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Indian Americans with aging parents in India are sandwiched between their responsibility toward them, their own careers and their commitments to their family and social life. Some parents move to the U.S. to stay with their kids, while others don’t. Visiting parents find it difficult to keep themselves busy here, and often feel that their …

Autumn of Their Lives: The Predicament of Aging Parents of Children Away in America Read More »

Navaratri, the nine-day long festival to celebrate the goddess Durga, started on October 17th. It will culminate in the welcoming of Durga, the slayer of Mahishasura, on 25th of the month according to the lunar calendar. The name Durga in Sanskrit means ‘the fortress.’ According to Markandeya Purana, composed in 5thor 6th century C.E., Navratri …

Women Priests Perform Durga Puja to Correct the Gender Imbalance in the Worship of Shakti Read More »

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It is meant to remind ourselves of the gravity of this crime and to raise our voice against it. One important issue which remains neglected is the plight of a particular group of victims — spouses on H-4 visa of the high skilled H-1 B visa holders from India …

Living with the Enemy: Indian Women on H-4 Dependent Visa are Defenseless Targets of Domestic Violence Read More »

Barely 30 kms from Parlakhemundi, Badigam, predominantly a Christianized Saora village, has been lost to the local and state administration. When Annapurna and her University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) students stumbled upon Badigam while visiting Parlakhemundi during their summer field project in 2015, they discovered that this village had no SHGs, no visible education …

Badigam Village: A Reflection Read More »

Although I bought my first Maniabandhi pata (silk sari) with my very first lecturer’s salary in December 1981, for the thirty‐five years that I’ve been wearing Maniabandhi saris, made in the villages of Maniabandha and Nuapatna in Odisha, I knew very little about the weavers who make them.  I have always been drawn to the …

Cultural Co‐Existence on Display: Maniabandhi Saris with Buddhist and Hindu Symbols Travel to the U.S. Read More »

The dispirited lives of spouses on the H-4 visa have been widely reported in recent times. The findings have highlighted the problems these H-4 visa holders have endured after moving to the United States: professional setbacks due to the loss of their careers back home; loss of their mobility and identity; and, above all, total …

Beyond Biometrics: The Struggle for H-4 Dependent Visa Renewals During the Pandemic Read More »

In a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to end the Obama-era immigration program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, for the young undocumented immigrants to shield them from deportation and allow work permits. Given this ruling, there is a widespread optimism that H4-EAD …

The Unbearable Burden Being on a Dependent Visa in America Read More »

Since the first week of March, 2020, when Covid-19 outbreak began, the United States has been in a limbo. Overnight, millions of people have lost their jobs – at its peak the unemployment rate had reached almost 15 percent, for the first time in American history since the great Depression. Even though the technology sector …

Personal Histories: How the Coronavirus Upended the Lives of Indian H-1B Visa Holders Read More »

Before the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic, my campus, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) was going through a graduate student’s strike with mass student demonstration to keep the campus closed until their demand for a raise in living wage was met. As a result, I had started Zoom classes which was very frustrating. Many students …

Zooming Through the Pandemic: How I Adapted to Teaching Online Read More »