Claiming Citizenship : Race, Religion, and Political Mobilization among New Americans

What are the factors that motivate the political mobilization of immigrants, and what strategies do they use to achieve political power? Claiming Citizenship looks at the civic and political activism of Indian Americans, currently the second-largest group of immigrants in the United States, and a group that has seen significant representation in the three most recent presidential administrations. Yet they do not follow the unified model of mobilization of other powerful American ethnic groups. Prema Kurien argues that race, religion and caste take on new layers of meaning through the Indian experience of racialization in the United States, and across generations of Indian Americans. This book is a template for understanding how religion, national identity, race, and pan-ethnicity interact in ethnic politics and the role that generational status plays in determining these patterns.

Large-scale international immigration has transformed the political contours of Western societies over the last few decades. The political mobilization of ethnic groups has prompted questions about nationhood, citizenship, and secularism, as well as what it means to institutionalize pluralism.Claiming Citizenship looks at Indian Americans, currently the second-largest group of immigrants in the United States, and a group that has seen significant representation in the three most recent presidential administrations. Prema Kurien asks how Indian Americans have become a rising political force given that they have not followed the traditional, recommended model of political influence. She examines the dialectical process through which immigrants conform to the structures and cultures of the society to which they have immigrated, but also work to transform their adopted homelands to accommodate their unique needs.