Social Drama as a Site for the Communal Construction and Management of Asian Indian "Stranger" Identity

Abstract

This study uses ethnographic methods to examine how a social drama that occurred in a community of Asian Indian strangers in the United States constituted a scene of identity management. Normative and code rules of this speech community are examined to assess how Asian Indians maintain dimensions of their Indian identity while simultaneously adapting to the exigencies of the host culture. The social drama provides an instantiation of how the culture of the Indian stranger is socially negotiated within the speech community. The identity management performed in the social drama is examined in reference to how the community is enabling and constraining the process of adaptation to the host culture.