Racial classification of Indian Americans

The racial classification of Indian Americans has varied over the years and across institutions.[1] Originally, neither the courts nor the census bureau classified Indian Americans as a race because there were only negligible numbers of Indian immigrants in the United States. Early Indian Americans were often denied their civil rights, leading to close affiliations with African-Americans. For most of America's early history, the government only recognized two racial classifications, white or colored. Due to immigration laws of the time, those deemed colored were often stripped of their American citizenship or denied the ability to become citizens. For these reasons, various South Asians in America took the government to court to try and be considered white instead of colored, using various rationales.[2] After advocacy from the Indian American community, the racial category of Asian Indian was finally introduced on the 1980 Census.

This page is about the racial classification of Americans with ancestry from India, as viewed by U.S. courts, agencies, institutions, and self-identification. For anthropological racial classifications of Indians in general, see Historical definitions of races in India.

Initial perceptions

Among one of the first recorded Indian in America was a mixed-race girl born to an Indian father and an Irish-American mother in 1680 in Maryland. Due to her Indian-American father being classified as "Negro", she was classified as a mulatto and later sold into slavery.[3]

The earliest Indian immigrants into the United States were called "Hindus" even though the majority of them were Sikhs. Court clerks classified these early immigrants from the Punjab region as being 'black', 'white' or 'brown' based on their skin color for the purpose of marriage licenses. In addition to being racialized by their color, they were also racialized as being "foreigners".[1]

Because of racial discrimination in the United States and the difficulty of Indians living under British rule to travel, only a handful of Indians came to the United States in the late-19th and early-20th century. The most famous early Indian in America was Swami Vivekananda, who toured the country in 1893 while spreading the word about Hinduism and Vedanta philosophy. Vivekananda experienced overt racism, particularly in the South, where he was often confused for an African American. Some blacks also believed Vivekananda was a “distinguished Negro,” and in one case, a black porter congratulated him for representing black people so well. When one of his followers asked why Vivekananda never corrected people who mistook him for an African American, he replied angrily: “Rise at the expense of another? I did not come for that.”[4]

Indians who came to the United States as students or lecturers in the early 1900s found it impossible to avoid the country's racial conflict. Still, the perception of Indian Americans as foreigners sometimes helped provide for better treatment, especially in states where de jure segregation was in place. Often, Indians were treated the same as blacks, and in the South, they were forced to ride in segregated train cabins and use facilities for “coloreds only.”[4] As opposed to being seen as black, in some states Indians were seen as outside of the traditional American racial spectrum, and consequently freed from the encumbrances that system entailed.[5][6]

A Punjabi-Mexican American couple, Valentina Alarez and Rullia Singh, posing for their wedding photo in 1917.

By the mid-1950s, many of the Indians who had come as students and as activist visitors had left the United States.[4] Those who remained settled in the then vibrant black neighbourhoods of Tremé in New Orleans, Black Bottom in Detroit, West Baltimore, and Harlem in New York. Many started families with Creoles, Puerto Ricans, and African Americans.[4][7] Punjabi Sikhs in California found a closer camaraderie with Mexicans, resulting in a unique mixed-race community in the Yuba City area - the Punjabi Mexican Americans.[8][9]

U.S. courts

Throughout much of the early 20th century, it was necessary for immigrants to be considered white in order to receive U.S. citizenship. U.S. courts classified Indians as both white and non-white through a number of cases.

In 1909, Bhicaji Balsara became the first Indian to gain U.S. citizenship. As a Parsi, he was ruled to be "the purest of Aryan type" and "as distinct from Hindus as are the English who dwell in India”. Thirty years later, the same Circuit Court to accept Balsara ruled that Rustom Dadabhoy Wadia, another Parsi from Bombay, was colored and therefore not eligible to receive U.S. citizenship.[10]

Thind case and attempted revocations of citizenship

In 1923, the Supreme Court decided in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that while Indians were classified as Caucasians by anthropologists, people of Indian descent were not white by common American definition, and thus not eligible to citizenship.[11] The court conceded that, while Thind was a high caste Hindu born in the northern Punjab region and classified by certain scientific authorities as of the Aryan race, he was not "White" since the word Aryan "has to do with linguistic and not necessarily with physical characteristics" and since "the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences" between Indians and white Americans. The court also clarified that the decision did not reflect or imply anything related to racial superiority or inferiority, but merely an observable difference.[12]

At the time, this decision began the process of retroactively stripping Indians of citizenship and land rights. The ruling also placated the Asiatic Exclusion League demands, spurned by growing outrage at the Turban Tide / Hindoo Invasion (sic) alongside the pre-existing outrage at the Yellow Peril. As they became classified as colored, Indian Americans were not only denied American citizenship, but also banned by anti-miscegenation laws from marrying white Americans in the states of Arizona, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.[13]

Following the Thind case, the Bureau of Naturalization began action to strip Thind and other Indian-Americans of their citizenship, arguing it had been "illegally procured."[14] However, these efforts were forced to end by the government's loss in court in the case against Thind's own lawyer, a Californian named Sakharam Ganesh Pandit. By the time Pandit's case came to trial in 1926, forty-two of sixty-nine citizenships granted to Indians had been revoked.[15][16] Pandit, a skilled lawyer, argued that under the doctrine of equitable estoppel, he would be irreversibly harmed by the revocation of his American citizenship, which he had reasonably relied upon - he would become stateless, lose his property and law license, and his wife would lose her citizenship as well.[14]

Judge Paul McCormick, the initial trial judge, ruled in Pandit's favor, accepting his arguments wholeheartedly. In 1927, the Ninth Circuit upheld McCormick's ruling under the doctrine of res judicata.[14][17] As a result of Pandit's case, the US government subsequently dropped its other denaturalization cases against Indian-Americans.[16][18]

In 1935, Thind relied on his status as a veteran of the United States military during World War I to petition for naturalization through the State of New York under the Nye-Lea Act, which made World War I veterans eligible for naturalization regardless of race. The government objected his latest petition, but Thind was finally granted American citizenship; yet the Government attempted to revoke it after nearly two decades from his first petition for naturalization.[19]

After WWII

In 1946, Congress, beginning to recognize that India would soon be independent, passed a new law that allowed Indians to become citizens, while also establishing an immigration quota.[12]

In 1993, Dale Sandhu, an East Indian whose origin is from the Punjab, took his former employer, Lockheed, to court on grounds of wrongful dismissal due to racial grounds. Lockheed attempted to counter Sandhu's claims by stating he is Caucasian, so he cannot allege discrimination based on race. In 1993, the California Superior Court Judge overseeing the case initially accepted Lockheed's view. [20][21] However in 1994, the California Sixth District Court of Appeals reversed the 1993 decision for Dale Sandhu. Lockhead argued that the "common popular understanding that there are three major human races — Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid." The Court of Appeals denied this 19th century classification of race, stating that Indian people are a distinct ethnic group of their own. According to United States Census, "Asian Indian" is considered one of the distinct 15 races. The Court of Appeals affirmed that Sandhu was subject to discriminatory hostility, based on being a member of a distinct racial group. The Court of Appeals said that Sandhu could make a claim of racial discrimination under FEHA within the jurisdiction of the Court.

In 2015, in Dhar v. New York City Department of Transportation, Dhar, a former employee and a Christian Bangladeshi, alleged a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, based on his race, religion, and national origin. He alleged that his former supervisor, a Hindu Gujarati, illegally favored other Hindu Indian/Gujarati employees. The court dismissed the claim.[22][23]

U.S. Census

Official classification
Further information: Race and ethnicity in the United States Census

The U.S. Census Bureau has changed over the years its own classification of Indians. In the 1930 and 1940 censuses, "Hindu" was listed as a racial category.[24] During the 1970s, Indian Americans advocated for an Asian Indian category to be created.[25]

In 1989, the East–West Center published a research paper about Indian Americans that said that the term, "Asian Indian," one of the fourteen "Races" in the 1980 US Census, is an "artificial census category and not a meaningful racial, ethnic, or ancestral designation."

Self-identification

On the US Census, Indians display the highest likelihood of selecting the 'African-American or black’ category, while Sri Lankans followed by Pakistanis are most likely to describe themselves as 'white'.[2] The 1990 U.S. Census classified write-in responses of "Aryan" as white even though write-in responses of "Indo-Aryan" were counted as Asian, and the 1990 US Census classified write-in responses of "Parsi" under Iranian American, who are classified as White along with Arab Americans and other Middle Eastern Americans.[26] The Asian American Institute proposed that the 2000 US Census make a new Middle Easterner racial category and the Punjabi from Pakistan wanted Pakistani Americans to be included in it.[27]

Some Indian Americans who were unfamiliar with the ethnonymic conventions used in the United States, mistakenly indicated that they were "American Indian" as their race in the 1990 US Census, because they were unaware that this term is used in the United States to refer to Native Americans.[2]

National Origin and Race
Race Selected on 1990 US Census (%)
South Asian
NationalityNWhiteBlack'Asian Indian' boxNationality
write-in		Other
Indian2,0904.3%2.2%88.8%1.2%3.5%
Pakistani2996.7%0.3%25.8%65.9%1.3%
Bangladeshi531.9%0.0%43.4%50.9%3.8%
Sri Lankan387.9%0.0%26.3%65.8%0.0%
Total2,4804.6%1.9%79.3%11.1%3.2%
Source: IPUMS 1990 1% unweighted sample
Source: Morning (2001)[28]

Identity

Self-identification

Indian independence movement fighter Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay wrote of the Indian racial identity in America as being Black.[29] After spending years studying and living with African-American families, Chattopadhyay wrote Indians in America should form ties with African-Americans as they shared a common ancestry and a common struggle for independence.[30]

However, South Asians often attempt to be identified as white in order to try to distance themselves from African-Americans and Hispanics.[2] Even though South Asians "insist on being called 'brown', the plea of Indian immigrants not to be called black is what is most audible".[31] This is due to considerable anti-blackness and anti-Hispanic prejudice in some segments of the South Asian population. This prejudice is often accompanied by a fear of being mistaken for Black or Hispanic, described as "an almost paranoid response to even being thought of as black".[32]

Nikki Haley, the Indian American governor of South Carolina, whose parents are from Punjab in Northwest India, identified as 'white' on her voter registration card in 2001.[33] Haley's behavior reflects a historic trend among lighter skinned people of color in America, called white passing. Dick Harpootlian, chairman of the South Carolina Democrats, stated “Haley has been appearing on television interviews where she calls herself a minority—when it suits her... When she registers to vote she says she is white. She has developed a pattern of saying whatever is beneficial to her at the moment.”[34]

The official classification of South Asians as part of the Asian racial category represents an agreement of convenience for South Asians on where they fit on the racially divided black-white spectrum in America.[2] South Asian Americans and other types of Asian Americans mutually feel that there exists "profound racial difference" between themselves and the other Asian ethnic group. Furthermore, "Working-class or state school-educated second generation Indian Americans do not see a natural alliance or unity with other Asian American groups."[2]

Identification by others

In 1989, the East–West Center published a research paper about Indian Americans that said that Americans find identifying South Asians by race and color to be difficult. The paper said that a 1978 survey of Americans asked the question, "Would you classify most people from India as being white, black, or something else?" The paper said that 38% of respondents classified most people from India as "other," 23% classified them as "brown," 15% classified them as "black," 13% did not know how to classify them, and 11% classified them as "white."[35]

In 2000, a series of interviews of second-generation Asian American college student leaders found that most of the interviewees who did not include Indian Americans as Asian Americans did not express a clear reason that was more than perceived difference in physical appearance and culture.[36]

Indian Americans have often been misidentified as Arabs or Middle Eastern, particularly after the September 11 attacks.[37] Assaults against turban-wearing Sikhs have become common since 9/11, due to Sikh turbans resembling the turban that Osama Bin Laden often wore in pictures.[38][39] After her win in 2013, Miss America winner Nina Davuluri was taunted online and called an "Arab" and a "terrorist" due to this misconception among the American public.[40]

In 2015, Sureshbhai Patel was described by a suspicious caller as a "skinny black guy" before he was beaten and severely injured by Alabama police officers.[41]

The 2017 book, Indians In America, stated that Indians and other South Asians are a part of Asian Americans, yet apart from Asian Americans. While they are admitted among Asian Americans, they are not acknowledged among Asian Americans. According to this book, other Asian Americans characterize Indians and other South Asians to be "ambiguously nonwhite."[42]

See also

References
  1. Harpalani, Vinay, DesiCrit: Theorizing the Racial Ambiguity of South Asian Americans (August 12, 2013). 69 NYU Annual Survey of American Law 77 (2013); Chicago-Kent College of Law Research Paper No. 2013-30. pp. 123, 124 & 136. Available at SSRN: link
  2. Morning, Ann (2001). "The racial self-identification of South Asians in the United States" (PDF). Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 27: 1–19. doi:10.1080/13691830125692. S2CID 15491946. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
  3. Francis C. Assisi (2005). "Indian-American Scholar Susan Koshy Probes Interracial Sex". INDOlink. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
  4. "Indian Independence And The African American Struggle". Little India: Overseas Indian, NRI, Asian Indian, Indian American. 17 August 2007.
  5. New York Times. "Negro Pastor Traveled in the South in Turban". New York Times. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  6. Desai, Manan. "The 'Tan Stranger' from Ceylon". South Asian American Digital Archive. SAADA. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  7. Bengali Harlem and the lost histories of South Asian America (First Harvard University Press paperbackition ed.). ISBN 9780674503854.
  8. Karen Leonard, PhD (May 1989). "The World & I". The Washington Times Corporation. Archived from the original on 2007-06-09. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
  9. Palhotra, Nishi. "The 'dirty Hindus'." Hardnews. March 2008. Retrieved on April 15, 2012.
  10. Postmodernism & a Sociology...(c). University of Arkansas Press. pp. 143–. ISBN 978-1-61075-322-7.
  11. United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, Certificate From The Circuit Court Of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit., No. 202. Argued 11, 12 January 1923.—Decided 19 February 1923, United States Reports, v. 261, The Supreme Court, October Term, 1922, 204–215.
  12. "Not All Caucasians Are White: The Supreme Court Rejects Citizenship for Asian Indians". History Matters. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  13. Loving Day: Celebrate the Legalization of Interracial Couples
  14. Coulson, Doug (2017). Race, nation, and refuge : the rhetoric of race in Asian American citizenship cases. Albany: SUNY Press. pp. 76–82. ISBN 978-1-4384-6662-0. OCLC 962141092.
  15. Jacoby, Harold S. (1958-11-01). "More Thind Against Than Sinning". The Pacific Historian. Stockton, CA: College of the Pacific. II (4): 1–2, 8.
  16. Asian American history and culture : an encyclopedia. Ling, Huping, 1956-, Austin, Allan W. London: Routledge. 2015. ISBN 978-1-315-70630-6. OCLC 958107019.CS1 maint: others (link)
  17. "United States v. Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, 15 F.2d 285 | Casetext". casetext.com. Archived from the original on 2019-07-29. Retrieved 2020-01-22.
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  19. Coulson, Doug (2015). "British Imperialism, the Indian Independence Movement, and the Racial Eligibility Provisions of the Naturalization Act: United States v. Thind Revisited". Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives (7): 1–42. SSRN 2610266.
  20. Baum, B. (2006). The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity. New York & London: New York University Press. Page 3. Google Books link.
  21. SANDHU v. LOCKHEED MISSILES AND SPACE COMPANY. (n.d.). FindLaw FOR LEGAL PROFESSIONALS. Wayback Machine link.
  22. Dhar v. New York City Department of Transportation. (2019). Casetext. Link.
  23. Banks, T.L. (2015). Colorism Among South Asians: Title VII and Skin Tone Discrimination. Washington University Global Studies Law Review, (14),4. Page 679. Wayback Machine link.
  24. Shankar, L.D. & Rajini Srikanth, R. (1998). A Part, Yet Apart: South Asians in Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. xiv. ISBN 1-56639-577-1.
  25. Banks, T.L. (1998). "Both Edges of the Margin: Blacks and Asians in Mississippi Masala, Barriers to Coalition Building". Asian American Law Journal. 5 (2): 22. Archived from the original on 2019-07-28.
  26. University of Michigan. Census 1990: Ancestry Codes. at the Wayback Machine (archived March 13, 2005)
  27. Menon, Sridevi. Duke University. "Where is West Asia in Asian America? Asia and the Politics of Space in Asian America." 2004. April 26, 2007.
  28. Morning, A (2001). "The racial self-identification of South Asians in the United States" (PDF). Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 27 (1): 72. doi:10.1080/13691830125692. S2CID 15491946. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-07-27.
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  33. "Indian Nikki Haley Says She Is White". Mother Jones. July 29, 2011.
  34. Mahanta, Siddhartha. "Indian Nikki Haley Says She Is White". Mother Jones. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
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  37. Bhatia, S (2008). "9/11 and the Indian Diaspora: Narratives of Race, Place and Immigrant Identity" (PDF). Journal of Intercultural Studies. 29 (1): 27, 30 & 32. doi:10.1080/07256860701759923. S2CID 73713945. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-07-21.
  38. CNN, Amanda Jackson and Chris Boyette. "In the last week, two Sikh men have been viciously attacked in central California". CNN. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  39. "Being Sikh in Trump's America: 'You have to go out of your way to prove you're not a threat'". Los Angeles Times. 11 June 2017. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  40. . 'Miss America Nina Davuluri brushes off racist remarks'. September 16, 2013.
  41. Harpalani, V (2015). "To be White, Black, or Brown? South Asian Americans and the Race-Color Distinction". Washington University Global Studies Law Review. 14 (4): 610. Archived from the original on 2019-08-03.
  42. Chakravorty, S., Kapur, D. & Singh, N. (2017). The Other One Percent: Indians in America. Page 179. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Books link.
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