Punjabi Immigrant Mobility In the United States

DIDITI MITRA PhD is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Brookdale Community College, USA.

• Introduction Negotiating the State: Hoping to Belong Looking for work: Punjabi Choices and Punjabi Options On the Wheels of Race and Class Managing Subordination, Becoming Americans Conclusion

"Punjabi Immigrant Mobility in the United States is a revealing and intricate contribution to the literature on Punjabi immigrants in contemporary America. Diditi Mitra's research is particularly useful to scholars and students seeking to understand how racial marginalization and class determines the formation of identity for new migrants to the Global North." - Immanuel Ness, author, Guest Workers and Resistance to US Corporate Despotism, professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College, City University of New York "Diditi Mitra provides nuanced insights on the role of race and class in the settlement process and experiences of Punjabi immigrants in the US, particularly of Punjabi taxi drivers in New York City. Woven through with engrossing narratives and thoughtful analysis, this volume makes an important contribution to the fields of migration studies, labor studies and Asian American studies." - Margaret Abraham, professor of Sociology, Hofstra University "Taking the case of ever-visible yet under-studied Punjabi taxi drivers in New York City as her starting point, Diditi Mitra explores the ties between social class, race, and immigration. Her perspective is multidimensional and heuristically solid - I am particularly impressed by her attention to the dialectic between the socially constructed hierarchies these immigrant workers bring with them and the racialized cast to the narrative given by their new locale. Mitra's book will be of great interest to not only the students and scholars of race and social structure, but also to those of economics, demography, political science, and yes, even of New York City itself!" - Salman Akhtar, MD, professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, author of Immigration and Identity and Immigration and Acculturation