Indian Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The term Asian Indian is used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, who are also referred to as "Indians" or "American Indians." With a population of more than 4.4 million, Indian Americans make up approximately 1.35% of the U.S. population and are the largest group of South Asian Americans, the largest Asian-alone group, and the largest group of Asian Americans after Chinese Americans. Indian Americans are the highest-earning ethnic group in the United States.
Terminology
In the Americas, the term "Indian" had historically been used to describe indigenous people since European colonization 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) by the U.S. Census Bureau.
While "East Indian" remains in use, the term "Indian" and "South Asian" is often chosen instead for academic and governmental purposes. Indian Americans are included in the census grouping of South Asian Americans, which includes Bangladeshi Americans, Bhutanese Americans, Maldivian Americans, Nepalese Americans, Pakistani Americans, and Sri Lankan Americans.
History
Pre-1800
Beginning in the 17th century, members of the East India Company would bring Indian servants to the American colonies. There were also some East Indian slaves in the United States during the American colonial era. In particular, court records from the 1700s indicate a number of "East Indians" were held as slaves in Maryland and Delaware. Upon freedom, they are said to have blended into the free African American population, considered "mulattoes".
Three brothers from "modern day India or Pakistan" received their freedom in 1710 and married into a Native American tribe in Virgina. The present-day Nansemond people trace their lineage to this intermarriage.
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. His race is listed as white, suggesting he was of British descent.
By 1900, there were more than 2,000 Indian Sikhs living in the United States, primarily in California. (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 system for small landowners, and by drought 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.
The presence of Indians in the U.S. also helped develop interest in Eastern religions in the U.S. and would result in its influence on American philosophies such as transcendentalism. Swami Vivekananda arriving in Chicago at the World's Fair led to the establishment of the Vedanta Society.
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. 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 and Western Pacific Railroad 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.
