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Coming to America
Immigrant family follow their faith and are realizing their dreams

By Edward Southerland
Herald Democrat

The story that Franklin D. Roosevelt once opened a speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution with the greeting, "fellow immigrants" is fanciful fiction rather than fact, but the sentiment is true all the same.

As far as anthropologists can determine there are no such people as true native Americans. There are only immigrants who crossed the Asian land bridge to the western hemisphere a little ahead of the rest of the crowd who came by boat from the other direction. But for all these immigrants the idea, whether rationally thought out or not, was the same, coming to a new world for a better life.

So it is with Kashmir Singh a native of northern India. "I grew up in the state of Punjab, where I graduated from high school," he said. "I came here for the opportunities." Here was Texas, Dallas, where Singh had relatives, and the time was 1985. He got a job driving a taxicab and cruised the streets of his adopted town for 14 years.

In 1991, he returned to India and married. "It was an arranged marriage (common practice in India), and her father and my father were good friends," he said. The Singhs have three children, a boy and a girl currently in school in India and a younger son who goes to elementary school in McKinney.

Singh came to Sherman in June 2000, and bought a convenience store at the corner of King and Walnut from a friend who was operating it. "Actually," Singh said, "I bought the business; my friend still owns the building." Later, Singh bought the E-Z Mart on Lamar Street and now, with his family, runs both operations.

Today E-Z Mart; tomorrow Wal-Mart? "You never know," said Singh with a laugh, "if you work hard enough," and with that one comment he summed up the history of coming to America. The prospects are open and with a little good fortune and hard work the opportunities limitless.


Chris Jennings
Herald Democrat

This fits well with the philosophy and religious tenants of the 500,000 Sikh Americans who live in the United States. Sikh means student or disciple and Sikhs are followers of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikh religious traditions, and the nine prophet-teachers who came after him.

Guru Nanak, born a Hindu in 1469, sought to unite all people and reach beyond religious practices that divided them. "There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim," he taught, and later Sikh gurus put forth the idea of equality with the admonition to "Regard the whole human race as equal." To, that end Sikhs always have opposed the caste system as practiced in India.

Sikhs believe in a single deity, omnipotent and omniscient, and while they view the temporal world as proof of his existence, they reject the worship of idols, images or other objects. There are no monastic religious orders in Sikhism. They hold that both Truth and God can best be realized in a family environment and by serving the greater community. Living a truthful life and embracing honesty and hard work are strong tenants of the faith. Sikhs do not use alcohol or drugs or tobacco nor do they gamble. They tithe and offer help to the needy and the poor.

Since its founding, Sikhism had grown to embrace more that 24 million followers and stands as the world's fifth largest religion. Sikhs have been in America since the early part of the last century and long before many of their American countrymen, they recognized the complete equality between men and women in all areas of political, social and religious life.

One thing that sets Sikhs apart is their appearance. "It is important for a Sikh man to have a beard and wear a turban," said Inderpal Singh, a friend of Kashmir Singh who lives in Dallas and teaches at the Sikh house of worship in Richardson. (Note: Singh is a common sir name for Sikhs. Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th prophet of the Sikhs, promoted the adoption of a common name - Singh for men, meaning lion and Kaur for women, meaning princess - as a means of emphasizing the equality of all people.)

As part of their beliefs, Sikh men keep their hair uncut and covered by a turban. In America, 99 percent of men wearing turbans are Sikhs. They also let their beards grow long. In the last five years, this has created unanticipated problems.

"After 9/11 there has been a lot of discrimination based on misidentity," said Inderpal Singh. "We need to tell other people who we are. We are citizens; we are as American as anybody else." Sikhs have considerable reputation as soldiers and made up 40 percent of the Indian army during the British Raj and the current Indian chief of staff is a Sikh. Sikhs have fought alongside the allies in two World Wars. "In Europe there are large cemeteries dedicated to Sikh soldiers who died in World War I," said Inderpal Singh. "Many American Sikhs want to join the army, but because of the beard and the turban it has not been allowed. But there are Sikhs in the Canadian and British armies."

Kashmir Singh's two older children are in school in India. "They are in a private school there," he said. "Here, I could not afford that. When they finish high school they will come back."

When Kashmir Singh came here 20 years ago, he spoke little English and, save for a few relatives, found himself in a land of which he knew little. Through hard work and perseverance he made a life for himself and eventually for his family. Other than the individual details of his story there's nothing so really remarkable there. It's a story that's been played out for centuries; it's what coming to America is all about.

You can learn more about Sikhism and its followers in America with a trip to your library or on the World Wide Web.