A news story of 30,000 Sikh trucker drivers joining the American Trucking industry in the last two years has gone viral on social media. The CBS News Story has shown the new face of the American Trucking industry which is a turbaned and bearded Sikh.
According to Freightwaves:
The U.S. is home to half a million Sikhs, of which the Sikhs Political Action Committee estimates that around 150,000 of them work in the trucking industry – which makes the sector an overwhelming favorite amongst their populace. The statistics are interesting, to say the least. 90% of all the Sikhs in the trade are truckers, and Indians, in general, are ahead of other Asian nations, controlling nearly half of all Asian-owned trucking businesses in America. And as per the findings of the North American Punjabi Trucking Association (NAPTA), California is the ground zero of the Punjabi bulwark, with 40% of truckers in the region being Sikhs.
The migration of Punjabis straight into the U.S. trucking lore was by all means gradual. Before there was any visible mark of Punjabis in the U.S. trucking trade, its peer far north inside the Canadian borders was feeling the surge. The initial migration of Punjabis into North America began in the early 20th century, with the first immigrants settling down in British Columbia. Nearly 5,000 South Asians made their way to Canada before their immigration was banned in 1908 – of which 90% was the people were Sikhs. However, over the years, once immigration laws were amended again, scores of Sikhs descended upon Canada, with them now constituting about 28% of the Indo-Canadian population.
One Sikh from the Trucking Industry has taken things to the next level by making a Gurdwara at his truck stop due to large portion of his customers being Punjabi.