The document provides statistics on Asian Indian immigration to the US between 1899-1920, with most immigrants coming from Punjab, India and being Sikh (85%) or Muslim (13%). The Immigration Act of 1917 and 1924 placed restrictions and quotas on Indian immigration. The 1923 US v. Bhagat Singh Thind Supreme Court ruling deemed East Indians ineligible for citizenship. This was reversed by the 1946 Luce-Celler Act, which allowed naturalization of Indians and set an immigration quota of 100 per year.

2. SOME IMMIGRANT STATS
• The Asian Indian American population in USA is 1,678,765 (Census 2000.)
• Indian Americans are the 3rd largest constituency in the Asian American
community after the Chinese American & the Filipino American community
• It is estimated that 7348 Asian Indians migrated to the United States andCanada
between 1899 & 1920.
• The Punjab province in India was a great source of Asian Indian immigration to the
United States and Canada.
• The composition of the immigrants from 1900 to 1917 included 85% Sikhs, 13%
Muslim and 2% Hindu, though almost all that arrived were termed "Hindus“.
• The immigration Act of 1917 dictated that Indian Laborers were no longerable
to enter the United States; this native country existed in the "barred zone"
identified in the Act.
• And the Immigration Law of 1924 prevented recent immigrants from
retrieving family members from their native country.

3. IMMIGRATION LAWS
• In 1923, the verdict of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (U.S. vs
Thind 261 US 204(1923)) became a major setback for Asian Indians
struggling to survive and exist in a new land. Justice Sutherland
decided that East Indian immigrants, referred to as Hindus, were "aliens
ineligible to citizenship." They were designated as Caucasian, but this
did not mean that they were "white.” or “Aryan”. The Court concluded
that "The term 'Aryan' has to do with linguistic, and not necessarily with
physical characteristics, and it would seem quite reasonable that mere
resemblance in language, indicating a common linguistic root buried in
remotely ancient soil, is altogether inadequate to prove common racial
origin."
• The 1946 Luce-Celler Act changed this. This Act reversed the Thind
decision, insofar as allowing naturalization to Indians, and set a token
quota for their immigration at 100 per year.

4. INDIA- TRADITIONAL MUSIC
Ravi Shankar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9
xB_X9BOAOU – watch around 2:30

5. THE TRADITIONAL WEDDING

6. FOOD

7. JHUMPA LAHIRI
• Born in 1967 in London raised in Rhode Island
• Father was a librarian and mother a teacher- emigrated
from Calcutta and spoke Bengali in the home.
• Never felt fully American because of ties to India-
frequent visits occurred and her birth in London
• Pursued writing seriously after college.
• In 1998, went to Provincetown MA for Fine Arts Work
Center
• Published “A Temporary Matter” in the New Yorker as
well as “Sexy” and “The Third and Final Continent”
• Interpreter of Maladies published in 1999
• Won the Pulitzer in 2000 for In. of Maladies- first
person of S. Asian descent to win an individual Pulitzer.
• “Interpreter of Maladies” the story won an O. Henry for
Best American Short Stories (included in anthology in
99)
• She never lived in India but married there in 2001
• In 2003, Lahiri published her second book, The
Namesake, and continues to publish individual short
stories. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her
husband and two children.

8. INTERPRETER OF MALADIES
• Few of the stories involve dramatic plot lines, although most involve the
aftershocks of some major life-changing event, such as an affair, a
miscarriage, or immigration.
• India looms large in each story, although its influence varies in each
story as it does in each character’s life.
• Central themes of all of Lahiri’s work, “Interpreter of Maladies”
included, are the difficulties that Indians have in relating to Americans
and the ways in which Indian Americans are caught in the middle of two
very different cultures.
• Lahiri layers small, specific details in her descriptions of each
character, giving them depth and richness.
• In many stories the reader must infer information about them from the
way they act.