For assisting in so many ways, I thank: my friends at MassDEP’s Office of General Counsel—you know who are—for picking up the slack when the line hung loose; Carolle R. Morini, Lisa Starzyk, and Mary Warmement, librarians extraordinaire; Megan Lynch, Helen Atsma, Sonya Cheuse, Sara Birmingham, Laura Cherkas, and the team at Ecco; Maria Massie, for her grace and calm, for always pointing me toward true north; and Lee Boudreaux, who took the leap and had faith—your words have stayed with me a dozen years.

I am indebted to the following writers whose works of nonfiction helped me understand the created world of Fredonia and beyond: Benny J. Andres Jr.’s Power and Control in the Imperial Valley; Tara Singh Bains and Hugh Johnston’s The Four Quarters of the Night; Rajani Kanta Das’s Hindustani Workers on the Pacific Coast; F. C. Farr’s edited History of the Imperial County, CA; Harold Gould’s Sikhs, Swamis, Students, and Spies; Jayasri “Joyce” Hart’s documentary film Roots in the Sand; Yuji Ichioka’s Issei; Joan M. Jensen’s Passage from India; David Laskin’s The Long Way Home, which conveys many moving accounts of real soldiers’ adventures in the Great War; Karen Leonard’s Making Ethnic Choices; Patricia Preciado Martin’s Songs My Mother Sang to Me; Johanna Ogden’s article “Ghadar, Historical Silences, and Notions of Belonging”; David Omissi’s edited Indian Voices of the Great War; Elena Poniatowska’s Las Soldaderas; the writings of Dalip Singh Saund; Eric Michael Schantz’s article “All Night at the Owl”; Nayan Shah’s Stranger Intimacy; Baba Gurdit Singh’s Voyage of Komagata Maru; Khushwant Singh’s authoritative History of the Sikhs; Seema Sohi’s Echoes of Mutiny; Ronald Takaki’s Strangers from a Different Shore; the writings of Bhagat Singh Thind; Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler’s The Japanese American Family Album; and Otis B. Tout’s compilation Imperial Valley, The First Thirty Years, which perhaps reveals more (by its exclusion of certain residents’ stories) than he intended.

I am grateful to Bharthi Reddi, Mamatha Reddy, N.S., Alexi Lownie, Kathy Seidl, Lisa Youngling Howard, and Angus, who every day, through living and being, made possible the writing of this novel.

And finally, my abiding love, respect, and gratitude to Raghunath and Rekha P. Reddi, who came to believe, truly and deeply, in the way only parents can.

About the Author

RISHI REDDI is the author of the collection Karma and Other Stories, which received the 2008 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award for fiction. Her work appears in The Best American Short Stories, has been broadcast on National Public Radio, and was chosen as an honorable mention for the Pushcart Prize. She was born in Hyderabad, India, and grew up in Great Britain and the United States. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Karma and Other Stories

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