Dhooleka Raj draws readers’ attention to the utterly mundane question, “Where are you from?” She explores how it is experienced by middle-class, suburban Hindu Punjabis (HPs) living in London and how its unstated meanings have profound implications for identity and ethnicity.

Raj begins with a critique of research on ethnic minorities in Britain. Because anthropological research on South Asians in Britain exoticizes them as perpetual sojourners, it has not informed literature on Britain. Critiquing the emphasis on homeland and “retained” or “lost” traditions, Raj asserts that South Asia does not produce closed communities that then reproduce themselves in dispersed settings. Although others have made this argument, Raj pushes her critique further: Even scholars working at both ends of the migration chain have assumed two self-contained and present-time societies for comparing “here and there” (p. 49). For example, the fact of British colonialism seems incidental in much of this work, even though, as Raj argues, the “push” factors were linked to policies of the British Raj.

Indeed, Raj’s most illuminating and richly supported argument is that HPs construct an ethnic identity of being from nowhere on the basis of an earlier displacement. Life stories begin with loss of family and land at the moment of Partition. The 1984 storming of the Golden Temple and the subsequent assassination of Indira Gandhi confirmed their suspicion that Hindus no longer belong to Punjab; since then, being Punjabi has increasingly meant being Sikh. Thus, Sikhs in Britain teach their children written Punjabi, whereas HPs’ shift from Punjabi to Hindi was due to an earlier territorial move and to religious identity as Hindu—it is not a case of culture “loss” caused by migration.

With somewhat less depth, Raj further links the formation of a Hindu identity to the colonial British attempts to create “community consciousness” and disentangle syncretic traditions. The result is that, despite overlap in practice, Hindus and Sikhs in Britain identify in terms of discrete religious “communities.” Although temples foster a sense of Hindu identity in a non-Hindu world, visiting temples is neither a regular practice nor the only way to practice being Hindu in Britain. Thus, temples do not constitute community. It is not entirely clear what Raj intends in describing British Hindus as a “community in moments,” but it is clear that Hindu identity is not only a product of living in Britain but also of South Asian religious politics.

In marriage practices, ethnicity is highlighted and explicitly gendered. Raj describes the complex negotiation between parents and children, in which children agree in principle to arranged marriage while also using various strategies of subversion to ultimately get what they want. Parents are constrained by the need to protect family reputation and the somewhat contradictory need to utilize wider social networks in their search for a suitable match for their child.

How is racism experienced by “visible” minorities who are also middle class? The parental generation was silent on the issue, the younger generation more likely to interpret experiences in terms of racism, but both agreed that racism had worsened. Raj’s explanation for these perceptions is that the idea of a biologically immutable racial hierarchy has been replaced by a new racism of absolute cultural difference, in which visible markers of difference like skin color or dress still prompt the question, “Where are you from?” HPs’ strategies for dealing with racism reveal their middle-class status. They not only hide their success from white neighbors who they feel resent their prosperity, but they also distance themselves from poorer groups such as Bangladeshis. Here, the development of ethnic consciousness results from racism.

Raj also considers critiques of diaspora as a framing device (for its emphasis on homeland, for ignoring hierarchy, and for always ascribing culture change to movement), but she finds it useful because it invokes global relations while allowing research on local populations. Although rejecting the frame of “homeland” in other parts of the book, here Raj analyzes the “myth of return” as not entirely a myth, noting the retirement mantra of “six months here, six months there” (p. 172). Again, attention is drawn to the role of Britain, and India, in this myth: It is the fear of being British, yet not belonging to Britain (fueled by British multiculturalism as well as by memories of South Asians being evicted from Amin’s Uganda) that renders India the de facto homeland. The Indian government, from its side, has also constructed itself as homeland with such initiatives as the Person of Indian Origin card.

The conclusion presents a critique of British policies of multiculturalism, which echo colonial benevolence, exert pressure to choose an identity, conceptualize difference as a problem to be overcome through tolerance, and perpetuate nostalgia for culture. Britain teaches its children “tolerance” of minorities and expects the latter to do the bridge building but does not consider expanding the very definition of British identity. For this reason, the simple question of the book’s title is experienced by HPs as where are you really from?

Only two critiques strike this reviewer as important. The boundaries of “middle-class” status are both notoriously elastic and central to the analytical frame of the study, yet readers are offered neither a definition of the category nor an understanding of Raj’s reasons for focusing on middle-class HPs. Is it because Hindu Punjabis (as opposed to Sikh Punjabis) are primarily middle class in Britain or because these were the people the author met? Also, the conclusion does not explicitly draw together disparate themes, such as arranged marriage and multiculturalism. Nevertheless, the author’s analyses of strategic negotiations of arranged marriage, the new racism of multiculturalism, and the link between the history of Partition and HP identities in contemporary Britain make a significant contribution to literature on South Asian diaspora, ethnicity in Britain, and multiculturalism.