How Indians lobbied for minority status in the USA

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

December 7, 2022

Up until 1965, there were very few Indians who migrated to the U.S. - in all a total of about 16,000. They were mostly Sikhs, who migrated in the early twentieth century from Punjab, India, and began farming in California.

Each year since 1965, when the immigration laws were changed, thousands of Indians have migrated to the U.S., with most of them starting as students pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and medicine. Today, there are over three million first-and-second generation Indians in America.    

Up until 1976, Indians were not classified as minorities by the U.S. government. Hence, they did not qualify for preferential treatment as minorities for admissions to educational institutions and for securing jobs, home and business loans and business contracts.

Today, employers in America, from financial firms, large corporations, technology companies, consultancies and small businesses to universities, hospitals, government agencies and others, proudly point to Indians on their staff as proof of their commitment towards meeting minority or affirmative action goals, including for senior management and director positions.

As in the case of jobs, business contracts are also set aside for minority owned small firms by federal and state government agencies, train and road transport services, airport and port operators, educational institutions, and several private companies, especially in government regulated businesses such as phone, gas and electric utilities, construction, banks, and financial services. Studies have shown that Indians get a disproportionate share of minority business contracts.

The term “minority” in this context is not a statistical measure. It is applied to various groups in the U.S. who have historically faced discrimination, owned few businesses and held few white collar and management jobs.

In 1976, the Association of Indians in America (AIA) lobbied key U.S. lawmakers and government officials to include Indians in the Asian and Pacific Islander category – now known as the Asian category. This would enable Indians to “gain minority status, making them eligible for affirmative action preferences,” writes David Bernstein in his recently released book, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classifications in America. Bernstein is a professor at the law school at George Mason University, near Washington DC. He discusses the minority claims of Indians and other South Asians in one of the chapters ot the book.

Indians were entitled to minority status, AIA argued, because they “are equally dark-skinned as other nonwhite individuals.” Also, the only label for Indians “is Asian by virtue of geographic origin.”

The original intent for including Asians among minorities was to help uplift the historically disadvantaged people from Hawaii, Guam, Samoa and other U.S. jurisdictions in Asia and the Pacific, descendants of nineteenth century Chinese railroad workers and Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War Two.

Indians in America do not belong to any of these Asian categories. Instead, they are from middle-or-upper class families and were mostly educated at good schools and colleges in India and the U.S. Also, except for descendants of Sikh farmers, none of the Indians suffered any historical discrimination and economic hardships in America.

Bernstein notes that since most Indian Americans were educated professionals, it weakened their claim to disadvantaged minority status. Evidently not denying these facts, AIA argued that Indians should be classified as Asians since Korean Americans “had similar economic and educational profiles to Indians,” but were classified as Asian Americans. 

The Indian League of America (ILA), an AIA rival, pointed out that Indians will be accused of “taking advantage of preferences designed primarily to help members of other groups, especially African Americans,” who have suffered historical discrimination. Also, the ILA, Bernstein writes, noted that granting racial preferences to Indians, despite their high average economic and educational status, would lead to a backlash from whites and others. The opponents may seek a restrictive quota for Indians, a ceiling instead of a floor, for preferential admissions to educational institutions, job placements and securing government and private business contracts.   

The ILA’s arguments were largely ignored by Indians who were vocal on the issue. For instance, all but six of the roughly 2,000 comments received by the Small Business Administration (SBA), sought the inclusion of Indians in the Asian category.  

The lobbying by AIA and other Indian groups was successful: Indians were classified as Asians: in the 1980 census; by the SBA’s racial and ethnic preference program for loans in 1981; and for jobs and business contracts at government agencies. Soon, following the government’s lead, Indians were also classified as Asians and given preferential minority status by educational institutions for admissions and by private businesses for jobs and business contracts.   

Bernstein calls Indian and others who claim minority status, without having faced any historical hardships, Identity Entrepreneurs – Americans who claim and leverage a minority identity for economic gain, “even if that identity has never caused them significant harm.“

In 1989, Chinese American businesses persuaded the San Francisco city government to exclude Asian Indians from a contract preference program for minorities. “The Chinese argued that the Indian Americans were recent immigrants who had no history of discrimination in the United States,” Bernstein writes. Indians lobbied intensely and regained their minority status with the city government in 1991.

That year, the Republican Governor of Ohio included Indians in the minority category. A group, Black Elected Democrats, alleged it was a payoff for the $278,000 in campaign contributions from Indian Americans.  

The minority classifications, Bernstein writes, often assist “mostly post-1965 immigrants and their descendants, who have only known an America changed by the civil rights movement and modern civil rights legislation, most prominently the 1964 Civil Rights Act.”

Indians and other South Asians, he adds, are the most successful Asian American group “in winning college admittance relative to their population numbers.” The backlash against such overrepresentation is already occuring at the top college campuses.

Bernstein says that a legal challenge by opponents could lead courts to “find the inclusion of Indians (among Asians) was arbitrary…(and) unconstitutional.”

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