Customer Reviews

Speaking the Unspeakable: Marital Violence among South Asian Immigrants in the United States

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Speaking the Unspeakable explores the issues surrounding family violence in the South Asian community. Factors such as immigration status, accepted gender roles and the maintenance of the model minority are discussed. Furthermore, through the voices of survivors, Abraham challenges the stereotypes of Asian women as passive and submissive. She shows the strategies used by these women to combat family violence on both personal and community levels. The book is certainly helpful to anyone doing research either in the South Asian community or on domestic violence generally. However, it is written so that it is also accessible as a resource for those with no academic training. This is not dry scholarly writing. It is a richly woven story that details the complexities of domestic violence for the South Asian community in the United States.

Margaret successfully draws attention to a topic considered taboo by most South Asians: Marital Violence. This book is a perfect blend of factual information and personal stories. Together, they form an invaluable resource useful to anyone interested in learning about marital violence in a community that brings its own complications to the already-so situation. The narratives help put a human face on this global crisis. The analysis and framework provided by Abraham help contextualize these women's dilemmas. The reader will walk away without the judgemental eyes they may have once seen from. Since not many other sources are willing to tackle this complex subject, this is a must-have and more importantly, a must-read.

Margaret Abraham has poured an enormous effort into sorting out the various dynamics, both above the surface and well below, of the discourse centering on the plight of South Asian women coming to the United States. It is to her credit that her research has such size and substance yet provides compelling reading, with implications for many other areas of scholarship, including feminist theory. Her narrative, rich as it is in detail from the interviews she conducted, has to do with discerning ways that scholars document brutal secrets existing in an extremely contested discourse, not that of assigning some kind of victimhood. This is an important work on a difficult topic. A must read.

I think this book is very thorough in discussing the issue of domestic violence in the South Asian immigrant community. I found it to be very interesting and informative. The personal interviews of victims made this issue very real. But I found the book overall to be very dry. It read more like something an academian would understand, not the general lay person.

I was just researching a case about Mohammed Mohsin and came across this book. While the other reviews seemed positive, I took a sneak peak at the first few pages (offered by Amazon.com) and interestingly, the first page starts off with some information on Mohammed Mohsin. The credibility of this book is shot down a hole as soon as I noticed some incorrect facts about the case. While I would not like to divulge into details, I can say with a great degree of confidence that most of the stories presented in this book is sure exaggerated to capture nothing but sympathy from the sorry readers!