People
Punjabi Schools: Language is The Key
by RAJA ABDULRAHIM
On a recent Sunday in a classroom at the gurdwara in Pacoima, nine
young students sat scattered across four pews, an incongruous reminder
of a time the building was used by a church.
As the teacher, Pami Kaur, read aloud a series of words in Punjabi, the
mainly 7- to 9-year-old students slowly repeated them, sounding each one
out before writing it down. Some balanced notebooks on their laps as
others knelt, using the pews as desks.
"Kireh, I said, kireh," said Pami Kaur, repeating a word that means "ant," as she looked over one little girl's notebook.
None of the words in the day's lesson, which also included those meaning
"thirsty," "yellow" and "dirty," had any connection to the Sikh faith
or spirituality. But they are the beginning of introducing the children
to the phonetics and inflections of Punjabi, the language of their holy
scripture.
Over the next few years at the Sunday Punjabi school, the students will
study Sikh history and philosophy, along with the language. They will
also learn such fundamentals as why Sikhs don't cut their hair (they
believe it is a blessing from God and should be left unshorn.)
It is an effort to raise a generation of Sikh-Americans who can read the
Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture, and have a deeper understanding of
their faith.
For the previous generation of American-born Sikhs, it wasn't always
easy to learn about Sikhism, the world's fifth-largest religion, as many
of their immigrant parents did not immediately recognize the need for
formal religious education.
Sikhs began coming to the United States in large numbers in the mid-1980s because of persecution and discrimination in India,
said Kuldeep Singh, founder of the World Sikh Council, America Region,
which represents gurdwaras and institutions across the country.
There are
about 500,000 Sikhs in the United States, with about 150,000 in Southern
California, according to the council.
They built houses of worship, known as gurdwaras, and held weekly
services but had no religious schools for their children. Sikhs live by
core principles that put more of an emphasis on spirituality in daily
life than attending gurdwara or reading scripture - being constantly
meditative of God, giving to others and earning a living through honest
means. That less-didactic approach made it hard to instill the religion
in a Sikh generation growing up in the West, several of those
interviewed said.
"Our parents would go to gurdwara and take us with them," said Bhupinder
Kaur Malik, a volunteer at the Pacoima Sikh school, run by the Khalsa Care
Foundation. "They thought that was enough, just take your kids with you
and teach him how to bow."
Bhupinder Kaur said many of her friends didn't embrace their Sikh identities
until they reached college and met other Sikhs their age. They began to
realize the limitations of the Sikh religious education they had
received.
Now there are nearly 150 gurdwaras across the country, with about 60 in
Southern California. All have Punjabi schools and most of those have
opened in the last 15 years. Even gurdwaras with as few as 12 children in
the congregation have Sunday schools, said Jasmine Kaur, director of
education for the Sikh Research Institute, which has established the
curriculum for many of the schools.
"Communities across North America realized the need to hold on to their
language and heritage," she said. "The focus was definitely on language,
learning script and vocabulary and maintaining culture and values."
There was no need for the religious weekend schools in India when
Kuldeep Singh was growing up because children learned about Sikhism and
Punjabi from the gurdwaras and the community.
"But here our neighbors will not be able to teach because many times the
Sikh family is living in a neighborhood where there is no other Sikh
family," Kuldeep Singh said.
Jasdeep Singh, who grew up in Southern California, said that language
and religious exposure back home made his parent's generation confident
in its Sikh identity. "I don't think they were that aware that their
kids would need a much larger embrace of the community," said the Yorba
Linda resident.
When he was a child, he said, there were no Punjabi schools and his
family attended the gurdwara only once every few weeks because his parents
often spent weekends working overtime.
But in college, he and many young Sikhs he knew struggled to reconcile
their faith with their American identities. The community was shocked
when it was suddenly faced with young Sikhs removing their turbans or
cutting their hair, he said.
Now he hopes his two young sons - who regularly attend Sunday school - will not go through the same crisis of faith he did.
"Telling a kid, 'Hey, you can't cut your hair and you have to wear a
turban' without explaining why is like forcing someone to wear a Halloween costume year-round," Jasdeep Singh said. "I think my generation is the one that's actually seen the value of Punjabi schools."
[Courtesy: Los Angeles Times]
May 7, 2011
Conversation about this article
1: Rajwinder kaur (Punjab), May 09, 2011, 3:30 PM.
This is excellent. It is a big step in the right direction. It'll teach our children about our religion, values, history ... A big thank you to all who are behind this great effort.
2: Ranjit Singh (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), March 14, 2014, 9:09 AM.
We would like to donate books by Bhai Vir Singh and Prof Puran Singh to schools. For info, you can call me at 1.403.714.8787.