Suburban Sahibs: Three Immigrant Families and Their Passage from India to America
Winner of the Celebration of Immigrant Voices Award from the International Institute of New Jersey\ S. Mitra Kalita was awarded the New Jersey Authors Award in 2004 from the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance and New Jersey Library Association.\ Edison, New Jersey, is in many ways the quintessential American suburb—under an hour from New York City by train, subdivided neatly into houses with identical floor plans, and dotted with mini-malls, gas stations, and monster movie theaters. Named...
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Journalist Kalita (Washington Post) considers how immigration by South Asians has altered the American suburb, and how the suburb has in turn altered these immigrants. The text focuses on the stories of three Indian families who settled in Middlesex County in central New Jersey. Kalita is the daughter of immigrants from the Indian state of Assam. The volume is not indexed. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR The New York Times Vikram Chandra, Jhumpa Lahiri and other celebrated writers of the South Asian diaspora have given us some of the most exciting new fiction in English of recent years. To a growing shelf of fictional portraits of the Indian expatriate experience, S. Mitra Kalita now adds a work of nonfiction that stands up well in their company. Modest in scope, but as shapely as fiction and as timely as this morning's newspaper, this book is an informative one to read for pleasure. — John S. Major
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1Prologue: A New Year151Deported from Home322The Patels' Journey473A Gold-Paved Entry654Exercising Rights865Wanting More926Shaky Ground987Destructive Times1048Standing Room Only1079Downturns12210Under a Mango Tree12811Meeting Elephants13812Farewells14713The Festival Family15114Classified15515The Victor158Epilogue162Notes165Selected Bibliography171
\ The New York TimesVikram Chandra, Jhumpa Lahiri and other celebrated writers of the South Asian diaspora have given us some of the most exciting new fiction in English of recent years. To a growing shelf of fictional portraits of the Indian expatriate experience, S. Mitra Kalita now adds a work of nonfiction that stands up well in their company. Modest in scope, but as shapely as fiction and as timely as this morning's newspaper, this book is an informative one to read for pleasure. — John S. Major\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalThe immigrant experience in modern America is increasingly a suburban one, and Middlesex County in central New Jersey has been a popular destination for many recent immigrant families, particularly from South Asia. Education reporter Kalita (Washington Post) has skillfully traced the lives of three such families over a period of several years. She sheds light on the struggles faced by these families, whether working class or professional-a strength of her book is that she does not ignore the former. She shows how even well-educated immigrants, who are at the mercy of the company sponsoring their visa, typically have many hurdles to overcome to succeed in America. Kalita explores how such traditionally suburban issues as the lack of affordable housing, dependence on the privately owned automobile, and limited access to the political process affect the lives of her three immigrant families. Throughout, she succeeds admirably in portraying their stories sympathetically yet dispassionately. Recommended for academic libraries and public libraries serving significant immigrant populations.-David A. Timko, U.S. Census Bureau Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.\ \
