Paramjit Singh

Paramjit Singh echoes a familiar regret: he admits with sadness that he hasn’t spoken much about his 1984 experiences during the past thirty years.

At the time, he was a student and factory worker in Cleveland, Ohio, where his small community of fellow Sikhs was hit hard by the news of the attacks, told to them by their gurdwara Bhai Sahib. Religious discrimination and marginalization would shadow Singh throughout the next decade. During regular trips to his ancestral homeland, he was religiously profiled and subjected to lengthy interrogations in secluded areas of Indian airports.

Like so many others, he tells us that recording his story for the Living History Project has inspired him to talk to his children about 1984. The next generation must be given its history, he says, the same way his generation was brought up on stories of the great Shaheeds.