Bellingham riots | American Turban

The “Dusky Peril” and locating race in racial violence

February 25, 2015 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

On The Vault (the history blog for Slate magazine), historian Peter Manseau recounts the history of the 1907 Bellingham riots in Washington state, in which Sikh laborers were attacked and driven out of the town’s lumber industry by mobs of white men: As reported across the country, in September 1907, a mob of disgruntled white workers rounded up hundreds of Sikhs, beat them in the street, and then forced them out of town. Many went north to British Columbia; others went […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Hate Crimes • Tags: "Washington, Bellingham, Bellingham riots, Chapel Hill, hate crime, hate crimes, North Carolina, Peter Manseau, Slate, The Vault, Washington State

Picture of the Day: Sikh delegates at the DNC

September 5, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Sikhs have a significant presence at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has been reported that 26 of California’s 700 convention delegates are Sikhs, including a set of twins from Stockton, California (home of the oldest Gurdwara in the United States). After Ishwar Singh’s historic invocation at the Republican National Convention last week, Sikh Americans are certainly seeing a growing presence in this year’s election cycle. The growing presence and participation of Sikhs in the political […]

Categories: Picture of the Day, Politics • Tags: Bellingham riots, California, Charlotte, Democratic National Convention, North Carolina, Sikh delegates

The impact of 1907’s Bellingham Riots on civil rights today

November 30, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

The South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) recently posted to their website a documentary entitled “Present In All That We Do“, that discusses the Bellingham Riots and the impact today of those attacks on migrant Sikh and Indian laborers in Washington State in 1907: Present in All That We Do (2007) is a 58 minute-long documentary that connects the 1907 “Anti-Hindu” riot in Bellingham, Washington to contemporary struggles for immigrant rights in Whatcom County. Written by Andrew Hedden and Ian […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Hate Crimes, Resources • Tags: "Washington, Bellingham, Bellingham riots, Present In All That We Do, SAADA, South Asian American Digital Archive

"Some of the Hindus driven from the United States to Canada", from "The Hindu of the Northwest" (1907) - http://saadigitalarchive.org/item/20110714-238

The Sikh diaspora: Sikh history doesn’t end in India

July 20, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

When one refers to “Sikh history”, quite often we take that to mean the history of Sikhs from our inception with the birth of Guru Nanak (the founder of Sikhism) in 1469 through to the near-present, but of that which occured in India. The history of the Sikhs who began leaving India around the end of the 19th century for farther eastern and western lands is not as commonly known or acknowledged. The Sikh diaspora tends to be spoken of in broad terms, but […]

Categories: Literature, Sikhism • Tags: Bellingham riots, Bruce La Brack, California, Sikh diaspora, Washington State