| This research is an investigation of how certain labor issues are enmeshed within an immigrant identity and dependent on economic position in the United States, looking specifically at South Asians, to the U.S. from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. How do differences in skills, education and income level of those with a common regional point of origin intersect with their labor rights and political agendas? What are the implications for paths to social citizenship for highly skilled and lower skilled immigrants? To answer these questions, I compared case studies of labor organizing among South Asian physicians, high technology workers, taxi drivers, and domestic help in the U.S.;The case study data indicate that efforts at organizing to improve working conditions by higher- and lower-skilled South Asian immigrants in the New York metropolitan area have strong similarities. I argue that these similarities in strategy speak to the ways in which current legislative frameworks curtail equally the ability of high and low-skilled immigrants to obtain improved labor rights, secure upward income mobility, and command social citizenship. On the other hand, differences in strategy and in the objectives of organizing stem from a crucial distinction. Highly skilled immigrants are employed under government-sanctioned guestworker policies granting them temporary legal status, opening a formal pathway to permanent U.S. residency for them, and encouraging tactics that are conciliatory to institutions. In contrast, lower-skilled immigrants are often undocumented and/or work in unregulated industries. They are therefore largely deprived of formal opportunities for full citizenship, leading them to participate in more innovative forms of labor activism. As a result, despite commonalities grounded in restrictive legislative frameworks, the paths to social citizenship for South Asian immigrants in the U.S. are significantly differentiated by class.;The research data and conclusions suggest that the efforts of highly-skilled and lower-skilled South Asian immigrant organizers to improve their accession to full social citizenship would be enhanced by accentuating similarities in their situation as immigrant workers in the U.S., allowing each group to learn from the other's strategies, and bolster their campaigns for rights and full social citizenship. |
