Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2)(98)
“That was a very weird thing to do, but you’re welcome.”
Could she time her pulse to his? “I’d also like to big-spoon you eventually.”
Jas’s chest rumbled under her ear. “You’d be more like a backpack, wouldn’t you?”
“It would suffice.” She interlaced her fingers with his. “You feel that? Those zings?”
“Zings, huh?” He kissed her fingers. “Okay. Let’s call them that.”
“Yes.” She pressed a kiss on his pec. They were silent for a long time, their breathing in sync.
Katrina tried to close her eyes, but she was so happy and excited and hopeful, they kept popping open. She readjusted herself and gazed at the dark ceiling. “Jas?”
His voice was sleepy, but he answered. She knew he’d answer. “Yes?”
Her heart was aglow, and she needed to share it. Radically happy. “I’ve always thought it would be romantic to have a meet-cute with someone, but I think actually we’re in a perpetual meet-cute, you know? Like it’s never-ending, us finding each other.”
His response to her mushiness was as perfect as his eyebrows. “Works for me.” He rolled over, pulling her under him. He captured her mouth, then whispered into it, “It’s always a pleasure to meet you.”
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
* * *
Meet Alisha Rai
About the Book
* * *
A Letter from the Author
Reading Group Guide
About the Author
Meet Alisha Rai
ALISHA RAI pens award-winning contemporary romances. Her novels have been named Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, NPR, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, and Cosmopolitan magazine. When she’s not writing, Alisha is traveling or tweeting. To find out more about her books or to sign up for her newsletter, visit alisharai.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
About the Book
A Letter from the Author
Dear Reader,
I’m often asked where the inspiration for my books comes from, and I’m never quite sure what to say. It’s basically a mishmash of things I’ve seen and heard and learned, combined with pen ink and a pinch of pepper. Girl Gone Viral is unique, though, because I can trace the inspiration for its setting to a single source, one you may have caught in the text.
The roti quesadilla.
(Did a heavenly light just fall upon this text? Normal.)
This delight was described in the Eater feature I found during a late-night hungry internet binge as “melted cheese, onions, and shredded beef sandwiched inside a paratha . . . served with a curry chicken dipping sauce.” I feverishly searched for where to find the goods, only to discover that Rasul’s El Ranchero, the small family-owned restaurant that had created it, had closed in 1993 after a run that spanned almost forty years, beginning in 1954.
After I grieved that I would never taste this delicacy for myself, I went back to the article. It was the dates that caught my attention, as well as the location, a small city in Northern California. Mexican/Indian fusion fits right into our trendy global foodie scene today, but it must have surely been unusual a half century ago, yes? Especially in relatively small agricultural Yuba City, the seat of Sutter County.
Except this dish wasn’t a trend. It was representative of a whole community.
As Jas’s grandfather noted, thanks to a rising tide of anti-Asian sentiment, South Asian immigration was effectively halted in 1917. The borders weren’t fully open again until 1965. I know about the immigrants who came after: my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I knew much less about the ones who came before and paved the way for the millions who came after. Like most early immigrants, they struggled against the odds to carve out a home for themselves and their families. Like most immigrants, they are a vital part of American history.
In the early 1900s, thousands of South Asians, mostly men, predominantly Sikhs, from the Punjab province in India came to America to work on the railroads and in agriculture. Places like Yuba City, with its rich farmland, became home to Punjabi settlements. Many pressing problems faced the farmers, not the least of which was a dangerous level of racism and hostility, but two major legal stumbling blocks directly challenged their dreams of becoming Americans.
First, a Supreme Court case, United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, held that South Asians were ineligible for citizenship. (For context, Thind worked his way through Berkeley and served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War I. He was granted citizenship after the war, but the Bureau of Naturalization appealed it.) Under California’s Alien Land Law, only citizens could own property. South Asian immigrants, some of whom had been naturalized and then retroactively stripped of their citizenship following the case, could not legally own the land they were pouring their sweat and blood into.
Second, the combination of a scarcity of South Asian women, the closed borders, and California’s anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited people from marrying outside their race, made growing a community seem almost impossible.
In theory. In reality, the court clerk signing marriage licenses often didn’t look very far past skin color. One source estimates that around four hundred marriages between Punjabi men and Mexican women took place between 1910 and 1940. These unions resulted in children who were automatically American citizens by birth and could hold title to their parents’ property. A hybrid Punjabi-Mexican community emerged—and with it, establishments like Rasul’s El Ranchero.