Laotian Daughters

Bindi V. Shah is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom.

"Laotian Daughters convincingly argues that children of refugees embody a pivotal social location that allows for deeper, more complex insights into such pressing issues as cultural citizenship, political belonging, and national identity. Shah’s weaving together of social scientific research, cultural studies, and literary analysis is seamless. I am particularly excited by the incorporation of environmental justice literature into this mix, which is rare. The book’s greatest strength remains the young activists whose stories bring this book to life. Laotian Daughters is part of an important, growing intellectual body of research on the U.S. second generation, and this ethnographic study of Laotian teenagers fills a significant niche."-Lisa Sun-Hee Park, Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, and author of Consuming Citizenship: Children of Asian Immigrant Entrepreneurs

• Acknowledgments1 “Where We Live, Where We Work, Where We Play, Where We Learn”: The Asian Pacific Environmental Network 2 From Agent Orange to Superfund Sites to Anti-immigrant Sentiments: Multiple Voyages, Ongoing Challenges 3 New Immigration and the American Nation: A Framework for Citizenship and Belonging 4 The Politics of Race: Political Identity and the Struggle for Social Rights 5 Negotiating Racial Hierarchies: Critical Incorporation, Immigrant Ideology, and Interminority Relations 6 Family, Culture, Gender: Narratives of Ethnic Reconstruction 7 Building Community, Crafting Belonging in Multiple Homes 8 Becoming “American”: Remaking American National Identity through Environmental Justice Activism APPENDIX Socio-demographic Information on Second-Generation Laotians Who Participated in the Study NotesReferencesIndex