The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program by Pallavi Banerjee (review)

Reviewed by: The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program by Pallavi Banerjee Florence P. Awde Pallavi Banerjee. The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program. New York: NYU Press, 2022. 319 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $89.00 hc. $32.00 sc. Pallavi Banerjee's book The Opportunity Trap is a sociological study of the structural faults of the United States' visa regime and the emotional ramifications on spouses of dependent visa holders. Since 1990, 85,000 H-1B workers arrive in the United States every year. These are highly skilled professionals who meet specific labor demands in the US. Much has been written about these positively selected immigrant workers, but less is known about the families that they bring with them. The Opportunity Trap addresses this gap in the literature and analyzes the experience of this overlooked population of immigrants under "dependent visas," also known as H-4 visas. Through 125 in-depth interviews with Indian professionals and their spouses, Banerjee brings the reader into the private lives of these families as they negotiate belonging in a country that both constrains and enables their upward mobility and happiness. In her book, we vividly see how these visas both offer one partner an opportunity for work incorporation and, at the same time, restrict the dependent partner to domestic responsibilities in the private sphere independently of qualifications, level of education and gender. In addition to interviewing these families, she also interviewed 10 immigration experts and did archival research through analyzing political discourse, congressional reports, and social media. Banerjee also relied [End Page 161] on participant observation for data collection, accumulating five-hundred hours of ethnographic observation over 2 years (2009-2011) at community events (cultural, religious, and family). The author asserts her position very clearly in the introduction. Her ethnic heritage as a North Indian, a Hindu (non-Christian), and her experience as a dependent of her spouse in the United States positions her in the in-group of her participants. The author's reflexivity on her shared experience with dependent visa holders provides a great approach for scholars who wish to study issues that reflect closely on their own experiences. On the other hand, her upper-caste, anglophone, and academic position displace her from the core of the study's subjects, leading her to fall in between. In each of the seven chapters, the reader can sense the emotional toll that this visa regime had on participants. Using block quotes, Banerjee allows us to get to know her research participants through their own voices, showing multiple examples from different respondents with common sociological experiences. Visually, this writing style demonstrates its ethnographic rigor and her ability to let the people she interviews tell their own story. In Chapter one, the author outlines different immigration policies that show how race and gender are embedded in the immigration system that systematically disadvantaged immigrants of color. Her outline of the history of gendered and racialized legislation, including policies such as the 1907 Gentlemen's Agreement, reveal the roots of the popular perception of migrants and the stereotypes they face as 'outsiders' even when they are legal insiders. Banerjee's writing underlines the intentional nature of the visa regime to disadvantage those that arrive as dependents, including dependent spouses and their children (who lose their legal status upon turning eighteen). Banerjee introduces the concept of limited legality as a tool of coercion within the visa regime; a term referring to the racialized and gendered system that "controls the day-to-day experiences of migrating populations" (6). The visa regime limits migrants' opportunities, abilities, and identity to minimize and control them as members of American society within this window of liminal legality. Liminal legality is a term coined by Banerjee as "'a status undocumented immigrants experience' as they work to navigate their documentation and migration processes" (109). Further, the visa regime within a sphere of liminal legality reinforces traditional gender practices and the nuclear family by establishing heteronormative professional visa policies. Emotional hurdles are commonplace in the interviews conducted by Banerjee. Shame and alienation prevailed as the dominant emotions among...

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