Book Talk | ‘Claiming Citizenship: Race, Religion, and Political Mobilization among New Americans’

The Moynihan Institute’s South Asia Center presents Prema Kurien, professor of sociology at Syracuse University.

“Claiming Citizenship” focuses on Indian American civic and political activism in the U.S. public sphere around U.S.-based and India-based issues. Indian Americans are a rising political force whose patterns of activism do not follow the unified model of mobilization of other powerful American ethnic groups. They have multiple types of advocacy organizations: those mobilizing around an Indian American identity; a South Asian American identity; organizations for Indian Americans of Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Christian and Buddhist backgrounds; organizations representing Indian American Democrats and Republicans; and even combinations of these such as the Republican Hindu Coalition that mobilized around Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016.

There are also generational differences between second-generation members and the immigrant generation. Unified ethnic mobilization is rare and does not take place through a single professional advocacy organization, or even through well-coordinated campaigns. The book examines the dialectical process through which immigrants conform to the structures and cultures of the society they have immigrated to but also work to transform it to accommodate their unique needs. It shows the relative roles played by domestic and international influences on the political mobilization of immigrant groups in the United States as well as the importance of social media in shaping these mobilizations.

The SU Barnes and Noble College Bookstore will be onsite with copies of “Claiming Citizenship” for purchase.

Prema Kurien, Ph.D., is professor of sociology at Syracuse University and the former director of the South Asian Center. She is a scholar of international migration, race, ethnicity and religion. Kurien adopts a transnational approach in her work and has also done research in India, to show how a variety of global factors, including developments in the country of origin, play a profound role in shaping community structures, cultures, and activism profiles of immigrants and even the second generation. She is the author of three award-winning sole-authored books and over 70 other sole-authored publications.