TOI correspondent from Washington: The Trump administration’s homeland security image targeting the generic “Mr Singh” has struck a particularly sensitive nerve in the Sikh community, whose members have become a highly visible presence in American trucking, business, and indeed in public life. However, the post was later deleted.There are no federal statistics identifying truck drivers by religion, but the North American Punjabi Trucking Association (NAPTA) estimates that Sikhs account for roughly 20% of US truck drivers and about 40% on the West Coast, putting the number of Sikh truckers nationally at about 150,000.The community’s influence extends beyond driving. Many early drivers became owner-operators and eventually fleet owners. NAPTA says its membership includes about 1,400 companies operating more than 9,000 trucks, while industry estimates have put the share of US trucking companies controlled by Punjabi/Sikh operators as high as 20%. The figures are estimates, not government census data, but underscore the scale of the community’s entrepreneurial network.Also read: ‘Get off our roads, Mr Singh,’ US homeland security poster ignites backlash over targeting of SikhsTrucking offered many immigrants a relatively accessible path from employee to business owner: a driver could accumulate capital, buy a truck and eventually build a fleet. The industry also generally accommodated Sikh articles of faith, including turbans and uncut hair. Established Punjabi networks, family businesses and a shortage of American truck drivers helped fuel the community’s expansion.Its presence is visible along the nation’s freight corridors. At Exit 360 on Interstate 80 in Nebraska, for example, the Akal Travel Center, or dhaba, has become a familiar marker of the Punjabi-American trucking ecosystem.The history of Sikhs in America also complicates any portrayal of “Singh” as synonymous with a foreign newcomer. UC Davis’ Punjabi and Sikh Diaspora Digital Archive records four Sikh men arriving in San Francisco on April 6, 1899, in the first documented record of South Asian pioneers in California. Early Punjabi migrants worked in agriculture, lumber and railroads and quickly established communities across the West.They also encountered hostility. In 1907, white residents attacked South Asian workers, mainly Sikhs, in Bellingham, Washington, amid broader anti-Asian agitation. UC Davis records several such attacks and notes that most of the early South Asian pioneers were Sikhs, some of whom predated the arrival of Europeans on the east coast.For Sikh-Americans whose families have been in the country for generations, the DHS image therefore raises concerns that a surname is being used as shorthand for an entire community, blurring distinctions among citizens, permanent residents, legal immigrants and people in the country unlawfully.Ranjeev Singh Puri, a Michigan Democrat, said Wednesday that the post had particularly personal resonance. “As a proud Sikh-American, my middle name is Singh. So are my sons’. It is not a punchline, it is a surname carried proudly by millions of Sikhs worldwide, generations of whom have served this nation, built businesses, and strengthened the fabric of our democracy,” Puri said, calling the DHS post “xenophobia dressed up as public policy.”The controversy also puts a spotlight on prominent Sikh Republicans. Harmeet Dhillon, who serves as Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and former US ambassador to the United Nations, had not publicly commented on the matter at the time of writing.Sikh-American political and civic visibility extends well beyond trucking. In 2004, Chirinjeev Kathuria became the first Indian-American to run for the US Senate while wearing a turban. Other prominent Sikh-Americans include World Bank President Ajay Banga and former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, neither of whom carries the Singh surname.For Sikh community veterans, debates over immigration enforcement, commercial driver’s licenses, English proficiency, licensing fraud and highway safety are legitimate. But they say the argument changes when a federal agency turns a surname shared by millions of people into a symbol of incompetence. For a community that has spent more than a century establishing itself on American roads, farms, businesses and institutions, that distinction matters.
