Early US law lumped all South Asian immigrants into the religious category ‘Hindoo’

Evidence

Orientalism placed Asians arriving in America in unusual categories. The first Asian immigrants in the U.S.—those from China and Japan—for instance, were commonly referred to as ‘‘Oriental.’’ Legal, political, and popular discourse of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century also employed the misnomer ‘‘Hindoo’’ for those who had come from the Indian subcontinent. ‘‘Hindoo’’ was a homogenizing category that referred to South Asian immigrants mainly from Punjab Province; it encompassed not only Hindus, but also practitioners of the Sikh and Muslim religious (Jensen 1988). — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 289

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the historical misnomer ‘Hindoo’ as a homogenizing legal category covering Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus alike.
• XREF: Connects to Edward Said’s Orientalism framework the reader is clearly tracking, plus the later ‘Asian-Pacific Triangle’ exclusion policy. — connects to: Non-white South Asian immigrants could obtain citizenship by passing as Black