ASIAN INDIAN AMERICANS

ASIAN INDIAN AMERICANS have a long history in the United States. Some arrived as indentured laborers during the eighteenth century. Others came to Pennsylvania as slaves, adopted or received English names, and probably became indentured after the state passed its gradual emancipation bill in 1780. A few lived and worked in Massachusetts when America began trading with India in the 1790s.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some Asian Indian merchants imported silk, linen, and other goods, but, like most Asian Americans before World War II, most came as migrant workers and were a part of the worldwide movement of labor and capital in the global marketplace. Steamship companies and employers recruited Asian Indians with stories of wealth in British Columbia. Those migrants, mainly Sikhs from Punjab, eventually crossed into Washington and Oregon, where they labored in lumber mills, and into California, where they were agricultural workers. After the 1965 Immigration Act, Asian Indian Americans numbered 50,000, but after immigration reform, the Asian Indian American population grew to 815,447 in 1990. Early in the twenty-first century, Asian Indian Americans comprised the fourth largest Asian American group, behind Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese Americans. Like other Asian American designations, the term "Asian Indian American" encompasses a range of cultural, linguistic, and sectarian groups.

Political and economic conditions in India and in the Asian Indian global diaspora also influenced the migration of Asian Indians. Rising expectations following India's independence, especially among Indians seeking employment in government and the economy, led to a high demand for education. When India's economy was unable to absorb the educated, many chose emigration. Like Korean and Filipino Americans, the first group that emigrated after 1965 sought employment in the United States. After the 1980s, however, family reunification became their principal purpose for emigrating.

Unlike other groups, Asian Indian Americans have had a fairly even gender balance. Although the earlier population was overwhelmingly male, there has apparently been a greater number of Asian Indian female infants born in the United States. This fact, together with the death of older Asian Indian American men, has resulted in virtual gender parity. In the early 2000s, California had the largest number of Asian Indian Americans, a statistic that held for all Asian American groups, but Asian Indians were not concentrated in the West. One-third of all Asian Indians resided in the Northeast, and one-fourth lived in the South. Like most Asian Americans, Asian Indians have settled in urban centers, in such metropolitan areas as New York-Newark-Jersey City, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, and Chicago.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bacon, Jean Leslie. Life Lines: Community, Family, and Assimilation Among Asian Indian Immigrants. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Jensen, Joan M. Passage From India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988.

La Brack, Bruce. The Sikhs of Northern California, 1904–1975. New York: AMS Press, 1988.

Leonard, Karen Isaksen. Making Ethnic Choices: California's Punjabi Mexican Americans. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.

Gary Y.Okihiro/e. m.

See alsoAsian Religions and Sects ; Assimilation ; Trade, Foreign .