On the day Dalip Singh Saund was buried in Glendale, Calif., Don Nakanishi, head of the University of California–Los Angeles said, “On his 100th birthday, I hope we shine a bright light on his political career and the lessons we can learn from his remarkable achievement.”
When that day arrived on Sept. 20, 1999, Saund, the first Asian-American and first Indian-American to be elected to the United States Congress, would not yet have his due honor. However, just six years later and after a unanimous vote by the U.S. House of Representatives, a Post Office building in Temecula, Calif., was named for Saund, etching his legacy into history.
Born in Chhajalwadi, Punjab, in India in 1899, Saund had a stable beginning to an enriching life. He attended boarding schools before earning his bachelor’s degree from the University of Punjab in 1919. Wanting to further his education, he migrated to the United States in 1920 to study food preservation at the University of California.
However, he switched his major to mathematics in which he eventually earned a master’s degree, as well as a Ph.D.
However, despite Saund’s intellectual capabilities, an Asian-American finding work other than a lettuce farmer was virtually illegal. Therefore, like most other South Asians living in the United States, Saund took to the fields. He would later become a fertilizer distributor in the Imperial Valley in California from 1930 to 1953.
Anti-immigrant laws during the 1920s, however, kept Saund from finding a better career, but also prohibited him from owning his own land or even becoming a citizen.
Saund married an American citizen, Marian, whose parents had emigrated from Czechoslovakia. The union still would not garner him citizenship. Although his wife was a U.S.-born citizen, marrying an Asian caused her to lose her own citizenship.
Despite the hardships, Saund quietly persevered in his newfound home. He continued his business as a chemical fertilizer distributor and worked with other Asian and Indian-Americans to find a way to forge a better life for future. Many of his efforts went largely overshadowed by his lack of citizenship.
However, things started to change for Saund and other Asian-Americans in the 1940s. Saund had written a book, My Mother India, which was reportedly a rebuttal to Catherine Mayo’s attack on India with her book, Mother India, according to a 1999 article on rediff.com. He formed the Indian Association of America (IAA) in an effort to amend laws so Asian-Americans could become full-fledged citizens.
Saund’s work through the IAA and in conjunction with J.J. Singh, who formed the Indian League of America, and the founder of the India Welfare League, Mubarak Ali Khan, that finally helped to garner some headway. Saund’s work to fight for equal treatment of Asian-Americans and other ethnic groups, paid off when President Harry Truman signed the Luce-Celler Act into law, effectively changing the lives of every Asian-American then living in the United States. Indian-Americans, as well as Filipinos, could now become citizens of the United States of America.
Almost as soon as Saund’s citizenship was official, he began his formal entry into politics. His first election to a judgeship in Westmoreland, Calif., ended quickly when he was told he could not serve because he had not been a U.S. citizen for a full year. This did not stop Saund as he ran for the judgeship again in 1952 and won, serving until 1957.
That year, Saund made his most impressionable impact on the United States and his fellow Indian-Americans. He was elected to the U.S. Congress, representing the Imperial and Riverside counties in California for three terms. Saund lost his fourth-term bid for re-election when he suffered a stroke early in his campaign.
During his political career, Saund also served as a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1952, 1956 and 1960.
Saund died on April 22, 1973, at the age of 73. In a report appearing in Asian Week in 1999, when Saund would have turned 100, Phil Tajitsu Nash wrote “to most Asian Indians, Saund’s main accomplishment is the pride he gave future generations of politicos and activists.”
That pride can easily be seen in the growing number of Indian-Americans who continue to pioneer the pathway for future generations including current Louisiana Governor and former Congressman Piyush “Bobby” Jindal. Jindal, who is the second Indian-American to be elected to Congress, co-sponsored the bill to name the US Post Office in Temecula, Calif., after Saund.
“Dalip Saund’s story is one of determination and true accomplishment,” Jindal told the Chandigarth, India, Tribune at the time the bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. “He personifies the idea that every person can, thorough hard work and dedication, achieve amazing heights.”