History of Migration and General Profile

In South American countries, Sikhs were pioneer immigrants except for Chile where Sindhis were the first. In Central America including the Caribbean's, Surinam and Guinea, the first Indians were from UP, Bihar and possibly South India as indentured labour. Migration in several countries of Latin America has been traced to the first two to three decades of the Twentieth Century. Courtesy late Hew McLeod a reference is available of a Sikh's arrival in Argentina in 1890's. Sikhs came either as direct passengers mainly on ships via Europe or because they were offloaded at an American port as they were not allowed to disembark at the USA ports. The latter resulted in transit stay in various intermediate destinations before settling down in the final destination of their choice. Many Sikhs walked from Brazil to Argentina while others walked still longer distances from Panama to Argentina via Peru and Bolivia - the only port of Bolivia has since been annexed by Chile. This phase of travel in several cases must have been even tougher than the sea voyage. It involved walking over thousands of miles in tough terrain with little familiarity of local language and customs and with limited funds. One has to look at the map and the terrain to understand the hardship involved - it really sends shivers down the spine. In Latin America, the more popular destinations for long term settlement were Argentina, and Panama. Mexico was always a target country to settle in but with the aim of crossing the Rio Grande at the first possible opportunity. USA was and still is the El Dorado for almost all Punjabi-Sikh migrants. There are several illegal immigrants in recent years and some had been fraudulently brought to South American destinations against the promised North America entry. In 1990's, Belize became a popular destination for migration. Since Belize is not very well connected for air travel, some of these migrants had to charter small aircraft from Cuba to reach Belize. What enterprise! Single girls are also venturing out wherever opportunity arises. Two young girls from Punjab have gone to Belize as students but are now running a sort of a 'dhabha' in a small town hoping to migrate to USA one day. There are instances of high handedness by the police and immigration authorities but once you have left the country, there is no turning back in most of the cases whether the immigrant likes the situation he or she has got into. There is an instance of a Sikh who had been sponsored by his brothers from USA. This guy was asked to come to Belize where a white woman came from USA for less than a day. In a few hours after arrival, she got married to the Sikh based on which she sought his immigration to USA. This was achieved, so what if after a prolonged legal battle. The immigrants' preferred profession originally was to work on farms, graduating in time to buying their own farmland. Others worked in railways in various capacities or in sugar mills or as in Panama, at the Canal. Some of them drove vehicles and taxis eventually buying their own wheels and in due course setting up transport conglomerates. Still others carried out 'Pheri' i.e. retail as peddlers by going door to door to sell items of common use and in time set up small size supermarkets. Others took to money lending and eventually in real estate business. Several members of second and third generation are becoming professionals and entrepreneurs. A peculiar feature of migrants to South and American was that they never settled down in one country except for Argentina and to some extent in Panama. Immigrants to most other countries such as Cuba, Brazil, and Honduras kept moving from one country to another till they settled down permanently in the country of their final choice. I am sure, there are a number of Sikhs who remain untraced but who have settled down in various countries of the region where they are now totally assimilated. It is hard to believe that there were not many stragglers who must have given up walking or moving on. It would be a challenging job to locate these immigrants, but they are there, somewhere. Researchers, please find them.