Published in 2019 and written by Deanna Singh, Cloth Crown is a children’s book about a Sikh boy bullied on his first day of school.
Categories: Art, Literature, Resources • Tags: Children's literature, Cloth Crown, Deanna Singh, Flying Elephant
I came to appreciate the significance of this year quite late and quite suddenly. Admittedly, among the daily comings and going of life, I wasn’t paying attention. And so, when the last days of October turned to the advent of November, I found myself unprepared in my unmindful state. This year, by culturally established timekeeping, is the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the first Guru of the Sikhs. Traditionally celebrated in November, tributes to Guru Nanak on this anniversary began appearing on my social […]
Categories: Art, Reflections • Tags: Arpana Caur, gurpurab, Guru Nanak, Jaswant Zafar
After the news of another hate crime against a Sikh American last week, American Turban contributor Lori Way shares a timely poem from a young author from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Many thanks to Lori and author Sandeep Kaur for sharing this reflection. Sandeep Kaur is currently a pharmacy student at Manchester University in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but she was just 18 in the summer of 2013 when she wrote “A Land of Love.” The poem was selected for publication in […]
Categories: Art, Hate Crimes, Literature, Profiles, Reflections • Tags: "A Land of Love", Chicago, Fort Wayne, hate crime, hate crimes, Illinois, Inderjit Singh Mukker, Indiana, Lori Way, Poetry, Sandeep Kaur
The FXX network’s television show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell has not shied away from Sikh-related topics. After the mass shooting of Sikhs by a white supremacist in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in August of last year, the show featured a segment to help eliminate confusion about the Sikh identity, and last month, highlighted the issues Sikh Americans face with TSA screening policies. Vishavjit Singh is an editorial cartoonist who in the past year experimented with wearing a Captain America […]
Categories: Art, Civil Rights, TV/Movies • Tags: Captain America, Hari Kondabolu, New York, Totally Biased, Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, Vishavjit Singh
In an interview with The Atlantic, author Edwidge Danticat offers a perspective on the immigrant experience — that of artistic creation (via @simranik): My parents spent their entire lives in Haiti before they left. They didn’t know much about the United States except that, at that time, there were opportunities there. They basically packed two suitcases and came. That experience of touching down in a totally foreign place is like having a blank canvas: You begin with nothing, but stroke […]
Categories: Art, Reflections • Tags: Edwidge Danticat, Immigration
In conjunction with their traveling exhibition entitled “I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story,” the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center released an e-comic book that provides snapshots of Asian American history: “I want the Wide American Earth: An Asian American E-Comic” is an illustrated adaptation of the “I want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story” banner exhibition. Produced in collaboration with SI Universe Media, creators of the first-ever Asian Pacific American comics anthology, […]
Categories: Art, Civil Rights, Events • Tags: Asian American, Bhagat Singh Thind, comics, I Want the Wide American Earth, Pacific Islander, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center
Earlier this summer, Sikh cartoonist Vishavjit Singh provided a glimpse of his foray through New York City dressed as the superhero Captain America. In an article in Salon magazine published this week, Vishavjit Singh shares more about his experience in challenging stereotypes: I have been skinny all my life, and I felt a stirring of anxiety to be so exposed. Family and friends have pointed out my thin-ness for years, and the self-consciousness has sunk deep into my psyche. Before […]
Categories: Art, Civil Rights, Reflections • Tags: Captain America, comics, Fiona Aboud, hate crimes, Navdeep Singh Dhillon, New York, Sikhtoons, Vishavjit Singh
When I was young, one of my Saturday morning pastimes was to browse through the morning newspaper to sketch turbans, mustaches and beards on to the photos in the comics, stories and advertisements (if the poorly designed logo for this blog is any indication, it clearly still is a hobby), providing our newspaper with a more Sikh-related flavor. I would only vandalize our paper after my father had finished reading it, of course. Today, as newspapers are disappearing, perhaps this […]
Categories: Art, Humor • Tags: Columbia Style, Columbia University, Macklemore, New York, Ryan Lewis, Thrift Shop, Turban Shop
Recently featured at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, the film Kush by Shubhashish Bhutiani– set during the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in New Delhi, India — has been awarded the festival’s “Best Innovative Budget” award: “Kush” was made on a shoestring budget thanks to private contributions including by the Film Director and other individuals who sacrificed their fees and charges to make the film possible. The Director, a student of the School of Visual Arts in New York was also […]
Categories: 1984, Art, TV/Movies • Tags: 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Indira Gandhi, Kush, School of Visual Arts, Shubhashish Bhutiani, Venice International Film Festival
