Americans in India comprise immigrants from the United States living in India, along with Indian citizens of American descent. They have a history stretching back to the late 18th century.[2]
History
During World War II, more than 400,000 American soldiers were sent to India.[3]
After the end of British colonial rule in India in 1947, the "colonial third culture" surrounding employment, which featured expatriates in superior roles, natives in subordinate roles, and little informal socialisation between the two, began to be replaced with a "co-ordinate third culture", based around the common social life of Americans working in multinational corporations and their Indian colleagues. Americans who came to India for work slowly assimilated into this culture.[4] Many companies in those days found they had difficulty retaining American employees with children; they found educational facilities at the high school level to be inadequate.[5]
In a break from the long tradition of older American expatriates coming to India to manage local subsidiaries of American companies, a trend began in the 2000s of younger Americans taking jobs at Indian companies, especially in the information technology sector, often at lower wages than they had previously earned in the U.S. In 2006 there were estimated to be roughly 800 American immigrants working in high-tech companies in India.[6][7]
Numbers
According to a White House press release on 26 June 2017, over 700,000 U.S. citizens reside in India.[8]
In 2002, one widely cited estimate stated that 60,000 Americans including African Americans lived in India. However, exact numbers were difficult to come by because many did not register with the embassy.[9] Some media reports around the time of the 2008 U.S. presidential election stated that 10,000 Americans lived in India at the time.[10] However this conflicted with another figure given by the head of the U.S. consulate in Mumbai, who estimated that there were 9,000 living in Mumbai and its surroundings alone, representing almost 0.1% of its total population.[11]
In fiction
Outsourced aired on NBC during the 2010 television season, depicting an American manager at a call center in Mumbai.[12]
Mary Curzon, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston, CI (27 May 1870 – 18 July 1906); as Vicereine of India, she held the highest official title in history of any American woman up to her time
Monica Dogra, American singer and actor of Indian origin based in Mumbai
Samuel Evans Stokes, later Satyananda Stokes, came to India in 1904 to work at a leper colony in the Simla Hills, politician, freedom fighter in India's Independence Movement
Romulus Whitaker, herpetologist and wildlife conservationist, born in New York City, became an Indian citizen in 1975
Bhagat, G. (1970), Americans in India, 1784–1860, New York University Press, OCLC119335
Reviewed by Huttenback, Robert A.; Bhagat, G. (April 1972), "Review: Americans in India, 1784–1860, G. Bhagat", The American Historical Review, 77 (2), American Historical Association: 567, doi:10.2307/1868817, JSTOR1868817
Useem, John (1966), "Work Patterns of Americans in India", The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 368 (1): 146–156, doi:10.1177/000271626636800114, S2CID146651358
Useem, Ruth Hill (1966), "The American Family in India", The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 368 (1): 132–145, doi:10.1177/000271626636800113, S2CID145784887
Vest, Eugene B. (October–December 1948), "Native Words Learned by American Soldiers in India and Burma in World War II", American Speech, 23 (3/4), Duke University Press: 223–231, doi:10.2307/486923, JSTOR486923
Further reading
Blood, Archer K. (2005). The cruel birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an American diplomat. Dhaka: University Press.
Heideman, Eugene P. (2001), From Mission to Church: The Reformed Church in America Mission to India, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN978-0-8028-4900-7
Lambert, Richard D. (1966), "Some Minor Pathologies in the American Presence in India", The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 368 (1): 157–170, doi:10.1177/000271626636800115, S2CID145463917
Useem, John; Useem, Ruth Hill (1968), "American-Educated Indians and Americans in India: A Comparison of Two Modernizing Roles", Journal of Social Issues, 24 (4): 143–158, doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1968.tb02319.x
Hudson, Dana Andrew (18 July 2010), "What I Did When I Couldn't Find a Job", Chronicle of Higher Education, retrieved 27 July 2010; a personal account from an unemployed American who moved to Sikkim to work as a newspaper editor
