Manish Vij‘Long before dawn on a frosty… morning in Dallas, Palwinder Singh rises from the mattress in his sleeper cab… pulls his semi… into Vega, a quiet town in the Texas Panhandle… rolls into… “#Punjabi #Dhaba”’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/20/along-highways-indian-restaurants-serve-americas-truckers/
‘an estimated 40 dhabas, and likely many more, that have popped up along American highways across the country in response to the growing number of Punjabi truckers’
‘Punjabis now make up almost 20 percent of the U.S. trucking industry… both truckers and owner-operators… riding American highways since the late 1960s, especially in California’
‘he found out about the Vega dhaba through the group and pinned it on his personal Google Maps, dotted with various dhabas around the country’
‘Dhabas… are tucked into truck stops and travel centers at the edges of sleepy American towns, some with almost all-White populations.’
‘Punjabi has seeped onto highway signs and billboards; just east of Vega is a truck and trailer sales billboard ad printed almost entirely in the language, alongside a photo of wrestling legends Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage’
“Punjabis have done a great deal to uplift a lot of rural America. All up and down Highway 5 through California, you have dhabas, you have gurdwaras”
Need to make some stops on LA trips 🤤
‘Punjabi immigrants have been fleeing rising discrimination and violence against India’s religious minorities, including… Sikhism’
‘The town’s only South Asian residents are the truck stop’s Punjabi owners and employees and the motel owners… from Gujarat’
‘About 55 miles west of the Vega Truck Stop is another highway dhaba in San Jon, N.M. And about the same distance to Vega’s east is an I-40 dhaba in the town of Panhandle, Tex., just east of Amarillo’
‘also pepper other pockets of small-town America, including in York, Ala., Burns, Wyo., and Overton, Neb.’
‘The Sandhus have made a name for themselves in Vega and say the town has embraced them, despite some residents having reservations’
“All we had was a pickup truck and our stuff, and then we came straight to Texas”
The new Okies
‘At first they stocked the convenience store with typical American snack fare: potato chips, soft drinks and candy. But they soon discovered that the trucking demographic is “actually more #Indian”’
‘can already envision Punjabi dhabas joining the ranks of big-box truck stops…
“like how you’d go to a Pilot, but it’ll be the Punjabi dhaba”’
‘Jovneek Smith, one of few women in the industry, wore a tracksuit with slippers’
‘plans to renovate their dhaba this summer, adding showers and gas pumps’
Might want some megawatt chargers
‘Muhudin is part of a growing population of Somali truckers who also patronize the dhaba because Punjabi food has similarities to Somali food’
‘Punjabi biscuits flecked with carom seeds, packets of whole cardamom and cloves, and bright blue bags of India’s Magic Masala-flavored, crinkle-cut Lay’s potato chips… truck ornaments with images of Guru Nanak’