CHICAGO, IL: More than 1800 people attended the Asian American Coalition of Chicago’s 10th anniversary Lunar New Year Celebration at Hyatt Regency O’Hare, Chicago where Sardar Amarjit Singh was given the distinguished Community Service Award. : Amarjit Singh received the award from U.S. Senator Pau! Simon who attended the meeting along with U.S.Senator Carol Moseley Brown, and Illinois Governor Jim Edgar.

Several members of the Asian diplomatic corps and many other elected local dignitaries were present on the occasion, Also more than 100 people from Sikh American Community of Chicago attended.

This is the fourth year in a row that a Sikh has been a recipient of the Assam Community Service Award in Illinois.

For the last five years, Amarjit Singh has been an inspirational leader in the Asian Indian Community in the Chicago area by raising and contributing funds to homeless shelters. Amarjit Singh and his wife Dr.Paramject Kaur Singh, M.D. team up together to participate in the Interfaith Group to promote better understanding among the multicultural population of this country in pursuit of harmony and world peace, Mr.& Mrs. Singh will be Sikh participant at the upcoming World Religion Conference in Chicago. Amarjit Singh was born and raised in Burma. He lived in India for a few years and in Nepal before coming to the United States in 1975. He is operating his own insurance agency. He is a member and board member of several organizations in the Indian, Burmese and Nepalese communities including Sikh Religious Society of Chicago and T.O.U.C.H. (The Organization for Universal Communal Harmony).

Lunar New Year is traditionally the single largest organized event in Chicago’s Asian American community, which numbers more than 300,000. Every year a different community takes turn playing host, and this year the host organization was the Korean American Associations of Chicago. The Filipino American community will serve as host for the next year’s celebration. The U.S. Representative Jay C. Kim of California, the first congressman of Korean American descent, gave the keynote address along the event’s theme line “A Decade of Progress: Making Our Voices Heard.” In his speech, the Congressman encouraged Asians to participate in the mainstream politics without getting too apprehensive of their accent. The congressman, who has an accent like thousands of first generation Asians, urged his fellow Americans to. Concentrate on their work and stop worrying about how other people think about their verbalization.

The evening was emeeed by Sian Lee a news anchor woman from the 24hour cable news station in Washington D.C. A colorful Asian American dress show, a comedy act by Henry Cho and cultural music Punjabi Folk song (sung by Balbir Kaur) and dance (a group of Punjabi dancers provided the gestures to the lyrics of the song: along with the dance steps to the beat of the music) were highlights of the evening.

Article extracted from this publication >>  March 12, 1993