A coolie woman’s work is never done

Gaiutra Bahadur unearths buried stories of indenture—those of women who battled rigid patriarchy on either side of the black water: The Margins

Some months ago, I found myself stewing over a Facebook argument that flared up after I posted on my timeline the link to Gaiutra Bahadur’s magnificent new book Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture. “‘Indian woman’—not ‘Coolie woman’” a well-meaning African-Jamaican friend responded, a bald declaration that irked me for various reasons. Do you think the two are synonymous, I asked?