Case Study: Early Diaspora & Building Community in the Face of Exclusion

Introduction: The Forgotten History

When most people think of Asian American history, they think of Chinese and Japanese immigration. South Asian immigration to North America has a much less known but equally important history.

Between 1899 and 1914, approximately 6,000-7,000 South Asian men (primarily Punjabi Sikhs from British Punjab) immigrated to the Pacific Coast of North America, particularly California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. They came seeking economic opportunity but found intense racism, legal exclusion, and violence.

This case study examines how these men:

• Navigated racist immigration laws designed to exclude them
• Built institutions for survival and political organizing
• Created families despite anti-miscegenation laws
• Maintained identity while adapting to hostile environments
• Resisted both British colonialism and American racism

Their strategies offer powerful examples of resilience, creativity, and community building in the face of multiple forms of emasculation and marginalization.

Part 1: Who Were They and Why Did They Come?

The Context in British Punjab

Economic Push Factors:

• British colonial policies had disrupted Punjab's agricultural economy
• Heavy taxation and debt
• Land fragmentation due to inheritance patterns
• Recruitment to British Indian Army created knowledge of world beyond Punjab
• Stories of economic opportunity in North America circulated through military networks

Who Immigrated:

• Primarily Punjabi Sikh men from Jat (agricultural caste) backgrounds
• Many had served in British Indian Army or police
• Most were young men (20s-40s)
• Educated enough to navigate migration but not urban elite
• Often came from families who scraped together resources to send one member

Initial Intentions: Most intended to work temporarily, send remittances home, and eventually return. Few planned permanent settlement initially. This "sojourner" mentality shaped early community structures.

Arrival and Early Work

Where They Settled:

• California Central Valley (agricultural work)
• Lumber mills in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia
• Railroad construction
• Some urban areas (mainly San Francisco)

Initial Work:

• Agricultural labor (picking fruit, working in rice paddies)
• Lumber mills (dangerous, low-wage work)
• Railroad gangs
• Later, some became farm laborers, tenant farmers, and eventually landowners (before exclusion laws prevented this)

Early Experiences: The first arrivals were often well-received. Employers valued their agricultural knowledge and willingness to do difficult work. But as numbers increased, white labor unions and nativist groups began organizing against them.

Part 2: The Wall of Exclusion - Legal Emasculation in America

Early Punjabi immigrants faced a comprehensive system of legal exclusion that specifically targeted their ability to establish stable, dignified lives.

The Asiatic Exclusion League and Bellingham Riots (1907)

The Asiatic Exclusion League (formed 1905): An organization dedicated to excluding all Asian immigrants from the Pacific Coast. They explicitly framed Asian immigration as a threat to white racial purity and white male economic dominance.

Their Rhetoric: "The Hindu is unassimilable. He brings no women, he establishes no homes, he contributes nothing to the community. His cheap labor threatens the American workingman. His presence degrades American standards of living and manhood."

Note the Gendered Language: The exclusion movement portrayed South Asian men as:

• Threatening to white male economic security
• Unable to participate in proper (white) masculinity (home, family)
• Degrading to American manhood by their mere presence

Bellingham Riots (September 5, 1907): In Bellingham, Washington, a mob of 400-500 white men (many union members) attacked South Asian mill workers:

• Drove hundreds of men out of town
• Destroyed personal property
• Physically assaulted workers
• Local police did not intervene
• No one was prosecuted

Impact:

• Demonstrated that violence against South Asians would be tolerated
• Created climate of fear
• Forced workers to move to more isolated areas or leave the region
• Sent clear message: you are not wanted, you are not protected

The Barred Zone Act (1917)

The Law: Immigration Act of 1917 created an "Asiatic Barred Zone" that prohibited immigration from most of Asia, including India. South Asians already in the US were trapped—they couldn't bring family members or spouses, and if they left, they couldn't return.

What This Meant:

• Men who had left wives and children in Punjab couldn't reunite with them
• New family formation was nearly impossible
• Men aged in isolation from families
• Communities became demographically skewed (almost entirely male)
• Normal life cycle events (marriage, children, aging with family) were denied

The Psychological Impact: "I left my wife with a promise to return in five years with savings. Twenty years passed. I never saw her again. She died while I was here. I worked every day, sent money home, but I lived like half a person. The law made us into machines for labor, not men with families and futures." - From oral history interview, unnamed mill worker

United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923)

The Case: Bhagat Singh Thind, a Punjabi Sikh immigrant who had served in the U.S. Army during World War I, applied for citizenship. At the time, only "free white persons" and "persons of African nativity" could naturalize.

Thind's Argument:

• Indians are Caucasian (scientifically classified as such)
• Therefore Indians are "white" under the law
• He had served in the U.S. military
• He should be eligible for citizenship

Supreme Court Ruling: The Court unanimously ruled against Thind, arguing:

• Even if Indians are technically Caucasian, they are not white in the "common understanding"
• The law intended to preserve European racial stock
• "White" means what the average white person thinks it means, not scientific classification

Immediate Impact:

• Indians already naturalized had their citizenship revoked (approximately 65 people)
• Those who lost citizenship also lost property rights in states with alien land laws
• Established Indians as permanently non-white and non-citizen
• Crushed hopes for legal equality and political representation

What This Revealed:

• Racial categories are socially constructed and serve power
• South Asian men would never be accepted as equal regardless of assimilation, service, or achievement
• Legal emasculation (denial of citizenship, property rights, family formation) was systematic