30/05/2022
Indian Arrival Day became an official holiday in 1994. Officially, it recognises the 140,000 Indian immigrants who arrived in the period between 1845 to 1917. In India, they were promised a better life and an opportunity to overcome the poverty that defined their lives. They arrived at Nelson Island off the coast of Trinidad and found they had traded awful conditions in their homeland for backbreaking work in Trinidad.
On Indian Arrival Day, we honour these immigrants' contributions to our culture, but like many other holidays here, Indian Arrival Day serves symbolically as a reminder of the role immigration had played in bringing people from all over the world to this island nation.
Happy Indian Arrival Day from all of us