Young Sikhs in Italy

In the common feeling and in the public Italian discourse in mass media at a local and national level, Sikhs are generally considered a supportive and cohesive community of good and pacific workers, immersed in a religious dimension of life (Bertolani, Ferraris and Perocco, 2011; Sai, 2009). Despite some exceptions, ¹ Sikhs embody the “ideal” of well-integrated immigrants and this is partially the result of some positive stereotypes that Italians share in their collective imagination towards Indians in general. The memory of Mahatma Gandhi and his life based on “non-violence” and of Mother Teresa’s actions foster the definition of a positive and homogeneous community, where internal religious and cultural distinctions are played down. This general stereotype is even strengthened by the first-generation Indians’ tendency to be invisible and “encapsulated” in their community, at least in what concerns everyday social and working life. This “invisibility” is felt as non-threatening by Italians; on the contrary, it is conceived as the clear sign that these immigrants are devoted to hard work and spiritual life. Many Sikhs in Italy work in the agricultural sector, employed in cattle farming and vegetable growing, at least in the first years of their migratory process. Italians frequently interpret the choice of these jobs by Indians as a productive vocation, due to cultural and religious predispositions and the cult of the “holy cow”. In contrast, the existence of complex processes of hierarchization and ethnicization in the national labour market is systematically ignored by Italians. Similarly, the role of ethnic networks in the search for and the maintenance of a job is generally underestimated (Bertolani, 2013b; Provincia di Cremona, 2002).