The ‘Other'  Asians

With their numbers on the rise, Indian, Pakistani and other South Asian scholars are gradually emerging from academe's shadows.

When Dr. Madhulika Khandelwal did a computer search for literature about Indian immigrants in 1986, she got back thousands of hits.
"I thought,  ‘Wow! I thought there was nothing.' But there were thousands of titles," says Khandelwal, a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
A closer look at her results revealed that that the computer was pulling up references to Native Americans.
"In America, ‘Indian' means American Indian," Khandelwal says.
Confusion continues to reign about one of America's fastest growing immigrant ethnic groups, most of who come from the Asian countries of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. And as their numbers grow in the academy, scholars say stereotypes and ignorance about South Asian culture and religion abound.
"It does lead to confusion because people don't know who we are," Khandelwal says.  "People say we're not Asian Americans because we don't look Asian. And they say, ‘Well who are you? You look so much like Arabs. Why aren't you in the Middle Eastern category?'"
But scholars say that may be changing as Asian American studies programs offer more courses about South Asians and as a new generation of scholars enters the academy and pursues research about the group.
International students from India comprise the second largest ethnic group of non-citizens earning their Ph.D.s at U.S. colleges and universities. In 1997, Indian students earned 3.2 percent of the total number of doctorates, almost the exact percentage of doctoral degrees earned by African American students (see BI The Numbers, pg. 25). South Asians represent roughly 6.2 percent of the 70,501 foreign scholars working on U.S. campuses and nearly 7.5 percent of the 490,933 international students, according to the Institute of International Education. And then there are the hundreds of South Asian scholars and students who are American-born but whose numbers are difficult to discern because most institutions do not collect demographic data that distinguishes them from other Asian Americans.
Despite their growing numbers, South Asians have been loath to flex their political muscles or be vocal about religious intolerance or discrimination. But experts say that reticence soon may be ending in the academy.