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A chronicler passes away, will be
forever sung and remembered
WSN Bureau
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It is sad that
Tejinder Singh Sibia passed away months before another one of
his dreams was to be realized, the exhibit on the history and
contributions of Punjabi Americans to California at the Sutter
County Museum |
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SACRAMENTO:
It was the ancient Roman poet Horace who said, “Many
heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept,
extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited
chronicler.” The Sikh Diaspora in the
United States,
particularly in California, will forever remain indebted to Tejinder
Singh Sibia, “Ted Sibia” to his friends, who devoted himself to the
narration of the Punjabi and Sikh immigrant story, chronicled the
life and times, pains and achievements of a community that found a
home away from home.
And while doing a
yeoman’s service, Tejinder Singh Sibia’s was an outstretched hand
for the body of Asian Indian residents in
Northern California.
Many a Punjabi student at the University of California, Davis, found
him a source of help, resources and consolation in tough moments.
Sibia headed a library there, and had grown into a sort of an
institution himself.
Last Thursday, all
our memories of Sibia suddenly got frozen in time, and for ever. Ted
passed away at his home in
Sacramento.
He was 70, and was suffering from leukemia. “He became an unofficial
archivist of the Asian Indian pioneers in California, filling in the
blanks of their little- known history with a collection of rare
historic photographs and documents compiled on a Web site,
www.sikhpioneers. org,” the Sacramento Bee’s Chris Bowman wrote
in his obituary.
The website became
a rich reference material for research on the Indian diaspora,
drawing many for the rich photographs and rare documents that Ted
was able to collect from the forgotten families of the Indian
pioneers in California.
 His early 20th
century photos show turbaned Sikhs working the fields in Yuba and
Sutter counties, building the Western Pacific Railroad near Quincy
and gathered at newly opened temple in Stockton in 1915. It is sad
that Tejinder Singh Sibia passed away months before another one of
his dreams was to be realized. He, along with Dr. Jasbir Kang, a
physician in Yuba City, had designed an exhibit on the history and
contributions of Punjabi Americans to California. This was for a
newly built wing at the
Sutter County Museum
and is set to be thrown open to the public by end 2008.
Born on August 20,
1937, Sibia, who migrated to the US in 1960, was born in the village
of Kila Raipur, the Ludhiana nerve centre of rural sports and a high
profile constituency in
Punjab represented by another NRI businessman Jassi Khangura in
Punjab Assembly.
He harvested
peaches in the Yuba City- Marysville area, saving for college and
earning master’s degrees in horticulture at Kansas State University
and library science at Emporia State University in Kansas. He
headed UCD’s Shield Library research unit for biology and
agriculture until his retirement in 2006. He was a Patron of the
gurdwara where he served as librarian and started the seniors Club.
 He took a great
deal of joy and pride in paying an ambassador of Punjabi culture at
campus forums. One newspaper quoted his library assistant for 12
years, Carrie Rushby, as saying: “He wanted people to know who they
were, what they were about.” He did virtually all his projects at
his own expense.
Onkar S Bindra, a
frequent contributor to the WSN and a renowned scholar, recalled
how Tejinder Singh Sibia helped promote the inclusion of Punjabi
history in California textbooks and the teaching of Punjabi
language, successfully lobbying UCD officials to add it to the
curriculum. Bindra, a UC Berkeley graduate and a former professor of
entomology at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, said he and
many others saw Sibia as a sort of liaison man for non-Punjabis
interested in our community and history.
He is survived by
his wife Manjeet, and daughter Kiran.
12
March 2008
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