: 100 Years After Racist Attacks, Why Berkeley Named a Street After This Indian Woman #IndiaNEWS #History The year was 1915, when India was still struggling for independence. From what is now Pakistan’s

100 Years After Racist Attacks, Why Berkeley Named a Street After This Indian Woman #IndiaNEWS #History
The year was 1915, when India was still struggling for independence. From what is now Pakistan’s Peshawar, a couple emigrated to the US with their three children, denouncing their British citizenship in the hopes of leading a life in a free land. But what they found was even more oppression and racism.
Vaishno Das Bagai and his wife, Kala, arrived with their three children at Berkeley with some gold and ,000, at a time when there were only close to 2,000 Indians living in the US. Due to the immense racism they faced almost immediately upon arrival, they were forced to move from their home.
Kala and Vaishno Das with their sons Madan, Brij, and Ram (Photo credit: SAADA)
Now, over a 100 years since, (in September this year) the Berkeley City Council voted to have the two-block stretch of Shattuck Avenue named the ‘Kala Bagai Way’. But naming a street after a US immigrant came from reasons that were not usual. After all, Kala was not well-known, held no political office, never won any award — which are the most common reasons someone gets a street named after them.
How, then, is this street the first in Berkeley—and only the second in the US, after Kalpana Chawla—to be named after a South Asian woman?
Who is Kala Bagai?
Kala was born in 1892 in Amritsar, and married when she was only 11 years old. According to Rani Bagai, her granddaughter, Kala initially found herself lonely, and sad that she was away from her family. But her in-laws were good to her, and she grew to love her husband, with whom she had three boys — Brij, Madan, and Ram (Rani’s father).
When Kala arrived in the US, most Indians along the West Coast were single male sojourners. Her arrival was such a rare occurrence at the time that it made headlines — the San Francisco Call-Post printed a story claiming she was the “first Hindu woman to enter the city in 10 years???, with a giant photo of her holding her youngest son. The headline read — Nose Diamond Latest Fad Arrives Here From India.
A newspaper clipping of the racist ad in San Francisco Call-Post (Photo credit: SAADA)
Kala didn’t know a word of English when she came to the US. Recounting her first few days in the foreign land to her granddaughter, she said, “The boat people said, ‘You cannot leave today. Saturday and Sunday. Monday, the office will open, then you can gl?&K??[?]??[YH?X]^H?ZY8?&??????????&K?X?H[?????YX[??X]?HY??&]Z?HH???][??]H?]?^H??H?[[????YH??Z]???H??Y???YK??]HY??&]?????]X?[?^H??]?K???H???][?]]?^H[??[?][HZ?H?]]??H?[?Y?

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