A fundamental theme of Asian Americans in the US, especially since the 1965 Imigration and Nationality Act, is our internal diversity – not just between different Asian ethnic communities, but also within them – despite narratives which represent us as homogeneous when convenient. But when we speak for ourselves and pay attention to other Asian Americans speaking for themselves, we can more effectively address the issues we each face – especially for those of us marginalized within our own communities:
Ahmed Afzal explores how a seemingly homogenous but internally diverse population of Pakistani Muslims…make themselves simultaneously into Pakistanis and into Houstonians.
Ranging from upper-class suburban professionals employed in the oil industry to non-English speaking immigrant laborers who rely solely on Urdu in their daily lives,
Afzal’s interlocutors not only occupy widely different class, educational, and residential positions, they vary greatly in their religious practices (hailing from Sunni, Shi‘i, and Isma‘ili communities) and sexual orientations (gay, straight, and queer)…With such a varying population at the center of his research, what holds Afzal’s examination together…[is] an inquiry, fairly unique after 9/11, into the lives of Muslims not in their houses of worship or simply “as Muslims,” but as people (sometimes un-mosqued) whose Islamic traditions are but one component in their larger experiences of making community and establishing place in the U.S.
His chapter on the Pakistani Independence Day Parade illuminates not just how Pakistani Americans make themselves into Pakistanis and Americans simultaneously (particularly after 9/11), it raises the importance of “cultural citizenship”: a kind of belonging various groups strive for when it becomes clear that legal citizenship is insufficient to provide the rights and protections promised citizens in the U.S.
Constantly turning the focus on groups marginalized within larger collectivities (be it Pakistanis within the U.S. or subsets of Pakistani Muslims within the larger Pakistani American community), Afzal’s work prevents the reader from coming away with a homogenous image of “the Pakistani American population.” Doing so, Afzal hopes…can contribute to “making visible spaces for building alliances and collaborations” (208) that can help Pakistani Americans of all backgrounds and persuasions—in concert with their surrounding community members—respond to the multifaceted marginalizations they face in the U.S.
Gaysian Third Space 