Diaspora and Small-Town America: Understanding the Lived Experiences of Muncie, Indiana’s South Asians Within a Global Context.

This paper discusses the relationship between the South Asian immigrant body, small-town America, and diaspora, building on research I completed on a community of South Asian immigrants in Muncie, Indiana. Gaining an understanding of this relationship requires putting the historical knowledge about the South Asian immigrant experiences in the United States into conversation with writings of U.S. history that have treated the non-white, non-European immigrant as "outside" or "other" to a making of America. At least part of the challenge lies first, however, in looking at how the history of South Asian immigration to the United States has been written - as heavily ethnographic. Ethnographic research is crucial to recovering neglected narratives of America's past. Yet, the dominance of ethnographic work in South Asian American studies has produced a body of scholarship that portrays the South Asian immigrant experience in the United States as a collection of discrete, localized experiences that may not share strong historical relationships with each other or the political and historic shaping of America. I suggest the concept of diaspora might help widen our lens for viewing America's past by showing how small American cities such as Muncie might be seen as always global. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]