Kinship with Strangers: Postmemories of 1984 Anti-Sikh Violence

• In Event: 4367 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 1. Culture and Identity

Abstract

In the growing literature on the intergenerational transmission of traumatic memories among groups such as Jews, Armenians, Koreans and Vietnamese, it’s mainly the children (and in some instances grandchildren) of survivors who are compelled to make sense of their parents’ and direct kin’s experiences, conveyed within families through pregnant silences and incomplete speech. However, in studying intergenerational memories of the state-sponsored 1984 anti-Sikh violence among diasporic Sikhs I found that not only children of 1984 survivors, but also children whose parents did not suffer the violence directly are doing the work of memory. In this paper I analyze the reasons for the formation of more diffuse “postmemories.” Why are second-generation Sikhs with no familial connection with the events of 1984 doing the work of memory? I show that many second-generation Sikhs first found out about 1984 not within their families, but stumbled across the events at Sikh summer camps, other community spaces such as gurdwaras or places of worship and through mass media. Knowledge of the events became a pathway for Sikhs to construct an “imagined community,” based on collective belonging and memories of the faith combined with the ghosts of racial and religious marginalization in the North American context. Second-generation diasporic Sikhs with no familial, consanguineous connection with 1984 who are doing the work of memory are giving meaning to kinship and family in more expansive ways. Sikhs are developing a deep emotional commitment to the faith and the community through memory work, constructing kinship with strangers.

Author

• Shruti Devgan, Bowdoin College