It becomes the third state in the nation — after Delaware and Indiana — to do so.
Following announcements by Delaware and Indiana, the State of New Jersey on Thursday announced that it will mark April as “Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month.”
According to an official statement, the decision to announce April as “Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month” was unanimously taken by the New Jersey House of Representatives and the state Senate.
The resolution says, “The month of April of every year is designated as ‘Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month’ in the State of New Jersey in order to promote public awareness of the Sikh faith, recognise the important contributions of the Sikh community, and combat anti-Sikh bigotry.”
It also states that the by announcing April as Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month, New Jersey wants to acknowledge the lasting contributions of the Sikh people and the essential role they play in New Jersey’s diverse community.
Last week, Indiana and Delaware passed resolutions to celebrate April as Sikh Heritage month and Sikh Awareness month, respectively.
New Jersey has a high concentration of South Asian Americans, including Sikh American community.
According to various reports, attacks on Sikh Americans have increased manifold after 9/11. Most of these attacks were carried out by people who mistake Sikhs for Muslims. Sikhs become easy targets of hate crimes as they wear turbans, which is one of the five important articles in Sikhism, referred to as kesh; which essentially means to keep hair uncut and to cover it with a turban.
The announcements by the three states are seen as a move to counter misconceptions about Sikhs and the Sikh religion in the United States.
New Jersey, with 12 gurudwaras, has the largest number of Sikh worshiping places in the United States.
New Jersey is also home to first-ever Sikh American attorney general and mayor.
Both Gurbir Singh Grewal, the first-ever Sikh American General Attorney in the nation, and Ravinder Bhalla, Mayor of Hoboken, were elected last year.
Pritpal Singh, the coordinator of American Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee, said: “The New Jersey state assembly resolved that the state was enriched by the diversity of its residents and there was a cultivated climate of social tolerance and intellectualism and Sikh community, which originated in Punjab, India, immigrated into the U.S. 100 years ago and played an important role in developing of the country.”
According to a Pew Research analysis, there are 500,000 Sikh Americans in the country. Sikhism is the fifth largest religion in the country.
1 Comment
This is great information …. I am sneding it around to all my Sikh American friends in the USA …