Asian Indian Assimilation in the United States.
America is referred to in many countries as the "Land of Opportunity". This is land is also often called the "Melting Pot of the World". It is believed that people from all over the world come to the United States and lose their cultural identity and "melt" into or assimilate into the American culture. However, nowadays, the above is an unfair statement to make. Nowadays with the growing Chinese restaurants, Indian grocery stores, and European languages is school, etc., one can say that individual cultures are trying hard to voice their distinction amongst the overall "American culture". One can therefore refer to the United States as the "Salad Bowl of the World" where every culture has its own flavor, just like in a salad, where every vegetable has its own taste even though it has a common dressing, the American culture. Amongst the Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, etc. and other immigrants, the East Indians represent a big group of those who want to be part of the "American culture". .
The East Indians, who came to America, were mostly spread out in little groups up and down the West Coast (Pavri 56). Their story is an especially important part of the history of Asian Americans, for they were a new kind of immigrant. The large majorities of the first immigrants from India were Punjabis, from a region called the Punjab. Most of these immigrants were young men, between 16 and 35 years old (Daniels 33). Many of them were married; however, they did not bring their wives across the sea with them. Their family and community ties remained strong after they left home; they came to America in small groups of cousins and village neighbors, and these relationships formed a network of interconnections among them in the new country as they lived and worked together. They had many reasons for leaving their homeland. They were being repressed by the British rule and had no land to farm on.
