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Lt John Garamendi, top Sutter County brass assure support
Dr. Amrik Singh, Sacramento

YUBA: Three-day celebrations of 28th Annual Sikh Parade in Yuba City started with fireworks on Friday, November 2, 2007. An open seminar was held on Saturday afternoon. Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi inaugurated the seminar and congratulated organizers for their efforts to handle Sutter County's largest religious festival. Dr. Bruce L. Brack Professor of Anthropology and International Studies of Pacific University Stockton delivered the keynote address. Sukhraj Singh, an American born Sikh spoke on challenges he had to face to keep his identity intact. Rori Ramirez, vice mayor of Yuba City shared his impressions of working with Sikhs. City Mayor John Miller talked about the significance of annual Sikh Parade and enthusiasm of Yuba City residents. Dr. Jasbir Singh Kang, M.D. introduced Professor Bruce La Brack and informed the audience of his intellectual stature and contribution. Sutter County supervisor Jim Whiteaker told about his long association with Sikhs and how incredible was the process of preparing food for such a big gathering. Later Yuba City's Sikh City Council members Tej Mann and Kash Gill addressed the audience saying how proud they were to represent the Sikh community in the city council.

Professor Bruce La Brack who authored the book The Sikh of Northern California visited Punjab, India in 1969 for his research on Sikh religion. Due to second Indo-Pak war, however, he was not able to carry on with his project in India. He went to East Africa to construct dynamics of Sikh immigrants' success in foreign lands. He also learnt Swahili language for that purpose. Then, he came to know about Stockton Gurudwara in California and Punjabi immigrants' involvement in Gadhar movement (armed rebellion) against the British occupation of India. Talking about Sikh resilience and flexibility, he recalled how some Muslims were allowed to say their prayers while in the premises of Gurudwara. Gurudwara, according to him, used to be the mainstay of events important to the community. He reminisced about his 10 day stay in Yuba City with Sikhs who slogged day and night to eke out a living for their families and still participated in the community life.

Professor Brack traced causes of Punjabi immigration that were rooted in overpopulation in the state of Punjab and rising cost of land and living during the last quarter of 19 th century. He recalled one incident in which 3000 Punjabis jumped the freighter illegally in Panama Canal and suffered unimaginable hostilities to reach the land of their dreams. Professor Brack wondered how Punjabis came as illiterate farmers and became a community with highest graduate and post graduate rate among ethnic groups. Besides being professional class, they maintain highest per capita income in groups of different ethnicities. Settled in 60 countries, Sikhs are the largest agriculturist community outside India.

Sikhs' egalitarianism, competitiveness, flexibility and practicability constitute their success, according to Professor Brack. While making an observation, Professor Brack said that 10 major American values for being successful are incidentally 10 Sikh values too. He regretted that after 9/11, Sikhs had to face a wave of backlash due to mistaken identity. However, he congratulated the community in coming out in a big way to tell Americans who actually they were. Parades, fund-raising events for disasters like Katrina, 4 th July, and Veteran day participations have dispelled misconceptions to a larger extent.

7 November, 2007
 

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