Nepali Migrant Women

In this pathbreaking and timely work, Hamal Gurung gives voice to the growing

number of Nepali women who migrate to the United States to work in the informal

economy. Highlighting the experiences of thirty-five women, mostly college

educated and middle class, who take on domestic service and unskilled labor

jobs, Hamal Gurung challenges conventional portraits of Third World women

as victims forced into low-wage employment. Instead, she sheds light on Nepali

women's strategic decisions to accept downwardly mobile positions in order to

earn more income, thereby achieving greater agency in their home countries as

well as in their diasporic communities in the United States. These women are not

only investing in themselves and their families--they are building transnational

communities through formal participation in NGOs and informal networks of

migrant workers. In great detail, Hamal Gurung documents Nepali migrant

women's lives, making visible the profound and far-reaching effects of their

civic, economic, and political engagement.