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For American Indians see Native Americans in the United States or Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

An Indian American (also called Asian Indian to contrast with the "American Indians" so named by historical accident) is commonly a resident or citizen of the United States who has ancestry originating in India. Indian Americans were primarily either born in India and immigrated to the United States or were born in the United States and have Indian ancestry. A number of Indian Americans came to the U.S. via Indian communities in other countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Fiji, UK, Trinidad & Tobago, South Africa, Guyana, Mauritius, etc. Most Indian Americans are Hindus by religion, but there are also Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Jews among them. They often refer to themselves as "Desi" (of the Desh, or motherland aka India) or sometimes as "brown".

The U.S. Census of 2000 counted 1.679 million people in the category "Asian Indian", accounting for 0.60% of the total U.S. population. This was an increase of 105.87% from the U.S. Census of 1990 with annual growth averaging 7.6%, the largest growth in the Asian American community. In 2000, Indian Americans comprised 16.4% of the Asian American community, making them the third largest subgroup of Asian Americans, after Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans. *

Asian Indians have outperformed all other minority groups in most measures of socioeconomic achievementThe U.S. Congress passed a resolution on April 26, 2005, (House Resolution 227) to honor the Indian American community and Indian Institutes of Technology graduates medicine and technology, consider Indian Americans the epitome of the model minority. According to the 2000 U.S. Census Indian Americans have the highest median income of any national origin group in the U.S. ($60,093), and Merrill Lynch recently revealed that there are nearly 200,000 Indian American millionaires. One in every nine Indians in the US is a millionaire, comprising 10% of US millionaires. (Source: 2003 Merrill Lynch SA Market Study). This affluence has been matched by a high degree of educational attainment. Indians have the highest educational qualifications of all ethnic groups in the US. According to the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, there are close to 41,000 Indian American doctors. According to the 2000 census, about 64% of Asian Indians in the U.S. have attained a Bachelor's degree or more.*(compared" target="_blank" >to 28% nationally). Almost 40% of all Indians have a master’s, doctorate or other professional degree, which is five times the national average. (Source: The Indian American Centre for Political Awareness.) These high levels of education have enabled Indian Americans to become a productive segment of the American population, with 72.3% participating in the U.S. work force, of which 57.7% are employed in managerial and professional specialties[http://www.indianembassy.org/indusrel/clinton_india/india_americans.html. Indians own 50% of all economy lodges and 35% of all hotels in the US, which have a combined market value of almost $40 billion. (Source: Little India Magazine). A University of California, Berkeley, study reported that one-third of the engineers in Silicon Valley are of Indian descent, while 7% of valley hi-tech firms are led by Indian CEOs. (Source: Silicon India Readership Survey)

Demographic and cultural profile

Like the terms "Asian American" or "South Asian American", the term "Indian American" is also an umbrella label applying to a huge mosaic of cultures and people of widely varying socioeconomic status, education, places of residence, generations, views, values, lifestyles, and appearances. Generally speaking, however, they are known to assimilate into American culture more easily than many other immigrant groups because they have fewer language barriers (English is widely spoken in India, especially among professional classes), more educational credentials (immigrants are disproportionately well-educated among Indians), and come from a similarly diverse, tolerant, and democratic society.

Indian Americans are well-represented in the fields of medicine, engineering, finance and information technology. They are overrepresented as small business owners (e.g., proprietors of hotel and motel), and cab drivers. *

Settlement

U.S. states with the largest Indian American populations are California, New York, New Jersey. There are also large Indian American populations in Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, and Florida, as well. The metropolitan areas with the largest Indian American populations are New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington/Baltimore, San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland (including Silicon Valley), Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, and Dallas/Fort Worth. *.

In contrast to immigrants from East Asia, who tend to be concentrated in California and other areas near the Pacific coast, Indian Americans are more evenly distributed throughout the country.

Languages

Indian Americans often keep hold of their native Indian tongues, whether it be Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Sindhi, Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Malayalam, Rajasthani, Kashmiri, or any of the other plethora of Indian languages.

Cultural establishments

While India is home to virtually every major world religion , most Indian Americans are Hindu. There are many Hindu temples across the United States. The BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, ISKCON, Chinmaya Mission, and Swadhyay Pariwar are well established in the U.S. Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Jains, Muslims, and Christians from India have also established their religions in the country.

Swami Vivekananda brought Hinduism to the West at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions. The Vedanta Society has been important in subsequent Parliaments. Today, Hinduism is among fastest growing religions in America and many Hindu temples, most of them built by Indian Americans have emerged in different cities and towns of America. Hindu philosophy and Spirituality has greatly influenced American life. More than 18 million Americans are now practising some form of Yoga. [http://www.sulekha.com/blogs/blogdisplay.aspx?cid=38445" target="_blank" >* In particular, Kriya Yoga was introduced to America by Paramahansa Yogananda. In addition, A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada initiated a popular ISKCON also known as Hare Krishna movement while preaching Bhakti yoga.

Indian Americans have also brought Indian cuisine to the United States, and Indian cuisine has been established as one of the most popular cuisines in the country, with hundreds of Indian restaurants in each major city and several similar eateries in smaller cities and towns. There are many Indian markets and stores in United States. Some of biggest Indian markets are in Silicon Valley, Chicago, New York City, the Philadelphia Metro, Edison, New Jersey, and Houston.

Entertainment

There are Hindi radio stations in areas with high Indian populations, including Radio Humsafar. There are also Tamil radio stations in the USA Singapore *.

Several cable and satellite providers offer Indian channels: Sun TV, Star TV, Zee TV, Sony TV, NDTV and Gemini. Others have offered Indian content for subscription, such as when India played Australia for the Cricket World Cup in 2003.

Many metropolitan areas which have a high density of Indian Americans, now have movie theatres specialized for showing Indian movies (primarily hindi/Bollywood and South Indian). Silicon Valley, for example has two such multiplexes: one in Fremont and one in San Jose.

In July 2005, MTV premiered a spin-off network called MTV Desi which targets Indian Americans in the U.S. *

History and immigration

Timeline

Classification

Indian Americans are currently classified as Asian Americans by the United States Census Bureau. In the past, however, they have been variously classified as Hindu (Hindu being an archaic term for an inhabitant of the Indian sub-continent), preventing them from owning land in some areas, vote, or marry citizens or classified as Caucasian American until it was established that White American and Caucasian were interchangeable terms by convention for a single people which did not include Indians.

Current social issues

Discrimination
Incidents of deliberate overt discrimination against Indian Americans are few and far in-between. Any discrimination that exists is primarily in the form of being not so welcoming in social interactions, compared to the treatment received, say, by northern European immigrants who are more readily embraced. One source of resentment among some Americans is the outsourcing of labor by American multinationals to India, particularly to Indian call centers*. In America, the Indian call center has developed into a veritable social meme, and Indian Americans are occasionally targeted as objects of harassment or ridicule for the decisions of American corporate managers regarding their country of origin.

Explicit discrimination is not unknown in the Indian American community. In the 1980's, a group known as the Dot Busters tried to intimidate Indian Americans in New Jersey, but the range and impact of the group's activities were limited. Since September 11, there have been scattered incidents of Indian Americans having been mistaken targets for hate crimes. In one example, a Sikh, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was murdered at a Phoenix gas station by a white supremacist who mistook him for a middle-eastern because he wore a turban. In another example, a pizza delivery person was robbed and beaten in Massachusetts for "being Muslim" though he pleaded that he was in fact Hindu *.

Immigration
Indians are among the largest ethnic groups migrating to the USA legally. Immigration of Indian Americans has taken place in many waves since the first Indian-American came to the United States in the 1700s. A major wave of immigration to California from the soon-to-be Indian state of Punjab and the surrounding region took place in the first decade of the 20th century. Another significant wave followed in the 1950s.

Media portrayal
Fictional and non-fictional Indian Americans have appeared in the media.

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Indian American".

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