About the Site

This website is part of an ongoing project by filmmaker and scholar Vivek Bald using different media – web, print, and video – to document the histories of two little-known groups of early South Asian migrants to the United States. Both were groups of Muslim men, predominantly from the region of Bengal, who entered the …

Upcoming Events

Performances of “Dishwasher Dreams” in Chicago in February. Book, performance, and film events in New Orleans and New York in March, and a special event at the Schomburg Center in Harlem in April featuring a community forum with children and descendants of the Bengali Muslim men and African American and Puerto Rican women who built …

1903 Philadelphia Lascar Crew

Coming Soon

Watch here for stories, interviews, images, video, and archival materials related to the histories of South Asian Muslim migration to New Orleans, Charleston, Detroit, West Baltimore, and New York City between the 1890s and 1940s.