12 The Privilege of South Asian American Studies

We write this essay keeping in mind the students of South Asian descent who have passed through our courses in Asian American studies. With a couple of decades of teaching experience between us collectively, time and again we have heard South Asian students in our classrooms feel unsure of their place within the broader paradigms of Asian American studies. While the two of us have taught at different institutions, we have encountered South Asian American students of various class backgrounds. A critical mass of those students come from working class or poor backgrounds, but the majority come from middle class or affluent families. This is not surprising. It is no secret that Indian Americans in particular have some of the highest levels of educational attainment and incomes in the country, and over half of Pakistani American adults have a bachelor’s degree, as of 2015. 1 We have observed that most South Asian American students, regardless of class background, believe that their educational achievements within the space of the university will transform into enough economic and cultural capital to stave off the stigma of race. Often when South Asian American students encounter our introductory Asian American studies courses, they wonder if they can even lay claim to the racial category of Asian American—a question often compounded for them as they learn about the activist origins of the field. We begin our essay purposefully within a site of class privilege: the university classroom. We expand upon our students’ honest reckoning with privilege and ask how South Asian American studies and Asian American studies more generally might develop if we were to openly confront and centralize how is-308