The Resilience and Community Focus of Bengali Peddlars and Restauranteurs
-
The first documented Bengali peddlers were 12 men who arrived in New York. Due to the Ellis Island Fire, there was an interruption in immigrant processes and they were detained, accused of being contract workers which broke US labour and immigration laws, and deported in 1897. There were strict anti-immigration laws for non-European migrants, but there was great demand for the goods these Bengali peddlars brought such as embroidered silks, small rugs, and perfumes. They managed around these strict laws by entering the US in smaller groups in smaller American ports or Canadian ports. These salesmen could not sell their goods within India anymore because the British imported cheap factory-made textiles disturbing the domestic textile industry. This makes me think of the song Debris from two weeks ago, which confronts British anti-immigration rhetoric and policy as their historic exploitation of South Asia is what ruined India’s economy. By the British not only forcing Indian farmers to grow cash crops instead of crops for sustenance and self-sufficiency (which was especially terrible in Bengal with the famines and forced opium production), but also interrupting the textile industry within India, the Bengali peddlars had to go on arduous journeys across various seas and oceans to financially help their families, which is a testament to their resilience.
The textiles and goods Bengali peddlars sold in America were at first very popular among the affluent, upscale boutiques who would purchase their goods. However, as the middle-class became more familiar and interested in these Indian textiles, the demand for more peddlars grew as well. At first, many Bengali peddlars did not expect to stay and settle in America, they were just in America temporarily for economic opportunities and still very much connected to pre-partition India with their families still there. This reality challenges the idea that the first Indian immigrants came to America in hopes for the American dream, to create a permanent life there. Nevertheless, as the demand for their goods expanded past touristy hubs like the New Jersey Coast and New Orleans from seasonal vacationers, Bengali peddlars grew their networks and found a permanent position in the American economy and began to permanently settle. Although “the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Alien Contract Labor Law of 1885…were suffused with racist assumptions about the nature of Asian laborers, and both complicated the Bengali peddlers’ ability to cross into the United States”, Bengali peddlars still managed to enter America through indicating they had family ties with other American residents within their growing network of Bengali peddlers.
It is through these community-ties and mentorship from others in the community that also allowed the Indian restaurant industry to flourish in mid-twentieth century Harlem. Habib Ullah and his wife Victoria Echevarria Ullah opened one of the first Indian restaurants in New York called the Bengal Garden that inspired and fostered many Indian restaurateurs in Harlem. Although the general American public were not yet familiar with Indian flavours, Habib Ullah’s business savvy and advice helped many Indian New Yorkers to start and grow their restaurants which became important places of community for Indian New Yorkers to get together. The Bengal Garden’s other co-owner Ibrahim Choudry was also an important figure for nurturing the South Asian community in New York. He helped Bengali ex-lascars find resources and integrate into the American economy and Harlem society. He was director for the Indian merchant sailors’ club, founded the Pakistan League of America in 1947 after partition, and advocated for citizenship rights for Indian migrants. I remember him from a reading a few weeks ago about JJ Singh and Mubarek Ali Khan lobbying for immigration, naturalization, and land rights. Ibrahim Chaudhary was one of the first people to assert working class Indians also deserve these rights instead of just wealthier Indians. South Asians like me owe our rights to those who fought for them, as well as for establishing places for community such as Indian restaurants and the Indian Seamen’s Club. It is at places like these where South Asian people could discuss their shared interests, ask for help, and find connections and resources in order to make it in a new world.
