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For young Sikh family in Ireland, a balancing act

By
Amy B. Wang,

Published Thursday, April 30, 2009, 12:53 PM
Updated Thursday, July 23, 2009, 6:06 PM

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Sachman Singh, 7, plays with two of his friends on their street. They have been friends "forever," according to Siobhan, 5, right, who also said she has never asked Sachman about his turban.
Sachman Singh, 7, plays with two of his friends on their street. They have been friends "forever," according to Siobhan, 5, right, who also said she has never asked Sachman about his turban.
Photo by Amy B Wang

LUCAN, IRELAND – The first thing Sachman Singh, 7, does when he wakes up – before he goes to the bathroom, brushes his teeth, or even puts on his glasses – is ask his parents to help tie his turban.

“To tell you the truth, he feels that turban is part of his identity now,” says his mother, of the red wrap that covers his hair and signifies his Sikh faith. “He doesn’t like taking it off. He easily accepted it. I don’t know how come or why, but I don’t feel any trouble.”

Sachman and his brother Japnitt, 4, embody the confidence of a new, second generation of Sikhs living in Ireland. Both boys understand Punjabi but reply to their parents in English – with a distinct Irish lilt. On most afternoons they’re glued to their Nintendo Wii (“the whole day,” according to Sachman), but in summer they attend cultural day camps, where they learn Sikh martial arts and history. When they talk to their grandparents in India, it’s often by Internet video chat, which helps them better understand each other’s accents.

The family lives in Lucan, a middle-class suburb of Dublin about eight miles west of the city that experienced a housing boom in the 1990s. It’s now filled with patches of almost identical developments, and Marpreet and Jaskiran Singh purchased their modest two-story home here about four years ago. Their sons dart in and out of the living room on a recent Friday afternoon, plucking pieces of paneer pakora (fried cheese) off of a platter before running outside to play.

It would be an idyllic scene in any suburb, but this one has required a cultural balancing act for the Singhs.

“It’s not as simple as it looks like,” says Jaskiran, a soft-spoken woman who laughs frequently, between sips of steaming chai. “We do face difficulties as well.”

She and her husband immigrated to Ireland from Punjab, India, in June of 2001, months before the World Trade Center attacks in New York. The timing added an extra layer of challenges to adapting to a new culture. In the aftermath of September 11, Sikhs in many western countries were often mistaken for Muslims, and faced increased levels of discrimination.

The Irish Sikh Council has advocated for Sikhs in possible discrimination cases in Ireland, such as when a referee nearly forced a Sikh boy to remove his turban during a soccer game last fall. While the Singhs say they have never experienced hostility in Ireland, where there is a small population of about 1,000 Sikhs, they sometimes feel a wall in initial meetings with those who are not familiar with their religion.

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