Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2000 Charting the Course: An Overview of Domestic Violence in the South Asian Community in the United States Shamita Das Dasgupta1 In the South Asian community in the United States, domestic violence is a prevalent problem of significant magnitude. Although the community stridently denies the existence of this horror, women have been systematically organizing antiviolence- against-women work for the last 15 years. At this time, it is a vibrant movement struggling with several complex issues that are perhaps less common in the dom- inant white community. As in the lives of immigrant women of color, much of the intricacies of domestic violence in the South Asian context emerge from the in- tersections of race, class, and residency status problems. Consequently, a slew of personal, institutional, and cultural barriers commingle to form roadblocks for battered South Asian women, who attempt to escape family violence. As the needs of battered South Asian first and second generation women enlarge and become more perceptible, the community-based organizations have to ready themselves for more complicated activities in the future. KEY WORDS: South Asia; domestic violence; immigrant women; community-based agencies; bat- tered women's movement. INTRODUCTION The end of the millenium is an appropriate time to trace the history of domestic violence movement in the South Asian American community.2 Although it is difficult to determine a static time as the beginning instant of the movement, 1 Correspondence should be directed to Shamita Das Dasgupta, Manavi, Inc., P.O. Box 2131, Union, NJ 07083-2131. 2Throughout the article I have used "community" as a singular term. This is not to deny the variability and differences that exist among groups that are clustered under the label "South Asia," but merely an effort to generalize for the sake of expedience. Although I recognize that history and politics often place South Asians in opposing positions, here I am concentrating on the undeniable cultural commonalties among various groups. 173 1053-0789/00/0700-0173$18.00/0@ 2000 Human Sciences Press, Inc.
174 Dasgupta perhaps we can assume the establishment of the first South Asian organization focused on domestic violence as a recognizable point in time. However, to assert that the movement began with a group or agency is to minimize the resistance strategies that battered South Asian women have been deploying to survive over time. Albeit individual, each battered woman's struggle to end intimate violence has fueled the collective movement that we are witnessing now. It is with this deep apperception that I embark upon an assessment of the anti-domestic violence organizing work that has proliferated in the South Asian community in the United States. In addition, I write this essay as an insider. I am fortunate enough to be one of the cofounders of the first South Asian antiviolence-against-women organization in the United States, called Manavi. Since Manavi's inception in 1985, I have been a participant/observer of the growing advocacy movement and a chronicler of it within the South Asian community. It is difficult to fathom the genesis