ABSTRACT

This chapter offers an analysis of the intersections of migration, cultural memory, commemoration and material culture at three sites of embodied engagement that link Asian Indian immigrants who have settled in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) metropolitan area with their homeland. One of these sites is more personal and familial; the second involves the broader immigrant community of Indian national origin who live in the DFW area; and the third carries not only local but also international and diasporic dimensions. Each of the sites of engagement discussed in this chapter involves travel, real or virtual, of people and/or things. The chapter explores how rituals and community celebrations and gatherings, as well as the material culture with which they are associated, play a role in the formation of identity and the maintenance of a presence in and hence connection to the country of birth or heritage both in memory and in practice. It thus argues that migration is not only about the relationships of ‘migrants’ with migrant or non-migrant people, but also about their relationships with migrant objects that materialize memory and understandings of ‘home’.