Trudi: [00:00:47] Today we’re going to have a conversation with Deepeaka Dhaliwal, a recent alumna of the Heritage Conservation program, and we’re talking about kind of a different place than we have been in the last couple of episodes — looking at a rural community in Northern California with a pretty unique story.
Willa: [00:01:04] Trudi, what I appreciate so much about this interview is that it’s about one of our many immigrant communities that have established themselves here in the state of California. This one is a group of immigrants from the state of Punjab in India. They’ve been here for decades and they’re farmers. They grow many of the crops that we like to eat in an area not too far from Sacramento. And, what’s great about it is that they bring their traditions, their culture, their language, their knowledge, their celebrations, here to California, and they create kind of a new community that is very much rooted in their country of India, but also adapted to California.
Trudi:[00:01:57] And I think that story of these ethnic enclaves all around the state is particularly resonant with the Asian communities. So California’s Asian history is really impressive and deep and rich, and this is one more facet of that Asian legacy here. It’s been a particularly difficult year for Asian communities all around the United States because there’s been so much anti-Asian sentiment stirred up. And, in particular, in the wake of the shootings in Atlanta recently, it’s all the more important for us to be celebrating the amazing contributions that these communities and people have made all around the United States and continue to make. And so, we are really excited to focus on this South Asian community.
[00:02:51] We also are excited to have an opportunity to talk about South Asian historic sites because there really has not been a lot of conversation about the South Asian community in the historic record, it’s been kind of invisible so far, which is one of the things that Deepeaka talked about in her thesis and we’ll talk about today in the interview. I don’t want to give too much away but we’ve got our work cut out for us. There’s lots of work to do in this area.
[00:03:15] One of the other important things that we talked about in the course of the interview, is this issue of integrity, and in heritage conservation that means kind of a specific thing. We use term integrity to talk about various aspects of a place and whether or not it still has the capacity to relate to the history that that place represents. And so, we use a set of seven criteria that’s defined by the National Park Service and includes things like materials, association, setting, feeling and there’s a whole set of criteria that we actually have to apply to determine if something meets the criteria, the threshold for being a landmark. They privilege architectural landmarks, and often, landmarks for communities like Yuba City and other small ethnic enclaves are that a lot of the buildings are vernacular. They’re not fancy, they’re not architectural landmarks, they’re community landmarks and community landmarks, and those issues of integrity are not as important. So, we’re talking a lot about that today in the interview. So, I just wanted to mention that from the get-go.
Willa: [00:04:37] And I want to urge our listeners to go on to our website, saveas.place, and look at the show notes for this episode. There’s lots of great photos and there’s a lot of great information that will give you perspective about the interview you’re about to hear. And, with that said, here’s Trudi’s interview with Deepeaka.
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Trudi: [00:05:42 Hello, Deepeaka, and welcome to Save As -can you tell me the name of your thesis?
Deepeaka: [00:05:09] My thesis’ name is Yuba-Sutter, a Case Study for Heritage Conservation in South Asian Communities. And the title pretty much sums it up. I chose to pursue a topic that broadly looked at South Asian-Americans and what conservation has been done on them and I chose a small town called Yuba City as my case study.
Trudi: [00:05:32] So why did you pick this area to focus your research on?
Deepeaka: [00:05:37] I am South Asian Punjabi myself for, for those who don’t know Punjab is a state in Northern India. And my parents are both Punjabi immigrated from there. And my mom’s family actually settled in Yuba City in the 1970s and worked in the orchards themselves. So I have a lot of family there. And I spent a lot of my childhood there and a lot of weekends there. And so it’s, it’s always been a second home for me. So I was familiar with the area and the demographic and knew there was a history there and a story there that I could research. I think it’s general knowledge, I guess for the South Asian community or even for the Punjabi community, that there is a significant number of Punjabi immigrants that have settled there, but no one’s really researched how or why. And how that’s further tied into the built environment.
Trudi: [00:06:20] Why is it called Yuba Sutter? What’s the difference between Yuba City and Yuba Sutter?
Deepeaka: [00:06:30] So Yuba Sutter, at least in my research and in my thesis, was a broad term for Yuba City, Live Oak, and Marysville. Those three cities are really kind of the core of Yuba County and Sutter County and where the South Asian, and particularly Punjabi population has settled.
Trudi: [00:06 :48] Tell us a little bit about the Yuba Sutter area. What’s it like?
Deepeaka: [00:06:55] Yuba Sutter is just about 40 miles North of Sacramento. So in the Northern California [00:02:00] region, it is very rural, very agricultural, not a very dense place. It’s really comprised of mostly agricultural land – farms, orchards, canneries , factories that are dedicated to the agriculture economy.
That’s really the backbone of that area and how it developed. There are several suburban neighborhoods in the area as well, a couple shopping areas, some religious institutions, but the most of it is primarily agricultural land.
Trudi: [00:07:34] And what kinds of things do they grow there?
Deepeaka: [00:07:37] Mostly peaches. Peaches is what they’ve been known for. Cherries almonds is also a big, big thing there. But since Yuba City developed, peaches has always been kind of its thing and what it’s become known for.
Trudi: [00:07:50] It’s claim to fame. So there was a series of waves of Punjabi immigration to the United States that was [00:03:00] tied to what was going on in India in the earlier part of the 20th century.
Deepeaka: [00:08:09] So, India had been under British colonial rule. And in 1947, India achieved its independence from the British. But it was really a double-edged sword. They became independent, but Punjab also was divided into Pakistan to the East and Punjab to the West. And it was based on religious circumstances. India at the time, justified it as those that were Muslim, primarily living in what is now Pakistan, They would have kind of their own area there while Hindus and Sikhs living in Punjab would have their own area.
[00:08:45] But it really resulted in a lot of people becoming displaced. A lot of people lost everything they had. A lot of people have been separated from their family. Up until today, there’s a lot of trauma and a lot of good that didn’t come from it. But how it tied into my thesis is because a lot of people became displaced, you know, they really felt like they didn’t have a home anymore. They sought to move to the U S and population had developed in Yuba City by that time, it wasn’t a lot, but there were people there that they knew who were Punjabi and there was agricultural work, which was the main driving factor because Punjab is primarily agricultural itself, it’s, it’s mostly farmers.
Trudi: [00:09:24] And also orchards and similar kind of climate and practices. Right?
Deepeaka: [00:09:29] Right at a very, a similar landscape. There’s a lot of poetry and stuff that’s been written about how it’s, it’s very nostalgic and reminiscent of Punjab itself. It’s been called a mini Punjab by some locals as well.
Trudi: [00:09:41] They found a place that felt like home. Who are some of the pioneers of that place?
Deepeaka: [00:09:28] So the most important would have to be Tuly Singh Johl. He is the first known Punjabi individual to settle in Yuba City, and that was as early as 1907. He had come down from Bellingham, Washington, where he was working at a lumber mill, and there was a lot of tensions with white laborers that led to the Bellingham riots. And so a group of him and a couple other Punjabi men traveled down to Northern California where they knew it would be work and settled in Yuba City, working in the orchards and the farms. So Tuly Singh Johl is definitely the most important kind of pre 1950s .
Trudi: [00:10:23] Was it hard for Punjabi folks to buy land in Yuba City?
Deepeaka: [00:10:29 ] Yes. A lot of the immigration legislation affected that. The Alien Land Law of 1913 became applicable to Punjabis after a very controversial court case called United States versus Bhagat Singh Thind in 1923. Mr. Thind had served in the U S Army and had applied for citizenship and he was denied. It went all the way up to the Supreme Court and it really set a foundation of South Asians were not eligible for citizenship.
[00:11:01] But it also made this Alien Land Law applicable to them. So unfortunately, some of those early Punjabi immigrants that had been starting to own land in the 1920s and thirties had that revoked. And a lot of the newspaper research I did showed there were a lot of court cases filed against Punjabi immigrants and primarily white laborers saying that, you know, they shouldn’t have this land.
Trudi: [00:11:23] Lots of early discrimination happening at that point… and so when does that change?
Deepeaka: [00:11:28] We start to see it change in 1947 with the Luce-Cellar bill. More South Asians could come, but it was under a quota, but it didn’t dramatically change until the Hart-Cellar bill of 1965 where more families could come together. And those that maybe had higher professional jobs or educational backgrounds could come to Yuba City. So that’s when he really, when you start to see a dramatic increase of Punjabis in the Yuba City area. I think by 1975, there are about 4,000 Punjabis in the Yuba City area as a result of that bill.
Trudi: [00:12:01] Right. So there was a population there pre independence and then post-independence, that population grows significantly. It wasn’t just immigrant single men coming to work in the fields, but became families that were coming and settling and putting down roots in a different way than it had been before the 1950s.
Deepeaka: [00:12:26] And post 1950s, Mehar Singh Tumber; his family was really one of the first nuclear Punjabi families where, you know, his wife was there, his kids were there, kind of all settled together and they were really instrumental in developing the Gurdwara or Sikh Temple; the Nagar Kirtan, which is an important religious procession, but kind of really became representative of more nuclear families settling in Yuba City after the 1950s.
Trudi: [00:12:51] So the community develops and in your thesis, you talked about some of the places that arose out of this community and, and where you focused your research. Let’s talk a little bit about a few of those. One of them was a cultural landscape and that was the Eager Orchards.
Deepeaka: [00:13:11] Yes, the Eager Orchards was definitely the most significant pr- 1950s resource that I encountered. It’s really linked to Tuly Singh Johl. It was the first farm that I found in my research that employed Punjabi men, including Tuly Singh Johl and it still exists today, part of it. Punjabi men were able to work there, a lot of them lived in labor camps. So it was a really important kind of cultural vernacular landscape that I looked at before 1950.
Trudi: [00:13:45] So he came to Yuba City, he worked in this orchard, he worked his way up and eventually he bought it?
Deepeaka: [00::52] His family ended up owning about, I want to say five or six acres of what is today Eager Orchards. This was a particularly difficult resource to research and a lot of my information that I gathered was from his son, his youngest son Gulzar Singh Johl. And he talked about how his dad started off working there worked his way up to a foreman and he, and Tuly actually went back to India at one point. And came back and again, worked at Eager Orchards and he ended up building up kind of his own wealth and being able to buy a home for his family, reunite them there. And then they own agricultural land now like many prominent Punjabi families in Yuba City, and part of that is what used to be Eager Orchards.
Trudi: [00:14:45 ] Beyond the orchard, what was the next most important site that you looked at?
Deepeaka: [00:14:50] The second would have to be the Yuba City Gurdwara or Sikh temple. And that really is representative of that post 1965 community. The Sikh temple was opened in 1969. And it was really established because the closest one was in Stockton 90 miles away. And that one dates back to all the way to 1912, but as more Punjabi families were settling in Yuba City, it just became too far to travel. And they had kind of accumulated enough wealth and resources in their own community to come together and start planning for this temple. And so in 1969, that opened and I guess for those who don’t know, our Gurdwara is a Sikh temple, but it’s also really a community resource and a space for the public as well.
[0015:38] There’s a food hall called the Langar Hall where anyone from the community is able to come eat for free. And there are a lot of community events that happen there, social networking, religious events. And so the Gurdwara itself has expanded and been added to over the years, as well as, as the community grew.
Trudi: [00:16:00] Does it look today the way it did when it was built in 1969?
Deepeaka: [00:16:04] Largely it does. There have been a couple of halls that have been added a couple of, of support spaces. Again, as the community keeps growing you know, the building adapts to the needs of the community. With all the resources that I looked at, you know, they really don’t stay the same over time. And design itself was not really a big concern when they were planning the temple,
Trudi: [00:16:28] It was more about the functionality of the space and not about the design so much.
Deepeaka: [00:16:32] Right. The design was really an afterthought. You know whatever applied ornamentation they could put on, but it was really, you know, making sure they had enough space for the events and religious traditions they wanted to be able to have the whole community participate in.
Trudi: [00:16:49] The temple itself, describe a little bit about where it is.
Deepeaka: [00:16:54] So it’s on Tierra Buena Road and it’s nestled among large expansive orchards. It’s really in this kind of rural, agricultural backdrop. There’s maybe a couple houses down the road, but it’s really the center piece of that road. And, it’s quite large.
Trudi: [00:17:10] So you’re driving along (doo-dee-doo) through the countryside and suddenly boop! Sikh temple… One of the things you talked about in your thesis was an intangible cultural heritage tradition, which was this procession.
Deepeaka: [00:17:25] The Nagar Kirtan, or as you said, it’s essentially a religious procession. And if I haven’t mentioned this already, the most of the Punjabi immigrants that settled were of the Sikh faith, not all of them, but most of them, and this is a procession that’s connected to that religion. It can be held to commemorate any important religious event in the Sikh religion and, and the Yuba City Nigar Kirtan and is held every November and has occurred since 1979. And it’s really a religious procession. So it’s a parade in a sense with floats and there’s kirthan happening. So priests are singing or chanting religious hymns from their religious book.
[00:18:11] Sounds from the Nigar Kirtan in Yuba City (2018)
[00:18:41] And it’s really at the nexus of intangible and tangible heritage, because it starts in front of the Sikh temple. That’s really its anchor. And that’s kind of the base for this weekend long event where you have a kind of makeshift market set up in the parking lot where food is being served, clothes are being sold. But then you have this procession that travels, you know, for several miles as well. So it’s really kind of blurring the line between intangible and tangible heritage.
Trudi: [00:19:08] Has the procession always gone the exact same path since it started?
Deepeaka: [00:19:14] No, it has changed slightly from the research that I did. And that’s mostly been in response to how big it’s gotten. It has over 100,00 attendees, which is big for a small town like Yuba City, and people come from all over Canada, India, all over the United States and it’s really become kind of a homecoming and kind of what Yuba City’s Punjabi community has become known for. But it’s changed to kind of accommodate how many people are attending, but also not, you know, disrupt traffic. And there’s a lot of coordination that has to go in in terms of coordinating with the city to allow this event to happen every year.
[00:19:50]I’ve gone to several since I was young and I attended one in 2017 when I was doing my research. And you see people of all ages and backgrounds attending this event. I think it brings the whole Yuba City community together and all demographics that live within that community.
Trudi: [00:20:09] You talked also about one of the local markets.
Deepeaka: [00:20:13] What was interesting to me about the Punjab Bazaar was that it opened in 1964. And it grew so much that they had to move to a new location in 1995 that was bigger. It’s really kind of become the go-to ethnic grocery store in Yuba City.
It’s really a great resource in the community for those that have recently immigrated or those that have settled in, and it allows them to buy things that are kind of reminiscent of their life back in India, whether that’s food or clothing or everyday items.
Trudi: [00:20:49] So familiar spices, even familiar brands, right? Imported straight from India.
Deepeaka: [00:20:55] And even the flour that they have the, they make it specially themselves. That was an interesting thing to learn that they really have kind of a high quality, flour and different varieties that people come for. And the other interesting thing about it was the woman who owns it today. It’s been in her family since it opened. Her father operated it, and now she owns it. So again, really speaking to that 1950s kind of more settled Punjabi population that occurred in Yuba City. They were able to kind of branch into commerce as well.
Trudi: [00:21:31] It’s tricky when you’re talking about conservation and sites that are significant, not necessarily because of the building they’re in, but because of the tradition or the cultural significance of that place. We’re talking a lot about that in heritage conservation right now.
Deepeaka: [00:21:48] Traditional, historic preservation is so focused on design and integrity. And I don’t know if I could say that these four buildings would fit those criteria neatly, so it becomes difficult.
Trudi: [00:22:02] Well and they’re not even buildings. I mean, some of them are, one’s a parade and one’s an orchard. And so, it really stretches the traditional boundaries a bit. What were some of the conservation ideas that you had for sites in Yuba City?
Deepeaka: [00:22:2- For the Nagar Kirtan and Eager Orchards, I feel like a digital approach. A walking tour, a driving tour is probably the best place to start to at least kind of document what’s there and tell the story and help people recognize this history took place at this site, or this procession is happening every year and it’s kind of evolving over time.
So, I think certainly documenting the Nagar Kirtan every year, the visual aspects, the audio aspects. And I, again, I think the UC Davis Pioneering Punjabi digital archive is doing a great job of that. But perhaps there could be a stronger local effort to digitize and archive the procession each year. Perhaps a more comprehensive cultural landscape report could be done of the Eager Orchards to kind of tell the story and, and look at how that site has evolved over time. So I think certainly documenting the Nagar Kirtan every year, the visual aspects, the audio aspects, and again, I think the UC Davis Pioneering Punjabi archive is doing a great job of that, but perhaps there could be a stronger local effort to digitize and archive the procession each year. Perhaps a more comprehensive cultural landscape report could be done of the Eager Orchards to kind of tell the story and look at how that site has evolved over time
Trudi: [00:23:43] The different land use and the orchards as they evolved and the buildings on the site, really looking at the place as a whole district.
Deepeaka: [00:23:22] Yes. The market is tough. Because again, it changed locations in 1995. It is a legacy business, I think just kind of documenting how that site has changed, what kind of items they’re selling, interviewing the owners. I think those are all great ways to at least kind of start the effort.
Trudi: [00:23:44] I think maybe an oral history of the family since they’ve been involved in the business for such a long time would really be a helpful resource going forward.
Deepeaka: [00:23:55] I think that would be the best place to start because they’ve been involved in the business since 1964 and have also been long time residents of Yuba City.
Trudi: [00:24:04] So they know many of the families and they really are connected to the community in a way that’s deep and significant. The conservation of historic religious sites is tricky in the United States in particular where there are boundaries that are not easily crossed when it comes to designating historic religious resources. What about some thoughts about the Gurdwara.
Deepeaka: [00:24:33] Yeah, I think the Gurdwara my first thought is the California Register. But again, it’s a question of, is it significant for its cultural association rather than its design. I personally think that it’s really the cultural and social significance. But others may argue that the design could play a role, but I think it’s also a matter of kind of asking the community itself, because again, they’ve added to it so much over the years and I think they will continue to and I don’t know if designation is something that they would want. What kind of restrictions would that place on their community?
Trudi: [00:25:09] And whether or not they could make change because change is definitely part of the plan. So how could you build that in to a designation?
Deepeaka: [00:25:18] There’s so much new technology these days, maybe a 3D laser scan could be done of it. You know, as they kind of go through these phases of adding to it. And so it’s just documented how it’s evolved, or maybe it’s more of an oral history of, of those that were involved in kind of starting the temple and are board members and, and are really involved into day to day of operating the temple.
Trudi: [00:25:39] Again, creating that record of this community in this place, rather than saving the building itself, it’s maybe more about the stories and the personal histories of the people who have been involved. Is there a landmark ordinance in Yuba City?
Deepeaka: [00:26:00] Not in Yuba City, but there is in Marysville. So there is no local historic preservation ordinance that would allow these sites to be designated at this point at the local level, at least.
Trudi: [00:26:12] At the local level, for sure. How about in general South Asian sites, are there lots of landmarks that are linked to the South Asian community?
Deepeaka: [00:26:23] Very few. The most prominent would have to be the Stockton Sikh temple dating from 1912. That is on the California Register. It has been identified as eligible for National Historic Landmark status, but there’s nothing on the National Register at this point. The Fresno Sikh temple was just recently designated as a local landmark. I think we’re definitely seeing the beginnings of at least acknowledging that this community was there and it dates back to 1899, at least in California. There is the National Historic Landmarks theme study for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which included some pieces on South Asians. And there’s also the multiple property documentation form for API in California, which also included South Asians. So we at least have a framework to work off of now. But there’s a lot of work to be done.
Trudi: [00:27:13] Because the framework exists, but the actual designation hasn’t really happened, right?
Deepeaka: [00:27:18] I think it’s really difficult for those that are interested in and maybe wanting to pursue that. Because again, there’s not a lot of written records. A lot of it would rely on oral histories and interviews. And again, that question of integrity.
Trudi: [00:27:33] I think this conversation about integrity is one that we’re going to continue to have more and more often, particularly as we are trying to designate sites that are underrepresented in many ways, including in the written record, in the historical record.
Deepeaka: [00:27:49] I will say that UC Davis Pioneering Punjabi digital archive is a great resource. And they’re really doing that work to take whatever photos, interviews, written records we do have primarily from these families that can be digitized for people to use, to research or just educate themselves. And then also the South Asian American digital archive looking at South Asians more broadly in both the US and Canada is also digitizing the records that we have for future use.
Trudi: [00:28:18] So there is stuff being gathered that we can use. And it’s just getting to it and finding those things I think, and continuing to collect too, I think. Right? I think there’s still that have not yet brought their items to be included in this archive and things like that that needs to happen.
Deepeaka: [00:28:39] I think families that are coming now or came recently in the 70s or 80s certainly should try to keep those historic photographs, keep those newspaper articles or written records that they have. I think it’ll be really useful later since we’re starting to see kind of, at least the recognition that South Asians were here and their story needs to be told.
Trudi: [00:29:02 ] What were some of the things that surprised you in your research?
Deepeaka: [00:29:06] The number one thing was definitely how difficult the research was. I really didn’t have much to rely on and there is not a full record of this community’s presence in Yuba City. The census records are incomplete. Newspaper records are incomplete. So I really had to rely a lot on oral histories and interviews with descendants of these kind of pioneer families. So, that made it really difficult to kind of get the research started. And I think another thing that surprised me as well was just functionality over aesthetics and all four of these sites, they’re constantly evolving to meet community needs. Design is really an afterthought and it just seemed like it went so against what we learn about integrity. And so it was difficult to kind of figure out how to make a case to conserve these sites within the traditional framework of preservation.
Trudi: [00:30:03] We have the tools, we just don’t use them in the way that maybe works best for sites like this. We have the ability to conserve and to landmark and to identify sites of cultural significance, but then we hold them to the same standard that we do architectural sites. And that makes it super challenging. Because, as you say, design, wasn’t the primary issue here.
Deepeaka: [00:30:26] Right. And, also just the community pushback in terms of designation. I think, especially the Sikh temple, for example, I think they will continue to try to expand as the years go on. And there really isn’t this urgency to try to preserve what’s there. So it becomes a question of what are we preserving and how do we do it best for that community. I currently work for the Department of City Planning for the City of Los Angeles. I staff a few historic districts around the LA area. So it is not directly related to my thesis, but I think in the past year we as preservation professionals in the public sector had a chance to kind of pause and think about how we approach preservation, how it’s operating at the local level and really question if we’re being equitable and telling the full story. So I’m hopeful that, in the coming years or whenever we’re, we are able to put those mechanisms into place that we’ll see more sites associated with not just South Asians, but other underrepresented communities at the local level.
Trudi: [00:31:28] I think that’s something we’re all looking forward to.
