Art
Behind The Lens: Shooting Sikh-Americans in Oregon
Article & Photos by THOMAS PATTERSON
As the scheduled Sunday shooter on the Statesman Journal (Oregon, U.S.A.) staff, there
are certain assignments I can count on to lift my spirits. Last year's
Sikh parade through South Salem proved to be a career highlight, so I
was extremely excited to document the scene again last month as
hundreds of Sikhs from around the region gathered in Salem for a parade
and celebration on Sunday, June 27, 2010.
The Sikh community is tight-knit yet very welcoming to people of other faiths. Last year I was given an orange head covering so I could enter the Dasmesh Darbar Gurdwara, and I have used it more than once this year when visiting on assignment. As the parade was about to begin, I exited the gurdwara, slid on my shoes and hoisted my cameras, honored to join the procession.
Led by the American and Oregon flags and protected by a police escort, Sikh-Americans marched northward up Commercial Street SE, turned east on Rural Avenue, then north to Bush's Pasture Park. Onlookers watched from the sidewalk, photographing the exotically clothed marchers, the flower-draped floats and the swirling orange banners. Prayers were sung over loudspeakers. Martial artists demonstrated their wild dances, flying high in the air.
At the park, an enormous feast of traditional Punjabi dal, curry, rice, jalebi and other cuisine awaited the marchers and other passers-by. Men fried dough in large bowls of oil for a filling culinary complement.
"Eat! Eat!" laughed Billa Singh, dropping balls of dough into the hissing oil. The warm scent of freshly cooked spicy food mingled in the air with the sound of prayer and the laughter of children giggling from the swingsets.
[Thomas Patterson is a photographer and videographer for the Statesman Journal]
July 8, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: I.J. Singh (New York, U.S.A.), July 09, 2010, 10:18 AM.
Lovely to read and, for me, nostalgic. I was in Oregon from 1961-69 and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Oregon Medical School - now OHSU. For most of those years I was perhaps the only recognizable Sikh in the area. Oregon had no gurdwara then. Met Bhagat Singh Thind there who had come to America in 1918. In the 1960's, SE Portland had an establishment - Punjab Tavern - whose owner assured me that it dated from the early 1920's when there were Sikhs in and around Oregon in the lumber industry. Changing times coupled with racial, religious and cultural discrimination drove them out either south to California or north through Bellingham (Washington) towards British Columbia. Oregon thus occupies an important place in early Sikh history in the Americas. Thank you for showing us the new and welcome face of Sikhi in Portland.