Simreet Sandhu

Indebted: The Untold Story of Sikhs in Ontario (1960-1999) - The Book

Indebted, the book, was designed to educate everybody about significant incidents experienced by Ontarian Sikhs — which holistically affect the entire province. This book follows a chronological timeline format, allowing everybody — whether you are a Sikh, a minority, an immigrant or somebody seeking to learn about Sikhs in Ontario - to understand our stories, regardless of how much prior knowledge you have.Viewing statistics, historical documents, news and photo archives, and conducting a series of recorded interviews and conversations allowed the compilation of the rich stories in this book.Preserving the stories of Ontarian Sikhs will ensure that future generations can also learn about our ancestors - whose hard work we are indebted to — and how hard they worked to settle in a province that we will forever be grateful for.Of the 1600+ articles examined while researching for this project, approximately 150 are discussed in this edition of the book. This is only the beginning of a longer journey to preserve and document the stories and legacies of Sikhs in Ontario.

“Indebted highlights the successes, challenges and overall process of how Sikhs in Ontario settled between the mass immigration years of 1960 and 1999.As a child of an immigrant who worked extremely hard to earn a living, I was able to learn about the hardships and successes immigrants went through in the process of migrating from a country that oppresses minorities, to a country that — at the time — alienated minorities.Unfortunately, not everybody gets the opportunity to learn about these stories, which results in issues such as misrepresentation, racism and ungratefulness. To tackle this concern and shed light on the stories of diligent immigrants, I pursued the topic of Ontario’s Sikh history as my thesis topic in my Graphic Design capstone course at OCADU.”