Ellen Watumull | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

Jhamandas Watumull, originally from Hyderabad, Sindh (in what became Pakistan), the son of a brick contractor, was one of the first people of Indian descent to come to Hawai‘i.

Jhamandas left his home as a young boy of 14 to earn a living and help his disabled father. His mother sold her jewelry to buy his passage to the Philippines.

Jhamandas stayed with an older brother and worked in Manila’s textile mills. He opened a small import shop in Manila that specialized in imports from the Orient with his partner Rochiram Dharamdas. The shop attracted American troops stationed in the Philippines and business was good.

In 1913, when the troops were withdrawn from the Philippines and moved to Hawai‘i, the two partners decided to follow them and explore business opportunities.

A year later, Dharamdas opened a branch of ‘Dharamdas and Watumulls’ on Hotel Street in Honolulu. Unfortunately, two years later, Dharamdas died of cholera and the store became Jhamandas’ responsibility.

Unable to leave the Manila business for long, he decided to send his younger brother, Gobindram (GJ), to take care of the Honolulu store, which was renamed ‘East India Store’

GJ settled in Hawaii and, in 1922, married Ellen Jensen, an American music teacher. (IPAHawaii and Sharma)

Ellen’s sister, Elsie Jensen, traveled to Hawaii in 1928 to visit her. Elsie then started working at Watumull’s East India Store as a window display designer.

Watumull’s later commissioned Elsie to create hand-painted floral designs on silk for interior decoration. Her clothing designs would come later. (Honolulu)

During the following years, Jhamandas spent much time travelling looking for merchandise and visiting his family in Sind. Though he returned to Hawaii often, he could not make it his home as his wife Radhibai did not want to live in a foreign country.

The initial years in Hawaii were difficult and trying. As the first Indian businessmen in Hawaii, they faced many setbacks, discrimination and daunting immigration laws, including denial of citizenship to GJ although he was married to an American. His wife, Ellen, lost her American citizenship because she had married a British East Indian subject.

As time passed, the East India Store flourished, selling raw silk goods and ‘aloha shirts’ on the island, turning into a major department store, before eventually opening additional branch stores in Waikiki and the downtown Honolulu area.

They opened the Leilani Gift Shop, and introduced their coordinated Hawaiian wear for the entire family – men’s and boys’ shirts and women’s and girls’ muumuus in matching authentic island prints. The shop also sold Hawaiian gifts and souvenirs and imported goods from the Far East.

After the Partition of India in 1947, Jhamandas and his family left Sind and moved to Bombay, India. The family celebrated India’s independence in faraway Hawaii by serving refreshments at an extended Open House and offering a 10 per cent discount on all purchases at the Waikiki branch of the East India Store.

The proceeds of the day’s business were donated to Indian charities. Later the Watumulls helped install a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Kapiolani Park on Waikiki beach in Honolulu.

In 1954, there were a total of eight Watumull stores. Rejecting a consultant’s advice to change the “tourist-oriented” names of his stores like Leilani Gift Shop and focus on mainland-type goods, they opened more “tourist-oriented’ stores.

During the next 20 years, the number of stores increased to 29 and included East India Stores, Aloha Fashions, Malihini Gifts and Leilani Gift Shops.

The business became among the top 250 businesses of Hawai‘i. Over time, the Watumull stores have all closed down; one remains at the Ala Moana Center.

The Watumull family also set up several local philanthropic and educational institutions, including the Rama Watumull Fund, the J. Watumull Estate, and the Watumull Foundation.

The Watumulls are also involved in considerable charitable work in India — a hospital and an engineering college in Mumbai, a school in Pune and the funding of a Global Hospital in Mt. Abu. . (Lots of information here is from Hope, Honolulu, Watumull, Allen and Sharma.)

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East India Store window decorated for Indian independence-SAADA

Photograph of window display of one of the Watumull stores. Image credited to Salart Studios-SAADA

Gulab Watumull speaking with customers. Photo credited to Honolulu Star-Bulletin.-SAADA

Gulab Watumull, the son of Jhamandas Watumull-SAADA

Watumull-family-Honolulu

‘Watumull’s Might’ in Indian Home magazine-SAADA

Watumull’s Advertisement (1987)-SAADA

At the time of the founding of the US, female citizens did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote. It wasn’t until August 18, 1920, when the 19th Amendment was passed and American women were granted the right to vote.

But at that time, a woman’s suitability for citizenship still depended on her husband’s status – he had to be “eligible” whether he wanted to swear allegiance or not. (Archives)

On March 2, 1907, Congress passed the Expatriation Act, which decreed, among other things, that US women who married non-citizens were no longer Americans.

Congress mandated that “any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband.” Upon marriage, regardless of where the couple resided, the woman’s legal identity morphed into her husband’s. (Archives)

If their husband later became a naturalized citizen, they could go through the naturalization process to regain citizenship. But none of these rules applied to American men when they chose a spouse. (NPR)

“(There was a) time that we went through when American women lost their citizenship when they married men born in foreign countries who had not yet become Americans.”

Hawai‘i’s “(Gobindram (GJ) Watumull) was within a month of becoming a citizen when the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision that people coming from India would not be considered by the average man on the street as a white man …”

“… and, therefore, he could not become a citizen; and the attempt was made subsequently to take away the citizenship of those who already had it.”

“The case that went to the Supreme Court was that of Dr. Thind, an Indian whom all of you know, but being a Sikh, he had a full beard and a turban and of course he had very bright fiery eyes.”

“However, although he lost his right to citizenship by the Supreme Court decision, he soon became an American citizen because he joined the U.S. Army, but the rest of the Indians had to suffer from it.”

“And I, who had married (Watumull), an alien not eligible for citizenship, then lost my American citizenship. Of course for several years I did not leave the Islands, much less go to a foreign country, but had I traveled I would have had to obtain a British passport which I was very averse to doing.” (Ellen Watumull)

This inequity in citizenship rights prompted Ohio Congressman John L. Cable to act. He sponsored legislation to give American women “equal nationality and citizenship rights” as men.

Ellen Jensen, an American from Portland, married GJ Watumull, from India, in 1922. He had the Watumull stores and later foundations and investments in Hawai‘i. Ellen lost her American citizenship because she had married a British East Indian subject.

Ellen Watumull was involved with the League of Women Voters in Hawaii to rescind the law, which prevented American-born women from retaining US Citizenship when marrying non-citizens. (SAADA)

Ellen fought the law, and won.

“(T)he Cable Act, as it was then called, was amended, enabling American women to retain their citizenship if they married foreigners who were eligible for citizenship.”

“But it was not until 1931 that the law was further amended, stating that no American woman would lose her citizenship no matter whom she married, whether the man was eligible for citizenship or not.” (Watumull)

“Immediately afterwards, (she) went to the Federal Court in Honolulu and became naturalized (the first woman to do so following the passage of the law).”

“And you will all remember that on the fifth of May, 1971 (Ellen) observed the fortieth anniversary of my becoming a two-hundred-percent American.” (Ellen Watumull)

“As far as we know too, (GJ Watumull) was the first person to become naturalized when the law was passed and signed by the President.”

“I shall never forget when the telephone rang and (GJ Watumull) said, ‘This is Citizen Watumull speaking.’” (Ellen Watumull)

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