By establishing the Khalsa Diwan in California in 1911, Sikhs in America were taking the first step towards gaining an independent identity. The Khalsa Diwan was a gurudwara, or place of religious observation for Sikhs. The temple also served as a community center for Sikhs as well. With growing numbers of Sikhs (and other immigrants) flooding into California, the Sikh community was fractured, unable to congregate. The need for a communal place of worship revealed not just the practical intentions behind constructing a temple, but the social and spiritual as well.
To negotiate a new identity in a new country that is acceptable to the natives, foreigners often have to sacrifice their customs and beliefs. With the establishment of a meeting place just for Sikhs, however, minorities began to spread the word that they too deserved a piece of the pie. Indeed, they were leading by example for all immigrants who felt oppressed in the U.S. Because of such high racial tensions at the time, and the degree to which whites were much more dominant, many immigrants were simply afraid to express any part of their foreign culture for fear of being marked or excluded. Not unlike Asian immigrants, who faced a choice of assimilation or ostricization, Indians were undoubtedly afforded little opportunity unless they were to assimilate and become "whitewashed." One aspect of culture which is crucial to any region of people is religion and spirituality. Yet, when these immigrants made it to the U.S. they found that their religious beliefs, which differed from the prevailing Protestant view at the time, caused them to be looked at differently and treated differently. Some anxiety is justifiable, perhaps, as it is indeed strange to see someone practicing religious customs you know nothing about. Difference can be frightening at first; what led to problems, however, was the commonly held misconception that those who practice something other than the good Lord's word were heathens and sinners instead of products of different cultural backgrounds. There was little to no tolerance for difference, especially if it was a flagrant foreign body that made no attempt to assimilate or "whitewash" itself. In establishing a temple to worship at and practice Sikhism in the U.S., Sikh's began to rouse the collective courage, spurred by social unrest, that was brewing within the immigrant communities. A successful establishment of such a foreign place on U.S. ground certainly lent hope to other minorities that they too could assimilate their beliefs into American society without compromising them. The implications of this are obvious: these early slants toward cultural diversity set the stage for the groundbreaking social phenomena that would follow in decades to come, which saw the fight for equality brought to its very peak.
-Jeremy Steinberg
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