info. about Telugu immigrants in the U.S.
Rajagopal Vakulabharanam (RVAKULAB@macc.wisc.edu)
Mon, 27 Jan 97 09:53 CST
Hi,
My name is Rajagopal, and I am looking for
information about the Telugu immigrant community in the United States. I need
this information to write an encyclopaedic entry on the Telugu immigrant
community for a volume that that an American publishing firm is
bringing out later this year.
I tried to look up as many published references as possible on the history of
the Indian immigrant community in general, and the Telugu-speaking community in
particular, but that search did not yield much result. History of different
immigrant communities from India remains undocumented yet, and one will have to
go to the so-called 'primary sources' -- journals, souveneirs, material
available with different temples and organizations etc., to write comprehensive
histories of different communities. That is a time-consuming task and will
have to wait for the efforts of a team of people who are willing to spend a
considerable amount of time on such a project. My objective is more modest and
limited. I am writing a brief 10-15 page essay for an encyclopaedia.
A lot of the information is also
'qualitative', it is the subjective experience of the members of the group, and
is not captured in the various statistics that are collected about the group.
I then thought that it may not be a bad idea to elicit information about
different aspects of the Telugu immigrant community by asking members of the
community several questions about their opinions.
So, please send in your responses. I deeply appreciate your help, and hope that
the account that I will write will be richer for considering your responses.
I realize that you may not have accurate or quantifiable answers for some of the
questions here. All I am asking for, in such cases, are your 'impressions'.
I am running low on time, as the deadline I have to meet is drawing very
close, so prompt responses will be of really great help.
Here goes my questionnaire...
Is it correct to say that nearly all immigration of the Telugus happened after
the 1965 law eliminated the national quotas ?
Amendments between 1976 and 1986 to the 1965 law are suppposed to have modified
the character of immigration from India. Have these changes in any way affected
the composition of the Telugu community here, that you can think of ?
Have Telugus experienced, or do they experience, any type of discrimination in
the American society ?
How would you characterize the relations of Telugus wih other Indian groups
here?
How does the average income level of the Telugus compare with the average
American average ?
How does the income level of the Telugus compare with the incomes of other
Indian groups in the U.S.?
Have the Telugus experienced more of assimilation, or cultural persistence, in
the American society?
What are the various language maintenance programs within the U.S.? Are there
any community schools which teach Telugu?
In your experience, are the second-generation Telugus able to stay in touch with
the language? What proportion,approximately, are able to do so?
Are there many organizations that encourage and teach indigenous cultural forms
of dance and music of Andhra(or more generally, of south India)? Details,
please.
Is 'film culture' (watching films made in Telugu) strongly prevalent among the
Telugu immigrants?
What are the different journals and newspapers published by the immigrant
community ? (TANA Patrika, Telugu Jyothi, Telugu Vani, Saptagiri Vani are some
of the names I have been given. Can you indicate how long these journals have
been in publication? What is the nature of issues they deal with? Any other
journals apart from the above?)
How are the man-woman relationships within the family and outside the family
evolving in the Telugu community? Is there a trend towards more women taking up
employment?
What is the profile of marriage, family and kinship within the community? is it
changing? Are members of a caste/community inclined to marry within the
community as before, or is there more openness? How are the second-generation
choices in marriage? Is there a growing tendency of inter-marriage between
different castes/communities?
Has the rate of divorce remained low among the Telugu group? What has been the
tendency over the years?
What type of generational differences are likely to crop up between the first
generation parents and their second-generation children?
Are there any particular places, districts that the early Telugu immigrants came
from?
Is there any return migration to Andhra/India among the Telugu immigrant group?
What do you think of the approximate size of the Telugu community in the U.S.?
(According to the 1990 census, there are 786,694 Asian Indians in the U.S.
According to another census report about languages spoken at home, 331,484
people spoke Hindi/Urdu, 102,418 spoke Gujarati, 50,005 spoke Punjabi,
38,101 spoke Bengali, and 33,949 spoke Malayalam. Do you think these numbers
are reasonable approximations to the numerical strengths of these communities?
Only the top fifty languages were listed, and Telugu did not figure there.
If these numbers are an indication, can we fix the population of the
Telugu-speaking group between 25,000-30,000?)
What in your opinion is the current spatial distribution of Telugus? (According
to the 1990 census, California, New York, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Maryland,
Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts, in that order, are the states in which most
Indians live. Does this pattern hold for Telugus also, or does it differ?)
What in your view is the distribution of Telugus in terms of religion, what
proportion are Hindus, Muslims etc.?
In terms of the division of Andhra Pradesh into the Coastal area, Rayalaseema,
and Telengana --- how have these sub-regions fared respectively in terms of
the numbers that migrated to the U.S.?
What are the various pan-American associations of the Telugus in the U.S.?
(TANA, ATA etc.,) When were they begun? How many people have become members of
these bodies? Are some of the local associations(e.g. Philadelphia Telugu
Association etc.) affiliated to these bigger bodies like TANA? Is TANA itself
affiliated to any all-India bodies? (Please note that I have neither interest
nor stake in the internal politics between different organizations.)
Does the government of A.P. accord a pre-eminent position of importance to the
immigrant community in the U.S.? If so, why ?
Do a number of non-resident Telugus invest funds back in India? If they do, do
they prefer to invest that money in the state of A.P. as opposed to other parts
of India?
Thank you for your co-operation, patience in suggesting answers to the above
questions.
sincerely,
Rajagopal