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Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America

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Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America
AuthorVivek Bald
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistorical non-fiction
PublisherHarvard University Press
Publication date
January 2013[1]
Publication placeUnited States
Media typeHardcover
Pages294
ISBN978-0-674-06666-3

Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America is a non-fiction book by American academic and filmmaker Vivek Bald about the historical migration of Bengali people from South Asia to the United States.[2]

About author

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Vivek Bald is an Associate Professor of Writing and Digital Media at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a filmmaker.[3][4]

Content

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The book examines the arrival of Bengali sellers in Harlem in the early part of the 20th century, and the establishment of a Bengali neighborhood in Harlem in the 1920s. The book also examines the arrival of Bengali Hindu settlers in Treme, New Orleans.[3][5] The book was inspired by a Bengali man, a sailor from Bengal who settled in Harlem in the 1930s. The book examines passenger records and census papers to picture the life of early Bengali settlers and how they settled to largely African-American neighborhoods because of racial segregation then.[6]

Reception

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Bald was selected for a Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship for 2017-18 based on this book.[7] The book has been called "intricately researched and exquisitely rendered,"[8] and was described in the Huffington Post as a "brilliantly revelatory book."[9]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America". Harvard University Press. Archived from the original on 2013-02-01.
  2. ^ "About Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America – Bengali Harlem". bengaliharlem.com. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
  3. ^ a b "S. Asians' forgotten history in Harlem". NY Daily News. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
  4. ^ Patel, Atish (28 April 2013). "The Bengali Villagers Who Migrated to America". WSJ. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
  5. ^ "Bengali Harlem: Author documents a lost history of immigration in America". inamerica.blogs.cnn.com. Archived from the original on 8 April 2017. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
  6. ^ "The lost histories of the Bengali Harlem". The Daily Star. 23 July 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
  7. ^ "Awards and Fellowships (4/28/2017)". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 23 April 2017. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
  8. ^ "The ghosts of Harlem past". Himal Southasian. 16 January 2017. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
  9. ^ Padukone, Neil (10 March 2016). "Indians' Debt to Black America". Huffington Post. Retrieved 1 May 2017.