In Canada, for instance, Sikhs have been remarkably successful. There are quite a number of Sikhs in elected office - some of them in quite visible positions. The Premier of British Columbia, for instance, is a Sikh. It's become enough of a phenomenon that the national Canadian magazine MacLean's ran with "Sikh Power!" across the cover of their March 2000 issue. Though many Sikhs were and are ambivalent about the tone of the coverage in MacLean's, no one denies that the "Sikh Power" issue is a significant landmark for Sikhs in Canada and for the evolution of the Canadian political scene in general.

However, though the numbers of Sikhs in the U.S. approximates those of Canada, the situation here could not be more different: there are no Sikh elected officials at either the national or state levels in the U.S., and none currently running for office that we know of.

One Sikh, Dalip Singh Saund, did serve in the U.S. Congress between 1958 and 1962. Saund came to the U.S. in the 1920s, to study mathematics at Berkeley. He decided to settle in California, and though racism prevented him from finding work as a math professor in the American academy, he eventually became a prosperous farmer in central California. By the 1940s, he was actively involved in community politics. Indeed, he may have run for office sooner, but existing anti-immigration laws precluded Asians from citizenship (and therefore, from elected office) until 1949. In Congress, Saund actively worked for Native American rights, and was considered a spokesman on questions relating to India.

Forty years later, with no Sikhs repeating his feat, Saund's election to Congress seems like an anomaly rather than a precedent. In our view, the major reason for the current lack of involvement of Sikhs is the very strong sense that America's ethnic make-up is at heart bipolar - black and white. Other ethnic groups tend to get written out of the national story, and thus seem perpetually out of place when they enter into the public spotlight. Latinos and Asians have begun to make strides, but generally with assimilation into the cultural mainstream as a precondition of acceptance.

A second reason for the lack of participation - and when there have been Sikhs running, for the lack of success - is that Sikhs in the U.S. are widely scattered geographically. Cities such as Vancouver and Toronto have huge Sikh and Punjabi neighborhoods, and therefore constitute a kind of voting block - or at the least a highly visible minority presence - for which there is no parallel in the U.S.

Sikh Americans certainly have an investment in a measured assimilation, but certain aspects of our religious practice make complete assimilation difficult or undesirable. In this way we are somewhat similar to both observant Muslims and orthodox Jews. In particular, the fact that most Sikh men (and some Sikh women) wear turbans marks us continually as different. To put it another way, since the turban is actually a fundamental part of the way Sikhs express their faith in the sacredness of the community ("Khalsa"), the Sikhs wear turbans in order to actively mark themselves as different.

A good many Americans remain ignorant, and therefore unsympathetic, to this aspect of our religious expression. And the situation seems to be changing very slowly. It starts in the schools: Sikhs are not significantly represented in America's basic history or social studies textbooks. Newspaper and magazine editors therefore have to continue to assume, in article after article, that their adult readers will be unfamiliar with communities such as the Sikhs. So it's virtually standard that every story about Sikhs that appears begins with a basic outline of who Sikhs are and where they come from. Unfortunately, even these stories often have incorrect information about Sikhs, identifying them as a "sect," either of Hinduism or Islam!

The picture may look bleak. If a precondition of mainstream acceptance is mainstream awareness, there is a very long way to go. But actually, there are a couple of reasons for Sikhs and other religious minorities to be optimistic about the current situation.

The obvious good news has been the selection of Joseph Liebermann for the Vice-Presidential nomination in the Democratic Party. In the coverage of that event, what has seemed like good news is not simply that he's an observant Orthodox Jew running for a very high position, but that his marked Jewishness has been widely thought of as a character asset, rather than as a liability. In fact, Liebermann's unassailable ethics, strongly linked to his religious commitment, have given the Democrats a slight "values" lead in some polls. Liebermann's religious background serves as a positive, distinguishing mark in public perception. Perhaps this development is the forerunner of an era in American politics when various kinds of differences from a completely 'mainstream' background may become acceptable.

As for Liebermann's attempt to break the secular/religious divide. As anyone who belongs to a religious minority is undoubtedly aware, the U.S. may be a much *more* secular country than many other places in the world, but it is by no means a place where religion is absent from public life. Religion is in fact constantly invoked, whether at Christmas or at Easter. Politicians, especially Republicans, refer to it frequently; the number of stump speeches that end with the chant "God Bless America!" is virtually uncountable. Therefore, the American tradition of 'separation of church and state' has often worked for minority religious communities and been somewhat of a code for 'protection from the imposition of Christianity upon non-Christians'. Secularism is, in other words, largely technical. The fact that members of religious minorities are beginning to develop more of a voice in American public life changes this dynamic in ways that will be difficult to anticipate. While Liebermann's reliance on religious rhetoric certainly complicates many people's ideas of the 'secular', perhaps a good rule of thumb should be that the invocation of religion for non-coercive and non-divisive ends (and this has been Liebermann's approach thus far) is actually a positive development.

Another important issue, undoubtedly, was the matter of Bob Jones University in the Republican Primary. It was heartening to see the religious and racial intolerance represented by that institution so widely criticized. Just as it has become unacceptable for mainstream politicians to espouse anti-Jewish or crudely racist views, the fallout from George W. Bush's Bob Jones speech is that it is longer acceptable for politicians to support, even indirectly, narrowly sectarian viewpoints of a less stark variety.

Finally, the current President has set a very high standard in terms of his active interest in the affairs of religious minorities, and in his ability to engage with people from numerous ethnic and religious backgrounds. His speeches on middle-eastern affairs, for instance, have been particularly marked by their pluri-religious sensitivity. Bill Clinton knows Christianity and Judaism very well, but he also knows Islam, and has taken many opportunities to demonstrate that familiarity. His speeches at the signing of the Oslo declaration and at the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, to name just two very important examples, were profoundly shaped by Quranic as well as Biblical references. Hopefully, future U.S. Presidents will see this new level of pluri-religious sensitivity as a political necessity.

In short, the current election cycle indicates that there are many reasons for Sikhs to hope, even if there is still a long way to go. Singh for President? Well, maybe in 2020. Stay tuned!