Longings and belongings: Indian American youth identity, folk dance competitions, and the construction of ‘tradition’

This article examines the development of the ‘cultural competition’ as a site for the production of multiple identities by Indian American youths on American college campuses. Through the examination of two categories of folk dance competitions (bhangra and raas-garba) at a private university in Washington, DC, we argue that these competitions appear to resist hybridity and produce rhetoric that marginalizes diasporic culture in favour of the ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ culture of the homeland. However, the goal of expressing uncontaminated ‘authentic’ culture is not realized as diasporic identities and cultures consistently interrupt and undermine homogenizing narratives of ‘tradition’ and ‘authenticity’. We also demonstrate that these folk dance groups often reinforce an ethno-regional distinctiveness rather than a hybrid or pan-Indian identity.