Work Roles, Gender Roles and Asian Indian Immigrant Women in the United States

Citation

Lee Vance, M. (2003), "Work Roles, Gender Roles and Asian Indian Immigrant Women in the United States", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 470-472. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810310484217

Michael Jackson (yes, the eccentric “king of pop” singer) once had a top‐selling video that showed people of different races and genders morphing into each other. Memory of this video is a bit vague, but it seems the video profiled white males morphing into exotic Asian beauties, who then morphed into African American males with dreadlocks, who then continued to morph into all the other racial and gender groups. The song seemed to be about the fact that the people in the video were neither “black nor white”.

The Asiatic Exclusion League conceded in 1910 that Hindus were considered members of the same family as Americans of European ancestry, regardless of skin tone. That same year, the courts held that Asian Indians were Caucasians, and considered “white persons”, thus entitled to citizenship under the 1790 federal law reserving naturalized citizenship to “whites” only. However in 1923, the Supreme Court ruled that an Asian Indian could not be considered a “white person” as that reference could only be applied to those people who had immigrated from the northern or western parts of Europe. Therefore, while the Asian Indians were considered legally “Caucasians”, they were not “white” (Takaki, 1989).

Not surprisingly, during her research process, Sircar learned that racism played only a small part of the lives of the women participants, as they believed they were better off than their African‐American and Hispanic counterparts. The women attributed their negative experiences related to prejudice and employment discrimination to their accents and gender, and not to their race.

What began as a doctoral dissertation, turned into a book, not entirely unusual in the world of academe. However, it was the reviewers’ opinion that the research, other than the literature review portion, was quite thin. If readers were really interested in the issue of Asian Indian Women in the USA (as the title leads one to believe the book covers), they may be disappointed. This dissertation was apparently based on the opinions of only 20 subjects who lived in the Dallas‐Fort Worth metroplex (which hardly is representative of the USA), and who also happened to be in order to participate in the study: immigrants, middle‐class, college‐educated, married, Hindu, and wage earners. Of the 20 women interviewed, four had baccalaureate degrees, ten had graduate degrees, and six had doctorates. Ages of the participants ranged from 24 to 63. The women's occupations included: accountant, administrative assistant, administrator, clerical worker, electric engineer, physician, psychotherapist, research scientist, salesclerk, schoolteacher, software consultant, and university professor.

In her study, Sircar set out to research the “changing gender role attitude and norms and the resulting empowerment and status enhancement of Asian Indian immigrant women in the U.S. today”. Through her questionnaire, she learned that the women acknowledged gender an “operational element” in the workplace, with several of the women relating experiences they had either observed or experienced regarding sexual harassment.

Data was collected during face‐to‐face interviews, with spouses and children present in some cases, since the majority of the interviews were conducted in the homes of the interviewees. Interviews ranged from a few hours to a couple days, depending on whether the interviewee had to stop the interview in order to feed the family, take care of children, or otherwise take care of an urgent domestic situation. Interestingly enough, the author notes that when spouses were present, the interviewees tended to be a bit more guarded and reticent with their responses, which led the reviewer into wondering about the reliability of the data collected during those times.

The survey instrument included a two page demographic questionnaire and a seventeen‐item instrument known as the “index of sex role orientation” (ISRO), which used a Likert scale. The ISRO was chosen because it had been used in previous studies by gender researchers in both India and the USA. A complete copy of the instrument is included in the appendix. Survey responses were categorized into six conceptual areas:

1. 1.

   gender traditionality/nontraditionality at work, at home and in the ethnic community;

2. 2.

   Western womanhood versus Indian womanhood;

3. 3.

   structural constraints in US society;

4. 4.

   structural constraints in Asian Indian culture;

5. 5.

   restructuring of the spousal power relationship; and

6. 6.

   biographic data on early‐life gender socialization.

Whereas the research design and sample size for this publication is rather limited, it must be nevertheless acknowledged that it is quite evident that a great deal of thought and effort went into analyzing the interview results, and to connecting existing Asian/Asian Indian‐related literature to the responses made by the survey participants. There were several intriguing, and thought provoking bits for readers to contemplate, including topics for possible future studies.

Since Sircar is now faculty at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, it will be interesting to see if she produces any additional research on Asian Indian women in the USA, and if so, if her book titles will more accurately reflect the books’ contents. Regardless, Sircar shows great potential for producing scholarly research, and this book is an excellent launching pad for her, and an excellent resource for anyone interested in learning more about issues related to Asian Indian women in America.