It may be the largest ethnic enterprise in U.S. history, says Pawan Dhingra. If you have stayed in motels in the United States in the last decade, the chances are that you have stayed in at least one with an Indian-American proprietor. They own nearly two million rooms with property values of more than $100-billion, he writes in Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream (Stanford University Press). And here’s where things get even more specific. A vast majority of Indian motel owners are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from the state of Gujarat, and some 70 percent of owners are named Patel.
The confluence of Patels with motels has received some notice, but, Dhingra claims, his is the first book-length study. His focus is the owners of lower-budget accommodations, including franchisees of Super 8’s and Econo Lodges. But he pays particular attention to the challenges faced by small, mom-and-pop independent motels, whose survival depends on owners’ living in their motels, mobilizing immediate and extended family members as employees, and making numerous other economies. They buy the towels that are cheapest to replace if stolen, a vendor told Dhingra.
The sociologist visited Indian-owned motels in several locations, but most of his research was in Ohio, where he is an associate professor at Oberlin College, though now on leave at the Smithsonian in Washington.
Belief in small business and self-employment stems from Gujarati class culture, the author argues. “We haven’t been working for anybody else” for many generations, one son of a pioneer owner noted. What might have been agricultural land ownership in Gujarat has translated for many Gujarati immigrants to motels in the United States.
A snowball effect is created through extended family members who are willing to emigrate for low-wage employment. Unlike other businesses, motels can provide free accommodations for family members while they save to buy their own motels. A significant number of children also continue in the family business. Some even return to it after pursuing other professions. “I worked a few years,” an owner with a degree in physics told Dhingra, “and what I noticed was, I’m working 13, 14 hours a day just like my dad was. However in my case, somebody else is getting fat.” One daughter was getting her J.D. and M.B.A. to serve as counsel to her father’s 11 motels.
The author argues that “how ethnic entrepreneurs manage their businesses has received far less attention than how they start them.” He details practices that at times reflect the discrimination some Indian motel owners feel from the larger society. For example, those who can afford to employ nonfamily members may hire a non-Indian desk clerk, white women preferred, to project an “assimilated front stage” in their motels. Some family-staffed motels also feel pressure to hide signs of ethnicity, such as Hindu religious symbols or the scent of home cooking. Unlike, say, an Irish bar or Chinese restaurant, he writes, ethnic paraphernalia is not a selling point.
Still, identity is maintained through, among other things, Hindi satellite TV, temple communities, and, Dhingra found, the male camaraderie around volleyball, a sport popular in Gujarat.
While Indian-American motel owners have been praised for their entrepreneurship and success, they remain marginalized, embedded in economic, racial, and other hierarchies. “It is insincere to dismiss the American dream by downplaying Indian Americans’ successes, for evidence of their accomplishments is ample,” he writes. “Instead it is more appropriate to re-evaluate what the American dream truly is.” It is a dream, he argues, tied to inequalities and insecurities that never go away, but can seem tamed. The real process of cultural adaptation, he says, is messy and unpredictable.
Con Ed
Say you’re an identity thief and you’re looking for your next mark. What sort of person are you looking for?
“Somebody like y’all,” the federal inmate told the two criminologists. “You’ve never been convicted, you probably only have one or two speeding tickets in your life. You ain’t got no criminal record. Ain’t nobody looking for you. You ain’t wanted for child support. Stuff like that.”
“Dustin’s” mini-primer on what’s required for a “clean name” is one of many frank exchanges in Identity Thieves: Motives and Methods (Northeastern University Press), a new book by two innocent-looking associate professors: Heith Copes, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Lynne M. Vieraitis, at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Using legal documents and newspaper stories as leads, the authors traveled the country interviewing 65 inmates in 14 federal prisons. Six inmates declared their innocence, so the book is based on data from the remainder, who are admittedly guilty or at least more forthcoming.
Until their book, the authors claim, there had yet to be a “systematic study that seeks the perspective of those who arguably know the most about the crime—the thieves themselves.” The authors apply rational-choice theory to their study of criminal decision-making.
Such an understanding, they argue, may shed light on how to make identity theft riskier and less appealing to its perpetrators.
Motives may seem obvious for identity theft. Money is the draw. “Dale” switched from burglary to identity theft. It’s easier, he told the scholars, “and you get the money, you know. You get a lot of money.” While some burned through their illicit gains partying or buying drugs, others were the soul of prudence. Asked how he used his takings, “Jake,” a “middle-class fraudster,” said “nothing more than living off it, putting it away, saving it. Nothing flashy.”
Copes and Vieraitis explore what they term the “phenomenological rewards” as well, the rush, essentially, and the power. “It’s money and it’s knowing I’m getting over on them,” “Lawrence” remarked. The scholars say they were struck by “just how intoxicating some offenders found their lives and crimes.”
We imagine that we are most at risk for identity theft through computer transactions and data breaches. But many identity thieves still favor such low-tech techniques as dumpster diving and mailbox raiding. Take “Bruce,” for example. One of his favored methods was walking the streets of quiet suburban neighborhoods depositing flyers in mailboxes while sifting through people’s correspondence looking for the gold of a doctor’s bill or credit or bank statement. Bruce would pull credit reports on his potential picks, and once he found a “good identity,” he opened up credit-card accounts, applied for loans, and otherwise ran amok with someone’s finances.
How do identity thieves manage their risks? One way is to not take them. While some of the informants worked alone, keeping all the money, but also all the risk, many others were part of rings in which the riskiest jobs, cashing false checks, for example, were handled by “runners” who included everyone from prostitutes to college students: “They always need money for books,” a thief noted.
Other elements of risk management included keeping transactions at levels less likely to draw attention. There is also the fine art of reading bank tellers. “You didn’t want the older ones,” said “Gladys.” “No, they’ve been around. No, you don’t want the older ones. More like the bubbly young ones,” she advised.
It’s no comfort to their victims, but identity thieves interviewed balked at their depiction in the media as “ubiquitous predators, willing to exploit the simplest of our routine actions,” write the authors. “Nearly all agreed that physically hurting someone for money was beyond their capacity.” They were not, they protested, real criminals. “Like I can’t see me in all black and busting in somebody’s house or robbing a bank, I just can’t ... I’m not a mean person,” said “Chelsea.”
