Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America

by Joan M. Jensen

Hardcover

First published September 10, 1988

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joan M. Jensen writes a scholarly sociopolitical (and legal) history of Asian Indian immigration to North America (Canada and the United States) as an Asian political refugee population (circa 1906-24). The book includes rich chapter citations and a great reference bibliography too. The author synthesizes archival research, government records, monographs, newspaper articles, and secondary scholarly research. In twelve chapters, the author describes the reasons for immigration and the challenges (e.g. caught between overlapping British, Canadian, German, & US foreign relations agenda, governmental surveillance, limited legal rights, and public racist anxieties against) Asian Indians during the first decades of the twentieth century. While including a chapter on Canada for comparison with US experiences, the primary analysis is strongly focused on the larger U.S West Coast (particularly Bay Area Californian) Sikh history, with emphasis on the events leading to the exclusionary, U.S. Immigration Act of 1924. While some readers unfamiliar with British, Canadian, Indian, or U.S. history will be overwhelmed by the scholarly details, other readers seeking an in-depth account of the legal challenges experienced by Asian Indian immigrants should be impressed.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish there were more books out there like that this that focus on the various immigrant communities of California, and even better if there were books being written at the local level by the Asian and South Asian diaspora.