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ARCHANA B. VERMA. Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage Publications 2002. Pp. 356, illus. $44.00
The Paldis - one, an agricultural village in India's Punjab; the other, a small lumber community on Vancouver Island founded by emigrants from that village - are an immigration historian's dream. Archana B. Verma, a lecturer at the University of Delhi with a doctorate from Simon Fraser University, has used oral testimony and rich written records to produce what is, in many ways, a model of immigration history. She examines both the sending and the receiving communities and their interaction as the migrants sought to raise the status of their caste.
Quite properly, Verma begins by describing the complicated caste system and village, family, and property relations in the Punjab. Her explanations may be as clear as it is possible to make them and the glossary is helpful, but a schematic diagram of the social structure would make it easier to understand its complexities. She shows how families of low-status Mahton caste sent...