Preserving the Legacy of Bengali Harlem

Starting in the 1800s, South Asian men from India, Pakistan, and what is now Bangladesh came to the U.S. as seamen and peddlers of textiles and handicrafts. Instead of forming their own enclaves in America, these migrants assimilated into pre-existing communities of color—in Harlem, Detroit, and New Orleans—by marrying, living with, and working alongside black and Puerto Rican Americans.

Partially as a result of this assimilation, their legacy in some of America’s most diverse cities has been all but erased. In 2013 Vivek Bald, an associate professor of comparative media studies and writing at MIT, published the book Bengali Harlem, which charted the migration patterns of these South Asian men and explored the lives they lived and the legacies they left behind in America. Bald first learned of this other side of South Asian history after the actor and playwright Alaudin Ullah suggested making a documentary about Ullah’s journey to discover the past of his father, Habib Ullah, a Bangladeshi ex-seaman who had settled in Spanish Harlem, married a Puerto Rican woman, and worked in the restaurant industry.