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How a simple question about American hotels led to ‘the greatest immigration story never told’
CNN ^

Posted on 10/04/2025 10:47:30 AM PDT by TigerClaws

Little kids line up in white graduation caps and gowns. Family members pose for formal photos at a wedding. Cousins laugh as they cut into the frosting of a giant birthday cake.

These scenes from Amar Shah’s childhood flash across the screen in a new film. And they share something in common.

All the photos were taken at motels owned by Indian immigrant families.

Shah grew up in that world.

His parents were in the gas station business. Family members and close friends owned motels. But Shah didn’t want to follow in their footsteps.

“I saw it as rough, blue-collar work,” he says, “and I felt a little embarrassed by it.”

But now Shah, 45, says he sees things differently. And he’s hoping others will, too.

A new short film he co-directed and narrates, “The Patel Motel Story,” premiered at New York’s Tribeca Festival in June. And this month, it’s showing at festivals across the US.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: hotels; immigration; india; motels
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Notice what CNN does NOT say in this story: "Indian-American success story proves that foreign nationals, despite skin color, can achieve success at the highest levels in America."

But that's the real story here.

1 posted on 10/04/2025 10:47:30 AM PDT by TigerClaws
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To: TigerClaws

Thanks to small business loans from the American taxpayers and welfare benefits.


2 posted on 10/04/2025 10:49:29 AM PDT by dljordan (The Rewards of Tolerance are Treachery and Betrayal)
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To: TigerClaws

I used to work in one of those motels. They live in the motel. We had to convert some rooms for them into an apartment. He refused to pay overtime over 40 hours and I ended up getting a check at the end of the school year from the Labor Dept that saved my butt.


3 posted on 10/04/2025 10:51:03 AM PDT by AppyPappy (They don't call you a Nazi because they think you are one. They do it to justify violence. )
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To: TigerClaws

Since it appears those Indians were legal immigrants not sure how CNN thought it was a shot at Conservatives who are against ILLEGAL Aliens.


4 posted on 10/04/2025 10:56:47 AM PDT by RWGinger
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To: dljordan

“small business loans from the American taxpayers”

Which were given to them with preferential terms because they are a “protected class”.

And why are they “protected”? Because supposedly they were Victimized (with a capitol V) due to American immigration laws which prevented them from coming here before 1965...

Got that? Yer a Victim of the Evil White People if they don’t let you in to their country...


5 posted on 10/04/2025 10:59:23 AM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: TigerClaws

Since it appears those Indians were legal immigrants not sure how CNN thought it was a shot at Conservatives who are against ILLEGAL Aliens.


6 posted on 10/04/2025 10:59:52 AM PDT by RWGinger
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To: dljordan

Yep. A critical fact ignored by OP. Clearly an agenda here.


7 posted on 10/04/2025 11:00:58 AM PDT by LouAvul (Galatians: proof that "dispensationalism" in any form is false doctrine. Salvation is only in Jesus.)
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To: dljordan

Small business loans that froze out Americans for these skanky motel owners. Ever stay at an Indian run motel? Even the meth heads think it’s a shithole.


8 posted on 10/04/2025 11:01:22 AM PDT by HYPOCRACY (Wake up, smell the cat food in your bank account. )
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To: TigerClaws

Why this story from CNN?

Because like the rest of the Left of center media, they are always trying to conflate all immigrants, legal and illegal, together. The agenda and narrative is to lull Americans into never seeing illegal immigrants, just “immigrants”.


9 posted on 10/04/2025 11:06:43 AM PDT by Wuli (uire)
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To: TigerClaws

I am sure some American whose family came from South Korea could write a very similar story focused on Koreans in the laundry/dry cleaning industry.

Immigrants from the same country often congregate in some industry, and its only natural, once some are in that industry. New arrivals hook up with relatives in that industry because they already know the ins and outs and can help the new arrivals get started.

It has been going on in this country forever.


10 posted on 10/04/2025 11:11:31 AM PDT by Wuli (uire)
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To: TigerClaws
So; how do Indian immigrants get these motels,gas stations,kwik-E-marts?
11 posted on 10/04/2025 11:13:22 AM PDT by 55Ford (https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%2Fid%2FOIP.Xy4oYwb)
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To: RWGinger

The Lefties like to cleverly bundle the legal and illegal aliens into one group - like bundling the people who use their own ATM card/pin with bank robbers of people who do bank withdrawals. And then if anyone complains about the “bank robbers” they accuse them of being against anyone doing bank withdrawals. This is a big part of why this past decade we have seen the Far South Texas side of the Rio Grande Valley turn from being strong Democratic to strong Trump/GOP. Those people know firsthand the facts.


12 posted on 10/04/2025 11:21:54 AM PDT by Degaston
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To: TigerClaws
Don't know the fine points about the motel ownership law, but it massively favors these people to the exclusion of native Americans and especially whites.

The end goal is the same: Replace the normals in the US with these people, who invariably vote Rat.

The whole thing, ever since Ted Kennedy's immigration law in the 1960s, has been to replace whites with immigrants who will be dependent, or be anti-white crybabies, and who will vote Rat forever, generation after generation. No matter how successful and wealthy they become.

And it worked, and they did, and they do still.

The name of the game is replacement. We are all aware of this.

13 posted on 10/04/2025 11:32:00 AM PDT by caddie (Going forward we all need to become Trump, and also Captain Obvious, and Charlie Kirk too. )
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To: Regulator

1965? Immigrants from Indians have been very productive and relatively well-behaving here.

But from a broader perspective, is it a coincidence that America may have reached its cultural zenith at just about that time.


14 posted on 10/04/2025 11:35:07 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: TigerClaws

Saw this a few years back.

Riveting 8 minutes
https://www.outkick.com/culture/adam-driver-john-chapman-alone-at-dawn-details


15 posted on 10/04/2025 11:40:18 AM PDT by Vendome (I've Gotta Be Me https://youtu.be/wH-pk2vZG2M)
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To: Vendome

ooops

wrong thread


16 posted on 10/04/2025 11:42:14 AM PDT by Vendome (I've Gotta Be Me https://youtu.be/wH-pk2vZG2M)
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To: HYPOCRACY

“Ever stay at an Indian run motel?”

Yes, several times.


17 posted on 10/04/2025 12:07:57 PM PDT by dljordan (The Rewards of Tolerance are Treachery and Betrayal)
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To: TigerClaws

I had noticed that over a very few years time even motels in small out-of-the-way towns were run by Indians.

I figured this was about immigration. Invest so much money and you get residency. It looked like some folks were bootstrapping others and in so doing they took over a whole industry.

Arabs have done the same thing with convenience stores.


18 posted on 10/04/2025 12:14:38 PM PDT by marron
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To: marron

The Mayflower analogy may be very appropriate, as U.S. is being colonized by India.


19 posted on 10/04/2025 12:25:08 PM PDT by sopo
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To: 9YearLurker

Your post is jumbled and incomprehensible.

English maybe your second language?

There were about 12,000 people from the Indian “subcontinent” in the United States in 1960. That’s about 0.006% of the population at that time.

In 1960 the United States were the undisputed superpower on Earth. Oddly, we got to that all without any help from South Asians.

The thug known as “LBJ” then copped a line from JFK’s phony book “Nation of Immigrants” - actually written by Jewish activist Myer Feldman - and told us it was waciss to restrict immigration to the original source of settlers: Northern Europe, reflected in the 1924 Immigration Act. LBJ and Ted The Swimmer told us there would be “at most” 5000 people total from East Asia who would immigrate here.

A simple search elicits this from the AI agent:

“The total number of South Asian immigrants to the United States since the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act is not explicitly stated in the provided sources. However, the data indicates a significant increase in the South Asian population following this legislation. As of 2019, there were approximately 14.1 million immigrants from Asia residing in the United States, representing a 29-fold increase from 1960, with the 1965 Act being the primary catalyst for this growth.
The South Asian community in the U.S. has grown substantially, with nearly 5.4 million South Asians living in the country as of recent estimates, and the majority of this population is foreign-born, having entered after 1965.
While the exact cumulative number of South Asian immigrants since 1965 is not available, the dramatic rise from a few hundred thousand in the 1960s to over 5 million today underscores the scale of this migration”

So uh...why did we need ANY of them? The same people who screeched that we were raciss for wanting our own country then told us there were too many of us, we were “overpopulated” and we needed to start aborting ourselves. Gee wait...then why are we letting in people who a) have nothing in common with us, b) had nothing to do with the settlement and building of the nation?

You claim they “behave well”. Really? Ever heard the term “Indian scammer”? The Patel Motels this bozo is so proud of are universally reviled as trashy clip joints. It’s not an inapt description - personal experience. And they have helped themselves to enormous amounts of taxpayer subsidies without end, subsidies that still exist, all while pleading poverty and entitlement because “we are poor brown victims of you”.

No one asked them to come here. They invited themselves, and they don’t “behave” like you said, unless you mean stunning self interest and disgusting financial fraud is “behaving” in your book.


20 posted on 10/04/2025 12:26:47 PM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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