Sikhism in the United States of America Gurinder Singh Mann

1 Sikhism in the United States of America Gurinder Singh Mann The history of the Sikhs is primarily associated with the Punjab, a region in northwest India they call their homeland (Grewal 1990). Situated among the dominant communities of the Hindus and Muslims, the Sikhs have, historically, remained a minority even within the Punjab. Beginning in the seventeenth century, groups of Sikh traders moved into other parts of the subcontinent and established small communities in far-off cities; the number and size of these communities outside the Punjab remained rather small. The annexation of the Punjab by the British in 1849 opened doors for the Sikhs to migrate to distant countries as members of the imperial working force. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, we see the emergence of small but distinct Sikh communities in East Africa and Southeast Asia (Barrier and Dusenbery 1989). At the turn of the twentieth century, the Sikhs expanded their range of travel further and began to arrive in North America. They constituted a large majority of what Raymond Williams in his introduction to this section calls "a thriving farming community in California." Despite great personal and legal hardships in the mid-twentieth century, the Sikhs persisted in their efforts to settle in the new land and today, they constitute a vibrant community of over 200,000 spread throughout the United States, with distinct concentrations in California, Chicago, Michigan, and the greater New York and Washington D. C. areas. La Brack (1988) made a pioneering study of the history of the Sikhs in the United States. Williams (1988) initiated a significant effort to discern the religious experience of South Asians in the United States including the Sikhs; 2 Diana Eck (1997) has expanded this area of study further. Building on the previous research and my past ten years' work with the community, I attempt to present, in this chapter, what it is to be a Sikh in the United States in the closing years of the twentieth century. The chapter comprises three sections. I begin with a discussion of the composition of the Sikh community in the United States. In the second section, I present Sikh religious life in the new country, both at personal and communal levels. In the third, I trace the challenges facing the community in the United States and the tentative solutions which the Sikh leadership is offering to meet these challenges. 1. The Sikhs of the USA The present-day Sikh community in the United States possesses considerable internal diversity. Its oldest segment constitutes the descendants of the early immigrants who were from small land-owning families in the Punjab and had initially come to the United State to make money but later decided to stay permanently. These people are settled primarily on the West Coast and include second and third-generation Sikhs. The second segment of the Sikh community to arrive in the United States comprises Sikhs who came for higher education in the middle decades of the twentieth century and stayed on after completing their studies. Unlike their predecessors who worked as laborers, saved money, bought lands, and began to farm, these Sikhs prepared themselves for professional careers and garnered white-collar jobs. It seems that even when they had the chance to look for work in the states where they went to school, they preferred to move to the West Coast to be closer to the earlier Sikh settlements (Saund 1960). The third and most prominent segment of the Sikh community consists of 3 men and women who came to the United States after the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965. This group includes professionals with advanced degrees obtained in India in medicine, engineering, and other fields. From both rural and urban backgrounds, they arrived in large cities, reoriented themselves to American work demands, and located themselves wherever jobs in their areas of expertise were available. The most recent arrivals include families who have come to the United States as a result of political persecution. They are divided into two groups. The first comprises those who have come directly from the Punjab. During the 1980s, the Punjab passed through a period of political turmoil, when a militant segment of the community attempted to secede from the Indian federation and establish an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. The Indian government's use of brute force to bring the situation under control prompted large-scale flight of rural Sikh youths to various Western countries. A large majority of these had obtained college degrees. After gaining legal residence through various channels, these men brought their wives, and are now in the process of settling down in the United States. The second group to flee political persecution came from East Africa and Afghanistan. The ancestors of the Sikhs coming from East Africa were primarily from an artisan background and had gone there at the turn of the twentieth century to work in the railway system developed by the British (Bhachu 1985). Due to political upheavals in Kenya and Uganda in the 1970s, these families were subsequently forced to leave their homes. In addition, a number of Sikh traders who had lived in Afghanistan for over two centuries left that country when war broke out in the late 1970s. Both these groups arrived in the United States with considerable experience in business and quickly put down roots in large urban centers, such as New York. 4 The Sikh community in the United States also includes a small group of Americans of European descent who converted to Sikhism in the 1970s. They took up the Sikh path under the spiritual guidance of Harbhajan Singh Yogi, a Punjabi Sikh who had arrived in the United States in 1968 (Khalsa 1995). They constitute a small but visible segment of the community and are sometimes called American Sikhs, an epithet which is now increasingly used by all Sikhs living in the United States. Sikhs in the United States differ in degree of religious observance. Amritdhari men and women have undergone the ceremony of initiation (khande di pahul), and strictly observe the Khalsa code of conduct (rahit). Kesdhari Sikhs keep long hair but have not undergone the ceremony of initiation and follow the rahit partially. Then there are Sikhs who freely cut their hair, but follow the rahit in some basic ways. With the exception of the followers of Harbhajan Singh Yogi, all these groups have roots in the Punjab and most continue to identify with their occupational heritage. Jats, the farmers who constitute seventy percent of the Sikh population in the Punjab, also make up the largest segment of the community in the United States. They are followed in numbers by the Ramgarhias (rural artisans) and the Khatris (urban traders) (McLeod 1976). At present, in the late 1990s, the Sikh community in the United States includes people of varied levels of religious leanings, social backgrounds, professional qualifications, and lengths of residence. Although the early immigrants were mostly males, the post-1965 phase has balanced the gender ratio. First-generation Punjabi immigrants still constitute the large majority of the population, with the numbers of second-and third-generation Sikhs steadily increasing. The Sikhs occupy a full range of occupational niches, from highly trained professional positions to non-skilled labor. 5 2. Sikh religious life in the United States In describing their way of life, Sikhs distinguish between two levels: personal (shakashi) and communal (panthak). The first refers to what happens in the course of daily living and especially within the confines of the Sikh household; the second concerns communal activity, with the institution of the gurdwara (Sikh temple) at its center (Sikh Rahit Maryada 1950). Since little literature is available on the Sikh devotional life, I will try to describe it in some detail. 2. 1. The personal level In their personal lives, Sikhs in the United States follow the traditions they followed in the Punjab before emigrating, making only occasional modifications. Each day most Sikhs recite three prayers: the Japji ("meditation") and a set of other hymns in the morning, the Rahiras ("supplication") in the evening, and the Sohila ("praise"), a thanksgiving prayer offered just before going to sleep. The drive to work is often accompanied by recordings of the sacred Sikh hymns. The weekend brings local television programs with devotional singing (kirtan ) and discourses on Sikh religious issues. On the first day of each month of the lunar calendar (sangrand), the Baranmah ("twelve months"), a special prayer, is recited. While Amritdharis strictly adhere to this daily routine of prayers, others may modify the timing and the contents according to their convenience. The Sikhs are a people of the book. Almost all Sikh families possess anthologies of selected sacred hymns (gutkas), which are used for recitation (over and above the daily prayers) and to teach young children. Families who can do so, usually keep the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred Sikh text, in their house. This requires some space, since the Guru Granth Sahib is normally kept in a separate room, to be opened (prakash) in the morning and put to rest (sukhasan) after sunset. The women in the family invariably assume this responsibility. Family 6 members often undertake the complete reading of the text over a period lasting from six months to one year. An unbroken reading of the Guru Granth Sahib (akhand path), which takes forty-eight hours, marks happy occasions such as moving into a new house, launching a new business, or the recovery from serious sickness of a family member. In major cities where the community has acquired a certain critical mass, a Sikh can call the local gurdwara, and arrange for the text of the Guru Granth Sahib to be brought to his or her house, along with professional readers (pathis) and those who lead devotional singing (ragis) when the reading is completed.

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