A window into Yuba City’s past
The history of the founding of Sikh Temple Gurdwara
Since it opened its doors in 1970, the Sikh Temple Gurdwara of Yuba City on Tierra Buena Road has been a source of pride and controversy for an established segment of the community that has as much of a storied past in the area as nearly any other group.
On March 15, the Yuba City City Council passed a motion naming a new park along Harter Parkway after Didar S. Bains, an area businessman and farmer who has made a profound impact on the city and surrounding counties. In its staff report, the city called Bains “the founder of the Tierra Buena Sikh Temple.”
However, that description, which has since been corrected by the city, is misleading. While Bains certainly was instrumental in the establishment of the temple, he was just one of 26 founding members.
On Oct. 28, 1969, there were 26 individuals who formed a nonprofit corporation named Sikh Temple Gurdwara, Yuba City.
Those founding members included: Bakhtawar Purewal, Udham Purewal, Sohan
Singh, Kartar Khera, Amar
Samra, Didar Bains, Bhagat Thiara, Major Punian, Paritam Poonian, Mehar Singh, Pakhar Bath, Harbhajan Johl, Ganda Heir, Fakir Chima, Sewa Heir, Davinder Bains, Ujagar Cheema, Swaran Takhar, Gulzar Bains, Gurdawar Dhillon, Otam Bains, Malkiat Johl, Rajinder Dhami, Lal Rai, Karnail Takhar, and Rattan Sahota.
Prior to the formation of the nonprofit and the construction of the temple in Yuba City, Sikhs in the region had to travel to Stockton to visit the nearest temple.
“There were only two other Sikh temples at the time,” Rupi Sandhu, daughter of founding member Harbhajan Johl, said. “The first was built in Stockton in 1912, and was the location families were traveling to on Sundays. The second was in El Centro. Over 500 miles away. The need was there. The desire was apparent. It was time to rally the community.”
That desire was put into motion through several years of efforts to collect the thousands of dollars it would take to build a temple in Yuba City.
“There were many years of collecting, where our fathers would all kind of caravan, two or three vehicles, kind of collect in these vehicles and drive house to house to collect money. That started probably 10 years prior to the Sikh temple being built,” Raji Tumber said.
Tumber’s father also was a founding member of the Sikh Temple Gurdwara of Yuba City.
Sandhu said as the area’s Sikh population grew, so did the need for a local temple.
Satinder Davit, a former secretary for the temple in the early 1970s, came to Yuba City as a student in 1949 at 19 years old. He said he attended Yuba College and eventually got an aeronautical engineering degree from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. After graduating and spending some time in Los Angeles, he returned to Yuba City.
Prior to the temple’s construction in Yuba City, Davit said celebrations and meetings used to occur in a barn or at people’s homes.
“There were no temples. We had to go to someone’s house,” Davit said. “If there was not enough room in the house, then we would go in the barn. So, that’s where we were sitting and we were shivering. Some people said, ‘Better to be dead then celebrating days like this here. Why don’t we build a place?’”
Dr. Gulzar Johl, a longtime optometrist in Yuba City who will be 99 this year, came to
Yuba City on Jan. 30, 1948. He said as the years passed, more and more Sikhs and Punjabis started to populate the area.
“We started having more families here, in 1963 especially,” Johl said.
He said because Stockton was so far to travel at that time, the “advanced people in our society said we should build a temple here.”
For the families that lived in the area during that period, coming up with the money needed for the temple became a difficult and long process.
“The community didn’t have money,” Davit said. “They were all poor. They were new people. … It started simply. We were all poor people.”
He said it took a while to collect the money because of the time it would take to go house to house and ask for donations.
“We used to go to homes. Everybody was working, so the only time you could go visit was at evening time,” Davit said.
“In the evening when you go, people make coffee or tea, and you’re asking for money, so you don’t want to push them. So, it would take an hour maybe at one house.”
Sandhu said while it was challenging to collect enough funds, it was still worth the effort.
“For a community growing their farms, and primarily working agriculture jobs while making less than $1.60 an hour, it was daunting. Yet, the Sikh population was beginning to expand and build a life in the Yuba-sutter area,” Sandhu said. “The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act was making it possible for families to reunite and put down roots. The
Sikh community was steadily growing and starting to think about the future. Weddings, prayer ceremonies, and other religious get togethers all required a local place for gathering.”
Johl said another founder of the temple, Ganda Sing Heir of Marysville, said because going door to door was not going to bring in enough money in a timely fashion, Heir decided larger contributions were necessary to get the temple built.
“He did not tell anybody before, but he had $2,000 for him and $2,000 for his grandson saved up,” Johl said. “This is what everybody says what happened, he stood up and he said, ‘Let’s start doing this (collecting more money).’”
In order to be considered a “founding member” of the Yuba City temple, an individual was required to donate at least $1,000 to its creation.
“As expected, it was an immense sacrifice to commit such a large amount while working for minimum wage and trying to establish themselves in a still foreign land,” Sandhu said. “There were ultimately 26 members that became founding members of the temple and provided the initial seed money to begin construction. There were many others that donated what they could. There was one family that generously donated the initial three acres of land where the temple was built. That was the Purewal family.”
Along with construction of the temple, acquiring the land necessary for it also was a priority.
“There were a lot of places they were looking for,” Johl said.
He said the brothers
Bakhtawar Singh Purewal and Udham Singh Purewal, both of Yuba City, donated the initial three acres of the land used for the temple along with money for its construction.
Years later, Didar Bains purchased surrounding land and donated it to the temple, Johl said.
Davit said close to $100,000 was eventually collected and the rest had to be loaned from a bank, which has since been paid off.
After acquiring the needed land and gathering the funds that were necessary, the plan to build the Sikh Temple Gurdwara of Yuba City was formally announced in October 1969, the year of the 500th anniversary of the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak Dev Ji.
According to an article that appeared in the Appealdemocrat on Nov. 22, 1969, the highlight of a celebration in observance of the guru was a groundbreaking ceremony for the new temple in Yuba City.
“As many as 2,000 Sikhs are expected to attend a day-long celebration next Saturday at the Yuba-sutter Fairgrounds in observance of the 500th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the Sikh religion – Guru Nanak,” the
1969 article said. “The Yubasutter area includes the largest concentration – estimated at possibly 4,000 – of Sikhs in the United States. There are about 10,000 members of that religious faith in California.”
After construction was finished, the temple opened its doors in December 1970.
Sandhu said she wanted to share the story about the temple’s founding because of its importance to families not only in the region but around the world.
“Our hope is to educate the community and dispel any myths about the founding of the temple,” Sandhu said. “That’s important to us because we want to make sure that the sacrifice and the hard work of that generation is preserved.”
Why Yuba City?
According to the Nov. 22, 1969, Appeal-democrat article about the celebrations and temple groundbreaking, there were “two waves of Sikh immigration in California: the first, composed of farmers and college students, in the early 20th century, and the second, mainly of professional men, during the past decade.”
Punjab, a state in northern India, was the birthplace of Sikhism in the 15th century. During the start of the 20th century, some in Punjab began
to migrate to the United States.
“It kind of goes back to the early 1900s where there were very few Sikh men that had come to the United States. My grandfather’s brother was one of them,” Sandhu said. “They had come to the Bellingham area in Washington where they were driven out of there because of racism. So they followed the railroad and made their way here. When they got here, they noticed that the weather and growing conditions were very similar to Punjab. So they kind of settled here and started working. The thing about Sikhs is that they were very good with the land. They knew how to grow farms.”
Of the first five people that came to Yuba City, Johl’s father was one of them. He said his father came in 1906. After working on the railroads and because of farming opportunities, he, along with other Punjabis, settled in the region.
“It started here in 1906,” Johl said. “People started coming and people knew back home, they knew if they wanted work to come to Yuba City.”
Tumber said she had an uncle that left Punjab and went to Panama in 1924 before crossing the border and settling in Yuba City. She said a big reason some from Punjab eventually settled in the area was because of the climate and soil.
“Five rivers run through Punjab, making it the most fertile in-country state,” Tumber said. “So when the first few came over (to Canada), word gets back to Punjab, ‘Hey, we hear this.’ And so there were some that came and landed in the Panama area and from there knew they needed to head up to the Sacramento valley. The valley being fertile-rich just like Punjab.”
As a result of all these factors, Yuba City now “has one of the highest concentrations, if not the highest concentration, of Punjabi people living in it,” Sandhu said.
Because the Sikh population experienced and still experiences acts of racism from some in the area, having a central meeting place in the city for Sikhs was considered essential for an ethnic group that has often been marginalized
or harassed by others for being different, Sandhu and Tumber said.
“My sister and I were the only Punjabis at our elementary school growing up, so it meant a lot to see (other Punjabis),” Tumber said.
After the first temple was built in Yuba City, the need for more temples grew.
“We have now I think four temples in the area with our Tierra Buena temple being probably the most recognized,” Sandhu said. “There’s another one on Bogue Road, that one was built in 1980, I believe.
And then the other two are on a smaller level. But the Tierra Buena Sikh temple is the focal point, I think, for the community here.”
Sandhu and Tumber said the Sikh Temple Gurdwara of Yuba City on Tierra Buena Road is “revered” worldwide.
“You can go to India and you can talk to somebody and say, ‘Oh, I’m from Yuba City.’ ‘Oh, the Sikh temple over there on Tierra Buena Road.’ They’ll know,” Sandhu said.
Johl said the temple holds a special place in the hearts of the
Sikh and Punjab population.
“The temple means a lot. It’s a pride,” he said.
Tumber also shared a story about being at an airport in Chicago and encountering a “Punjabi guy” who asked if she was Punjabi.
After she said she was from Yuba City, Tumber said his response was, “Yuba City, the Sikh temple there is famous.”
While visitors can more or less go to the temple at any time, Sandhu said there are specific dates that are important to the Sikh faith, such as the birth of gurus.
“There’s weddings that happen,” Sandhu said. “There are three-day prayers that occur, usually families sponsor those. Also, a monthly celebration. So we celebrate the beginning of the month, which it usually is in the middle of the month for Sikhs.”
She said one of the unique aspects of the faith is that the temple is open to all people.
“It’s not just you have to be Sikh to come to the temple. You can be anybody and come, pray with us, have a meal with us,” Sandhu said.