Sikhs Celebrate 533rd anniversary of the birth of Nanak Dev Ji

November 20, 2002

Source: Newsday

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/ny-nyclos203010815nov20,0,272596.story?coll=ny%2Dnews%2Dprint

On November 20, 2002 Newsday reported that "today is the 533rd anniversary of the birth of Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of the Sikh religion, and it is being marked with a week of events that began Saturday in Richmond Hill and elsewhere in the metropolitan area. It's the second time in two years that Sikhs from the tristate area gathered in this community to pay homage to their guru. This past Saturday, several thousand men and women, wearing their bright turbans or head scarves, paraded through a steady rain in Richmond Hill to the sounds of congregants praying and bells chiming. In the 1970s, Sikhs trickled into the United States for educational opportunities in medicine, science and engineering. The reason for emigrating changed in 1984, when the Indian government responded to a Sikh separatist movement with a deadly, weeklong siege of the Sikh holy site, the Golden Temple, in Punjab, spawning a new wave of Sikh emigration to the United States. While the largest Sikh communities in this country are in California, Richmond Hill is now home to the largest one on the East Coast."