In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

126 Chapter 8 Community Identity of Kashmiri Hindus in the United States  Haley Duschinski Kashmir, the rugged and remote region located high in the Himalayan ranges of south Asia, is widely recognized as one of the most dangerous war zones in the contemporary world. Given the extensive amount of commentary and analysis that has focused on the conflict there, it is somewhat surprising that there is virtually no academic literature dealing with Kashmiri immigrant communities in the United States. Since the beginning of the current conflict in Kashmir in 1990, the Kashmiri American community has been fractured into two groups on the basis of religion, Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Hindus. Kashmiri Muslims represent the majority population in Kashmir Valley , while Kashmiri Hindus represent a small but significant minority community. This chapter focuses on community identity among Kashmiri Hindu immigrants in the United States. The Kashmiri Hindu American community is small and scattered widely throughout the United States. In many ways, the demographic distribution of the Kashmiri Hindu American community is similar to that of the larger South Asian American diaspora. Today, the largest concentration of Kashmiri Hindus in the United States is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where some 250 families reside. New York City and Washington, D.C., are each home to more than 100 Kashmiri Hindu families, while Boston and Chicago are each home to 50 families. Fresno, California—also a concentration point for Sikh families—has approximately 60 families. There are smaller populations in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Philadelphia , Miami, and Houston. In the past fifteen years, the political instability in Kashmir Valley has inflected many aspects of community life for Kashmiri Hindus in America, including those who migrated before or after 1990. This chapter, which is based on preliminary research, explores several issues relating to the collective experiences of this underrepresented Asian American community.1 First, it discusses how the political situation in Kashmir has affected the collective identities of Kashmiri Hindus in the United States. Second, it examines the ways in which Kashmiri Hindus in the United States imagine homeland and their relationship to Kashmiri Hindus in the United States 127 it. Third, it considers whether Kashmiri Hindus in the United States have a role to play in shaping the future of Kashmir. Kashmiri Hindu Americans Patterns of Kashmiri Hindu migration to the United States must be considered within the context of the larger South Asian diaspora. The first phase of migration from South Asia to the United States occurred in the early part of the twentieth century as Punjabi farmers began relocating to the American West and the Pacific Northwest to work in the lumberyards.2 There were approximately 10,000 South Asian migrants, mostly Sikhs, working in California by 1914.3 The Immigration and Nationality Reform Act of 1965 prompted a second phase of South Asian migration to the United States by facilitating the entrance of skilled professionals in search of educational and employment opportunities. These South Asian immigrants were tightly screened for employability by immigration officials , and they constituted part of a worldwide class of professional elites. They are often perceived and stereotyped as a “model minority,” one of the most economically successful Asian immigrant communities in the country.4 A third phase of South Asian immigration was prompted by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1984, which eliminated the system of national origin quotas and established a system of preference based on the principle of family reunification. These changes enabled settled professionals to sponsor family members by using preferential categories for independent relatives.5 South Asian immigration rates accelerated toward the end of the twentieth century, such that in 1991, nearly 80 percent of the 44,121 persons of Indian origin admitted into the United States were sponsored by family members. These sponsored relatives tended to find their first jobs as unskilled workers, although they exhibited a considerable degree of occupational diversification after several years in the country. During the technology boom in the 1990s, South Asian Americans with information technology training increasingly entered the country on H-1B visas, a nonimmigrant classification for individuals who are employed in a specialty occupation. U.S. census figures indicate that the number of people identifying themselves as Asian Indians or Indian Americans in the United States nearly doubled between 1990 and 2000 to 1.7 million. Kashmiri Hindu immigration and settlement in North America are recent in comparison to other communities that...

Share