Meet the Min(h)ajs

Ever wondered why Nicki Minaj and Hasan Minhaj have the same last name? Can desi barbs in fact claim the queen as one of our own? The answer is yes - at least partly. Nicki’s father, Robert, is of Indian origin, as are about 2.5 million other people in the Caribbean.

The full story behind their shared last names is much darker. When Britain abolished slavery in 1834, colonist-owned plantations faced a severe labor shortage. Newly freed Africans refused to work on European-owned plantations. The imperial government sought to fill this gap by bringing indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent. 

Lured by promises of pay, healthcare and housing, over 1.5 million Indian workers were shipped off to British colonies in the Caribbean as well as East and South Africa. In reality, they faced terrible conditions. Only two thirds of the laborers even survived the harrowing journey by sea to their final destinations. Once they arrived, they worked grueling jobs on plantations. In East and South Africa, they built railroads. The model proved so successful that the British even replicated the indentured labor system in Malaysia and Burma, where no slave labor existed earlier. 

Though the conditions of their servitude promised a return journey, only about a third ever returned to India. The historian Hugh Tinker called it a “new form of slavery.” Far from home, stuck in low paying jobs and with little opportunity to build a family life (there were far fewer women than men,) these workers were labeled “Coolies” and remained at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid in the countries they now had to make their own. 

Indentured servitude officially ended in 1917, after protests by Indian nationalists, and today, many Caribbean countries celebrate Indian Arrival Day in the month of May. Younger generations are attempting to reclaim the pejorative “coolie,” which still carries a painful sting. If you search the word on TikTok, teenagers are proudly sharing the food, clothes and history of their heritage and its unique blend of cultures.