Abishai100
VIP Member
- Sep 22, 2013
- 4,967
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The hyping of ethnicity-based business districts in the USA such as Chinatown (San Francisco, California) and Little Italy (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) puts a distinct mercantile face on the old immigration/multi-culturalism problem.
I'm originally from India where I was born to Asian-Indian parents in 1978, but we immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1983 (my parents, sister, and I) and became part of a New Jersey sociocultural 'club' of Bengali-Indians known as the Bengali Cultural Society of South Jersey (or BCS-SJ).
Growing up, I participated in various cultural and educational events hosted/sponsored by the BCS-SJ including theatrical productions of classical Indian plays by the Nobel laureate Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore and Bengali reading-writing instruction classes held on weekends at the Voorhees Junior High School in New Jersey.
The BCS-SJ has become a staple of sociocultural experience in the lives of the numerous immigrated Bengali-Indians living in the South Jersey-Philadelphia area. It provides business networking opportunities as well as a social outlet for Bengali-Indian minorities trying to make convenient cultural connections in America. The BCS-SJ therefore signifies a traffic investment in a socio-ethnic approach to the immigration problems of assimilation economics.
The social norms and 'rituals' expressed in the BCS-SJ are definitely interesting from a sociological perspective and offer some nice vignettes about the immigration experience in America. Many weddings and baptism-oriented ceremonies are organized within the group, creating a real experience-rich approach to immigration-related social networking.
We can use ethnicity-enclaves in the USA such as the BCS-SJ to understand the 'creative profiteerism' surrounding immigration and perhaps pull away from isolationism controversies.
BCS-SJ (Website)
I'm originally from India where I was born to Asian-Indian parents in 1978, but we immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1983 (my parents, sister, and I) and became part of a New Jersey sociocultural 'club' of Bengali-Indians known as the Bengali Cultural Society of South Jersey (or BCS-SJ).
Growing up, I participated in various cultural and educational events hosted/sponsored by the BCS-SJ including theatrical productions of classical Indian plays by the Nobel laureate Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore and Bengali reading-writing instruction classes held on weekends at the Voorhees Junior High School in New Jersey.
The BCS-SJ has become a staple of sociocultural experience in the lives of the numerous immigrated Bengali-Indians living in the South Jersey-Philadelphia area. It provides business networking opportunities as well as a social outlet for Bengali-Indian minorities trying to make convenient cultural connections in America. The BCS-SJ therefore signifies a traffic investment in a socio-ethnic approach to the immigration problems of assimilation economics.
The social norms and 'rituals' expressed in the BCS-SJ are definitely interesting from a sociological perspective and offer some nice vignettes about the immigration experience in America. Many weddings and baptism-oriented ceremonies are organized within the group, creating a real experience-rich approach to immigration-related social networking.
We can use ethnicity-enclaves in the USA such as the BCS-SJ to understand the 'creative profiteerism' surrounding immigration and perhaps pull away from isolationism controversies.
BCS-SJ (Website)
