State, Culture, and Religion: Political Action and Representation among South Asians in North America

Despite religious differences among Indian & Pakistani immigrants (Hindus, Sikhs, & Muslims), they are in most ways a single diasporic population with shared aesthetic, linguistic, & cultural traditions & memories of British colonialism. The separate forces at work to weaken disaporic engagement with the mother countries for the three religious groups are discussed. Canada & US contexts support different kinds of intellectual, aesthetic, & political coalitions. However, in both places, hybrid cultural arenas that are intentional & transnational, but not necessarily diasporic in nature, exist. It is argued that the diasporic nature of the Pakistani & Indian communities in North America dissolves as a result of Asian American & Muslim American politics, & that their aesthetic representations & their political activities are mutually constitutive, not coincidental. 73 References. M. Pflum