The water in Mexico can make you ill, but the water in India can make you Sikh.

— KattsDogma (@KattsDogma) February 3, 2015

Punjabi and Mexican cultures have fused together at several different points in time, beginning with hundreds of marriages between Sikh men and Mexican women in the early 1900s. 

Source: https://blogs.loc.gov/kluge/2015/03/the-history-of-mexican-immigration-to-the-u-s-in-the-early-20th-century/

Today, Mexican-Punjabi links remain strong, as cultural diffusion has taken its root in places like California, Arizona, and Mexico City, where more Sikh Punjabis and Mexicans continue to marry and share their cultures. 

Source: https://twitter.com/QuienSosVos_/status/999779494234808322

In this curation, I take a dive into the interactions between the Mexican and Punjab communities, as well as between the cultures and traditions they brought to the United States and Mexico. What is the intersection of Sikh Punjabi-Mexican identities? Do Punjabi-Mexicans identify more as Asian Americans or Latinos? What were the motivations behind the unions of Punjabi-Mexicans in the 1900s and what are they now? How are they similar or different? While the reasons for the unions today and those in the early 1900s are naturally different given the end of anti-miscegenation laws and the ability of Punjabi men to bring their wives from India, Punjabi and Mexican cultures remain similar and have meshed together in contemporary times.

My curation also extends beyond Mexico to consider more transnational perspectives. Sikhs have been particularly prominent in countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Chile where they arrived around the same time as other Sikhs did to America and Canada. Unpacking the development of the Latino Sikh community more broadly is another focus of my project.