a sort of a ‘dhabha’ in a small town hoping to
migrate to USA one day. There are instances of high handedness
by the police and immigration authorities but once you have
left the country, there is no turning back in most of the
cases whether the immigrant likes the situation he or she
has got into. There is an instance of a Sikh who had been
sponsored by his brothers from USA. This guy was asked to
come to Belize where a white woman came from USA for less
than a day. In a few hours after arrival, she got married
to the Sikh based on which she sought his immigration to USA.
This was achieved after prolonged legal battle. The immigrants’
preferred profession originally was to work on farms graduating
in time to buying their own farm land. Others worked in Railways
in various capacities or in Sugar Mills or as in Panama, at
the Canal. Some of them drove vehicles and taxis eventually
buying their own wheels eventually buying their own wheels
eventually setting up large transport conglomerates. Still
others carried out ‘Pheri’ i.e. retail as paddlers
and in time set up small size super markets. Others took to
money lending and in due course dabbled in real estate. Several
members of second and third generation are becoming professionals
and entrepreneurs.
Turban, Marriages and Linkage with Punjab
There had been a lot of to and fro traffic of Sikhs between
countries they settled in and Punjab. For early migrants the
first visit home took several years to materialize. Some even
returned permanently to India. Most of them migrated as single
males and some returned to get a wife. Others who had left
their wives called for them as soon as they were in a position
to receive the family. Yet others who were single (and even
some who were married in India) decided to take on local wives.
In some cases this could have been even the maid working in
the house. Acceptance was a critical issue and local marriage
was the first step in the process of assimilation. It wasn’t
an easy choice though. One hears only good things about Punjabi-Sikh
parents (fathers in most cases) once they settled down. The
general comments from their siblings and others was that the
Sikhs were hard working, honest, generous but rather strict
with the family in terms of the siblings’ upbringing.
Several of them sent money home, at least, in earlier years
of settling down before their local families’ needs
became more pressing.
The effort of each migrant was to continue to keep Sikh symbols
specially the turban. The British encouraged the post war
disbanded Sikhs soldiers to migrate and in some cases paid
for their voyages. So far as the British employers were concerned,
it was easier to maintain Sikh identity but in other situations
it was a problem. There was also security.....
