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theses

This dissertation examines how ethnic youth centers and other sites between the home and the school inform the everyday and political geographies of working class South Asian immigrant youth growing up in a post 9/11 New York. Caught between no longer being young children and not yet adults, the teens of this study spend much of their time in liminal spaces of youth centers, streets, malls, which I refer to as third spaces. Based on a multi-sited ethnography at one youth center for South Asian youth in Queens, New York between 2010 and 2012, I accompanied teens attending this center to other places where they hang out, such as, rallies and social justice and political workshops in NYC and other neighboring northeastern cities, malls, parks, subways, and online sites. Additionally, I analyze discourses of the mission, philosophy and ideologies of the youth center programs. After the 9/11 attacks on the world trade center in New York, ethnic and religious identities, that is, being South Asian and Muslim, have become racialized and politicized categories wrongfully associated with terrorism, resulting in racial bullying and hate crimes affecting South Asian youth and families. Unlike literature on youth centers, this research highlights how, in this era, ethnically-based youth centers address these socio-political and cultural difficulties youth face everyday and help them connect with and negotiate their socio-political realities without insulating or “islanding” young people. I argue that it is in third spaces that youth’s political identities and engagement with politics begin to take shape as they attend social justice workshops and rallies to fight against racial crimes, and aspire to “go places,” socially and politically. Further, I argue that youth’s political agency manifests in their cultural and performative practices, offering new ways through which to understand young people’s political lives. This dissertation highlights the connections between context, young people, representations, and politics, as it situates the constructions of racial and ethnic identity as intersecting dynamics to understanding youth’s political geographies. This multi-disciplinary study contributes to South Asian studies, political geographies, ethnic studies and children and youth studies scholarship.

ETD_5662

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Anandini Dar

Vita.

doi:10.7282/T3ZK5DW5

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.