Jasmine Singh

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Everything Im Not Made Me Everything I am: The Racialization of Sikhs in the United States Jasmine K. Singh*
INTRODUCTION My great uncle, Rala Singh, was among the first Asian Indians to settle and live in the state of Arizona. In 1927, he left Punjab, India hoping to start a new life in the United States. After entering the United States through Oregon, he traveled to Michigan and then to Arizona, with dreams of owning and farming his own land. Due to alien land laws, however, he was prohibited from such ownership.1 Somehow unbarred by anti-miscegenation laws, he married a white woman who purchased land under her name. That land, later named Rala Farms, became a staple of Arizona agriculture. It also facilitated the immigration of my mother, my father, and much of my extended family. The trials my great uncle faced are representative of those faced by many early Sikh immigrants. Sikhs were barred from owning land, marrying, forming families, and living their lives free from discrimination. Sikhs in the United States have long endured a complicated and ambiguous racial status. Since the time of their earliest immigration to today, they have been stripped of their self-identity and re-defined by the racer.2 Sikhs have been essentialized as Hindus, marginalized, forgotten, and, in recent times, misidentified and demonized. Sikhs have experienced a unique3 process of racialization that has been largely unexplored. Racialization is a process that begins when individuals are first mapped into a certain group based on specific traits and characteristics, and then treated in a specific manner based on the meanings attached to the assigned
* J.D University of California at Los Angeles, May 2008, Order of the Coif. B.A., University of Michigan, December 2004, High Distinction. I first want to thank Professor Nanda and Professor Kang for their guidance and mentorship. Without their ideas, feedback and support, I would not have been able to write this paper. I am forever indebted to the members of the Social Justice Writing Circle and the War on Terror Reading Group. Thank you for your passion, comments, and criticisms. Thank you to the Critical Race Studies program at UCLA for supporting these groups and for the amazing professors, advisors and students. I am blessed for having had the chance to work with them and learn from them. Thank you to the staff of APALJ for all of their careful work in editing this Note. To my family and friends, thank you for believing in me, encouraging me, and laughing with me. To MBT, KJ and LBC, thank you for empowering me. 1. See 1939 ARIZ. CODE ANN. 70-201 (repealed by Laws 1978, Ch. 129 1). 2. E. Christi Cunningham, The Racing Cause of Action and the Identity Formerly Known as Race: The Road to Tamazunchale, 30 RUTGERS L.J. 707, 714 (1999). Racer refers to one individual who determines what racial category another individual will be placed into, id. 3. By proclaiming that the experience is unique, this Note does not intend to compare or contrast the Sikh experience to that of other groups, but instead hopes to shed light on a racialization process that has been largely unexplored.
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THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES
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group.4 Racialization signifies the extension of racial meaning to a previously unclassified relationship, social practice, or group.5 Understanding and investigating the racialization of Sikhs can provide a much needed and more complete understanding of the operation of White supremacy in the subordination of each individual as well as all racialized groups.6 By tracing the racialization of Sikhs over three historical periods, this Note endeavors to: (1) demonstrate the historical circumstances and events that reflect and affect the racialization process, (2) discuss the various responses of Sikhs to this process, (3) analyze the sources of these varied responses, and (4) judge the success of these responses in fighting subordination. By going through those steps, this Note aims to show that the process of racialization is not one-directional. Instead, the actions and responses of both the perceiver (the one assigning the category) and the target (the one being categorized) are part of the racialization process. In addition, this Note aspires to illustrate that the targets response to the perceivers categorization is informed by the existing racial hierarchy. In particular, the response is shaped by the targets attempts to navigate that hierarchy in order to secure access to certain rights and privileges. A. A Brief History of the Sikh Religion and Community Having knowledge of the Sikh community and the Sikh religion is important for understanding the racialization of Sikhs. Sikhism is an independent, monotheistic religion centering on service, egalitarianism, and engagement in daily life. Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak Dev Ji in the fifteenth century in Northern India. Nine living successors (Gurus) followed Guru Nanak, guiding Sikh disciples and contributing to the development of the religion. The last Guru bestowed the leadership position of the Guruship to the Sikhs themselves, collectively known as the Guru Khalsa Panth,7 which takes its guidance from the Guru Granth Sahib (the Holy Scripture). The scripture itself acts as the current and final Guru. In the 1600s, during the times of the middle and later Gurus, Sikhs came into conflict with Emperor Jahangir of the Mughal Empire, and faced religious persecution.8 Jahangirs son, Aurangzeb, escalated this tension and demanded that all Sikhs either convert to Islam or be killed, thus initiating a period of violent conflict between the Mughal Empire and the Sikhs. In 1675, Aurangzeb executed the ninth Sikh Guru, causing the Sikh
4. Eric K. Yamamoto, Rethinking Alliances: Agency, Responsibility and Interracial Justice, 3 UCLA ASIAN PAC. AM. L.J. 33, 60 (1995) (quoting Michael Omi, Out of the Melting Pot and Into the Fire: Race Relations Policy, in THE STATE OF ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICA: POLICY ISSUES TO YEAR 2020, 199, 207 (1993)). 5. Id. 6. Paulette M. Caldwell, The Content of our Characterizations, 5 MICH. J. RACE & L. 53, 64 (1999). 7. First Five Gurus Growth of Sikhism, http://www.sikhism.com/origins/growth (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). 8. See generally The Sikh Encyclopedia, http://www.thesikhencyclopedia.com/biographical/ muslims-rulers-and-sufi-saints/jahangir-nur-ljd-din-muhammad.html (last visited Dec. 20, 2007).
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religion to become increasingly militarized and politicized. To resist Mughal rule, the tenth and final living Guru Guru Gobind Singh instituted military order within the religion, the central part of which was the founding of the Khalsa in 1699. The Khalsa is a community combining religious purposes with military duties and with its creation, came the crystallization of the Sikh identity. At the founding of the Khalsa, five markers of the Sikh identity were delineated, known as the Five Ks. They are: kesh (uncut hair which is typically covered by a turban), kanga (wooden comb), kachha (specially-designed underwear), kara (steel bracelet), and kirpan (strapped sword).9 Since the Sikh religions inception, Sikhs have been a minority group in India and have warded off attempts at conversion and co-option.10 Cooption was a threat largely posed by Hindu nationalist groups claiming that Sikhism was a sect of the Hindu religion. Illustrative of these efforts was propaganda distributed in the late 1800s by Hindu Nationalists claiming Sikhs Hindus Hain (Sikhs are Hindus). Popular Sikh response is illustrated by a letter, written by Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha, entitled Hum Hindu Nahin (We are not Hindu).11 Modern attempts at co-option include: (1) popular media portraying Sikhism as a sect of Hinduism, or (2) mis-portraying the tenants of the Sikh religion generally. Attempts to es9. See generally Sikhism in 27 The New Encyclopdia Britannica 284-287 (Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. eds., 15th ed. 2003). Developed during a point of tension between Sikhs and Mughals, these markers would help to bond members of the community together. BBC, Religion & Ethics-Sikhism, www.bbc.co.uk/religions/sikhism/customs/fiveks.shtml (last visited Mar. 3, 2009). Note that there is some internal discord within the Sikh religion over whether those who have not been initiated into the Khalsa, or taken amrit, and adopted the Five Ks, can truly be called Sikh. Terms have been devised to distinguish those who have taken amrit, Amritdhari from those who have not Sahajdhari. See Understanding Sikhism (The Gospel of the Gurus): Who Is A Sikh?, www.gurmat.info/sms/smspublications/understandingsikhismthe gospelofthegurus/chapter2/ (last visited Mar. 3, 2009). This Note does not aim to define who a Sikh is for religious purposes, but instead, it aims to speak to the experience of the group collectively. While those that keep unshorn hair (turban and beard) most definitely have experiences that are different from those who do not, this Note addresses Sikhs generally because first, there is a collective understanding of the identity and second, because non-turban wearing Sikhs still suffer discrimination, although not for the exact same reasons. While conducting this Note in this way essentializes the Sikh experience, such essentialism is useful to shed light on issues that are of importance to the community and that can contribute to a greater understanding of the trends of racialization of immigrant communities. For an explanation of what has been called strategic essentialism, see GAYATRI SPIVAK, Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography, in IN OTHER WORLDS 197, 205 (1988). 10. By co-option, this Note means intentional and unintentional efforts by other groups to bring Sikhism within the folds of their religions. 11. Shri Sita Ram Goel, Hindu Sikh Relationship, http://www.curriculumunits.com/crucible/ hindu-sikh.html (last visited Feb. 23, 2009). Nabha was a celebrated Sikh scholar. He wrote Hum Hindu Nahin to argue that Sikhism was an autonomous faith with its own history, religious symbols, and philosophy. See Hum Hindu Nahin, http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Hum _Hindu_Nahin (last visited Feb. 21, 2009). A more modern example is clause (2)(b) of article 25 of the Indian constitution, which [in 1984] define[d] Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains as Hindus. Id. In addition, the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 required that a Sikh couple that marries in accordance to the rites of the Sikh religion must register its marriage under [the Act] in order to be considered legally married and such a requirement amounts to a coercive declaration that the couple is Hindu. Id.
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tablish Sikhism as an independent religion in India in response to the cooption just discussed have no doubt also influenced the psyche of the Sikh Diaspora. The continuing tension between the Sikh minority and the Hindu majority in India has also impacted the Sikh psyche. This tension partly manifested itself in what some refer to as the Sikh Genocide12 in 1984. While the history surrounding the genocide is contested, most accounts view the occupation of a Sikh temple by Sikh militants in Amritsar, Punjab, India and the governments controversial reaction to this occupation to be the cornerstones of the event.13 In June 1984, after tension between Sikhs militants and government officials escalated, the central government engaged in a massive offensive. . .against militants in the temple and imposed a curfew and deployed the military throughout Punjab as part of the operation.14 In October 1984, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards and in the aftermath of her death, thousands of Sikhs were killed and tens of thousands displaced in targeted violence.15 Following these events, Sikh identity became even more politicized. Sikhs viewed themselves not only as a religious community, but also as constituting a quasi nation-state with a separate national identity and loyalty, deserving of an independent Sikh nation.16 This history has affected Sikhs responses to their racialization over time and will help us to understand and analyze these various responses in context. B. Roadmap With this historical reality in mind, this Note analyzes the multi-faceted nature of the racialization of Sikhs in five different parts. In Part I, this Note starts by explaining the process of racial formation, borrowing from Professor Jerry Kangs discussion of racial schemas.17 Kangs model suggests that racial formation is crystallized at three main points: first, a perceiver uses certain mapping rules to understand an individual target; second, those rules help a perceiver place the target into a specific racial category; and third, meanings are attached to that category, thereby influ12. See generally SIKH GENOCIDE PROJECT, THE RISE OF AN ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY IN INDIA: A CASE-STUDY OF THE CRISIS IN PUNJAB, http://www.sikhgenocide.org/background.htm (last visited Feb. 23, 2009). 13. Id. Note that the temple that was occupied, known as the Golden Temple, is amongst the most important sites for Sikh pilgrimages. The day the government launched its offensive, which was coined Operation Bluestar, coincide[d] with the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan, who had constructed [the temple]. Id. Thus, thousands of Sikhs were in the temple at the time of the offensive. Id. 14. Anil Kalhan, et al., Colonial Continuities: Human Rights, Terrorism, and Security Laws in India, 20 COLUM. J. ASIAN L. 93, 142 (2006). 15. Id. at 142-43. 16. Robin Cohen, Foreword to DARSHAN SINGH TATLA, THE SIKH DIASPORA: THE SEARCH FOR STATEHOOD, at vii (Robin Cohen ed., Univ. of Wash. Press 1999) (explaining that it is difficult to decide whether the Sikhs are a religious community, an ethnic group, a nation, a people or even a sect). 17. See Jerry Kang, Trojan Horses of Race, 118 HARV. L. REV. 1489, 1498-506 (2005).
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encing the interaction between the perceiver and the target. This Note explains how, due to double consciousness,18 the target responds to this mapping process in varied ways: he or she can (1) contest the mapping rules, (2) contest the categories, or (3) contest the meanings attached to the categories. This part of the Note also discusses the specific role religion plays in the mapping process. Part II focuses on the time period from the early 1900s to the 1950s. It first discusses the historical circumstances of the period surrounding Sikh racialization and, second, it discusses how the three potential responses to the racial formation map played out under these circumstances. To illustrate these three responses, this part focuses on United States v. Thind, as the case concerns the naturalization of a Sikh man. Specifically, the case will help us to understand the inspiration for Sikhs responses to their racialization and the effects of such responses. In Part III, this Note presents the historical circumstances for the period from 1950 to 1980, focusing on the election of Dalip Singh Saund, a Sikh, to the U.S. House of Representatives. This part also analyzes Sikhs responses to their racialization. In Part IV, this Note discusses contemporary events and circumstances surrounding the racialization of Sikhs, focusing on the period from 1980 to today.19 Like Parts II and III, this part also outlines how the targets responses to the racial formation map have played out, focusing both on the sources of the responses as well as on their effect on the racial hierarchy. Part V evaluates the effectiveness of these various target responses in combating subordination and white supremacy. By analyzing the responses of Sikhs over these three historical periods, this Note aims to show how the responses of Sikhs have: (1) challenged the tools used to map them into certain categories, (2) challenged the categories they are mapped into, and (3) challenged the meanings associated with these categories. This Note finds that most target responses are incentivized by the existing racial hierarchy and that individual targets, in an attempt to navigate their space within that hierarchy, can actually contribute to their own subordination or to the subordination of other racial groups. Ultimately, this Note finds that these three outlined responses are most successful when undertaken with the purpose of challenging the negative meanings attached to whatever racial category an individual is filtered into.
18. Double consciousness refers to the idea of viewing ones self though the eyes of another and merging this perception with ones own perception of the self. W.E.B. DU BOIS, THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK (1903), reprinted in THREE NEGRO CLASSICS 207, 215 (Avon Books 1965). 19. This Note is organized along these three historical periods because they are natural breaking points with regards to the events and circumstances that affect racialization.
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I.
RACIAL FORMATION
A. The Racial Formation Map 1. General Overview Kang explains the process of racial formation through racial schemas. A schema is a cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus, including its attributes and the relations among those attributes.20 People use schemas in order to classify the people that they interact with according to race. The racial schema operates as follows: First, society provides us (the perceivers) with a set of racial categories into which we map an individual human being (the target) according to prevailing rules of racial mapping. Second, after a person is assigned to a racial category, implicit and explicit racial meanings associated with that category are triggered. Third, these racial meanings then influence our interpersonal interaction with the target.21 This map facilitates an understanding of the three points at which the racial formation process is crystallized. In addition, it also illustrates that all three components racial categories, mapping rules, and racial meanings are contingent, constructed and contestable. Not one of these is biologically inevitable.22 In order to reinforce the constructed nature of racial mapping, the remainder of this Note refers to mapping rules as mapping tools.23 DIAGRAM A: KANGS FIGURE 1
mapping rules mapped through into
individual
categories
that alter interaction with meanings
which activate
20. Kang, supra note 17, at 1498 (internal quotations omitted). 21. Id. at 1499 (emphasis omitted). See Figure 1. 22. Id. at 1501-02. 23. This Note does so because by referring to them as tools, it is better able to capture the ways these tools are constructed and used for distinct purposes rather than abstractly existing in space. These tools have been manipulated, changed and have thus had an active hand in the racial formation process. This Note does not contend, however, that Professor Kang is in fact arguing the opposite by using the term rules.
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To summarize, racialization is the process by which social, economic, and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories and it takes place in the three spaces discussed above. The process of extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice or group24 is a complicated and multifaceted process that is influenced by the context in which it takes place. In the case of Sikhs, categorization into a single racial category that extends over time is unrealistic, as classifications change temporally and spatially. Thus, the racial categories Sikhs have been placed into are difficult to name and might include the Hindu, Muslim or Muslim-looking categories, or even the Terrorist category, as this category has become a heavily race-based term.25 It is this process of categorization, the interactions that flow from this categorization, and the responses that are inspired by it that are of concern in this Note. 2. Religion as a Mapping Tool Various mapping tools including phenotype, nationality, language, descent, and religion are used to filter individuals into racial categories. Religion plays a central role in racialization because it guides which racial category targets are placed into. Moreover, racial categories themselves may be developed according to religious identity.26 Religion affects classification and racialization because it is largely tied to the notion of assimilability.27 Critical Race Theory has nodded to the role religion plays in the racialization process by articulating if and how religion has informed the perceivers willingness to place certain non-white targets into the white category based on their acceptance of Christianity.28 The following examples nicely illustrate the role religion has played in the assignment of people into various racial categories: U.S. naturalization cases dealing with Armenian/Syrian applicants,29 African slaves who were briefly permitted to
24. TOMAS ALMAGUER, RACIAL FAULT LINES: HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF WHITE SUPREMACY CALIFORNIA 2-3 (1994). 25. Not only are the categories difficult to name, but there are also multiple categories that individuals can be filtered into at once, which further illustrates that racialization is a multi-faceted process. It may be argued that the reason it is hard to name the category the Sikh is placed into, is because it was created in a post September 11 domestic situation. That argument fails because, as this Note shows, this racialization process is an ongoing process that began before the events of September 11 and is in constant flux. 26. See ALMAGUER, supra note 24; ROBERT A. WILLIAMS, JR., LIKE A LOADED WEAPON, THE REHNQUIST COURT, INDIAN RIGHTS, AND THE LEGAL HISTORY OF RACISM IN AMERICA 34 (2005) (illustrating the way racial groups as we know them now were determined along and informed by religious distinctions). 27. ALMAGUER, supra note 24, at 62. 28. WILLIAMS, JR., supra note 26 (explaining the role of Christianity in the racialization of Native Americans); LAURA GOMEZ, MANIFEST DESTINIES: THE MAKING OF THE MEXICAN AMERICAN RACE 50 (N.Y. Univ. Press 2007) (explaining the role of Christianity with regard to Mexicans in the United States). 29. In re Halladjian, 174 F. 834 (D. Mass, 1909). The court discussed the religion of Armenians in determining their whiteness, illustrating the way that religion plays a role in the perception of one as western, assimilated, and, therefore white, id. at 839.
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avoid slavery if they accepted Christianity upon arrival to the United States,30 the religion-informed hierarchy of Mexicans in the United States,31 and Native Americans who, for a short period of time, were transiently classified differently upon accepting Christianity.32 It is not true that religion always determines an individuals placement into a particular racial category. Phenotype, for example, may control the categorization in some situations and filter a target into one group instead of another.33 In addition, it is important to note that in the case of the Sikhs, religion and phenotype are closely related, thus, it is difficult to segregate out which tool is controlling the mapping. Even while religion is not always determinative of ones racial category placement, it is nonetheless a key tool used by both perceivers and targets alike. B. Re-thinking the Model 1. More than Just an Outward Process The racial formation model makes explicit that the process of racial formation travels in an outward direction, from the interpreter to the target.34 However, Kang also nods to the possibility that the process is not simply one-directional. He does so by referring to variables in the racial formation process, including the salience of ones race. In addition to racial salience, the targets racial performance35 and the targets responses to the racial formation map (explained below) also contribute to the multi-directional nature of the racialization process. Using the mapping model, the target can respond in the following ways: (1) the target argues that the racial mapping tools are defective; (2) she argues that she is being placed in the wrong racial category altogether or that an accurate category for her true identity has not yet been established; or, (3) she argues that the meanings associated with the category she is placed in are flawed and that
30. Khyati Joshi, The Racialization of Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism in the United States, 39 EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUC. 211, 213 (2006) (explaining that, in the context of African slaves brought to the United States, [b]y accepting Christ, it was asserted, even Blacks could be made white as snow.). 31. See ALMAGUER, supra note 24, at 62-63 (explaining that part of the reason why California Native Americans and the Mexican population in California were treated differently was because of the Mexican populations Christian ancestry). 32. WILLIAMS, JR., supra note 26. 33. An example: where a Punjabi Sikh man with a turban and beard might be placed in the Muslim, Arab, or Middle Eastern category in some instances, a Caucasian Sikh, with the same turban and beard, might not be classified into the same category. 34. This means that the interpreter controls the process by perceiving and placing people into certain categories. 35. Racial performance is closely tied to racial salience and is the idea that race is a continual process of negotiating and performing identity. Even though individuals are restricted in their choices, individuals bring race into being by acting in a particular way. Racial performance includes acting out ones identity by making certain choices with regards to ones appearance, for example. Sunita Patel, Performative Aspects of Race: Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Racial Formation after September 11, 10 UCLA ASIAN PAC. AM. L.J. 61, 65-66 (2005).
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the interpreters interactions with that target ought to change.36 This Note contends that the racialization process encompasses these various responses of the target. See Diagram B for an illustration. DIAGRAM B: TARGETS RESPONSES
TO THE
RACIAL FORMATION MAP
mapping tools
uses resist tools
to place targets into
resist categories perceiver target categories
which alter the interactions between the target and perceiver
resist meanings which activate
meanings
These various responses reveal that race is a social construction and that perceivers and targets alike play a role in that construction. As such, targets ought to be aware of the responses they undertake and the ramifications those responses have for members of both their own racial category and other categories. The potential responses of the individual targets, whether described in terms of the aforementioned three responses, or as racial disambiguation,37 racial brokering,38 or racial distancing,39 ought to
36. Note that there is a considerable amount of overlap in the first and second response. The target may argue that the mapping tools themselves are wrong for normative reasons or that the tools are wrong because they are leading to placement in the wrong category. While this Note separates these responses out in the analysis, it does not contend that this is a clearly delineated division. 37. This refers to the process of actively marking ones self as different from members of a group one does not see themselves to be a part of and/or does not want to be a part of. 38. Lisa Ikemoto, Traces of the Master Narrative in the Story of African American/Korean American Conflict: How We Constructed Los Angeles, 66 S. CAL. L. REV. 1581, 1588-90 (1993) (explaining that in the conflict between Blacks and Koreans in the Los Angeles Riots, each group engaged in brokering when it attempted to portray itself as superior to the other). 39. Suzanne A. Kim, Yellow Skin, White Masks: Asian American Impersonations of Whiteness and the Feminist Critique of Liberal Equality, 8 ASIAN L.J. 89, 96 (2001) (explaining
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be understood as operating within the current framework of racial hierarchy. This Note is not attempting to create the illusion that targets have complete agency over their responses. Instead, these responses are incentivized by the racial hierarchy, and groups are encouraged to engage in these moves in order to obtain the privileges of whiteness that they are denied by means of their classification into non-white categories. 2. Double Consciousness and Racial Formation To better understand the role the target plays in racial formation, this Note relies on W.E.B Du Bois idea of double consciousness. Double consciousness is this sense of always looking at ones self through the eyes of others, of measuring ones soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.40 This tape is a collection of the mapping tools, categories, and social meanings in racial schemas. Individuals may either accept the existing tape and adapt accordingly, or try to alter that tape. If an individual is measured into a category denying her certain resources like naturalization and land ownership reserved for those in the white category, then this tape provides incentive for the target to respond in ways that will assist her to secure those resources. This response, however, has the potential to re-instantiate the racial hierarchy because it may rely on new, but equally subordinating, measures. This is the crossroads at which the Sikh finds herself how can a Sikh respond to the mapping rules applied to her, the categories she is placed into, and the meanings attached to those categories without re-inscribing the racial hierarchy? How has a Sikh dealt with being essentialized as a Hindu, being mistaken as a Muslim, being demonized as the other, or being understood as perpetually foreign?41 The remainder of this Note: (1) explores the ways Sikhs have experienced the racialization process through various moments in history, and (2) analyzes Sikhs various responses to their racialization. II. EARLY PERIOD: THE EARLY 1900S
TO THE
1950S
This part of the Note explores the historical circumstances surrounding early Sikh immigration and status in the United States, focusing on naturalization and immigration. These highly racialized processes shed light on the ways race was historically constructed by the law. After discussing those circumstances, this part focuses on U.S. v. Thind, a seminal case disthat in Thind v. United States, 261 U.S. 204 (1923), the petitioner engaged in distancing when he made moves to establish space between himself and members of other racial groups with which he did not want to be identified). An example of this distancing is seen in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, where Chinese immigrants wore buttons reading Not from Nippon to establish a clear delineation between themselves and the Japanese. See Sharon Boswell & Lorraine McConaghy, Abundant Dreams Diverted, SEATTLE TIMES, June 23, 1996, at B2, available at http://seattletimes. nwsource.com/special/centennial/june/internment.html. . 40. DU BOIS, supra note 18. 41. Leti Volpp explains this idea of being perpetually foreign in The Citizen and the Terrorist, 49 UCLA L. REV. 1575, 1586-91 (2002).
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cussing questions of race, citizenship, and naturalization in the context of a Sikh mans petition for naturalization. In particular, this part pays close attention to Thinds arguments for naturalization in his U.S. Supreme Court brief, finding that the inspiration for these arguments was primarily the existing racial hierarchy and Thinds attempt to secure the privileges of whiteness. A. Historical Circumstances 1. Immigration to the United States As early as the seventeenth century, Sikhs began to migrate away from Punjab, India and establish small communities outside of their homeland.42 In 1849, Punjab was annexed by the British, which allowed Sikhs, as members of the imperial work force, to migrate to distant countries.43 Sikhs began to migrate to North America in the early twentieth century, arriving in large numbers to California because of the high demand for agricultural workers and the migrants farming background in Punjab.44 Between 1902 and 1906, Sikh-Punjabi immigration to the West Coast began to increase and immigration was estimated at 870 Asian-Indians, with nearly 85 percent self-identifying as Sikh.45 Most of these immigrants were uneducated agriculturalists from the rural areas of the Punjab, who arrived as single males or as married men without their wives and children.46 While Sikhs constitute a small minority in India, measuring only 2 percent of the population, some say that they constituted nearly 90 percent of the original Asian-Indian immigrants to the United States.47 By 1910, there were between 5,000 and 10,000 South Asians in the United States, a majority of them Sikh and a third of them Muslim.48 Nonetheless, they were all referred to as Hindoo.49 The term Hindu was also used in the U.S. Census. In 1910 and 1920 the category of Other was designated for South Asians, with the sub-categories of Non-white Asiatic/Hindu in 1910
42. Ravneet Tiwana, Hyphenated Identities and the Space In-Between: Construction of the Sikh-American Identity, http://departments.oxy.edu/anthropology/field/tiwana1.html#_ftnref3. 43. Gurinder Singh Mann, Sikhism in the United States of America, in THE SOUTH ASIAN RELIGIOUS DIASPORA IN BRITAIN, CANADA, AND THE UNITED STATES 259, 259 (Harold Coward et al., eds., State Univ. of N.Y. Press 2000). 44. Id. at 260. 45. Pioneer Asian Indian Immigration to the Pacific Coast, http://www.sikhpioneers.org//pacific.html (last visited Feb. 23, 2009). 46. Juan L. Gonzales Jr., Asian Indian Immigration Patterns: The Origins of the Sikh Community in California, 20 INTL MIGRATION REV. 40, 42 (1986). 47. Id. at 40-41. Gonzales goes on to explain that these numbers have decreased significantly, as the majority of Asian Indians living in the United States today are Hindus, id. 48. Joshi, supra note 30, at 219. 49. Gonzales, supra note 46, at 43 n.4. According to Gonzales, the term Hindoo was used as a derogatory term for the Asian Indian immigrant[ ] and was applied to all Asian Indians . . . in spite of the fact that 95 percent [of them] were Sikhs and not Hindus, id.
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and Hindu in 1920.50 In addition, [t]he category of Hindu itself appeared on the 1930 and 1940 Census forms.51 2. Early Treatment of Sikhs in the United States As Sikh farmers began to farm jointly and profit share,52 their growing prominence came to be resented and others termed their immigration the Hindoo Invasion or the Tide of Turbans.53 In response to the growing economic strength of Sikhs, and Asians generally, white Americans formed the Asiatic Exclusion League, which played a large role in mobilizing against Asian immigration.54 Anti-Sikh sentiments emerged not only within the farming community, but also in the general population, as evidenced by popular media.55 As fears regarding land ownership and economic success increased, politicians rallied around this anti-immigrant sentiment and first passed the California Alien Land Law Act of 1913 (Alien Land Law),56 preventing immigrants from owning land, and later passed the Immigration Act of 1917 (Immigration Act), preventing the immigration of Indian laborers.57 The Immigration Act, a federal statute, created the Pacific Barred Zone which, held that immigrants from certain parts of Asia, including India, Burma, Siam, and others, would no longer be allowed to immigrate to the United States.58 In addition, the Alien Land Law was modified in 1920 to prevent immigrants from owning and leasing their own land, thereby further inhibiting the economic expansion of Asians. The Immigration Act took a toll on the number of Sikhs entering the country, while at the same time the nativist response in the United States affected those who had already been admitted.59 The Sikh position can be summarized as being undesirable: Sikhs were
50. Vinay Harpalani, Ambiguous Americans?: Critical Race Theory and the Racialization of South Asians in the U.S. 14 (Aug. 16, 2003) (unpublished paper, on file with the American Sociological Association), available at http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p106674_index.html. 51. Id. 52. Id. at 43 (explaining that they organized agricultural and economic cooperatives, which allowed them to pool their economic resources for long-term capital investments in property and equipment). 53. Tiwana, supra note 42. 54. IAN F. HANEY-LOPEZ, WHITE BY LAW: THE LEGAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE 4 (Richard Delgado & John Stefanic eds., N.Y. Univ. Press 1996). White Americans argued that Asian Indians were an effeminate, caste-ridden, and degraded race who did not deserve citizenship, id. 55. Gonzales, supra note 46, at 44 n.5. Gonzales explains that examples include the following: Hindu Immigrants in America, Missionary Review, December 1907; Hindu in the Northwest, World Today, November 1907; Hindu Invasion, Colliers, March 1910; Tide of Turbans, Forum, June 1910; The Rag Heads A Picture of Americas East Indians, The Independent, October 1922; The Hindu Invasion, The Pacific Monthly, May 1907; Hindu: The Newest Immigration Problem, Survey, October 1910. 56. 1 Cal. Gen. Laws Act 261 (Deering 1945) (repealed 1952). 57. Pub. L. No. 301, ch. 29, 3, 39 Stat. 874, 876 (1917). 58. Gonzales, supra note 46 at 44. 59. Id. at 48. While immigration numbers were decreasing, immigrants were also being deported or voluntarily returning to India. Gonzales estimates that nearly 2,000 Asian Indian
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not allowed to become citizens, they were not allowed to lease or purchase property; they were not allowed to send for their wives or future brides in India; they were not allowed to travel out of this country; their participation in the labor force was severely limited to occupational categories; they were not allowed to marry Anglo women; and their participation in a nationalistic movement that originated in India and their devout allegiance to their religious beliefs and cultural traditions further alienated and isolated them from the core of American society.60
The question of citizenship and access to rights associated with citizenship was thus a pressing one. 3. United States v. Thind United States v. Thind was the first U.S. Supreme Court case addressing the rights of an Asian Indian Bhagat Singh Thind to achieve citizenship through naturalization. The issue certified to the Court in Thind was: Is a high caste Hindu of full Indian blood, born at Amrit Sar, Punjab, India, a white person within the meaning of section 2169, Revised Statutes?61 This section of the Revised Statutes provided that naturalization would be afforded to free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.62 In light of this statute, Thind argued that he was in fact a white person, and therefore deserving of citizenship.63 Thind was a Sikh man from Punjab, India who entered the United States in 1913.64 After applying multiple times, Thind was granted citizenship by the District Court of Oregon in 1920.65 The decision was challenged by the U.S. Naturalization Examiner and the question of Thinds eligibility was certified to the Supreme Court. A year before Thind, the Court addressed the issue of naturalization eligibility with regards to a Japanese applicant in Ozawa v. United States.66 In Ozawa, the Court held that in order to qualify as white, one must be Caucasian.67 Ozawa, regardless of his skin color, language, affiliations, or how people perceived him, did not qualify as white because he was not Caucasian.68 Pursuant to this decision, Thind argued that he was Caucasian and that he was, therefore, white under the statute. Thinds arguments in support of his whiteness took into account the dominant groups perception of both whiteness and of Thind; Double conimmigrants were deported between 1900 and 1950 and that 4,750 returned to India during this time, id. 60. Id. at 46. 61. United States v. Thind, 261 U.S. 204, 206 (1923). 62. Id. at 207. 63. Id. 64. About Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind, http://www.bhagatsinghthind.com/about.html (last visited Feb. 23, 2009). 65. Id. 66. 260 U.S. 178 (1922). 67. Id. at 197-99. 68. Id.
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sciousness drove the arguments in his brief. He was aware of the racial hierarchy and, in negotiating his space in that hierarchy, he was incentivized to respond by making arguments about: (1) the mapping tools used to map him, (2) the category he was placed into, and (3) the meanings attached to those categories.69 B. Resisting the Mapping Tools With the Courts decision in Ozawa in mind, Thind argued that the Court should not use skin color alone to map him into a racial category: color alone is not the only test of the white or Caucasian race he argued, but instead, the true test of race is blood or descent.70 He argued that people from northern India were no doubt of white or Caucasian blood, relying on scientific evidence that Aryans entered certain parts of India in pre-historic times and are, therefore, different from other Indian races.71 In addition to blood or descent, Thind also proposed that the Court use Thinds language as evidence of his whiteness. The status of Aryans, he explained, is confirmed by the fact that they speak the Aryan language and, since he did, he too was Aryan. While Thind acknowledged that language does not necessarily prove identity of blood, for ordinarily anyone can learn a foreign language,72 he responded to this concern by explaining that the Aryans have been the conquering race and that [n]o other race superimposed any foreign language upon them.73 The fact that Aryans speak the Aryan language was very strong evidence that they have sprung from the primordial Aryan race who spoke the primordial Aryan language.74 Thus, Thinds proposed tools for determining ones race were language and conqueror status. In addition to blood, language, and conqueror status, Thind also argued that the Court ought to use Thinds religion to map him. He argued that because his religion mandated strict adherence to the caste system, he was pure and had not mixed with any lower races. This purity, Thind argued, should be a tool used to classify him as white. Thind explained that there is no melting pot in India and that the High-class Hindu regards
69. It might be argued that Thind himself did not have much control over the arguments presented in the brief. While this is most likely true, we can still acknowledge the fact that his attorney felt he needed to make these arguments on Thinds behalf, as a Sikh man, to gain citizenship. This argument does not undercut the fact that these were still responses to the racialization of a Sikh man and that they affected the racialization of Sikhs and other groups into the future. 70. Brief of Respondent at 10, United States v. Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923) (No. 3745). 71. He concludes the proposition is settled that the people residing in many of the states of India, particularly in the north and northwest, including the Punjab, belong to the Aryan race. Id. at 18. He also addresses the argument that free white persons must be construed in a geographical sense and that only European Caucasians were eligible for citizenship, id. at 24-28. 72. Id. at 18. An illustration: A negro can learn the English language but that does not change his race, id. 73. Id. 74. Id.
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the aboriginal Indian Mongoloid in the same manner as the American regards the negro, speaking from a matrimonial standpoint.75 To convince the Court, Thind explained that [i]t would be just as disgraceful for a highclass Hindu to marry a member of one of the lower caste as it would be for an American gentlemen to marry a member of the negro race.76 Thus, the caste system is an effective barrier to prevent a mixture of the Aryan with the dark races of India.77 By making these arguments, Thind signaled that Aryan blood was pure in the same ways that white blood was seen to be pure in the United States. If the courts were worried about even one drop of non-Aryan blood, they need not be concerned because such intermixing was forbidden.78 Thus, purity ought to be another tool used to map him into the white category. Thinds proposed mapping tools were influenced by his awareness of the dominant groups perception of him and of other immigrant groups, which was made explicit in the Ozawa decision. Thind tried to change that perception by proposing new mapping tools that he thought would qualify him as Caucasian in the eyes of his perceiver. Specifically, he tried to appeal to white supremacy by proposing the tools of conquering status and purity. These responses show that Thind understood the tape being used to measure him. Even though Thinds response may have potentially allowed his own advantageous classification, these proposed tools may have possibly perpetuated the subordination of the darker races. C. Resisting the Racial Category Thind, a Sikh, did not resist placement in the racial category of Hindu. In fact, he explicitly refers to himself as a Hindu of high caste. There are three main reasons why Thind may not have resisted being placed in the Hindu category: first, although not necessarily accurate, Hindu was the accepted dominant geographic marker for all people from the South Asian region at the time; second, the Hindu category provided an explicit means to making the argument that Thind was high-caste and pure; and third, claiming higher caste status afforded some material advantages.79 Thind only briefly mentioned in his brief that he was a Sikh, with a direct citation to a book stating that Sikhs are Aryan.80 Such casual mentioning is unusual given the contentious history and doctrinal differences
75. Id. at 20. 76. Id. at 22. 77. Id. 78. The one drop rule was articulated in Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856). The court explained that a person with even one drop of black blood would be considered black under the law. Thinds discussion of the purity of his blood seems to take this rule into consideration. 79. The construction of caste in India is tied to the Hindu religion. See The Caste System and Stages of Life in Hinduism, http://www.friesian.com/caste.htm (last visited Feb. 23, 2009). 80. Brief of Respondent, supra note 70, at 15. The brief cites to the book The Worlds Peoples, which indicates that blue blood, or Aryan blood, was conspicuous among . . . the Sikhs, id.
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between the Sikh and Hindu religions.81 For example, the Sikh religion explicitly denies and attempts to repudiate the caste system, maintaining that all people are equal. Nonetheless, Thind and other Sikhs may have been willing to accept the Hindu category because, in terms of daily life in India, Sikhs still lived in a caste-ordered society, and given the Sikhs minority status in India, some Sikhs might, if possible, have claimed a higher status based on caste. While Thind did not resist placement in the Hindu category, he did challenge where some layers of the Hindu category were located. Thind argued that the use of purity, language, and disdain for the lower races as mapping tools would re-locate the upper class layers of the Hindu category within the Caucasian category. This argument, however, was based on subordinating premises, namely the disdain for lower races and the concept of racial purity. This is not to say that Thind had some special agency in engaging in these subordinating moves. Instead, Thinds experience with the racial hierarchy informed his response. For example, Thinds argument that he was Aryan may have been directly influenced by the historical relationship between Sikhs and the colonial British. The British, in an effort to co-opt Sikhs into their military base, referred to Sikhs as a martial race and commented on their descent from Aryan blood.82 Thus, Thind may have been acting in light of the dominant groups perception of him, having internalized this discourse regarding the Aryan race. Thinds arguments for different mapping tools and his resistance to the placement of his racial category illustrates the ways white supremacy encourages members of minority groups to differentiate themselves from other groups in order to gain access to limited resources, in this case, naturalization and higher status. D. Resisting the Meanings Attached to the Categories By arguing that some Hindus belong in the Caucasian category, Thind also challenged the meanings associated with the Hindu category. While the dominant group perceived Hindus as inferior and therefore undeserving of citizenship, Thind argued that Hindus ought to be understood as pure and as conquerors, much like the white people in the United States. Thus, Thinds arguments regarding the meanings attached to the Hindu category are also closely related to his arguments regarding the mapping tools and the location of the Hindu category. Even while Thind argued for the attachment of meanings to the Hindu category that might lead to greater civil and political rights and material resources, like citizenship and land ownership, such arguments also have a devastating potential. They
81. See supra Introduction, Subpart A. 82. Keith Surridge, Book Review, 12 J. VICTORIAN CULTURE 146, 150 (2007) (reviewing HEATHER STREETS, MARTIAL RACES: THE MILITARY, RACE AND MASCULINITY IN BRITISH IMPERIAL CULTURE, 1857-1914 (2004)).
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might ultimately lead to the denial of a Sikh identity in the law, and they might also contribute to the re-instantiation of disdain for the dark races.83 E. The Courts Holding Despite these three strands of argumentation, the Supreme Court ultimately held that Thind did not qualify as white under the statute. The Courts opinion reflects the sentiments informing the racial hierarchy. The Court reasoned that it used the term Caucasian in Ozawa in its popular sense, and not in its scientific sense.84 The popular sense, as the court explained, is narrower than Thinds understanding of the term.85 Ones race, the Court wrote, depends on his or her possession of requisite characteristics, not ones descent from a remote, common ancestor.86 The Court continued, [i]t may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, but the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them today.87 Thus, the test for determining whether one qualifies as white is not whether he has the same origin as others who qualify as white, but instead whether the common man would see him as white. The only people seen as white upon adoption of the statute included people the framers knew as white, the bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh.88 Thind, a Sikh man bearing a turban and beard, did not have the requisite bone and flesh to qualify as white. Thind was aware of the sentiments that informed the perceivers mapping. These sentiments influenced his arguments regarding the tools, categories, and meanings that control the racialization process. The Thind case is helpful to understanding the racialization process because it shows that while the targets responses may have the potential to afford greater rights, they simultaneously have the potential to subordinate others. III. MIDDLE PERIOD: 1950
TO
1980
This part addresses Sikh immigration patterns between 1950 and 1980, and focuses on the historical circumstances surrounding the election of Dalip Singh Saund to the U.S. Congress. It focuses on Saund because he is a prominent Sikh public figure whose experiences speak to the racialization process. This part pays attention to primarily two of the three responses to racialization, the resistance, or lack of resistance, to ones placement in a racial category and the resistance to the meanings attached to those categories.
83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. See text accompanying supra note 77. Thind, 261 U.S. at 208-09. Id. Id. at 209. Id. Id. at 213.
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A. Historical Circumstances 1. Immigration Patterns The second historical period saw a change in Sikh immigration and status. Sikhs who immigrated during this time typically came to pursue higher education: [u]nlike their predecessors who worked as laborers, saved money, bought lands, and began to farm, these Sikhs prepared themselves for professional careers and garnered white-collar jobs.89 Immigration figures during this period are much larger than those in the last period, with nearly 6,371 Asian Indians immigrating to the United States between 1945 and 1965.90 This can be partially attributed to the Luce Celler Act of 1946, which opened the barred zone and granted [an immigration quota and] naturalization rights to Asian Indians.91 Before this period, most Asian Indian immigrants were involved in farm or non-farm labor, whereas after the Acts passage, there was increased professional diversity amongst immigrants from the Punjab region. In California, however, most Punjabi Sikhs remained near farm land and in the farming profession. By 1975, the Punjabi population in the Yuba/Sutter bi-county area grew to 4,000 and by 1980-1981, it reached nearly 6,000.92 The efforts of earlier Sikh pioneers in establishing communities assisted new Sikh immigrants to more easily adjust and develop their communities. Moreover, with the increase in immigration of Sikh women and families, the Sikh communal identity strengthened. 2. Dalip Singh Saund Dalip Singh Saund, the first South Asian to win a seat in the U.S Congress, emerged from this developing community.93 Saund, a Sikh born in Punjab, India, traveled to the United States to pursue an education at the University of California, Berkeley where he received a Masters of Arts in 1922 in mathematics and a Doctorate degree in 1924.94 Unable to find a job in mathematics, Saund worked as a lettuce farmer. Saund eventually became a citizen in 1949 in part as a result of his own efforts to pursue naturalization rights for Hindus.95 Saund was elected less than a year later as judge of the Justice Court in Imperial County, but was unable to take seat because he had not been a citizen for one year when elected.96 In 1952, he was re-elected to the same position, serving
89. Mann, supra note 43, at 260 90. Gonzales, supra note 46, at 49. 91. Tiwana, supra note 42; see also Gonzales, supra note 46, at 49. According to Gonzales, nearly 1,772 Asian Indians became citizens as a result of the Act between 1948 and 1965, id. 92. Margaret J. Gibson, Punjabi Orchard Farmers: An Immigrant Enclave in Rural California, 22 INTL MIGRATION REV. 28, 34 (1988). 93. Inder Singh, Congressman Saund-the First Native of Asia, http://www.la-indiacenter.com/ page10.htm (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). 94. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Saund Dalip Singh, (1899 - 1973), http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=s000075. 95. Id. 96. Id.
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until January, 1957. In 1956, Saund was elected by the twenty-ninth Congressional District of California97 to the U.S. House of Representatives. During his three terms, Saund worked to combat racism in the United States. For example, in 1957 he delivered a speech on the floor of the House and expressed gratitude that he and Congressman Noah Mason, a representative from Illinois, both of whom were foreign born, were able to serve as Members of Congress. He went on to ask [i]f he had been born in the state of Mississippi and born with black skin, would he be a Member of the United States Congress today?98 He also expressed concern that not one Negro is a registered voter in thirteen counties in the state of Mississippi.99 B. Resisting the Mapping Tools It seems that Saund did not explicitly challenge the mapping tools used to place him in the Hindu category100; instead he accepted and organized around that categorization. Regardless, it is still important to inquire in this part what tools were potentially used to map Saund into the Hindu category because this analysis sheds light on how Sikhs were racialized during this period. Saunds life accounts indicate that he was a Sikh and that he affirmed his Sikh identity. In fact, accounts of Saunds life indicate that he kept a turban and a beard when he first entered into politics and that he suffered discrimination as a result of his appearance.101 Photographs of Saund during his run for office, however, show Saund without a turban and beard.102 It is unclear when he removed these aspects of his religious identity. Given the debate within the Sikh religion as to whether one who fails to observe the Five Ks103 is truly a Sikh,104 it is important to question whether phenotype was used to map Saund into a racial category that did not impede his campaign for Congress. Some would argue that, because of Saunds appearance, his racialization does not speak to that of the Sikh community. This is not necessarily true because even though Saunds racialization experience may have been somewhat different, it still speaks to the racialization of Sikhs overall because of factors such as Saunds name, skin color, and foreign-born status, features many Sikhs share. His
97. This district was composed of the Riverside and Imperial counties. 98. 103 CONG. REC. H9197 (daily ed. June 14, 1957) (statement of Rep. Saund), available at http://www.saund.org/dalipsaund/website-images/061457-speech-s40.jpg. 99. Id. 100. Narratives describing Saunds life show that he was referred to as a Hindu during his campaign for office. See Roots in the Sand-Dalip Saund 3, http://www.pbs.org/rootsinthesand/ dalip.pdf (last visited Mar. 11, 2009). 101. Id. 102. Id. 103. See supra text accompanying note 9 for a discussion of the Five Ks. 104. Note that some people would not even maintain that this point is debatable.
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phenotype, regardless of whether or not he had a beard and turban, still affected the category into which he was placed.105 In addition to phenotype, racial performance106 is also a tool used to map individuals into certain racial categories. One might argue that Saunds marriage to a white woman from California was a performative act that influenced perceivers to map Saund into a racial category different from that of other Asian Indians.107 These mapping tools mainly phenotype and racial performance in the case of Saund are important because they show that individuals within a single racial group can experience differential racialization.108 Also of importance are Saunds responses to his category placement and to the meanings attached to that category. C. Resisting the Categories Throughout this historical period, Sikhs were still placed squarely in the Hindu category. Saund embraced this marker as a point of organizing and lobbied the government to allow Hindus to become naturalized citizens.109 Saund, a Sikh, accepted this designated identity because: (1) the dominant group assigned all people from the South Asian region to this category, and (2) he was better able to secure civil and political rights by organizing people under this umbrella category. This strategic decision helped to secure the naturalization rights of this large group of immigrants. Regardless of his own affirmation of Sikh identity, Saund did not reject the Hindu category. He was aware of the tape used to measure him into this category and saw that he could pursue certain rights by organizing under it.110 The racial hierarchy encouraged Saund to argue not that he belonged in a different category, but instead that the category itself ought to have different meanings attached to it. D. Resisting Meanings Associated with the Category Saund did not resist the Hindu category; instead, he actively worked to change the negative meanings attached to it and to other racialized groups. His double consciousness helped him to be aware of the way he and other people of color were understood and his response took that understanding into account. Saund not only argued that Hindus were equally deserving of citizenship, but also that Blacks in the South were equally de105. This is another example of the Notes use of essentialism, however, as discussed in Spivak, supra, note 9, this essentialism is useful in helping us to understand the greater trends surrounding racialization. 106. See Patel, supra note 35. 107. This Note does not contend that this is in fact the case; however, it should still be recognized as an element in the racialization process. 108. For a discussion of differential racialization, see Neil Gotanda, Comparative Racialization: Racial Profiling and the Case of Wen Ho Lee, 47 UCLA L. REV. 1689 (2000). This Note is not necessarily contending that this is an example of differential racialization, but is instead suggesting that this is an area ripe for inquiry. 109. See supra note100, at 6. 110. See supra note 100.
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serving of participation in civil and political life. He thus engaged in efforts to combat the greater meaning of inferiority attached to racial minorities throughout the United States. An important part of Saunds resistance to these meanings was his ability to maintain his own sense of identity. Even in the face of discriminatory campaigning during his run for Congress, he did not change his name or refute arguments that he was a foreign, Hindu judge.111 Saund, taking the dominant groups perceptions into account, engaged in a response contesting the subordination of his community and of other communities of color. Some may argue, however, that this victory resulted in potential losses for the Sikh community by: (1) setting the stage for greater ignorance about Sikh identity; (2) leading to the silencing or invisibility of Sikhs in legal discourse more generally; or, (3) creating subsequent difficulty securing identity-based rights. Regardless, Saunds experience illustrates that it is possible to challenge the meanings attached to the category one is filtered into without engaging in the subordination of other groups of people.112 IV. CONTEMPORARY PERIOD: 1980
TO
PRESENT
A. Historical Circumstances This part focuses on immigration patterns as well as key events that illustrate the targeting and the misunderstanding of Sikh identity from 1980 to the present. This period of time is especially important because it is ripe with events directly impacting and affecting the racialization of Sikhs. By focusing on events before and after September 11, this part explicitly intends to show that the racialization of Sikhs is not the direct result of September 11, but instead a process that has continued since and can be traced back to early Sikh immigration. 1. Immigration Patterns The third wave of Sikh immigration in this contemporary period was partially the result of political upheaval in Punjab.113 During the 1980s, many Sikhs came to the United States seeking political asylum114 after having been the subjects of directed attacks by both government and non-government actors.115 These attacks resulted in a decade of violence and the
111. Jackie & the Judge, TIME, Oct. 8, 1956, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171, 824406,00.html (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). See also supra note 100, at 8. 112. This Note is not arguing that Saund fully or even intentionally engaged in an effort to challenge the meanings attached to racial categories. Instead, the analysis is meant to illustrate that it is possible to challenge the meanings attached to racial categories. 113. TATLA, supra note 16, at viii. 114. Ami Laws & Vincent Iacopino, Police Torture in Punjab, India: An Extended Survey, 6 HEALTH & HUM. RTS J. 195, 198 (2002). 115. See supra Introduction, Subpart A.
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deaths of nearly 20,000 people.116 These events are important because they sparked calls for a separate Sikh state, Khalistan, and solidified the construction of a Sikh identity as more than a religious group. The Sikh psyche became infused with views of its community as a political, ethnic, and racial group with an identity separate from other groups in India.117 This psyche continues to influence Sikh calls for self-identification and autonomy both in India and in the United States. The following sections outline some key moments that influenced the racialization of Sikhs during this contemporary period.118 2. Instances of Mistaken Identity The current era of Sikh racialization has been dominated by instances of mistaken and misunderstood identity, where Sikhs were and are mapped into the Muslim, Muslim-looking, or Terrorist category.119 One such instance was the reported hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet on December 25, 1999. Several major newspapers, including the New York Times, ran stories on December 25 repeatedly asserting that the hijackers were Sikh men.120 On December 28, however, the New York Times added a five line correction indicating that they misstated the ethnicity of the hijackers and omitted attribution for the description and that the hijackers were now believed to be Islamic militants who support Kashmirs independence from India.121 The events of September 11, 2001 incited many subsequent incidents of mistaken and misunderstood identity, where Sikhs were mistaken as Muslims or as terrorists.122 One of the most extreme examples of such incidents took place on September 15, 2001, when Frank Silva Roque murdered Balbir Singh Sodhi in Mesa, Arizona, justifying his actions by proclaiming that he stood for America.123 Balbir Sodhis brother,
116. Haresh Pandya, Jagjit Singh Chauhan, Sikh Militant Leader in India, Dies at 80, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 11, 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/world/asia/11chauhan.html? _r=1&oref=slogin (last visited Feb.2, 2009). See also TATLA, supra note 16, at 1 (discussing generally the attacks on Sikh places of worship); p. 5, discussing the events of 1984. 117. See text accompanying supra note 16. 118. These instances are in no way meant to be comprehensive. Instead, this Note chooses a few that are important for making points about racialization. 119. This Note refers to Terrorist as a racial category because classification into that group is almost always based off of a perceivers understanding of a targets race. 120. Susan Sachs, Hijackers Send Indian Jet on Odyssey, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 25, 1999, http:// query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9805E3DA1039F936A15751C1A96F958260&sec=& spon=&pagewanted=2 (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). 121. Id. 122. The Sikh Coalition reports 21 incidents reported to them on September 11 alone. The Sikh Coalition, http://www.sikhcoalition.org/ListReports.asp?m=& (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). The New York Times reports that by September 18, 2001 more than 200 Sikhs had reported incidents. Laurie Goodstein & Tamar Lewin, A Nation Challenged: Violence and Harassment; Victims of Mistaken Identity, Sikhs Pay a Price for Turbans, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 19, 2001, http://query.nytimes. com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06EED9123BF93AA2575AC0A9679C8B63 (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). It can also be argued that Sikhs were misidentified as Muslims and as a result of this classification were understood to be terrorists. 123. Mike Anton, Collateral Damage in War on Terrorism, L.A. TIMES, Sept. 22, 2001, at A26.
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Sukhpal Sodhi, was killed less than a year later while driving a taxi in San Francisco.124 Nine months later, Avtar Chiera, a Phoenix truck driver, was shot by three men who told Chiera to [g]o back to where you belong to.125 Other reported incidents of violence immediately following September 11 included vandalism of Sikh temples, gasoline bombs thrown at Sikh homes, and personal attacks of violence.126 3. Targeting of Sikh Identity Prime examples of the targeting of Sikh identity include instances where both government actors and private actors targeted members of the Sikh community by regulating appearance. One Sikh man who was trying to defend a case in court, for example, was not allowed into the courtroom under the courts no hats policy.127 In addition, corporations and the penal system alike, regulate ones ability to keep articles of the Sikh faith (including the turban, beard and kirpan), regardless of the fact that these are religiously mandated.128 Moreover, under the guise of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the government allows extensive screening of turbans at airports, including physical handling by TSA officials and public removal.129 It may be argued that such actions target otherness as opposed to Sikh identity, in particular. The scrutiny of these Sikh religious articles, however, is not necessarily due to the actual nature of the article, but instead is due to the ways those articles are perceivedas being closely related to the identities of those engaged in terrorism. Thus, this screening contributes to the racialization of Sikhs. Another example of the targeting of Sikh identity is the 1997 conflict over the construction of a gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship, in San Jose, California.130 The plans for the gurdwara met all of the citys requirements and the city officials themselves expressed no real opposition to the
124. Balbir Sodhi Singhs Brother Killed, http://www.sikhnet.com/s/SukhpalSodhi (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). Note that the SF police maintain that the motivation for the crime was unknown and that they have not classified the incident as a hate crime. See Jaxon Van Derbeken, American Nightmare, S.F. GATE, Aug. 2, 2002, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/08/ 06/MN242769.DTL (last visited Mar. 3, 2009). 125. Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund, http://saldef.org/content.aspx?a=471& emc=&m=3861925&v=1020673267&l=14 (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). 126. Goodstein & Lewin, supra note 122. 127. See Sikh Coalition, Not Let Into a Courtroom Because of a Turban, http://www.sikhcoalition.org/hatecrime.asp?mainaction=viewreport&reportid=424 (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). 128. See, e.g., Wright v. Raines, 457 F. Supp. 1082 (D.C. Kan. 1978); Sikh Coalition, ATT Reverses Kirpan Ban, http://sikhcoalition.org/advisories/attreverseskirpanban.htm (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). See also www.sikhcoalition.org/advisories/kirpandmanindersinghvictory.htm (last visited March 3, 2009) for a discussion of twenty cases regarding Sikhs rights to carry the kirpan. 129. For instances of public removal, see, e.g., www.sikhcoalition.org/hatecrime.asp?mainaction=viewreport&reportid=266, www.sikhcoalition.org/hatecrime.asp?mainaction=viewreport& reportid=262, www.sikhcoalition.org/hatecrime.asp?mainaction=viewreport&reportid=256, www.sikhcoalition.org/hatecrime.asp?mainaction=viewreport&reportid=248, www.sikhcoalition. org/hatecrime.asp?mainaction=viewreport&reportid=236, www.sikhcoalition.org/hatecrime.asp? mainaction=viewreport&reportid=230. 130. This was not the only time that such opposition arose to the construction of a Sikh place of worship, as Singh reports that similar resistance had been displayed in both New York and San
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plans.131 Local citizens, however, were opposed to the construction of the place of worship, stating that they [didnt] want it in our neighborhood because the gurdwaras accompanying noise, traffic and differential architectural style would disrupt the neighborhood.132 In addition, there were concerns over violence that had broken out at a nearby gurdwara in Fremont, California months earlier.133 More recent examples of targeting the Sikh identity include: (1) police violence against a Sikh family in Houston, Texas, and (2) a U.S. Airways flights refusal to take off with three Sikh men on board. In early December, 2008 in Houston, police were called to the Tagore family home after the owners reported a burglary.134 Harris county police were dispatched to the scene and, once there, began questioning a family member, Kawaljeet Kaur, about her kirpan.135 Although Kaur explained the kirpan was an article of her faith and offered to leave if it was causing a problem, Kaur was: (1) ordered to shut up and a Taser was aimed at her head, (2) forced to the ground with a knee . . . put to her back and handcuffed by three officers, and (3) subjected to watching the handcuffing of her family, including her sixty-year-old mother. The family was asked if they had heard about the bombings in Bombay and were told by the police that they (the police) knew about Muslims.136 In the U.S. Airways incident, three Sikh religious musicians were asked to get off of a U.S. Airways flight on November 15, 2008 and were told that the pilot refused to fly with them on board.137
Diego. Jaideep Singh, No Sikh Jose: Sikh American Community Mobilization and Interracial Coalition Building in the Construction of a Sacred Site, 8 ASIAN PAC. AM. L.J. 173, 199 (2002). 131. Id. at 180. 132. Id. at 181 (emphasis added). The local citizens put forth five reasons for their opposition: 1) the increase in traffic to the gurdwara would inundate the neighborhood with cars; 2) noise from the gurdwara would disrupt their lives; 3) the architecture would not fit in with the neighborhood scheme; 4) the building would be too large and would obstruct their view; and 5) tourists would flood the area because of the tremendous beauty of the gurdwara. These reasons were pretext for discriminating against the Sikh community and depicted Sikhs as disruptive and unable to fit into the community, id. 133. Id. at 184. Jaideep Singh explains that there had been a fight inside of a gurdwara in Fremont in the past and that the police were called in. San Jose residents argued that The Sikh organization has established a precedent of being undesirable neighbors with incidents involving their temple in Fremont, id. 134. Sikh Coalition, Family Reporting Burglary is Handcuffed, Reference made to Muslims and Bombay Bombings, http://www.sikhcoalition.org/advisories/houstonpdharasssikhfamily.htm (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). 135. See supra text accompanying note 9, explaining that this kirpan is one of the articles of faith carried by Sikhs. 136. Sikh Coalition, supra note 134. This incident was resolved when a supervisor in the police department came to the scene and ordered the family members be released. None of them were formally charged with a crime or arrested. Id. 137. Press Release, United Sikhs, US Airways Pilot Refuses to Fly Plan Unless Three Sikhs Get Off (Nov. 26, 2008), http://www.unitedsikhs.org/PressReleases/PRSRLS-26-11-2008-00.htm (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). The three men boarded the flight after clearing security in Sacramento and were scheduled to transfer on connecting flight to Salt Lake City, Utah. The men were sitting in the rear of the plane and after having been on the plane for approximately ten minutes were approached and asked to exit the plane, id.
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B. Resistance to Mapping Tools In situations involving mistaken identity during the contemporary period, Sikhs resisted the tools mapping them into the Muslim or terrorist category. Sikhs argued that phenotypic traits, specifically the turban and beard, should not be used to place them in the Muslim or terrorist categories, but instead that religion (namely religious differences from Muslims) should be the sole tool used to place them in a different racial category altogether. This argument corresponds to prior historical experiences where both members of the Sikh religion and outsiders alike were unclear whether to consider Sikhs an ethnicity, race, or religious group.138 In the context of mistaken identity, advocating for new mapping tools is difficult for a few reasons. First, the perceiver may not care if she is incorrectly labeling certain individuals. Second, it may be inconvenient for the perceiver to use the suggested tools. Third, the proposed tools, as in Thind, may not be more effective than those already in place. Finally, it may be difficult for targets and perceivers to disrupt, or navigate around, mapping tools that have become internalized.139 As targets come to understand the mapping tools of phenotype, religion, purity, and performance as perpetual and immutable, many have opted to abide by these existing tools and respond by decreasing their racial salience in order to change their assigned category. Some Sikh males and females alike, for example, have cut their hair and/or have stopped wearing turbans in order to decrease their racial salience and avoid being placed in the Muslim or terrorist racial category. Such responses illustrate the difficult choices Sikhs face in asserting their identity, and demonstrate the difficulty the entire Sikh community faces in affirmatively establishing an identity. Sikhs double consciousness makes them aware of the tape that is being used to measure them into certain categories and their response reflects that understanding. Thus, the racial hierarchy encourages these targets to decrease their racial salience to avoid both state and private violence. C. Resisting the Racial Category Instead of arguing that the applied mapping tools are flawed, some targets upon realizing an inability to decrease the salience of certain racial features, such as skin color have instead argued that they are being mapped into the wrong category.
138. TATLA, supra note 16, at vii (explaining that it is difficult to decide whether the Sikhs are a religious community, an ethnic group, a nation, a people or even a sect). 139. By internalized, this Note means that targets may think that the mapping tools exist abstractly in space and that they cannot be changed. As a result, targets may think that they must change their condition or identity to take advantage of, or at least not suffer at the hands of, these tools.
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1. Responding to the 1999 Indian Airlines Hijacking After several newspapers ran stories mistakenly claiming that Sikhs were responsible for the 1999 Indian Airlines hijacking,140 many Sikhs wrote to the papers to correct such errors, articulating the argument that Sikhs are not Muslims and should not be mistaken as such. In January 2000, someone wrote to the Fresno Bee explaining that the hijacking was wrongly attributed to members of the Sikh faith and that while the hijacking and murder of an innocent passenger are deplorable acts and should be rightfully condemned . . . it is a travesty that blame should fall on those who are innocent.141 Another writer, to the Chicago Sun-Times, explained that the newspaper had incorrectly explained Sikhs and their history with the Indian government, clarifying that Sikhs are neither Hindu nor Muslim.142 Another writer to the Washington Times was able to elicit a lengthy response from the newspaper acknowledging their error. The Washington Times wrote that the Sikh community in Washington is very angry with the Washington Times because instead of finding the facts patiently and professionally, [the] paper has blamed Sikh militants for hijacking the plane thereby smear[ing] the entire Sikh community.143 These responses to mistaken identity are interesting because they do not discuss any particularized backlash against Sikh individuals that directly resulted from the newspapers misreporting. Instead, the writers articulated concerns regarding the communitys reputation, and perhaps more importantly to these writers, factual correctness. Understanding these responses first requires an understanding of the Sikh communitys self-awareness as a distinct political, ethnic, and religious entity.144 This heightened self-awareness left Sikhs both more sensitive to and more willing to respond to such mischaracterizations. In addition, this response should be understood in light of Sikhs desires to avoid possible negative repercussions. Sikhs distanced themselves from the racial category in question, possibly because they were aware of that different racial groups are seen as fungible. In other words, if they did not distinguish themselves from Muslims, they would ultimately bear the burden for another groups bad acts. This parallels the logic that underlies racial profiling and hate crimes: the terrorist was a member of group X, therefore all members of group X must be terrorists.145 Thus,
140. Sachs, supra note 120. 141. Deep Singh, Letter to the Editor, Bad Journalism, FRESNO BEE, Jan. 5, 2000, at B6. 142. Navreet Kaur Basati, Letter to the Editor, The Sikh Perspective, CHI. SUN-TIMES, Jan. 6, 2000, at 26. The writer, concerned with the newspapers claims that Sikh militants have waged violent campaigns of assassinations and bombings against the Indian government explained that [n]owhere is it said [in those newspapers] what the Indian government has done to Sikhs in India in the last two decades that prompted militant Sikhs to protect themselves from being tortured, killed and erased from the face of India, id. 143. David W. Jones, Editorial, WASH. TIMES, Jan. 2, 2000, at C11. 144. See supra Introduction, Subpart A and IV(A)(1). 145. See generally Muneer Ahmad, A Rage Shared by Law: Post September 11 Violence as Crimes of Passion, 92 CAL. L. REV. 1259 (2004).
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the target is aware that the perceiver views all members of the criminals racial group as responsible for the act in question and responds to avoid that affiliation, again illustrating the role of double consciousness in informing a targets response. This response also shows that a targets response to his or her racialization is not solely the product of individual agency. Instead, the existing racial structure encourages such a response and the response itself contributes to the racialization process.146 2. Responding to the September 11 Attacks The responses after September 11 differ only slightly from those previously discussed in Part IV.C.1. After September 11, there were reports of violence specifically directed towards Sikh individuals by both private and government actors.147 Thus, Sikh responses to mistaken identity after September 11 were multi-faceted, coupling attempts at factual correction regarding the crimes perpetrators with attempts to directly resist actual violence against the community. Many individuals responded to the mistaken identity of Sikhs with explicit requests not to be placed in the Muslim category. For example, this sentiment was initially expressed by Lakhwinder Singh, the brother of Sodhi, who said [M]y brother and I and some other Sikhs . . . talked about going to the media to try to clarify that we are not Muslims, he continued, [w]e knew there was very little understanding of Sikhs in this country.148 Moreover, in September, 2001, hundreds of Sikhs participated in a demonstration . . . to protest against the terrorist attacks in the United States.149 During these protests, demonstrators carr[ied] placards that said that Sikhs are not Muslims and Bush, Educate the American people that Sikhs are not Muslims or Arabs.150 This argument implicitly sent the message that since Sikhs did not commit the acts in question; they ought not to be placed in the suspect category. Requests to be removed from the Muslim or terrorist looking groups were subsequently followed by requests to place Sikhs either in their own, separate Sikh category, or in the Asian Indian category rather than the Muslim or terrorist looking group. As discussed in part IV(C)(1), this response was a provoked one. It is the result of a racial hierarchy that places blame on similar looking peoples when one member of a category is a bad actor. The Sikh response is not a novel one. It is directly parallel to the response of the Chinese who wore
146. To be explicit, one of the ways it contributes to the racialization process is by implicitly approving of violence against and the profiling of members of the racial group in question. By disclaiming membership in that group in such a fashion, a target is furthering the negative meanings attached to that racial category. 147. This is different from the response in 1999 where the concern was more over factual correctness and the potential for violence than it was about actual violence. 148. Goodstein & Lewin, supra note 122. 149. Onkar Singh, Attacks on Sikhs Worries Indians, REDIFF.COM, Sept. 17, 2001, http://www. rediff.com/us/2001/sep/17ny30.htm (last visited Feb. 2, 2009). 150. Id.
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buttons reading Not from Nippon to avoid blame after Pearl Harbor.151 The response is also similar to the racial brokering that occurred between African Americans and Korean Americans during the Los Angeles Riots. Each group tried to position itself as superior to the other, with African Americans claiming American identity and loyalty, and Koreans Americans claiming American work ethic and values.152 Similarly, some Sikh responses attempted to portray the Sikh community as more American and as more loyal than the Muslim community. This brokering, as Lisa Ikemoto explains, is problematic because one minority groups attempts to position itself as superior to other groups locates the problem as between these communities and obscures the role whiteness plays in facilitating this distancing.153 Accompanying calls for placement in the correct racial category were efforts to educate the public about Sikhism. This Note does not understand these activities to be resistance to the Muslim category, but instead sees them as attempts to affirm ethnic identity.154 Given the historic inability to affirm Sikh identity, it would seem unfair to condemn Sikhs for taking this opportunity to affirmatively explain both who they are and the details of their identity and religion. These efforts are potentially cathartic and transformative. Sodhis brother, for example, engaged in an educational campaign that travels to various schools and communities in the Phoenix area.155 The Sikh Coalition also launched a massive campaign to educate the public about Sikhs that includes distributing various print media, and engaging with political representatives and media. These efforts to affirm identity should not be denied to Sikhs, who have been unable to clearly establish their identity in the United States. The ultimate usefulness and propriety of these actions, however, is determined by their context. If done with any eye towards distancing and blame, then those taking these actions ought to be condemned as implicitly approving of violence against all Muslims. On the other hand, if these responses are undertaken with an eye towards resisting the negative meanings attached to the racial group, the responses more effectively and permanently resist subordination. Moreover, such responses would actually contribute to the pursuit of racial justice because they would denounce the breadline to American identity and acceptance.156
See Boswell & McConaghy, supra note 39. Ikemoto, supra note 38. Id. STEPHEN CORNELL & DOUGLAS HARTMANN, ETHNICITY AND RACE: MAKING IDENTITIES IN A CHANGING WORLD 252 (1997). This response, Cornell and Hartmann explain, is not problematic in itself, but instead has the potential to be so depending on what kinds of ethnic and racial stories groups tell and how these stories are put to use. Id. Thus, context matters. 155. He has also participated in the making of a film called A Dream in Doubt, which is meant to address the paucity of discourse surrounding hate crimes against Sikhs in the post September 11 period. See A Dream In Doubt, http://www.adreamindoubt.org/. 156. Ikemoto, supra note 38, at 1586 (Explaining that the breadline refers to a social hierarchy where it is assumed that competition must occur among those forced to stand in line, not between those making the handouts and those subject to the handouts.). 151. 152. 153. 154.
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D. Resistance to Meanings Attached to the Category In the aftermath of September 11, the initial Sikh response was to affirm their ethnic, cultural and religious identity not only to protect against attacks, but also to defend against a denial of their identity. Sikhs quickly realized the negative implications of such actions, as some engaged in intense debate about . . . distinguishing themselves from Muslims while not implying that attacks on Muslims are justified.157 In addition, they recognized that [i]t would be antithetical to [their] faith to have materials saying, We are not Muslims and that Sikhs have to be very careful not to make those claims.158 Thus, Sikhs were aware that targets ought to resist the negative meanings attached to all racial categories in order to protect the rights of their own and other racial groups. The Sikh Coalitions efforts to educate the public about Sikhism within broader coalition building efforts opposing discrimination is an example of resistance to the negative meanings attached to racial categories. The organization not only fought discrimination suits on behalf of those targeted after September 11, but also engaged in community wide advocacy to change immigration policy and racial profiling.159 The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) is engaged in similar efforts that extend beyond protecting Sikh Americans civil rights to generally combating discriminatory policies and profiling.160 The remainder of Part IV.D discusses specific examples of this resistance by the Sikh community to the incidents described above in Part IV.A.3, mainly (1) TSAs turban screening policies, (2) the US Airway flights refusal to take off with Sikh members aboard, (3) the police actions against the Tagore family, and (4) the resistance to construction of the San Jose gurdwara. First, in response to TSAs screening policies, the Sikh Coalition and SALDEF educated TSA about Sikhism and assisted in developing more fair screening procedures. Through the campaign to educate the public about Sikhism, these organizations worked to dispel the beliefs that these community members are de facto terrorists or that Sikhs pose a greater threat than others, thereby combating the meanings associated with the group. Second, in response to the recent U.S. Airways incident, the Sikh Coalition and SALDEF undertook similar public education efforts, combating the perception that South Asians with different appearances are foreign and therefore dangerous. Third, in response to the Houston police incident, the Sikh Coalition not only contacted state and local officials to encourage them to reprimand the officers, but also disseminated information
157. Goodstein & Lewin, supra note 122. 158. Id. 159. See, e.g. JUSTICE FOR ALL (The Sikh Coalition), Nov. 18, 2003, http://www.sikhcoalition. org/NewsletterW11182003.asp. 160. See, e.g. SALDEF Legislative Advocacy, http://www.saldef.org/content.aspx?z=11&a= 1430&title=Advocacy%20>>%20Legislative%20Advocacy
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about the events and petitions to garner support.161 In doing so, the Sikh Coalition also combated the negative perceptions and meanings attached to Sikhs which based on the officers mention of the Bombay bombings are foreignness, otherness,162 and affiliation with terrorism. The organizations worked to effectively change the meanings associated with the racial category rather than argue that the victims of profiling should have been filtered into a different racial category. Finally, the response to the San Jose Gurdwara construction was also an effort to resist the meanings attached to the category. In response to opposition against construction, Sikhs formed coalitions with several religious groups and garnered the support of both South Asians and non-South Asians.163 This group collectively resisted Sikh characterization as disruptive, violent, and not belonging in this suburban neighborhood by clarifying Sikhism within a larger campaign to resist racism against minority communities. These responses take into account the tape used to measure targets but they do not re-inscribe the tools, categories, and meanings of the racial formation map as it currently exists and operates. Rather, in this context, double consciousness provides greater insight as to how one can respond to the tools, categories, and meanings while fighting for racial equality overall. Double consciousness provides targets with the awareness of how they are being categorized and treated and encourages them to challenge the process leading to such treatment. These responses illustrate that the existing racial hierarchy can encourage targets to change the hierarchy, rather than simply navigate within it. V. CONCLUSION By investigating the various ways Sikhs have historically responded to their racialization, it becomes clear that some of those responses have been both detrimental and successful for the Sikh community and other communities of color alike. First, arguing for different mapping tools can be problematic because the recommended tools are often not better at resisting subordination than existing ones. The proposed tools are sometimes the direct result of the incentives of the racial hierarchy, disproportionately subordinating one group relative to another.164 Thind and the events of September 11 demonstrate that requesting new tools does not necessarily effectuate long-term change in terms of how Sikhs are perceived, classified, and treated because these tools depending on context can change over time and be manipulated.
161. See supra note 134. 162. For a brief discussion of otherness see John Tehranian, Unconscious Discrimination Twenty Years Later: Application and Evolution Applying Unconscious Discrimination, 40 CTLR 1201, 1205 (2008). (Per Rule 16.6.3, citing an individual article w/in a symposium.) 163. See supra note 130. 164. Thinds request for new tools, for example, was premised on the subordination of black people.
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Second, claiming that one has been placed in the wrong racial category can be dangerous because it may implicitly condone violence against members of the denied category. In addition, requesting a separate category implicitly indicates that one group experienced racialization distinct from other groups, which, given the interconnected nature of the racialization of different groups, is not likely. Requesting a separate category is also problematic because it is a means for distancing oneself from, or placing oneself above, the rejected category. This is not only seen in the Sikhs responses after September 11, but also with the Chinese responses after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.165 This is not to say that Sikhs, or any identity group, ought to be completely denied of the right to affirm their identity as a separate group. Instead, Sikhs must be aware that such identity affirmation must be done without subordinating others, lest Sikhs recreate the breadline to resources restricted by the racial hierarchy. There is also the concern that once Sikhs, and other groups, are given the space to create separate racial categories, this will be touted as multiculturalism,166 which problematically obscures the fact that real, lasting and institutionalized racism continues to exist. In addition, calling for separate and distinct categories may take resources away from coalition building efforts. In light of the history presented in this Note, it is not clear that requests for a separate racial category, or claims that one has been placed into the wrong category, are effective in decreasing discrimination against these groups. Instead, it is more likely that these responses have worked to perpetuate preexisting tension between members of these groups. Ultimately, resisting the meanings attached to the racial category is the best means for assuring that one does not subordinate members of other communities of color. Specifically, resisting those meanings with an eye towards improving the position of all people of color is most advantageous. Thus, context matters. Racial distancing, whether conducted by the Japanese upon immigration to the United States, Chinese after Pearl Harbor, African Americans in the Los Angeles Riots, or Sikhs after September 11, re-instantiates the racial hierarchy by deploying the same rhetoric and attitudes that inform and support the hierarchy. This is not to say that these actors intentionally subordinate others solely as a result of their own impulses or even that they are always acting as individual, independent agents in undertaking these responses. Instead, this Note argues that the racial structure engenders such responses. Targets unawareness that these re-
165. The Chinese wore buttons reading Chinese or Not from Nippon. Boswell & McConaghy, supra note 39. 166. By multiculturalism, this Note means space for different minority groups to affirm their ethnic identity and celebrate that the ability to affirm it alongside other ethnic groups. It has been said that multicultural discourse tends to essentialize minority cultures and ignore underlying power structures. Race and Pedagogy Project, http://rpp.english.ucsb.edu/research/category/critical-race-theory-and-pedagogy/ (last visited Mar. 2, 2009).
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sponses have the potential to continuously re-create this breadline167 to goods and to American identity may contribute to and strengthen those structures. If targets are able to change the meanings attached to the subordinated categories then they are better able to combat the racial hierarchy overall. The racialization of Sikhs has been a process marked by essentialism, denial of identity, and mistaken identity. Sikh responses to this process affect not only their own racialization, but also the racialization of other minority groups. By realizing that these processes and experiences are interconnected, it becomes clear that the best means for Sikhs to combat this racialization is to stay true to the founding principles of the Khalsato fight injustice everywhere.
167. Supra note 156.

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THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

that alter interaction with meanings

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

RACIAL FORMATION MAP

uses resist tools

to place targets into

resist categories perceiver target categories

which alter the interactions between the target and perceiver

resist meanings which activate

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

UCLA ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL

THE RACIALIZATION OF SIKHS IN THE UNITED STATES

167. Supra note 156.

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