Indians In The Us Essay Research Paper

Indians In The Us Essay, Research Paper

A large number of Indians came to the US in the 1910s abd 1920s, not just from India, but from Hong Kong and other areas in Asia as well. Some Indians came as students to

universities such as the University of California at Berkeley. It was during this period that the British and the US government started cooperating to limit Indian immigration. This policy

was tested when the British informed the US authorities that a ship called the “Komagatu Maru” was headed to the US from Hong Kong with about 375 Indians. When the Maru arrived

at Angel Island (the port of entry which holds terrible memories for Asian immigrants) the AEL ( Asian Exclusion Leage ) had organized a huge mob to prevent the offloading of any

Indians. The people on the ship were denied food and water for days and were prevented from landing. Finally, in exchange for food and water, they were turned away.

The Indian population in the US and Canada grew very slowly during this period. It consisted mostly of students coming to study at universities. These students organized

themselves into a few associations. Some of them supported the cause of Indian freedom from the British while some were loyalists to the British. The British stationed a full time secret

agent named Hopkinson to monitor their activities and to influence the US government into deporting the freedom seekers. The deportees were usually prosecuted by the British in India.

Hopkinson developed an efficient network of spies and was very successful in deporting a number of Indian leaders on the pretext that they were planning a revolution in India. It was

under these circumstances that the “Ghadhar party” was formed in the US to support Indian freedom. They published newspapers for distribution in India that openly called for a freedom

struggle against the British. An ongoing battle of wits raged between these Indians and the British-Americans. Hopkinson was assassinated in an American courtroom, when he was

testifying against an Indian (for deportation).

A number of these Indian freedom groups associated themselves with the German government during the second world war because the Germans promised them help in

gaining freedom from the British. Hopkinson exposed a number of these links and a large number of these people were imprisoned in the US. After the war, the first war collaborators

were tried and were deported. Even the German Nazi collaborators in the US were tried after these Indians. (In a way it seems like the war provided a nice excuse for the US government

to deport these Indians.) During this period a large number of Indians started to apply for naturalization. At this point US law only allowed whites to become naturalized citizens. But

most judges couldn’t decide how to classify Indians and a large number of them granted Indians citizenship. A New Orleans judge wrote about how dis-concerting it was to see a “dark

white man” – the Indian – before granting him citizenship. A number of southern Europeans looked like Indians as well, so Indians benefited from this similarity.

A number of Indians were also getting married in the US. A few of the farm workers in California married Hispanic women. However, most of these marriages ended in

divorce because of the cultural and religious disparities. A few Indians married white women as well. At this point the movement to formalize the exclusion of Asians from America was

gaining momentum. The Chinese had already been excluded through the Chinese exclusion act in the late 1800’s. A senator from California mounted a very popular campaign to exclude

Indians. However there was a problem because Indians were immigrating to the US, not just from the Indian mainland but from other countries in Asia as well. But the US government

was determined to stop them. Congress passed the “Immigration Regional Restriction Act” in 1917 over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson. It basically drew a line around the areas

in Asia from which Indians and Filipinos were immigrating and banned them. Of course there was a provision to allow Europeans born in this region to immigrate.

The exclusionists had achieved most of their goals by now. Asian and Indian immigration was virtually banned. However, this wasn’t enough. A movement was mounted to

deny citizenship to the Indians in the US, take away the citizenship from Indians who had already been granted citizenship and to apply the Regional Exclusion Act retroactively to deport

all Indians in the US. It worked partially. A large number of Indians left. Many of them were denied citizenship, with the supreme court upholding one such decision that was challenged.

On February 19, 1923, with Justice George Sutherland delivering the opinion, the Supreme court held that East Indians were not eligible for United States citizenship because they could

not be considered white or Caucasian. A few Indians lost their citizenship. One interesting case was that of an Indian lawyer in California who had married a white woman. Under the

law, if a man lost his citizenship, his wife automatically lost hers too. He challenged in court that if his citizenship was revoked his wife w

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