Century of Struggle and Sucess The Sikh Canadian Experience by Sandeep Singh Brar Part IV Sense of Identity

Sense of identity was probably the core inner strength that Sikh immigrants were able to draw upon to face their many daily challenges. These immigrants felt that it was important to adapt to their new homeland by learning the language, participating in society while at the same time maintaining their cultural and religious identity. While integrating to the best of their abilities, Sikhs continued to proudly practice their religion, hold religious parades in the streets and try to explain their religion to Canadians. "It is a great joy to me to find that here in this distant land you still keep up your own religious faith and do not neglect your Sikh religion. That is the right thing to do if you want to remain in a distant country with moral character and good social and family traditions such as those which still remain in India itself. I am so glad to find that the Khalsa Diwan Society is the centre of your own life in British Columbia. That is quite right and proper and good. For without that binding link you are bound to fall to pieces. But if you keep this binding force of your own pure religious faith intact, then you will preserve your character also and your family life will be good and pure. You must cling together and help one another. Do not let any member of your community come to grief and ruin through your neglect. Secondly, you must remember that you are guests in a new country and you have to observe the first law of hospitality, which is to accommodate yourselves as far as possible and pay every consideration to the manners and customs of this new country where your children are being born and where you yourselves have elected to live. This is a necessity in every country where people emigrate if good will and friendly feelings are to be observed. This does not mean that you are to alter all your own good customs and manners of living, but rather that you are to seek at every point to find a common meeting place where your own life and the Canadian life coincide. To put what I wish to say in two words, you should do your best to prove yourselves 'Good Canadians'." (Kartar Singh, India and Canada: A Journal of Interpretation and Information, 1929) Wanting to create the best impression among Canadians of the Sikh people, Sikhs pioneers went out of their way to dress smartly in European clothing. The Sikh Temple Committee went so far as to issue an order that when going out, every Sikh should be well dressed in a three-piece suit, should have and umbrella with him and well-polished pair of shoes. Another injunction added was that if one could afford it they should have a pocket watch too. Over 90% of the early Sikhs were war veterans and loyal soldiers of the British Army. They had dedicated their lives to serving the British Empire and were proud of their loyalty and accomplishments. That is why they felt that they deserved all the rights of ordinary citizens in Canada, rather than being treated as second class citizens. Their sense of disappointment at the actual realities of their new homeland led to moments of frustration when they questioned whether having been loyal soldiers of the British Army had been worth it after all? "Our uniforms and medals show that we have fought for the British as mercenaries against our own countrymen and to enslave other Asian nations. The uniforms and medals are symbols of our slavery. I propose that no member of executive of the Sikh Temple should wear any kind of medals, buttons, uniforms or insignias which may signify that the position of the party wearing the article is nothing but a slave of the British supremacy." (Natha Singh, 1909) On the evening of October 3rd, 1909 the Sikhs made a bonfire and burned their uniforms, medals, photographs and letters of recommendation out of their frustration and sense of betrayal.