By 1900, just over 2000 South Asian “Indians” were documented residents of the United States, although there may have been more. 408 of these initial South Asian Americans resided in New York, laying the foundation for the diverse New York South Asian population present today in areas like Queens. Some lived in segregated urban centers like Chicago and Detroit, while the West Coast's agricultural workforce offered opportunities for others. However, citizenship and the full realization of the “American Dream” were unobtainable to many of these South Asian immigrants. These early South Asian Americans defined the foundational steps into an era of significant change in immigration and naturalization policies throughout the 20th century, particularly involving South Asian immigrants. Ultimately, it is their initial strides that exist as the pillars of the modern South Asian American identity and status in the United States.
The "Hindoo" Invasion
The sudden uptick in South Asian immigrants within the United States coincided with broader resentment toward Asian immigrants as a whole. The nativist movement of this century saw immigrants from India in a similar light to those from China and, to a lesser extent, Japan: a group of people who look different than WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) with an unfamiliar culture who worked back-breaking jobs for menial pay. Such immigrants were believed to be spreading immorality and disease and taking away jobs that should be reserved for White Americans. Numerous anti-Indian riots across the country manifested from these sentiments, with nativists coining South Asian immigration to the United States as a “Hindoo invasion."
One of the best known race riots organized specifically against South Asians took place in Bellingham, Washington, just after Labor Day in 1907. A relatively sizable South Asian population had grown in the area as a result of expanded railroad access within the Pacific Northwest and available contract work in Bellingham’s lumber mills, much to the displeasure of many white workers. A similar race riot — against Chinese migrant workers in the fishing industry — had taken place in Bellingham some years prior, and in the ensuing years, a large chapter of the Japanese-Korean Exclusion League had taken root. Explicitly organized to defend the West Coast “against Oriental invasion,” the Japanese-Korean Exclusion League’s chapter in Bellingham boasted over 800 members. Utilizing racist, fearmongering stories of immigrants stealing white jobs and committing violence against white women — tropes that have been invoked time and time again, regardless of the time period — white rioters roamed the streets of Bellingham with the goal of ridding the town of its entire South Asian population. Observing indiscriminate beatings, arson, destruction of private property, and other tactics of intimidation, Bellingham citizens and police officers did little to nothing to protect their South Asian neighbors.
After the riots ended, their secondary utility became clear. Press accounts and written accounts of the white workers’ testimonials demonstrate that the riots were used to stress the dangerous, unassimilable nature of these “foreign” workers. In many cases, the victims of the riots were blamed for the violence itself, or at least for introducing such chaos into a “peaceful” town. The rioters’ intentions, in protecting the white supremacist foundations of their town and its economy, went largely unquestioned. Within 10 days of the riot, every South Asian resident of Bellingham would leave town, moving on to other seasonal or migratory work in the Pacific Northwest and hoping for a safer environment to call home. The Japanese-Korean Exclusion League would eventually become the Asiatic Exclusion League, bundling in the newest target of its xenophobia under a more expansive umbrella. And such organized outbursts of explicitly anti-South Asian racism would become more common as the early 20th century progressed onward.
