CleanupBot II: Removed empty portal template using script

2023-08-14T13:59:56Z

Removed empty portal template using script

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:29, 14 August 2023
Line 20:		Line 20:

	==See also==		==See also==
	~~{{Portal\|California\|Hispanic and Latino Americans\|India\|Mexico\|Pakistan\|Punjab}}~~
	* [[Indian immigration to Mexico]]		* [[Indian immigration to Mexico]]
	Other merged inter-ethnic/racial groups in North America		Other merged inter-ethnic/racial groups in North America

imported>Foxhound03: Grammar, missing comma was added

2021-02-15T23:45:13Z

Grammar, missing comma was added

New page

{{short description|Americans descended from Punjabi people who initially immigrated to Mexico}}
[[File:SinghYubaCity.jpg|thumb|A Punjabi-Mexican American couple, Valentina Alarez and Rullia Singh, posing for their wedding photo in 1917. Rullia Singh owned a [[chicken curry|Caribbean curry]] stall with [[roti]]|262x262px]]{{Chicano and Mexican American topics sidebar|state=collapsed}}The '''Punjabi Mexican American''' community, the majority of which is localized to [[Yuba City, California]], is a distinctive cultural phenomenon holding its roots in a migration pattern that occurred almost a century ago. The first meeting of these cultures occurred in the [[Imperial Valley (California)|Imperial Valley]] in 1907, near the largest irrigation system in the [[Western hemisphere]].
==Punjabi immigration==
{{See also|Punjabi American}}
For decades in the early 20th century, [[Punjabi people|Punjabi]] farming families sent their sons out of [[Punjab region|Punjab]] to earn money.<ref name="sikh">{{cite web|url=http://www.sikhpioneers.org/cpma.html|title=The World & I|author=Karen Leonard, PhD|publisher=The Washington Times Corporation|date=May 1989|access-date=2007-06-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609180326/http://www.sikhpioneers.org/cpma.html|archive-date=2007-06-09|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Palhotra, Nishi. "[http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2008/03/2124 The 'dirty Hindus']." ''[[Hardnews]]''. March 2008. Retrieved on April 15, 2012.</ref> Intending to return to the Punjab, only a handful of men brought their wives and families. In the [[United States]], however, due to changed immigration laws it was not possible for the families of Punjabi workers to join them. Beyond this, poor wages and working conditions convinced the Punjabi workers to pool their resources, lease land and grow their own crops, thereby establishing themselves in the newly budding farming economy of northern California.<ref name="pbs">{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/rootsinthesand/|title=Roots in the sand|author=Jayasri Majumdar Hart|publisher=PBS}}</ref>

==Mexican immigration==
{{See also|Mexican American}}
Almost one million Mexican immigrants began entering America in the 1910s, shortly after the [[Mexican Revolution]], with a large percentage arriving in families. A small number of these families picked cotton in fields farmed by Punjabi men. The Punjabi men are thought to have chosen women of Mexican ancestry for many reasons. Mexican women were accessible in southern California; in the central and northern areas of the state most Punjabi men remained bachelors.{{Citation needed|date=October 2008}}.

Mexican women, much like the women of [[Punjab region|Punjab]], covered their heads and bodies to protect themselves from the blazing sun while working in the fields.<ref name="pbs"/> Mexicans and Punjabis shared a rural way of life; with similar types of food and family values, and thus maintained a similar material and social culture. Mexicans and Punjabis shared an initially lower class status in American society.<ref name="sikh"/>

==Intermarriage==
Punjabi men married Mexican women laborers and there were eventually almost four hundred of these biethnic couples clustered in California’s agricultural valley.<ref name="sikh"/> Husbands and wives spoke to each other in rudimentary English or Spanish. The men tended to be older, in their late thirties or forties, and the women in their early twenties. Punjabi men learned Spanish to communicate with Mexican agricultural laborers and to speak to their wives. Some Punjabi men adopted Spanish names or nicknames: Miguel for Maghar, Andrés for Inder, Mondo for Mohammed.<ref name="sikh"/>

The fathers transmitted little of [[Punjabi culture]] to their wives and children, except for food and funeral practices. Cooking in the home drew from both [[Mexican cuisine|Mexican]] and [[Punjabi cuisine|Punjabi]] cuisines and the men taught their wives to cook [[chicken curry]], [[roti]], and various vegetable [[curries]]. For example, the Rasul family in Yuba City runs the only Mexican restaurant in California that features chicken curry and roti.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.saada.org/news/20130805-3071|title=A visit to Yuba City, California|last=(SAADA)|first=South Asian American Digital Archive|date=2013-08-05|work=South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)|access-date=2017-12-31|language=en}}</ref> Another important retention of Punjabi culture was the disposition of the body upon death. The [[Punjabi Hindus|Hindus]] and [[Sikhs]] insisted upon [[cremation]], then uncommon in North America, and [[Punjabi Muslims|Muslims]] carried out orthodox burial ceremonies for each other (though the plots in which they are buried in rural California have since been misnamed "Hindu plots"). The wives were buried in the Mexican [[Catholic]] section of local cemeteries, as were the children.<ref name="sikh"/>

== Notable people ==
* [[Mike Mohamed]] (b. 1988), American football linebacker

==See also==
{{Portal|California|Hispanic and Latino Americans|India|Mexico|Pakistan|Punjab}}
* [[Indian immigration to Mexico]]
Other merged inter-ethnic/racial groups in North America
*[[Cherokee Freedmen Controversy]] (African-American Cherokees)
*[[Chindian]]s (of mixed Chinese and Indian ancestry)
*[[Hapa]] (of commonly Native Hawaiian/Asian American descent)
*[[Irish Quebecers]] (French speaking Canadians of Irish descent)
*[[Métis]] (Native-American/English or French descent)
*[[Mestizos in the United States|Mestizo Americans]] (Native-American/Spanish descent born in North America)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |title=Making Ethnic Choices: California's Punjabi Mexican Americans |last=Leonard |first=Karen |year=1994 |publisher=Temple University Press |isbn=9781566392020 |pages=362 |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Making_Ethnic_Choices.html?id=_OixUUiSuLQC }}

==External links==
*[http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2008/03/2124 Article on Punjabi-Mexicans]

{{Punjabi diaspora}}
{{Hispanics/Latinos}}
{{Asian Americans}}
{{NRI-PIO}}
{{Pakistani diaspora}}

[[Category:Indian-American culture in California]]
[[Category:Mexican-American culture in California]]
[[Category:Chicano]]
[[Category:Indian diaspora in the United States]]
[[Category:Pakistani diaspora in the United States]]
[[Category:Indian American]]
[[Category:Mexican American]]
[[Category:Pakistani-American history]]
[[Category:Central Valley (California)]]
[[Category:Punjabi American|Mexican]]

Punjabi Mexican Americans - Revision history

CleanupBot II: Removed empty portal template using script

imported>Foxhound03: Grammar, missing comma was added