IANS
Washington, Sept. 16

From 1,500 in the early 1950s, the Sikh population in the U.S. has grown to nearly 500,000 and the community has shown courage and resourcefulness in succeeding in a foreign land, says a social researcher.

Bruce La Brack, professor of anthropology and international studies at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, applauded the indomitable spirit of Sikhs. He was presenting a history of immigration of Sikhs from Punjab at the Punjabi Heritage Festival, held at the Fairfield Centre for Creative Arts.

"It's not a Sunday thing for them," La Brack said about Sikhs going to the gurdwara. "I don't know any other group that has started in such inauspicious beginnings and done as well economically, socially and politically as Sikhs."

La Brack, an authority on the immigration of South Asians, documented over 100 years of the immigration of South Asians, including Sikhs, in his paper, "Early South Asian, (India) Immigrants in California", with special reference to Sikhs.

"I think on one level, it's probably one of the most extraordinary immigration histories in the U.S., and probably the least known," La Brack said.

He wrote that every South Asian's heritage includes the history of pioneer Punjabis who began arriving in California a century ago.

"Those hardy sojourners made America their home against great odds and with a quiet grace," La Brack said, according to a report in the Daily Democrat, a newspaper brought out in Woodland, California.

According to La Brack, Sikhs today number about 500,000 in the U.S., a demographic profile that provides a stark contrast with the first half of the 20th century, when it seemed unlikely that they would thrive in the U.S.

For the first 50 years, Sikhs and other South Asian immigrants were severely restricted in their choices of occupation, marriage partners, freedom to travel abroad, land-ownership, and mainstream political participation, but they reacted with remarkable endeavour and ingenuity, he wrote.

"If you were a betting person, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone who would bet it was possible that Sikhs were going to survive." By the mid-1940s and early 1950s, there were only about 1,500 Sikhs in the U.S., he said.

"So as a small number goes, I don't think you could get much smaller," La Brack said. "Of course all that has changed - completely."

"To examine the legal history of Sikhs in America before 1968 is an uncomfortable exercise for Americans who would like to naively believe that their government did not systematically practice legal discrimination and exclusion based upon race and national origin," La Brack said.

From the beginning, the darker complexion of Sikhs, their distinctive turbans, non-Christian faiths, food preferences and cultural traditions marked them as strangers and foreigners.

Sikh Americans today have dealt with discrimination related to 9/11 and recently because of the war in Iraq, he said.

"I think that in general, the Sikhs are still the victims of some backlash because they have head gear," La Brack said. "Not very many Americans can tell the difference between a Sikh, an Afghanistani, an Iraqi or an Eskimo."

With changes in immigration laws and the political climate in both India and America, Sikh migration escalated in the last half of the century.

"Now they are in 60 countries worldwide," La Brack said. "This is an extraordinarily resilient community."

La Brack became interested in Sikhism in 1969 when he visited India as a post-graduate language fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies.

"I have great respect for the Sikhs. They are very hard working, they have very strong family values, they believe in the value of saving and of investing," La Brack said. "And I don't know any other group that has been less of a burden on the society than the Sikhs have been."