Note about language: In this exhibit, we often use the term South Asian as an acknowledgment that the migrants, seafarers, and activists included in this exhibit came from throughout the various regions of present-day India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. These were largely men of Sikh, Punjabi, and Bengali Muslim descent. Many were Punjabi (present day India or Pakistan), or Bengali (present day Bangladesh, or West Bengal in India). We use South Asian because at the time of their migration, they would have held many identities: as British Indian subjects in the eyes of the Empire, as beholden to their village or community in their own eyes, and as Hindus/Hindoos in the eyes of the American state. Many would have been internal migrants within the Indian subcontinent prior to their voyage to the United States. We use South Asian as a container for this complexity, while acknowledging its inherent contradictions and oversimplifications.
Historical Context
At the turn of the twentieth century, an influx of South Asians immigrated to the United States and Canada, seeking new opportunities and escaping political and social repression under the thumb of British colonial rule. Many of these immigrants were Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim men from the present-day Punjab region. Some had experience with farming and tending land, and were drawn to the West Coast’s vast expanse of land — and its need for labor. Others came to the United States as political refugees, fleeing persecution from the British Empire. Who were these men? What were their political beliefs? How did they experience race and class in an American context, and how did they think and write about it?
Amidst man-made famine, new land rent policies, and shifts from British slavery to systems of indenture, South Asians began to look for pathways out of British India, which included migration to the United States. South Asians migrated to the West Coast, finding opportunities from Washington to California in farming, mining, logging, and other fields. In California’s Central Valley, South Asian men worked alongside other communities of color: largely Black, Mexican, indigenous, and Japanese. Gendered immigration restrictions that made it difficult for South Asian women to accompany their family members or spouses, but many male South Asian immigrants found new romantic relationships stateside with Mexican women, creating a new, place-specific California Punjabi-Mexican culture.
As the South Asian migrant population grew, anti-Indian prejudice swelled. State officials in California petitioned for immigration restrictions to expand to discriminate against incoming South Asians, citing their “illiteracy,” the lack of employment opportunities, and their likelihood to become “public charges.” The charges of “illiteracy” ring especially hollow when considering that many South Asian men in this period migrated to America specifically to access American higher education.