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Mohaiyuddin Khan, 1921
The U.S. Census, passport applications and naturalization petitions unfold the story of Mohaiyuddin Khan, a commercial trader who married, then divorced, a German-American woman.

Shew Persaud's Naturalization Petition
Shew Persaud was born in Georgetown, Guiana's colonial capital, in 1881. After arriving in the United States on a ship that sailed via Barbados, he petitioned to become a U.S. citizen twice, in 1917 and 1924. The first time, he was working as a dishwasher and living in West Harlem, separated from his wife, who was still in British Guiana.

Henry Sivenandan's Census Record
This U.S. Census record from 1940 provides a picture of a family from British Guiana with Indo-Caribbean last names identified as "Negro." Henry Sivenandan, an elevator operator in a loft building, and his wife Agnes, who worked in a dress factory, lived in Harlem with their toddler Saundra and Agnes' widowed older sister, Rose Persad, who worked as a seamstress in a dress factory.

Photograph of Clarice Ercel Reid Khan
Born in Georgetown, the capital of what was then British Guiana, Clarice Ercel Reid arrived in New York City on the steamship Mayaro in 1922, at the age of eighteen. In her years in the United States, she lived in West Harlem and worked as a housekeeper. She is pictured here in a photo from 1931, when she declared her intention to become a U.S. citizen. She became a U.S.

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