men acknowledged the pervasiveness of the heterosexual double
standard for Indian American women, a standard that allows for a seductive,
party-going girlfriend but expects a wife to uphold the sanctity of family and, by
extension, tradition. The dichotomy of "Indian" versus "American" thus becomes a gendered and sexualized contrast. John, for example, associated sociability and immersion in the party subculture with an "Americanized" orientation
that is in contradiction with the nurturance and responsibility for family that he
conflated with traditional Indian womanhood: "As you get older, you want the
so-called typical Indian woman who stays home, but will take care of the family,
and you know that they'll nurture the kids the right way, be like the loving mom,
as opposed to the mom who's always shopping or always out, leave the kids at
home, they're hungry, they make microwave food, this and that. .."
Interestingly, female informants, too, were sometimes critical of other Indian American women who asserted their sexuality in ways that they found
problematic, or as one young woman put it bluntly, "trashy." Sunita said,
"That's another thing why I don't always go to Indian parties: the girls are a
48 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
little, like, little too much for me, the way they dress and stuff; they're a little too
risque, or whateveryou want to say, somethingI always don't have respect for."
Reena, who was critical of her family's anxieties abouther sexuality and her desire for independence, was still troubledby IndianAmerican women who wore
provocative clothing: "Maybe I'm a little bit old-fashioned Indian because of
what my brothertold me, but you should keep a little dignity and reserve for
yourself instead of, like, exposing yourself and marketing yourself that way."
She described a woman she saw at an "Indianparty":"This girl I went to a high
school with, she's always been a 'ho' [whore], but, just, it just surprisedme that
she would wear this V-neck down to here, her butt up to there, I was like, [expression of shock], and I could never see myself in thatkind of an outfit, and she
has a boyfriend, and I was just like, Oh my God!" Reena thought that Indian
American women who assert a supposedly vampish sexuality do so mainly to
gain popularity with men, a practice she criticized as confining, and that certainly highlights the problems of sexual objectification. Reena, for example,
commented that while she enjoyed the music and socializing at these parties,
"it's also a lot of competition, in the sense thatyou have all these hoochy mamas
in there with their tight-fitting dresses and stuff like that and trying to be all up
on everyone. I just remembergetting into my brother's car and being like, I'm
just way too mature for this because, like, guys [are] coming up to me, 'Hey,
baby, what's your number?' "
While women who go to these "Indianparties"complained of the discomfort they feel being subjected to aggressive male advances and female sexual
competitiveness, notions of ideal Indianfemininity are layered with certainheterosexual contradictionswhose consequences cannot be ignored. The invoking
of the virgin/'ho' dichotomy by women is complicated because Reena was one
of many female informantswho talked about the frustrationsof having to hide
her heterosexual relationships from her parents, who assumed that independence connoted premaritalsexuality. The chastity of daughtersbecomes emblematic not just of the family's reputationbut also, in the context of the diaspora, of the purity of tradition and ethnic identity, a defense against the
promiscuity of "American influences." Second-generation women often asserted the virgin/whore dichotomy, but they simultaneously challenged the focus on their sexual behavior as an index of "good"Indianwomanhood.
While these second-generationwomen were confined, andjudged, by these
standardsfor ethnically pure femininity, they participatedin this scrutiny and
evaluation of other women themselves; as Jayawardenaand de Alwis point out,
women are caught between allegiances to ethnic loyalty and resistances to oppressive gendered ideals: "This dilemma needs to be recognized as it helps us
understandwhy some women accept their 'constructions' in order to defend
their culture .... We need to locate identities within power relations and recog-
nize thatpeople have multiple identities"(1996:xiii). Particularlyin a context in
which womenbelong to an immigrantcommunitywhose ethnicidentityis actively
and symbolically asserted, it is difficult for women to reject this frameworkof
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 49
gendered cultural authenticityaltogether, for it means renouncing their claims
to ethnic belonging accordingto the prevailing definition.
The heterosexualritualsof the dancefloor andthe emphasison body imageare
charged issues for Radhikaand other young women because they face the contradictoryexpectations of their families of successfully negotiating mainstream
society while at the same time they are assigned the role of primarybearersof
"Indianculture."A study of second-generationIndian American women's performances of Hindi film dances notes that these performancesare seen as representing "traditional"Indian culture and evoke a "distant India" for the immigrant community (Ghei 1988:13, quoted in Leonard 1997:136-137). The
expectation that IndianAmericanwomen should embody a community's ethnic
identity is visibly demonstratedin Miss India, Georgia (GrimbergandFriedman
1996), a documentaryfilm thatfollows four second-generation women competing in a beauty pageantfor IndianAmericans.Not only are the women in the film
literally paradedon stage as the "prizes"of the community,'3but the results of
the pageant clearly favor women presenting "traditional"dress and classical
dance over any kind of syncretic style or performance.Women are expected to
carry the burden of embodying unsullied tradition, of chaste Indian womanhood, as has been pointed out in discussions of the double standardthat applies
to sexual behavior for young South Asian American women as opposed to men
1992;DasguptaandDas Dasgupta1997;Gibson 1988;Mani1993).
(Bhattarcharjee
Instead of rejecting the practice of close community scrutiny of Indian
American youth, it appearsthat many in the second generation seem to have internalized their parents' standardsof what is authentically Indian or properbehavior for a "good" Indian son or daughter, even if this is contested by some.
Some men recognize the paradoxesof these expectations of second-generation
women, but the discourse of authenticity seems to overshadow their engagement with this critique. The college years may at first appearto be a liberating
period when youth can potentially experiment with identities away from parental sanctions; however, as those early cultural studies theorists point out, youth
subculturesoften perpetuatecertaincharacteristicsof the larger cultureor community to which their membersbelong, even if youth are critical of or ambivalent aboutother values associated with that "parentculture."Second-generation
youth appearto be reproducingtheir parents' policing of ethnic boundaries in
certain instances, a surveillancethatoften has a specifically genderededge with
a keen focus on women's behavior,particularlytheir sexuality.
The Paradoxes of Petrification
The ways in which IndianAmericanyouth make meaning of this youth subculture reveal that there are several paradoxes of identity embedded in discussions of what the popularculturesignifies. Hebdige emphasizes that "the meaning of subcultureis, then, always in dispute, and style is the area in which the
opposing definitions clash with most dramatic force" (1979:3). Many of the
same college students who participatein the club scene and hang out at desi parties, because it allows them to socialize as Indian Americans, also describe this
50 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
hybridpopularcultureas "diluted"or somehow less "authentically"Indian. Vijay posed the dichotomy between "real" and "inauthentic"Indian cultural expressions quite clearly, distinguishing between classical arts and the music
spawned by South Asian deejays in the United Kingdom:
Youhavea dichotomyof, sortof, two cultures:you havean Indianculturewhich
is sortof a realIndianculture,which,you have,bharatnatyam[classicalIndian
dance]andotherpeople who arereally interested;andyou have anothersort of
culture,whichis the bhangraculture,you know, whereyou're looking at Bally
Sagooremixesas a meansto exploreculturalidentity,whichis not exactly... I
mean,I enjoylisteningto thosesongs as well, but,er, therehas to be a separation
betweenwhatis realandwhy you'rereallydoingsomething.
TimothyTaylorcites a dismissive posting on the Internetthatcharacterized
"bangra"music as essentially "American"and thereforeun-Indian:"Bangrais a
music for [those who] are willing to shame towards their own culture. I really
don't like Indianmusic either, but I have respect for it because it is a display of
Indian culture.If y'all startlistening to bangra, y'all are giving up on your own
culture"(1997:166). For these second-generationIndianAmericans, authenticity is still tied to the vision of India that is filtered throughtheirparents' socialization, that is, a definition of culture based on classical arts, selected historical
traditions,and religious orthodoxy (Maira 1998).
This definition has been transmitted, in part, by first-generation parents
who feel the need to protectthe "purity"of their ethnic identityandculturein the
face of corruptinginfluences of mainstreamU.S. culture,a notion that is embedded in a traditionalIndian view of migration as a "pollutingenterprise"(Chandra 1997:163). The need for authenticity has led to the selective importationof
elements and agents of Indian culture, with religious specialists, classical musicians, dancers,and film stars touring the United States and performingat community events. Thus, while there is a circulation of hybridpopularculture in the
diaspora,including Indian films that often offer a culturalpastiche and remixes
of Indianmusic, thereis also a paralleltransnationalcircuitthathas helped to reify
images of Indianidentityoverseas(Levittand Mairain press;Prashad1997).
The yardstick of ethnic authenticity in this tightly knit youth culture is
finely calibrated; those who do not socialize exclusively with other Indian
Americans or South Asian Americans, or who are partof an alternativesubculture-whether based on a different style, progressive politics, non-Hindu religious identifications,or alternativesexual orientations-say thatthey often feel
marginalized.Paul Gilroy finds a similar tension in his analysis of black diasporic culture and attributes these rigid boundaries to "rhetoricalstrategies of
cultural insiderism"that support an "absolute sense of ethnic difference" and
"constructthe nation [or national identification] as ethnically homogeneous"
(1993:83-84). While subculturescan sometimes be a means of expressing resistance to traditional power relationships between dominant and subordinate
groups, as Hebdige (1979) and Clarkeet al. (1976) observe, they can also mirror
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 51
the patternsof dominanceand hierarchyfrom which membersof the subculture
are ostensibly seeking refuge.
The selective importationof culture from the subcontinentis driven by the
frozen furrowsof memoryand the politics of nostalgia, with immigrantsharking
back to the Indiathey left a few decades ago or to a mythical land of spirituality,
"good values," and unchanging tradition. Carola and Marcelo Suarez-Orozco
(1995) point out thatin the immigrantgeneration, this obsession with an authentic, presumably "pure"original tradition occurs at a time when in fact ethnic
identity is most questionedor in doubt. Ethnic yearnings often express a deeper,
collective mourningfor a seemingly lost culture. For the second generation, the
desire to "returnto roots" expresses a sense of displacement that is, in most
cases, based on emotional and political ratherthan geographic dislocation; it is
their parents,of course, who are spatially displaced, and it is in the second generation that this nostalgia for the country of origin lives on. Identity politics in
the United States also encouragesthis view of ethnic identity as a searchfor validating origins, as a commodity whose authenticity must be preserved (Prashad
1997). Many second-generationIndian Americans use the language of "going
back" to India for visits, even though they were born in the United States and
never, in fact, left India. As ArjunAppaduraiobserves, "One of the central ironies of globalculturalflows, especially in the arenaof entertainmentandleisure"is
that this youth cultureis shaped by a "nostalgia without memory"(1996:30).
Commentingon the rise of bhangrayouth culture in Britain, GayatriGopinath writes of the tension that is produced as a result of this awarenessof trying
to recover something that was never lost:
Yet even while bhangrawas being used as a way of positinga shared,essential
identity,theradicalimpossibilityof thatidentitywas alwaysbeingreferencedby
its veryform:bhangrasongsthat"addtheWesterntouch,"forinstance,inevitably
involve an alterationof the "culture"that they are supposedly only deploying strategically. In other words, these statements are enunciations of loss, of a yearning
and longing to recover and recuperate that which is also simultaneously acknowledged to be irrecoverable and irrecuperable. [1995:309-310]
The definition of ethnic identity as a finite substance to be protectedfrom diminution or dilution in the diasporahas a powerful impact on the second generation. This ideology of ethnic authenticity often dwells on images of women's
sexuality, the embodimentof the collective's fantasies of purityand fears of pollution (Maira 1998).
Conclusion: The Chastity of Ethnic Authenticity
The rhetoricof authenticityused by Indian American youth reveals an importantdimension of this subculture.Images of the ancestralcultureportraytraditions as "pure"and "innocent"while mainstreamAmericanculturaltropes are
referredto as "seductive"and "polluting"influences from which ethnic identity
must be protected.The language used in evaluating identities, by both first- and
second-generationIndianAmericans, is thatof chastity and corruption.There is
52 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
clearly a moralizing dimension thatis tied to the debates over gender and sexual
roles in the second generation, one that has real consequences for the lives of
young Indian Americans. James Brow argues that the "moralauthority"that allows traditionto become doxa, or the naturalorder of things, stems from a process of imbuing ethnic ties with a certain sanctity, so that "the primordialityof
communal relations is preservedonly by their incarcerationin the doxic prison
of innocence" (1990:2-3). Brow makes an interestinglink between ethnic absolutism and a process of sacralization;however, he does not make the connection
to gender and sexuality, the otherhalf of this tension in this case.
Otherresearchhas pointed to the particulargenderedview of culturein immigrant communities where women are equated with tradition and so must be
protected or kept within community norms. Sayantani Dasgupta and Shamita
Das Dasgupta write, "The properbehavior of both first- and second-generation
Indian women in America has become a litmus test of community solidarity. In
turn,women deviating from this idea of traditionalIndian womanhood are considered traitors to the community" (1997:384). Loyalty to the ethnic group is
thus viewed as conflicting with behavior that challenges traditional gender
roles, leaving Indian American women in a harsh, and unrealistic, dichotomy
where independenceand assertionof sexuality are seen as essentially un-Indian.
Anannya Bhattacharjeeobserves that "anything that threatens to dilute this
model of Indian womanhood constitutes a betrayal of all that it stands for: nation, religion, God, the Spirit of India, culture, tradition,family" and is considered "contaminatedby Westernvalues" (1992:31).
What needs to be pointed out is that there is a sexualizing of ethnic identities thatimbues them with a moralforce, enabling the enforcementof notions of
cultural purity in the second generation. The language of sexuality is inserted
into the rhetoric of ethnic authenticity to uphold the dichotomy of identity
choices. The sexual undercurrentsof this subculture-the preoccupation with
dating and body image, the slipping out from the clothing of a good Indian girl
into thatof a popularclubber-express the generally sharedconcerns of adolescents across ethnic boundariesbut are also cast in a particularway that reflects
on questions of second-generationidentity and reveals the limitations of hybridity when expressed in the realm of style alone.
When reflecting on the complex contradictionsemerging from an analysis
of this IndianAmericanyouth subculturein New York, it seems thatthe creation
of this ethnic youth subcultureactually uses a very pervasive means of expressing identity in the U.S. context. The markingof ethnic boundariesand the use of
symbols from fashion, music, and dance are idioms characteristicof American
youth cultures. This is not to dismiss the need of many second-generationyouth
for a space they can claim as their own but, rather, to recognize the ways in
which this subculture, ratherthan expressing very different identity possibilities, is not free of gendered sanctions or moralized judgments that reinforce a
wider discourse about ethnic purity.
I argue that, ratherthan subvertingthe dominant tropes of cultural identities at work in the second generation, this subculturehas provided a setting in
INDIAN AMERICAN YOUTH SUBCULTURE 53
which to contain the presumed paradoxes of second-generationexperiences by
performing a hybrid identity that is still questioned by many of these youth
themselves. Gopinathalso concludes that "bhangraas performancemust be understood, then, not as a manifestation of the free play of a hybrid identity but
ratheras a creative response to the demand for coherence and stability within
specific racial and culturalcontexts, a means by which to 'work the trapthat one
is inevitably in' "(1995:312).
Culturaltheorists have sometimes privileged notions of fluid, fragmented
identities without paying sufficient attention to the ways in which actors often
negotiate and enact both shifting identities and reified ideals in their everyday
lives; the contradictionson the ground are sometimes more complex than theorists acknowledge. Challenging theories that insist that identity is a fluid "process" andnever a static object, Taylor counters, in his studyof South Asian British music, that identity is a "process both toward and away from a thing-a
stable identity-that many musicians and fans hold onto" (1997:164). Yet it is
importantto note the ways in which second-generationmen and women critique
ideologies of chaste identity and overturn simplistic theoretical dichotomies
through the complexity of their everyday social actions and cultural constructions. IndianAmerican youth simultaneously participatein, if not help produce,
performances of culture that remix elements of "tradition"and "modernity,"
"authentic"and "hybrid."Although second-generationinformantsdescribed remix popularcultureas culturallydilute and inferiorto "pure"artistic traditions,
in their daily lives they participated in a range of activities that evidenced a
range of culturalinfluences. Going to classes on a multiethniccampus, wearing
hip-hop clothes, participatingin sports, working at a part-timejob-all are examples of activities that do not supportnotions of "pure"Indianness as defined
in second-generationrhetoricabout ethnic identity.
Gerd Baumann observes in his analysis of reifying discourses of culture
and community in Southall, London, that many South Asian British informants
simultaneously participatedin a discourse that acknowledged the plurality of
cultures and the complexity of the communities to which they belonged: "It
would be naive to pitch a Southall demotic discourse against the dominantone,
and presumptuousto adjudicate their relative merits. The ethnography argues
only one thing: the dominantdiscourse is not the only one that Southallians engage in, and thereforedoes not capture the wealth of meanings that they create
and live" (1996:30).
The findings from this study on Indian Americans in New York calls for a
theory of identity in culturalpracticethattranscendsold binariesof essentialization and hybriditywhile still being able to encompass both these possibilities as
aspects of the lived realities of social actors. Rather than offering an abstract,
largely theoreticalnotion of alternativeidentity modes, it would be more useful
to drawconclusions from observing the complexity of culturalpractice, as Baumann (1996) proposes. Social actors are able to draw on models of personhood
that are based on stability and authenticity of cultural elements in some situations and to embrace identities thatemphasize fluidity and multiplicity at other
54 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
moments. JeanetteMageo describes such a dialectical perspective for collective
culturalidentities, arguingthat there is a "dialogic cohesiveness" among the dimensions of self highlighted in the "ontological premises" of a particularculture,as well as elements of "self' thatappearto be excluded from those premises
(1995:282-283). On the level of identity, then, individuals draw on and, I
should add, cocreate different elements of cultural premises at different moments, asserting both stability and flux. One cannot posit a general theory of
identity as resting at either pole, for expressions of identity vary with context
and at differenttimes in an individual's life. This conceptualizationrefiguresthe
notion of identity to acknowledge the complexity of identity strategiesthat second-generationyouth use in navigating various culturalmodels.
Furthermore,when drawingon subculturaltheory and the critical theoretical engagements it has generated,it becomes necessary to pay attention to the
implications of self-reflexivity for culturalstudies analyses. As in otherareasof
inquiry,the theories thatone uses to understandyouth can be applied to the theorists who are consumers of popularculture as well. Frithcontends that "popular
music is a solution, a ritualizedresistance, not to the problems of being young
and poor and proletarian but to the problems of being an intellectual"
(1992:179). He argues that underlying much work in cultural studies is "the
deep desire of intellectuals not to be intellectual"(1992:182). In my own work,
the focus of my research did not necessarily develop to provide an "escape"
from intellectualism, for I do not see a barrierat the university gate where intellectual critique suddenly ends to give way to a purported"realerworld."However, my researchon second-generationIndian American youth popularculture
has clearly allowed me to engage in particularways with IndianAmericancommunities in New York. It has been a medium for reflecting on my own history of
migrationto the United States at the age of 17 and the significance of my liminal
("1.5-generation")positioning, not to mention a way to indulge my latent Punjabi identity through the rousing beats of bhangra. This is, of course, just the
dusting on top of the proverbialiceberg.
While presenting his cautionary observation about self-reflexivity, Frith
furtherextends the critique of popularculture studies by pointing out that "the
paradoxis thatin makingpop music a site for the play of theirfantasies andanxieties, intellectuals ... have enrichedthis site for everyone else too" (1992:179).
For example, British punk was given new attention by Hebdige's work, and
there is an emerging body of work focusing on South Asian diasporic popular
cultures as objects of study (Baumann 1996; Gopinath 1995; Maira in press;
Remtulla in press; Sharma,Hutnyk, and Sharma 1996). There is, of course, always a mutualinfluence on the researcherand the researched,no matterwhatthe
focus of research.
Even more salient for the study of popularcultures createdby immigrantor
ethnic minorities is cultural studies' "voracious appetite for all that is labelled
'hybrid' " (Sharma, Hutnyk, and Sharma 1996:1). The fetishization of ethnic
popular cultures is indeed a danger to be mindful of, and so-called insider accounts are no less susceptible to exoticizing cultural marginalia than those by
INDIANAMERICANYOUTHSUBCULTURE55
"outside" observers. However, this does not mean an end to all analysis or interrogation in this area. Rather, it is important to integrate a critique of essentialization in studies of popular cultures with an approach that draws on lived experience and daily practice to guard against the inclination to devise mythical
interpretations in solitary engagement with cultural "texts." The romance of
popular culture should not cloud our insights into the ways in which secondgeneration youth cultures still remix strains of nostalgia and beats of gendered
myths. It is a dub that will hopefully expand its groove to include new
sounds-the sounds of now-in the future.
Notes
Acknowledgments. I am grateful to Dan Segal and the anonymous reviewers for
their helpful feedback on this article; to Tom Shaw, Somini Sengupta, Tim Taylor, and
Michael Moffat for their insights and suggestions; and to Srinivas Kurugantifor the use
of his photographs.I would also like to thankthe students and deejays who shared their
time and thoughts with me.
1. Films include, for example, Gimme Something to Dance To (Ganti 1995) and
Desi Dub (Khuranaand Murgai 1997).
2. I did intensive interviews with 24 IndianAmerican college students and two focus group discussions with five male and six female participants,respectively. All the informants had either been born in the United States or, except for one, had immigrated
before the age of six or seven years and had thus entered adolescence and high school in
the United States. They were students at New York University, Columbia College,
HunterCollege, and Pace University. In this article, I have used pseudonyms when referring to all informants.
3. Desi literallymeans native of a desh ("country")and in the context of South Asian
diasporic communities in the United States is used as a colloquial term to refer to those
of South Asian descent, invoking a pan-ethnic ratherthan nationally bounded category.
In India,it is sometimesused morepejorativelyto index a "country-bumpkin"
sensibility.
4. "Popularculture" has been variously defined according to the particulartheoretical perspectives and political proclivities of different schools of thought. For example, according to Strinati(1995:xviii), the Frankfurtschool viewed popularculture as the
productof industries supportingthe capitalist status quo; certain Marxist political economy perspectives consider it a form of dominant ideology; and cultural populists focus
on consumer subversion throughpopularculture.
5. Bhangramusic typically involves three instruments:the dhol anddholki (drums)
and the thumri (a stringed instrument). Its lyrics traditionally celebrate the beauty of
Punjab,village life, and women.
6. Mehndi kits and bindis had begun to make their appearanceas fashion exotica
when I was doing this fieldwork, but they had not quite hit the streets as yet. Since then,
I have talked to several young IndianAmerican women who feel uncomfortablewith the
sudden trendiness of"Indo-chic," partly because to them it represents an appropriation,
even colonization, of cultural traditions without regard for their "real meaning" or cultural significance. Others feel that Indian American women who sport bindis or mehndi
may not necessarily understandtheir origins either, but they believe that the larger context of Orientalizationand racism makes this latest fashion trendproblematic, a position
with which I am more in agreement.
56 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
7. Thornton(1997a) traces the intellectual genealogy of British subculturalstudies
of the 1970s to two earlier schools of thought: the Chicago school of sociology, which
was interested in the particularityof urbanlife as manifested in "subcultures";and the
Frankfurtschool's Marxist theory of mass society. Both perspectives were fused in the
Birmingham tradition that focused on the "relationshipof subcultures to media, commerce, and mass culture"(Thornton 1997a:3).
8. See Maira 1998 for a deeper analysis of gendered notions of desirability among
second-generation Indian Americans.
9. See Maira in press for a more detailed discussion of the racialization of Indian
American youth in the context of popularculture.
10. See George 1997 for more on the politics of misidentification among South
Asian Americans.
11. One young woman, Manisha, also thoughtthat the length of women's hair signified their degree of traditionalismor modernity:"I usually wouldn't see short hair on
an Indian girl; it's like the longer hair is thoughtof as more beautiful, and the short hair
might be too much of a sign, for the guys, of modern, feminist, all that stuff [laughs].
They might not like it; it might be intimidatingto them again."However, I did notice second-generation women at the South Asian student association meetings on Manisha's
campuswho had short,althoughfashionablycut, hair;therewere also women with permed
or lightenedhair.In practice,therewas morevariationthaninterviewees'discussionsof preferredimage implied, which is to be expected given thatthese are idealized expectations.
However, the meaning of short versus long hair, or fair versus dark skin, is still significant in its implications for constructions of desirable Indian American femininity.
12. Nisha Ganatra'sshort film, JunkyPunkyGirlz (1996), subtly shows how, for a
second-generation Indian American woman, the act of piercing one's nose can be both
an attemptto identify with an ethnic traditionand a markerof belonging in a contemporary American subculture, in this case one based on alternativesexualities.
13. This insight was articulatedto me by ErnaHernandez,a former student, in her
thoughtful critique of the film.
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