Weaving the South Asian thread into American History

By Sreya Sarkar

Samip Mallick's parents immigrated to the US in the late 1960s. Growing up in Michigan, he was oblivious of the long history of South Asians in the United States outside the direct experience of his family and friends. So he was pleasantly surprised when he came to know that South Asians began immigrating to the United States in the late 1800s. Learning about Dalip Singh Saund, who was elected to the US Congress in 1956, further bemused him. He was saddened to see how the fine silk of South Asian history was not woven into the tapestry of the wider American history, so he took it upon himself to change that.

For the last thirteen years, through his nonprofit, South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), Mallick has gleaned stories from family albums, letters, and oral chronicles. SAADA recently published an anthology, Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America that brings together a myriad of voices exploring the history and the unique South Asian American experience spanning from the 1780s to the present day. The ten chapters are a celebration of the struggle, inspiration, pain, and triumph of South Asians in America.

When asked what he was hoping to achieve through a digital archive, Mallick replied, "When we started SAADA in 2008, there were no other archives, museums, or heritage institutions dedicated to preserving the experiences of South Asian Americans. There is a quote by a scholar of archival studies named Jeannette Bastian that resonated with me: A community without its records is a community under siege, defending itself, its identity, and its version of history without a firm foundation on which to stand. We realized that not only were our community's stories not being heard but that they were in danger of being lost entirely. By assembling the largest collection of stories and archival materials about our community's history, we are hoping to give our community a firm foundation on which to build a more just and equitable future.”

The organization today has more than four thousand items in the largest publicly accessible archive of South Asian American history and continues to regularly draw a large number of visitors to its website. Mallick stated, “The response to SAADA has been incredibly positive. I'm proud to say that we are only one part of an entire movement of community members who have recognized how important it is for South Asian Americans to advocate for our histories and our voices."

SAADA is a community-based organization. Its leadership and most of its support come from the South Asian community. "For SAADA, our work is done by, with, and for our community," said Mallick.

Our Stories is not only an attempt to weave together threads of significant history missing from the mainstream, it is also a beacon of solidarity to bring together the South Asian community in the US, a reminder that every immigrants’ story is important and worth remembering. While all its stories speak of resilience, strong spirited-ness, and courage, a few of them stand out because of the mark they have left on American history.

Tucked into the folds of this newfound South Asian history in America is the story of Bhagat Singh Thind. He was among the earliest migrants to come from South Asia and was granted US citizenship in 1920 but it was challenged soon after by the Department of Labor and Department of Justice and an appeal was filed against his naturalization. This led to the famous case of the United States versus Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) in which the US Supreme Court found Indians to be ineligible for American citizenship because they were not white.

This resulted in a widespread protest among South Asians in the US and for more than two decades the case determined the immigration status for every South Asian immigration in the country. It was because of Thind’s audacity to challenge the definition of whiteness that many Indian activists fought hard in the following years to finally pass the Luce-Celler (Immigration) Act in 1946 which made Indians eligible for naturalization.

Although Thind had lost his citizenship in 1923, he stayed on in the United States and began traveling across the country lecturing on spiritual science and religious philosophy. He never gave up and again applied for citizenship in 1936 and this time succeeded in acquiring it.

Laced into the history of American skyscrapers is the story of Fazlur Rahman Khan, the Bangladeshi-American structural engineer, and architect who is considered the father of “tubular designs” for high-rises.

He left Dhaka in 1952 to embark on a life-changing journey. Before joining the University of Illinois for advanced studies he went on the six-week program at Ann Arbor and intermingled with forty-eight students from eighteen countries that made a lasting impression on him and reminded him of the lesson he had learned from his father: that all people are interconnected by their shared humanity. In 1965 he introduced a bold trussed-tube scheme for a one-hundred-story tower, Chicago’s John Hancock Center, and five years later he developed another advanced building system, the bundled tube, for the 110-story Sears Tower, which would seize the title of “world’s tallest building” in 1974.

In 1956 Dalip Singh Saund became the first person of Asian American as well as Indian American elected to serve as a United States Representative. Born in Punjab, Saund had moved to the US and earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, but he did not find a teaching job because he was not a US citizen. He became a farmer instead. He was always interested in national and international politics so, when he finally became a citizen in 1949, he ran for the office of judge of the justice court in a small town in California. No one thought he would win but he did. In 1956 he surprised everyone when he announced his candidacy for Congress. A negative campaign was run against him calling out his ethnicity and religious belief but ultimately his experience as a farmer who had once struggled to pull himself out of debt outweighed his ethnic identity and helped him win a Congress seat and making history and setting a precedent for all Indian Americans aspiring to run for public office.

It’s not only in the field of politics that Indian Americans shined. Asha Puthli, born and raised in Bombay, created quite a stir in the US jazz and disco community. Trained in Indian classical singing and a natural jazz improviser, Puthli created her own unique sound in the 1970s. Her long career in the American entertainment industry made New York Times declare her as an ‘Indian Singer Who Embraces Countless Cultures.’ She is an inspiration to the upcoming millennial South Asian American singers and performers who are also trying to build a bridge between western and eastern music through their innovative fusion styles. Much before Kal Pen and Priyanka Chopra appeared in Hollywood movies, Puthli became a versatile legend with her fingers dipped in several different pots: songwriting, singing, acting, modeling, and producing.

Its untold stories of South Asians like this, that have contributed to making America what it is today-- brave, innovative, and a front-runner in all fields. It gives to the present South Asian diaspora in the US hope and courage to plow on despite the challenges thrown their way and makes them proud of all that the community has achieved in America.