100th Anniversary of a Punjab Pioneer

May 21st, 2006 by admin

When Beverly Sangha was growing up in east Vancouver in the ’70s, her dad kept a bowl beside her on the dining table. “I would have to put in five cents from my allowance for every word of English spoken at dinner,” the 41-year-old says fondly. “My father was quite firm that I learn Punjabi.”

After a few weeks with little pocket money, she got the message loud and clear.

Her dad, the late Norman Nagar Singh Sangha, was determined his children and grandchildren would become productive Canadian citizens, but not forget their cultural and linguistic roots.

It was a message drilled into him by his father, Braim Singh Sangha, an early Sikh pioneer who made the daring decision to leave his native Punjab in May 1906 to find work on the other side of the world — in B.C.’s forest industry.

The 100th anniversary of Braim Singh’s arrival in Vancouver is being commemorated this month by 119 descendants as well as hundreds of other relatives and friends who will gather in Fraserview Hall May 28.

It was Norm’s widow Satwant Kaur who was the force behind the unique and historic family event.

Two years ago, she was volunteering at the Ross Street Sikh temple election when one of her relatives was told she didn’t have the right identification to vote.

“I said ‘Listen — my father-in-law came here 100 years ago and worked for five cents an hour and you are saying she can’t vote,’ ” Satwant recalled.

Her nephew overheard her: “Really auntie? We’ve been here for 100 years?”

“Really,” she replied.

It was then and there that she thought she needed to organize the event to pay tribute to her late husband’s family and to let younger Indo-Canadians understand the immense struggles and achievements of the pioneer Sikh community in Canada.

“Many of the young people don’t know the history,” Satwant said in a recent interview, surrounded by Braim’s grandchildren and an amazing collection of historic family photos.

Braim Singh was just 25 when his ship docked in Vancouver a century ago. At the time, there were just a handful of Indian immigrants settled here. They were all men, as they were denied the right to bring wives and children from India, which was one of the first racist policies he and the others would fight.

At first, Braim found work on farms for a nickel an hour, sleeping on the barn floor at night.

Later, he toiled in mills, doing the back-breaking manual labour that became a familiar trade for the strong Punjabi immigrants. His slight wage increase allowed him to share a bunkhouse with others.

He got involved in the new Khalsa Diwan Society founded by Sikh immigrants like himself and Dalip Singh, who arrived from Punjab in 1907.

“Back then everyone worked for the community,” recalled Jack Uppal, Dalip’s son and a Vancouver mill owner who grew up with the Sangha family.

From the start, the pioneers would pool their money to help each other out.

That was demonstrated in a big way in 1914 when 376 would-be immigrants, most of them Sikhs, arrived in Vancouver Harbour aboard the Komagata Maru.

The pioneers supported the idea of hiring the Japanese vessel to travel directly from India to get around a racist law that would only allow ships travelling from India to land in Canada. At the time there were no direct routes, making it impossible for would-be immigrants from South Asia.

Canadian officials were not amused. When the ship arrived, the passengers were forced to stay aboard it as their supporters on land lobbied on their behalf.

Braim Singh and other pioneers aided with food, water and supplies. And they raised cash for a legal challenge of the government’s decision.

“Braim Singh contributed $7,000 at one meeting towards the legal defence of these people when he was earning just a dollar a day,” said Dave Sangha, who is married to Beverly, the pioneer’s granddaughter.

The Komagata Maru was forced to return to Calcutta with everyone aboard. A number of passengers were leaders of the Ghadr movement for Indian independence and were shot at by British soldiers as they disembarked. Several were killed.

After the Komagata Maru tragedy, Braim Singh decided to return to India, where he expected to reunite with a wife and young child he had left years earlier. He was devastated to find they had died in a flu epidemic.

He married a young woman named Joginder Kaur and the first of their seven children — Nagar Singh, or Norm, and Dalip Kaur, or Deepo — were born.

It would be 11 years before Braim Singh could get permission to return to Canada with his young family.

At first they settled in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, where son Tom was born in 1925. Then the Sanghas joined the other young Indo-Canadian families in Vancouver.

Braim and Joginder built themselves a small house on the corner of East 21st and Penticton, which the family still owns today. Their other four sons and several of their grandchildren were born in the two-bedroom bungalow that hosted decades of parties and celebrations.

Norm was one of the first Indian immigrant kids to go to school in Canada, attending Lord Beaconsfield elementary kitty-corner to his parents’ house.

Decades later, he would recall the painful teasing of the white children, who tried to strangle him with the long cloth that he used for his turban.

His dad eventually cut Norm’s hair, though the family patriarch maintained a turban until the day he died in 1973.

Jack Uppal lived two blocks away at Nanaimo and 23rd. As a boy, he and Braim’s second son Tom were “two peas in a pod.”

Uppal remembers some of the kids at school throwing chestnuts to knock his turban off.

But generally, he, his brother Sadu and the Sangha boys were accepted, he said.

“We were so close that the other kids wouldn’t dare touch us. We stuck together,” Uppal said.

Braim Singh delivered firewood by horse and cart and his wife had chickens and cows on their 33-by-122-foot lot. She sold surplus milk and eggs to the neighbours.

“Braim Singh and my dad, they both had wood trucks. They were going and peddling wood. People started to get to know them,” Uppal said,

Their ingenuity allowed them to ride out the Depression when many other Sikh immigrants were forced to return to India out of economic necessity.

“The Sangha family and the Uppal family and a few others were able to survive the dirty thirties,” Uppal said.

In the ’40s, their hard work paid off — economically and politically.

The Sangha family opened Best Lumber on Kingsway, building up a successful business that gave employment breaks to many new immigrants.

Norm and Tom Sangha were both active in the movement for franchisement.

Uppal recalls attending a May Day parade with Tom when both were still teens. They marched to Brockton Point with union leaders wearing banners proclaiming: “We want the right to vote.”

Norm financed his own way to Ottawa five times as part of delegations to lobby the Canadian government for the vote and the ability to sponsor more family members from India.

“He was always working for the community,” his widow Satwant said.

Finally in 1947, their persistence paid off and Indo-Canadians were granted voting and citizenship rights 50 years after the first Punjabis had arrived in B.C.

Attorney-General Wally Oppal remembers visiting the Sangha family home with his parents as a child of four or five.

“The Sangha family, they were very well-known,” said Oppal, who will attend the celebration this month. “The pioneers they helped each other. We were always taught to say hello to someone who was an East Indian person who we met on the street.”

Oppal knows he could never have had his stellar career without the struggles for citizenship and voting rights.

“They faced overt racism and institutional racism,” Oppal said. “I could never have gone into the law. My mother could not become a citizen until 1947.”

Braim’s children all returned to India to get married, bringing their spouses to their adopted country.

In the 1950s, Norm Sangha was part of a growing movement of Indo-Canadians lobbying so they could sponsor relatives to join them in Canada.

Despite all the political activism, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren remember best their rich personal history, particularly the times they shared in the little house on East 21st.

They warmly recall their grandparents — affectionately called Babba and Mamma — in their unique fusion of eastern and western dress

Kim Sangha and her cousin Geevan Koonar — reminisce about huge family gatherings in the backyard.

“I don’t know how we fit all those people into that yard. It looks smaller now. We played baseball for hours,” said 46-year-old Kim.

All the children were raised together, running to and from their own houses in the neighbourhood around their grandfather’s bungalow. Their uncles indulged the clan, renting go-karts for the 30 or so cousins or picking up barbecued pork in Chinatown to share around a common table. When the annual PNE parade was held, they would drive their flat-deck trucks alongside the route, parking them so all the kids could have the best seats for viewing.

The grandchildren all attended Sunday school, as it was the Canadian thing to do. But they were also taught about Sikh culture and went to the Second Avenue temple until it closed and then Vancouver’s Ross Street temple, which the Sanghas helped build.

“Our uncles, they were all really close,” said Geevan, who is now 49. “That backyard — those were the best memories of our life. I am feeling very happy, proud and emotional to be holding this celebration.”

She wants to ensure that her children — the fourth generation — maintain that bond with the extended family.

“My children and nieces and nephews were really close and hopefully that continues on.”

Already there are two new members of the fifth Sangha generation — twin girls born a year ago.

MLAs and MPs are expected at the invitation-only celebration of the family’s 100 years in Canada.

Geevan said the only sadness about the event is that just one of Braim’s children — daughter Deepo — is living. All the brothers have passed away in recent years. Tom, the second son, died just recently after a long illness.

“That is really hard,” she said.

Beverly Sangha said she didn’t always appreciate how hard it was for her father and uncles, given the ease with which her childhood passed.

“It was more during my teen years when Dad started telling stories about what school was like for them,” Beverly recalled.

She thinks there should be more Sikh pioneer history in B.C. schools. She got none as she went through Norquay elementary and Gladstone secondary.

“We learned all of our history from our parents,” she said.

She is determined to pass it on to her two young sons.

The history is so rich and so important that the third and fourth generation of Sangha’s don’t want it to be lost.

Another of Braim’s daughters-in-law, Balwinder, said organizing the centennial celebration has taught all of them more about the amazing family story.

“Even our kids didn’t know the history,” she said. “Designer clothes and designer shoes were not important for us then. Family was important. All their hard work made it easier for us.”

Twenty-two-year-old Kalvin Saran is Norm and Satwant Sangha’s nephew.

He is impressed by what he has learned about the Sangha family history and the struggles of all the pioneers.

“Honestly, I think they had to work so hard for us to progress,” he said. “The youth have totally lost touch to the point that you can’t go out anymore downtown to clubs because there are rowdies everywhere.”

He thinks greater awareness among young people might stem some of the current social problems.

“When the pioneers came here, they all worked together,” Saran said. “Today the youth all work against each other.”

kbolan@png.canwest.com

Source: Vancouver Sun (canada.com)
By: Kim Bolan
Note: This is a very positive and rare article by Kim Bolan, who historically has maligned and misrepresented the Sikhs with the intention of defamation of the Sikh community’s character in Canada. The Sikh youth of BC feel very pleased to read the Vancouver Sun’s first positive article - in years - reflecting on BC Sikh heritage.

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