Desi In America

Ruchira Paul points to a new study which places Desi arrival in America to the early 17th century,

But unlike the indentured labor populations of Africa, the Caribbeans and Fiji, the newcomers to America were young, single men who either followed their English masters as servants or were poor ship hands shanghaied to the New World by mercenaries. The men had neither the opportunity to marry Indian women in America nor the wherewithal to travel back to India to bring over relatives. They thus lacked the critical mass of compatriots needed to form a community reflecting their cultural roots. Grouped together with other slaves, mostly from Africa, unable to keep alive an Indian identity, the Indian servants gradually “disappeared” into the African slave population.