Faithful to Roots and Rites : The County’s 1,000 Sikhs Seek to Fit In Without Sacrificing Their Identity

The regular worship service is about as universal as possible in the ethnically diverse religious community of Orange County: Scripture readings, hymn singing, communion service, memorials to those martyred in the faith, prayers for the well-being of co-religionists half a world away.

Those who gather at the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple in Buena Park come to listen to Scripture verses chanted from the Guru Granth Sahib, pray and sing in ancient and modern Punjabi, share a sweet flour paste called parshad , list early leaders of the faith persecuted by Mogul, Afghan and Hindu rulers, and, in sermons and social gatherings, express concern about the fate of friends and family members in India.

Despite the similarity of rituals, there are striking differences among the worshipers who each Wednesday and Sunday sit cross-legged in the carpeted sanctuary. The men, all bearded and wearing turbans, sit on one side of the room. The women, all with long hair, are on the other side of the room. Men and women wear a single steel bangle, called a kara , on their right wrist, and the men have a small, sheathed scimitar, called a kirpan , tucked into their clothing.

Above a raised altar is a square red canopy, suspended from the ceiling. As the 90-minute service progresses, different individuals take a seat behind the altar, slowly waving a snow-white, horse-hair whisk. Both the canopy and whisk, called a chawr , are signs of respect for the holy book and were instituted 250 years ago by Guru Gobind Singh, a founder of Sikhism whose birthday is celebrated this year on Dec. 26, in defiance of a Mogul ruler of India.

The singing is accompanied by a harmonium and a drum. Flowers and paper money are strewn in front of the altar.

Appearances notwithstanding, the Sikhs who gather for the services--part of a growing Orange County community now estimated at more than 1,000--are well along the path of cultural integration. Before the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple was established three years ago, the building was a Korean Christian church.

The first modern wave of Sikh migration to Orange County began around 1965, according to Harbans Singh Sraon, president of the temple, when U.S. immigration quotas favoring Western Europeans were changed. Many of the first immigrants were Indian- and British-educated professionals--scientists, doctors and engineers. In the 1970s and ‘80s, younger family members arrived to join them from trouble spots around the world, including East Africa, Iran and Fiji, as well as from their native Punjab. A good number of the more recent arrivals have gone into small businesses, including gas stations, convenience stores and import firms.

Although many have come to the United States from places of persecution, most say they have come primarily for economic reasons and are anxious to fit in with other immigrant groups that have preceded them.

“That’s why the Irish came here, why the Poles came here,” said Amarjit Singh, a Yorba Linda businessman who emigrated from Iran.

Integration, however, does not mean assimilation, leaders of the Sikh community emphasize.

“Cultures are created by God,” said Sraon, 46, an Irvine research scientist who is also a director of the World Sikh Organization. “They should be preserved.”

Like other groups that have migrated here in the last 25 years, Orange County Sikhs--the word means disciples-- are wrestling with the dilemma of wanting to be accepted by their neighbors while trying to retain an ascetic culture that in some ways sets them apart in an affluent, secular society. They are also anxious to demonstrate to their neighbors that, despite what reports from India may suggest, they are peaceful, hard-working, law-abiding citizens.

In part to bring that point home, a backyard fund-raiser was held last year for Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) in the city of Orange, where more than 100 affluent Sikhs from throughout Southern California raised $15,000 for Cranston’s reelection bid.

Most visibly, Sikhs are distinguished by the fact that the men and women do not cut their hair. Beards, in most cases, are tucked under the chin and men’s hair is wound by a comb, called a kangha , and bound by a turban. Sikhs use neither alcohol nor tobacco, and are frequently vegetarians. All Sikh men use the word Singh, which means lion, as part of their names; women use Kaur, which means princess.

(Perhaps the best known Punjabi in the United States--Daddy Warbucks’ towering sidekick in the Little Orphan Annie comic strip--was not a Sikh, since he was clean shaven and carried a sword without a sheath.)

There are no Sikh day schools or Sikh neighborhoods in Orange County, so young people are scattered throughout the public schools. Some parents go to elementary school on the first day of classes to explain their culture to principals, teachers and students. In high school, where looking and acting differently may not increase popularity, some Sikhs decide not to continue the ways of their parents.

“The children are deviating because they don’t have the background,” Sraon said. “A lot of effort is needed in that area. . . . Every Sikh’s desire is that his children become Sikhs. We can persuade, but we can’t compel.”

Many Sikh young people from Orange County attend biweekly Saturday evening services, language classes and social gatherings at the Institute of Gurmat Studies in La Habra Heights, as well as summer encampments operated by the nonprofit cultural organization.

More than a dozen young Orange County Sikhs and some of their parents gathered at the center on a recent evening to discuss their faith and the stability it provides.

Sardarni Jasleen Kaur, 17, of Fountain Valley, who arrived in this country as an infant, recalled that while she was growing up, “my mom did not restrict me. I did what every American kid did.”

Later, she said, because of her background and her family’s strict moral code, “I used to be very insecure because I was different. . . . I was worrying about other people accepting me.”

Now, she said, “I find a lot more satisfaction from my religion. . . . I’m realizing what I am and where I’m from.”

“I’m quite proud of who I am and where I come from,” said Sardarni Payal Kaur, 20, a student at Cal State Fullerton.

Sardar Balpreet Singh, 20, said that being one of the few students on the UC Irvine campus to wear a turban has its advantages, provoking questions from the curious.

“That’s how I make all my friends,” he said.

Arranged marriages are not uncommon or unpopular among Sikhs, even the most Americanized of them.

“It’s nice,” said Sardarni Gurpreet Kaur, 25, a graduate student at UCI. “We can talk to our parents. We get veto power.”

At the Buena Park temple, Jatinder Singh, an aerospace engineer who was raised in Oregon, recalled that his father did not wear a beard and turban because he felt it would impair his ability to earn a living, but he always encouraged his son to return to the practices of his faith.

Because of their appearance, Sraon said, Orange County Sikhs are sometimes mistaken for Iranians. This was a particularly uncomfortable situation during the Tehran hostage crisis, as it is on the freeways anytime U.S.-Iranian tensions flare up.

“We’re not ayatollahs,” Sraon said, outlining the considerable differences between Shiite Islam and Sikhism, both of which originated in the same part of the world.

Sikhism began in what is now Pakistan around 1500, founded by Guru Nanak, the first of 10 founding prophets, after whom the Orange County temple is named.

The religion grew out of Hindu culture and retains a belief in reincarnation in which the soul survives death. But Guru Nanak also deviated from Hinduism, basing his philosophy on monotheism, rejecting the caste system and prohibiting worship of religious images. Guru Nanak advocated charity and stressed salvation through good works, as well as by the grace of God. Both Hindu and Sufi Muslim literature are included in the Sikhs’ revered holy book, the 1,430-page Adi Granth. In contemporary Sikh worship there are numerous elements of symbolism, celebration and ritual common to various Christian and Jewish services, including a profession of faith, adult baptism and--when entering the sanctuary--paying obeisance to the open Adi Granth on the raised altar. Like Quakers, Sikhs have no full-time clergy and their women enjoy status equal with the men.

The Sikhs’ traditional homeland is Punjab, which at the height of its influence straddled the modern border of Northwest India and Pakistan. Today, the area exerts the same kind of emotional pull on Orange County Sikhs as the native lands of other immigrant groups.

“It may not be my homeland,” Jatinder Singh said, “but it will be my spiritual homeland.”

About 12 million Sikhs now live in a reduced state of Punjab in India, mostly farming and operating small businesses. Three million Sikhs live elsewhere in India and another 1.5 million live abroad, including an estimated 250,000 in the United States.

“In the last 50 years we have become an international community,” Jatinder Singh said.

Although Sikhism began as an agrarian, non-violent faith, the forces of history and geography have over time conspired to develop a martial and equestrian tradition.

“When all else fails, you have the right to unsheath your sword to defend yourself,” Sraon said.

Among the invaders and occupiers the Sikhs had to battle--with varying degrees of success--were Afghans, Persians, Moguls and British colonialists. Ironically, as a result of these struggles Sikhs ultimately became a mainstay of the British Indian Army in World War I and World War II, and in the Indian Army after independence and partition in 1947, when part of Punjab was lost to Pakistan.

But since partition, some Sikhs have grown increasingly disenchanted with the Indian government in New Delhi, citing a string of broken promises with regard to an autonomous state with restored territory and its own official language. Over the last decade, this disenchantment has given rise to Sikh fundamentalism and nationalism in Punjab, and a desire on the part of some for an independent Punjab, called Khalistan.

In June of 1984, Indian troops surrounded the Golden Temple--the Sikh’s holiest compound--in the city of Amritsar, attacking fundamentalists and pilgrims with artillery and air power before launching a ground attack. The death toll is subject to dispute, with the Indian government claiming 500 Sikhs killed and Sikhs charging that as many as 10,000 were killed--some after surrendering to Indian forces--including unarmed pilgrims, old men, women and children.

The attack on the Golden Temple, which Orange County Sikhs say occupies for them a position similar to the Vatican for Catholics, has had a great effect on Sikhs around the world, accelerating the dynamic of violence.

Before the attack, Sraon said, “I never thought about Punjab.” Now, he said, “it’s in our heart day and night. . . . It hurt me, it hurt me badly.”

Four months after the assault on the Golden Temple, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards. In the days that followed, anti-Sikh rioting in New Delhi and elsewhere in India resulted in the deaths of thousands of Sikhs. Since then, some Sikhs have undertaken sporadic guerrilla war against Indian authorities in Punjab and throughout India, as well as internecine strife within the Sikh community.

In 1985, five Sikhs were arrested in New York and Louisiana on charges related to plans to assassinate Indian officials in the United States and attack installations in India. Four of the five either pleaded guilty or were convicted.

Earlier this year, the government of Rajiv Gandhi removed the elected Sikh government in Punjab, as permitted by the Indian constitution, and instituted a form of martial law. So far in 1987, Western journalists have reported, nearly a thousand Sikhs have been killed in Punjab and thousands more have disappeared.

In describing these events, Orange County Sikhs frequently use the term genocide.

“I feel helpless,” said Sardarni Guninder Kaur of Cypress. “You feel worried about your family. I feel like I want to cry.”

Travel to Punjab, even by Sikhs with American passports, requires a separate visa from the Indian government. Orange County Sikhs attempting to visit relatives complain that their visa requests have been denied, delayed or severely restricted.

“They have created a country within a country,” said Sraon’s wife, Surinder, who like her husband is a U.S. citizen. “I didn’t need a visa to go to Nebraska once I got my U.S. passport.”

“I’ve been trying to go to India for the last year,” Jatinder Singh said. “How can I call India home?”

Even more troubling to Orange County Sikhs than the attack on the Golden Temple and the repression in Punjab has been the impact the strife has had on the way the world views Sikhs.

“I am more hurt that the Sikhs’ image has been destroyed by calling us terrorists,” said Dr. Parvindar Singh Wadhwa, an Anaheim cardiologist. “We are burned that India has done so much to change our image.”