Gurleen Bhathal: The Importance of Family

Quality time with her entire family has always been a large part of  senior Gurleen Bhathal’s life.

“We spend a lot of time together—not just my immediate family, but my extended family and my extended-family’s family,” Bhathal said. “I feel like that’s just the biggest thing, staying hyper-connected with everyone and everyone else’s family.”

 Bhathal agrees that there has been a form of separation because of the required physical isolation and travel restrictions.

 “Most of my family is in America at this point, so most people have come over,” Bhathal said. “We would normally go to California, but we haven’t really gotten the chance to see everyone recently.”

Bhathal was born in California. However, both her parents immigrated from Punjab, India. Thus, she has a stronger connection with the state of Punjab rather than India as a whole.

“I’ve been very lucky that my parents have always kept us involved in our culture by their friends,” Bhathal said. “I have family close by, and I live with my grandparents.” 

Bhathal  also has a relationship with her culture through language.

“I live with my grandparents,”she said, “and they don’t speak English. So I’ve always had that deep connection to my language. I’ve been able to keep some roots with my language. I’m not the most fluent or something, but you know, I’m most definitely conversational. And I would call myself bilingual.”

Fashion is something Bhathal enjoys taking part in as well.

“I’m really into cultural fashion,” Bhathal said. “It’s fun for me. It’s always been something that I’ve enjoyed and I’ve been curious about.” 

Religiously, Bhathal follows the faith of the Sikh religion—a belief not many know about, despite it being the fifth largest religion in the world. Sikh teachings helped shape Bhathal into who she is today.

“From my culture and my community, something I’ve always valued is keeping close connections with people who matter. Understanding that there’s more to life than just yourself, that idea of being selfless. Focusing on maintaining good habits, doing service, just selflessness and all, it’s all been ingrained in my religon,” Bhathal said. 

Bhathal ’s grandfather wears a religious garment called a turban, an item which can cause a lot of backlash in today’s atmosphere.

“Post 9/11, Sikh Americans, especially those who were outwardly Sikh American definitely faced a lot of violence,” Bhathal said.

 On April 15,  a shooting in Indianopolis at a FedEx facility demonstrated the hate and discrimination Sikh Americans face directly. The shooter killed eight Americans, four of them Sihk. 

“They say it might have not been racially targeted,” Bhathal said. “But the demographic of who was working there, and the guy was a white supremacist.”

Bhathal’s reality is far different from what others in her community may know. 

 “It’s interesting, being Sikh American in a town where there are no other Sikh Americans because of course I know, but I have to remember others don’t.”

 Bhathal is still in disbelief that Asian hate crimes continue to happen in the United States. 

“I don’t know that I have the answer for where we can go from here, but I do know it’s incredibly disheartening to see it just keep happening and keep happening, and just people are not learning. It’s so hard. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that people still feel this way in 2021,” Bhathal said. “Like, wow, ‘you guys still don’t get it?’ I don’t know where we go from here. It’s just incredibly sad, and it’s hard to witness.”

Bhathal emphasizes that people need to actively use empathy in their everyday lives. She said noticing the injustice that happens to minorities every day is something that is no longer dismissable.

“I think it’s to a point where if you haven’t realized it yet, I don’t know when you’re going to,” she said.

Bhathal also said she understands that she’s far from knowing it all, but she hopes to keep trying her best to learn about different people.

“It’s interesting to see how people can keep changing and growing as time goes on,” Bhathal said. “It’s always learning.”

Everything Bhathal values she said has been embedded in her by not only her immediate family, but everyone in her family tree.

“And I know that what I have to do is just spread everything that I have in my work to fulfill. I want to use that to be the best person I can be and keep passing that on,” Bhathal said. “I’m part of this huge work of Asian Americans, you know? I want to keep passing that on, keep using it to be the best I can be.”