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Listen to Vivek Bald discuss his book on Bengali Harlem. Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America.Here is an introduction to the history of Bengali immigrants in Harlem, New York City. Bengali Harlem: Author Documents a Lost History of Immigration in America.
BENGALI HARLEM ARCHIVE
Image credit: © Archive Photos/Getty Images Now that son, Ullah Jr., speaks English and Spanish but also feels closely connected to his Bengali heritage. Ullah refused to teach his son the Bengali language, because he wanted him to be 100 percent American. Ullah eventually got to New York, where he married a Puerto Rican woman and worked as a restaurant cook. The book chronicles the lives of immigrants such as Habib Ullah, who left home at the age of 14. Now the story of New York’s Bengali immigrant community has been revealed in a new book- Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America, by MIT professor Vivek Bald.
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They found more acceptance in Harlem than they would have elsewhere. The Bengalis married into the Harlem community. They slowly formed a community in Harlem, where African Americans and Latinos had settled earlier. But they worked hard at the most menial jobs, as dishwashers, cooks, and subway laborers. The new Bengali arrivals were primarily male, Muslim, illiterate, and poor. Another wave came in the 1920s and 1930s, when immigration from much of Asia was actually illegal, following passage of the 1917 Immigration Act. Eventually these merchants spread to other cities, including New Orleans and Atlanta. They sold embroidered silk and cotton fabrics. The first wave of South Asian immigrants arrived on the Atlantic seaboard in the 1890s. Many of these newcomers settled in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. One such is the account of people from Bengal, a region that is now shared by eastern India and Bangladesh. But some immigration stories are still being uncovered. We know also about the enslaved Africans who were brought here against their will. You have learned about the waves of immigrants who came to America seeking a better life-from England, Ireland, Germany, China, Italy, Mexico, and many other places. A street scene in Harlem, New York City, in 1935