The Essential Bill of Rights Book

In her book Unruly Immigrants, Monisha Das Gupta aims to explore the roles of marginalized South Asian minorities within the United States. From the onset of the book, she makes it clear that "This book is about South Asian immigrants in the United States whom I [Das Gupta] characterize as "unruly" in view of their struggle for rights in the face of their formal/legal and popular codification as noncitizens" (4). She observes the undertakings of these "unruly immigrants" through an analysis of seven major South Asian organizations through transnational, intersectional, social, and critical lenses; specifically within this struggle, she highlights feminist, LGBT, and labor clashes. She draws upon previous academic papers and legal documents, such as Supreme Court cases and historical legislation, to support her arguments. Through her utilization of these vast resources, I believe Das Gupta did an excellent job of outlining the struggles of marginalized South Asians within the United States. However, though I found her methodology to be comprehensive and thorough, her writing was overly complicated at times, rendering her work inaccessible to the mass public and, to a degree, forgettable.
One of Unruly Immigrant's strengths lies within the presentation of the research gathered. The information was put forth in a way that was solid and rational, yet persuasive without being over the top. In addition, I appreciate that Das Gupta chose not to include footnotes along the bottom of each page and rather referenced her comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book, as it allowed for greater fluidity and prevented the disruption of reading that can sometimes be obtrusive. In this manner, her assertions read very cleanly; for example, when arguing for existence of selective deportation based on the backgrounds of domestic violence of South Asian women Das Gupta concisely states "that the state literally erases these women, "tainted by domestic violence," from the national body by deporting them (2000)" (121).
Furthermore, Das Gupta's research combined with her methodology raised the credibility of the book overall. Part of the reason why I found her book so compelling is due to the conclusive research behind it by way of her utilization of legal documents, past court cases, interviews, other academic papers, and historical facts. Because of this I, as a reader, was more inclined to believe and trust in her arguments simply because they were so well supported. For instance, when Das Gupta critiques the concept of a "model minority" as propagating "difference" with the bait of "assimilation" (60) she backs her argument up with papers by two different South Asian scholars, Vijay Prashad and Sharmila Rudrappa. In this aspect, her argument feels dependable and rational; it is not as if she has just pulled out concepts from thin air and failed to support them.
Though her arguments were exceptionally well written and well supported, they were also extremely complicated and tedious at times, which makes Unruly Immigrants as a whole inaccessible to the mass public. Even as a university student attempting to critically and attentively interpret her work, I felt that I sometimes lost myself within Das Gupta's arguments because I could not follow along with her logic or because I forgot which secondary (or tertiary) claim she was referencing. In this fashion, I would argue that her writing style is not geared towards the common community, but rather an academic one. This is particularly a shame since some of the individuals that she specifically discusses within marginalized feminist, queer, and labor groups might have difficulty connecting to Unruly Immigrants which is written about their plights. An example of this occurs when she differentiates between "space makers" and "place takers" and states that "Space makers understand citizenship as a social and cultural institution created by the nation-state. They do not rely on it to address the multiple and intersecting systems of oppression, which, in part, that institutions creates" (55). There are many undefined terms within this statement, such as "nation-state" and "intersecting," that make it hard to follow for those who lack an academic background and prior knowledge of concepts like the rise of nation-states and intersectionality. Moreover, there are so many subsets of her overarching arguments that they all become jumbled together; ironically, I have difficulty recalling even a couple of these subarguments as there were just so many (i.e. her convincing, yet elusive discussion of transnationalism and the consequent rights that come, beyond those capsulized within citizenship is quite hard to follow).
All in all, I found Unruly Immigrants to be both persuasive and interesting (it's the first book I've read that addresses feminist, queer, and labor issues of South Asian minorities within the United States), but overall forgettable and inaccessible in its complexity to the ordinary reader. I would highly recommend this book to either academics or readers who prefer to ponder complex arguments or are in need of some food-for-thought (for which Unruly Immigrants undoubtedly provides a feast).