Americans in India

Americans in India

Total population
15,000
Regions with significant populations
Bangalore · Chennai · Kolkata · Mumbai · New Delhi
Languages
American English · Indian languages
Religion
Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Sikhism
Related ethnic groups
American diaspora

Americans in India comprise expatriates and 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.

History

During World War II, more than 400,000 American soldiers were sent to India.

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. 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.

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.

Numbers

In 2002, one widely cited estimate stated that 60,000 Americans lived in India. However, exact numbers were difficult to come by because many did not register with the embassy. Some media reports around the time of the 2008 U.S. presidential election stated that 10,000 Americans lived in India at the time. 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.

In fiction

Fictional portrayals include Paul Theroux's The Elephanta Suite, which invokes the "Ugly American" stereotype in each of the three novellas therein. Outsourced aired on NBC during the 2010 television season, depicting an American manager at a call center in Mumbai.

Education

American schools in India include:

• American Embassy School (Delhi)
• American School of Bombay
• American International School–Chennai

Notable individuals

This is a list of current and former U.S. citizens whose notability is related to their residence in India.

• Elihu Yale, Governor of Madras Presidency (1684–85, 1687–92), founder of Yale University
• Nathaniel Higginson, Governor of Madras (1692–98)
• Tom Alter, actor in the Indian cinema industry, former U.S. citizen
• Justin McCarthy, American-born noted Indian Bharatnatyam dancer, instructor and choreographer
• Nandini Nimbkar, current president of the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
• Joseph Allen Stein, American architect
• Samuel Evans Stokes, later Satyananda Stokes, came to India in 1904 to work at a leper colony in the Simla Hills
• Romulus Whitaker, herpetologist and wildlife conservationist, born in New York City, became an Indian citizen in 1975
• Imran Khan, American actor of Indian origin, active in the Indian film Industry
• Jiah Khan
• Monica Dogra, American singer and actor of Indian origin based in Mumbai
• Ellis R. Dungan
• Goa Gil
• Pooja Kumar, American actress born to Indian immigrants, works in the Tamil Industry.

See also

• Indian American

References

Sources

• • Reviewed by

Further reading

• ; a personal account from an unemployed American who moved to Sikkim to work as a newspaper editor

External links

• Young Americans in India, a video report from CBS News