ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the marginalisation of the 'Pakistani experience' in American and Irish culture. The participants reviewed here are positioned at the margins as the consequence of a set of quite specific political and cultural practices which have regulated, governed, and normalised the representational and discursive spaces of Pakistani communities in diaspora. One of the main themes in the chapter is that young Pakistani men resist cultural politics and challenge, resist, and even transform hegemonic representations of what it means to 'be Pakistani'. Instead of living with one cultural orientation over another, as Nabeel did, Sahir opted for a mixed cultural orientation that balanced elements of the hostland and 'homeland' cultures. Jasir showed an aversion to Pakistan, but this had less to do with 'radical Islam' and corruption and more to do with an unfamiliarity with the culture of the 'homeland'.
