Q: How did you and the SMU Sikh Student Association build off of previous successes of the Turban Days?

Suri: We had SMU’s first Turban Day last year in April. The event was very successful, much more successful than we expected. We tied about 90 to 100 turbans that day. We had only 50 turbans, and we were using $20 gift cards as an incentive for people to come wear a Sikh turban.

We were very skeptical about the success of the event, when we started out at 10 a.m., but by 11:30, to our surprise, all the turbans were gone. That really encouraged us, and gave us the notion that this thing could really work. When the students came back, they were happy and excited….they wanted to keep the turban as a souvenir instead of the $20 gift card. They didn’t do it for the gift cards.

It was a very positive and satisfying experience for everyone involved. It motivated us to pursue our vision of making SMU more diverse culturally and in terms of religious tolerance, and we became an official student organization in October of last year.

When I think back, the turban day at SMU really worked because when people saw their friends or classmates wearing a turban, they were automatically intrigued to learn why their friend who has never worn a turban was wearing a turban today out of the blue. So they asked questions from their friend/classmate which led both students to indulge in a constructive dialogue making them more diverse and more of our religion.

Most importantly, the flow of information was without barriers, because of the relationships between students; whether they were friends or in the same class or members of the same organizations. They kept the turbans tied for 4 hours, so they had to go to classes or meetings etc, and it exponentially raised awareness for us. We tied about 100 turbans, and if those 100 people even talk with 5 or 10 friends, that means we were able to reach 500 to a thousand people.

Q: What influenced your decision to expand to other schools?

Suri: From the success of the SMU Sikh Turban day, we realized that our model of having college student wear a turban for 3 to 4 hours and go to classes/meetings really worked. It was received very positively by the SMU students and appreciated very much by the DFW Sikh community.

Hence we wanted to take the event to the next level and make even more people aware of the Sikh religion. So, this year we’re working with all the major universities in DFW: Texas Woman’s University, University of Texas at Arlington, University of North Texas, Texas Christian University and University of Texas at Dallas.

It really worked out for us because all these universities have spring break the week after ours, so this ensures that we can personally go to all of these universities and help in organizing the event at these universities. I guess the biggest motivation for us is again, exponential awareness. This allows us to interact with more college students at more campuses.

We hope as a result of their experience they will have constructive dialogues with the people they interact with that day, which will allow in a more open flow of communication, which will help them become more diverse and aware about the Sikh religion.

But, most importantly, our biggest hope is that it will reinforce for them that you don’t have to judge people by how they look, but by who they are and what their character is. A lot of people get put off by the distinctive appearance of the Sikhs (with the turban and the beard), and they might not try to get to know them because of how they look.

We are really fortunate to have a great team here at SMU; the members of the SSA are really committed to the vision, and have put in a lot of hard work. We are really fortunate to be able to obtain the support of different organizations at five different campuses who agree with our vision and who are helping us to promote this event at their campuses. They have found the model for the event to be really interesting and something that they think would work and benefit their campus in a positive way.

We are very grateful for everyone who has contributed in our pursuit of converting our vision to reality.

Q: What are you hoping to achieve in the Dallas community with Turban Week?

Suri: We are really keeping our fingers crossed, and patiently waiting to see how the event is perceived by students at these five universities. We know that college students are much more open minded and more willing to new experiences.

We hope this is a positive experience for them, they become more aware about Sikhism, and they get something meaningful out of it. This is very important and valuable for us because down the road when these students have their own families, they will be able to teach their kids about value of diversity and pass on their knowledge/experiences.

If they see somebody making a racist remark, they can pass real knowledge on to their children and make them more diversified in the process. Again, it goes back to exponential awareness, the ripple effect by a pebble in a pond, by how one person’s experience will hopefully positively impact others.

Q: What have been your primary challenges in organizing and implementing the previous Turban Days, and what have you learned from them?

Sachar: Primary challenge starts from the moment we decide on the event. The tough part is organizing everything and making sure that people are aware about what we are doing and why we are doing.

Unless the message is sent out the whole purpose of Turban day is not complete. Most important things is to make sure that we send out the right message. We are just trying to make people aware and diverse.

Before the Turban Day we were unsure whether people will show up or not. But with last year’s Turban Day we understood that people here are more than willing to learn and understand about different cultures.  

Q: Why promote awareness of Sikhism?

Sachar: I think it is very important to promote awareness of Sikhism because people don’t know about it. They aren’t aware of the values of the religion and have the wrong perception in their minds because Sikhs wear turbans and Osama Bin Laden wears a turban.

In the United States people you see most often wearing a Turban are members of the Sikh religion. Sikhs wear turbans as symbols and reminders of their core values: discipline, integrity, defense of the innocent, equality of everyone, community service, spirituality and humility.

A Sikh wears a turban because he is proud of being a Sikh and proud of the values that Sikhism represents. Thus, it is important to raise awareness of Sikhism because a fellow American instead of getting afraid of the Sikhs, should feel a sense of security, knowing that every Sikh is honor-bound to protect all those who need their help and to stand against tyranny.

Q: What would you characterize as success for these events?

Hooghan: Success for these events is not necessarily “did we get the most people to stop by the table today,” it is whether or not those people that stopped by the table actually learned something. The goal of our organization is to promote diversity and create awareness, something that is not easily quantifiable. 

Even if we have just one person that comes up to us after the event telling us about how they had never heard about Sikhism before, or how the experience they had of wearing a Sikh turban really impacted them, then we have succeeded.

Q: How difficult has it been to put these events together?

Goomber: It has been wonderful experience being part of SSA. We never faced difficulties. I would rather call it a challenge to put these events together. An exciting one. We just have the end result of spreading awareness about our culture in mind and work ourselves towards it as a team. Difficulties in the form of time deadlines, setting up things and organizing do come across but as a team we tackle them and try our best to achieve our goal.

Q: How many students would you say have been positively affected by previous events and how many more are you hoping will benefit this year?

Goomber: For the Sikh Turban day in April 2008 at SMU, we had about 100 people that had the opportunity to wear a turban and participate in Turban Day. We made videos of those people about their experiences and after listening to their testimonials we were reassured that people were positively impacted by the event. They had the opportunity to walk a mile in a Sikh’s shoes and they got a lot out of it.

We followed the Turban day with a movie in the fall about hate crimes and racial discrimination (Divided We Fall), and we had a really good turnout for that as well, about 90 to 100 people. I say at least 150 to 250 people have been positively impacted by the events that SMU SSA has organized.

Everybody we talked to always had something to say. Some people got weird looks or comments from other people. I would see that as facing racial discrimination on a personal level and these people will hopefully be more sensitive to making racial comments.

I think the time duration of four hours for the turban day and the discussion and facilitation after the movie night at SMU really ensured that people have an opportunity to reflect on these complex issues and get something out of the experience. This year we are giving out seventy $10 gift cards and free T-shirts on a first-come-first-served basis at each school. We are expecting at least 70 to 100 people at each school, so hopefully more than 500 people total for the five campuses.

For every turban we tie over spring break is someone who is [hopefully] going to talk to five or six people, maybe more so we end up with 3,000 or 3,500 people made aware, maybe more.

Q: How are you prepared to handle possible racism during the event?

Suri: The main purpose of our event is to raise awareness of Sikhism and the significance of the turban. I think the best way to handle racism would be to explain the nature of the religion.

In informing the students and faculty we hope to diminish any ignorance. Mainly, we would try to explain that there is a major difference between the Sikhs and Muslim extremists.

Another way to go about the situation would be to try to converse with the other person and find the roots of their prejudice. We would then talk with them and amend the misconceptions they may have.