Immigrants to the United States have long used the armed forces as
a shortcut to citizenship. Cristina-Ioana Dragomir profiles Lily,
Alexa, and Vikrant, three immigrants of varying nationalities and
...backgrounds who chose military service as their way of becoming
American citizens. Privileging the trio's own words and
experiences, Dragomir crafts a human-focused narrative that moves
from their lives in their home countries and decisions to join the
military to their fraught naturalization processes within the
service. Dragomir illuminates how race, ethnicity, class, and
gender impacted their transformation from immigrant to soldier,
veteran, and American. She explores how these factors both eased
their journeys and created obstacles that complicated their access
to healthcare, education, economic resources, and other forms of
social justice.
A compelling union of analysis and rich storytelling, Making
the Immigrant Soldier traces the complexities of serving in
the military in order to pursue the American dream.
In this article, I interrogate the researcher’s role in conducting ethnographic and qualitative fieldwork with vulnerable communities and argue that increased epistemological reflexiveness is needed ...to support solidarity ties between researchers and participants. In line with critical feminist literature and methodology, I present the inconsistencies of the power relations I entered as a researcher, as well as the systemic inequalities I found operating in the background. Using several vignettes based on my fieldwork with communities labeled as “Gypsy” in Romania and India, I make the argument that power dynamics encountered in the field reveal the researchers’ simultaneous privilege and their subaltern status, creating an epistemological position grounded in the intersection of gender, race/ ethnicity, and class, which in turn could deter from bonds of solidarity. In line with feminist methodologies and intersectionality literature, I argue that the researcher’s gender, race, ethnicity, and class (co)generate epistemological outcomes, and that without critical reflection researchers may reinforce hierarchies of power. Thus, I both adopt and innovate this approach, by showing how as researchers we inhabit concomitantly different and fluctuating positionalities. I end by advocating for reflexiveness on the researchers’ power to create epistemological categories and processes, which may (re)enforce solidarity relations between researchers and communities.
I learned about the Narikuravar community during my first trip to South India in December 2012. I had previously spoken about my work with Roma communities in Europe, also referred to as "Gypsies," ...and was studying how historically marginalized communities were mobilizing to access social justice. My Indian colleagues and friends were eager to tell me that there were also "Gypsy" communities in Tamil Nadu and they showed me how I could get in touch with them. I quickly learned about a small community of approximately 30,000 members who were usually referred to as "Gypsy." They identify as nomadic, although due to recent legal changes they are required to have a fixed abode to access government entitlements and services. Narikuravars' traditional occupation was hunting, but since this practice was outlawed, they currently make beads and clean the streets or sort garbage. Most Narikuravars live in dire poverty (Dragomir and Zafiu 2019), face discrimination, and are rather isolated from the Tamilian and Indian mainstream.
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Both across Europe and India many mobile groups frequently are labeled as “Gypsy” and often are referred to as “criminals.” Employing a critical approach, this article unveils how the intersection of ...nomadism, the “Gypsy” label, and criminality was not a “natural” occurrence, but one that came about through legal and literary discourses that have been used systematically since the seventeenth century. The connection between nomadism and criminality has been investigated both in Europe (Mayall 1988; Lucassen 1997; Lucassen and Willems 2003; Bardi 2006; Nord 2008) and in India (Radhakrishna 2001, 2009; Piliavsky 2015). These bodies of work are valuable as they examine how the criminalization of groups took place. This article builds on this existing scholarship and focuses its comparative investigation on several of the dominant discourses in England and India from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. However, it is different from previous work on three accounts. First, it engages critically with the “Gypsy” label and details how this categorization became connected both with nomadism and criminality. Second, it claims that the criminalization of those who move in India preceded British colonial rule. Thus, it highlights how similar forms of community criminalization took place both in England and India. Third, this article argues that both legal and literary discourses are techniques through which power operates, and therefore analyzes the development of nomadism, criminality, and the “Gypsy” label within these interconnected mediums.
This article explores how the nomadic Narrikurovar, also know as the “Gypsy,” from Tamil Nadu India, access health care. The analysis is based on fifty-one open-ended, qualitative interviews ...conducted in early 2017, with Narikuravar women. This study differs from previous studies that explore how the poor, marginalized, and most vulnerable access health insurance in India by adding a new dimension: nomadism. Other work conducted with Romani (Gypsy) and nomadic communities concluded that these communities are reluctant to use state and private health care services. Our study concludes something very different. Not only did the Narrikurovar women in our study actively seek health care access, they were eager to use government provided health insurance schemes. However, due to their limited education, poverty and mobile life style, they received health care only in emergency situations, and often needed to pay for those services from their small earnings, which increased their financial burden. We recommend further detailed research with the Narikuravar community, so that we can understand which health challenges they face. Also, development of policies to enhance women’s education and employment is also a must. Such policies will translate into better access to health care as a basic human right.
Lily Dragomir, Cristina-Ioana
Making the Immigrant Soldier,
04/2023
Book Chapter
Her talk is as sharp and quick as her smile—a smile that, along with her easygoing manner, garners friends and acquaintances. Lily gets along with people, and though she still has an accent, she uses ...it with a graceful charm, as she interacts with anyone who comes her way. Her story is the story of an immigrant woman who often uses the phrase “I like a challenge,” but admits (sometimes in the same breath) that the military offers her a “safety blanket.”
When I first met her in 2007, Lily was thirty-six years old, single, and living with a
Conceptual Work Dragomir, Cristina-Ioana
Making the Immigrant Soldier,
04/2023
Book Chapter
Many people find it surprising when foreigners—by definition outsiders in a community—enlist in the host country’s military and potentially sacrifice their lives (Amaya 2007a) for a cause and a ...people to which they do not belong. However, the recruiting of foreigners into a country’s armed forces is not rare. For example, the French Legion and British armies have been accepting foreign nationals since World War I (Barkawi 2017; Ware 2012), and the contemporary Israeli military service1 has an institutionalized process for transforming foreigners into citizens.
In the United States, from the Civil War onward, groups of newcomers—including
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