Little Bangladesh

This volume presents a comprehensive overview of the Bangladeshi diaspora in USA. Based on case studies from across Southern California, it discusses themes such as economic advantages of migration beyond sociological models of globalization; Bangladeshi diaspora and Little Bangladesh; oral histories of settlement and incoming migrants; imagined homelands in California; emigration and immigration; trans-business and the American Dream; diaspora and social media; Islam and transnationalism; and Bangladeshi Islam in the USA. It explores the trans-global subjectivity and embodied experiences of Bangladeshi migrants as they negotiate economic opportunity, security, and challenges. The book also documents transnational ties that migrants retain; the aspirations and anxieties they face; and what it means to be a Muslim living in the USA in the post-9/11 era. With its rich, multi-sited ethnographic narratives set in transnational studies and studies of globalization, this book will interest scholars and researchers of diaspora studies, migration studies, South Asian studies, political sociology, social anthropology, sociology and political studies, international relations and those interested in Bangladesh.

From Los Angeles to Tokyo, Urban Sociolinguistics is a sociolinguistic study of twelve urban settings around the world. Building on William Labov’s famous New York Study, the authors demonstrate how language use in these areas is changing based on belief systems, behavioural norms, day-to-day rituals and linguistic practices. All chapters are written by key figures in sociolinguistics and presents the personal stories of individuals using linguistic means to go about their daily communications, in diverse sociolinguistic systems such as: extremely large urban conurbations like Cairo, Tokyo, and Mexico City smaller settings like Paris and Sydney less urbanised places such as the Western Netherlands Randstad area and Kohima in India. Providing new perspectives on crucial themes such as language choice and language contact, code-switching and mixing, language and identity, language policy and planning and social networks, this is key reading for students and researchers in the areas of multilingualism and super-diversity within sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and urban studies.

Strangers in New Homelands is a collection of papers emanating from Annual International Conferences on the Social Reconstruction of the concept of “home” among immigrants in the diaspora. For many immigrants in the diaspora, the concept of “home”, around which this conference has revolved, evokes confusion, fear, hopes, and aspirations. The presentations in this book therefore seek to throw light on what this concept means for many people who have uprooted themselves from their familiar environments and settled or seek to make new homes out of strange and unfamiliar environments. The contributors in this publication were drawn from the field of researchers on immigrant and refugee movements and settlements, education, community development and front-line immigrant and refugee settlement workers. They draw on experiences from their research, field practice vignettes, personal experiences and case work examples to highlight and explore the critical issues involved in the field of forced and voluntary migration and resettlement around the world, and the settlement of migrants and refugees in new societies. Cumulatively, the contributors examine the challenges of settlement, integration and adaptation that new comers face in host societies. The critical approaches and strong balance of research with applications show the implications of the issues for the profession of social work and allied fields. The scholarship presented here also highlights the implications of the issues discussed for further research and social policy development. Anyone interested in learning about the challenges and intricacies of the migration process around the world must read this book. It is highly recommended for politicians, policy makers, social work professionals, educators and organizations dealing with immigrants and refugees.

The Emergence of Bangladesh analyses and celebrates the first 50 years of Bangladesh as a nation, bringing insights from key scholars in Bangladeshi studies to an international audience, as well as ‘bringing home’ to a domestic audience the work of some of the nation’s greatest intellectual exports, the Bangladeshi scholars who have made a mark in their field of study in academia. The book offers unique coverage of the battlegrounds on which the founding of the new nation was fought, including language, power and religion, and provides unique insight into some of the hot spots that continue to shape the development of the nation: the issues of gender, culture, ethnicity, governance, the economy and the army. Those with an interest in understanding the past or present Bangladesh will find this a trove of frank and readable analysis.

Urban landscapes are complex spaces of sociocultural diversity, characterized by narratives of both conviviality and conflict. As people with multiple ethnicities and nationalities find their common destinies in thriving globalizing cities, social cohesiveness becomes more precarious as different beliefs, practices, ambitions, values, and affiliations intersect in close proximity, producing social tensions. Tensions in Diversity presents a multi-method comparative study that draws on the experiences of 140 residents of native and immigrant origin, community organizers, and municipal officers in three culturally diverse neighbourhoods of varying income levels in Los Angeles County. Using cognitive mapping analysis combined with data from interviews, surveys, and participant observation, this book explores how exactly coexistence is socio-spatially experienced and negotiated in daily life. Tensions in Diversity identifies the planning and design considerations that enable intercultural learning in the public places within diverse cities. In doing so, this book foregrounds urban space as an active force in shaping coexistence and convivial public environments.

Offers a critique of the economic model of immigration Most understandings of migration to the US focus on two primary factors. Either there was trouble in the home country, such as political unrest or famine, that pushed people out, or there was a general yearning for “a better life” or “more opportunity,” often conceptualized as the American Dream. Although many contemporary migrants in the United States have been driven by economic interests, the processes of immigration and integration are shaped also by the intersection of a range of noneconomic factors in both sending and receiving countries. The contributors to Beyond Economic Migration offer a nuanced look at a range of issues affecting motives to migrate and outcomes of integration, including US immigration policy and the visa system, labor market incorporation, employment precarity, identity and belonging, and transnationalism relating to female migrants, student migrants, and temporary foreign workers. Beyond Economic Migration argues that, for the dream of fair and equitable migration to be realized, analyses of cross-border movements, resettlement, and integration must pay attention to how migrants’ individual attributes interact with institutional mechanisms and social processes.

This book contains details of how tyranny has risen in Bangladesh, the country that was founded in 1971 with the principle of democracy. It hopes to answer why and how the hopes and aspirations of our people have been ruined due to corrupt politicians, intellectuals, and bureaucrats. It hopes to answer why and how the evil totalitarian took place and how the current tyranny has been strengthened in such a horrific stage that the peace-loving people cant express their opinion under the ferocity of Sheikh Hasina. In my writings, I have described the historical background of our country up to the modern tyrannical era, which shouldnt exist anywhere on the face of the planet in the twenty-first century. In my writings, I have described how such an atrocious regime has been strengthened and why shouldnt they be forgiven. Freedom and liberty are the utmost universal values that no human being can sacrifice. In this book, I have passionately written my views based on the real scenarios of Bangladesh and mixed with some essays and poems. Knowing all about the risks, I believe that to live as human beings, we cant surrender to any dictator or oppressive regime. Surrendering to them will strengthen the evils, and we must restrain them by any means. No evil regime should represent any country or a nation or deny the very fundamental rights of their people. And Bangladesh is not an exception. My main objective in writing this book is to protect the people of our country, Bangladesh, and its sovereignty. God bless Bangladesh and the entirety of mankind. Mohammed D. Hussain

Bangladesh's ambition is to build on its very solid growth and poverty reduction achievements, and accelerate growth to become a middle income country by 2021, and share prosperity more widely amongst its citizens. This includes one of its greatest development challenges: to provide gainful employment to the over 2 million people that will join the labor force each year over the next decade. Moreover, only 54.1 million of its 94 million working age people are employed. Bangladesh needs to use its labor endowment even more intensively to increase growth and, in turn, to absorb the incoming labor. The Diagnostic Trade Integration Study identifies the following actions centered around four pillars to sustain and accelerate export growth: (1) breaking into new markets through a) better trade logistics to reduce delivery lags; as world markets become more competitive and newer products demand shorter lead times, to generate new sources of competitiveness and thereby enable market diversification; and b) better exploitation of regional trading opportunities in nearby growing and dynamic markets, especially East and South Asia; (2) breaking into new products through a) more neutral and rational trade policy and taxation and bonded warehouse schemes; b) concerted efforts to spur domestic investment and attract foreign direct investment, to contribute to export promotion and diversification, including by easing the energy and land constraints; and c) strategic development and promotion of services trade; (3) improving worker and consumer welfare by a) improving skills and literacy; b) implementing labor and work safety guidelines; and c) making safety nets more effective in dealing with trade shocks; and (4) building a supportive environment, including a) sustaining sound macroeconomic fundamentals; and b) strengthening the institutional capacity for strategic policy making aimed at the objective of international competitiveness to help bring focus and coherence to the government's reform efforts.