white fields, white courtrooms
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The three texts give clear examples of challenges faced by Punjabi immigrants in British Columbia and California, their treatment by the legal system, and the racial dynamics that controlled their lives in North America. Punjabi workers in BC and California faced discrimination from white workers and business owners, mainly because of economic competition for example Ward talks about how white workers did not want Punjabis to infiltrate the workforce by lowering wages. This resulted in racial violence, for example, the 1907 Vancouver riot, and limiting immigration policies which tried to keep BC racially homogeneous. This all came together in the Komagata Maru incident in 1914, where 376 Punjabis were sent back from Canada. In California, Leonard talks about how Punjabis, mainly Sikhs, went and found work in agriculture but still were faced with similar economic and racial limitations. Anti-Asian legislation, like California’s Alien Land Law, stopped south asians from owning personal land and cut their ability to secure long-term stability short. Punjabi workers were put together with Chinese and Japanese immigrants, even though their religions and cultures were different. The anti-Hindoo ideology in BC and California closely relates to the broader racism against Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Ward tells us that white British Columbians saw all Asians as unassimilable and posed threats to their economic and racial purity. The Canadian government were then pressured by public opinion and enacted policies to alienate South Asians. While some Punjabis got sympathy from white politicians and religious leaders, this was not enough. Ward explains that some Christian missionaries and politicians saw these Punjabi immigrants through corrupt preexisting views. In California, Leonard talks about a way Punjabis integrated into society, that was through marriages with Mexican women, which provided them with some legal defences, such as land ownership. While these marriages could be economically helpful, the whites perceived them as suspicious. Shah shares about how the U.S. legal system handled non-normative marriages, specifically involving South Asians. In one specific scenario,Julio Jubala (Jawala Singh) had two wives, one in New Mexico and one in Punjab. The court ruled in favour of his American wife, Soledad, not without perceiving Hindu marriage as inferior to Christian monogamy.