A grand exhibition on the great success story that Indian-Americans have scripted over 200 years in shaping the country of their adoption — even while realising their own American dream — opens at Washington’s famed Smithsonian on Thursday.
The year-long exhibition that will travel later to 15 other American cities over a five-year period features historical and contemporary images of an enterprising and persevering community that is now 3.3 million strong and has made its mark in about every walk of American life. It has not been an easy journey for the community, though. Some of the artifacts document the discrimination and resistance that the early Indian settlers encountered. Pictorials bring out their early struggles as much as the achievements of countrymen who followed them in droves over the years.
One is treated to evocative portrayals of the early Indian immigrants, notably Sikhs, who built some of the first American railroads more than a century ago and worked on California’s farms. The story includes the relentless struggle for citizenship in the first half of 20th century. Indian-Americans may have come into their own in the political domain in recent years, but it has been a long and arduous journey. The pioneer was Dalip Singh Saund, the California Democrat, who became the first ‘desi’ to enter US Congress in the 1950s. One of the exhibits on view shows Congressman Saund with the then Senators John F. Kennedy and lyndon B. Johnson in 1958.
Spread over 5,000 sqft at Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the exhibition is titled: “Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation.” “We chose the title and the theme Beyond Bollywood very intentionally to attract visitors and suggest that we intended to go beyond stereotypes,” said curator Masum Momaya, who developed the content. “My intention as a curator has been to focus on cultural, political and professional contributions that Indian immigrants and Indian Americans have made to shaping US history,” she said. “I want visitors to walk away with an understanding of the vast and deep contributions of Indian immigrants and Indian Americans in shaping US history.”