East Indian Community Across U.S. Is Maturing

[Guest guest]

EDISON, N.J. (November 3, 2006): The train station billboards tell it all.

 

Local travel agents promise the best airfares from New York to Bombay.

Shagun Fashions is selling dazzling Indian saris. And DirecTV offers

"the six top Indian channels direct to you."

 

Roughly every third person who lives Edison, a New York suburb, is of

Asian Indian ancestry. Many are new immigrants who have come to work

as physicians, engineers and high-tech experts and are drawn to

"Little India" by convenience - it's near the commuter train - and

familiarity.

 

Here they can "get their groceries and goods from home," says Aruna

Rao, a mental health counselor who lives in town.

 

Farther west, East Indians have lived in the Yuba-Sutter area of

California for more than 100 years.

 

Dr. Jasbir Kang of Yuba City sees the two worlds of India and the U.S.

fusing into one in the Yuba-Sutter area.

 

"It's the beauty of America that attracted people to America," he

said. "I think it's good. They all bring different ideas and different

cultures."

 

Although a steady stream of Indians have settled in the U.S. since the

1960s, immigrants positively poured into the country between 2000 and

2005 - arriving at a higher rate than any other group.

 

Not only is the Indian community burgeoning, it's maturing.

Increasingly, after decades of quietly establishing themselves,

Indians are becoming more vocal in the American conversation - about

politics, ethnicity and many other topics.

 

Most East-Indians in the Yuba-Sutter area were once farmers. Not so

anymore, said Kang. They are becoming doctors, nurses, business owners

and influential people within not just the Indian community, but the

local area.

 

"People are branching into businesses," he said.

 

Restaurants, grocery stores, and clothing stores offer everything a

person from Indian would want, Kang said. There was a time not long

ago when people would have to travel great distances to find the

comforts of home, he said.

 

In Yuba City, India Bazaar sells India groceries, and India Fusion on

Plumas Street sells Indian clothing, and there are several restaurants

in Yuba City that serve Indian cuisine.

 

"I think it's amazing, you can get anything here," Kang said.

 

And in terms of religion, there is a Hindu temple on Franklin Road,

and two Sikh temples, with a third planned to be built in Sutter County.

 

Kang sees young East Indians becoming Americanized, but they also hang

onto the best of their traditions and value of hard work.

 

A few decades ago, life was harder, Kang said. When immigrants

arrived, they were basically cut off from home. Today there is the

Internet, phones, and ZEE TV, which runs East Indian programming and

brings Indian culture to homes across the county.

 

While many hang on to their traditions, they find a place in the new

world they live in, especially the younger generations, who are

finding a voice and making themselves heard.

 

"I've been studying the community for 20 years and in the last four or

five years something different has been happening," said Madhulika

Khandelwal, president of the Asian American Center at Queens College

in New York. "Indian-Americans are finally out there speaking for

themselves."

 

Roughly 2.3 million people of Indian ancestry, including immigrants

and the American-born, now call the U.S. home, according to 2005

Census data. That's up from 1.7 million in 2000.

 

Closer to home in Sutter County, where the total population in 2005

was 87,444 people, Asian Indians accounted for 6,891, according to the

U.S. Census Bureau. That's 7.9 percent of the county's population.

 

Many Indian immigrants arrived in the U.S. focused almost entirely on

individual success - getting a top-notch job, making good money and

pushing their children to do the same. But things are changing. After

the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, many Indian Sikhs, who wear

turbans as part of their faith, were mistaken for Muslims - and

terrorists. Hundreds were harassed or worse: In Mesa, Ariz., a Sikh

gas station owner was shot and killed on Sept. 15, 2001, by a man who

told police "all Arabs had to be shot."

 

Few knew their rights because few had been engaged politically, said

Amardeep Singh, executive director of The Sikh Coalition in New York.

 

"We were caught with our pants down," he said. "Sept. 11 created a

confrontation. We realized we now need to actively involve ourselves

in the policy-making process. Otherwise policies will be made that

exclude us."

 

The group now has two bills pending in the New York city council - one

would allow city employees to wear turbans and the other would make

city officials craft plans to prevent hate crimes if another terrorist

attack happened. The community recently saw three Sikhs elected to

low-level offices around the city. "It's a good first step," Singh said.

 

The same is true in the Yuba-Sutter area. Seven people of East Indian

ancestry are running for political offices Nov. 7.

 

"It's the ultimate test of acceptance," said Kang.

 

A community that can elect a person regardless of their ethnicity

shows they are accepted for who they are, he said.

 

Among the East Indians running for office are A.J. Sekhon, who is

running for the Congressional seat that includes Yuba and Sutter counties.

 

Tej Maan and Kash Gill are running for the Yuba City City Council.

Lakhvir Ghag is running for the Live Oak City Counsel and Pankaj

Sharma is running for the Yuba City Unified School District board.

 

Leela Rai, another person of East Indian descent, has been on the Yuba

Community College District Board of Trustees for more than a decade.

Anil Patel is running for the Williams City Council in Colusa County

and Gabrial Singh is an appointed member of the Sutter County Planning

Commission.

 

With rapid growth nationwide, the community is becoming more complex.

 

Layered atop the dizzying diversity of India itself - there are dozens

of languages, and distinct regional differences in culture, politics

and cuisine - are growing class differences among Indian Americans.

 

About one-tenth live in poverty, and as many as 400,000 are

undocumented, said Deepa Iyer, executive director of South Asian

American Leaders of Tomorrow in Takoma Park, Md.

 

"This is a community of contrasts," Iyer said. "We hear so much about

this highly educated and affluent group, but we also have segments

that are not fluent in English and are battling immigration problems

and hate crimes."

 

Such topics are often discussed in New Jersey, home to 170,000 Asian

Indians as of Census 2000. Many have fresh memories of gangs of

anti-Indian white youth in the late 1980s in Jersey City - then the

nexus of the state's Indian community - who called themselves

Dotbusters, referring to the decorative bindi some Hindi women wear

between their eyebrows. In 1987, a finance manager was beaten to death

with a baseball bat while his attackers shouted "Hindu! Hindu!"

 

Such crimes have diminished, but they never disappeared, said Singh of

The Sikh Coalition. Last year, he said, two Sikh youth suffered

violent harassment in New Jersey public schools.

 

SOURCE: The Appeal-Democrat. Yuba City, California. East Indian

community across U.S. - and Yuba-Sutter - maturing. By Appeal-Democrat

staff and wire service reports. Appeal-Democrat reporters Daniel

Witter and John Dickey contributed to this story.

URL:

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/2006/11/03/news/local_news/news3.txt