Kaari Flagstad Baluja

Baluja's book shows how Bangladeshi immigrants maintain certain cultural and behaviors attitudes after immigration while abandoning others.

Baluja studies the ways gender roles of Bangladeshi immigrants change after migration. Working with Bangladeshis in Queens, New York, and in corresponding source areas in Bangladesh, she finds that immigrant families maintain some traditional attitudes, but abandon others. For example, immigrants stress traditional images: women’s domestic and childcare responsibilities and husbands’ responsibility for financial support and decision making. Conversely, immigrant women circulate alone in a greater variety of places in New York than do their counterparts in Bangladesh. Traditional behaviors and attitudes are abandoned for practical considerations and a desire to escape cultural constraints. Immigrants’ adaptation process may be self-determined: individuals choose, according to their needs, aspects of both their origin and destination societies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Previous Research on Theoretical Issues
3. Bangladeshi Gender Ideology
4. History of Bangladeshi Immigration
5. Research Design
6. Methodology
7. Research Sites
8. Gender Role Attitudes
9. Female Mobility
10. Household Tasks
11. Social Networks
12. Conclusion
    
Appendices
References
Index