How Indian Immigrants Made America Home


Book Description

From agrarian economies to the booming technology industry, Indian immigrants have been a fueling force to the development of today's world. Throughout the intense years of the early 1900s to present day America, they bore the duty of hard labor, political activism against colonizers who have held power in their original home country for 200 years, and the role of pioneers in unfamiliar lands. Readers will discover the journey of the toiling Indian immigrant, the intense political twists, the dark days, and the eventual rise of America's most financially successful and well-educated ethnic group, as told by an Indian immigrant.




The Other One Percent


Book Description

In The Other One Percent, Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh provide the first authoritative and systematic overview of South Asians living in the United States.




Virtual Homelands


Book Description

The internet has transformed the idea of home for Indians and Indian Americans. In Virtual Homelands: Indian Immigrants and Online Cultures in the United States, Madhavi Mallapragada analyzes home pages and other online communities organized by diasporic and immigrant Indians from the late 1990s through the social media period. Engaging the shifting aspects of belonging, immigrant politics, and cultural citizenship by linking the home page, household, and homeland as key sites, Mallapragada illuminates the contours of belonging and reveals how Indian American struggles over it trace back to the web's active mediation in representing, negotiating, and reimagining "home." As Mallapragada shows, ideologies around family and citizenship shift to fit the transnational contexts of the online world and immigration. At the same time, the tactical use of the home page to make gender, racial, and class struggles visible and create new modes for belonging implicates the web within complex political and cultural terrain. On e-commerce, community, and activist sites, the recasting of home and homeland online points to intrusion by public agents such as the state, the law, and immigration systems in the domestic, the private, and the familial. Mallapragada reveals that the home page may mobilize to reproduce conservative narratives of Indian immigrants' familial and citizenship cultures, but the reach of a website extends beyond the textual and discursive to encompass the institutions shaping it, as the web unmakes and remakes ideas of "India" and "America."




Fist Full of Sand


Book Description

Fist Full of Sand is a collection of skillfully crafted and powerful stories of recent immigrant Indians who came to the United States to live, raise their families and be part of this country despite the cultural clashes, social upheaval and generational divide. These are their tales of confl ict, tradition and belief, success and failure, hope and aspirations for the future. The stories may be fi ctional but most of them are woven around the true incidents and common concerns of the Indians living in America. The message in the book is “Life is like a fi st full of sand which cannot be held tight. More you try to hold it more it slips through your fi ngers. Life is an adventure full of challenges. Don’t dwell on them. Learn from them and move on”




Becoming American, Being Indian


Book Description

Since the 1960s the number of Indian immigrants and their descendants living in the United States has grown dramatically. During the same period, the make-up of this community has also changed—the highly educated professional elite who came to this country from the subcontinent in the 1960s has given way to a population encompassing many from the working and middle classes. In her fascinating account of Indian immigrants in New York City, Madhulika S. Khandelwal explores the ways in which their world has evolved over four decades.How did this highly diverse ethnic group form an identity and community? Drawing on her extensive interviews with immigrants, Khandelwal examines the transplanting of Indian culture onto the Manhattan and Queens landscapes. She considers festivals and media, food and dress, religious activities of followers of different faiths, work and class, gender and generational differences, and the emergence of a variety of associations.Khandelwal analyzes how this growing ethnic community has gradually become "more Indian," with a stronger religious focus, larger family networks, and increasingly traditional marriage patterns. She discusses as well the ways in which the American experience has altered the lives of her subjects.




How Irish Immigrants Made America Home


Book Description

Written by a descendent of Irish immigrants, this book tells the tale of how Irish-born immigrants functioned as the largest immigrant group during the first two hundred years of the British Colonies. Readers will discover how they forged frontier societies and expanded the geographic boundaries of colonial settlements. Irish Americans served at all levels in U.S. government, including twenty-two presidents, and they contributed to canals, roads, and railroads during the nineteenth century. This volume will divulge how Irish immigrants suffered severe prejudice and lost much of their original culture and language, though their eventual assimilation provided a blueprint for the acceptance of other immigrant groups.




Immigration to North America


Book Description

The people of the Republic of India make up the world's second-largest population, numbering over 1.2 billion, yet they live in a country with an area that is only about one-third the size of the United States. India faces many problems, including overcrowding, extensive poverty, and wide-scale pollution. These conditions, along with the attractive opportunities available in other countries, have compelled many Indians to emigrate. Indian immigrants have made diverse contributions to the national fabrics of Canada and the United States in the areas of religion, philosophy, commerce, fashion, and cuisine. Indian Americans have also made inroads into high-tech fields and other industries. However, many immigrants, particularly those arriving with minimal experience and education, still face the threat of being exploited in the North American workplace. Despite this, immigrants from India are likely to continue resettling in the United States and Canada in large numbers. Titles in this series contain color photos throughout, maps, graphs and illustrations, and back matter including: biographical information of famous people, a detailed index and further reading lists for books and internet resources. Key Icons appear throughout the books in this series in an effort to encourage library readers to build knowledge, gain awareness, explore possibilities and expand their viewpoints through our content rich non-fiction books. Key Icons in this series are as follows: Words to Understand are shown at the front of each chapter with definitions. These words are set in boldfaced type in that chapter, so that readers are able to reference back to the definitions--building their vocabulary and enhancing their reading comprehension. Sidebars are highlighted graphics with content rich material within that allows readers to build knowledge and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Text Dependent Questions are placed at the end of each chapter. They challenge the reader's comprehension of the chapter they have just read, while sending the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. Research Projects are provided at the end of each chapter as well and provide readers with suggestions for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. And a Series Glossary of Key Terms is included in the back matter containing terminology used throughout the series. Words found here broaden the reader's knowledge and understanding of terms used in this field.




Eight Flavors


Book Description

This unique culinary history of America offers a fascinating look at our past and uses long-forgotten recipes to explain how eight flavors changed how we eat. The United States boasts a culturally and ethnically diverse population which makes for a continually changing culinary landscape. But a young historical gastronomist named Sarah Lohman discovered that American food is united by eight flavors: black pepper, vanilla, curry powder, chili powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and Sriracha. In Eight Flavors, Lohman sets out to explore how these influential ingredients made their way to the American table. She begins in the archives, searching through economic, scientific, political, religious, and culinary records. She pores over cookbooks and manuscripts, dating back to the eighteenth century, through modern standards like How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Lohman discovers when each of these eight flavors first appear in American kitchens—then she asks why. Eight Flavors introduces the explorers, merchants, botanists, farmers, writers, and chefs whose choices came to define the American palate. Lohman takes you on a journey through the past to tell us something about our present, and our future. We meet John Crowninshield a New England merchant who traveled to Sumatra in the 1790s in search of black pepper. And Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old slave who lived on an island off the coast of Madagascar, who discovered the technique still used to pollinate vanilla orchids today. Weaving together original research, historical recipes, gorgeous illustrations and Lohman’s own adventures both in the kitchen and in the field, Eight Flavors is a delicious treat—ready to be devoured.




Namaste America


Book Description

At some point during the 1990s the size of the Asian Indian population in the United States surpassed the one million mark. Today&’s Indians in America are a diverse group. They come from every state in India as well as from around the globe: England, Canada, South Africa, Tanzania, Fiji, Guyana, and Trinidad. They also belong to many religious faiths, including Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. Many have high professional skills and are fluent in English and familiar with Western culture. They have settled throughout the United States, largely in metropolitan areas. Namast&é America tells this story of Indian immigrants in America, focusing on one of the largest communities, Chicago.




How Irish Immigrants Made America Home


Book Description

Written by a descendent of Irish immigrants, this book tells the tale of how Irish-born immigrants functioned as the largest immigrant group during the first two hundred years of the British Colonies. Readers will discover how they forged frontier societies and expanded the geographic boundaries of colonial settlements. Irish Americans served at all levels in U.S. government, including twenty-two presidents, and they contributed to canals, roads, and railroads during the nineteenth century. This volume will divulge how Irish immigrants suffered severe prejudice and lost much of their original culture and language, though their eventual assimilation provided a blueprint for the acceptance of other immigrant groups.