Our Stories
An Introduction to South Asian America
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Our Stories Companion Website
Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6 Ch. 7 Ch. 8 Ch. 9 Ch. 10
Chapter 1: Early South Asian American Immigration (Pre-1923)

Explore this chapter:
• Sick Keesar's Petition to Benjamin Franklin
• Jumping Ship
• Visitors & Travelers
• The Parrot's Beak
• The Bellingham "Anti-Hindu" Riot
• Ghadar Party
• The Komagata Maru

Sick Keesar's Petition to Benjamin Franklin
By Rajender Kaur
Page In the book For further exploration
2 See the image in SAADA's archival collections.
9 "Histories of Indenture" Inset Learn more about histories of indenture and Guyanese communities descended from Indian indentured laborers in "The Things We Carried" - a digital exhibit created by 2019-20 SAADA Archival Creators Fellow, Gaiutra Bahadur.
10 Further Reading Read more about Sick Keesar in "The Curious Case of Sick Keesar: Tracing the Roots of South Asian Presence in the Early Republic" by Rajender Kaur.
Jumping Ship
By Vivek Bald
Page In the book For further exploration
13 "Aladdin Ullah" Inset Read more about "Aladdin Ullah's Dishwasher Dreams".
14 See the image at bengaliharlem.com
Visitors & Travelers
By Anupama Arora
Page In the book For further exploration
19 See the image at vedantasociety.net
20 See the image in SAADA's archival collections.
20 "Dr. Anandibai Joshee" Inset Discover more about Dr. Anandibai Joshee in SAADA's archival collections.
21 "Pandita Ramabai in America" Inset Discover more about Pandita Ramabai in SAADA's archival collections.
21 See the image here.
22 Read more about "Pandita Ramabai in America" and see the image in this TIDES article.
22 "A Note to the Reader About Caste" Inset Read more about caste in the U.S. in "Survey of Caste in the United States" by Equality Labs
23 "Oh Niagara!" Inset Read more from the TIDES article "Oh Niagara! Lala Lajpat Rai at Niagara Falls in 1905".
23 Further Reading Discover more about South Asian visitors and exchanges to the U.S. in SAADA's archival collections.
The Parrot's Beak
By Kartar Dhillon
Page In the book For further exploration
26
27 Further Reading Read the rest of Kartar Dhillon's The Parrot's Beak reprinted in this TIDES article.
The Bellingham &Anti-Hindu& Riot
By Paul Englesberg
Page In the book For further exploration
31 See the image in SAADA's archival collections.
32 Discover more about Tuly Singh Johl in the Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive.
34 Further Reading Read more about the Bellingham Riot in Manan Desai's "A Letter Home from Bellingham" published in TIDES.
35 Further Discovery Discover more about the Bellingham Riot in SAADA's archival collections.
Ghadar Party
By Seema Sohi
Page In the book For further exploration
39 "Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour" Inset Learn more about the Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour at berkeleysouthasian.org.
39 See the image at dailycal.org
40 Further Reading Read more about the Ghadar Party in:
Gurdev Singh Deol, The Role of the Ghadar Party in the National Movement (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1969)..
40 Further Reading Read more in:
Joan Jensen, Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America (New Haven, 1988)..
40 Further Reading Read more about the Ghadar Party in:
Harish Puri, Ghadar Movement: Ideology, Organisation, and Strategy (Amritsar: Guru Nanak De University, 1993)..
40 Further Reading Read more about the Ghadar Party in:
Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire (Berkeley: U.C. Press, 2011)..
40 Further Reading Read more the Ghadar Party in:
Jane Singh, "Echoes of Revolution: The Role of Literature in the Gadar Movement" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1990)..
40 Further Reading Read more in:
Seema Sohi, Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)..
40 Further Discovery Discover more about the Ghadar Party in SAADA's archival collections.
40 Further Reading Read more about Bud Dillon, a Ghadar Party member, in his sister Kartar Dillon's "Bud Dillon" reprinted in TIDES.
The Komagata Maru
By Seema Sohi
Page In the book For further exploration
43 Read more at canadianart.
44 "The Immigration Act of 1917" Inset Read more about the Immigration Act of 1917 in Seema Sohi's "From 1917 to 2017" published in TIDES.
46 See the image in SAADA's archival collections.