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Sikh Motorcycle Club. (Source: Reddit)

Singhs of Anarchy

August 21, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

On to the front page of the website Reddit today was a well-circulated photo of the Sikh Motorcycle Club in British Columbia, Canada. Said one commenter: “They love traveling down Route Sikh-y Sikhs.” After the incident on Reddit last year in which a Sikh woman turned an attempt at mockery into an inspiring moment of education, it’s nice to see something about Sikhs appear on the website that is a little more light-hearted. See the Sikh Motorcycle Club website for […]

Categories: Picture of the Day • Tags: Balpreet Kaur, British Columbia, Canada, Reddit, Sikh Motorcycle Club, Vancouver

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(Photo: Steve Rhodes/Flickr. Source: Asian American Writers' Workshop))

Are Asians Trayvon Martin?

August 21, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

In the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, I.Y. Lee discusses the Asian American experience in the context of the murder of Trayvon Martin: We are highly educated but increasingly unemployed, growing in political clout but under-represented, examples of the American success story who have on occasion been beaten, tortured, and killed for our race. To move beyond this binary, Asian Americans must find a politics that, through solidarity and activism, breaks the de facto apartheid that creates it. Read more here. […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Hate Crimes • Tags: Asian American, Asian American Writers Workshop, George Zimmerman, I.W. Yee, Trayvon Martin

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"Harshaan Ahluwalia, 2, dribbles a soccer ball during a friendly soccer match in solidarity with young players who wear turbans Saturday, June 15, 2013 in Montreal. Quebec's soccer federation announced it is ending its much-criticized turban ban Saturday." (Photo credit: Paul Chiasson | THE CANADIAN PRESS. Source: The Globe and Mail.)

The secularism-religious freedom divide

August 20, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

To the north, Canada’s province of Quebec is seeking to prohibit religious symbols such as the wearing of the turban, yarmulke or headscarf by public employees in a political maneuver believed to be veiled in secularism. The move by Quebec’s provincial government follows in the footsteps of the Quebec Soccer Federation, who earlier this summer attempted to ban the wearing of the turban in amateur soccer in the province (the ban was lifted after national and international criticism and objection). […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Interfaith, Politics • Tags: Canada, freedom of religion, Immanent Frame, Kathleen Skerrett, Multiculturalism, Quebec, Religious symbolism, Secularism, soccer, Turban

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Celebrating diversity in the wake of hate

August 16, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

After two Sikh grandfathers were shot and killed while on their daily walk in a suspected (and yet, unsolved) hate crime in Elk Grove, California, in March, 2011, the city council sought to promote the diversity of and among its residents: In October 2011, each council member appointed two of the more than 30 applicants to serve on the 10-member Elk Grove Multicultural Committee… “I thought the creation of it was very timely, not just because of the shootings but […]

Categories: Events, Hate Crimes • Tags: California, Elk Grove, Elk Grove Multicultural Festival, Gurmej Atwal, hate crimes, Sacramento, Surinder Singh

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Sikholars 2013. (Source: Sikholars)

Sikholars 2014 announces Call for Papers

August 16, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

The Sikholars Graduate Student Conference is now inviting presentation proposals for Sikholars 2014, its fifth annual gathering to discuss topics in Sikh and Punjab studies taking place from February 15-16, 2014 at Stanford University in Stanford, California. The conference is sponsored by the Center for South Asia at Stanford University and Jakara Movement. I find remarkable that the conference is already planning its fifth session. I still recall attending the first conference, and the 2013 conference is still fresh in my mind. […]

Categories: Education, Events • Tags: Call for Papers, Center for South Asian Studies, Jakara Movement, Sikholars, Stanford University

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"The Hindustan Times Newspaper Published on 15th August,1947." (Source: The Allrounder)

Independence and Partition: clear words, unclear legacy

August 15, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Coinciding with independence celebrations in Pakistan and India on August 14 and 15 respectively, an article in The New York Times features the 1947 Partition Archive, a project based in Berkeley, California, led by Guneeta Bhalla. The two-year-old project is creating an oral history archive of personal stories from survivors of the religion-based partition of Punjab and Bengal in 1947 that created the nation-states of Pakistan and India, and later, Bangladesh: …its dozens of volunteers have video-recorded 647 oral histories […]

Categories: Events, Reflections • Tags: 1947, 1947 Partition Archive, Guneeta Singh Bhalla, India, New York Times, Oral history, Pakistan, Partition of India

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Slide from a security training test used by the US Defense Department and other agencies showing the hypothetical Indian American woman named "Hema." (Source: The Huffington Post)

Free “Hema”

August 15, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

The Huffington Post’s Matt Sledge reports about a security training test created by an agency of the US Defense Department called the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which gives a profile of a hypothetical Indian American woman (named “Hema”) and, based on rather typical characteristics, instructs trainees to consider her a high security threat: A security training test created by a Defense Department agency warns federal workers that they should consider the hypothetical Indian-American woman a “high threat” because she […]

Categories: Civil Rights • Tags: Defense Information Systems Agency, Hema, Indian American, Matt Sledge, National Security Agency, Racial profiling, The Aerogram, The Huffington Post, United States Department of Defense

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Elderly Sikhs writing. (Source: SikhNet)

Are we heading towards a Sikh renaissance?

August 15, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

On SikhNet, Dr. I.J. Singh and Guruka Singh survey the Sikh voice across its diaspora with a comprehensive inventory of bloggers, scholars and authors, but also look to the future of that voice: …in North America, a land with less than 300 years as a nation and a fickle memory, we Sikhs have a relatively formidable history; for instance, Sikh workers helped build the Panama Canal in 1903-04.  But effectively as a community here we are only about 40 years […]

Categories: Art, Literature, Reflections • Tags: Dr. I.J. Singh, Guruka Singh, Sikh renaissance, SikhNet

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"We are all Sikhs" t-shirt. (Source: Rootsgear Clothing)

Sikhs, through Jewish eyes

August 14, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

On The Jewish Journal, Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin considers his Sikh American neighbors a year after the Oak Creek, Wisconsin mass shooting: Maybe they should consider modifying the turban requirement, and just make it optional? How American of me to think that. Sikh men simply know that they have to be at the airport that much earlier. That’s the price they choose to pay for walking a religious road with one foot, and keeping the other foot grounded in Western […]

Categories: Interfaith, Reflections, Sikhism • Tags: Jewish faith, Jewish Journal, Oak Creek, Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin, Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, Wisconsin

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