Columnists

First Things First

by I.J. SINGH

 

A news item of a train accident caught my eye the other day: a track welder had been killed. 

"He was very dedicated", said his daughter.  "He put God first, his family second and his job third", she added.

My thoughts went to the overly-used cliché, "God, motherhood and apple pie", a trio that colloquially highlights American values, perhaps in that order. 

I then recalled that, in the immediate aftermath of the events in 1984 that claimed thousands of innocent Sikh lives in India, one oft-posed challenge was how do you rate your sense of self and the values that define it  - love of country, religion, family, etc. 

The celebrated writer Khushwant Singh drew opprobrium from his coreligionists because of his avowal of being an Indian first, a Punjabi second, and a Sikh third.  Many Sikhs took umbrage at his formulation; it was not the values that elicited anger, but their ranking.

I notice that when I ask people what is their background, the usual answer is Italian, German, Irish, or a mélange of some such ancestry. The younger, more informal crowd will often use the term "mutt" as self-descriptive.   I suppose this is because it is how most people in this country are, particularly those who are not first-generation immigrants.

But one can't have failed to notice that when one asks an American Jew the same question, "What are you?" the answer is most likely to be "Jewish". 

Why is it that non-Jewish-Americans largely interpret the question to be about their cultural ancestry, while Jews look at it as a question of faith or religion?  Even the Jew who is only marginally connected to the Jewish people or their ways, and no longer follows the faith, tends to answer with "I am Jewish". 

The average American will likely not answer "Who are you?" with "Catholic", "Lutheran", "Methodist", or "Agnostic", etc.  Keep in mind that the third or fourth generation Italian answers the same question with "I am Italian". 

Don't forget that the Jew in America could just as easily be a product of Italy, France, Germany, Poland, or many other places and cultures. A very few do answer with "I am Polish-Jewish", or in a similar vein.  But it seems that in the value system that defines him or her, religious identity - Jewishness - is supreme and usually comes first; in any event, it is rarely ignored.

On the other hand, I notice that an American of Indian descent, even though a generation or two away from India, still answers "Who are you?" with "Indian".  Very rarely would the choice be "Punjabi", and even rarer, "Sikh".

This intrigues me.

I wonder if this is so because, although Jews have been integral to Europe for about 2000 years, they were effectively marginalized and ghettoized.  This has been so in spite of the Disraelis and Rothschilds of the world, who became so well enmeshed and integrated into the larger Christian milieu that their distinctive Jewishness no longer caught the public eye. 

Many, like the Marrano Jews, made a conscious effort to pass as Christians in the greater society.  Yet, most European Jews remained consigned and socially confined to a separate existence.  This distinctiveness hindered many by the barriers that secluded them; yet, at the same time, these fences helped them preserve their heritage, religion and culture over millennia of discrimination. 

Also, the admission "I am a Jew" might have been a byproduct of the crude requirement of an insensitive bureaucracy that Jews carry an identity card.

The other side of the coin is a certain hypersensitivity that may be rooted in the poignant historical situation of the Jews.  It is easily underscored by the 2006 congressional campaign in Virginia.  The mother of George Allen, the Republican incumbent who lost, had a Jewish heritage, but was now a Christian.  Yet, she feared a backlash against her son if her antecedents came out, and thus was most reluctant to openly acknowledge her family's Jewish past.

Witness also, for instance, the plethora of books on Jewish cooking!  I don't notice similar books titled Christian, Hindu or Sikh cooking.  (Yes, we see books on Mughlai cooking, but not Islamic cooking.)  What is labeled Jewish cooking is often East European cuisine, except that it may also be kosher.

Possibly, many of these apparently idiosyncratic practices stem from the historically minority status that has marked Jewish existence. 

Sikhs, too, have always been a minority, whether in the land of their birth, or wherever else they have migrated.  My comments that follow relate to Sikhs that are of Indian-Punjabi descent, not the growing number who are not. 

I realize the uneasy position of Sikhs in India following 1984.  Despite that, it is also undeniably true that in India, Sikhs have historically not been marginalized or ghettoized.  Hence, the Indian Sikh answers to questions about his identity with the word "Indian" rather than "Sikh".  And that is where Khushwant Singh's answer that I cited earlier might have come from. 

Yet, I also wonder about it.  India was never one country or even a remotely uniform monolithic culture, except perhaps under the Mughals or when the British colonized it.  It presents an interesting cultural, religious, linguistic and culinary mélange of people that would be best compared to modern Europe.  And European identity still does not transcend or trump national identity of the nations comprising it.

I wonder what would it mean if one answered "Who are you?" with "Sikh" instead of "Indian"? Would it not transcend the obvious limitations of geography, culture, class, caste and creed more easily and effectively?

We often argue that faith defines a person's core.  Would this not mean that for a Sikh, Sikhi should remain central to understanding him or her, though it should not be the only thing that is critical to defining the person?  Such reasoning should not necessarily diminish loyalty to country, family, vocation or avocation.

Since Sikh lifestyle and values define a Sikh, I wonder if, in the hierarchy of identity monitors, my priorities should be Sikh/American or Sikh/Indian, rather than the other way around, as Khushwant Singh articulated.  I wonder if at some subconscious level, such reasoning lies at the core of the answer "Jewish" that most Jews give to the same question.

Could it be that we Sikhs do not answer "Sikh" when asked "Who are you?" because in India everyone knows who we are, and in America, so few do?

I don't really know.  I am afraid my ruminations today started with a cliché and are ending somewhat inconclusively.

 

February 22, 2008

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