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Sikh
students visit varsity to talk about their religion
WSN Bureau
 FORT
WORTH: Of the many ways to spread the message of Sikhism and tell
the Americans and others about who exactly Sikhs are, one of the
most effective is to go out and do it personally. That is exactly
what a few dedicated students of Southern Methodist University in
Dallas and the Gurudawara Sikh Sangat place of worship in
Euless
ended up doing.
They went to the
Texas Christian University and told the students there about the
significance of a Sikh's turban, made a few students wear the turban
for a couple of hours, talked to them about the uniqueness of Sikh
religion and underlined the universality of the message of the
Gurus.
For many
Texas Christian
University seniors, this was the first chance to get to know first
hand who Sikhs are. Doubtless, many had so far confused Sikhs with
people of Middle-eastern origin for the simple reason that both
Arabs and Sikhs wear turbans.
This visit of
the seven students from SMU and the gurdwara helped change the views
of many. They had set up a booth last week outside TCU's main
library and had brought a few spare turbans with them. Many seniors
were pleased to listen to a Sikh student explaining that in these
times of terror, Americans in fact should feel a sense of security
around Sikhs because they're honor-bound to protect innocent
victims.
The Sikh
students from SMU all belong to the Sikh Students Association.
Adam Gamwell,
TCU's program coordinator for religious and spiritual life, said the
event helped raise awareness of the religion. He said most TCU
students are Christians and most of those that declare a
denomination are Catholic.
The SMU students
said they visited Texas Woman's University, the
University
of North
Texas in
Denton and the University of Texas at Arlington this week and plan
to visit the University of Texas at Dallas today. The Euless place
of worship, meanwhile, has about 200 to 250 members, said Amrit Kaur
Anand, who attends Gurudawara Sikh Sangat.
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It was this success of the SMU Sikh Turban day that the model of
having college student wear a turban for 3 to 4 hours and go to
classes/meetings really worked...It was very important to
promote awareness of Sikhism because people don't know about it.
They aren't aware of the values of the religion and have the
wrong perception in their minds because Sikhs wear turbans and
Osama Bin Laden wears a turban. |
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SMU student
Jaipreet Singh Suri enthusiastically explained the significanxce of
many Sikh articles of faith.
Last year had
seen SMU's first Turban Day in April, and it was a unique event
since the students, who only had 50 turbans, were using $20 gift
cards as an incentive for people to come wear a Sikh turban. The
response was great, and many wanted to keep the turban as a souvenir
instead of the $20 gift card.
It was a very
positive and satisfying experience for everyone involved.
With non-Sikh
American students wearing turbans, questions popped up everywhere
naturally and it got a dialogue going thus giving the Sikh students
a chance to talk of more diverse aspects of their religion.
Most
importantly, the flow of information was without barriers, because
of the relationships between students; whether they were friends or
in the same class or members of the same organizations. They kept
the turbans tied for 4 hours, so they had to go to classes or
meetings etc, and it exponentially raised awareness.
 It
was this success of the SMU Sikh Turban day that the model of having
college student wear a turban for 3 to 4 hours and go to
classes/meetings really worked. This year the SMU SIkh Students
worked with all the major universities in DFW: Texas Woman's
University,
University of
Texas at Arlington, University of North Texas, Texas Christian
University and University of Texas at Dallas.
"It really
worked out for us because all these universities have spring break
the week after ours, so this ensures that we can personally go to
all of these universities and help in organizing the event at these
universities. I guess the biggest motivation for us is again,
exponential awareness. This allows us to interact with more college
students at more campuses," Suri was quoted in an interview.
He said he hoped
as a result of their experience that there will be constructive
dialogues with the people they interact which will allow in a more
open flow of communication, which will help them become more diverse
and aware about the Sikh religion.
"But, most
importantly, our biggest hope is that it will reinforce for them
that you don't have to judge people by how they look, but by who
they are and what their character is. A lot of people get put off by
the distinctive appearance of the Sikhs (with the turban and the
beard), and they might not try to get to know them because of how
they look.
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The Turban
Effect
 It
took Keith Jackson only two hours to understand the heft of
American bias felt by Sikhs. The 31-year old heavy-equipment
operator noticed the crowd in front of the library and decided
to don a navy turban and an "Ask Me Why I'm Wearing a Turban"
button. Then he went to lunch at Subway. One man asked Jackson's
colleague, who also wore a turban, if he was part of the
Taliban. Another man told them that bin Laden was their big
brother. Someone on a bike started screaming at them. Everyone
stared. "I learned there's still a lot of prejudice out there,"
he said, shaking his still-turbaned head. He accepted the gift
card but said he would have participated for free. Events such
as these are "baby steps," said Rajinder Singh, a software
engineer from Allen who teaches Sikh history at the
Richardson
gurdwara. |
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"We are really
fortunate to have a great team here at SMU; the members of the SSA
are really committed to the vision, and have put in a lot of hard
work. We are really fortunate to be able to obtain the support of
different organizations at five different campuses who agree with
our vision and who are helping us to promote this event at their
campuses. They have found the model for the event to be really
interesting and something that they think would work and benefit
their campus in a positive way."
For Sikhs who
often are the target of racist remarks not even connected to their
race, this was a chance to pass real knowledge on to everyone and
make them more diversified in the process.
One Sikh student
said it was "very important to promote awareness of Sikhism because
people don't know about it. They aren't aware of the values of the
religion and have the wrong perception in their minds because Sikhs
wear turbans and Osama Bin Laden wears a turban."
In the
United States
people you see most often wearing a Turban are members of the Sikh
religion. Sikhs wear turbans as symbols and reminders of their core
values: discipline, integrity, defense of the innocent, equality of
everyone, community service, spirituality and humility.
Most students
found the experience of being part of the SSA as "wonderful". One
said: "I would rather call it a challenge to put these events
together. An exciting one. We just have the end result of spreading
awareness about our culture in mind and work ourselves towards it as
a team. Difficulties in the form of time deadlines, setting up
things and organizing do come across but as a team we tackle them
and try our best to achieve our goal."
18 March 2009
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