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Migration Waves

Run the Migration Waves MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

Migration Waves shows the big movements of South Asian people around the world as arcs between labeled region tiles. South Asia sits in the middle, with tiles for the United States, the Caribbean, Britain, the Gulf, East Africa, Mauritius and Fiji around it. The tiles are not a map. Their positions are only rough, and no borders are drawn.

Drag the year slider from 1830 to 2020, or press Play, and arcs light up for each wave while it is active: indenture to Mauritius (from 1834), the Caribbean (1838 to 1917) and Fiji (1879 to 1916); railway workers and traders in East Africa (from 1896); Punjabi workers on the US West Coast (about 1900 to 1917); postwar migration to Britain; the 1972 expulsion from Uganda to Britain; the Gulf oil boom (from the 1970s); and the United States after the Immigration Act of 1965. Finished waves stay faintly visible, so you can see how the diaspora built up layer by layer.

Click or tap a region, or pick a wave from the menu, to read a card with its dates, its main cause and one fact. Every date and number comes from the sources listed in Chapter 21's references.

How to Use

  1. Look at the tiles first. Find South Asia in the middle and the seven destination regions around it.
  2. Press Play and watch the arcs appear as the years pass. Press Pause to stop at any year.
  3. Pause at 1850, 1910, 1960, 1980 and 2010. Read the "Active in" line at the bottom of the card each time.
  4. Click or tap each region tile to read why people went there.
  5. Use the wave menu to find the arc that does not start in South Asia (East Africa to Britain, 1972).
  6. Press Reset to go back to 1830, or drag the slider to any year you want to check.

Learning Objective

Students will be able to identify the major waves of South Asian migration (indenture, East Africa, early North America, Britain, the Gulf and the post-1965 United States) and explain the main cause of each.

Bloom level: Understand (identify, explain).

Iframe Embed Code

<iframe src="https://aaryavvatts-lab.github.io/south-asian-culture-textbook/sims/ch21-migration-waves/main.html" height="762px" width="100%" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Grade level: 9 to 12 (US history, world history, ethnic studies, or a South Asian student club meeting)

Duration: 20 minutes

Activity:

  1. (3 min) Students write down when they think South Asians first came to the United States, then check their guess against the "Early United States" wave.
  2. (7 min) Students play the timeline and pause at 1850, 1910, 1960, 1980 and 2010, filling in a table of active waves for each year.
  3. (5 min) Students click every region and sort the waves by cause: empire and plantations, railways and trade, postwar labor, oil, a new law, or expulsion.
  4. (5 min) Pairs discuss: Which waves were tied to the British Empire? Which wave might match their own family's story, or a friend's?

Assessment questions:

  1. Which three destinations received indentured workers in this sim, and why did indenture begin?
  2. Why does one arc start in East Africa instead of South Asia?
  3. Which wave began in the 1970s, and what caused it?
  4. What changed in US law in 1965, and how does the sim show its effect?
  5. In 1975, which waves were active? For each one, name its main cause.

Chapter 21: The South Asian Diaspora