South Asians in the U.S.
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During the 1880s, Bengali peddlers started making frequent voyages to the United States (Bald, 12). However, the federal government took over the processing and evaluation of arriving immigrants, which was something previously done by individual states. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Alien Contract Labor Law of 1885, combined with racist assumptions, made it extremely difficult for Bengali peddlers to cross into the United States (Bald, 14). Nonetheless, Bengali Muslims started travelling in smaller groups, trying different ports, reuniting with kin and co-villagers, and establishing networks in order to come to the East Coast of the United States. As Orientalism was becoming important in the United States, the American people saw a growing fashion for exotic ideas, entertainments and goods coming from India (Bald, 15). In fact, India was becoming a collective fantasy (Bald, 16). Circuses and exhibitions had Indian elephants and camels (Bald, 17). South Asians were able to sell their goods to Americans (Bald, 22). However, ideas about India became tainted by mass-entertainment and consumption. Furthermore, Westerners began fetishizing Indian women (Bald, 18). There was also a growing anti-immigrant and anti-Asian sentiment in America (Bald, 39). This did not stop South Asians from settling in American cities. For example, New Orleans was becoming one of the most important hubs of travel and transport, as it was connected to every major city in the North and South (Bald, 24). Peddlers were regularly settling there (Bald, 25). In fact, the U.S. Census recorded a fivefold increase in the number of Indian peddlers living in New Orleans between 1900 and 1910 (Bald, 32).
New York City, specifically East Harlem, was also an important setting for Indians. In fact, increasing numbers of Indians were settling in East Harlem (Bald, 161). Before that, Harlem was the epicenter of the African American world. It was seen as a promised land, where people from Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Cuba would settle. The population was submitted to segregation and lived in poor health and housing conditions. They also had extremely limited educational opportunities (Bald, 162). The Indians settling on the east coast contracted marriages with African American, Caribbean and Latin American women. The initial reason is that they lived in the same neighborhoods and mainly worked with other racialized people (Bald, 163). According to New York’s police commissioner, they were trying to disappear into the communities around them, to pass, or to gain new legal identities as Puerto Ricans (Bald, 166). This argument is not entirely true, as many Indians kept expressing their culture through the sale of goods, and through the making of foods. Many of them worked in restaurants (Bald, 172). They served Indian food to the Caribbean population and to African Americans (Bald, 178). Food was not only a way for them to make money and interact with other people in New York, but it was also a way of keeping a sense of community with other Indians (Bald, 173). Other than food and the sale of goods, institutions like the Indian Seamen’s Club and the Bengal Garden were important spaces for the consolidation of the New York’s Bengali Muslim community. Meetings and events were organized, where connections were built, leading to the creation of communities (Bald, 183). Eventually, there was a separation between nations and religions (Hindu vs Muslim, Indian vs Pakistani), as well as a division of classes. This was happening at the same time as the sectarian violence of Partition taking place in the subcontinent (Bald, 184). I wonder how this separation affected the ways in which South Asians were perceived in America. Bald mentions that the India League was perceived as being elite, in comparison to the Pakistan League (Bald, 185). Did these separations affect political opinions of Westerners toward different South Asians? Did these separations create distinctions between women who were married to Indian men in contrast to those married to Pakistani men? Finally, as violence between sects and nations was rising in the subcontinent, was this violence also seen in America?