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Domestic violence in the South Asian immigrant community
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Domestic violence in the South Asian immigrant community
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Content
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN THE
SOUTH ASIAN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY
by
Talleah Eveloise Bridges
A Professional Project Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(BROADCAST JOURNALISM)
August 2002
Copyright 2002 Talleah Eveloise Bridges
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UMI Number: 1414896
UMI
UMI Microform 1414896
Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company
300 North Zeeb Road
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
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UNIVERSITY O F SO U T H E R N CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 80007
This thesis, written by
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under the direction of h Thesis Committee,
and approved by all its members, has been pre
sented to and accepted by the Dean of The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
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Table o f Contents
Abstract iii
Body 1
Bibliography 19
ii
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ABSTRACT
South Asian immigrants dealing with domestic violence face specific issues
that are not common in domestic violence cases in which the abused person is a
United States citizen. These issues include the need to resolve immigration status,
cultural perceptions of private vs. public information, the deep-seated stigma
surrounding divorce, limited or absent financial resources, language barriers, special
religious and dietary needs, lack of extended family in the United States to offer
assistance, the role of extended family in perpetuating the abuse and forms of control
used specifically in relationships in which one partner is an immigrant. The article
includes interviews with South Asian immigrant women who experienced domestic
violence while living in the United States as well as commentary from those who
work in social service and legal agencies.
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Sitting in a hospital room, bleeding after being hit in the stomach, a pregnant
Neeta still could not bring herself to report the abuse she was experiencing at home.
“They asked what happened, but I didn’t tell them. I said ‘I don’t know what
happened to me.’ I lied.”
What happened was Neeta (not her real name), who had recently moved to
the United States from India to join her Indian-born husband, had been hit by her
stepmother-in-law. When she started bleeding, no one living in the two bedroom
apartment - her husband and his father, stepmother and two sisters - offered to get
medical assistance. She eventually convinced them to let her visit her uncle, who
took her to a hospital.
This time Neeta refused to go home, though her husband pleaded with her to
return. She says she could no longer stand the way his family treated her and tried to
convince her husband to move out. Despite experiencing what she considered mental
torture on a daily basis, and abuse that sometimes became physical, Neeta still
wanted the marriage to last.
“1 am an Indian woman. 1 would just not leave my husband and go away,”
she says.
It is this commitment to marriage that complicates matters for many South
Asian immigrants who experience domestic violence. There is often a reluctance to
split the family up. The conventional American procedure - getting a restraining
order and then a divorce - is not seen as an option. In South Asian culture, divorce
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brings about shame, not just for the woman but for the entire family. Siblings of
someone who is divorced often have a difficult time finding a spouse.
“South Asian culture teaches women that no matter what you stay in the
marriage. No matter how bad it gets,” says Kripa Upadhyay, Program Assistant for
the South Asian Network (SAN) in Artesia, Calif. “A woman’s place is beside her
husband. There is a saying: you arrive in a marriage carriage and leave in a funeral
carriage.”
An estimated one out of five South Asians in America live in abusive
relationships, experts say. Leaving may be an intimidating idea, especially if the
victim does not speak English, cannot legally obtain employment and does not have
the support of friends and family.
Neeta’s parents wanted her to return to India after her uncle told them what
was happening. Yet Neeta was afraid it would make it more difficult for her younger
sisters to find a good husband. She went back to her husband and his family a week
later.
Upadhyay says women often return four or five times before they leave
permanently. “In really traditional families, the stigma associated with divorce is just
a mess. If they’ve reconciled themselves to getting a divorce ... ‘I get a divorce or I
die’ then they’ll get a divorce, but the minute they get a divorce they face
deportation, because they are no longer married to the spouse.”
The 1994 federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) allows immigrants
suffering from domestic violence to apply for a green card without the cooperation of
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the spouse, provided the spouse has a green card. Because some immigrants are
abused by in-laws, U.S. courts have expanded their definition of domestic violence
to include abuse from extended family as well. The abused spouse, however, needs
to have lived in the United States for three years in order to qualify. Neeta had only
lived here for two.
She came in 1996, nearly five years after marrying her husband, who moved
to the U.S. in 1994. Her parents arranged her marriage. Her husband was also her
first cousin. She was not yet 20 when she got on the plane. She said she experienced
mixed emotions when the aircraft doors shut.
“When somebody leaves everything for someone, there is excitement and
sadness,” Neeta remembers. “The person is new that you marry. What the woman
needs is comfort from the family she goes to.”
What Neeta says she got was verbal abuse almost immediately, not from her
husband but from his family. Neeta says they wanted her to “respect” his father,
stepmother and two sisters, all of whom were older than her. “They expected me to
sit home within the four walls. Maybe they wanted someone to rule upon, obey
them.” Neeta compares the experience to a master and slave relationship, saying they
wanted “complete control” over her life.
When her Social Security and green cards arrived, the Neeta’s eldest sister-
in-law held on to them. Neeta asked her husband to get her picture I.D. from his
sister, because she wanted to have identification when she went out. The sister-in-
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law refused and became hostile. “It was the bombshell,” Neeta says. Her request was
considered audacious.
Neeta says she was not allowed to go anywhere unless accompanied by one
of them, typically her husband. She could not grocery shop or even sightsee alone.
Her mother’s brother lived nearby, but she was not allowed to speak to or visit him.
He became suspicious and pressed her for information during a phone conversation.
She tearfully told him that she did not have any freedom, but made him promise not
to tell her parents. When she hung up, the family was furious. She discovered that
they listened to all of her conversations on another extension.
Neeta says she tried to devise ways to get out of the house. She wanted to get
a job. They would not let her. She wanted to volunteer to teach Arabic to kids. They
said no. Over time, they refused to let her go out even if accompanied by someone
else. With no I.D., no keys and no money, she was forced to stay home all day.
Meanwhile, Neeta’s uncle broke his promise to her parents, and they
encouraged her to return to India. She was reluctant but began to reconsider when the
verbal tirades became unbearable. Then she found out she was two months pregnant.
Any thoughts of leaving were dashed.
In the meantime, she had established a rapport with her husband’s
stepmother, who was being physically abused by Neeta’s father-in-law. Neeta also
forged a relationship with a nearby Indian family. They served as the liaison for
Neeta and her family in India. She would send and receive letters through them.
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After reading the letters, she tore them up and flushed them down the toilet. The
family served as support for both Neeta and the stepmother.
Neeta says her father-in-law did not like the alliance between the two of them
and wanted to split them up. His opportunity came when the Indian family who had
been helping them got upset with the stepmother and told the father that the two
women came to visit them frequently behind his back. He exploited the situation by
telling his wife that Neeta was the one who told on her. Despite Neeta’s denials, the
stepmother grew increasingly angry towards her.
In addition to verbal abuse, the stepmother found seemingly small ways to
demean Neeta. She was no longer allowed to eat at the dinner table with the family
and had to use separate pots, pans, dishes and utensils. One day, the verbal abuse
turned physical, and Neeta found herself pregnant and bleeding with no one in the
family willing to help her.
After convincing them to let her uncle take her to a hospital, Neeta moved in
with him. She says she spent the time at her uncle’s home trying to convince her
husband to move. She believed they could have a healthier relationship without his
family’s presence. He said he could not afford to move, which Neeta believed to be
true. At one point, Neeta secretly looked over his bank statements. He had $1,500.
She knew his father demanded that he turn over all of his paychecks, leaving Neeta’s
husband with a small allowance. “My husband is a puppet of his father.” she
explains, “He only does what his father tells him to do.” Her husband assured her
and her uncle that she would be okay, and Neeta went back.
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Her uncle continued to call her, afraid that the situation would not improve.
Because they were not allowed to visit one another (the family now considered the
uncle a negative influence), he planned to meet Neeta at a hospital during one of her
regularly scheduled obstetrician visits. She says she always went by herself and
figured it would be safe.
When the day came, her husband surprised her. “Because your parents are
concerned about your health, I want to talk to your doctor,” he announced. She knew
then that someone had listened to her conversation with her uncle, but she said
nothing. She hoped he would drop her off. He did not. He took her inside, directly to
the room where her uncle was waiting. She says he immediately began to shout,
“Why do you want to see her? Why do you want to support her? She is my wife. I
can do with her as I wish.” Neeta remembers him shouting the same sentences
repeatedly until his body started shaking violently. She says he was out of control.
The people in the hospital were shocked. “They had never seen my husband
or uncle before that day. They only saw me reading the Koran while I waited. I
probably came off as meek and reserved.” Her husband refused to let her see her
doctor. Afraid of what would happen, she refused to get in the car. She says he
finally softened, because she cried so much. He agreed to keep it a secret, and they
went home.
When they arrived, her eldest sister-in-law was livid. She tried to make him
beat Neeta, demanding that he “get a new wife.” Neeta and her husband found out
the police had been by looking for them. Neeta suspects someone in the hospital
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called 911. The police wanted to charge Neeta’s husband with kidnapping, but when
his sister showed them a wedding picture they left.
Neeta says she was concerned that her husband would tell the family that she
tried to meet with her uncle. Neeta remembers, “I was just quiet crying. He kept his
promise. He kept quiet too.”
Although Neeta did not report the family to the police, she was kicked out of
the home. She moved in with her uncle again, still trying to convince her husband to
move away from his family. Instead, he convinced her to return. She gave birth to a
little girl soon after, six weeks premature. Neeta had a cesarean section and one
afternoon her wound opened up. There was no one home, and she says she did not
know any numbers to call for help. She bled for a few hours until her sister-in-laws
arrived and took her to a hospital. Her husband told her to bring in her own mother
from India to help. Neeta says her mother was treated just as badly as she was. One
day, a fight erupted and Neeta’s father-in-law threatened to hit her mother. Neeta
called 911. The police told her to leave if she wanted to. She did.
Neeta would leave and return three more times before staying away
permanently. In July 2000, she took her husband to court on domestic violence
charges. In addition to police records, she had letters from a neighbor, a shelter
where she once fled and a priest who helped her one night when she was afraid to
return home. She secured an attorney with the help of the South Asian Helpline and
Referral Agency (SAHARA) in Artesia, Calif. After many legal battles, she now
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lives independently of her husband, has custody of her daughter and works full-time.
Her mother moved here from India to baby-sit her child.
Neeta attributes a lot of her success to her parents’ willingness to help.
Because they are financially well off, she could return to India whenever she needed
and pay attorney fees, which ranged from $100 to $250 per hour. While she is
thankful, she is also feels guilty. “‘Til today, my parents are reaping my debts.”
This type of parental support is uncommon in most cases of domestic
violence involving South Asian immigrants, says Upadhyay. Too often the lack of
familial support in the home country and limited financial means discourages
battered immigrants from leaving their spouses.
“There is always this fear of ‘Where am I going to go? Where am I going to
live?,” Upadhyay says, “And if you tell them they’re going to live in a shelter, there
is no sense of security because the culture is typically very different. Basic things
like the clothes they wear are different. Many South Asians are vegetarian and have
dietary restrictions. In a shelter you are expected to eat what’s giving to you. There
are also language and socialization issues. They are not open, not used to being open
and have a problem setting up friendships. If there is violence, our goal is to get a
restraining order or ‘kick out’ order.”
Unfortunately, Upadhyay adds, the women often violate the restraining order.
She had a case earlier this year in which a client let her husband return to the home,
because the client said his begging made her feel guilty. “They do not understand
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how much it hurts their case,” Upadhyay explains, “and judges are not sensitive to
cultural differences among South Asians.”
Elizabeth Chatham, a lawyer for the Asian and Pacific American Legal
Center, says South Asians tend to be the most reluctant to divorce. They continue to
hope that reconciliation is possible.
Though Neeta recently divorced her husband in an Islamic center, she still
wishes the marriage would work. “If he agreed to live separately from his parents
and T wasn’t tortured psychologically, I would go back to him,” she says.
Neeta’s experience illustrates many of the complexities involving battered
South Asian immigrants. Often, in-laws are perpetrators of the violence, a form of
abuse U.S. courts are increasingly recognizing, according to Upadhyay, who says it
is possible to obtain restraining orders against entire families not just spouses in
these instances.
Abusers almost always withhold identity cards, according to Upadhyay,
because it makes it harder for the abused person to access government resources or
prove they are here legally.
Isolation from friends and family is perhaps the most common form of abuse
seen in South Asian immigrant domestic violence cases, Upadhyay explains. It is an
easy way to control the victim, who is typically a young female brought to the
United States following an arranged marriage. Often she does not speak English,
making her more dependent on her spouse. Those who do speak English, like Neeta,
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may not know the social customs or their legal rights. Keeping them away from
others insures they will never learn.
Ashrita, another domestic violence victim, knew her rights but did not want
to go to a shelter. Receiving charity is taboo, and Ashrita (not her real name) did not
have any means of supporting herself. Born in Nepal and raised in India, she met her
husband while her parents were planning the marriage. He was living in the United
States on a student visa while earning his PhD. She married him at 21 and moved to
the U.S. immediately, one credit short of a business management degree from a
university in India.
“He started hurting me in less than one week after I got here.” She says he
slapped her, hit her and kicked her, beatings which were brought on by minor
occurrences. She wanted to clear the table after dinner. He would not let her, saying
she had to sit next to him while he watched television or read a newspaper. She
asked him to put his dirty socks in the hamper. He said, “How dare you talk to me
like that!”
“In the beginning, it was so scary and confusing.” Ashrita says, “I didn’t even
know what was making him so mad.” She describes her own family as loving and
open, saying her father considered her mother an equal. She says it never occurred to
her that she might someday have an abusive husband.
After living with him for two months, Ashrita received a beating she
remembers clearly to this day. “His leg hurt and he wanted me to massage it. We
were talking. I jokingly tickled him. Next thing I knew I was on the floor. He started
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screaming ‘How dare you tickle me.’ I tried to get up and I couldn’t even get up. I
had back pain. I couldn’t even move. I remember crawling around for a few days
after that. He never said sorry, not even once. According to him, it was my fault.” He
eventually took her to a hospital where she found out her back was broken.
Because she could not work legally, she spent most of her days cooking and
cleaning. “I am not a dumb or stupid person, so it is very hard just sitting at home. A
lot of times I used to go to the university computer lab or library,” she says. Her
husband would not give her cash, but allowed her to keep a credit card which she
could only use to make purchases that he approved in advance. She mistook his
behavior as a sign of poverty and began baby-sitting in their house. Though she was
not normally allowed to socialize with others, he did not mind her baby-sitting. She
says he appreciated the contribution; she had to give all of her money to him.
With his student grant money running out, he quit school and got a job on the
east coast. There, she says, the beatings got worse. He broke her back repeatedly, as
well as her ribs and arms. He would always take her to the hospital, coaching her on
the way. He told her to use the classic excuses - that she fell or bumped into
something. “But,” Ashrita notes,” if you fall, you’re not going to get bruises around
your eye or around your neck.” She says she once almost went into a coma.
Her visits were becoming too frequent and too suspicious. Her doctor
repeatedly offered to call the police. “Just nod your head,” he would say, “and we’ll
call.” But she never would. She says she felt guilty. “On the way there, he would say
‘You can call the police if you want. You can sit at home and eat and drink milk.
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(“Drink milk” is a common phrase used to connote a celebration). Go home and
drink milk. By putting your husband in jail, I’m sure you will feel pretty good.” She
says she considered calling the police but knew they could only protect her for a few
hours or a few days.
Often, battered immigrants do not want to call the police. Typically, based on
their experiences in their home country, they do not think officers will help them,
according to Upadhyay, who adds that domestic violence is very recently becoming a
serious crime in South Asia. Those who do consider calling the police face threats of
deportation from their abuser. Because many battered immigrants have never heard
of VAWA, which was updated in 2000 to make the process easier and expand the
type of immigrant who could be covered, they believe abusers who say they will be
sent back.
Under VAWA, battered immigrants can self-petition for a green card. In
order to qualify, a person must be able to prove they experienced domestic violence
and be married to a U.S. citizen or green card holder. The length of time they have
been married no longer matters. Those who are granted VAWA approval are able to
receive public benefits, such as food stamps. After six months, they can apply for a
green card without the spouse’s consent (the spouse previously had to serve as the
sponsor) and can obtain work authorization, a social security card and a driver’s
license.
Those who are married to someone here on a student or work visa offer more
challenging cases. “There are different ways that you can find a remedy for
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someone,” Chatham explains. “It’s not always possible, but if you’re really creative
you can.” Upadhyay says she recently used that creativity for a client, a doctor from
India who was married to a computer programmer who came to the U.S. during the
dot.com boom. Because she was married to a visa holder, the client would face
deportation when her divorce was approved. Upadhyay helped her enroll in a
community college, a very costly solution. Immigrants must pay out of country
tuition. For clients who speak English, obtaining a student or work visa is an easy
solution, but Upadhyay stresses that these cases are very rare. Almost none of her
clients speak English. For them, one of the first steps includes taking English as a
Second Language classes. Chatham says in the more than 400 cases she has handled
since 2000, not one single person ever considered returning to his or her home
country.
After three years of abuse, Ashrita says she tried to go home despite the
consequences for her and her family. By this time, he had repeatedly broken her back
and injured her ribs and shoulders. She suffered numerous concussions and received
numerous beatings and bruises. When she called home, her parents told her to stay
and “work on it.” They said if she returned to India or got a divorce, she would “hurt
the family’s prestige.” Her brother and sister still needed to marry. “You can change
him,” they told her. “You let him have his say a couple of times and maybe he’ll
come around. Have some patience.”
She stayed, but he did not come around. Ashrita estimates that she went to
the hospital as often as once a week. They moved to the west coast when her
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husband suspected Ashrita’s doctor was going to report him. In California, the
isolation was more intense. “I did not see anybody more than twice,” she says,
“unless it was somebody he approved of.” He would force her to stop socializing
with people, saying “The wife is not nice or the husband looks at you weird ways.”
After 16 years of abuse, Ashrita says she grew more complacent. Until he began to
hit their ten-year-old son. She threatened to leave him if he touched their child again.
It worked. He quit.
The physical abuse against Ashrita was also waning, until Ashrita’s sister and
brother-in-law came to visit. Her husband would demean her by comparing her to
her sister, who was eleven years younger. Her brother-in-law returned to the east
coast, but her sister stayed with Ashrita in California, living in the guest room. One
night, Ashrita says her husband went into the guest room and tried to rape Ashrita’s
sister. When Ashrita found out, she left him. She says her husband called all of their
friends to tell them to refuse to let her in, so Ashrita took her sister and her son to a
hotel. He cut off the credit cards within hours. She went back to India the next day.
Ashrita, 37 years old when she left, says she knew she would never return to him.
“When somebody hurts you, you keep taking it, but when they hurt the people you
love most - your child and your sister - that’s when I couldn’t take it.”
While Ashrita was living with her son in India, her parents and other relatives
tried to mediate reconciliation. “He didn’t rape her,” they reasoned. “He didn’t go
that far. Go back to him.” For Ashrita, it was the final straw. “I knew I would never
go back to him. To make a decision, it took me almost 17 years. I was not gonna go
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back and if I do that, then what will I teach my son? It was not even an option when I
left the house.”
Unbeknownst to Ashrita, her husband flew to India. He took their son from a
school bus, knocking down security guards in the process. School officials told
Ashrita it was clear her son did not want to go, and they immediately called the
police. In the meantime, her husband chartered a helicopter to take him to another
city. He would later say he bribed a few officers, making his escape easier. He
brought their son back to the United States. Ashrita got on a plane a few days later.
Having no place to live when she landed at LAX, she stood in the airport
calling battered women shelters in Los Angeles and San Francisco. She says she
specifically sought those which catered to Asians. Because the advocates and
counselors are also Asian, these types of shelters appeal to battered Asian
immigrants who believe other Asians could better empathize with the cultural
dilemmas surrounding their situation, according to Upadhyay. The shelters also offer
advocates who speak various languages, provide vegetarian meals and can provide
resources for legal counseling on immigration and citizenship options, services not
provided in mainstream shelters.
Ashrita says she lived in two shelters for five weeks, securing an attorney and
receiving counseling. She ultimately landed at the Center for the Pacific Asian
Family (CPAF) in Los Angeles.
Ashrita’s main objective was to get her son away from her husband, who was
offering joint custody as well as spousal and child support. Ashrita says she was
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horrified at the idea of sharing custody with him, but her attorney fully supported it.
After negotiations, he went to Ashrita, saying “I don’t know why you left your
husband. He loves you so much. They are being so reasonable, so generous.”
“I kept saying ‘I don’t like this,”’ Ashrita recalls. “But you feel so lonely
when you don’t have any friends, any family, especially your own child. At that time
I was just so desperate, I just agreed.” Her husband also offered her two plastic
spoons, one plastic cup and four glasses, items Ashrita remembered leaving in the
garage to donate to Salvation Army.
The deal did not last long. Though he said he was not being abused
physically, each week her son would cry a few days before he had to leave Ashrita,
pleading with her not to send him to his father’s house. He said his father hollered a
lot and constantly insulted Ashrita. She hired a new lawyer, who got a restraining
order and full custody for her.
Ashrita is now building a life for herself and her son. She is applying for
citizenship so she can have more rights. She does not have a car and has not worked
in more than ten years. Her husband, an engineer who was earning $200,000 a year,
recently came to court to say he quit his job and only makes $890 per month. His
spousal and child support orders were suspended. Ashrita recently learned that he is
working full time again. “Right now, I’m just waiting to go back to court to get child
and spousal support,” she sys. It is unlikely that she will do so any time soon,
because her attorney will not work on her case until Ashrita pays $5,500 in addition
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to the $3,000 she already put down. “I tried to tell her to get the spousal and child
support orders so I can begin making monthly payments, but she won’t,” she says.
The abuse still affects her both emotionally and physically. She has 29 pins in
her back from seven surgeries. Her body aches when she rides on a bus for too long.
Ashrita hopes to enroll in school or start with a job paying minimum wage.
She says she reflects more on her life, a practice she began in the shelter through
group therapy. She says she recently confronted her mother about the lack of
support. “Just for you to keep smile for my sister and brother, what gives you the
right to take the smile from my face?,” she asked. But she is quick to add that she
does not blame anyone, including her parents, for the fact that she stayed so long. “I
was not a dumb person. I could’ve talked around. If I could’ve done it after 17 years
of marriage, I could’ve done it the day after he hit me.” Though she appears to put
much of the blame on herself, Ashrita says she is simply taking responsibility for her
decisions.
“A lot of Asian women, we are very submissive and more than that I think
the way we grew up you are married to a person, good or bad, for the rest of your
life,” she says. “I was strong enough to make the decision after 17 years. I’m sure
there are a lot of Asian women who live the rest of their lives with this kind of stuff.”
Because domestic violence is underreported, especially among immigrants, it
is difficult to determine exactly how many people are living with an abusive partner.
Chatham said the Asian Pacific Legal Center, which offers free legal counseling and
pro-bono attorneys to those in need, received a grant that included a provision
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requiring the center to help 75 victims in 18 months. The center surpassed the
requirement, helping 468. There is currently a two-month waiting list to receive a
pro-bono attorney.
Despite the social, cultural, financial and legal obstacles immigrants must
overcome, seeking help is always preferable to staying in an abusive relationship,
Upadhyay says. The increase in shelters targeting Asian populations and the
improvements made in immigrant domestic violence law make the possibility of
rebuilding one’s life much more tangible.
Perhaps the largest obstacle to eliminating domestic violence in the South
Asian community is the code of silence. All of the legal and social service agencies
mentioned in this article considered outreach the highest priority.
Ashrita says she is proud that she found the courage to leave and thankful
that there were shelters and laws in place to help her. “You see homeless shelter and
it looks so awful and the people be in so much trouble. You never thought there’s a
place where they can literally help you so much and you never feel like you are
taking a handout,” she says. “1 never thought the system existed that way.”
18
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Bibliography
Abraham, Margaret. Speaking the Unspeakable: Marital Violence Among South
Asian Immigrants in the United States. New Jersey: Rutgers, 2000.
Amar, Richa. Personal interview. 7 June 2002.
Ashrita. Telephone interview. 1 June 2002.
Chatham, Elizabeth. Personal interview. 3 June 2002.
Chen, Chun-Yen. Personal interview. 19 Oct. 2001.
Neeta. Personal interview. 8 Mar. 2002.
Upadhyay, Kripa. Personal interview. 15 Mar. 2002.
Upadhyay, Kripa. Personal interview. 31 May 2002.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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Bridges, Talleah Eveloise
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Core Title
Domestic violence in the South Asian immigrant community
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Master of Arts
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Broadcast Journalism
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journalism,OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, criminology and penology,sociology, ethnic and racial studies,sociology, individual and family studies,women's studies
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