Washington State | 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

Attacker of WA Sikh cab driver pleads guilty to hate crime

June 28, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Last October, Jamie W. Larson severely assaulted a Sikh cab driver for whom he was a passenger near Seattle, Washington: Jamie W. Larson attacked the cab driver during an Oct. 17 ride after commenting on the man’s turban. According to charging documents, Larson, 48, tore out chunks of the man’s beard during the assault, which also loosened one of the driver’s teeth. During the attack, Larson issued various epithets and made derogatory comments about the victim’s ethnicity. As a result, was […]

Categories: Hate Crimes • Tags: Federal Way, hate crime, hate crimes, Jamie W. Larson, Seattle, Shepard-Byrd Law, taxicab, Washington State

"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

America’s “Hindu crews”: Sikh immigration in the 1900s

June 10, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

An interesting post on the blog Beyond Victoriana gives a short history of the “Hindu crews” – migrant laborers from India – that saw with them the earliest accounts of Sikh immigration to the United States at the end of the 19th century: “Some 85 percent of the men who came during those years were Sikhs, 13 percent were Muslims, and only 2 percent were really Hindus.” The article goes on to describe the genesis of Punjabi-Mexican families, as these Punjabi and Sikh men would marry into […]

Categories: Reflections, Sikhism • Tags: California, Dr. Tarlochan Singh, Hindu Crews, Immigration, Mexican Sikhs, Punjabi American, Washington State