Punjabi Mexican Americans

mexicano-estadounidenses punjabíes (Spanish)
A Punjabi Mexican American couple
Regions with significant populations
California
Languages
English Punjabi Spanish
Religion
Sikhism,Hinduism,Islam,Christianity,Unaffiliated
Related ethnic groups
Punjabi Americans,Mexican Americans,Indian Americans,Pakistani Americans,Indian Mexicans

Punjabi Mexican Americans orPunjabi Chicanos, originallyPunjabi Mexicans, are a distinctive ethnicity holding its roots in a migration pattern that occurred since theBritish Raj. The first conglomeration of these cultures occurred in theImperial andCentral Valleys in 1907, near the largest irrigation system in theWestern Hemisphere. The majority of them localized toYuba City, California.

For decades in theBritish Raj colonial era (early 20th century),Punjabi farming families sent their sons out ofPunjab to earn money.^[1][2] Intending to return to the Punjab Province, only a handful of men brought their wives and families. In theUnited States, however, due to changed immigration laws it was not possible for the families of Punjabi workers to join them. Beyond this, poor wages and working conditions convinced the Punjabi workers to pool their resources, lease land and grow their own crops, thereby establishing themselves in the newly budding farming economy ofnorthern California.^[3]

The main reasons the Punjabi men are thought to have chosen women of Mexican ancestry are due to sharing phenotypical and sociocultural similarities. Mexican women were considered brown, as were the Punjabi men; interracial marriage bans in California prevented Punjabis from marryingBlack orWhite women but allowed them to marryMexican women, who—much like the women of Punjab—covered their heads and bodies to protect themselves from the sun while working in the fields.^[3] Traditionally Mexicans and Punjabis shared a rural way of life, with similar types of food and family values, and thus maintained a similar material and social culture. Mexicans and Indians shared an initially lower class status in American society.^[1]

Punjabi men married Mexican women laborers and there were eventually almost four hundred of these biethnic couples clustered in California’s agricultural valleys.^[1] Although the majority of these intermarriages happened in northern-central California in theCentral Valley, in areas such asYuba City,Stockton, orSacramento, Punjabi-Mexican marriages occurred as far away asNew Mexico;Nevada;Utah;Arizona; orEl Paso, Texas.^[4][5] Husbands and wives spoke to each other in rudimentary English or Spanish. Men tended to be older (i.e. in their late thirties or forties), and women tended to be younger (i.e. in their early twenties). Punjabi men learned Spanish to communicate with Mexican agricultural laborers and to speak to their wives. Some Punjabi men adopted Spanish names or nicknames: e.g., Miguel for Maghar, Andrés for Inder, and Mondo for Mohammed.^[1]

The culinary traditions of Punjabi Mexican Americans draws from bothMexican andPunjabi cuisines. Punjabi men taught their wives how to cookchicken curry,roti, and various vegetablecurries. In Yuba City, a Punjabi Mexican American family ran the El Ranchero restaurant—the only Mexican restaurant in California (before closing in 1993)—that featured chicken curry and roti.^[6]

An important retention of Punjabi culture was the disposition of the body upon death. TheHindus andSikhs insisted uponcremation, then uncommon in North America, andMuslims carried out orthodox burial ceremonies for each other (though the plots in which they are buried in rural California have since been misnamed "Hindu plots"). The wives were buried in the MexicanCatholic section of local cemeteries, as were the children.^[1]

• Mike Mohamed (born 1988) – American football linebacker (partial descent)

• Asian Latin Americans
• Indian immigration to Mexico

• Leonard, Karen (1994).Making Ethnic Choices: California's Punjabi Mexican Americans. Temple University Press. p. 362.ISBN 9781566392020.

• Article on Punjabi-Mexicans

• Asian-American–Hispanic and Latino American relations
• Indian-American culture in California
• Mexican-American culture in California
• Chicano
• Indian diaspora in the United States
• Pakistani diaspora in the United States
• Mexican diaspora in the United States
• Pakistani-American history
• Central Valley (California)
• Punjabi diaspora in the United States
• Mexican people of Indian descent
• American people of Indian descent
• American people of Mexican descent
• American people of Pakistani descent
• American people of Punjabi descent

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