Interview with Ash Khan who lives in Hansworth, Birmingham about his working life...

Interview with Ash Khan who lives in Hansworth, Birmingham about his working life and cultural and cultural identity as a Punjabi brought up in Britain. Also a joint interview with a group of young Birmingham Asians about their perceptions of society.

Side A : details include description of his present working conditions, health and safety shortcomings at work, hostility meet as a 'coloured Brummie', rejected for being too Westernised by his own culture, not accepted by the white community for being black, break down of his traditionally arranged Asian marriage, home working in the textile trade, 'the house becomes a factory', reminiscences of his father's work as ballbearing maker in a West Midlands foundry, father's death from bronchitis, working for a heating and ventilation firm, working in a sausage factory in Suffolk, description of the process for manufacturing sausages, encountered little racial prejudice during childhood returned to Birmingham, 8 years on the dole, and his employer's assumption that his hard work means he must be high on drugs.

Side B: (1) Continuation of the above interview details include: self perception of being caught between Western and Indian cultures, the different paths followed by his siblings in working out their identities, more assertive character of the younger generations of Asians, the creation of a new identity which is a fusion of Western and Asian elements and final expression of his own sense of isolation.

2) Ash's interview opens out into a group discussion with an unidentified group of Asians in Birmingham, details include tensions between the Bangladeshi andPunjabi communities, growing fragmentation of the communities, the attraction of crime compared to working, discussion on the drug trade, the damage to the community as drugs become accepted as the norm by the younger generation; friction with and ineffectiveness of the police, suspicions expressed about the motivation and intentions of the police and the government.

( Original Ref. SS14 Ash )

Acc.No. 7542