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The Other Indians: A Political and Cultural History of South Asians
in America TODAY, the Indian diaspora is an incontestable fact of world culture. Diverse Indian communities scattered across the globe now complement the 19th-century diaspora of indentured labourers and traders, and nowhere has the growth of the Indian diaspora registered such a phenomenal increase as in the US. The book under review synthesises the author’s ideas around the emergence of the Indian community in the US with a focus on post-1965 communities.
Though the early immigrants led generally unobtrusive lives, oral histories and anecdotal evidence unequivocally suggest creeping discrimination. The trickle of several hundred Indians must have appeared to white America as a deluge since calls for their removal began surfacing in the press and among American labour leaders long before the first decade of the 20th century was over. In these circumstances, the new immigrants, whose difficulties were compounded by their relatively high illiteracy rates, poor knowledge of English and lack of wider sociopolitical networks, undoubtedly imbibed their first political lessons, acquiring the skills and tenacity necessary to combat racism, pursue a livelihood and work the courts to gain reprieve. By the second decade of the 20th century, a sufficiently large coterie of cosmopolitan Indian rebels, whose ranks would be swelled and complicated by peasants and workers who had experienced the piercing effects of racial discrimination, felt emboldened enough to initiate a political party to press for India’s independence from British rule. The Hindi Association of the Pacific Coast took root in 1913, but it is by the name of Ghadr that it is commonly known. Just before the ascent of the Ghadr party, an attractive picture of Indian civilisation had already been imprinted on America by the discourses of Swami Vivekananda. And as the century rolled on, India slowly became synonymous with the thought and work of Gandhi who had a considerable following among liberals, pacifists, intellectuals and some clergymen. At the same time Indians in America were fighting a long battle over citizenship that would not be resolved until the passing of the National Origins Act in 1965, which set in place systems and quotas for immigration which are still largely in place today. Vinay Lal has many interesting observations to make on a wealth of subjects, from Hinduism’s capacity to organise its devotees and take its place alongside other world religions to the entrepreneurial acumen and network of Patels, and from South Asian writers of the diaspora like Vikram Seth and Jhumpa Lahiri to the changing dynamics of the relationship between adopted land and motherland. The last 10 years have opened up entirely new chapters in the history of the Indian diaspora in the US. Where before Indians had made known their presence most visibly in the professions, particularly in medicine and engineering, extending in recent years to computer-related industries and investment banking, today the community is far more diversified with large numbers of Indians entering into the taxi business, fast food and convenience store franchises and hospitality industries. The older stereotypes of Indians as doctors and engineers have now been joined by newer stereotypes. For four decades, one has been hearing of the graduates of leading Indian universities who made their way to the US. An accelerating reverse flow now seems all but certain. Many Indian Americans always had lingering doubts about "American culture" and the moral risks of raising children in American society. The rapid transformation of Indian cities, to which Indian Americans who have visited in recent years attest with evident pride, has now given rise to new possibilities. Himself a resident of America for almost three decades (Vinay Lal teaches History at the university of California), he has the advantage of being able to draw upon both scholarship and personal experience in this work, and speaks as both observer and participant. This illustrated volume offers a crisp and critical history of Indian Americans in the fullness of their political, cultural, social, religious and economic lives. A must-read for the general public at home about Indians abroad.
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The
history of Asian Indians in the US is conventionally thought to have
begun just before 1900. Though for the first few years the migrants were
predominantly Sikhs, they were described as " Hindoos". They
came largely from the Jullunder and Hoshiarpur districts of the Punjab.