Race, Immigration, and Integration: South Asian Immigrants in Queens

Co-funded with the Carnegie Corporation of New York

Most working-class immigrants from Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in New York City are garment workers, cab drivers, convenience store clerks, gas station attendants, and domestic workers living in Jackson Heights, Jamaica, and Richmond Hill in Queens, NY. Historian Shahla Hussain will conduct 60 qualitative in-depth interviews with documented and undocumented workers and explore how wage exploitation, religious profiling, and racism have shaped their integration into society. Her sample will include Nepali, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi first-generation, working-class restaurant workers.  She will also conduct three focus groups with 10 participants each. Two will gather information about the minimum wage, work hours, and work environments of these immigrant restaurant workers. The third will discuss the ramifications of 9/11 on Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslim immigrants.