Indian American Subculture

Critical Review #3
-Sunaina Maira


Maira's investigation of Indian subculture in the diaspora of New York city brings to light the duality of the lives of second-generation South Asian teens.


Music played by the Indian American subculture tends to combine elements of "hip-hop, rap, techno, and reggae with Hindi film music and bhangra" (31). Maira attributes some of this "remix" music to Indian youth's efforts to maintain their ethnic roots while at the same time integrating into American culture.


She focuses mainly on the way college students active in the bhangra scene perform varying degrees of their (Indian) identities in different contexts (the bhangra dance scene and elsewhere). Gender roles and the ideals of sexuality play a large part in this performance. Young women, for example, might wear more conservative, business-like attire while in the presence of their parents. While participating in the desi scene, however, they will wear club apparel tipical of the hip-hop scene (halters, hip-huggers, etc.).



In what other subcultures are these performances common? How do American gender ideals differ from those of the bhangra subsulture? In what ways are they the same?