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Harlem, Black Bottom, Tremé: South Asian Muslims in U.S. Communities of Color, 1890-1965

Vivek BaldAssistant Professor of Writing and Digital Media, MIT

Chair: Parimal PatilProfessor of Religion and Indian Philosophy, Chair of the Department of South Asian Studies

Vivek Bald is a scholar and filmmaker whose work focuses on histories of the South Asian diaspora. His current project traces the lives of South Asian Muslim silk peddlers and merchant seamen who settled within communities of color in the U.S. South, Northeast, and Midwest in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is the basis for a forthcoming book, Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America (Harvard University Press, 2013), and a documentary film, In Search of Bengali Harlem.

 

 

 

Watch the video here:

Harlem, Black Bottom, Tremé: South Asian Muslims in U.S. Communities of Color, 1890-1965 from The South Asia Initiativeon Vimeo.