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Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
. The
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of th ...
uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to as "Indians" and are known as "American Indians". With a population of more than four and a half million, Indian Americans make up 1.4% of the U.S. population and are the largest group of
South Asian Americans South Asian Americans are Americans of full or partial South Asian ancestry. The term generally excludes Afghanistan, referring specifically to those who can trace back their heritage to the Indian subcontinent, which includes the countries of Ba ...
, as well as the second largest group of
Asian Americans Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peopl ...
after
Chinese Americans Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...
. Indian Americans are the highest-earning ethnic group in the United States.Multiple sources: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Terminology

In the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...
, the term "Indian" had historically been used to describe
indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
since
European colonization The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs. Colonialism in the modern sense be ...
in the 15th century. Qualifying terms such as " American Indian" and " East Indian" were and still are commonly used in order to avoid ambiguity. The U.S. government has since coined the term "Native American" in reference to the indigenous people of the United States, but terms such as "American Indian" remain among indigenous as well as non-indigenous populations. Since the 1980s, Indian Americans have been categorized as "Asian Indian" (within the broader subgroup of
Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peopl ...
) by the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of th ...
. While "East Indian" remains in use, the term "Indian" and "
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...
n" is often chosen instead for academic and governmental purposes. Indian Americans are included in the census grouping of "
South Asian Americans South Asian Americans are Americans of full or partial South Asian ancestry. The term generally excludes Afghanistan, referring specifically to those who can trace back their heritage to the Indian subcontinent, which includes the countries of Ba ...
", which includes Bangladeshi Americans,
Bhutanese Americans Bhutanese Americans are Americans of Bhutanese descent. According to the 2010 census there are 19,439 Americans of Bhutanese descent. However, many Bhutanese came to the U.S. from Nepal as political refugees from that country and are registered a ...
, Maldivian Americans,
Nepalese Americans Nepalese Americans are Americans or Permanent Residents of Nepalese ancestry. Immigration from Nepal to the United States began in the 20th century, and many have been able to establish themselves as American nationals. The history of immigrati ...
, Pakistani Americans, and Sri Lankan Americans.


History


Pre-1800

Beginning in the 17th century, members of the
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
would bring Indian servants to the
American colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centur ...
. There were also some East Indian slaves in the United States during the American colonial era. The
Naturalization Act of 1790 The Naturalization Act of 1790 (, enacted March 26, 1790) was a law of the United States Congress that set the first uniform rules for the granting of United States citizenship by naturalization. The law limited naturalization to "free Whit ...
limited citizenship to "white persons", making Asians ineligible for citizenship.


19th century

In 1850, the federal census of St. Johns County, Florida, listed a 40-year-old draftsman named John Dick whose birthplace was listed as " Hindostan", living in city of
St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...
. His race is listed as white, suggesting he was of British descent. By 1900, there were more than two thousand Indian
Sikhs Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism (Sikhi), a monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The ter ...
living in the United States, primarily in
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. (At least one scholar has set the level lower, finding a total of 716 Indian immigrants to the U.S. between 1820 and 1900.) Emigration from India was driven by difficulties facing Indian farmers, including the challenges posed by the colonial
land tenure In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individual ...
system for small landowners, and by
drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D.  Jiang, A.  Khan, W.  Pokam Mba, D.  Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
and food shortages, which worsened in the 1890s. At the same time, Canadian steamship companies, acting on behalf of Pacific coast employers, recruited Sikh farmers with economic opportunities in
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...
. The presence of Indians in the U.S. also helped develop interest in Eastern religions in the US and would result in its influence on American philosophies such as transcendentalism.
Swami Vivekananda Swami Vivekananda (; ; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta (), was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the intr ...
arriving in Chicago at the World's Fair led to the establishment of the
Vedanta Society Vedanta Societies refer to organizations, groups, or societies formed for the study, practice, and propagation of Vedanta, the ancient religion based on the Vedas. More specifically, they "comprise the American arm of the Indian Ramakrishna move ...
.


20th century

Escaping racist attacks in Canada, Sikhs migrated to Pacific Coast U.S. states in the 1900s to work on the lumber mills of Bellingham and
Everett, Washington Everett is the county seat and largest city of Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is north of Seattle and is one of the main cities in the metropolitan area and the Puget Sound region. Everett is the seventh-largest city in the ...
. Sikh workers were later concentrated on the railroads and began migrating to California; around 2,000 Indians were employed by the major rail lines such as
Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
and
Western Pacific Railroad The Western Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was formed in 1903 as an attempt to break the near-monopoly the Southern Pacific Railroad had on rail service into northern California. WP's Feather River Route dire ...
between 1907 and 1908. Some white Americans, resentful of economic competition and the arrival of people from different cultures, responded to Sikh immigration with racism and violent attacks. The Bellingham riots in Bellingham, Washington on September 5, 1907, epitomized the low tolerance in the U.S. for Indians and Sikhs, who were called " Hindoos" by locals. While anti-Asian racism was embedded in U.S. politics and culture in the early 20th century, Indians were also racialized for their anticolonialism, with U.S. officials, who pushed for Western imperial expansion abroad, casting them as a "Hindu" menace. Although labeled Hindu, the majority of Indians were Sikh. In the early 20th century, a range of state and federal laws restricted Indian immigration and the rights of Indian immigrants in the U.S. Throughout the 1910s, American nativist organizations campaigned to end immigration from India, culminating in the passage of the Barred Zone Act in 1917. In 1913, the Alien Land Act of California prevented non-citizens from owning land. However, Asian immigrants got around the system by having Anglo friends or their own U.S. born children legally own the land that they worked on. In some states,
anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races. Anti-mi ...
made it illegal for Indian men to marry white women. However, it was legal for "brown" races to mix. Many Indian men, especially Punjabi men, married Hispanic women, and Punjabi-Mexican marriages became a norm in the West. Bhicaji Balsara became the first known Indian to gain naturalized U.S. citizenship. As a
Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...
, he was considered a "pure member of the Persian sect" and therefore a "free white person". In 1910, judge Emile Henry Lacombe of the
Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...
gave Balsara citizenship on the hope that the
United States attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...
would indeed challenge his decision and appeal it to create "an authoritative interpretation" of the law. The U.S. attorney adhered to Lacombe's wishes and took the matter to the Circuit Court of Appeals in 1910. The Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that
Parsis Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...
are classified as white. On the same grounds, another federal court decision granted citizenship to
A. K. Mozumdar Akhay Kumar Mozumdar (July 15, 1881 – March 9, 1953) was an Indian American spiritual writer and teacher associated with the New Thought Movement in the United States. He became a naturalized American in 1913. However, in 1923, following ''Unit ...
. These decisions contrasted with the 1907 declaration by U.S. Attorney General
Charles J. Bonaparte Charles Joseph Bonaparte (; June 9, 1851June 28, 1921) was an American lawyer and political activist for progressive and liberal causes. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, he served in the cabinet of the 26th U.S. president, Theodore Roosevel ...
: "...under no construction of the law can natives of British India be regarded as white persons." After the Immigration Act of 1917, Indian immigration into the U.S. decreased. Illegal entry through the Mexican border became the way of entering the country for Punjabi immigrants. California's Imperial Valley had a large population of Punjabis who assisted these immigrants and provided support. Immigrants were able to blend in with this relatively homogenous population. The Ghadar Party, a group in California that campaigned for Indian independence, facilitated illegal crossing of the Mexican border, using funds from this migration "as a means to bolster the party's finances". The Ghadar Party charged different prices for entering the US depending on whether Punjabi immigrants were willing to shave off their beard and cut their hair. It is estimated that between 1920 and 1935, about 1,800 to 2,000 Indian immigrants entered the U.S. illegally. By 1920, the population of Americans of Indian descent was approximately 6,400. In 1923, the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...
ruled in '' United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind'' that Indians were ineligible for citizenship because they were not "free white persons". The court also argued that the "great body of our people" would reject assimilation with Indians.Zhao, X. & Park, E.J.W. (2013). Asian Americans: An Encyclopedia of Social, Cultural, Economic, and Political History. Greenwood. pp. 1142. Furthermore, the court ruled that based on popular understanding of race, the term "white person" referred to people of northern or western European ancestry rather than "Caucasians" in the most technical sense. Over fifty Indians had their citizenship revoked after this decision, but Sakharam Ganesh Pandit fought against denaturalization. He was a lawyer and married to a white American, and he regained his citizenship in 1927. However, no other naturalization was permitted after the ruling, which led to about 3,000 Indians leaving the U.S. between 1920 and 1940. Many other Indians had no means of returning to India. Indians started moving up the social ladder by getting higher education. For example, in 1910, Dhan Gopal Mukerji came to UC Berkeley when he was 20 years old. He was an author of many children's books and won the Newbery Medal in 1928 for his book ''Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon''. However, he committed suicide at the age of 46 while he was suffering from depression. Another student,
Yellapragada Subbarow Yellapragada Subba Rao (12 January 1895 – 8 August 1948) was a pioneering Indian biochemist who discovered the function of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as an energy source in the cell, developed methotrexate for the treatment of cancer ...
, came to the U.S. in 1922. He became a biochemist at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, and he "discovered the function of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as an energy source in cells, and developed methotrexate for the treatment of cancer." However, being a foreigner, he was refused tenure at Harvard. Gobind Behari Lal, who came to the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
in 1912, became the science editor of the ''San Francisco Examiner'' and was the first Indian American to win the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. After
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, U.S. policy re-opened the door to Indian immigration, although slowly at first. The Luce–Celler Act of 1946 permitted a quota of 100 Indians per year to immigrate to the U.S. It also allowed Indian immigrants to naturalize and become citizens of the U.S., effectively reversing the Supreme Court's 1923 ruling in ''United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind''. The Naturalization Act of 1952, also known as the
McCarran-Walter Act The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (), governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. Before ...
, repealed the Barred Zone Act of 1917, but limited immigration from the former Barred Zone to a total of 2,000 per year. In 1910, 95% of all Indian Americans lived on the western coast of the United States. In 1920, that proportion decreased to 75%; by 1940, it was 65%, as more Indian Americans moved to the East Coast. In that year, Indian Americans were registered residents in 43 states. The majority of Indian Americans on the west coast were in rural areas, but on the east coast they became residents of urban areas. In the 1940s, the prices of the land increased, and the Bracero program brought thousands of Mexican guest workers to work on farms, which helped shift second-generation Indian American farmers into "commercial, nonagricultural occupations, from running small shops and grocery stores, to operating taxi services and becoming engineers." In Stockton and Sacramento, a new group of Indian immigrants from the state of Gujarat opened several small hotels. In 1955, 14 of 21 hotels enterprises in San Francisco were operated by Gujarati Hindus. By the 1980s, Indians owned around 15,000 motels, about 28 percent of all hotels and motels in the U.S. The
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ...
dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional Northern European groups, which would significantly alter the demographic mix in the U.S. Not all Indian Americans came directly from India; some came to the U.S. via Indian communities in other countries, including the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...
, the former British colonies of
East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historica ...
, (namely
Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...
,
Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
), and
Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The ...
,
Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...
), the
Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific (APAC) is the part of the world near the western Pacific Ocean. The Asia-Pacific region varies in area depending on context, but it generally includes East Asia, Russian Far East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Paci ...
region (
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...
,
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
, and
Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consis ...
), and the
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...
(
Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
,
Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...
,
Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the nor ...
, and
Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...
). From 1965 until the mid-1990s, long-term immigration from India averaged about 40,000 people per year. From 1995 onward, the flow of Indian immigration increased significantly, reaching a high of about 90,000 immigrants in the year 2000.


21st century

The beginning of the 21st century marked a significant wave in the migration trend from India to the United States. The emergence of Information Technology industry in Indian cities as
Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
,
Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
, and
Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern Indi ...
led to the large number of migrations to the US primarily from the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu in South India. There are sizable populations of people from the states of
Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
,
Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 35 ...
,
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
,
Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO 15919, ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reor ...
,
Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Ca ...
, and
Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
in the United States. Indians comprise over 80% of all H-1B visas. Indian Americans have risen to become the richest ethnicity in America, with an average household income of $126,891, almost twice the US average of $65,316. Since 2000, a large number of students have started migrating to the United States to pursue higher education. A variety of estimates state that over 500,000 Indian American students attend higher-education institutions in any given year. As per Institute of International Education (IIE) 'Opendoors' report, 202,014 new students from India enrolled in US education institutions. On January 20, 2021,
Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
, an Indian American, made history as the first female
Vice President of the United States The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice p ...
. She was elected vice president as the running mate of
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Joe Biden in the presidential election the previous November. This was a major milestone in Indian American history, and in addition to Harris, another 20 Indian Americans were nominated to key positions in the administration.


Demographics

According to the
2010 United States Census The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators serving ...
, the Asian Indian population in the United States grew from almost 1,678,765 in 2000 (0.6% of U.S. population) to 2,843,391 in 2010 (0.9% of U.S. population), a growth rate of 69.37%, one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States. The New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area, consisting of
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
, and adjacent areas within
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
, as well as nearby areas within the states of
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
(extending to Trenton),
Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...
(extending to
Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonn ...
), and including Pike County, Pennsylvania, was home to an estimated 711,174 uniracial Indian Americans as of the 2017
American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...
by the
U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
, comprising by far the largest Indian American population of any metropolitan area in the U.S.; New York City itself also contains by far the highest Indian American population of any individual city in North America, estimated at 246,454 as of 2017. Monroe Township, Middlesex County, in
central New Jersey Central Jersey is the central region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The designation of Central New Jersey is a distinct administrative toponym. Geographic area and descriptions While the State of New Jersey is often divided into North and ...
, the geographic heart of the
Northeast megalopolis The Northeast megalopolis, also known as the Northeast Corridor, Acela Corridor, Boston–Washington corridor, or BosWash, is the world's largest megalopolis in terms of economic output and the second most populous megalopolis in the United Sta ...
and ranked one of the ten safest cities in the United States, has displayed one of the fastest growth rates of its Indian population in the
Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the te ...
, increasing from 256 (0.9%) as of the 2000 Census to an estimated 5,943 (13.6%) as of 2017, representing a 2,221.5% (a multiple of 23) numerical increase over that period, including many affluent
professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and sk ...
s and senior citizens as well as charitable benefactors to the COVID-19 relief efforts in India in official coordination with Monroe Township, as well as
Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" ...
actors with second homes. By 2022, the Indian population was approaching one-third of Monroe Township's population, and the nickname '' Edison-South'' had developed, in reference to the Little India stature of both Middlesex County, New Jersey townships. In 2014, 12,350 Indians legally immigrated to the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA core based statistical area; As of February 2022, Indian airline carrier
Air India Air India is the flag carrier airline of India, headquartered at New Delhi. It is owned by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Tata Sons, after Air India Limited's former owner, the Government of India, completed the ...
as well as United States airline carrier
United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.
were offering direct flights from the New York City Metropolitan Area to and from
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
and
Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...
. In May 2019,
Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline, along ...
announced non-stop flight service between
New York JFK John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the New ...
and Mumbai, to begin December 22, 2019. And in November 2021,
American Airlines American Airlines is a major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the largest airline in the world when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and revenue passeng ...
began non-stop flight dservice between New York JFK and Delhi with IndiGo Air codesharing on this flight. At least 24 Indian American enclaves characterized as a Little India have emerged in the New York City Metropolitan Area. Other metropolitan areas with large Indian American populations include
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...
,
Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
, Baltimore–Washington,
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
, Dallas–Ft. Worth,
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
,
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...
,
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
,
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
, Phoenix,
Raleigh Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...
, San Francisco–San Jose–Oakland, and
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
. The three oldest Indian American communities going back to around 1910 are in lesser populated
agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...
areas like
Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. Stockton was founded by Carlos Maria Weber in 1849 after he acquired Rancho Campo de los Franceses. The city is named after R ...
south of
Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
; the
Central Valley of California The Central Valley is a broad, elongated, flat valley that dominates the interior of California. It is wide and runs approximately from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel to the Pacific coast of the state. It cov ...
like Yuba City; and
Imperial County, California Imperial County is a county on the southeast border of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 179,702, making it the least populous county in Southern California. The county seat is El Centro. Imperial is th ...
aka Imperial Valley. These were all primarily Sikh settlements.


U.S. metropolitan areas with large Asian Indian populations

While the table above provides a picture of the population of Indian Americans (alone) and Asian Americans (alone) in some of the metropolitan areas of the US, it is incomplete as it does ''not'' include multi-racial Asian Americans. Please note that data for multi-racial Asian Americans has not yet been released by the US Census Bureau.


List of U.S. states by the population of Asian Indians

List of communities by number of Asian Indians (as of the 2010 census): *
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
: 192,209 **
Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...
: 138,795 **
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
borough: 25,270 **
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
borough: 24,359 **
Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
borough: 16,748 **
Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey b ...
: 6,646 *
San Jose, CA San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 po ...
: 43,827 * Fremont, CA: 38,711 *
Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
: 32,966 *
Chicago, IL (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
: 29,948 * Edison, NJ: 28,286 *
Jersey City, NJ Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Houston, TX Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...
: 26,289 * Sunnyvale, CA: 21,737 *
Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
: 18,520 *
Irving, TX Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bure ...
: 17,403


Statistics

In 2006, of the 1,266,264 legal immigrants to the United States, 58,072 were from India. Between 2000 and 2006, 421,006 Indian immigrants were admitted to the U.S., up from 352,278 during the 1990–1999 period. According to the 2000 U.S. census, the overall growth rate for Indians from 1990 to 2000 was 105.87 percent. The average growth rate for the U.S. was 7.6 percent. Indians comprise 16.4 percent of the Asian-American community. In 2000, the Indian-born population in the U.S. was 1.007 million. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1990 and 2000, the Indian population in the U.S. grew 130% – 10 times the national average of 13%. Indian Americans are the third largest Asian American ethnic group, following
Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...
s and
Filipino American Filipino Americans ( fil, Mga Pilipinong Amerikano) are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipinos and other Asian ethnicities in North America were first documented in the 16th century as slaves and prisoners on ships sailing to and from New ...
s. A joint Duke University – UC Berkeley study revealed that Indian immigrants have founded more engineering and technology companies from 1995 to 2005 than immigrants from the UK, China, Taiwan and Japan combined. The percentage of Silicon Valley startups founded by Indian immigrants has increased from 7% in 1999 to 15.5% in 2006, as reported in the 1999 study by AnnaLee Saxenian and her updated work in 2006 in collaboration with Vivek Wadhawa. Indian Americans are making their way to the top positions of many major companies (including IBM, PepsiCo, MasterCard, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Adobe, Softbank, Cognizant, Sun microsystems) A recent study shows that 23% of Indian business school graduates take a job in United States.


Socioeconomic status

Indian Americans continuously outpace every other ethnic group
socioeconomically Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
per U.S. Census statistics.
Thomas Friedman Thomas Loren Friedman (; born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for '' The New York Times''. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', in his 2005 book '' The World Is Flat'', explains this trend in terms of brain drain, whereby a sample of the best and brightest people in India emigrate to the United States in order to seek better financial opportunities. Indians form the second largest group of
physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
s after non-Hispanic Caucasian Americans (3.9%) as of the 1990 survey, and the percentage of Indian physicians rose to around 6% in 2005.


Education

According to
Pew Research The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the ...
in 2015, of Indian Americans aged 25 and older, 72% had obtained a bachelor's degree and 40% had obtained a postgraduate degree, whereas of all Americans, 19% had obtained a bachelor's degree and 11% had obtained a postgraduate degree.


Household income

The median household income for Indian immigrants in 2019 was much higher than that of the overall foreign- and native-born populations. Indians overall have much higher incomes than the total foreign and native-born populations. In 2019, households headed by an Indian immigrant had a median income of $132,000, compared to $64,000 and $66,000 for all immigrant and U.S.-born households, respectively. In 2019, Indian immigrants were less likely to be in poverty (5 percent) than immigrants overall (14 percent) or the U.S. born (12 percent).


Culture


Commerce

Patel Brothers is a supermarket chain serving the
Indian diaspora Overseas Indians (IAST: ), officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) are Indians who live outside of the Republic of India. According to the Government of India, ''Non-Resident Indians'' are citizens of Indi ...
, with 57 locations in 19 U.S. states—primarily located in the New Jersey/New York Metropolitan Area, due to its large Indian population, and with the East Windsor/ Monroe Township,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
location representing the world's largest and busiest Indian grocery store outside India. In DFW there is another Indian Grocery chain India Bazar wit
9 locations
Chicago, IL has 4 Patel Brothers including the first ever store.


Media

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
,
Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode ...
, Marathi,
Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...
,
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
, and
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
radio stations are available in areas with high Indian populations, for example, Punjabi Radio USA, Easy96.com in the New York City metropolitan area, KLOK 1170 AM in San Francisco, RBC Radio; Radio Humsafar, Desi Junction in Chicago; Radio Salaam Namaste and FunAsia Radio in
Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
; and Masala Radio, FunAsia Radio, Sangeet Radio, Radio Naya Andaz in
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...
and
Washington Bangla Radio on Internet Washington Bangla Radio on Internet (WBRi) is an online streaming Bengali language radio station and associated news and entertainment web portal that operated from Washington, DC metro area in the United States. The free service was provided until ...
from the Washington DC Metro Area. There are also some radio stations broadcasting in
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...
within these communities. Houston-based
Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
Kaaranji radio focuses on a multitude of programs for children and adults. ''AVS'' (Asian Variety Show) and ''Namaste America'' are South Asian programming available in most of the US that is free to air and can be watched with a television
antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...
. Several cable and
satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna com ...
providers offer Indian channels:
Sony TV Sony Television, Sony TV, or Sony HD may refer to any of the following television-related products from Japanese conglomerate Sony: * Television sets designed and manufactured by Sony Corporation in Japan ** Trinitron, television hardware brand (19 ...
,
Zee TV Zee TV (stylised as ZEE TV) is a Hindi general entertainment pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-ba ...
,
TV Asia TV Asia was the first Asian TV channel to be founded in the UK. Launched in 1990, and originally broadcasting overnights during Sky One's downtime, it was Europe's first entertainment and information channel for the South Asian community from ...
,
Star Plus StarPlus is an Indian Hindi language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Disney Star (formerly ''Star India''), a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. The network's programming consists of family dramas, comedi ...
, Sahara One, Colors, Sun TV, ETV, Big Magic, regional channels, and others have offered Indian content for subscription, such as the
Cricket World Cup The Cricket World Cup (officially known as ICC Men's Cricket World Cup) is the international championship of One Day International (ODI) cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), ...
. There is also an American cricket channel called
Willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist so ...
. Many metropolitan areas with large Indian American populations now have movie theaters which specialize in showing Indian movies, especially from Tollywood (Telugu), Kollywood (Tamil) and Bollywood (Hindi). In July 2005,
MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
premiered a spin-off network called
MTV Desi MTV Desi is a digital platform from MTV that targeted Desis (people of South Asian origin) in the United States, as the name implies. The network features various styles of music such as electronic tabla music and English-Gujarati hip-hop, intersp ...
which targets Indian Americans. It has been discontinued by MTV. In 2012, the film '' Not a Feather, but a Dot'' directed by Teju Prasad, was released which investigates the history, perceptions and changes in the Indian American community over the last century. In popular media, several Indian American personalities have made their mark in recent years, including
Kovid Gupta Kovid Gupta (born 1988) is an Indian-American author, screenwriter, filmmaker, and social activist. He is best known for his non-fiction books '' Kingdom of The Soap Queen: The Story of Balaji Telefilms'' and '' Redrawing India: The Teach For ...
,
Kal Penn Kalpen Suresh Modi (born April 23, 1977), known professionally as Kal Penn, is an American actor, author, academic lecturer, and former White House staff member in the Barack Obama administration. As an actor, he is known for his role portrayi ...
, Hari Kondabolu, Karan Brar,
Aziz Ansari Aziz Ismail Ansari (; born February 23, 1983) is an American actor and stand-up comedian. He is known for his role as Tom Haverford on the NBC series '' Parks and Recreation'' (2009–2015) and as creator and star of the Netflix series '' Mas ...
, Hasan Minhaj, and
Mindy Kaling Vera Mindy Chokalingam (born June 24, 1979),Additional archive on June 25, 2015. known professionally as Mindy Kaling (), is an American actress, comedian, screenwriter and producer. She first gained recognition starring as Kelly Kapoor in the N ...
.


Indian Independence Day Parade

The annual New York City India Day Parade, held on or approximately every August 15 since 1981, is the world's largest Indian Independence Day parade outside of India and is hosted by The Federation of Indian Associations (FIA). According to the website of Baruch College of the
City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...
, "The FIA, which came into being in 1970 is an
umbrella organization An umbrella organization is an association of (often related, industry-specific) institutions who work together formally to coordinate activities and/or pool resources. In business, political, and other environments, it provides resources and ofte ...
meant to represent the diverse Indian population of NYC. Its mission is to promote and further the interests of its 500,000 members and to collaborate with other Indian cultural organization. The FIA acts as a mouth piece for the diverse Indian-Asian population in United States, and is focused on furthering the interests of this diverse community. The parade begins on East 38th Street and continues down
Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Str ...
in
Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...
until it reaches 28th Street. At the review stand on 28th Street, the grand marshal and various celebrities greet onlookers. Throughout the parade, participants find themselves surrounded by the saffron, white and green colors of the
Indian flag The national flag of India, colloquially called the tricolour, is a horizontal rectangular tricolour flag of India saffron, white and India green; with the ', a 24-spoke wheel, in navy blue at its centre. It was adopted in its present for ...
. They can enjoy Indian food, merchandise booths, live dancing and music present at the Parade. After the parade is over, various cultural organizations and dance schools participate in program on 23rd Street and Madison Avenue until 6PM." The New York/New Jersey metropolitan region's second-largest India Independence Day parade takes place in Little India, Edison/Iselin in Middlesex County, New Jersey, annually in August.


Sikh Day Vaisakhi Parade

The world's largest Sikh Day Parade outside India celebrating
Vaisakhi Vaisakhi (Punjabi: ), also pronounced Baisakhi, marks the first day of the month of Vaisakh and is traditionally celebrated annually on 13 April and sometimes 14 April as a celebration of spring harvest primarily in Northern India. Further, ot ...
and the season of renewal is held in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
annually in April. The parade is widely regarded as being one of the most colourful parades.


Religion

Communities of
Hindus Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
,
Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ� ...
,
Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
,
Sikhs Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism (Sikhi), a monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The ter ...
, irreligious people, and smaller numbers of
Jains Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...
,
Buddhists Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
,
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...
s, and Indian
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
have established their religions in the United States. According to 2014
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and th ...
research, 51% consider themselves Hindu, 18% as Christian (Protestant 11%, Catholic 5%, other Christian 3%), 9% as unaffiliated, 10% as Muslims, 5% as Sikh, and 2% as Jain. The first religious center of an Indian religion to be established in the US was a Sikh Gurudwara in
Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. Stockton was founded by Carlos Maria Weber in 1849 after he acquired Rancho Campo de los Franceses. The city is named after R ...
in 1912. Today there are many Sikh Gurudwaras, Hindu temples, Muslim mosques, Christian churches, and Buddhist and Jain temples in all 50 states.


Hindus

As of 2008, the American
Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
population was around 2.2 million.
Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
s form the majority religious group amongst the Indian American community. Many organizations such as ISKCON,
Swaminarayan Sampraday The Swaminarayan Sampradaya, also known as Swaminarayan Hinduism and Swaminarayan movement, is a Hindu Vaishnava sampradaya rooted in Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita, characterized by the worship of its charismatic founder Sahajanand Swami, bet ...
, BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha,
Chinmaya Mission The Chinmaya Mission is a Hindu religious and spiritual organization engaged in the dissemination of Vedanta, the science of the self as expounded in the Vedas, particularly the Upanishads, and other Hindu scriptures such as the Bhagavad G ...
, and Swadhyay Pariwar are well-established in the U.S. and Hindu Americans have formed the
Hindu American Foundation The Hindu American Foundation ( ) is an American Hindu advocacy group founded in 2003. The organisation has its roots in the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad America and its student wing Hindu Students Council. Scholars ar ...
which represents American Hindus and aim to educate people about
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
.
Swami Vivekananda Swami Vivekananda (; ; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta (), was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the intr ...
brought
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
to the West at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions. The
Vedanta Society Vedanta Societies refer to organizations, groups, or societies formed for the study, practice, and propagation of Vedanta, the ancient religion based on the Vedas. More specifically, they "comprise the American arm of the Indian Ramakrishna move ...
has been important in subsequent Parliaments. In September 2021, the State of
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
aligned with the World Hindu Council to declare October as Hindu Heritage Month. Today, many Hindu temples, most of them built by Indian Americans, have emerged in different cities and towns in the United States. More than 18 
million One million (1,000,000), or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian ''millione'' (''milione'' in modern Italian), from ''mille'', "thousand", plus the a ...
Americans are now practicing some form of
Yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...
.
Kriya Yoga ''Kriyā'' (Sanskrit: क्रिया, 'action, deed, effort') is a "completed action", technique or practice within a yoga discipline meant to achieve a specific result. Kriya or Kriya Yoga may also refer to: * Kriya Yoga school The K ...
was introduced to America by Paramahansa Yogananda. A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada initiated the popular ISKCON, also known as the Hare Krishna movement, while preaching
Bhakti yoga Bhakti yoga ( sa, भक्ति योग), also called Bhakti marga (, literally the path of ''Bhakti''), is a spiritual path or spiritual practice within Hinduism focused on loving devotion towards any personal deity.Karen Pechelis (2014 ...
.


Sikhs

From the time of their arrival in the late 1800s,
Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
men and women have been making notable contributions to American society. In 2007, there were estimated to be between 250,000 and 500,000 Sikhs living in the United States, with largest populations living on the East and West Coasts, together with additional populations in
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
,
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
, and
Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
. The United States also has a number of non-Punjabi converts to Sikhism. Sikh men are typically identifiable by their unshorn beards and turbans (head coverings), articles of their faith. Many organisations like World Sikh Organisation (WSO), Sikh Riders of America, SikhNet, Sikh Coalition, SALDEF,
United Sikhs United Sikhs is a civil and human rights, humanitarian aid non profit organization and disaster relief non-governmental organization which is also a United Nations affiliated group. The concept of United Sikhs was conceived in 1999 by three Sikh A ...
, National Sikh Campaign continue to educate people about Sikhism. There are many "
Gurudwaras A gurdwara (sometimes written as gurudwara) (Gurmukhi: ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ''guradu'ārā'', meaning "Door to the Guru") is a place of assembly and worship for Sikhs. Sikhs also refer to gurdwaras as ''Gurdwara Sahib''. People from all faiths ...
" Sikh temples present in all states of USA.


Jains

Adherents of
Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle bein ...
first arrived in the United States in the 20th century. The most significant time of Jain immigration was in the early 1970s. The US has since become the epicenter of the Jain diaspora. The Federation of Jain Associations in North America is an umbrella organization of local American and Canadian Jain congregations. Unlike India and United Kingdom, the Jain community in United States doesn't find sectarian differences—both
Digambara ''Digambara'' (; "sky-clad") is one of the two major schools of Jainism, the other being '' Śvētāmbara'' (white-clad). The Sanskrit word ''Digambara'' means "sky-clad", referring to their traditional monastic practice of neither possessing ...
and Śvētāmbara share a common roof.


Muslims

Hasan Minhaj,
Fareed Zakaria Fareed Rafiq Zakaria (; born 20 January 1964) is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN's ''Fareed Zakaria GPS'' and writes a weekly paid column for ''The Washington Post.'' He has been a columnist ...
,
Aziz Ansari Aziz Ismail Ansari (; born February 23, 1983) is an American actor and stand-up comedian. He is known for his role as Tom Haverford on the NBC series '' Parks and Recreation'' (2009–2015) and as creator and star of the Netflix series '' Mas ...
, and Pir
Vilayat Inayat Khan Vilayat Inayat Khan (19 June 1916 17 June 2004) was a teacher of meditation and of the traditions of the East Indian Chishti Sufi order of Sufism. His teaching derived from the tradition of his father, Inayat Khan, founder of The Sufi Order ...
are few well known Indian American Muslims.
Indian Muslim Islam is India's second-largest religion, with 14.2% of the country's population, approximately 172.2 million people identifying as adherents of Islam in 2011 Census. India is also the country with the second or third largest number of Muslim ...
Americans also congregate with other American Muslims, including those from
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
,
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...
,
Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...
,
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
,
Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...
, and
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
when there are events particularly related to their faith and religious believes as the same can be applied for any other religious community, but there are prominent organizations such as the Indian Muslim Council – USA.


Christians

There are many Indian Christian churches across the US;
India Pentecostal Church of God The Indian Pentecostal Church of God (IPC) is the largest Pentecostal Christian Denomination in India. It has over ten thousand congregations around the world. Its organisational headquarters is at Hebronpuram, Kumbanad, Kerala, India. IPC chu ...
,
Assemblies of God in India The General Council of the Assemblies of God of India is a Pentecostal Christian denomination in India. It is affiliated with the World Assemblies of God Fellowship. The headquarters is in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. History The General Council of the ...
,
Church of God (Full Gospel) in India {{Infobox Christian denomination , name = Church Of God (Full Gospel) in India (COG) , image = Church of God Emblem.svg , imagewidth = 140px , caption = Cross with wave of the Holy Spirit , abbreviation = COG in India , main_classification = Prote ...
,
Church of South India The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church in India. It is the result of union of a number of mainline Protestant denominations in South India after independence. The Church of South India is the successor of a number of P ...
,
Church of North India The Church of North India (CNI) is the dominant united Protestant church in northern India. It was established on 29 November 1970 by bringing together the Protestant churches working in northern India. It is a province of the worldwide Anglica ...
, Christhava Tamil Koil,
The Pentecostal Mission The Pentecostal Mission (TPM) or New Testament Church (NTC) in the United States or Universal Pentecostal Church (UPC) in the United Kingdom is a Pentecostal denomination which was founded in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1923. The intern ...
, Sharon Pentecostal Church, Independent Non Denominational Churches like Heavenly Feast,
Plymouth Brethren The Plymouth Brethren or Assemblies of Brethren are a low church and non-conformist Christian movement whose history can be traced back to Dublin, Ireland, in the mid to late 1820s, where they originated from Anglicanism. The group emphasizes ...
.
Saint Thomas Christians The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, ''Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani'', ''Malankara Nasrani'', or ''Nasrani Mappila'', are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Kerala ( Malabar region) ...
(
Syro-Malabar Church lat, Ecclesia Syrorum-Malabarensium mal, മലബാറിലെ സുറിയാനി സഭ , native_name_lang=, image = St. Thomas' Cross (Chennai, St. Thomas Mount).jpg , caption = The Mar Thoma Nasrani Sl ...
,
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, also known as the Malankara Syrian Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic '' sui iuris'' particular church in full communion with the worldwide Catholic Church possessing self-governance under the Code of ...
,
Chaldean Syrian Church The Chaldean Syrian Church of India ( Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ܕܐܬܘܖ̈ܝܐ; Malayalam: / ''Kaldaya Suriyani Sabha'') is an Eastern Christian denomination, based in Thrissur, in India. It is organized as a metropolitan pro ...
,
Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC) also known as the Indian Orthodox Church (IOC) or simply as the Malankara Church, is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church headquartered in Devalokam, near Kottayam, India. The church serve ...
, Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, CSI Syrian Christians,
Mar Thoma Syrian Church The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, often shortened to Mar Thoma Church, and known also as the Reformed Syrian ChurchS. N. Sadasivan. A Social History of India'. APH Publishing; 2000. . p. 442. and the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar ...
, Pentecostal Syrian Christians and
St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India (STECI) is an Oriental Protestant (Reformed Orthodox) episcopal denomination based in Kerala, India. It derives from a schism in the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church in 1961 and forms a part of the Sa ...
) from
Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Ca ...
have established their own places of worship across the United States. The website ''USIndian.org'' has collected a comprehensive list of all the traditional St. Thomas Christian Churches in the US. There are also Catholic Indians hailing originally from Goa,
Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO 15919, ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reor ...
and Kerala, who attend the same services as other American Catholics, but may celebrate the feast of Saint Francis Xavier as a special event of their identity. The Indian Christian Americans have formed the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA) to represent a network of Indian Christian organizations in the US. FIACONA estimates the Indian American
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...
population to be 1,050,000. The Syro-Malabar Church, an Eastern Catholic Church, native to India since the 1st century, established St. Thomas Syro-Malabar diocese of Chicago was established in the year 2001. St. Thomas day is celebrated in this church on July 3 every year.


Others

The large
Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...
and Irani community is represented by the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America. Indian Jews are perhaps the smallest organized religious group among Indian Americans, consisting of approximately 350 members in the US. They form the Indian Jewish Congregation of USA, with their headquarters in New York City.


Deepavali/Diwali, Eid/Ramadan as school holidays

Momentum has been growing to recognize the
Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
holy day Deepavali (Diwali) as a holiday on
school district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary and secondary schools in various nations. North America United States In the U.S, most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts, w ...
calendars in the
New York City metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass, at , and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. The vast metropolitan are ...
.
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
announced in October 2022 that Diwali would be an official school holiday commencing in 2023.
Passaic, New Jersey Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69,7 ...
established Diwali as a school holiday in 2005.
South Brunswick, New Jersey South Brunswick is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The township is centrally located within the Raritan Valley region and is an outer-ring suburb of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of th2020 ...
in 2010 became the first of the many school districts with large Indian student populations in Middlesex County in
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
to add Diwali to the school calendar.
Glen Rock, New Jersey Glen Rock is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 12,133, reflecting an increase of 532 (+4.6%) from the 11,601 counted in the 2010 census,Bergen County Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. to recognize Diwali as an annual school holiday, while thousands in Bergen County celebrated the first
U.S. county In the United States, a county is an administrative or political subdivision of a state that consists of a geographic region with specific boundaries and usually some level of governmental authority. The term " county" is used in 48 states, ...
-wide Diwali Mela festival under a unified sponsorship banner in 2016, while Fair Lawn in Bergen County celebrates
Holi Holi (), also known as the Festival of Colours, the Festival of Spring, and the Festival of Love,The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) p. 874 "Holi /'həʊli:/ noun a Hindu spring festival ...". is an ancient Hindu religious festival ...
. Diwali/Deepavali is also recognized by Monroe Township, New Jersey. Efforts have been undertaken in Millburn, Monroe Township, West Windsor-Plainsboro, Bernards Township, and North Brunswick, New Jersey,
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
, as well as in New York City (ultimately successfully), among other school districts in the metropolitan region, to make Diwali a holiday on the school calendar. According to the '' Star-Ledger'',
Edison, New Jersey Edison is a township located in Middlesex County,in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated in Central New Jersey within the core of the state's Raritan Valley region, Edison is a commercial hub, home to Menlo Park Mall and Little India. It ...
councilman Sudhanshu Prasad has noted parents' engagement in making Deepavali a holiday there; while in Jersey City, the four schools with major Asian Indian populations mark the holiday by inviting parents to the school buildings for festivities.
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
Elementary School is located in
Passaic, New Jersey Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69,7 ...
. Efforts are also progressing toward making Diwali and Eid official holidays at all 24 school districts in Middlesex County. At least 12 school districts on Long Island closed for Diwali in 2022, and over 20 in New Jersey. In March 2015, New York City
Mayor Bill de Blasio Bill de Blasio (; born Warren Wilhelm Jr., May 8, 1961; later Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm) is an American politician who served as the 109th mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he held the office of New Yo ...
officially declared the
Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
holy days
Eid al-Fitr , nickname = Festival of Breaking the Fast, Lesser Eid, Sweet Eid, Sugar Feast , observedby = Muslims , type = Islamic , longtype = Islamic , significance = Commemoration to mark the end of fasting in Ramadan , date ...
and
Eid al-Adha Eid al-Adha () is the second and the larger of the two main holidays celebrated in Islam (the other being Eid al-Fitr). It honours the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son Ismail (Ishmael) as an act of obedience to Allah's com ...
holidays on the school calendar. School districts in Paterson and South Brunswick, New Jersey observe
Ramadan , type = islam , longtype = Religious , image = Ramadan montage.jpg , caption=From top, left to right: A crescent moon over Sarıçam, Turkey, marking the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Ramadan Quran reading in Bandar Torkaman, Iran. ...
.


Ethnicity

Like the terms "Asian American" or " South Asian American", the term "Indian American" is also an umbrella label applying to a variety of views, values, lifestyles, and appearances. Although Asian-Indian Americans retain a high ethnic identity, they are known to assimilate into American culture while at the same time keeping the culture of their ancestors.


Linguistic affiliation

The United States is home to various associations that promote Indian languages and cultures. Some major organizations include, *
Telugu Association of North America Telugu Association of North America (also referred to as TANA) is a non-profit organization and is one of oldest Indo-American national level organisation primarily for networking of Telugu people in North America North America is a ...
(TANA) *
American Telugu Association American Telugu Association (ATA) is a non-profit organization of Telugu people living in North America. The primary purpose of the association is to assist and promote literary, cultural, religious, social, educational, economic, health and com ...
(ATA) * Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America (FeTNA) * Federation of Kerala Associations in North America (FOKANA) * Association of Kannada Kootas of America (AKKA) * North America Vishwa Kannada Association (NAVIKA) *
North American Bengali Conference The North American Bengali Conference (NABC) is an annual Bengali culture conference held in the United States and Canada, typically around the weekend of July 4. It was established in 1981 by the Cultural Association of Bengal in New York, and i ...
(NABC) * The Odisha Society of the Americas (OSA) *
Maharashtra Mandal A Maharashtra Mandal is a social group formed to preserve the culture of those born in the Indian state of Maharashtra, and speakers of its language, Marathi, who live outside the state. Such groups exist in India and throughout the world, exampl ...
(MM)


Progress


Timeline

* 1600: Beginning of the
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
. * 1635: An "East Indian" is documented present in
Jamestown, Virginia The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James (Powhatan) River about southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg. It was ...
. * 1680: Due to
anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races. Anti-mi ...
, a mixed-race girl born to an Indian father and an Irish mother is classified as
mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...
and sold into slavery. * 1790: The first officially confirmed Indian immigrant arrives in the United States from
Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
, South India, on a British ship. * 1899–1914: The first significant wave of Indian immigrants arrives in the United States, mostly consisting of Sikh farmers and businessmen from the
Punjab region Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
of
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
. They arrive in Angel Island,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
via
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
. They start businesses including farms and lumber mills in
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
,
Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
, and
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
. * 1909: Bhicaji Balsara becomes the first known Indian-born person to gain naturalised U.S. citizenship. As a
Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...
, he was considered a "pure member of the Persian sect" and therefore a free White person. The judge Emile Henry Lacombe, of the
Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...
, only gave Balsara citizenship on the hope that the
United States attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...
would indeed challenge his decision and appeal it to create "an authoritative interpretation" of the law. The U.S. attorney adhered to Lacombe's wishes and took the matter to the Circuit Court of Appeals in 1910. The Circuit Court of Appeal agrees that Parsis are classified as white. * 1912: The first Sikh gurdwara opens in Stockton,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. * 1913: A.K. Mozumdar becomes the second Indian-born person to earn U.S. citizenship, having convinced the
Spokane Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
district judge that he was "Caucasian" and met the requirements of naturalization law that restricted citizenship to free White persons. In 1923, as a result of '' United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind'', his citizenship was revoked. * 1914: Dhan Gopal Mukerji obtains a graduate degree from Stanford University, studying also at University of California, Berkeley and later goes on to win the Newbery Medal in 1928, and thus becomes the first successful India-born man of letters in the United States, as well as the first popular Indian writer in English. * 1917: The Barred Zone Act passes in Congress through two-thirds majority, overriding President
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
's earlier veto. Asians, including Indians, are barred from entering the United States. * 1918: Due to
anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races. Anti-mi ...
, there was significant controversy in
Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
when an Indian farmer B. K. Singh married the sixteen-year-old daughter of one of his
White American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
tenants. * 1918: Private Raghunath N. Banawalkar is the first Indian American recruited into the U.S. Army on February 25, 1918, and serves in the Sanitary Detachment of the 305th Infantry Regiment, 77th Division, American Expeditionary Forces in
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. Gassed while on active service in October 1918 and subsequently awarded Purple Heart medal. * 1918: Earliest record of
LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...
Indian Americans—Jamil Singh in
Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...
* 1922: Yellapragada Subbarao, a
Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode ...
from the state of
Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
in Southern India arrived in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
on October 26, 1922. He discovered the role of phosphocreatine and
adenosine triphosphate Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is an organic compound that provides energy to drive many processes in living cells, such as muscle contraction, nerve impulse propagation, condensate dissolution, and chemical synthesis. Found in all known forms ...
(ATP) in muscular activity, which earned him an entry into biochemistry textbooks in the 1930s. He obtained his Ph.D. the same year, and went on to make other major discoveries; including the synthesis of aminopterin (later developed into
methotrexate Methotrexate (MTX), formerly known as amethopterin, is a chemotherapy agent and immune-system suppressant. It is used to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases, and ectopic pregnancies. Types of cancers it is used for include breast cancer, leuke ...
), the first cancer chemotherapy. * 1923: In '' United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind'', the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
unanimously rules that Indian people are aliens ineligible for United States citizenship. Bhagat Singh Thind regained his citizenship years later in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
. * 1943: Republican
Clare Boothe Luce Clare Boothe Luce ( Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987) was an American writer, politician, U.S. ambassador, and public conservative figure. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play '' The Women'', which ha ...
and Democrat
Emanuel Celler Emanuel Celler (May 6, 1888 – January 15, 1981) was an American politician from New York who served in the United States House of Representatives for almost 50 years, from March 1923 to January 1973. He served as the dean of the United States H ...
introduce a bill to open naturalization to Indian immigrants to the United States. Prominent Americans
Pearl Buck Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973) was an American writer and novelist. She is best known for ''The Good Earth'' a bestselling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck ...
, Louis Fischer,
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
and Robert Millikan give their endorsement to the bill. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, also endorses the bill, calling for an end to the "statutory discrimination against the Indians". * 1946: President Harry S. Truman signs into law the Luce–Celler Act of 1946, returning the right to Indian Americans to immigrate to the United States and become naturalized citizens. * 1956: Dalip Singh Saund elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. He was re-elected to a second and third term, winning over 60% of the vote. He is also the first Asian immigrant from any country to be elected to Congress. * 1962:
Zubin Mehta Zubin Mehta (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mehta's father was the fou ...
appointed music director of the
Los Angeles Philharmonic The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at th ...
, becoming the first person of Indian origin to become the principal conductor of a major American orchestra. Subsequently, he was appointed principal conductor of the
New York Philharmonic The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...
. * 1964: Amar G. Bose founded
Bose Corporation Bose Corporation () is an American manufacturing company that predominantly sells audio equipment. The company was established by Amar Bose in 1964 and is based in Framingham, Massachusetts. It is best known for its home audio systems and spea ...
. He was the chairman, primary stockholder, and Technical Director at
Bose Corporation Bose Corporation () is an American manufacturing company that predominantly sells audio equipment. The company was established by Amar Bose in 1964 and is based in Framingham, Massachusetts. It is best known for its home audio systems and spea ...
. He was former professor of
electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...
. * 1965: President
Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
signs the INS Act of 1965 into law, eliminating per-country immigration quotas and introducing immigration on the basis of professional experience and education. Satinder Mullick is one of the first to immigrate under the new law in November 1965—sponsored by
Corning Glass Works Corning Incorporated is an American multinational technology company that specializes in specialty glass, ceramics, and related materials and technologies including advanced optics, primarily for industrial and scientific applications. The c ...
. * 1968:
Hargobind Khorana Har Gobind Khorana (9 January 1922 – 9 November 2011) was an Indian American biochemist. While on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and ...
shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for discovering the mechanisms by which RNA codes for the synthesis of proteins. He was then on faculty at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
, but later moved to MIT. * 1974: Mafat and Tulsi Patel open the first location of Patel Brothers on Devon Avenue in Chicago, one of the first Indian grocery chains in America * 1975: Launch of India-West, a leading newspaper covering issues of relevance to the Indian American community. * 1981: Suhas Patil co-founded
Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in Austin, Texas. The company's audio proces ...
, one of the first fabless semiconductor companies. * 1982:
Vinod Khosla Vinod Khosla (born 28 January 1955) is an Indian-American businessman and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas su ...
co-founded
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...
. * 1983: Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar won the Nobel Prize for Physics; Asian Indian Women in America attended the first White House Briefing for Asian American Women. (AAIWA, formed in 1980, is the 1st Indian women's organization in North America.) * 1985: Balu Natarajan becomes the first Indian-American to win the
Scripps National Spelling Bee The Scripps National Spelling Bee (formerly the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and commonly called the National Spelling Bee) is an annual spelling bee held in the United States. The bee is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scri ...
* 1987: President
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
appoints
Joy Cherian Dr. Joy Cherian is the first Asian American and first Indian American Commissioner at the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Joy Cherian was appointed as the Commissioner at the United States Equal Employment Opportun ...
, the first Indian Commissioner of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). * 1988: Sanjay Mehrotra co-founded
SanDisk SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquir ...
. * 1989: Launch of RBC Radio, the first South Asian-Indian radio station in the United States. * 1990: Shiva Subramanya (an India-born Nuclear Physicist and Space Scientist working at TRW, Inc) became the first South Asian and first Indian American to win the Medal of Merit, the AFCEA's highest award for a civilian and one of the America's top defense award, in recognition of his exceptional service to AFCEA and the fields of Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I). * 1994:
Rajat Gupta Rajat Kumar Gupta (; born ) is an Indian-American businessman and convicted felon who, as CEO, was the first foreign-born managing director of management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company from 1994 to 2003. In 2012, he was convicted for insider ...
elected
managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...
of
McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...
, the first Indian-born CEO of a multinational company. * 1994: Guitarist Kim Thayil, of Indian origin, wins Grammy award for his Indian inspired guitarwork on the album Superunknown by his band Soundgarden. * 1994:
Raj Reddy Dabbala Rajagopal "Raj" Reddy (born 13 June 1937) is an Indian-American computer scientist and a winner of the Turing Award. He is one of the early pioneers of artificial intelligence and has served on the faculty of Stanford and Carnegie Mello ...
received the ACM Turing Award (with Edward Feigenbaum) "For pioneering the design and construction of large scale artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the practical importance and potential commercial impact of artificial intelligence technology". * 1996: Pradeep Sindhu co-founded
Juniper Networks Juniper Networks, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and markets networking products, including routers, switches, network management software, network security product ...
* 1996:
Rajat Gupta Rajat Kumar Gupta (; born ) is an Indian-American businessman and convicted felon who, as CEO, was the first foreign-born managing director of management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company from 1994 to 2003. In 2012, he was convicted for insider ...
and
Anil Kumar Anil Kumar (born 1958) is an Indian-American former senior partner and director at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he co-founded McKinsey's offices in Silicon Valley and India and created its Internet practice (representi ...
of
McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...
co-found the Indian School of Business. * 1997: Kalpana Chawla, one of the six-member crew of STS-87 mission, becomes the first Indian American astronaut. * 1999: NASA names the third of its four "Great Observatories"
Chandra X-ray Observatory The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources ...
after
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; ) (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for " ...
the Indian-born American astrophysicist and a Nobel laureate. * 1999: Filmmaker
M. Night Shyamalan Manoj Nelliyattu M. Night Shyamalan ( ; born August 6, 1970) is an Indian-American filmmaker and actor. He is best known for making original films with contemporary supernatural plots and twist endings. He was born in Mahé, India, and raise ...
enters film history with his film ''
The Sixth Sense ''The Sixth Sense'' is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Bruce Willis as a child psychologist whose patient ( Haley Joel Osment) claims he can see and talk to the dead. Released ...
'' becoming one of the all-time highest-grossing films worldwide. * 1999: Rono Dutta becomes the president of
United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.
. * 2001: Professor Dipak C. Jain (born in
Tezpur Tezpur () is a city and urban agglomeration in Sonitpur district, Assam state, India. Tezpur is located on the banks of the river Brahmaputra, northeast of Guwahati, and is the largest of the north bank cities with a population exceeding 10 ...
Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
) appointed as dean of the
Kellogg School of Management The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (also known as Kellogg) is the business school of Northwestern University, a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1908, Kellogg is one of the oldest and most p ...
,
Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...
. * 2002: Professor of statistics Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao is awarded National Medal of Science by President George W. Bush. * 2005: Abhi Talwalkar becomes president and chief executive officer of LSI Corporation * 2006:
Indra Nooyi Indra Nooyi (née Krishnamurthy; born October 28, 1955) is an Indian-American business executive and former chief executive officer and chairperson of PepsiCo. She has consistently ranked among the world's 100 most powerful women. In 2014, sh ...
(born in
Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
) appointed as CEO of
PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manufa ...
. * 2007:
Bobby Jindal Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (born June 10, 1971) is an American politician who served as the 55th Governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016. The only living former Louisiana governor, Jindal also served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives ...
is elected governor of
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...
and is the first person of Indian descent to be elected governor of an American state. * 2007: Renu Khator appointed to a dual-role as chancellor of the University of Houston System and president of the
University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
. * 2007: Francisco D'Souza appointed as the president and CEO and of Cognizant Technology Solutions. He is one of the youngest chief executive officers in the software services sector at the age 38 in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. * 2007: Vikram Pandit (born in
Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nagpur is projected to ...
,
Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country subdi ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
) appointed as CEO of
Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi ( stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomera ...
. He was previously the president and CEO of the Institutional Securities and Investment Banking Group at
Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
. * 2007:
Shantanu Narayen Shantanu Narayen (born May 27, 1963) is an Indian-American business executive. He has been the chairman, president, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Adobe Inc. since December 2007. Before this, he was the company's president and chief op ...
appointed as
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of
Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the cre ...
. * 2008: Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson Henry Merritt Paulson Jr. (born March 28, 1946) is an American banker and financier who served as the 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 2006 to 2009. Prior to his role in the Department of the Treasury, Paulson was the Chairman a ...
appoints Neel Kashkari as the Interim U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability. * 2008:
Raj Chetty Nadarajan "Raj" Chetty (born August 4, 1979) is an Indian-American economist and the William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics at Harvard University. Some of Chetty's recent papers have studied equality of opportunity in the United States an ...
appointed as professor of economics at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
the age of 29, one of the youngest ever to receive tenure of professorship in the Department of Economics at Harvard. * 2008: Sanjay Jha appointed as Co-
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of Motorola, Inc.. * 2008: Establishment of the
South Asian American Digital Archive The South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that archives materials associated with the history of South Asian Americans. History SAADA was established in 2008 to preserve, document, and share the re ...
(SAADA) to document the history of the South Asian American community. * 2009: President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
appoints
Preet Bharara Preetinder Singh Bharara (; born October 13, 1968) is an Indian-born American lawyer, author, podcaster and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is curren ...
(born in
Firozpur Firozpur, also known as Ferozepur, is a city on the banks of the Sutlej River in Firozpur District, Punjab, India. After the partition of India in 1947, it became a border town on the India–Pakistan border with memorials to soldiers who die ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
; graduate of
Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...
Class of 1990 and
Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...
Class of 1993) as United States attorney for the Southern District of New York
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. *
Farah Pandith Farah Pandith (born January 13, 1968) is an American academic of Indian descent. She was appointed the first-ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities in June 2009 by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.Aneesh Paul Chopra as the first American Federal Chief Technology Officer of the United States (CTO). * 2009: President Barack Obama appoints
Eboo Patel Eboo Patel is an American Ismaili of Gujarati Indian heritage and founder and president of Interfaith America (previously known as Interfaith Youth Core), a Chicago-based international nonprofit that aims to promote interfaith cooperation. Pat ...
and
Anju Bhargava Anju Bhargava is a management consultant who was a member of President Barack Obama's inaugural Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnership. Work Bhargava began her career as a banker and has held senior-level positions in corp ...
on President's Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. * 2009: President Barack Obama appoints Vinai Thummalapally as the U.S. Ambassador to Belize * 2009: President Barack Obama nominates Rajiv Shah, M.D. as the new head of
United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 b ...
. * 2009: President Barack Obama nominates Islam A. Siddiqui as the Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. * 2010: President of Harvard University Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust appoints
Nitin Nohria Nitin Nohria (born February 9, 1962) is an Indian-American academic. He was the tenth dean of Harvard Business School. He is also the George F. Baker Professor of Administration. He is a former non-executive director of Tata Sons. Early life and ...
as the tenth dean of
Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...
. * 2010: President of
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
Robert Zimmer Robert Jeffrey Zimmer (born November 5, 1947) is an American mathematician and academic administrator. From 2006 until 2021, he served as the 13th president of the University of Chicago and as the Chair of the Board for Argonne National Lab, F ...
appoints Sunil Kumar as the dean of
University of Chicago Booth School of Business The University of Chicago Booth School of Business (Chicago Booth or Booth) is the graduate business school of the University of Chicago. Founded in 1898, Chicago Booth is the second-oldest business school in the U.S. and is associated with 10 N ...
. * 2010:
Deven Sharma Deven Sharma (born 1956 in Jharkhand) is an Indian businessman. Biography Early life and education Sharma attended De Nobili School, FRI, Digwadih, Dhanbad. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, India, ...
appointed president of
Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is con ...
. * 2010: Ajaypal Banga appointed president and CEO of MasterCard. * 2010: President Barack Obama nominates Subra Suresh, Dean of Engineering at MIT as director of
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
. * 2010: Year marks the most candidates of Indian origin, running for political offices in the United States, including candidates such as
Ami Bera Amerish Babulal "Ami" Bera (; born March 2, 1965) is an American physician and politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, his district encompasses most of Sacramento's eastern and southern sub ...
. * 2010: State Representative
Nikki Haley Nimrata Nikki Haley (née Randhawa; born January 20, 1972) is an American diplomat and politician who served as the 116th and first female governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, and as the 29th United States Ambassador to the United Nat ...
is elected Governor of
South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...
and becomes the first Indian American woman and second Indian American in general to become Governor of an American state. * 2011: Jamshed Bharucha named president of
Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique ...
. Previous to that, he was appointed dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
in 2001, the first Indian American dean at an
Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
institution, and Provost at
Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
in 2002. * 2011: Satish K. Tripathi appointed as President of University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. * 2011: Rohit Gupta wins over 100 international awards & accolades for his films '' Life! Camera Action...'' and '' Another Day Another Life''. * 2011:
Bobby Jindal Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (born June 10, 1971) is an American politician who served as the 55th Governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016. The only living former Louisiana governor, Jindal also served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives ...
is re-elected
Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
of
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...
. * 2012:
Ami Bera Amerish Babulal "Ami" Bera (; born March 2, 1965) is an American physician and politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, his district encompasses most of Sacramento's eastern and southern sub ...
is elected to the House of Representatives from California. * 2013: Vistap Karbhari appointed as president of
University of Texas at Arlington The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA or UT Arlington) is a public research university in Arlington, Texas. The university was founded in 1895 and was in the Texas A&M University System for several decades until joining the University of ...
* 2013: Sri Srinivasan is confirmed as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. * 2013:
Nina Davuluri Nina Davuluri (born April 20, 1989) is an American public speaker, advocate, and beauty queen who hosts the reality show ''Made in America'' on Zee TV America from Manhattan. As Miss America 2014, she became the first Indian American contestan ...
wins Miss America 2014. * 2013: Arun M Kumar appointed as assistant secretary and director general of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, International Trade Administration in the Department of Commerce. * 2014:
Satya Nadella Satya Narayana Nadella (, ; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-American business executive. He is the executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. Before becoming CEO, ...
appointed as CEO of
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
. * 2014: Vivek Murthy appointed as the nineteenth
Surgeon General of the United States The surgeon general of the United States is the operational head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. T ...
. He returned to the role again in 2021 to serve as the twenty-first Surgeon General. * 2014:
Rakesh Khurana Rakesh Khurana (born November 22, 1967) is an Indian-American educator. He is a professor of sociology at Harvard University, Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School and the Danoff Dean of Harvard College. Early life an ...
appointed as the dean of
Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...
, the original founding college of
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
. * 2014: Manjul Bhargava wins Fields Medal in Mathematics. * 2015: Sundar Pichai appointed as the chairman and CEO of
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
. * 2016: Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, and Raja Krishnamoorthi are elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. This puts the total number of people of Indian and South Asian origin in Congress at 5, the largest in history. * 2016: President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
nominates Seema Verma to lead the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer M ...
. Her nomination is confirmed in 2017. * 2017: Hasan Minhaj roasts President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
at the
White House Correspondents' Association The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is an organization of journalists who cover the White House and the president of the United States. The WHCA was founded on February 25, 1914, by journalists in response to an unfounded rumor t ...
Dinner, becoming the first Indian American and Muslim-American to perform at the event. * 2017: President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
nominates Ajit Pai as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). * 2017: Balvir Singh was elected to the
Burlington County Burlington County is a county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The county is the largest by area in New Jersey. Its county seat is Mount Holly.
Board of Chosen Freeholders,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
on November 7, 2017. He became the first Asian-American to win a countywide election in Burlington County and the first Sikh, Sikh-American to win a countywide election in New Jersey. * 2019: Seven out of the eight winners of the
Scripps National Spelling Bee The Scripps National Spelling Bee (formerly the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and commonly called the National Spelling Bee) is an annual spelling bee held in the United States. The bee is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scri ...
(Saketh Sundar, Abhijay Kodali, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhatankar, Christopher Serrao, Rohan Raja, and Rishik Gandhasri), are Indian Americans. They have broken the spelling bee according to several experts and have dominated this American institution. * 2019: Lilly Singh became the first person of Indian descent to host an American major broadcast network late-night talk show A Little Late with Lilly Singh. * 2019: Abhijit Banerjee is awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. * 2020: Kash Patel is named chief of staff to the Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller. * 2020: Arvind Krishna appointed as the CEO of IBM. * 2021:
Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
, born to an Indian mother, became the first woman and first Indian origin Vice President of the United States. * 2021: Parag Agrawal appointed as the CEO of Twitter. * 2022: Laxman Narasimhan appointed CEO of Starbucks. * 2022: Shruti Miyashiro appointed as the President and CEO of Digital Federal Credit Union (DCU). * 2022: Aruna Miller elected the first
Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peopl ...
lieutenant governor of Maryland and first South Asian woman elected lieutenant governor in the U.S.


Classification

According to the Race (United States Census), official U.S. racial categories employed by the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of th ...
, Office of Management and Budget and other U.S. government agencies, American citizens or resident aliens who marked "''Asian Indian''" as their ancestry or wrote in a term that was automatically classified as an Asian Indian became classified as part of the Asian race at the 2000 US Census. As with other modern official U.S. government racial categories, the term "Asian" is in itself a broad and heterogeneous classification, encompassing all peoples with origins in the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. In previous decades, Indian Americans were also variously classified as
White American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
, the "Hindu race", and "other". Even today, where individual Indian Americans do not racially self-identify, and instead report
Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
, Jewish, and
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...
as their "race" in the "some other race" section without noting their country of origin, they are automatically tallied as white. This may result in the counting of persons such as Indian Muslims, Indian Jews, and Parsi people, Indian Zoroastrians as white, if they solely report their religious heritage without their national origin.


Current issues


Discrimination

In the 1980s, a gang known as the Dotbusters specifically targeted Indian Americans in India Square, Jersey City, New Jersey with violence and harassment. Studies of racial discrimination, as well as stereotyping and scapegoating of Indian Americans have been conducted in recent years. In particular, racial discrimination against Indian Americans in the workplace has been correlated with Indophobia due to the rise in outsourcing/offshoring, whereby Indian Americans are blamed for US companies offshoring White-collar worker, white-collar labor to
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
.Worries about technical-job losses, discrimination
, by Amy Yee, The Financial Times Ltd., 2004
According to the offices of the Congressional Caucus on India, many Indian Americans are severely concerned of a backlash, though nothing serious has taken place. Due to various socio-cultural reasons, implicit racial discrimination against Indian Americans largely go unreported by the Indian American community. Numerous cases of religious stereotyping of American Hindus (mainly of Indian origin) have also been documented. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, there have been scattered incidents of Indian Americans becoming mistaken targets for hate crimes. In one example, a
Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was murdered at a Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix gas station by a White supremacy, white supremacist. This happened after September 11 attacks, September 11, and the murderer claimed that his turban made him think that the victim was a Middle-Eastern Americans, Middle Eastern American. In another example, a pizza deliverer was mugged and beaten in Massachusetts for "being
Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
" though the victim pleaded with the assailants that he was in fact a
Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
. In December 2012, an Indian American in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
was pushed from behind onto the tracks at the 40th Street-Lowery Street station in Sunnyside, Queens, Sunnyside and killed. The police arrested a woman, Erika Menendez, who admitted to the act and justified it, stating that she shoved him onto the tracks because she believed he was "a Hindu or a Muslim" and she wanted to retaliate for the attacks of September 11, 2001. In 2004, New York Senator Hillary Clinton joked at a fundraising event with South Asians for Nancy Farmer that
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
owned a gas station in downtown St. Louis, fueling the stereotype that gas stations are owned by Indians and other South Asians. She clarified in the speech later that she was just joking, but still received some criticism for the statement later on for which she apologized again. On April 5, 2006, the Hindu Mandir of Minnesota was vandalized allegedly on the basis of religious discrimination. The vandals damaged temple property leading to $200,000 worth of damage. On August 11, 2006, Senator George Allen (U.S. politician), George Allen allegedly referred to an opponent's political staffer of Indian ancestry as "macaca (slur), macaca" and commenting, "Welcome to America, to the real world of Virginia". Some members of the Indian American community saw Allen's comments, and the backlash that may have contributed to Allen Macaca moment, losing his re-election bid, as demonstrative of the power of YouTube in the 21st century. In 2006, then Delaware U.S. Senator, Senator and current President of the United States, U.S President Joe Biden was caught on microphone saying: "In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." On August 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page shot eight people and killed six at a Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. On February 22, 2017, recent immigrants Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani were shot at a bar in Olathe, Kansas by Adam Purinton, a white American who mistook them for persons of Middle Eastern descent, yelling "get out of my country" and "terrorist". Kuchibhotla died instantly while Madasani was injured, but later recovered. Punjabi Sikh Americans in Indianapolis suffered many losses in their community on April 15, 2021, during the Indianapolis FedEx shooting in which gunman Brandon Scott Hole, with a currently unknown motive, entered a FedEx warehouse and killed eight people, half of whom were Sikh. The Sikh victims were Jaswinder Singh, Jasvinder Kaur, Amarjit Sekhon, and Amarjeet Johal. Ninety percent of the workers at the facility were Sikh according to some accounts. Another Sikh, Taptejdeep Singh, was one of the nine people killed in the 2021 San Jose shooting, San Jose shooting on May 26.


Immigration

Indians are among the largest ethnic groups legally immigrating to the United States. The immigration of Indians has taken place in several waves since the first Indian came to the United States in the 1700s. A major wave of immigration to California from the region of Punjab took place in the first decade of the 20th century. Another significant wave followed in the 1950s which mainly included students and professionals. The elimination of immigration quotas in 1965 spurred successively larger waves of immigrants in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With the technology boom of the 1990s, the largest influx of Indians arrived between 1995 and 2000. This latter group has also caused surge in the application for various immigration benefits including applications for green card. This has resulted in long waiting periods for people born in India from receiving these benefits. As of 2012, over 330,000 Indians were on the visa wait list, third only to Mexican people, Mexico and Filipino people, The Philippines. In December, 2015, over 30 Indian students seeking admission in two US universities—Silicon Valley University and the Northwestern Polytechnic University—were denied entry by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Customs and Border Protection and were deported to India. Conflicting reports suggested that the students were deported because of the controversies surrounding the above-mentioned two universities. However, another report suggested that the students were deported as they had provided conflicting information at the time of their arrival in US to what was mentioned in their visa application. "According to the US Government, the deported persons had presented information to the border patrol agent which was inconsistent with their visa status," read an advisory published by Ministry of External Affairs (India) which was published in the Hindustan Times. Following the incident, the Indian government asked the US government to honour the visas given by its embassies and consulates. In response, the United States embassy advised the students considering studying in the US to seek assistance from Education USA.


Citizenship

Unlike many countries, India does not allow dual citizenship. Consequently, many Indian citizens residing in U.S., who do not want to lose their Indian nationality, do not apply for American citizenship (ex. Raghuram Rajan). However, many Indian Americans obtain Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) status, which allows them to live and work in India indefinitely.


Income disparities

Although Indian Americans have the highest average and median household income of any demographic group in America, there exist significant and severe income disparities among various communities of Indian Americans. In
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
, the average family income of Indian Americans was roughly $273,000, while in Fresno, California, Fresno, the average family income of Indian Americans was only $24,000, an eleven-fold difference.


Illegal immigration

In 2009, the United States Department of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland Security estimated that there were 200,000 Indian unauthorized immigrants; they are the sixth largest nationality (tied with Koreans) of illegal immigrants behind Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Philippines. Indian Americans have had an increase in illegal immigration of 25% since 2000. In 2014,
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and th ...
estimated that there are 450,000 undocumented Indians in the United States.


Media


Politics

Several groups have tried to create a voice for Indian Americans in political affairs, including the United States India Political Action Committee and the Indian American Leadership Initiative, as well as panethnic groups such as South Asian Americans Leading Together and Desis Rising Up and Moving. Additionally, there are industry groups such as the Asian American Hotel Owners Association and the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin. A majority tend to identify as moderates and have voted for Democratic Party (United States), Democrats in recent elections, in particular supporting
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
in vast numbers. Polls before the 2004 United States presidential election, 2004 presidential election showed Indian Americans favoring Democratic candidate John Kerry over Republican Party (United States), Republican George W. Bush by a 53% to 14% margin, with 30% undecided at the time. The Republican party has tried to target this community for political support, and in 2007, Republican Congressman
Bobby Jindal Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (born June 10, 1971) is an American politician who served as the 55th Governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016. The only living former Louisiana governor, Jindal also served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives ...
became the first United States Governor of Indian descent when he was elected Governor of Louisiana.
Nikki Haley Nimrata Nikki Haley (née Randhawa; born January 20, 1972) is an American diplomat and politician who served as the 116th and first female governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, and as the 29th United States Ambassador to the United Nat ...
, also of Indian descent and a fellow Republican, became Governor of South Carolina in South Carolina gubernatorial election, 2010, 2010. Republican Neel Kashkari is also of Indian descent and ran for Governor of California in California gubernatorial election, 2014, 2014. Raja Krishnamoorthi who is a lawyer, engineer and community leader from Schaumburg, Illinois has been the Congressman representing Illinois's 8th congressional district since 2017. Jenifer Rajkumar is a Lower Manhattan district leader and the first Indian American woman elected to the state legislature in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
history. In 2016,
Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
(the daughter of a Tamil Americans, Tamil Indian American mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, and an Afro-Jamaican American father, Donald J. Harris, Donald Harris) became the first Indian American and second African American female to serve in the United States Senate. In 2020 United States presidential election, 2020, she briefly Kamala Harris 2020 presidential campaign, ran for President of the United States and was later chosen as the Democratic Party's vice-presidential nominee, running alongside Joe Biden. Indian Americans have played a significant role in promoting better India–United States relations, turning the cold attitude of American legislators to a positive perception of India in the post-Cold War era. File:Ami Bera official portrait.jpg, Representative
Ami Bera Amerish Babulal "Ami" Bera (; born March 2, 1965) is an American physician and politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, his district encompasses most of Sacramento's eastern and southern sub ...
from California File:12.19.17RaviBhallaByLuigiNovi2.jpg, Ravinder Bhalla, 39th Mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey File:Bharara, Preet Headshot.jpg,
Preet Bharara Preetinder Singh Bharara (; born October 13, 1968) is an Indian-born American lawyer, author, podcaster and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is curren ...
served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
. File:Vin_Gopal.jpg, Representative Vin Gopal, New Jersey's 11th legislative district File:Nikki Haley official photo.jpg,
Nikki Haley Nimrata Nikki Haley (née Randhawa; born January 20, 1972) is an American diplomat and politician who served as the 116th and first female governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, and as the 29th United States Ambassador to the United Nat ...
was the 29th United States Ambassador to the United Nations and 116th Governor of South Carolina. File:Kamala Harris Vice Presidential Portrait (cropped).jpg,
Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
is the
Vice President of the United States The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice p ...
and was the first person of Indian descent elected to the United States Senate File:Bobby Jindal August 2015.jpg,
Bobby Jindal Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (born June 10, 1971) is an American politician who served as the 55th Governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016. The only living former Louisiana governor, Jindal also served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives ...
was the 58th Governor of Louisiana and a former representative. File:Pramila Jayapal 115th Congress photo.jpg, Representative Pramila Jayapal from Washington. File:Ro Khanna, official portrait, 115th Congress.jpg, Representative Ro Khanna from California. File:Raja Krishnamoorthi official photo.jpg, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois. File:Jr-high-res.jpg, New York State Assembly, New York Assembly Representative Jenifer Rajkumar of Indians in Queens, Queens File:Dalip Singh Saund.jpg, Dalip Singh Saund was in 1956 the first Asian American, Indian American, and member of a non-Abrahamic faith (Sikhism) to be elected to the United States Congress. File:Shri Thanedar on The Bart Hawley Show.jpg, Representative Shri Thanedar from Michigan.


Notable people


See also

* Indians in the New York City metropolitan area * India–United States relations * Indo-Canadians, Indian Canadians * Indo-Caribbean Americans * Non-resident Indian and person of Indian origin, Indian diaspora * Racial classification of Indian Americans * Romani Americans


References


Further reading

* Atkinson, David C. ''The burden of white supremacy: Containing Asian migration in the British empire and the United States'' (U North Carolina Press, 2016). * Bacon, Jean. ''Life Lines: Community, Family, and Assimilation among Asian Indian Immigrants'' (Oxford UP, 1996). * Bhalla, Vibha. "'Couch potatoes and super-women' Gender, migration, and the emerging discourse on housework among Asian Indian immigrants." ''Journal of American Ethnic History'' 27.4 (2008): 71–99
online
* * Joshi, Khyati Y. ''New Roots in America's Sacred Ground: Religion, Race and Ethnicity in Indian America'' (Rutgers UP, 2006). * Khandelwal, Madhulika S. ''Becoming American, Being Indian: An Immigrant Community in New York City'' (Cornell UP, 2002). * Maira, Sunaina Marr. ''Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture in NYC'' (Temple UP, 2002). * Min, Pyong Gap, and Young Oak Kim. "Ethnic and sub-ethnic attachments among Chinese, Korean, and Indian immigrants in New York City." ''Ethnic and Racial Studies'' 32.5 (2009): 758–780. * Pavri, Tinaz. "Asian Indian Americans." ''Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America'', edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2014), pp. 165–178
online
* * Rudrappa, Sharmila. ''Ethnic Routes to Becoming American: Indian Immigrants and the Cultures of Citizenship'' (Rutgers UP, 2004). * Schlund-Vials, Cathy J., Linda Trinh Võ, and K. Scott Wong, eds. ''Keywords for Asian American Studies'' (NYU Press, 2015). * Shukla, Sandhya. ''India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England'' (Princeton UP, 2003). * Sohi, Seema. ''Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America'' (2014
excerpt
* * Stephan Thernstrom, Thernstrom, Stephan; Orlov, Ann; Oscar Handlin, Handlin, Oscar, eds. ''Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups'', Harvard University Press, , (1980), pp 296–301
available to borrow online


External links


The American Institute of India Studies (AIIS)


* [https://www.saada.org/tides/article/1917-2017 From 1917 to 2017 Immigration, Exclusion, and "National Security"] by Seema Sohi
Widely exhibited across museums in the US, historic photography project of Indians living in the late 1980s in America
{{Indian Americans by location Indian American, American people of Indian descent, * Asian-American society Indian diaspora in the United States, American South Asian American