From South Asia to South Wales

Funded by our own unrestricted reserves, From South Asia to South Wales is a two-year project which collects photographs and objects to document the stories of the three largest ethnic minority groups in Walesa. These are the Indian, Pakistani and Bengali communities in Cardiff and Newport, highlighting the contributions of the South Asians to Welsh history and their influence on our culture. 

60 interviews taken with South Asian families over two years will culminate in an e-book, a 60-minute docu-video, and an exhibition at the the Riverfront Theatre in Newport.

According to the 2021 census, South Asians make up 3% of Wales’s 3.19m population with 53,918 people of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin living in Wales. The largest majority live in Cardiff (Indian population of Cardiff is 8,837 people), Pakistani (8,615) and Bengali (6,887) and Newport: Pakistani (4,803), Bengali (2,858) and Indian (2,023).

These communities contribute to Wales’s culture, economy and arts. Cardiff and Newport have a well-established South Asian community, many of whom arrived in Wales during the 1950s and 1960s. Asian restaurants, grocery and clothes stores, temples and mosques are all visible across Cardiff and Newport, particularly in Cathays, Plasnewydd and Roath in Cardiff and in Maindee and Pillgwenlly in Newport. Eid, Diwali and Vaisakhi celebrations take place across the two cities with the Welsh Government and local authorities joining the celebrations with their own events and messages or symbols of respect.

In the 1950s, the United Kingdom experienced labour shortages in the British steel, textile and engineering industries. Labourers were brought over and were housed in blocks of terraced houses across the UK. It was during this time, following the Second World War, and especially during the 1950s and the 1960s, that Pakistani and Indian immigration to the UK increased due to labour shortages. Large areas of cities across the UK had been destroyed by aerial bombing so a programme of rebuilding began, which required workers. The British government actively invited people from the Commonwealth to come and work. A lot of doctors from India and Pakistan were recruited by the newly created NHS in the 1950s. These are facts which are long forgotten or unknown today. They need to be documented and showcased to navigate through the abhorrent racism these communities face in their everyday lives.