Title: Project Outline: Incarceration of South-Asians in America: Invisibility Within the Carceral System
Supervisor: Jill Weinberg, Department of Sociology at Tufts University
Project Background:
There is a gap in research regarding this topic, as most studies on incarceration through a racial lens discuss the overrepresentation of Black and Hispanic people in prisons. The papers that do focus on the incarceration of South-Asian Americans tend to analyze Asian-Americans as a whole. Southeast-Asians receive specific attention because they are much likelier to face deportation charges, but otherwise Asian Americans are treated as a monolith.
The reason why it is so crucial to separate South Asians from the larger Asian American identity is because South Asians may face different rates of incarceration. The way census data is currently collected in the U.S. within prisons categorizes most people as Black, White, or Hispanic. Asians are often counted as being either Black or White, or just Other. Even when Asians are counted as a separate category, all Asians are lumped together, thus erasing South Asians from carceral spaces.
As an example to demonstrate the erasure of South Asian experiences, Indian Asians in America on average have higher incomes than Pakistani Americans. Poverty is strongly connected to incarceration, so a reasonable hypothesis would be that Pakistani Americans face higher rates of incarceration than Indian Americans. Grouping all of these identities under the umbrella term Asian American prevents the study of the differences between immigrants of different nationalities and ethnicities.
Aims:
My goals for this project are to prove that 1) there is an existing gap in the way racial data is collected across American prisons and 2) this gap specifically harms South Asians as they are aggregated into a larger racial group.
One final ambition is to start a conversation about an organization or a community space for incarcerated South Asians. There are organizations for incarcerated Asian Americans broadly, but they are largely East Asians, and it is important to highlight the specific reasons and offenses South Asians are charged with.
Methodology:
For this project, I will focus on answering one main research question: How do U.S. correctional systems classify race and ethnicity at intake, and where do South Asians fall within those classifications?
My research project will identify the gap in racial data by examining the existing literature which analyzes the way race is collected across U.S. prisons. I will specifically examine the “Other” category and how the existence of such a category allows for the erasure of several racial groups. I will examine whether race is an imposed or self-reported category in U.S. prisons, how South Asians are subsumed into the Asian-American and “Other” category, and the harms of this erasure
Outcomes:
Focusing on a smaller subcontinent of Asia would also allow for research on differences within South Asians and how they experience discrimination within America. I hope scholars move away from the term Asian-American because it is too broad to describe the diverse array of ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and other identities that make up Asia. This research will also contribute to critiques on the racialization of the carceral system in America. Identifying such a gap will also highlight the experiences of South Asians and their interactions with carceral spaces in America.