tates (Millis 32). These families became the basis for the new East Indian communities. They had come to the United States with high hopes, expecting to make their fortunes, but they discovered that life in America was unexpectedly challenging. Some found it hard to get work. Moreover, those who had jobs lived a life very different from the life they have known in India (Karitala 2). Instead of belonging to a settled community of families, they traveled from place to place with their work gangs. And although most of them had been farmers of farm laborers in the Punjab region of India, in America they often had to turn to other kinds of work (Dayes 22). Many of them encountered prejudice, born of ignorance and fear. White sometimes associated the Asian Indian immigrants with blacks, Chinese, or Japanese (22). Often the Asian Indians were lumped together with other Asian peoples as "Asiatics," whom prejudices whites considered unfit to be part of American society (22). Samuel L. Gompers, a leader of the American Labor Movement, said, "Sixty year
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