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Heritage |
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Asian - American Heritage - Punjabis in Canada, a chronology.
1897 - First Sikhs, Canada The first Sikhs who visited Canada were the soldiers of the British
Army (the Sikh Lancers and Infantry). They passed through Canada (
traveling by train from Montreal to Vancouver) on their way back to India,
after participating in the Diamond Jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria
in London, England, in 1897. On their way back from Canada to India, they
met other British Army Sikh soldiers in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore
and told them about the opportunities in Canada, before going back to
Punjab, India. A monument
has been erected to their honor at the Gurdwara Sahib, at 8000 Ross Street
Vancouver B.C. 1899 - Sikhs Allowed to Land in San Francisco The four Sikhs who arrived on the Nippon Maru the other day were
permitted yesterday to land by the immigration officials. The quartet
formed the most picturesque group that has been seen on the Pacific Mall
dock for many a day. One of them, Bakkshlled [sic] Singh, speaks English
with fluency, the others just a little. They are all fine-looking men,
Bakkshlled Singh in particular being a marvel of physical beauty. He
stands 6 feet 2 inches and is built in proportion. His companions-Bood
[sic] Singh, Variam [sic] Singh and Sohava Singh-are not quite so big. All
of them have been soldiers and policemen in China. They were in the Royal
Artillery, and the tall one with the unpronounceable name was a police
sergeant in Hong Kong prior to coming to this country. They hope to make
their fortunes here and return to their homes in the Lahore district,
which they left some twenty years ago. 1904 - Guru Granth Sahib Ji Bhai Arjan Singh of village
Malak, Dist. Ludhiana (Punjab) was the
first Sikh to bring the GURU GRANTH SAHIB JI (the holy scripture of the
Sikhs) to Vancouver. And then the Sikhs started to congregate regularly
for worship, using their houses for this purpose. Dhana Singh Poonian came to California in 1906. He eventually settled in Loomis, California, where he established the Poonian Nursery in 1911. In 1923 Poonian returned to India to marry Raj Kaur, his brother's widow. He brought her and her two sons back to California. Raj Kaur Poonian's son Paritem married Janie Diwan, the daughter of a successful Arizona farmer, Diwan Singh. Diwan Singh immigrated to America in 1906 and by the 1940s, farmed large tracts of farm land in Arizona. "Arizona has many large cotton farms. But many of the farmers started
on a small scale. Diwan Singh was one of the more colorful pioneers. Born
in India, he immigrated to America in 1906. Singh was a common laborer
when he drifted into Casa Grande in 1924. He wanted to farm but was
penniless. The only land he could get had hard, alkali soil. But with a
horse and a mule he plowed 80 acres and planted cotton. Singh did well. In
1932 he was able to buy the first Caterpillar tractor in the Casa Grande
area. By the 1940s he was farming 9,000 acres of land." In 1906, the first Sikh
organization in Canada, Khalsa Diwan Society was established.
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