Community
Impact of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the country-of-origins quotas which had previously favored Western and Northern European immigrants and barred Asian and non-white immigrants from entry to the U.S. In place of the formerly discriminatory quotas, this law created a preference system that focused on professionals and relatives of citizens and permanent residents. Additionally, immediate family members were exempt from numeric limits. This paved the way for highly skilled Indian immigrants and the chain migration of family reunification in the U.S.
This transformative policy not only diversified the origins of immigrants entering the U.S. but also laid the groundwork for a significant increase in the immigration of Indians to the U.S., which has notably been a steady and continuous trend as evidenced by Fig. 1, which highlights the dramatic growth of the Indian American population in recent years.
Fig. 1 data: Between 2010 and 2020 the Indian American population increased 54.7% to 4,397,737 to become the most populous Asian alone group in the nation.
Diversity
There are many different states within India that each have their own cultural traditions, heritage, languages, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, and experiences.
While the intial wave of immigrants post-1965 act might have been dominated by the wealthier, urban, elite class of highly educated Indians, the family reuinification preference and second/third generations of Indian Americans have provided for a range of heterogenity in the Indian American community. To help illustrate the various backgrounds and diversity of Indian Americans there is a helpful video explaining the different regions of India down below.
Discrimination
"So what are you? Go back where you belong!"
I would be remiss in my presentation of the Indian American Immigration experience if I didn't agknowledge the discrimination that occurs in the lives of many Indian Americans. Sometimes this can take the form of subtle microaggressions through comments or behaviors, or perhaps even unspoken prejudices. Other times, the xenophobia and discrimination against the Indian American community is blatant as shown above in the quote taken from Indian American author of Beyond Ethnic Loneliness: The Pain of Marginalization and the Path to Belonging, Prasanta Verman's book of an interaction between herself and a a racist American woman when she was a child.
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