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Dreams Of My Father, Prison For My Mother: The H-4 Nonimmigrant Visa Dilemma And The Need For An "Immigration-Status Spousal Support", Stewart Chang

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In this article, Professor Stewart Chang uses the situation of H-4 visa derivatives in the Asian Indian immigrant community as a case study to expose and critique larger incongruities within current American immigration policy, which on the one hand has historically extolled individuality, equality, and workforce participation as avenues to the American Dream, while enforcing gender hierarchy and dependency through requirements that prioritize family unity on the other. These incongruities remain largely unnoticed because the culture of dependency is often attributed to traditional ethnic culture, which then becomes the site of scrutiny and blame. The H-4 visa dilemma in the …