WHAT IS INDIAN ABOUT YOU - A GENDERED, TRANSNATIONAL APPROACH TO ETHNICITY

This study offers a feminist analysis of the dominant sociological the ories of ethnicity that restrict understandings of immigrant identity formation within the boundaries of the United States. These scholars h ave, for the most part, been preoccupied with the foss or persistence of ethnicity. By using a transnational approach to interpret data, thi s article argues that questions of identity have to be linked to what gets designated as ethnic culture and tradition by immigrant communiti es These designations often hierarchically reorganize difference, with immigrant women bearing the weight of signifying their communities' e thnic identity. An examination of what counts as culture is necessary if feminist scholarship on immigrant identities is repose an alternati ve to depoliticized notions of multiculturalism.