1867 – California and other states passed miscegenation laws that disallowed inter-racial marriages. The laws played on white fears of the amalgamation of black and white races.

1886 – U.S. Alien Land Law barred Asians from owning land.

1886 – Anti-Chinese riot in Seattle resulted in near complete expulsion of Chinese from the city.

1886 – Washington territorial legislature passed Alien Land Law, which barred non-citizens from owning land.

1889 – Washington territory achieved statehood.

1890 – The first wave of Sikh immigrants to North America began. The immigrants, mostly male laborers, worked in sawmills, built railroads and established farms. In Canada, most settled in British Columbia. In the United States, most settled in California, Oregon and Washington.

1897 – Sikh Lancers and Infantry in the Hong Kong Regiment visited Vancouver, British Columbia, after celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in London.

1906 – Khalsa Diwan Society established in Vancouver, British Columbia. Sikhs rented a house in Vancouver for the Gurdwara. Construction on a new Gurdwara began the following year.

1907 – Asiatic Exclusion League organized in Vancouver, British Columbia.

1907 – The “Anti-Hindu Riot,” in Bellingham, Washington ended with the expulsion of 300 Sikhs from the town.

1907 – Anti-Asian race riots, including Sikhs, occurred in Vancouver, British Columbia.

1908 – The Canadian government attempted to stop immigration from India by passing a “Continuous Voyage Order” requiring prospective immigrants to travel to Canada in an uninterrupted journey, which was not possible since ocean steamers could not travel directly from India to Canada. Additionally, Indian immigrants were required to have $200 in possession on arrival in contrast to Europeans who needed only $25.

1909 – Professor Teja Singh established the Guru Nanak Mining and Trust Company to organize and secure the economic welfare of the Sikh community in North America.

1912 – The first Sikh organization in the United States, Pacific Coast Khalsa Diwan, was founded in Stockton, California.

1912 – The first Gurdwara in the United States opened in Stockton, California. A small farmhouse was used as the Gurdwara until a new wood building was constructed in 1915. A brick building was ultimately constructed in 1929.

1912 – Gurdwaras were built in Victoria, Fraser Mills and Abbotsford, British Columbia.

1913 – California passed the Alien Land Act, which prohibited non-citizens from owning land. Sikh farmers in the Imperial and Sacramento Valley lost control of their lands.

1913 – Ghadar Party was established in North America to fight for independence of India from Great Britain. The first meeting in the United States was held in Astoria, Oregon.

1914 – 1915 – Sikhs in North America returned to Punjab, South Asia and led the struggle for independence. The revolt ended with the trial and martyrdom of the Ghadar Party leadership in the Lahore Conspiracy trial and the internment of some 1,500 Sikh emigrants in India. Over the next 30 years, the Sikh community made a disproportionate number of sacrifices (as compared to their size in India) for the freedom struggle. Over 80% of the people executed in the Indian fight for independence were Sikhs, who only represented roughly 2% of the population.

1914 – Sikhs traveled from Hong Kong to Vancouver on the steamship Komagata Maru chartered by an affluent Sikh from Hong Kong, Bhai Gurdit Singh, to challenge Canada’s “Continuous Voyage Order.” Anchored off Vancouver for three months with little food and medical care, they fought for their rights legally, were ultimately refused entry and escorted out of Vancouver by the Canadian Navy.

1914 – 1919  – World War I.

1917 – U.S. Immigration Act of 1917 banned immigration of South Asian laborers and prevented South Asians from bringing over wives. This and the Miscegenation Law of 1867 gave rise to the families often labeled as “Mexican Hindus” where Sikh men married Mexican women since both were categorized in the same race.

1919 – Canadian immigration restrictions on bringing wives and children from India were lifted. More Sikh women and children began arriving in Canada the following year.

1920 – The 19th Constitutional Amendment was added and gave women the right to vote in the U.S.

1920 – California passed another Alien Land Law prohibiting non-citizens from leasing land.

1921 – Washington passed another Alien Land Law prohibiting non-citizens to own or lease land. At this time, Asians were the only immigrants ineligible to become naturalized U.S. citizens. By 1925, Oregon, Idaho and Montana passed similar laws.

1923 – Bhagat Singh Thind, a U.S. World War I veteran, was denied citizenship by the U.S. Supreme Court because only Caucasians were allowed citizenship. This landmark case categorized Sikhs as non-Caucasians and set a precedent for granting citizenship based on race.

1939 – 1945  – World War II.

1941 – The Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. At war with Japan, the United States unjustly imprisoned 110,000 Japanese American citizens and legal resident aliens of Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast in concentration camps, as fear and racism pervaded the country.

1945 – The second wave of Sikh immigrants to North America began with the end of World War II. This wave included highly educated Sikhs and brought an end to many legal barriers to immigration.

1946 – The Luce-Cellar Bill was passed and allowed some Sikhs to immigrate to the U.S. Approximately 5,000 Sikhs came between 1948 and 1965.

1947 – Sikhs were granted the right to vote and become citizens in Canada.

1947 – British India was divided into two separate countries – India and Pakistan. The Sikh homeland, Punjab, was split between the two countries, resulting in fear of religious persecution, mass immigration, riots and violence. Approximately one million lives were lost and 12 million people were displaced.

1948 – The Gurdwara in El Centro, Imperial Valley, California opened.

1950 – The Constitution of India was adopted. Sikh representatives in the Indian Constituent Assembly refused to affix their signatures to the official copy of the Indian Constitution since it excluded rights promised to them at the time of freedom from British rule. The Indian Constitution also wrongly categorized Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains as Hindus.

1950 – Narjan Grewall was the first Sikh elected to city council in Mission, British Columbia.

1953 – Narinder Singh Kapany developed a way to greatly increase the transmission of light within fibers and advanced the development of fiber optics as a way to transmit information.

1956 – Dalip Singh Saund was elected to U.S. Congress from the 29th California District, and became the first Asian elected to the Congress.

1962 – Canada revised its immigration policy to drop a restrictive quota system in favor of non-discriminatory laws.

1965 – The U.S. Immigration Act of 1965 passed. This act swept away years of discriminatory, exclusionary immigration laws and opened the door for increased immigration, especially from Asian countries, to the United States.

1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr. was martyred in the fight for civil rights for all people.

1968 – Harbhajan Singh Yogi arrived in California and started to bring Americans of European descent into the Sikh faith.

1975 – U.S.-Vietnam War ended.

1979 – Sikhs in Canada began holding an annual Vaisakhi Parade in Vancouver, British Columbia, to commemorate Guru Gobind Singh’s creation of the Khalsa, the order of the Sikh faith.

June 1984 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to attack the Harmander Sahib in Amritsar as part of Operation Blue Star. This attack was part of a mass-scale oppression of Sikhs by the Indian government. The Sikhs were fighting for basic rights denied in the Indian Constitution. The government accused Sikhs of separatism, and as a result of this attack, thousands of innocent devotees were martyred. Historic and sacred institutions, including the Sikh Reference Library that housed priceless manuscripts, letters written by the Gurus, handwritten copies of Guru Granth Sahib Ji and historic records, were burned.

November 1984 – Two Sikhs assassinated Indira Gandhi to avenge the killing of innocent Sikhs in Amritsar. In the next three days, approximately 10,000 to 15,000 Sikhs were brutally murdered in anti-Sikh pogroms, encouraged and directed by state police forces, the civil administrations and the leaders of the ruling Congress party. Unregulated police brutality, torture, extrajudicial killings and mass cremations against Sikhs in India continued. Twenty-one years later, no one has been held accountable for these massacres.

1984 – 1990s  – The third wave of Sikh immigrants, escaping religious oppression in their homeland of Punjab, began to North America.

1984 – Sikhs opened Washington State’s first Gurdwara in Burien.

1988 – More than 20,000 attended the first annual Sikh Parade in New York, which marked Guru Gobind Singh’s creation of the Khalsa, the order of the Sikh faith.

1992 – The Rodney King trial verdict amplified already heightened racial tensions and sparked riots in Los Angeles, California.

1993 - Gurudwara Singh Sabha of Washington, located in Renton, opened.

1993 – Five Sikh Canadian veterans were invited to participate in a Remembrance Day parade, but later were denied entry into Canada’s veterans’ organization, the Royal Canadian Legion.

1996 – The non-profit organization Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force (SMART) was established in Maryland. Its purpose was to promote the fair and accurate portrayal of Sikhs and the Sikh religion in American media and society.

1996 – The Supreme Court of Canada reaffirmed Sikh police officers’ right to wear a turban.

1996 – Canadian schools in British Columbia began offering Punjabi language classes as part of their regular curriculum for grades five to 12.

2000 – An Amnesty International report concluded that India has continued policies of terror against Sikhs. Unjust detentions and human rights violations in prisons have continued since 1984. No international human rights group has been allowed in Punjab since 1984. The exact number of people killed by the Indian State may never be known. Estimates range from 100,000 to 250,000.

September 11, 2001 – Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the New York City World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon headquarters, killing thousands. Middle Easterners, Arabs, Muslims and Sikhs in the United States became targets of increased hate crimes and discrimination.

September 15, 2001 – Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh businessman, was shot in a hate crime outside his gas station in Arizona because of the turban and the unshorn beard that Sikh men wear as articles of their faith. His killer boasted while being arrested, “I stand for America all the way.”

2001 – The Sikh Coalition was established to address the misdirected hate and discrimination that the Sikh community faced in the aftermath of 9/11. In the weeks and months after 9/11, the Coalition developed as a grassroots organization across North America. Today, the Sikh Coalition continues to mobilize the Sikh community to work on local and national levels advocating for the rights of all Americans, raising awareness of Sikhs and Sikhism as well as working to civically engage the Sikh community.

2001 – The 107th U.S. Congress passed congressional resolution SCON 74 IS condemning hate crimes and acts of bigotry against Sikhs in America.

2001 – Amric Singh was fired by the New York Police Department (NYPD) for refusing to remove his turban and shave his beard. The Sikh Coalition, after exhausting all options, filed a federal lawsuit against NYPD in 2002. There have been numerous discrimination cases that organizations like the Coalition have resolved or are currently pursuing.

2004 – NYPD agreed to settle the case and allowed Amric Singh to serve in NYPD.

2004 – ENSAAF, a U.S.-based organization launched to enforce human rights and fight impunity in India, issued the report, “Twenty Years of Impunity: The November 1984 Pogroms of Sikhs in India,” which detailed the systematic way in which state institutions in India perpetrated mass murder. Efforts by organizations throughout the world have continued to end human rights violations in India and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.