Art | American Turban

Sandeep Kaur of Fort Wayne, Indiana Sends a Message of Love and Unity in Nirbhau Nirvair Anthology

September 14, 2015 by American Turban Guest Contributor

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

Leave a comment

The Sikh Captain America takes on New York

November 7, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

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

Immigration as art

September 18, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan 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

Leave a comment

Excerpt from "I Want the Wide American Earth." (Source: Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center)

Bhagat Singh Thind, the e-comic

September 16, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

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

Leave a comment

Vishavjit Singh dressed as comic book hero Captain America. (Photo. Fiona Aboud. Source: Salon)

When Captain America wore a turban

September 13, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

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

Going to the turban shop

September 9, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan 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

Leave a comment

Photo from Kush. (Source: Kush website.)

Kush, film about 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, wins award at Venice film festival

September 3, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

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

Scene from Kush, a short film by Shubhashish Bhutiani. (Source: Kush website)

Kush, film about 1984 anti-Sikh riots, to be screened at Venice film festival

August 22, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Based on a true story, Kush is a short film set in Delhi in the aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October, 1984, when organized mobs engaged in an anti-Sikh pogrom in India’s capital city and beyond. Thousands of innocent Sikhs were killed, burned alive, beaten, raped and tortured to avenge the Prime Minister’s death. To this day, few — including government officials implicated in the massacre — have ever been held to account by India’s […]

Categories: 1984, Art, TV/Movies • Tags: 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Indira Gandhi, Kush, Shubhashish Bhutiani, Venice International Film Festival

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

Leave a comment

American Turban

Considering the experience of Sikhs in America.

Category Archives: Art

Sandeep Kaur of Fort Wayne, Indiana Sends a Message of Love and Unity in Nirbhau Nirvair Anthology

The Sikh Captain America takes on New York

Immigration as art

Bhagat Singh Thind, the e-comic

When Captain America wore a turban

Going to the turban shop

Kush, film about 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, wins award at Venice film festival

Kush, film about 1984 anti-Sikh riots, to be screened at Venice film festival

Are we heading towards a Sikh renaissance?