Qalandari1
Banned
“Many Punjabis married the Mexican women that worked on their land because of their cultural similarities and proximity,” Leonard explained. “And when they’d show up at the county record office, they could both check ‘brown.’ No one knew the difference.”
The Punjabi men chose Mexican women for a host of other reasons: Physically, Mexican women at the time were thought to resemble Punjabis, Leonard said. Both communities also shared a rural way of life, cooked similar types of food and had a similar material culture.
Perhaps the most important reason, however, was that Mexican women were accessible in the border cities of the United States, Leonard said.
“Most of these women came across the border after the Mexican Civil War,” she added. “They supported themselves by working in the cotton fields of places like California, doing hard physical labor… so if they could marry the boss, hey. It was a leg up.”
According to Leonard’s book, “ Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi-Mexican-Americans ,” country records show that some 378 marriages, mostly bi-ethnic Punjabi-Mexican couples, were carried out in California, a nexus of the Punjabi-Mexican community.
Although official numbers for the population do not exist, these families averaged between 5 to 6 children apiece.
Many of those children, however, did not decide to marry within the newly formed community. Netervala, who has lived in California for more than 50 years, is happily married to an Indian Parsi, and her children were raised as Zoroastrians with very little Mexican influence.
That’s not to say that the community has completely disappeared. For example, the former mayor of El Centro, California, David Singh Dhillon, was a third-generation Punjabi-Mexican.
But the vast majority of children born to Punjabi fathers and Mexican mothers in the early 20th century have assimilated with the greater Indian community now thriving in California, explained Jasbir Singh Kang, founder of the Becoming American Museum in Yuba City, which celebrates Punjabi history in California.
“It’s true that most of the community has assimilated, but that’s not saying we are ethnocentric,” said Kang, whose family hails from India’s Punjab state. “We cherish that history – the connection between Punjabis and Mexicans – and we are very proud of it.”
Kang, a physician and Sikh leader in Yuba City, considered one of the first Punjabi locales in America, said the passage of the Luce-Celler Bill of 1946 – which granted citizenship to people of Asian and Indian origin – permanently altered the Punjabi-Mexican Diaspora. The act allowed Punjabi landowners to bring wives back from India, thus negating the necessity to marrying outside their community.
And when Punjabi women began coming to the United States, the Punjabi-Mexican community confounded them, Leonard said.
“They even kicked out the Mexican women from the gurdwara, even though those Mexican women helped fund it,” Leonard said.
Today, the Punjabi community in California is one of the largest in the world, estimated at nearly 250,000. For the descendants of the nation’s Punjabi-Mexican couples, many have decided to identify themselves as either Mexican or India, Netervala explained, because it provides a more concrete identity. Her two brothers and sole sister all have Mexican spouses.
“Looking back – when you’re young, you don’t appreciate or realize the wealth that the two cultures brought together,” Netervala said. “But, if you’d ask me, I’d say the [Punjabi-Mexican] community is distinctly American.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...7b98-e26b-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story_1.html
The Punjabi men chose Mexican women for a host of other reasons: Physically, Mexican women at the time were thought to resemble Punjabis, Leonard said. Both communities also shared a rural way of life, cooked similar types of food and had a similar material culture.
Perhaps the most important reason, however, was that Mexican women were accessible in the border cities of the United States, Leonard said.
“Most of these women came across the border after the Mexican Civil War,” she added. “They supported themselves by working in the cotton fields of places like California, doing hard physical labor… so if they could marry the boss, hey. It was a leg up.”
According to Leonard’s book, “ Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi-Mexican-Americans ,” country records show that some 378 marriages, mostly bi-ethnic Punjabi-Mexican couples, were carried out in California, a nexus of the Punjabi-Mexican community.
Although official numbers for the population do not exist, these families averaged between 5 to 6 children apiece.
Many of those children, however, did not decide to marry within the newly formed community. Netervala, who has lived in California for more than 50 years, is happily married to an Indian Parsi, and her children were raised as Zoroastrians with very little Mexican influence.
That’s not to say that the community has completely disappeared. For example, the former mayor of El Centro, California, David Singh Dhillon, was a third-generation Punjabi-Mexican.
But the vast majority of children born to Punjabi fathers and Mexican mothers in the early 20th century have assimilated with the greater Indian community now thriving in California, explained Jasbir Singh Kang, founder of the Becoming American Museum in Yuba City, which celebrates Punjabi history in California.
“It’s true that most of the community has assimilated, but that’s not saying we are ethnocentric,” said Kang, whose family hails from India’s Punjab state. “We cherish that history – the connection between Punjabis and Mexicans – and we are very proud of it.”
Kang, a physician and Sikh leader in Yuba City, considered one of the first Punjabi locales in America, said the passage of the Luce-Celler Bill of 1946 – which granted citizenship to people of Asian and Indian origin – permanently altered the Punjabi-Mexican Diaspora. The act allowed Punjabi landowners to bring wives back from India, thus negating the necessity to marrying outside their community.
And when Punjabi women began coming to the United States, the Punjabi-Mexican community confounded them, Leonard said.
“They even kicked out the Mexican women from the gurdwara, even though those Mexican women helped fund it,” Leonard said.
Today, the Punjabi community in California is one of the largest in the world, estimated at nearly 250,000. For the descendants of the nation’s Punjabi-Mexican couples, many have decided to identify themselves as either Mexican or India, Netervala explained, because it provides a more concrete identity. Her two brothers and sole sister all have Mexican spouses.
“Looking back – when you’re young, you don’t appreciate or realize the wealth that the two cultures brought together,” Netervala said. “But, if you’d ask me, I’d say the [Punjabi-Mexican] community is distinctly American.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...7b98-e26b-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story_1.html
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