Racial classification of Indian Americans
[8] Three brothers from modern day "India or Pakistan" received their freedom in 1710 and married into a Native American tribe in Virginia.
Court clerks classified these early immigrants from the Punjab region as being "black", "white", or "brown" based on their skin color for the purpose of marriage licenses.
[1] The perception of Indian Americans as foreigners sometimes helped provide for better treatment, especially in states where de jure segregation was in place.
[11] As opposed to being seen as black, in some states Indians were seen as outside of the traditional American racial spectrum, and consequently freed from the encumbrances which that system entailed.
[19] Following the George Floyd protests of the 2020s, some segments of the American-born South Asian community have renewed calls for camaraderie with African Americans.
[25] Dick Harpootlian, chairman of the South Carolina Democrats, stated "Haley has been appearing on television interviews where she calls herself a minority—when it suits her...
[29] The racial prejudice associated with this identification created strong anti-racist sentiments in authors such as Vivekananda, which in turn influenced the philosophies of W. E. B.
[34][35] After her win in 2013, Miss America winner Nina Davuluri was taunted online and called an "Arab" and a "terrorist" due to this misconception among the American public.
[36] In 2015, Sureshbhai Patel was described by a suspicious caller as a "skinny black guy" before he was beaten and severely injured by Alabama police officers.
[24][39] In 2019, it was noted that there were several presidential candidates of Asian American or Pacific Islander origin, including Andrew Yang and Kamala Harris, who are of Taiwanese and Indian descent respectively.
Frequently described by the media and campaigning himself as 'the' Asian American candidate,[40] Yang stated that his "Asian-ness [is] kind of obvious in a way that might not be true of Kamala or even Tulsi... That's not a choice.
Thirty years later, the same Circuit Court to accept Balsara ruled that Rustom Dadabhoy Wadia, another Parsi from Bombay, was colored and therefore not eligible to receive U.S.
[43] The court conceded that, while Thind was a high caste Hindu born in the northern Punjab region and classified by certain scientific authorities as of the Aryan race, he was not "white" since the word Aryan "has to do with linguistic and not necessarily with physical characteristics" and since "the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences" between Indians and White Americans.
[46] However, these efforts were forced to end by the government's loss in court in the case against Thind's own lawyer, a Californian named Sakharam Ganesh Pandit.
[51] In 1946, Congress, beginning to recognize that India would soon be independent, passed a new law that allowed Indians to become citizens, while also establishing an immigration quota.
When the Office of Management and Budget announced proposed official racial classifications in 1976, Asian Indians were put into the white category.
The Court of Appeals denied this 19th century classification of race, stating that Indian people are a distinct ethnic group of their own.
The Court of Appeals affirmed that Sandhu was subject to discriminatory hostility, based on being a member of a distinct racial group.
The report describes how, as it was deliberating on how to classify groups for the 1970 U.S. census, South Asians presented a problem for the Ad Hoc Committee.
The report presented the classification problem as how to classify South Asians, as there had been little discussion surrounding their unique ethnic identity.
Unsure of their status, the Ad Hoc Committee failed to designate South Asians as a minority category, and any respondents were classified as White Americans in the 1970 U.S.
[58] Upon learning of the Ad Hoc Committee's decision, the Association of Indians in America (AIA) mobilized to seek better representation.
In the U.S. census, Indians display the highest likelihood of selecting the "African American or black" category, while Sri Lankans followed by Pakistanis are most likely to describe themselves as "white".
