“I want to do something with my life”: Reading Resistance in South Asian Girlhoods Portrayed in Keeping Corner, Climbing the Stairs, and Neela: Victory Song

When Vidya proclaims, “I want to do something with my life” (217) in Padma Venkatraman’s 2008 novel, Climbing the Stairs, she expresses her frustrations at being hemmed into a predestined life from girlhood to marriage and motherhood. She is echoed by Leela in Kashmira Sheth’s Keeping Corner and Neela in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Neela: Victory Song. South Asian American children’s and young adult (YA) historical fiction revisiting the Indian struggle for independence brings new insights to the critique of South Asian historiography through fictionalized visualization of minoritized and subaltern voices that are missing in mainstream historiography. The previous generation of white American children’s and YA authors, such as Suzanne Fisher Staples, Michelle Moran, and Gloria Whelan, opened the space for representations of historical South Asian girlhoods in children’s and YA literature through novels, such as Shiva’s Fire, Rebel Queen, and Small Acts of Amazing Courage. Building on this foundation, the subsequent generation of authors, such as Kashmira Sheth, Padma Venkatraman, and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, revolutionized representations of South Asian girlhoods by addressing the intersections of colonization, patriarchy, and the caste system. Entering this historical period through girls’ voices unlocks a niche space to consider a comprehensive vision of India that promises freedom for all, not just the upper-caste, upper-class Hindu men. In this paper, I use critical historiography from Subaltern Studies to analyze girlhoods negotiated in three South Asian American children’s and YA historical fiction, locating traces of subalternity within fictionalized girlhoods at the intersections of gender, caste, and religion. Through girl protagonists’ skillful negotiation of existing power structures, I explore the impact of social awareness, education, and literacy in upper-caste girlhood. Finally, I read feminist resistance in the