Vishavjit Singh | |
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Vishavjit Singh is an American cartoonist, author, and activist. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Singh garnered international attention for his persona, "Sikh Captain America", which he used to not only combat hate speech and discrimination but to also raise awareness around the Sikh community. [1] [2] [3] [7] [8]
Singh was born in Washington, DC in the early 1970s to Sikh parents, [1] one of whom worked in the Indian Embassy. [2] In 1975, Singh's family moved from nearby Hyattsville, Maryland to Delhi, India. [2] [3] [4]
While he was attending middle school in India, two of Indira Gandhi's Sikh bodyguards assassinated her. Through the actions of a Hindu neighbor, Singh's family escaped the Hindu gang violence of the ensuing anti-Sikh riots in which thousands of Sikhs were killed. The memories of these pogroms left a lasting effect on Singh. [2]
After high school, Singh relocated to Los Angeles where he encountered ridicule of his Sikh appearance. While attending college at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Singh felt inundated with being stereotyped and subsequently doffed his turban and cut his long hair, unshorn since birth. [4] He later obtained a master's degree in public health at University of California, Berkeley. [2] [9] In 2000, Singh relocated to the East Coast of the United States to work as a software engineer. [1] [9] After exploring philosophy and other religions, he came back to Sikhism and began wearing his turban again in August 2001. [4]
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Singh started to draw comics as a way to promote tolerance. [3] [5] He frequently drew upon his own experiences of being discriminated against as a Sikh for his comics. [2] [1] [10] In 2002, he started his own comic website. [2]
In 2011, Singh went to New York Comic Con where he unveiled his newest poster creation - Sikh Captain America - a variation on Captain America but with a dastar turban and beard. [2] After the 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, Singh was inspired to do something to combat hate crimes and discrimination, especially against Sikh. [2] He wrote an op-ed in the Seattle Times about how superhero narratives can combat hate speech. [11] Singh also decided to embody his 2011 creation by cosplaying as Sikh Captain America as a way to start conversations on tolerance and raise awareness about the Sikh community. [2] Singh was interviewed on December 1, 2013, about his Sikh Captain America by Melissa Harris-Perry. [12] When Singh was cosplaying Sikh Captain America he met then film students Ryan Westra, Ben Fischinger and Matthew Rogers. [1] The students pitched an idea to Singh that would later become the 2014 movie short "Red, White, and Beard," where he would walk around New York City for three whole days and that they would film his experience. [1] [13] [7]
In 2016, Singh was featured in "The Sikh Project,” a pop-up gallery exhibit in SoHo that highlighted 38 portraits of Sikh-American men and women. [8] In 2018, Singh contributed to the New York's Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center exhibit “CTRL+ALT: A Culture Lab on Imagined Futures." [5] Singh had his exhibit “Wham! Bam! Pow! – Cartoons, Turbans & Confronting Hate” on view at the Wing Luke Museum from May 4, 2018, to February 24, 2019. [6] [14] Singh is also featured in the 2022 anthology We Are Here: 30 Inspiring Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Who Have Shaped the United States by Naomi Hirahara and published by the Smithsonian Institution and Running Press Kids. [15]
In 2023, Singh's documentary American Sikh was showcased at Chicago International Film Festival. [16] [17]
Sikhs are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term Sikh has its origin in the Sanskrit word śiṣya, meaning 'seeker', 'disciple' or 'student'.
A turban is a type of headwear based on cloth winding. Featuring many variations, it is worn as customary headwear by people of various cultures. Communities with prominent turban-wearing traditions can be found in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, and amongst some Turkic peoples in Russia.
Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh-American entrepreneur and franchisee in Mesa, Arizona, was murdered in a hate crime in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. This was the first of several cases across the United States that were reported to the police as supposed acts of retaliation for the attacks. Balbir Singh Sodhi, who had a beard and wore a turban in accordance with his Sikh faith, was mistakenly profiled as an Arab Muslim and murdered by 42-year-old Frank Silva Roque, a Boeing aircraft mechanic at a local repair facility who held a criminal record for an attempted robbery in California. Roque had reportedly told friends that he was "going to go out and shoot some towel-heads" the day of the attacks. Roque was sentenced to death for first degree murder. He died in prison on May 11, 2022.
In Sikhism, the Five Ks are five items that Guru Gobind Singh, in 1699, commanded Khalsa Sikhs to wear at all times. They are: kesh, kangha, kara, kachhera, and kirpan.
A dastār is an item of headwear associated with Sikhism and Sikh culture. The word is loaned from Persian through Punjabi. In Persian, the word dastār can refer to any kind of turban and replaced the original word for turban, dolband (دلبند), from which the English word is derived.
Fateh Singh, commonly referred to with honorifics as Baba Fateh Singh or Sahibzada Baba Fateh Singh, was the fourth and youngest son of Guru Gobind Singh.
American Sikhs form the country's sixth-largest religious group. While the U.S. Census does not ask about religion, 70,697 Americans declared Sikh as their ethnicity in the 2020 census. The U.S. Census Bureau cites the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey's estimate of the adult Sikh American population at 78,000. The Pew Research Center estimated the Sikh American adult population to be 140,000 and the total population at 200,000 in 2012 while the World Religion Database at Boston University estimated the American Sikh population to be at 280,000 in 2012. Sikh organizations like the Sikh Coalition and American Sikh Congressional Caucus estimate the Sikh American population to be as high as 1,000,000, but do not provide any sources for these figures; 500,000 nevertheless remains the most cited Sikh American population size. With 1% of Asian Americans being Sikh, and 90.7% of Sikh Americans being Asian American, the American Sikh population can be estimated at around 200,000–300,000 in 2021. The largest Sikh populations in the U.S. are found in California (52%), New York (11%), and Washington (6%).
The Sikh Coalition is a Sikh-American non-profit advocacy group that defends Sikh civil rights founded in 2001 with offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Fremont, California.
In Sikhism, kesh or kes is the practice of allowing one's hair to grow naturally without cutting. The practice is one of The Five Kakaars, the outward symbols ordered by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 as a means to profess the Sikh faith. The hair is combed twice daily with a kanga, another of the five Ks, and tied into a simple knot known as a joora or rishi knot. This knot of hair is usually held in place with the kanga and covered by a turban.
G. B. Singh is the author of Gandhi Behind the Mask of Divinity, a biography of Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhi Under Cross Examination.
Sikhs and Sikh Americans have served in the United States military since World War I through all subsequent wars. Since the 1980s, observant Sikhs have faced difficulty in serving due to a discontinuation of exemptions to uniform standards which previously allowed Sikhs to maintain their religiously mandated beards and turbans while in uniform.
Sikhism was founded in Punjab in 1469 by Guru Nanak on the foundations that everyone is equal, regardless of caste, age, or gender. Both men and women are supposed to follow the Five Ks: Kesh, Kangha (comb), Kara, Kachera and Kirpan, and there was never a distinction between what a woman should be allowed to do versus a man at theological level. Men and women are treated equally in the temple (gurdwara), and everyone eats and prays side-by-side. Both men and women are meant to carry the Kirpan with them as they are responsible for their own physical protection, and should not depend on others. Sikhs are strictly against the caste system and many chose to use Kaur or Singh as a last name to push against the problematic caste system in India. There is only one god (Waheguru) in Sikhism and they are without form or gender, and everyone is equal in the eyes of God. Many Sikh women believe that this absence of assignment of code of conduct for a woman versus a man proves that their religion is historically committed to gender equality. Presently, the culture does not always follow these traditions and equality is often more true in ideals rather than daily practice. According to Kiman Kaur: "It is essential to take into account the diverse Kaur narratives in order to critically understand the violence Sikh women experience due to religious, ethnic, and gender minoritization through enabling more intersectional conversations."
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Sikhism in Japan is a small, minority religion. There are gurdwaras located in Tokyo, Ibaraki and Kobe.
Sikhism in China is a minority religion in the People's Republic of China. Sikhism originated from the Punjab region of the northern Indian subcontinent.
Iqbal Singh Kingra was an Indian socio-spiritual leader of the Sikh community. He was the Founder President of The Kalgidhar Trust, The Kalgidhar Society and Baru Sahib. He was considered to be one of the most influential Sikhs in the world. He was awarded the Sikh Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. In 2018 he was bestowed with Shiromani Panth Rattan by Takht Sri Harmandir Ji Patna Sahib. In 2022, he was conferred with the Padma Shri by the Government Of India for his contributions in the field of social work.
Ravinder Singh Bhalla, often simply called Ravi Bhalla, is an American civil rights lawyer and politician, serving as the 39th Mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey, since 2018. Prior to becoming mayor, he served on the Hoboken City Council from 2009 to 2018. In 2017, he was elected as New Jersey's first Sikh mayor. A Democrat, Bhalla was a candidate for New Jersey's 8th congressional district in the 2024 election.
Sikhism in Poland dates back mostly to the 1990s or early 2000s, during the immigration of Indians to Poland. There are about approximately 700 Sikhs in Poland, with the vast majority of them living in the capital of Warsaw.
Pardeep Singh Nagra is a Sikh, Indo-Canadian former amateur boxer who competed from 1998 to 2001.
Anti-Sikh sentiment in Canada is the manifestation of hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Canadian Sikhs as a religious and ethnic group. This form of racism has affected Sikhs since Canada's Sikh community was established in 1897.
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