1906 South Asians Arrive

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South Asian workers, many of them Sikhs, come to work in the lumber mills in Bellingham.

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In the early 1900’s South Asians, most of them Sikhs from the Punjab region of India, began migrating to North America. Initially arriving in Canada, and as antagonism toward them grew there, they moved into the US. In Bellingham they found work in the booming lumber industry.

Sikh men in Bellingham around 1907 (Photo from the Whatcom Museum of History and Art)

Sikh men in Bellingham around 1907
(Photo from the Whatcom Museum of History and Art)

The 1907 Bellingham Riots in Historical Context