The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) has announced the application for the 2012 SikhLEAD Internship Program. The objective of SikhLEAD is to inspire, train, and support motivated and enterprising young Sikh American leaders as they prepare for a lifetime of community engagement and community leadership.
The internship program is aims to put Sikh American college and graduate students, as well as recent grad, in competitive internship in the White House, on Capitol Hill and government agencies. Through this program, students will be afforded first-hand perspective into the functioning of the federal government, as a way of providing experience-based training to individuals interested in civic engagement and government affairs.
Through the experience of interning in a congressional office, interns will:
- explore a potential career track
- create a network of professional and personal contacts
- develop real-world skills
- build confidence and professional work habits
The application deadline for summer 2012 internships is THIS SUNDAY, Feb 26th, 2012!
Visit www.sikhlead.org for more details and to apply. Spread the word and tell your friends about this exciting opportunity.
Cover of "Guru Tegh Bahadur: The Ninth Guru of the Sikhs" (photo: sikhcomics.com)
Let me first take the opportunity to thank the bloggers of TLH for welcoming me to this blog. A few might recognize me from americanturban.com, and I’m excited about the opportunity to engage with the audience on this blog in discussing many of the issues we face as a community, and particularly in the United States.
Most of my early education in Sikh history came from comic books, namely those published by Amar Chitra Katha, based in India. My father purchased every title related to Sikhism that was released by this company — covering the stories of the Sikh Gurus to those of Sikh legends and heroes — and I loved reading and re-reading these comic books until I knew the stories by heart.
It was a great introduction to Sikhism that captured my imagination. As I got older, I moved on from these comics to literary works on Sikh history that filled my growing mind with more knowledge and detail.
I started reading those comic books almost 30 years ago (I’m astounded as I write that number), and I’ve recently come across a new effort to bring such Sikh stories to today’s young audiences.
Gyan Khand Media has recently begun producing a new set of Sikh-based comic books. While now based in India, author Daljeet Singh Sidhu saw the opportunity for such a comic book after living in the west:
When Daljeet Singh Sidhu wanted to introduce his three-year-old son to Sikh heroes and history, he was not at a loss of words. But what he did not have, was a story that his boy could see, feel and later read. That’s when it struck Sidhu; that Sikh history has many heroes, but no graphics. So after 12 years in the US, he packed his bags and moved back to India to chronicle Sikh history, its great gurus and warriors and present them in the comics format. That’s how www.sikhcomics.com, a Sikh comics project, was born.
Gyan Khand Media has currently published three titles covering the stories of Baba Deep Singh, Guru Tegh Bahadur, and the Battle of Saragarhi. Many more are planned, and I had the opportunity to download and read the first two titles using Amazon’s Kindle app on my mobile device.
Here on TLH, we look forward to sharing stories about young Sikhs pursuing their passion.
YouTube, Lenovo, and Space Adventures are running a competition to find an amazing space experiment and 16-year-old Pranav Singh is one of the finalists! If he wins, his experiment will be carried out on the International Space Station and streamed live from space on YouTube.
You can view Pranav’s video below and learn about his experiment here. Don’t forget to VOTE! You can vote each day until January 24th. Pranav is a finalist and has a good chance to have his experiment picked! Remember, he is only 16-years old!
As Sundari blogged about a few days ago, we just had an exciting weekend of Sikh youth art and activism in the NY/NJ area. I was lucky enough to sit in on the Sikh Coalition’s “Inquilab: Raising Our Voices” hip hop workshop for a few hours on Saturday and then ride the bus to New Jersey with the youth to attend Lahir 2011: Move the Movement.
I managed to get some video footage of both events, so I will keep my own words to a minimum. Today I am posting a brief montage from the Inquilab workshop, and on Wednesday I’ll post some highlights from Lahir.
I walked into the workshop on Saturday in the basement of South Asian Youth Action in Elmhurst, Queens while the group was in the midst of a writing activity. Many of the young people of diverse backgrounds (mostly South Asian and many Sikh) ended up putting their newly honed writing skills to the stage — a pretty large stage — at Lahir that night. Their pieces were honest, real, accessible and courageous. I was truly inspired. And found myself wondering what my teenage years would have been like had something like this (both the workshop at Lahir) had existed.
When I met Sonny, I felt that his story demanded to be told. I was moved by his willingness to share difficult stories about how racism, xenophobia, and islamophobia impact him in a very daily and intimate ways. But more importantly, I was inspired by how he had turned this hardship into a motivation to fight for social justice for all people. I was welcomed with incredible warmth, and inspired by the Sikh traditions seeing the divine in all people, and fighting for equality. - Christina Antonakos-Wallace, Producer and Director of Article of Faith
To continue a discussion about bullying and bias-based harassment that seems to be appearing both here on The Langar Hall and also within langar halls across the nation, we wanted to take the time to highlight an inspiring documentary which discusses this very issue. Article of Faith is a short film, directed and produced by Christina Antonakos-Wallace, portraying one Sikh activist, Sonny Singh, who organizes New York City Sikh youth to combat harassment in their schools. Sonny shares his own, very personal experience with bullying recognizing how incredibly important it is for us to openly dialogue about these issues, so that other children who are experience similar challenges do not feel like they are alone.
Do you know how to tie a patka? The following video, an original creation by Keerat Kaur, was produced by Saffron Press in an effort to educate about the Sikh identity – allowing educators (and curious children) to learn how to tie a patka/dastaar and see what actually lies beneath the piece of cloth that covers a lion’s mane. As one blogger writes,
The video [reminds] me of a vague recollection I had of sitting in a room while two teachers were trying to figure out how to re-tie my patka on my head. I remember trying to explain how the patka was supposed to be tied, but the teachers couldn’t figure it out. I also recall how vulnerable I felt when, to attempt to re-tie it, they removed my patka and my hair was exposed.
Another blogger has similar memories of his childhood,
For most of my childhood, I was the only Sikh kid in school that had long hair. Never mind that the other kids didn’t know nor appreciate my Sikh identity, even my teachers were clueless about my faith.
Guest blogged by Navjot Kaur
Usually, I can take quite a lot before something unsettles me. Today, my pressure cooker was whistling.
When you think things can’t get much worse, they have a way of doing just that. When it rains, it pours, right? As I went to pick up my son at the end of his second day in Kindergarten, he appeared at the exit door with his patka almost off his head. I thought to myself, they probably had Gym class. But that wasn’t the case. I was quickly informed that another Kindergartener had pulled my son’s patka off his head while he sat on the carpet. I almost cried but didn’t. I felt angry but held it together for my son’s sake. I questioned whether it had been an action of curiosity? I hoped that the response would be positive but it was not. Bullying, in Kindergarten.
Yes, my son looks different in many ways. He has his visible faith-identity and he also has his deaf identity. He’s smaller than his peers and he has some special challenges but his personality is like the sunshine. Its rays can trickle into even the darkest cracks and brighten up your day. I would not allow this incident to darken his future school days.
We came home and once we had cuddled, I reassured him when he asked, “You’re going to tell [boy’s name] to say sorry to me?” I went into another room and cried. I’m not sure why I felt so defeated for that tiny moment but I did. Nevertheless, after talking to my sister, who works for a non-profit organization lobbying for change on such issues, I gained my strength and prepared next steps.
There have been a few posts on TLH (link) that talk about the merits of having children exposed to other languages, but none that discuss actual strategies. So, I thought I’d add my thoughts on the subject.
Over the past month or so, our 18-month-old daughter, Kavya, has started connecting words to concepts and it’s interesting to see what English and Punjabi words she’s picked up. Here are some of the things she’s picked up, along with translations:
Paa = Paani (water)
Baba= Banana
Baa = Baar (when she wants to go outside)
Ayyy= Ice
Tootoo= broken (used in conjunction with a look of feigned surprise right after she flings my mobile with all her might and its guts spill onto our hardwood floor).
Choos: Shoes
I would like to say that we are very organized and systematic about how we are teaching Kavya to integrate English with Punjabi and Hindi, but the truth is we are totally winging it.
Initially, we did attempt to use two strategies I read about in an East Coast magazine called “Little India.” Neither of them worked very well for us, but we did use a hybrid form of them. Here are the original strategies:
A Pakistani friend of mine from Lahore passed on a video about a 70 year old man named Mushtaq Ahmed from a Punjabi village near Gujranwala, who just complete his MPhil and will be starting his PhD soon in Education.
With five daughters and three sons, Mushtaq Ahmed completes all his necessary farm work, including working in the field and managing and livestock, while carrying his books with him. His plans are ambitious: to go to the university and teach, because for him, ‘Being a Muslim, we should get education from cradle to grave.’
Here’s the clip:
I couldn’t help think about how this applies to our community. My intention here is not to distinguish from people who are ‘parrd’ or ‘unparrd’ or the class implications this has in the Sikh community in Punjab and the Diaspora. (I’ve met many unparrd/’uneducated’ people who were far wiser than those who were parrd/‘educated’ in some of the most expensive universities in the Diaspora and in the watan. I don’t like those terms myself but just laying out what’s what.) From a Sikh point of view this type of distinction is quite counter productive and has nothing to do with living a life that is Guru-centered.
Guest blogged by Pataka
The intersections between Sikhism, gender issues, and academia have always been tenuous and fragile ones. As other posts on this blog have mentioned, there have been some recent pushes to democratize academic research as well as examine and undo the longstanding patriarchy which has surrounded academia in general by including discussions of gender politics as well as Sikh women scholars. For more information on SAFAR take a look at previous posts on this issue or visit their website: www.sikhfeministresearch.org .
Our Journeys Conference 2011
On October 1st, 2011, SAFAR –The Sikh Feminist Research Institute will host a one-day conference entitled Our Journeys Conference 2011 at The Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE), Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE), University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In the 1990s (that seems so long ago!), I was a linguist and photographer for the U.S. Navy and the aircraft carrier I was on stopped for a few days in Romania. Me and a Nigerian friend decided to deboard our ship and go explore the town. Don’t worry, we didn’t get kidnapped and become reluctant protagonists in a horror film. I’m used to getting stares, especially in racially homogoneous countries in Asia and Europe, and don’t find it offensive. It’s simple curiousity that a “hello” and a smile usually breaks the ice and gets a conversation going.
Romania was a little different though. Instead of stares, people were gasping and running away when they saw us. Eventually we found some skateboarders willing to talk to us after we bought some overpriced Romanian candy from them (not recommended). It turns out, they were petrified of my Nigerian friend because their impression of what sort of person he must be was based on the only American television show they got. Yep. NYPD Blue where every black man was in a hostile altercation with a white policeman either for selling drugs, or raping and/or murdering someone. That is the power of the media. And I am a firm believer in having Sikhs play a much more significant and visible role in various facets of the media. Not just cameo appearances as the terrorist, the comic relief, or the overly pious Sikh hate crime victim with a thick Indian accent.
The Three Idiot Sardars
Some of our fellow Sikhs and Punjabis have helped create the image of the violent prone, idiot Sardar in Bollywood over the years. Every D lister like Gulshan Grover, Sunny Deol, and Johnny Lever used to play the role of the caricature Sardar. But that image drastically changed seemingly overnight also with the help of some of our fellow Sikhs and Punjabis when Rocket Singh starring Ranbir Kapoor came out in 2009 and instantly every A lister wanted to play a Sardar (Abhishek and Amitabh Bachchan; Saif Ali Khan). The portrayal isn’t perfect, but it is attempting to show Sikhs with more complexity than they’ve been doing in the past, and as more than just two bit characters, but as the lead. And this is all thanks to a higher quality in narrative, and in Sikhs loudly objecting to Sikh stereotypes in Bollywood films. Why can’t the same be done in Hollywood?
Whenever a tragic incident takes place that shakes the Sikh community, we have a tendency to start campaigns to combat ignorance, even wearing daft turbans made out of the American flag to show just how American we are, we attend interfaith dialogues and multicultural events, and we update our FaceBook status to show our indignation at the ignorance, which we assume is the root cause of these acts of bullying, violence, and general acts of hatred. People just don’t know who the Sikhs are is our rationale, and that by fixing this problem, we will find our solution.
My father reading to my daughter
I don’t know if telling stories is part of the DNA of Punjabis, but virtually every member of my immediate and extended family can spin a good yarn. From the educated to the uneducated, city folk to rural farming stock, all of them can take a mundane story and turn it into the most entertaining story filled with all of the elements I spent my college years analyzing: plot, complex characters, simple characters, subtext, dramatization, personification, some even had the “O-Henry” ending (the one with the surprise twist at the end).
While the good ole chugli maaring factory a.k.a. gossiping that both men and women take part in anywhere Punjabis congregate – under the diminishing bohr tree, by the tube well, at a mela, at the langar hall, to name a few places – is wildly entertaining, I have always been much more fascinated by Punjabi folktales that my parents used to tell me on Sunday mornings in bed, or just before me and my sister went to sleep at night.
Some of my earliest memories that I can recall with clarity are of my mum and dad telling me the unadulterated story of the sparrow and the crow (ik si chirri, te ik si kaan), which many of you may be familiar with.
The story I remember revolved around the last two lines, which me and my sister gleefully waited for. Chirri: “Cheen, cheen mera poonja sarriya.” Kaan: “Kyon paraya khichar khaada?” which translates horribly in any language other than Punjabi, but here it is. Sparrow: “Ouch. Ouch. My tail has been burnt.” Kaan: “Why did you eat more than your share of khichari?” I warned you didn’t I? This original version has its various story layers intact and an adult can easily pick up on the underlying theme of caste injustice, power, and from a narrative structural perspective: the structure of the cumulative folktale. But once sanitation starts taking place, these other interpretations often cease to exist. In a nutshell, here is the plot of the story stripped of its language, culture, and all entertainment characteristics:
Once upon a time, there was a chirri (sparrow) and a kaan (crow). They got together and decided they were going to make khichari. The sparrow went to get the rice and the crow flew off to get the daal. When the khichari was made, the sparrow told the crow he was dirty and should go wash himself in the pond before sitting down to eat. In the meantime, the sparrow eats up all the khichari and puts a lid on the pot. The crow returns and is furious that the khichari is all gone and sees the sparrow’s tail from behind a curtain (this was my mum’s addition). The crow takes a needle and heats it up on the stove and pokes it into the sparrow’s bottom, resulting in the above lines. Sometimes, they would tell a slightly tamer version where the sparrow’s tail was set on fire or a pot of boiling water was placed under her feathers. But every version resulted in the above rhythmic lines.
Not to delve too deep into semantics, but the word “folktale” connotes many different ideas, especially in the subcontinent. Some people use the word kahani, or story, for narratives that are meant for both entertainment and moral. The word is sometimes even used for religious based stories such as the Mahabarat, or Janam Sakhis, for example. Some put ballads and poems (like Heer-Ranjha) in the same category as a narrative folktale.
Like most folktales, the aim is not to entertain children, but to preserve a culture, its societal mores, and its language. The original folktale of Cinderella made popular by the Grimm Brothers, for example, is very different from the distilled children’s story we all know today. In the folktale, the stepsisters are not physically ugly, and in the famous scene of trying on the glass slipper Cinderella left behind at the prince’s ball, they desperately want it to fit, and in a horrific act, they cut off their toes and heels in order to squeeze their bleeding feet into the glass slippers the prince brought over.
Guestblogged by Mewa Singh
This past week members of the College Sikhs Collaborative and the Jakara Movement – created the first Alternative Spring Break – explored the issue of immigration by visiting so-called ground zero – the Mexi/Cali border. While the surge of the Tea Party movement has helped bring nativist sentiments to the fore, the Sikh-American response on the issue has been largely muted. In 2006, we saw huge protests calling for a more open immigration policy, led largely by our Chicano/a and Latino/a brothers and sisters. As is too often the case, Sikhs, who are also directly affected by issues of immigration – both documented and undocumented – remain passive bystanders to the national debate. [For those that do not know about the increasing number of Punjabi undocumented workers - including over 1600 that were caught and detained in 2010 alone, see the LA Times article ] Even worse, is some Sikhs even support candidates that have borderline racist views on such issues. While groups such as Sikh Coalition and SALDEF have tacitly supported the cause of immigration cause, it is a shame that we have not been more vocal. Without standing with others (especially on those cases where we have a self-interest!), why should anyone stand with us on the issues we care about?
Day 1 – Orientation Our trip began with an orientation with our partner organization – Border Angels.
This post by our Mehmaan is none other than Harinder Singh. About Harinder Singh - he works with the Sikh Research Institute and the Panjab Digital Library to address all things Sikhi and Panjabi. http://twitter.com/1force
I have taken some time off to be Mr. Mom while my wife is on a work assignment in India. In preparing to make the move to Bangalore, I was excited about being in the land of MS Subbulakhsmi (renowned Carnatic vocalist) and Kalmane (locally grown 100% Arabica beans) coffee. Being here for about three weeks, this is what I have discovered: people are nicer than the North, infrastructure is horrible, and there is not much to see in the city. Even Frommers.com couldn’t come up a list of not-to-be-missed attractions in Bangalore, though people in India claim it to be a great city. I guess the new IT opulence has brought in pubs and gigs only (it is common for Indians to end almost every sentence with ‘only’).
Yesterday, I picked up my son Jodha Singh from the pre-school he is enrolled in here. His teacher said, he wouldn’t play Holi (“Festival of Colors”—though bastardized; some “celebrants” today throw sewerage on people as well!). Now, the legend of Holika is vanishing and so too the spirit of post harvesting thanksgiving prayer to the Almighty. Apparently, Jodha was upset when other children were throwing water and colors on him. I told Miss Priya that his aversion may have come because he has not partaken in this festival as the Sikhs of Panjab have a little reason to celebrate. She wasn’t sure how to respond; do most Panjabis and Sikhs know how to “play Holi?”
The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) has announced the Congressional Internship Program (CIP) as part oftheir new initiative called SikhLEAD. The objective of SikhLEAD is to inspire, train, and support motivated and enterprising young Sikh American leaders as they prepare for a lifetime of community engagement and community leadership. The CIP is the first effort under this new and dynamic initiative.
SALDEF’s CIP partners with congressional offices to place Sikh American college students in internship positions on Capitol Hill with members of Congress. Through this program, students will be afforded first-hand perspective into the functioning of the federal government, as a way of providing experience-based training to individuals interested in civic engagement and government affairs.
Through the experience of interning in a congressional office, interns will:
- • explore a potential career track
- • create a network of professional and personal contacts
- • develop real-world skills
- • build confidence and professional work habits
The application deadline for summer 2011 internships is March 27th, 2011!
Visit www.sikhlead.org for more details and to apply. Spread the word and tell your friends about this exciting opportunity.
I recently came across information about Speaking in Tongues, a documentary which follows four diverse children on a journey to become bilingual. As the website states, “At a time when 31 states have passed “English Only” laws, four pioneering families put their children in public schools where, from the first day of kindergarten, their teachers speak mostly Chinese or Spanish.” Before I continue, take a peek at the trailer:
The film discusses the growing need that parents are feeling to raise their children multilingual.
Guest blogged by Pataka
As a student interested in Sikhism, visiting the library can be a somewhat dismal affair. Searching for academic works on Sikhism leads to few results. Searching for specific topics within Sikhism – for example, gender and Sikhism, lead to even fewer results.
The elitist institutionalization of scholarly research has often excluded marginalized groups and voices: those whose native language is one other than English, members of the working class who cannot afford to pay tuition and fees, single parents, seniors, people living with disabilities, immigrants, refugees and so on. It’s no stretch to imagine that one of the reasons that there is such little research available on Sikhism is due to the fact that we are a marginalized community, both in India and in the diaspora.
While many ‘professional networking’ organisations targeting Sikhs exist, the elitist spin on these events exclude those who may not be ‘professionals’ – students, stay-at-home parents, the unemployed or retired. A push towards inclusive, collaborative open-access community events highlighting Sikh research can foster healthy debates, increase social interaction between different generations of Sikhs on topics of interest, and ensure that Sikh history and Sikh thought are included within the large canon of scholarly literature. Democratizing academic research can also facilitate collaborations between academics and Sikh community groups on issues of concern.
The Penguin Book of Indian Journeys
It’s been a couple of years since my wife and I returned from our six-month shoe-string budget backpacking trip (I am very romantic) through India. In every city we visited, from Srinagar in the North to Thiruvananthapuram in the South, we made utterly impractical trips to bookshops, where we bought heaps of books. Then we walked around like overburdened donkeys with our book-laden backpacks while fending off rickshaw-wallas and coolies. And of course we didn’t read any of those books while on the road. Instead, we chatted with people in our rail compartments, drank tonnes of kullar vaali cha, watched black market DVDs on our laptops, and ate lots of delicious, deep-fried and ghee-doused (for good measure) street-food.
Last weekend, on a whim, I started reading a collection of essays called Indian Journeys, a book I had picked up at a tiny bookshop tucked into the Dasaswamedh ghat in Varanasi. And the sole reason I’d picked it up was it had an image of a foot on the cover. The book is not available in the United States, as far as I know, but you can click on this link to read more about it.
I’ve read virtually everything by Salman Rushdie, and while I do find him to be a bit verbose (yes, I just used that word) in describing something trivial, I have an immense amount of respect for the rebelliousness in both the content and style of his writing. At least with Grimus, Midnight’s Children, and The Satanic Verses. He has been very outspoken with his criticism in both his fiction and non-fiction on Indira Gandhi, but have never before come across any of his writing where he even mentions the Sikhs. And yet there it was, in the most random of places, a collection of travel essays. Salman Rushdie’s essay in this collection is entitled “the Riddle of Midnight,” and the overarching theme is the notion of Indian nationality. But what surprised me was learning something about the 1984 Delhi pogroms I had never heard before, or to be perfectly honest, something I had never thought about: the ripping of beards.
Book your flight, complete your registration, and plan on attending Sikholars 2011 now. This wonderful event will be held at CSU East Bay (Hayward, CA) from February 25-27, 2011. Having attended last year, I can say that this is one of the few forums in the community to engage in critical thought, intellectual stimulation, and meet other like-minded people in the community. The event is geared towards Sikhs, ages 25+.
In addition, this year there will be a number of evening dinners, mixers, and functions to allow young Sikhs to network and make important connections. I will definitely be in attendance and hope many of our TLH readers will be too. Visit the Sikholars website and REGISTER NOW as I have been told there is limited seating and they will fill up (especially by Canadians!).
After the massively successful Sikholars 2010 conference in February of this year, graduate students will be congregating again next February for Sikholars 2011.
After speaking to organizers, I have been informed that the deadline for proposal submissions (due to massive requests as many students were taking finals) will be extended until December 31, 2010.
Visit the Sikholars website, check out pictures from last year, and most importantly make sure you are there at:
The Second Annual
Sikholars: Sikh Graduate Student Conference
A Community on the Move: Global and Local Sikhs
February 25-27, 2011
Continue below the fold for some general information about Sikholars.
