scholarly journals Dharma in America: A Short History of Hindu-Jain Diaspora by Pankaj Jain

Author(s):  
Jyoti Tyagi ◽  

As a scholar of diaspora studies and having read a fair share of literature on diaspora, there is one question that I always ask before starting to read a book on diaspora: why is it important to know about diaspora? A related question is, important to whom? Why do we need to tell stories of those who have left? I determine the eminence of the book based on how far the author has been able to answer the above questions and Dharma in America doesn’t disappoint me. Although every immigrant story is amazing, the Journey of Indians in America is distinctive on many fronts including education, income and entrepreneurship. Once “lost actors” are now “national assets” for both the host country and the homeland. Immigration to the United States from India started in the early 19th century when Indian immigrants began settling in communities along the West Coast. Although they originally arrived in small numbers, new opportunities arose in the middle of the 20th century, and the population grew larger in the following decades. As of 2019, about 2.7 million Indian immigrants resided in the United States (Hanna & Batlova, 2020). Today, Indian immigrants account for approximately 6 per cent of the U.S. foreign-born population, making them the second-largest immigrant group in the country, after Mexicans (Ibid).

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 286-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Skop ◽  
Wei Li

AbstractIn recent years, the migration rates from both China and India to the U.S. have accelerated. Since 2000 more than a third of foreign-born Chinese and 40% of foreign-born Indians have arrived in that country. This paper will document the evolving patterns of immigration from China and India to the U.S. by tracing the history of immigration and racial discrimination, the dramatic transitions that have occurred since the mid-20th century, and the current demographic and socioeconomic profiles of these two migrant groups.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Sinn

This chapter takes a broad look at the Pacific Ocean in relation to Chinese migration. As trade, consumption and capital flows followed migrants, powerful networks were woven and sustained; in time, the networks fanned across the Pacific from British Columbia along the West Coast of the United States to New Zealand and Australia. The overlapping personal, family, financial and commercial interests of Chinese in California and those in Hong Kong, which provide the focus of this study, energized the connections and kept the Pacific busy and dynamic while shaping the development of regions far beyond its shores. The ocean turned into a highway for Chinese seeking Gold Mountain, marking a new era in the history of South China, California, and the Pacific Ocean itself.


Author(s):  
Andrew Denson

This book began with tourism. In the summer of 1994, a friend and I drove from Bloomington, Indiana, where I attended graduate school, to Florida for a short vacation. As we sped along Interstate 75 through northern Georgia, I spotted a brown roadside sign announcing that, at the next exit, we would find New Echota, a state historic site interpreting the history of the Cherokee Nation. For a brief time in the early nineteenth century, New Echota was the Cherokee capital, the seat of the national government created by tribal leaders in the 1820s. The Cherokee National Council met at New Echota in the years prior to removal, and it was the site of the Cherokee Supreme Court. During a time when the United States and the state of Georgia pressured Cherokees to emigrate to the West, the new capital represented the Cherokees’ determination to remain in their homeland. It was also the place where, in late 1835, a small group of tribal leaders signed the treaty under which the United States forced the Cherokee Nation to remove. I had recently become interested in the history of Cherokee sovereignty and nationhood, and I concluded that I should prob ably know about this heritage attraction. We pulled off the highway and followed the signs to the site....


Author(s):  
Fadi Saleh

This first-person activist reflection discusses the author’s experience immigrating to Canada as a queer AIDS activist. The author situates his experience navigating HIV-positive-exclusionary immigration policies where the only avenue for immigrating while HIV-positive is through gay marriage. Canada maintains a draconian set of discriminatory laws regarding the so-called “excessive demand” HIV-positive immigrants put on the publicly funded health care system in Canada. This piece briefly looks at the history of HIV travel and immigration bans as well as proposed HIV quarantine legislation across Canada. While Canada is often regarded as more progressive than the United States in many ways, its HIV immigration ban and high prosecution and conviction rate for HIV nondisclosure make Canada one of the most legally precarious countries for HIV-positive people in the west.


Author(s):  
W. J. Rorabaugh

‘Drinking and temperance’ describes the history of alcohol consumption in the United States and the introduction of the temperance movement. From the earliest European settlers to the fighters of the Revolution, Americans were among the world’s heartiest drinkers, producing their own corn beer and importing rum from the West Indies. The British blockades during the war meant access to rum was lost. Americans began to distill whiskey from corn instead, which became the country’s patriotic drink. Problems associated with heavy drinking resulted in reformers creating the temperance movement, a cause that was then taken up by Protestant preachers. In the 1850s, evangelicals lobbied for statewide prohibition laws, but there was no viable system of enforcement.


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