In my dissertation I compared the Sikh experience in Finland and California. While working on my dissertation I was often asked why I chose this particular subject. It's a long story, but it all began when I spent nine months in India as part of my studies in ethnology. I was working as a volunteer teacher and wanted to improve my Hindi. A couple of years later I was casting about for a dissertation topic and all I knew was I was interested in both India and migration issues. After talking it over with my advisor, professor Laura Stark from the University of Jyväskylä, I settled on a comparative study of Sikhs living in Finland and California.

My primary goal was to discover how Sikhs negotiate their place and position their identities in two different cultural contexts. What kind of roles do Sikh immigrants seek and what do they receive? How do their families fit in to the societies to which they have moved? In my research I found that Sikhs in California more easily feel part of their new homeland than Sikhs in Finland. The grand narrative of the United States as a nation of immigrants makes it easier for them to claim their own place in society.

My dissertation was the first study on Sikhs in Finland, and it uncovered some interesting facts: the first Sikhs moved to Finland around the year 1980. Today there are about 700 Sikhs in Finland, with their own temple or gurdwara in Helsinki. As I note in another of my articles, the gurdwara is not only important as a centre of worship, but also as an important space for parents to transmit the Sikh cultural heritage to their Finnish-born children. The homes of Sikh families are another such space. In an article due out in 2016, I argue that the home is a vital “cosmos of senses” that is crucial in the socialisation process of young Sikhs growing up in Finland.

Many male Sikhs work in restaurants or bars. The future will show how the careers of their children will turn out. Since most of them are fluent in Finnish, Punjabi, and English alike, it could be assumed that the world is wide open for them. For a more extensive introduction to the subject of Sikh immigrants in Finland and California, please feel free to see my publications listed below.

• Hirvi, Laura: Identities in Practice – A Trans-Atlantic Ethnography of Sikh Immigrants in Finland and in California. SKS 2013.
   
• Hirvi, Laura (2010) ‘The Sikh Gurdwara in Finland: Negotiating, Maintaining and Transmitting Immigrants’ Identities’, South Asian Diaspora, 2(2), pp. 291-32.