Event Details:

Join GenCen for a conversation with Dr. Pallavi Banerjee (Dept of Sociology, University of Calgary), author of The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program.

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---Dr. 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. The Opportunity Trap provides a critical look at the visa system in the United States, underscoring how it fails immigrant families.

 

Dr. Pallavi Banerjee is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and University of Calgary, Research Excellence Chair. Her research is situated at the intersections of immigration, gender, families, unpaid and paid labour, intersectionality, transnationalism. She is the author of the award-winning book entitled, The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families and the Failures of Dependent-Visa Policy published by New York University Press. Her other award-winning research has been published in many peer-reviewed journals including the American Behavioral Scientist,  Social Problems, Gender & Society, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Sociological Forum, Gender, Work and Organization, among others. She has also written opinion-pieces in venues such as The Globe and Mail, The Conversations and Ms Magazine.  She directs the Critical Gender, Intersectionality and Migration Research Group at the University of Calgary and is the lead researcher in the Youth and Anti-Racist Integration (YARI) Collective. Her research is supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).