Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America
by Vivek Bald
Buy on AmazonNineteenth-century Muslim peddlers arrived at Ellis Island, bags heavy with silks from their villages in Bengal. Demand for “Oriental goods” took these migrants on a curious path, from New Jersey’s boardwalks to the segregated South. Bald’s history reveals cross-racial affinities below the surface of early twentieth-century America.
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"This book is centered on South Asian Americans; it challenges our assumptions of what Asian immigration looks like and what Asian immigrant experiences are like. Vivek chronicles how South Asian immigrants came to the United States in the first half of the 20th century, a period we often associate with exclusion. The Immigration Act of 1924 excluded Asian immigrants because they were racially ineligible for citizenship, but Asian immigrants still found a way to migrate, and this includes immigrants from South Asia. South Asian immigrants occupied a really interesting racial position. They were dark-skinned. They were often peddlers, selling things that were appealing to American consumers at the time, so they moved around a lot. They had a lot of interaction with Black Americans in places like Harlem and New Orleans. They often married Black women or other women of color. Their racial ambiguity meant that they were incorporated into these communities of color. We tend to think about Asian Americans as having tensions with other communities of color, specifically Black people, but this book identifies all the ways in which South Asian immigrants were incorporated into these communities."
Asian American History · fivebooks.com