“The Patel Motel Story” explores the history of Indian immigrants in the US hotel industry. The short film includes this photo of Dhayabhai Patel and Santaben Patel, in front of a motel their family once owned in Palo Alto, California. — Photo by Courtesy Amar Shah and Rahul Rohatgi
The Patel Motel Story is a new short documentary co-directed and narrated by Amar Shah, exploring the extraordinary rise of Indian American motel owners in the United States. Premiering at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, the film traces how Indian immigrants—many from Gujarat and sharing the surname Patel—came to own more than 60% of the country’s hotels and motels, despite representing only 1% of the population.
Through personal childhood memories and industry research, Shah reconnects with the world he once distanced himself from. Raised in a gas station family in Florida, he initially viewed motel work as blue-collar and uninspiring. As an adult, however, he came to recognize it as a story of resilience, entrepreneurship, and generational sacrifice.
The documentary highlights how Indian immigrants quietly built real estate empires through perseverance and community support, reshaping the American hospitality landscape. It also seeks to fill a gap in mainstream narratives—stories of immigrant families whose contributions remain largely untaught in American history.
Shah and his filmmaking team, including producer Milan Chakraborty and co-director Rahul Rohatgi, capture this overlooked legacy through archival family footage and interviews conducted at AAHOACON—the annual convention of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, often dubbed the “Super Bowl of hospitality.”
Ultimately, The Patel Motel Story reframes a familiar stereotype into a powerful tale of cultural identity, ambition, and belonging, celebrating what the filmmakers call “the greatest immigration story never told.”
Read the full article at cnn.com
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