GROUP IDENTITY IN AN EMIGRANT WORKER COMMUNITY: The Example of Sikhs in early Twentieth-Century British Columbia

Johnston investigates the multiple identities of Sikh workers employed in the expanding resource-based economy of British Columbia before 1914. These workers went through a process of identity definition and redefinition common to many immigrants, even though their particular case had specific historical and local contexts. In British Columbia they naturally associated among themselves according to kinship, caste, and village affiliation, but their circumstances encouraged them to broaden their sense of who they were.