By Srishti Prabha
California’s 2020 census identifies Punjabi as the 10th largest linguistic group in California, and the third most spoken language in Sutter County, near Sacramento. And the Sikh temple of West Sacramento estimates 40,000 Punjabi Sikhs live in the Sacramento Valley.
Yet, Mandeep Singh, Sacramento regional director of the Jakara Movement, says the community remains underrepresented and unacknowledged.
“Punjabi Sikhs have been here for over 100 years — they helped build California and the United States,” he says. “Yet, many of our students don’t know their own history.”
Singh is working to make space for a community rooted in the region’s history of agricultural labor since the late 1800s through the Jakara Movement, an organization dedicated to organizing and empowering Punjabi Sikhs and other underserved communities in Sacramento and California’s Central Valley. We spoke with Singh about the organization’s youth-led programs, ongoing community initiatives and the role of cultural identity in addressing systemic inequities in Sacramento.
What is Jakara Movement? Who do you work with and what’s your focus?
Our main focus — both currently and in the past — has been youth. We work in high schools, colleges, and put on conferences.
Since COVID, we’ve had the opportunity to step up and fill in the cracks where local, state or federal governments haven’t been able to support local communities. These include areas like health disparities, food insecurity and rental assistance programs.
Over the last four or five years, we’ve shifted into more direct service work. But at its core, our organization has always followed an organizing model focused on empowering Punjabi Sikh youth in California’s Central Valley.
What are some specific programs your organization is running in Sacramento?
The Sikh Honors and Service Society are high school clubs that we run weekly. We have about 14 in Sacramento and 75 throughout California. We give them a framework and support, but they decide what to focus on — whether it’s highway cleanups, school programs, food drives, canvassing, feeding the homeless [communities] in downtown Sacramento or bowling socials.
We have our college programs through the Sikh Collegiate Federation. Our UC Davis chapter helps lead 10-11 other Punjabi Sikh clubs. They focus on post-college life, harassment prevention and Title IX awareness.
We’ve done things around post-college life. About a year and a half ago, we ran an 8-month internship tied to a community health needs assessment at an apartment complex in South Sacramento — it’s 70% Punjabi and low-income. We hired Punjabi Sikh [youth] that spoke Punjabi, that knew the community, that went into those apartments on a daily basis and sat with them. They broke bread with them. They spoke with them about their lives. There were families there that needed help with their kids’ school work.There were other families that needed help getting out of bankruptcy. [Jakara Movement] acted as a conduit to broader Sacramento resources.
Can you share what challenges are unique to Punjabi Sikh youth in Sacramento, and why it’s important to have an organization like the Jakara Movement available to them?
One of the issues is a lack of representation on their campuses. There’s not much in history books about Sikhs or Punjabis, and often there’s misinformation. We ran a campaign to get the new [statewide] ethnic studies curriculum approved a couple of years back and wanted our community included in that process. But, we faced strong opposition from groups that didn’t want [that history] taught in schools.
There’s also a growing population of recent immigrants in the past six or seven years and under the new administration, many are facing horrific challenges. Even if not directly affected, youth feel the impact through family and community members.
Getting a sense of community — of who they are and where they belong — is something our programs provide. Having an organization for our community, that is for them, where the lens is through their eyes, they can help shape their own future. Through local work like graduation picnics, we’ve seen all generations — kids, parents, grandparents — participate. It gives them a voice, a sense of agency.
Have there been hate crimes or bias incidents targeting your community?
It’s not just post 9/11. It’s not like life was great for Punjabi Sikhs before that. It’s a continuation of the discrimination that folks have been dealing with — being called “Hindu invaders” in the 1920s and not being allowed to own land [in the U.S. until 1946]. In 2020, there was a new gurdwara that opened in Orangevale and the night before [it opened] somebody spray-painted “white pride” on the entrance. So it’s still very much in your face.
What are some misconceptions or stereotypes about the Punjabi Sikh community that your organization works to combat?
Erasure of identity is one. We get grouped in as Asian Americans where these are completely different cultures, completely different languages, completely different histories and multiple communities fleeing violence from different parts of the world. We’re told, ‘We don’t have time to talk about each and every one of you.’
A harmful stereotype about the Punjabi Sikh community is the “model minority” myth. We do have people that struggle. We do have people that are getting by day to day. We do have many people in our community struggling to make a rent. Those folks often get left behind in these conversations.
The harmful association with being Indian America is that for folks at the state level, all Punjabi Sikhs must speak Hindi [not Punjabi]. So, then people get census forms or other crucial information in Hindi, which doesn’t make sense.
Do you feel Sacramento lacks diverse job opportunities? If so, what are the barriers?
Most definitely.
Public transportation is a huge limiting factor. People without a car or strong English language skills can’t get around easily. Our community works retail, farms, factories and trucking. Some even drive to Stockton or the Bay. It’s a tough question, but it needs to be discussed.
We’ve been part of conversations with Sacramento’s [transit organizations] along with Hmong, African American and other communities.
Are Punjabi Sikh voices being included in DEI conversations in Sacramento?
Generally, these conversations are box-checking exercises. They happen at inconvenient times and locations for working-class folks. We haven’t seen the community prioritized. It’s often people with access — those who represent business interests — who are brought to the table.
At Jakara Movement, we make space for ourselves. We’re part of Sacramento Kids First Coalition, a group of 30-plus organizations that worked on a youth funding campaign. That was a seven or eight-year process. We weren’t invited in — we had to knock on doors repeatedly to make space.
Can you give an example of how your model has made a material impact?
The internship I mentioned in the South Sacramento apartment complex, one elder man in a wheelchair asked us how to access assisted suicide. He was that hopeless. By the end of the program, he had completely turned around. He found connection, community and joy. He would always ask when the interns were coming back. That project cost peanuts compared to California’s budget but made a real difference.
We’ve also helped new immigrants create resumes, apply for jobs, fill out Medi-Cal forms and connect with lawyers. During COVID, we helped distribute grants to houses of worship and undocumented immigrants.
What’s on the horizon?
There’s Nishaan, our statewide high school conference, and Laalkaar, a collegiate conference.
We have camps like Bhujangi for high school boys and Bhujangan for girls, where they learn life skills and Sikh-Punjabi history. We’ve also started 3-on-3 basketball tournaments as part of our health initiatives.
We’re planning summer workshops on fitness and preventive health, resume building and job applications — especially for non-English speakers. We’re working with organizations like Hmong Innovating Politics and Youth Forward to build broader community capacity.
This Q&A has been edited for length, clarity and flow.
This story is part of the Solving Sacramento journalism collaborative. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Hmong Daily News, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review and Sacramento Observer. Support stories like these here, and sign up for our monthly newsletter.
Be the first to comment on "Jakara Movement’s Mandeep Singh on building community power for Punjabi Sikhs in Sacramento"