Last October I presented a paper at the 45th Annual South Asian conference in Madison, Wisconsin. The conference was mostly organised by the South Asian Department at the University of Wisconsin, which is ranked one of the best in North America. I lived in Madison in the 1980s and I must admit that this place had an enormous impact on my life, including the way I think and speak. But for some strange reason I did not return to this place for the past twenty years. I was therefore naturally elated to be back but was dismayed to see how much the city and campus have changed. Of course, I do not expect environments to be stoic to change with firm unchanging boundaries. What I saw, however, was beyond the normal.
The once numerous small wooden houses and apartment buildings of this student-oriented city have gradually been replaced with high rises and heaps of new concrete. The people too looked different. The liberal style, at least in attire, seemed obsolete, pushed into history. For the unaware, Madison was one of the most liberal cities in the United States that staged a number of student protests that helped to form and shape a more open US society in the 1960s and 1970s. Madison is still this way in some ways.
The audience at the conference also seemed homogeneous and homologous to South Asia from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and their respective Diasporas, but with western clothing. The audience looked like the browning of America but with an American mode of selection that appeared supercilious. I wonder sometimes whatever happens to saris, salwars, kurtas and the South Asian accent when transplanted. There was no one from the Caribbean, which did not surprise me. But one woman from Mauritius was on my panel as well as a colleague from Natal, South Africa who was at the conference from the inception. We hang out occasionally.
What I have described above is probably the givens of conferences specific to ethnicity and geographical region. What lingers on my mind, however, is that I have presented at many conferences and walked away without much reservations. But this conference struck a chord in me, which I feel I need to get out. It forces me to think what is missing in the South Asian experience in North America.
I have walked the halls of many universities and I have seen academic departments with distinct labels like African Diaspora Studies, Chinese Diaspora Studies, Jewish Diaspora Studies, American Studies and more, which are admirable in and by themselves. But I have never seen a South Asian Diaspora Studies Department that focuses on the political, social and economic aspects of people of East Indian descent who have migrated from India and settled in different parts of the world during different time periods. This definition should not be conflated and confused with South Asian Studies since they are many in North America. There is, however, a South Asian Diaspora peer-reviewed journal, which has been in existence for about a decade. A few of us from the Caribbean are serving on the editorial board.
What is so bizarre about any semblance of a South Asian Diaspora Studies Department is that over 20 million people of South Asian descent currently live in North America which is larger than most Diasporas.
For transplanted Indians, their presence in North America provides the first opportunity to meet and mingle with people like themselves from different parts of the world. For Indo-Guyanese in Queens, for example, many have met people from their ancestral homeland in North America, not in India. Many are also thoroughly surprised how different they are from Indians in India and vice versa.
I do not know why a South Asian Diaspora Studies Department does not exist in North America. Perhaps, there is a lack of interest, a lack of awareness, a lack of vision and a lack of leadership. My experience is that Indians seem to be comfortable in silence, in their corner, and with their own group when they are outside of their comfortable zone.
What is more certain is that history has shown that other Diasporic Studies Departments, and in particular, African, had to work hard to have a study of this nature to be up and going. Undoubtedly, Diasporic Studies have come a long way as evidenced in 1998 when the American Historical Association, the largest in the world, dedicated its conference theme as “Diaspora and Migration in History.” Unfortunately, not much of anything was said about South Asian Diaspora at this conference. I think a South Asian Diaspora Studies Department can be, at a minimum level, a gateway for ethnic exploration and understanding in the academic world of marginalised histories. I think too that this approach will alleviate homogenising Diasporas and allow an ethnic trajectory in the trajectory of a nation state like US where the predictable has become unpredictable. I plan to present a paper on this argument for a South Asian Diaspora Studies Department at the South Asian conference next year. Are you with me? (send comments to: [email protected])
