The Opportunity Trap

High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program

Pallavi Banerjee

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781479841042
• eBook ISBN:
  9781479825158
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Asian American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Winner, 2024 Global Sociology Book Award, given by the Canadian Sociological Association

Winner of the 2024 Silver Medal for the Canada West Non-Fiction category, given by The Independent Publisher Book Award

Winner of the ASA Section on Asia and Asian America's Book Award on Asian America

Honorable Mention, 2024 Social Science Category Book Awards, given by the Association for Asian American Studies

Honorable Mention, 2022 Betty and McClung Lee Book Award, given by the Association for Humanist Sociology

Unravels how US visa laws fail Indian professional workers and their legally dependent spouses and families

The Opportunity Trap is the first book to look at the impact of the H-4 dependent visa programs on women and men visa holders in Indian families in America. Comparing two distinct groups of Indian immigrant families —families of male high-tech workers and female nurses—Pallavi Banerjee reveals how visa policies that are legally gender and race neutral in fact have gendered and racialized ramifications for visa holders and their spouses.

Drawing on interviews with fifty-five Indian couples, Banerjee highlights the experiences of high-skilled immigrants as they struggle to cope with visa laws, which forbid their spouses from working paid jobs. She examines how these unfair restrictions destabilize—if not completely dismantle—families, who often break under this marital, financial, and emotional stress.

Banerjee shows us, through the eyes of immigrants themselves, how the visa process strips them of their rights, forcing them to depend on their spouses and the government in fundamentally challenging ways. The Opportunity Trap provides a critical look at our visa system, underscoring how it fails immigrant families.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: The Anatomy of State-Imposed Dependence
• 1. The Visa Regime: Indian Migration and the Interplay of Race and Gender
• 2. Model Migrants and Ideal Workers: How Visa Laws Penalize and Control
• 3. Beholden to Employers: Gendered and Racialized Dependence
• 4. At Home: Dependent Spouses and Divisions of Labor
• 5. Transcultural Cultivation: A New Form of Parenting
• Conclusion: Dismantling Dependence
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix A: Demographics of 25 Families of Tech Workers
• Appendix B: Demographics of 30 Families of Nurses
• Appendix C: The Four Main Visa Categories
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author