In the early
1900s, the United States government adopted extremely stringent immigration
laws. The new curbs stopped many immigrants, mostly men, unable to bring their
wives or other women from their home countries. Meanwhile, marriages between whites
and people of colour were prohibited by anti-miscegenation laws in many states
of the US till 1967.

This left Punjabi
immigrant workers, mostly men, in a pickle. They could neither bring their
families from home, nor make families in the US. It was the colour of their skin
that brought them closer to Mexican women.

Mexican women
matched Punjabi men perfectly. They had the same skin tone, dark eyes and black
hair. This led county clerks in the US believe that perceived similarities in
complexion was an indicator of the same race, reports The Indian Express.  

And thus began a
bi-ethnic hybrid community that came to be called the ‘Mexican Hindu’. Hindu in
the Mexican-Hindu coinage refers to from Hindustan (India) and not the religion
of Hinduism. In effect, most of the men were Sikhs.

Immigrants from
Mexico and Punjab grew up in largely agrarian societies. Consequently, there
was a shared cultural thread in living the farm live allowing the communities
to relate to one another.

Food was similar
in both communities. Mexican cuisine, like Punjabi, is spicy and largely relies
on bread, meat and vegetables that were typically boiled or fried. Mexican
tortillas and Indian chapatis were largely considered identical. The gorditas
were stuffed with mean, while parathas were filled with vegetarian fare.

For a long time,
this community lived in relative harmony. But many of these marriages found
stiff opposition from within both communities. The alliances were regarded as ‘marriages
of convenience’.

By the late
1920s, the Punjabi population surpassed the Mexicans in social status. Mexican
women marrying Punjabi men came to be seen as a way to climb the social ladder.
That led to a further discord within communities.

So, when the
Luce-Celler Act of 1946 allowed an annual quota of Indians to migrate to the
US, Indian men began to bring their families. This gradually changed the
dynamic between the communities.

The children of
Mexican-Hindu parents have not married within the communities. The larger chunk
of Punjabi-Mexican children assimilated with the new immigrants. This largely
signaled the end of this unique cultural phenomenon.