Fast-growing Indian community drawn to St. Louis by its welcoming spirit
Hemin Dalal attends as many festivals and Indian cultural events in the St. Louis region as he can, because he misses his homeland.
A native of Gujarat, India, Dalal came to the United States in 2015 to study at Cleveland State University.
He moved to O’Fallon, Missouri, in 2018 to take an engineering job at MasterCard and soon looked for Indian restaurants and hotspots to meet others from India.
“I am at the age where I want to have a family,” said Dalal, 30. “It’s a good place to get settled in.”
Dalal has plenty of company. He is among a growing number of people from India who are moving to the St. Louis region for jobs or to obtain a degree. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 17,842 people living in the area from India in 2021, up from 11,230 about a decade earlier. The Indian population is now the region’s fastest-growing group and has surpassed the Mexican population.
“The majority of them come here to St. Louis because of some of the Fortune 500 businesses that are in St. Louis that are really hiring, particularly in the IT field, that India as a country has really made that their craft,” said Arrey Obenson, president of the International Institute of St. Louis.