Sikh Immigrants Research Articles

The socioeconomics of Sikh American identity

ABSTRACT I argue socioeconomic divisions among Sikh immigrants from India mediate the lived experiences of being non-white Sikh immigrants and influenced Sikh American identity formation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with immigrant Sikh cabbies in New York and immigrant Sikh families. This exploratory research shows convergences and divergences in Sikh American experiences and identities attributable to socioeconomic status. I advance knowledge on Sikh/South Asian American community formation, discourse on immigrants and racial identity formation. I emphasize theorization of the immigrant experience and racial identity formation cognizant of intra-group diversity, yet recognizing the boundedness of classification systems.

Changes over time: Punjabis, Punjabi Mexicans, and Sikhs in North America

ABSTRACT Although post-1965 Punjabi Sikh immigrants are inclined to disavow the Punjabi Mexican community formed by the earlier Punjabi diaspora, and claim the earlier diaspora as a Sikh diaspora, arguably the earlier Punjabi diaspora was a cosmopolitan one and the later diaspora a Sikh transnational and religious one. But the Punjabi Mexican community, now mainstream American, is being acclaimed well beyond the borders of its descendants.

Critique of Archived Life: Toward a Hesitation of Sikh Immigrant Accumulation

AbstractIn 2016, the Pioneering Punjabi Digital Archive (PPDA) went online. Attempting to reveal how the Punjabi community struggled and then thrived in California, the PPDA accumulates narratives of Punjabi American life. Against such models of archival intimacy and recovery, which look to cultivate limitless public access to a knowable and transparent subject while reducing structural precarity to the failure of an exceptional Punjabi, this article hesitates in a vexed archival space without guarantees. Within this hesitation, it explores the traces of untimely lives displaced in creating archival legibility—traces that reveal a different form of being that challenge the additive logic of the PPDA. This hesitation is cultivated through a comparative approach that couples archival and ethnographic research based on articles about Punjabi American life in both the archive and public sphere alongside ethnographic work conducted with Sikh immigrants who work in canneries and the fields. The aim is to pause in the present impasse to consider the nonbecoming of unknown forms—an ethnographic “reaching and ungrasping” in which the future is not fixed as a requirement for thinking, refusing the accumulating demands of narrative sequence that archiving presents.

From Punjab to Peggy’s Cove: Joyful Activism in Behind the Bhangra Boys (2019)

This paper will examine how the 2019 Nancy Ackerman documentary film Behind the Bhangra Boys both deconstructs the complexities of contemporary Sikh immigrant identity in Eastern Canada and reinforces the intricacies of one’s social responsibility of being a welcome guest on the unceded territories of Mi’kma’ki, otherwise known as Nova Scotia. Following the energetic choreography and generous hearts of five young Sikh immigrants, the film reminds viewers that the protection of community and the planet is part and parcel of joyful activism, whilst following Guru Nanak’s teachings, be it along the rocky shoreline of Peggy’s Cove or the fertile farmlands of Punjab.

Masculinity in the Sikh Community in Italy and Spain: Expectations and Challenges

Since the 1990s, the Sikh community in India has entered a phase of considerable socioeconomic and demographic transformation that is caused by the large-scale practice of female feticide, the spread of higher education among women, and the mass emigration of unskilled men to the Western countries. These changes have a great impact on the traditional configuration of gender roles and disrupt the construction of masculinity in the Sikh community in India and in the diaspora. Based on ethnographic observations and 64 in-depth interviews with Sikh immigrants in Spain (26) and Italy (22) and their relatives in India (16), this paper first explores the expectations of masculinity in the Sikh community in Italy and Spain; and second, analyses the challenges that are imposed by the socioeconomic and demographic transformation in the Indian Sikh community and the social environment in the host countries on the construction of masculinity in the Sikh community in both countries.

Exploring diabetes management amongst immigrant Sikhs in the Greater Toronto Area: a qualitative study

ABSTRACTObjectives. This study describes the ethnocultural influences associated with managing diabetes (Type 2) in a small sample of older Sikh immigrants in Toronto, Canada. The South Asian community, which includes Sikhs, is the fastest growing immigrant population, the second largest visible minority in Canada, and is five times more likely to have diabetes than their Canadian counterparts. The relationship between culture, immigration, and management of diabetes has been recognized, but research of how these areas intersect in the Sikh community is sparse.Design. Data were collected using qualitative semi-structured interviews, and participants were recruited via purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Data were analysed using constant comparative methods.Results. The complexities of diabetes management are organized in this study as the (1) external (2) internal and (3) actualized experiences participants faced navigating cultural dynamics, understanding their diagnosis, and interacting with health resources.Conclusion. An individual's diabetes diagnosis and treatment plan interacts with layers beyond the health system which must be understood in order to provide health care that is truly an empowering resource.

THE FIVE SYMBOLS OF SIKHISM

The paper addresses three contemporary issues pertaining to the five Sikh symbols known as the Five Ks, specifically the decline in their observance in the Sikh homeland, that is, the State of Punjab in India; the difficulties being experienced by Sikh immigrants in Europe and North America in preserving their formal identity; and the academic controversies over the genesis, meaning and significance of the Five Ks. The first brief section describes the scale at which the Sikh youth are abandoning the two main markers of their traditional identity – unshorn hair and the turban - and stresses the need for a deeper investigation of this phenomenon in the light of sociological theory and research. The second section exposes the problems that the baptized, or traditional, Sikhs face in preserving their identity and symbolism in North America and Europe. Although the discussion primarily references restrictions placed on the wearing of Sikh symbols in public schools in America and France, the problem is more general. It is suggested that the Sikhs need to non-violently resist discriminatory or exclusionary practices in western countries guided by the ethos of their own faith. The third and last section, which forms the main body of the essay, deals with academic controversies surrounding the origin and significance of the Sikh symbols. On the basis of close textual analysis, the paper critically examines a host of interpretations – commonsensical, mystical, cosmological, structural, empiricist, psychoanalytical and feminist – of the Five Ks, and presents conclusions. The Sikh symbols signify and affirm that the spiritual concerns of human beings cannot be separated from their temporal and material concerns.

MISIDENTIFICATION, MISEMBODIMENT AND THE PARADOX OF BEING A MODEL MINORITY

Discrimination of Asian immigrants has a long history in the USA. After 9/11, violence against Asian immigrants, particularly Sikhs, has increased dramatically. Asian Americans are viewed as the ‘model minority in the United States’. Yet Sikh immigrants, one of the most successful Asian immigrants in the United States, experience discrimination that ranges from verbal taunts to physical attacks. The violent racist attack and the tragic killings of Sikh immigrants at the Milwaukee Gurdwara is an example of this trend. Often media portrays misidentification of Sikhs for ‘Middle Eastern Muslim’ terrorists as the reason for such mindless violence against Sikh immigrants. In this paper, I argue that misembodiment accompanies misidentification. Psychological research on immigrants needs to explore the phenomenological aspects of embodying a mistaken identity. Furthermore, in this paper I discuss the paradox of being a model minority who experience the most discrimination among Asian immigrants and its implications for developing culturally appropriate therapeutic interventions that could empower Sikh immigrant communities.

The Sikh gurdwara in Finland: negotiating, maintaining and transmitting immigrants’ identities

As recent studies suggest, religious institutions play a crucial role in shaping immigrants’ identities. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Helsinki, Finland among Sikh immigrants from Northern India, this article sets out to investigate the manner in which the gurdwara (Sikh temple) is involved in the process of negotiating, maintaining and transmitting immigrants’ identities. By means of mapping out and analyzing the gurdwara’s architectural as well as organizational structure, its foodways, and its role in transmitting religious as well as cultural traditions to Sikh youth, this article seeks to highlight the complex process underlying the (re‐)creation of immigrants’ identities in a diasporic context.

Spelling and Writing Self-efficacy of Indo-Canadian and Anglo-Canadian Early Adolescents

Most studies of academic self-efficacy have been conducted with culturally Western populations, with very few studies exploring the self-efficacy beliefs of South Asian or South Asian immigrant populations. This study examined the spelling and writing self-efficacy beliefs of 151 South Asian (Indo-Canadian Punjabi Sikh immigrants) and Anglo-Canadian early adolescents. Domain-specific self-efficacy was a strong predictor of spelling and writing performance for both cultural groups. Male Indo-Canadians scored significantly lower than female Indo-Canadians on most measures of performance and self-efficacy. The findings were situated in relevant cross-cultural self-efficacy research and the current multicultural social context.

Minorities and Education in Plural Societies

Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in An American High School: Margaret A. Gibson Minority Status and Schooling: A Comparative Study of Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities: Margaret A. Gibson and John U. Ogbu, eds

Education, Gender, and Generational Conflict among Khmer Refugees

This article explores an example of in‐group variation in minority educational achievement by investigating the reasons why a disproportionately high number of young Khmer women drop out of school. Based on 30 months of ethnographic study among Khmer refugees in metropolitan Boston, the research demonstrates the importance of cultural and social‐historical influences for understanding Khmer educational achievement and distinguishing it from that of other East and Southeast Asian immigrant groups.

Accommodation Without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School. By Margaret Gibson. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. xii, 244 pp. $34.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper).

Accommodation Without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School. By Margaret Gibson. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. xii, 244 pp. $34.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper).

Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School. MARGARET A. GIBSON

<i>Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School.</i> MARGARET A. GIBSON

Accommodation Without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School. By Margaret Gibson. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. xii, 244 pp. $34.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper).

Accommodation Without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School. By Margaret Gibson. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. xii, 244 pp. $34.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper).

: Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School . Margaret A. Gibson.

: Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School . Margaret A. Gibson.

Book Review: Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School

Book Review: Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School

Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School.

Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School.

Accommodation without assimilation: Sikh immigrants in an American high school

Accommodation without assimilation: Sikh immigrants in an American high school

The Process of Assimilation in Asians in Britain: A Study of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh Immigrants and their Young Adult Children

The Process of Assimilation in Asians in Britain: A Study of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh Immigrants and their Young Adult Children