You probably know Houston
as the home of humidity, NASA and the fossil fuel industry.
But on the outskirts of the fourth largest city
in the country, in the suburb of Sugar Land,
lives a thriving Pakistani community.
I have never seen anything like this for desis in America.
Can we please pay for it?
No, no, no, no.
This is very much an atmosphere you would find
back home in cities like Karachi or Lahore or Islamabad.
But we're finding it here in Texas,
and that's amazing.
There are national cricket tournaments in Houston,
a TV station that broadcasts local news in Urdu
and tons and tons of food options.
But while Houston might be multicultural,
it doesn't mean the rest of Texas is.
- I swear to God, I saw many Confederate flags.
And Texas after Trump was completely different
for the Pakistani American community.
I had worn hijab for 22 years before taking it off.
So what's it like being Pakistani in Texas?
How did South Asians even get to the Lone Star State?
And what attracted them to the suburban sprawl of Houston?
Your earrings right now, I just noticed.
- My Astros earrings?
I think opening day is tomorrow, I believe.
I thought it was today.
So I always try to coordinate with my sports team.
Meet Afia Jalali.
Afia is a respiratory therapist
who's been in Houston since 1983,
and she's a huge Houston sports fan.
- Red and black, dude.
It's for the Rockets.
- What ring is on your other hand?
- Oh, that's just saying I'm married.
[both laughing]
There are more than 50,000 Pakistanis in Texas,
but I couldn't think of a more perfect person
to show me around the city.
- We're just really, really nice people.
I mean that in the very most unbiased way.
[laughing]
Our first stop
was in Houston's Hillcroft neighborhood.
We drove into this strip mall,
and all we saw were Pakistani
and Indian restaurants and stores.
And I was just amazed at how Afia was able to find
Pakistani clothes so easily in the U.S.
- We try to make it a point to dress up on Jummah.
But here's the thing,
in Houston, Pakistani culture isn't limited
to certain neighborhoods or certain stores.
It's permeated American chains too.
One day, Afia and I went to Party City,
and it was packed with decorations for Ramadan.
Pakistan is a majority-Muslim country.
Some 97% of the population practices Islam.
And for many Pakistani Americans,
faith is a big part of their identity.
- I'm about to go broke, seriously.
What is this?
I'm definitely gonna get this.
- I mean, the crazy part is the Pakistani and Muslim community
here in Sugar Land is changing
what Party City looks like,
this like American company.
- Isn't that crazy?
- Yeah. - Yeah, and I can promise you
that this, this will be sold.
- While faith was on display
at Party City in Sugar Land,
it doesn't mean that Pakistanis are always welcome
or feel safe in other parts of Texas,
especially because of that faith.
Afia's job as a respiratory therapist
means she often has to go into people's homes to treat them.
It can be a very close and intimate setting.
You're my best patient though, you know?
Well, you're not my best patient - - Oh, wait.
- but you're my favorite patient. [Laughs]
Afia used to wear hijab,
but after Donald Trump's presidency,
she said she didn't feel safe
going into some people's homes.
And so she stopped wearing it.
I had worn hijab for 22 years before taking it off.
Yeah, it's weird to talk about this. [Laughs]
Afia said she'd often travel
far outside of Houston to treat patients,
places that might not be so welcoming
to people that look like her.
Very rural areas.
I swear to God, I saw many Confederate flags.
Not a couple,
many. To the point where I'm like,
I'm not even gonna Snapchat this sh*t, OK?
Some of Afia's patients wouldn't even
let her in the home.
I have a ventilator,
like literally a ventilator on a stand with me.
They know I'm coming.
They open the door. They see me in my scarf
and my scrubs and stethoscope, by the way.
They wouldn't let me in.
You know, I was upping my Texas accent,
like, can I just do my job?
Can I just help you breathe?
OK, I don't carry a gun.
I am in the middle of nowhere,
and little spidey senses start feeling
that they are uncomfortable with me,
the respiratory therapist, being there.
And this didn't happen once,
this happened over and over again.
I started wearing hijab in college, actually.
After 9/11, there was anti-Islam rhetoric,
but it wasn't like this, man.
I want people to know how much courage it takes
to walk out of your house and put a scarf on
to represent your religion and walk around,
and automatically you're identified as a Muslim.
I loved that about wearing a hijab.
I absolutely loved wearing my identity
and sharing it
and also like screaming at the refs at Rockets games.
But yeah, I have a scarf on,
because we're just like you.
After Trump was elected,
and even during his campaign,
yeah, we got a lot more stares.
Hijabi girls will tell you everybody stares.
No problem.
But it did get worse.
It's sad that this president made Muslims
look like so negative,
and this beautiful religion of Islam
look so negative, that I'm afraid of being hurt
because of what people's perception of is me,
'cause I walk in with a scarf on.
That's pretty sad.
While she worries about rural Texas,
in Sugar Land and Houston, Afia says she feels at home.
But how did it become home for so many Pakistani immigrants?
Well, it turns out it actually has a lot to do
with the Cold War.
So, who's coming to the United States
from India and Pakistan?
The highly skilled.
That's Dr. Uzma Quraishi.
She's a historian who wrote the book,
"Redefining the Immigrant South,"
where she looked into Indian and Pakistani immigration
to Houston.
Uzma found that there are four main reasons
why South Asian immigrants, including Pakistanis,
chose Houston as their destination.
First is the Cold War.
In the 1950s, the government created
the United States Information Agency, or USIA.
What was USIA?
It was an agency created
to counteract Russian Soviet propaganda.
And the United States
countered that propaganda
with its own propaganda,
like this promotional film
funded entirely by the U.S. government.
- For the first time in its history,
Pakistan offers its proverbial hospitality
to the wife of a president.
Early government documents refer to it
as psychological warfare.
Their preferred term eventually becomes public diplomacy,
because of the taint associated with the word propaganda.
So what did the USIA do?
Well for one, it created libraries
throughout Pakistan and India,
like this one in Peshawar.
And in smaller towns, USIA would set up exhibits
for people to learn about American culture.
- USIA and USIS posts arranged entertainers, lecturers.
Athletes performed,
for example, demonstrations in swimming.
And dancers also came. Dance troops came and performed.
So it was a revolving door of American cultural diplomats
that were proud of the United States.
Through this propaganda,
Indians and Pakistanis learned about the United States.
And through scholarships like the Fulbright Program,
some of them were able to study in the United States too.
The second reason is that immigration laws changed.
In 1965, the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act was passed,
which allowed more non-European immigrants
to come study in the United States.
Immigration policy was overhauled,
and national origins quotas and racial restrictions
were removed from immigration law.
But U.S. lawmakers didn't think that immigrants
who came to study would stay.
They wanted people to go back to their homelands
and spread the so-called "gospel of democracy."
The '65 Act wasn't intended to bring permanent residents
from these countries.
But the U.S. has no intention of changing the ethnic
or racial makeup of the United States.
But those students ended up
building lives here.
So why did so many of those students end up choosing
to study in Houston, specifically the University of Houston?
Well, because in the '60s and '70s,
Houston was booming and engineers were in high demand,
especially because of the oil and gas industry
and because Houston was home to NASA.
That's reason three.
- Houston was put on the global sort-of radar
because of NASA.
It sort of seeped into the consciousness
of people around the world, where it never had prior to that.
And the last reason Houston becomes a hub
is because of the Pakistani and Indian word-of-mouth network.
The South Asian students who now had jobs here started sponsoring relatives.
They then invite family members to apply for visas.
And you have this chain migration of families that then join them.
That takes place, especially over the 1980s.
Since the 1980s, the Pakistani and Indian populations have dramatically increased.
And new facilities have come up to serve the community,
like this TV channel:
We are the first South Asian channel here in Houston.
We do our content in three different languages: Hindi, Urdu and English as well.
And no Pakistani community would be complete without an appreciation for cricket.
I mean, Pakistan’s current prime minister is a former cricket player.
And when I was visiting Houston, the city was host to a national cricket tournament,
not to mention its usual cricket leagues.
- We’re playing in this league. We have 16 teams.
And majority of the players are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
But there’s a reason why Houston would be the place
where South Asian Americans could build cricket facilities and fund a TV station.
The Pakistanis who came to Houston were privileged in many ways.
Because they already spoke English and had professional degrees,
South Asian immigrants had more advantages than Houston’s Black and Latinx populations.
But that doesn’t mean they were immune to discrimination.
Many landlords would not rent to Indian and Pakistani students or immigrants.
And when it came to jobs, South Asian engineers often weren’t promoted into management.
- They weren't able to rise high in the ranks,
whereas others who were less experienced and less qualified
were given those opportunities because they were white.
During Houston’s recession in the 80s, and with the forced integration of school systems,
there was a lot of white flight in Houston.
White families moved to the suburbs, leaving city schools underfunded.
And South Asian parents followed white parents outside the city.
I call it brown flight.
It maps neatly onto white flight.
But Pakistani immigrants didn’t just go where white families went.
They actually carved out their own spaces.
- Immigrants aren't just going to the suburbs generally or randomly,
they're going to specific suburbs where there are other south Asian co-ethnics in particular.
And “ethno-burbs” like these are where a lot of Pakistanis live today, just like Afia.
Afia actually lives right next to her parents.
My mom's my next door neighbor.
Both my sisters live in this neighborhood. It's awesome.
Today, they’ve invited me to a mushaira that her parents are hosting.
The closest thing I can compare it to is a poetry reading,
but that’s doing it a disservice.
Urdu is such a beautiful language, and it's like Shakespeare.
Afia told me that she’s glad that her kids grow up
where they can be around people who look like them.
It's really nice to be in Sugar Land because of the community
and just for your identity, right? And there's no like confusion.
Afia says that her family is equally Pakistani and equally Texan.
- Of course, I cook Pakistani food at home.
But of course we have Taco Tuesday and all that too.
And hanging out in Houston for a week,
I learned that being Pakistani and Texan wasn’t incompatible.
And it wasn’t one-sided. Non-Pakistanis were embracing Pakistani culture too.
And the place where I saw that was at Aga’s restaurant.
There’s like a gun store next door. Of course, we’re in Texas.
So, you know they're most known for their goat chops.
So, if you’re going to come to Houston, Texas,
and come eat at Aga’s and not eat goat chops,
you will be doing an injustice.
Oh, that's good.
- Mmm.
You gotta be kidding me.
How many times have I had this? Same reaction, every time.
The food was simply incredible.
But what was more shocking to me was to see how diverse the eaters were.
- And so, when you come in here, you’ll see white people,
you’ll see Asians, you’ll see Black people.
I can talk to random people, like my chiropractor.
“Yeah, of course I know Aga’s. Who doesn’t know Aga’s?”
I’m like, wait, you’re Vietnamese. OK.
The fact that you get this diverse of a crowd
with a place that doesn’t serve alcohol says a lot to me.
Says a lot.
Especially during COVID.
To me, that was fascinating.
In Texas I found a Pakistani community that forged its own ethno-burb,
but is such a part of the fabric of Houston
that non-Pakistanis were participating in its culture and food too.
It was powerful to see a Pakistani community that's so thriving
that it has its own TV stations and sports leagues
and of course amazing food and hospitality.
An experience that is uniquely Southern, Texan and Pakistani - all wrapped up into one -
just like Afia and her family.