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At Last! A Book About Family Violence in the South Asian Immigrant Community

This book is long overdue. Asian women's organizations in the U.S. have been working in relative isolation for a long time, relying on word-of-mouth, personal contacts and newsletter exchanges to form a rough model of family violence in the South Asian immigrant community, and the various means to confront it. Family violence in South Asian communities in the United States is a complicated phenomenon, occurring at the interface of cultural conditioning, racial prejudice, isolation from the woman's natal community and her immigration status. Battered women's programs in the U.S. have not been able to serve their South Asian clients adequately, even in the rare instances where such women have turned to them for help, partly because they are unfamiliar with the context within which these women have suffered violence. South Asian women's organizations have provided a means for communication between their clients and mainstream battered women's shelters.

Margaret Abraham came to this country from India for graduate studies and is now a professor at Hofstra University. This well-written book is a notable first attempt to integrate and understand what we have learned about violence in South Asian immigrant communities through more than a decade of activism. The book also explores six of the South Asian women's organizations that have been pioneers in this relatively unexplored territory, their evolution and their various approaches to confronting violence against women. Most interestingly, the book eschews a statistical approach to the subject, relying instead on the personal stories of twenty-five South Asian women of varying backgrounds who have survived domestic abuse. Their voices not only give the book an immediacy and poignancy that would be lacking in a more formal scholarly discourse, but they also help us understand the various factors that are responsible for these women's predicaments and strategies of resistance.

While the book is eminently readable for anyone interested in women's issues, it is of particular relevance to concerned community members, mainstream battered women's shelters and South Asian women's organizations. Ms. Abraham ably tackles the myth of the model minority and how it can exacerbate the denial of problems within the community. Via detailed chapter-by-chapter exposition of the factors that make South Asian women uniquely vulnerable to abuse in America, mainstream American women's shelters can gain valuable insight into the culture and background of their South Asian clients and thereby understand how sometimes such a woman's shelter experience can be detrimental to her confidence. South Asian women's groups can benefit from having a reference that consolidates and validates their experiences. They can also learn about sister groups in this country and their various commonalities and differences. For instance Abraham speaks of three kinds of ideology categories among South Asian women's groups, those that are value-oriented, diffuse or unspecified. The latter are groups that are primarily service organizations that provide referrals and counseling. Value-oriented ideologies mark groups that not only provide services but reach out to the community to address and change the context in which family violence is allowed to flourish. These are motivated by a set of values that seek to link the personal with the political and, while aiming to empower women through encouraging development of self-reliance and inner strength, also confront oppressive structures in society that bring about discrimination by race, gender, sexual orientation and class. Such group categorization by ideology is important despite its limitations because it helps evolving South Asian women's groups examine themselves and choose their future direction.

The last chapter of the book, Looking Back, Looking Ahead, relates Abraham's own experiences with the group Sakhi and the evolution of her convictions. Cautioning against divisiveness, such as demonizing groups that choose different strategies, she calls for greater community involvement and outreach, alliances with other oppressed groups in the United States, and a transformational politic that "must link vision with pragmatism, voice with action". All in all, a very valuable and inspiring book.

Saheli is an all-volunteer non-profit support and advocacy organization for Asian families in Austin, Texas. Saheli's mission is to help victims and survivors of domestic violence to heal, and empower them to make choices for a life free of abuse. We spread awareness of various forms of oppression against women and children through community outreach and education. We form a bridge between the Asian community and local services to cross the culture gap. Saheli's vision is to work toward preventing abuse in family relationships, to break the cycle of violence and pursue a cycle of peace. For more information about Saheli, visit www.main.org/saheli
To contact us call (512) 703-8745
or send e-mail to: saheli@usa.net

Opinions expressed in this column are those of the authors alone.

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