Domestic Violence and the Indian Diaspora in the United States

Abstract

The profile of the current Asian Indian population in the United States is largely an outcome of immigration policies and practices. For most immigrants, including Asian Indians, gender, class and ethnic relations get reshaped as women and men adapt to life in a foreign country. This article discusses domestic violence among the Indian diaspora in the United States with insights from the staff of the community-based women's organisation, Sakhi for South Asian Women, in New York City. It provides a general overview of the Indian population in the United States and explains how immigration policies and regulations factor into immigrant women's experiences of marriage, migration, and marital and domestic violence in a community that has been perceived as a model minority in the United States. Notions of cultural identity, family values and gender, as well as the forms of marriage and violence, are briefly examined. Emphasis is placed on the pivotal role played by Sakhi for South Asian Women in transforming domestic violence from an individual, private matter into a public issue.