Starting as far back as the 1940s, Indian immigrants steadily began building hospitality industry that their children and grandchildren have joined.
Half the country’s motels are now owned by Americans that originated from India. A majority of these owners are from India’s western state of Gujarat. The first Gujarati hotelier in the United States was a man named Kanji Manchhu Desai, who joined two Gujarati farm workers in California in 1942 to take over a 32-room hotel in Sacramento, California. He encouraged immigrants from Gujarat to lease hotels, and many followed his advice.
“They would give each other handshake loans—no collateral, no payment schedule, just pay when you can,” historian Mahendra Doshi explains. “Once a family purchased a motel, they would live there, and the family members would do all the tasks needed to run it, from cleaning rooms to checking in guests. That helped keep costs down, and profits went toward acquiring new motels. By the 1980s Gujaratis had come to dominate the industry,” Doshi adds.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
