[Asma VO] The borderlands of Southern Arizona.

It's an area that's become associated with immigration from Mexico into the United States.

That's nothing new.

In 1928, at the border town of Nogales, a Muslim man from South Asia was detained while trying to cross.

His name was Mir Dad, and the story of his detention has been preserved in his Alien file -- a file the government keeps on immigrants before they become citizens.

It gives you a beautiful sense of someone's arrival story.

[Asma VO] Mir Dad's A-file also reveals the challenges facing South Asian Muslims trying to make their home in the US in the early 1900s, and the blended South Asian and Mexican families that emerged as a result.

♪curious ♪ southwestern music♪ ♪curious woodwind music♪ [Shamim] This is Muhammad Ali; he came to our mosque.

[Asma VO] Shamim Khan is one of Mir Dad's 15 grandchildren, and is also Muslim.

[Asma] Your grandma was Mexican... [Shamim] Yes.

[Asma] Your grandpa was South Asian.

[Shamim] Mm-hm.

[Asma] What was their blended family like?

The men in that group learned how to speak Spanish.

- So your grandpa spoke Spanish?

- [Shamim] Yes!

They learned it from the farms and at home, so Spanish was the dominant language.

The food was generally a blended food.

My grandmother started making rotis.

They were very light; we say they're the best ever.

The rice is from my dad's side of the family from Pakistan.

The beans are Grandmother's beans, with the Crisco oil instead of lard.

And the samosas are just a treat.

After the 1960s, the new slur of folks, they introduced samosas to us.

[Asma] Oh...

Okay!

Bismillah!

[Asma VO] These new folk Shamim mentions arrived after immigration restrictions were lifted in 1965, marking a turning point for many South Asian families.

Until recently, the idea was that the story of South Asians in the United States didn't start until 1965; that it was predominantly Indians as opposed to Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

♪exciting piano music♪ But what we see when we look back farther into the late 19th century, we find a continuous and unbroken stream of migration from the parts of South Asia that were predominantly Muslim.

This starts with peddlers who settled in New Orleans, and then it continues with ship jumpers.

[Asma VO] Ship jumpers were workers who left their ship in a foreign port.

Among them was a young Mir Dad.

He arrived in the United States in 1917, seven years after leaving the Punjab -- then a part of British-controlled India.

[Asma] How did your grandpa come to the United States?

Why did he come to the US?

[Shamim] There were like six or seven brothers.

They were farmers.

There wasn't a lot of money, and so he told his mom one day that he has to leave.

When we look at British control in South Asia, they're not developing a local economy.

They're taking cotton, making products overseas, shipping it back into India.

So there's a real pressure for South Asians; when they get the opportunity to leave, to get out under this imperial control, they try to look for that opportunity.

♪pensive ambient music♪ [actor as immigration officer VO] When did you leave India?

[actor as Mir Dad VO] I left my home in Borhan, Punjab, India in 1910.

♪♪ I worked as a seaman out of Bombay, shipping all over the world.

[Vivek] By the early 20th century, the British were employing tens of thousands of colonial laborers to do the most difficult, dirtiest, most industrial labor that was required for steamships... ♪♪ for example, shoveling coal into the furnaces deep below the belly of the steamship.

The largest number of Indian workers on British steamships were Muslim men, like Mir Dad.

[male actor VO] When and where did you first enter the United States?

[actor as Mir Dad VO] March 15, 1917 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I don't remember the name of the ship.

It was a small freight boat, and I worked on it as a fireman.

[male actor VO] Do you remember anyone else who entered with you at that time?

[actor as Mir Dad VO] There were about 60 East Indians on the boat, and 16 of us left the ship at Philadelphia.

So, where did they go once he first landed in Philadelphia?

They were just walking down the street, and they needed workers for the ammunition factory 'cause of the war.

And so they said, "Do you wanna work for us?"

And they took him immediately to the factory.

He never went back to the ship.

[laughs] [Asma] And this was what year and where?

[Shamim] 1917.

[male actor VO] At the time of your entry, were you inspected and duly admitted by a United States Immigration Officer?

[actor as Mir Dad VO] No, the captain gave us permission to visit town.

From his A-file, we know that they didn't enter through a port of entry, which was legally required at that time.

And so, technically, they were modern undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Help me understand how he eventually makes his way all the way West.

Kismet, I guess.

There was a person from India, and he says, "California has a lot of jobs in farming.

I know some folks in Fresno; they're doing grapes and so on."

And they made it all the way to Fresno.

They hired a lot of Indian workers.

♪delicate inspiring music♪ [Zareena] Many of these South Asian migrants, they were themselves farmers.

And so, many of them went westward -- to California, and also to the Midwest and other parts of the country -- in order to... have a piece of land and work the land, which was something-- that was a skillset that they already brought with them.

When Mir Dad is coming into California, he's coming into a South Asian community that has been there for just about a generation.

Most of these Punjabi individuals are Sikh.

About 10 to 12 percent are Muslim.

So, he's coming into an established community that's relatively prosperous, doing well in their agricultural work, small business owners.

[Asma VO] In this community, Mir Dad found work -- first, as a day laborer and farmer.

It can't have been easy.

The early 1900s saw growing hostility towards Hindus -- as all South Asians of any faith were called back then.

But that didn't stop Mir Dad.

Before long, he had begun his own business.

[male actor VO] What is your occupation?

[actor as Mir Dad VO] I am a dealer in fertilizer in Covina, California.

[male actor VO] What is your monthly income?

[actor as Mir Dad VO] Sometimes I make a thousand dollars, sometimes a hundred... sometimes nothing.

[male actor VO] How much did you make last month?

[actor as Mir Dad VO] 500 dollars.

♪tense pensive music♪ [Asma VO] Mir Dad's work took him across the Southwest -- from California to Arizona, and once into Mexico -- before events took a dramatic turn.

Mir Dad's file is very complicated, in part because he didn't enter through a traditional port of entry.

But the other thing that's very interesting about it is he's able to move across the border.

In 1928, something interesting happens with him, where immigration officials detain him.

[Asma VO] Mir Dad's A-file describes how he crossed into Mexico, as he had done before.

But this time, on his return, he was stopped, detained, and brought before immigration inspectors.

[male actor VO] April 20th, 1928.

It is the unanimous decision of the Board that the alien Mir Dad be excluded from admission into the United States as an alien ineligible to citizenship, as a native of a country, province, or dependency situated on the continent of Asia within the zone prescribed in Section 3 of the Immigration Act of 1917, the natives of which are excluded from the United States.

[Asma VO] Mir Dad's exclusion reflects changing attitudes toward immigrants at the turn of the 20th century.

[Hussein] As non-European immigration is increasing, there's more anxiety about what this country will look like.

[Zareena] There are, to this day, racial anxieties around the browning of America, or the Blackening of America.

That was there at that time, too.

[Asma VO] This anxiety led to a series of immigration laws, making it increasingly difficult for people of color to enter the United States.

Among the first laws passed was the Chinese Exclusion Act.

In 1917, the government imposed a literacy test, and explicitly excluded non-white immigrants from the so-called "Asiatic Barred Zone," home to many of the world's Muslims.

Even South Asians already settled in the United States were affected.

In 1923, the US Supreme Court rejected a South Asian man's claim to citizenship on the grounds he wasn't white.

The following year, more than 60 other South Asians who had already been naturalized had their citizenship revoked.

In that way, South Asians become perhaps the first community to be uniformly de-naturalized in the United States.

And this impacted a series of South Asian communities, particularly on the West Coast, where they had come to do agricultural work, and they were stripped of their land because they weren't citizens, so they couldn't own land.

[Zareena] Basically, you're ripping the promise of citizenship away from those who had been granted it.

So they were living with that kind of chronic fear and anxiety that -- "What are we building, and how permanent is it?"

It is incredibly precarious.

[Asma VO] As immigration restrictions increased, more people began trying to enter the US across the Southern border.

This led Congress to create the Border Patrol in 1924, not long before Mir Dad was detained.

His detention must have been especially painful, given why he was there.

♪tender ethereal music♪ Four years earlier, he had met 19-year-old Susana Lopez, originally from Sinaloa, Mexico.

In October 1924, they married, joining a growing number of South Asian and Mexican couples in the southwestern United States.

[Shamim] They were a great team throughout their whole lives, and she was his partner.

They had a very good relationship and seven children.

[Asma] Oh, wow... A lot of South Asian men married non-South Asian women at the time in the United States.

In part, there were really no South Asian women in the United States.

Yeah, I was gonna say, "Were there any women?"

No, not-- well, there were a handful.

It's more common for South Asians to marry Mexicans than it was for them to marry someone who was Black or white?

It was actually very difficult for South Asian men to marry white women.

There were a series of anti-miscegenation laws on the book.

Asian men were not allowed to marry white women.

♪sparse tense music♪ Technically, at the time, Mexican and Mexican American women were considered white, but law officials on the ground, they didn't care so much about people of color marrying other people of color, they cared mostly about policing the white color line.

And a lot of these South Asian men met their partners through the farming networks they were in, or the larger labor networks that they were in.

I remember Grandpa saying that when he came to California and Arizona and this area, all of a sudden, they saw people that looked like them.

You know, they didn't stand out, it was just-- they felt more comfortable.

[Vivek] The kind of iconic idea of how immigrants come to and settle in the United States is a particular kind of story that centers around the ethnic enclave.

Often, first men come from a particular part of the world, they congregate in a particular neighborhood -- a little India, a little Italy.

They eventually bring wives and children and have children, and then, eventually, as they become more prosperous, move out to the suburbs, where often the assimilation is assimilation into white suburbs.

♪curious music♪ These earlier stories are very different.

South Asian immigrants were assimilating into other communities of color.

So, we actually have this long history and community of Punjabi Muslims and Mexican Catholics.

[Zareena] There were many South Asian men who aligned themselves with other racial minorities, and they forged a way forward in our country without having to try to aspire to whiteness.

There was more than one way to become American.

[Asma VO] Back at the border, Mir Dad was given the right to appeal.

He said the reason he had crossed into Mexico was to check on a train time for Susana, his wife, who was traveling south to visit her parents.

[male actor VO] We believe our client when he states that he was directed to the depot on the Mexican side of the line to secure information regarding the departure of the Mexican train.

He is above the average intelligence of his race, and had he known that his entry into Mexico would place him in the position he now is, he certainly would have familiarized himself with the unusual circumstances existing between Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora to have avoided this difficulty.

Mir Dad is symbolic of an early history of both family separation and mixed status families.

When he's crossing the border, because of his legal status, his wife's legal status becomes precarious, but his children technically have the right to entry.

But as these families are moving back and forth, what happens when a father is detained -- as in the case of Mir Dad -- what happens if he's deported?

Will they go with him, or will they stay?

[Asma VO] Mir Dad's A-file reveals how his community rallied to support him -- not just his fellow South Asians.

♪exciting orchestral music♪ [male actor 1 VO] We have known Mir Dad for the past two years.

He has been in our employ, and we have found him thoroughly reliable.

If he is in any serious trouble and there is any way in which we can assist you and him, we'll be very glad to do so.

[male actor 2 VO] This man carried an account here from November 1922 to September 1925.

From time to time, he passed through here, either on business or on visits to friends in the Imperial Valley.

At such times, he usually stopped in and said "Hello."

He impressed me as being quiet and mild in every way.

[male actor 3 VO] I have always found the said Mir Dad to be a man of very high character, and he has always had a good reputation in this community.

[Asma VO] Mir Dad finally drew on the fact that he was still a British subject.

He telegrammed British consular officers.

One of them forwarded the details of his case to the Congressman for Texas's 16th District.

The congressman then intervened with immigration authorities on Mir Dad's behalf.

[typing] They finally let him go because of hardship, but when they came back, trucks had been abandoned and payments or whatever else, so he lost that business.

When you look at it, it's like, oh, your heart just goes out, like how many times that he had to, you know, start over and prove himself and didn't give up.

This is the house that's still in Arizona.

It's used as an office now.

- But I love this one because-- - This is 1959.

Yeah.

Because he's in front.

- [laughs] -[Asma] Mm!

[Shamim, laughing] So this is precious because we don't get a, you know, full picture of him.

[Asma] And this is when he owned the farm?

- [Shamim] Yes.

- [Asma] He owned the farm.

[Shamim] Yeah.

[Asma] So he went from laborer to farm owner?

I mean, that's quite the American success story.

[Shamim] That's huge, yes.

So this is my grandfather with one of the winning cows.

Just very comfortable holding his cow, and the cow is comfortable just [laughing] having a hug from Grandpa!

[Asma] He looks like quite the farmer!

[Shamim] Yeah.

[Kathy] He used to take us to the cow auction when we were kids.

It was a social thing, going to the auction, for him, too.

Yeah, mm-hm.

We knew all the auctioneers, and we knew all the cashiers.

We got to meet 'em all.

[Asma VO] It was in this later phase of his life that Mir Dad was able to pursue a dream he had been denied ever since he'd arrived in the United States 30 years earlier.

After the Second World War, the government eased immigration and naturalization restrictions for South Asians, and Mir Dad soon applied for citizenship.

♪exciting ambient music♪ After three years, his application was approved.

The man who had left British India in 1910 was now an American citizen.

[Asma] For your grandpa, was Islam a big part of his life when he came?

Just help me understand, like, what traditions he wanted to keep when he came here.

He was more of a person that, um... just had his beliefs.

He didn't talk in a preachy way, but he would just behave in that way and have his food, but not be critical of others.

It was more of an inward self.

When he heard that there was a mosque that was being built, he was completely in favor and donated money to the initial building of the mosque.

[Asma] So this has got to be one of the oldest mosques in America.

[Shamim] West Coast, we think it's the oldest.

[Asma] Your grandfather was living in Arizona, but still donated to this mosque.

Because he wanted this mosque to exist here on the West Coast?

- He wanted this marker here... - Yes.

[Asma] In the US?

They were all so proud of it, that-- that there would be a mosque built as a mosque.

[Asma VO] The mosque attracted Muslims from across the West Coast, including personalities like Muhammad Ali.

But for members of the South Asian community, like Mir Dad, it remained a very personal project.

[Shamim] His daughter was married here; he walked her down the aisle downstairs.

[Asma] Oh wow.

[Shamim] This is the Imam who was doing the Nikkah for them.

It was the first formal wedding that was done there.

Notice my mom was wearing an American... [Asma] The white wedding dress, yeah.

[Shamim] Yes, with my dad, and all of these are Pakistani men, and they're in their suits and tux.

And Grandpa's right there.

[Asma] In the back with the mustache.

[Shamim] Yes.

This is my grandmother.

There would always be a picture of the congregation at every year Eid event.

[Zareena] I think when we look at these early migrant communities, oftentimes, people will be surprised that their children were not Muslim or their grandchildren are not Muslim, and so they see them in some ways as, like, failing to propagate the faith somehow.

Rather than looking at the children as the test, we look at institution building, so whether it be mosques or restaurants, ethnic institutions, newspapers, they produced all these really important institutions that... were absolutely critical to the continuity of Islam in this country.

So Shamim has been sharing a lot with me.

I'm just curious what you make of what his story means for us, all of us Americans.

If they ask me, you know, "What are you?"

they're gonna get a history lesson, you know, especially after 9/11, and different people being attacked because they thought they were Muslim.

So, it was really important to educate people as to, you know, what Islam's all about.

When he left that boat, you think that this was a... a move forever, he thought?

I don't think that was his initial thoughts, but days go by, and you think, "I'm gonna get this job, that job," you find this woman that you're attracted to, and you start this family, and now they're in school, now they're doing this, and then you go, "This is my life."

This is now your home.

[Asma VO] Mir Dad lived such a long life, and a vast majority of it here in the Southwest.

It's our history; it's our history here as Muslims in America.

[Asma] I didn't know it existed, I don't know that, you know, my family knows it existed.

I still want my children to know that this is here, want them to know that, you know, we were here as Muslims for... so many decades.

[Vivek] There's a generation of South Asians and Muslim Americans who have grown up in the shadow of 9/11, who have been told, from a very young age, "You're not from here, you're newcomers, you're outsiders, you don't belong."

And I think, for that generation in particular, knowing that South Asian Muslims and Muslims more broadly have been a part of the United States for generations, have been here just as long as many other European immigrant communities, and understanding that these earlier histories are histories in which stories of Muslims were connected with the stories of other communities of color, it's a significant aspect of the past that resonates with the present that gives a sense of a different kind of future.

♪uplifting ♪ orchestral music♪