Indians in USA

By: Gayathri Varma

There is a large Indian diaspora residing in the United States of America. The migration of Indians to the USA started as early as the 19th century. The earliest migrations of Indians to America were through the East Indian Company. Indians would be taken as slaves to American Colonies as slaves, but the first significant migration of Indians to the US started in the 19th century. Most of them stayed along the West Coast, providing the starting point for the large populations of Indians that we see in California today.

The major motive of the Indians who left for America was money. Most people wanted to earn money for their families back home and were prepared to do any sort of work. As a result, the earliest immigrants largely worked in manual labor. They helped the railroad, agriculture, and lumber industries. There are many pictures of Sikh laborer's working on laying railroad tracks.

Figure 1: Indian Sikhs working on the American Railway tracks.

With the arrival of the 20th century came the range of laws and bans regarding the migrations and rights of Indian immigrants in the US. The early 20th century saw American Nativist protests to bar the entry of Indians altogether. The tolerance for Indians by the locals had hit an all-time low and there was a lot of violent and racist attacks being held against them. Indians were labelled as the ‘Hindu’ menace. Laws such as the Alien Land Act of California prevented people of other nationalities from owning land, and there were also laws the prevented Indian men from marrying white women. As a result of this anti-miscegenetic rule many Indian men married Hispanic women. The descendants of these marriages are still seen in Punjabi Mexican Communities today.

In the 1920s the supreme court of the United States ruled the Indians were ineligible for the for citizenship as they were not “free white people”. This led to large number of Indians migrating back to India.

Indians started to garner more respect when they started becoming more educated. The Luce–Celler Act of 1946 and The Naturalization Act of 1952 were the first steps towards mass migrations of Indians into the country once again. Indian populations within the country largely shifted east and many of the settled into the urban parts of the East Coast rather than the rural regions of the West. The jobs they occupied also largely increased in variety. They moved into more commercial sectors of work, and started running business, especially hotels

and grocery stores.

Figure 2: Patel Brothers Est. 1974

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 really opened doors for the 2nd large wave of Indian migrants to the United States. After this act was passed long-term migration to the States increased drastically and by 1995 the flow of Indians was around 90000 immigrants per year.

The Information Technology industry in India in the beginning of the 21st century had a large impact on the migrations of Indians from cities. Skilled individuals going to the United States to work in well-paying positions has made Indians one the richest ethnicities to reside there. The beginning of the 21st century also saw an increase in students seeking out higher education pathways in the States.

The South Asian diaspora in the United States in present times largely consists of skilled professionals and educated individuals the bring family as well. This increases the size if the Indian population in India.

From this image we can clearly see that there has been a steep increase in the number of Indian residents in the United States. Recent statistics of the Indian diaspora show that there are approximately 4.8 million Indian born or people of Indian descent inhabiting the USA.