

The Punjabi-Mexican marriages were a direct result of these laws. Men who had planned on bringing their families or getting brides from India suddenly found this option blocked. Marrying white women was even more dangerous since it brought them up against miscegenation laws. Mexican women were then the best alternative. These Punjabis of peasant stock found many similarities with the Mexican peasants.



Moola Singh, who had 13 children from three marriages to Mexicans, put it vividly when he recalled how similar he found it when he visited Mexico: “Just like India, just like it. Adobe houses in Mexico, they sit on floor there, make tortillas (roti you know). All kinds of food the same, eat from plates sometimes, some places tables and benches. India the same, used to eat on the floor, or cutting two boards, made benches.”



Hearth in Foreign Land



It wasn’t always that easy though. The Mexican community initially objected strongly, sometimes even kidnapping the women to take them back. It probably helped though that many of the Punjabis were physically tall and imposing and they were able to defend themselves effectively. In time the Punjabi-Mexican marriages became more accepted, with the women often recruiting other women from their families to marry other Punjabis.



But cultural adjustments still had to be made. The men had to accept women with more rights and independence than in India, while for the women there was the knowledge that many of these men had Indian families and also the expectation that they had to cook and keep house for more than one man, since many of the Punjabis had formed partnerships to help in the farming.



Divorce and violence were not uncommon. One of the first Punjabi-Mexican marriages, between Valentina Alvarez and Rullia Singh in 1917, ended in tragedy when Alvarez decided to leave home and sought the help of her daughter from an earlier marriage, who had also married a Punjabi. Singh expected his compatriot to support him, but when he didn’t, he shot the other man and was convicted for his murder.



Yet many of the marriages did work, both for practical and emotional reasons. The women were often better educated than the men, so were able to serve as interpreters between them and American culture. Religion was, perhaps surprisingly, rarely a source of conflict.



Perhaps after they realised that their hopes of getting family members from India were barred, many of men made adjustments to American culture like removing their turbans. They still spoke Punjabi among themselves and went to Stockton where the first gurdwara in the US came up exactly 100 years ago, in 1912. But they did not impose these choices on their wives and allowed them to bring up their children as Catholics.



Love and Death



In her interviews, Leonard noted a strong sense with many of the men of putting India behind them, even as they remained proud of their identities. They identified with America now, and some would contrast the relative classlessness of their new country with the caste- and tradition-bound society they had left behind. They rarely taught their children Punjabi and kept only the easiest parts of Indian culture, like making chicken curry to go with tortillas.







They took on more Mexican names — Inder becoming Andreas, Amer becoming Ambrosio — and some even accepted that strange American concept called love. Mola Singh, again, expressed his dislike of arranged marriages: “In India, lots of time in India, I feel, the woman is a slave. I say, no, that’s no good. You should have a duty to them, women have rights, even more than men… I like it when a woman and a man get together, fall in love, and marry.”



This adaptation was so complete that it was the few times it broke down that stood out. Death was one of them. The men may have accepted the Catholic faith of their wives and children, yet many felt very strongly that they themselves should be cremated. Leonard records several stories where when a Punjabi died, groups of men would turn up at the house and take away the body, sometimes forcibly to be cremated (a right for which they had also battled with the US authorities). But the real problems with adaptation would only come after World War II, when the immigration laws were relaxed and people started coming from Punjab again.



Some of the new migrants were sponsored by the Punjabi Mexicans, who were well established by now, having done well with farming through the war years and the boom afterwards. Part of this success involved greater pride in their ‘Hindu’ identity, which some contrasted with their Mexican relatives, who had not done as well. They also took pride in India’s independence — funds were collected and given to Indian representatives like Vijaylakshmi Pandit. Dalip Singh Saund, who was one of the few community members who had come to the US for higher education, but had also become a successful farmer, was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1957, as its first Asian American member.