At age 16, Jasprect Singh has been handed a Hobson’s choice: Surrender your heritage or be socially ostracized.
Unless you’ve been a gay teenager growing up in straight society, a foreign one growing up abroad, or any kind of minority in a school where everyone else was alike, you may never understand the sting of this particular kind of ostracism. Jasprect was thrice barred from a dance club dubbed the hottest teenage night spot in town, because of his turban. “Just as much being humiliated,” he told reporter Mary Ann Licking, “as if you were to take all your clothes off in public.
Sikhs are a religious minority in India, distinguishable by their uncut hair and, on men, beards and turbans. They also share the surname Singh. Members of the faith reject idol worship or a caste system; believe in a single god and in the basic equality of all people. That tenet is put into practice through the provision of free meals at Sikh temples, where no one is tered away.
Like other youths growing up different, Jasprect will not doubt face more consequential barriers because of his differentness. In time, if he keeps his turban, he will also develop a thick enough skin to weather them. After a while, if you develop some sense of self, it was almost fun,” recalls Dr. 1.J.Singh, a Sikh doctor and professor at New York University, who is a member of the Sikh Cultural Society. After34years of wearing a turban in the United States, Singh recalls numerous instances of social, cultural and professional ostracism, “It’s much easier when you’re 40,” he says. Those situations are anything but fun when you are 16, proud of your heritage, but anxious to fit in at a time when that carries a high premium. Most adolescent immigrants learn to strike some accommodation between the demands of conformity and the behavior, speech and value systems they brought from home. As if that very personal identity search were not confusing or painful enough, along comes someone in the business of catering to youth who delivers the hardest blow.
Parents can fortify their young with self-esteem and information to combat the youthful ignorance of peers. But public accommodation is not a battle you expect to have to fight at age 16, Larry Smithson, owner of Papa Smithson’s, has said his policy was geared toward keeping out gang members, even though the Sikh custom has been explained to him. No matter, he says. A rule is a rule. In fact, it is not. He has been willing to bend another one sleeveless shirts when it comes to girls. Yet he will also bar from the club an Orthodox Jew wearing a yarmulke. There’s one word for Smithson’s stance: Shameful. Some ethnic youths will tough ‘out such insults, demanding acceptance. Others will cut their hair, shave their beards, remove their head gear and fade from recognition to avoid such indignities. And that, in a multicultural society, is a profound loss. In North America, turbaned Sikhs have been engaged in several court cases over their rights to simply be themselves. One, involving the wearing of turbans by two Sikh officers with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was recently resolved with a ruling in the Sikhs’ favor. Sikh employees have also been in conflict with: the New York Telephone Company and New York’s transit authority over firings and pro. Motions linked to their wearing turbans. In one of those cases, safety considerations were cited, because some of the work was at a construction site. But other jurisdictions have granted hardhat exemptions. Rather than expend the slight extra effort to find an acceptable resolution, the more typical institutional response seems to be blanket refusals. My very personal advice to Jasprect, from one Sikh to another, is to stick to his scruples. And my advice to Smithson’s patrons who believe in equal treatment is to find a better place to spend your money than one which would humiliate a teenager that way.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 18, 1994
