For love and money: second-generation Indian-Americans ‘return’ to India

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the ‘return’ of second-generation Indian-American professionals from the US to their parental homeland, India. Based on qualitative interviews with forty-eight second-generation Indian-Americans working in the cities of New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad, it examines the question of why they ‘return’ to India. Data suggest that better job opportunities in India motivated and enabled respondents to ‘return’. Importantly, they also ‘returned’ to develop an independent and personal relationship with the country. Their migration decisions were shaped by their transnational praxis and cultural affiliations to India and the stage in the life-course. My findings also suggest that for some second-generation immigrants, ‘return’ does not necessarily imply permanent settlement in the parental homeland or mark the end of the migration cycle.