Changes over time: Punjabis, Punjabi Mexicans, and Sikhs in North America

ABSTRACT

Although post-1965 Punjabi Sikh immigrants are inclined to disavow the Punjabi Mexican community formed by the earlier Punjabi diaspora, and claim the earlier diaspora as a Sikh diaspora, arguably the earlier Punjabi diaspora was a cosmopolitan one and the later diaspora a Sikh transnational and religious one. But the Punjabi Mexican community, now mainstream American, is being acclaimed well beyond the borders of its descendants.

KEYWORDS:

• Punjabis
• Punjabi Mexicans
• Sikhs
• transnational
• cosmopolitan
• religion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These observations come from participation in numerous Sikh Studies conferences from the 1980s to the present.

2 Anthropologists have discussed ‘translation’ as part of their disciplinary enterprise, seeking to understand and explain contemporary cultures to each other: see the essays in Palsson 1993. Gisli Palsson discusses not only ethnographic but transnational political attempts at translation in the contemporary world: 23-24. Ulf Hannerz, in the same volume, discusses mediation across cultures, likening cultures to languages.

3 Only among the post-1965 Sikh immigrants are there efforts to relate religious law and authorities in the homelands to religious law and authorities in the diaspora communities.

4 The cosmopolitanism of India and the USA, with respect to religion, can certainly be questioned, given the decline of secularism and the rise of Hinduism and Christianity respectively in the civic religious spheres in the two nations.

5 Harjot Oberoi (himself a victim of protests), mentions this, in ‘Academic History and Sikh Studies: Is It Time to Configure a Disciplinary Manifesto?’ In Global Sikhs, edited by Opinderjit Kaur Takhar and Doris R. Jakobsh, 43.

6 Adan Griego is the curator; the bibliographic entry is under my name.

7 Postcard inviting me to the 2010 performance; Company Dance Innovator and Dance Creator Joti Singh is the great granddaughter of a pioneer Punjabi who was president of the Ghadar Party from 1914 to 1920.

8 The last full-length performance was in 2015 in San Francisco, but the Company performed an excerpt in November of 2019 at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. KQED did a video on the piece: https://www.kqed.org/arts/10549122/cultural-duet-dancers-honor-californias-mexican-punjabi-heritage. The Company choreographed a new version of "Half and Halves" on September 26, 2020, at the opening event of the Angel Island Pacific Coast Immigration Center. Recent information from Sonia Chopra and Chelsea Brown, emails of November 2 and 15 respectively, 2019. Sonia wrote the article on Punjabi Mexican cuisine for Eater; she is Eater’s Director of Editorial Strategy. Chelsea is the Managing Director of the Duniya Dance & Drum Company.

9 Hardeep Dhillon, phone call of Dec. 4, 2019. Growing up in Mexico, most of the descendants are marrying Mexicans. Hardeep’s thesis is a global microhistory of Indian immigration and border controls at the turn of the 20th century, focused on legal issues.

10 Zehra Rehman, email June 16, 2020, from Islamabad; correspondence with Ruy Sanchez de Orellana Santiago, Seccion Cultural Embamex India, August, 2020, about the video ‘Love Glossary of Mexico-India Relations: Memory for the Future;’ Saleem Gondal, February-March correspondence, 2021; Ria Tobaccowala, correspondence 2020-2021.

11 SAADA, the specifically South Asian effort to collect historical materials, has been least interested. In early 2019 an event it held at UCLA to fete the pioneers featured descendants of notable pioneers like Bhagat Singh Thind but no Punjabi Mexicans, although I and others have donated materials relating to that bi-ethnic community.