The Model Minority Trap: Sikhs Can't Assimilate Our Way Out of Hate
"I do not have a simple answer to the hate and violence Sikhs face. But I am exhausted by having to explain our history and humanity to people determined to hate us."
Parneet Virk
June 30, 2026 | 5 min. read | Opinion
I’m a second-generation Sikh-Canadian. My parents spent decades believing that if they lived as honest, hardworking people, they would fit into Canadian society and earn the respect of other Canadians. As they kept facing ostracization and could never shake the immigrant label, they shifted that hope onto the next generation, onto the idea that their kids, if not them, would finally live as unapologetic Canadians who wouldn’t have to justify their presence here.
That hope has yet to be fulfilled.
Every generation has had to fight for its place. This is my Canadian experience, but it is also the experience of Sikhs across the diaspora. We are marking 50 years since Gurdip Chaggar was murdered by racists in Southall, and the conversations now happening in the UK around Sikhs and the Kirpan make me question how much progress we have really made.
The recent WSO report on Anti-Sikh Hate shows 65% of Sikh Canadians report being verbally harassed, and 80% feel hate toward Sikhs has risen over the past five years. Amandeep Singh of Basics of Sikhi says he knows of at least 15 people accosted on the street by racist groups questioning them about carrying the Kirpan, following the murder of Henry Nowak and the sentencing of Vikrum Digwa. We have seen riots in the UK with shocking violence. This month, riots in Belfast led to the homes of immigrants being burned down.
As informed Sikhs, we know much of Anti-Sikh Hate is driven by the Indian state and by far-right hate campaigns designed to exploit a moment of economic uncertainty. And it is the most vulnerable among us who face the brunt of it.
In April, an elderly Sikh man was harassed by a racist in Woodstock, Ontario, berated for his visible identity. In May, an elderly Sikh man was hospitalized after being attacked by a group of racist youths in the West Midlands. We cannot forget the Sikh woman raped and assaulted in the West Midlands by a man who targeted her believing she was Muslim.
These incidents share a pattern: young, radicalized white men attacking the most vulnerable members of our community (and no one demands that the white community issue a collective statement in response). There is a faction of Canadian and British society that will always prioritize whiteness and the familiar over any appreciation of the diversity in the world.
This forces a conversation our community needs to have. We have to give up trying to prove we are the ideal “model minority,” whether in the UK or Canada.
Some Sikhs work to position themselves as the “good” immigrants, claiming to be more worthy than others because of their longevity here or their willingness to assimilate, and would rather see the blame pushed onto newer immigrants. We also cannot throw other communities under the bus because we deem them less integrated, or because distancing ourselves feels safer when others are hit harder.
The hard truth is that simply being a visible Sikh in a dastaar is what gets Sikhs attacked.
It does not matter whether you are second or third generation, or how hard you try to fit in. If racists get the opportunity, they will turn on you. We saw this in the UK after the Digwa incident. There were vocal Sikh supporters of the racist Reform Party, yet when the moment came, those same racists felt emboldened to attack vulnerable Sikhs and terrorize Sikh communities.
There is a fallacy in justifying an existence that should never need justifying.
We point out that we helped build Canada and the UK, or that we fought for the Allies in the Second World War. But our detractors do not know our history (or do not care). They treat us as a homogenous entity that must explain itself whenever one individual does something terrible. Why should gurdwaras across the UK have to issue statements because one man committed a crime? Being the “model minority” does nothing for our identity.
Racists in the UK now feel entitled to come after the right of Sikhs to carry the Kirpan, a fundamental part of our identity. Sikhs in the UK have spent weeks trying to distance themselves from the incident and prove themselves to these racists, but collective apologies only let racists lump us under one viewpoint. Digwa does not represent us, and attempting to normalize relations with those who hate us will never work. We badly overestimate how much effort racists put into understanding our religion or our way of life.
The Kirpan is the central symbol of a core Sikh value: fighting for justice and helping those in need. That is precisely what Reform is now attacking. Sikhs who were content to watch Reform go after other communities, like British Pakistanis, should recognize how quickly that switch gets flipped. Reform MP Robert Jenrick rushed to announce the party would seek to ban the public carrying of the Kirpan, a weapon Digwa did not even use. The racists love us only as long as we serve as their lapdogs against other groups.
We do not need these assimilationist stances. For the sake of our history, we must understand that seeking white validation is a dead end. We should seek solidarity with everyone facing the same hate, whether Black or Muslim. As a global religious minority, isolating ourselves makes no sense when so many other groups stand in the same position. We are simply the flavour of the day. And beyond protection, solidarity is itself a Sikh obligation. We are called to fight all injustice, and we cannot stand by as innocent people are hurt.
I do not have a simple answer to the hate and violence Sikhs face. But I am exhausted by having to explain our history and humanity to people determined to hate us. The hatred has become too extreme for us to keep reasoning with those who threaten our communities. We need stronger protections and greater unity across our differences. We cannot sacrifice parts of our own community or waste our energy justifying our existence.
Sikhi calls us to resist oppression. Our history teaches us not to be diminished by racism. Those who hate us may never understand the strength of Sikhi or the sacred significance of the Kirpan, but we must continue to stand together and defend what generations before us built.
Parneet Virk holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Asian Studies from the University of British Columbia and a Master of Arts in Social and Public Policy from the University of Leeds. Her academic work, including her graduate dissertation, has focused on the Punjabi Sikh diaspora and its social and political dynamics.
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