The Other Land of Five Rivers: Punjabi Farmers of the Sacramento Valley
In the early twentieth century, farmers from the northwest of India settled in California’s Sacramento Valley – a landscape reminiscent of the rich soil of Punjab, the land of five rivers. Over the last 130 years, Punjabi immigrants have contributed to the transformation of agriculture in California, particularly in the cultivation of peaches, walnuts, and rice. Punjabi farmers also played a crucial role in our university’s history. They were integral to the almond orchards of George Pierce Jr., an influential local horticulturalist who successfully lobbied to build the University Farm in Davis in 1905. Pierce’s trusted foreman was Munsha Singh, a Punjabi farmer who also served as Secretary of the Gadar Party – a global political movement seeking to overthrow British rule in India during the First World War that was headquartered in California.
Today, our region is home to the oldest and one of the largest South Asian American communities due to this rich agricultural history. Our university faculty includes a number of the most influential scientists from Punjab in agriculture and food engineering. We also enjoy one of the largest numbers of students of Punjabi heritage in the country.
The Davis Humanities Institute will launch a week of programs in May featuring this lost history of Punjabi farmers in California, as well as their contemporary farming and foodways. The programs draw from Professor Nicole Ranganath’s community-engaged scholarship in partnership with the local Punjabi community (pioneeringpunjabis.ucdavis.edu). Program highlights include an event dedicating Professor Gurdev Khush’s Papers to the UC Davis library, as well as a curated concert featuring the classical devotional music of Punjab. A film premiere of UC Davis graduate student Harleen Kaur Bal, Unpacking Immigration, explores the human cost of Punjabi immigrant meatpacking labor in the Central Valley. The week will be rounded off with a series of dynamic podcasts with scientists, scholars, and community members about Punjabi foodways and farming in California.
Program Curator
Dr. Nicole Ranganath is an Assistant Professor in Middle East/South Asia Studies at the University of California, Davis who specializes in the history of the Punjabi diaspora. She has authored articles and book chapters about gender, caste, and music in the Punjabi diaspora as well as the history of Sikhs in Fiji. Her PBS documentary, “Jutti Kasoori,” traced the history of women in California’s Punjabi community. She is also the founding curator of the UC Davis Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive. Her forthcoming book is Women and the Sikh Diaspora: Music and Mobility Across the Seven Seas (2023).
Schedule of Events
Monday, May 15: Opening Celebration
NOON
Come with your friends to the Quad to enjoy delicious food and music while learning about the exciting events featuring Punjabi culture, music, and language, as well as the community’s contributions to our university and state.
Free and open to the public
Tuesday, May 16: Gurbani Concert
6-8 PM, Multipurpose Room, Student Community Center
This South Asian classical music concert from the region of Punjab in north India and present-day Pakistan extols the beauty of nature. Sacred music, or Gurbani Sangit, is essential to Sikh devotional expression. Of all the major world faiths, music may play the most central role in the spiritual lives of the millions of Sikhs who live around the world. Beginning with its founder, Guru Nanak (1469-1539), all of the verses in the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh scripture) were composed in classical modal melodies called raags. This concert features universal prayers in Sikhi that meditate on the theme of abundance that nurtures the physical and spiritual needs of humanity. The concert is free and open to the public. Langar (a free communal meal) will be provided.
Performers: Bibi Rasleen Kaur and Ustad Manbir Singh and concert curated by Dr. Kuldeep Singh
Wednesday, May 17: Webinar on Punjabi Recipes and Food Traditions
Noon, online on Zoom
Join us for a lunch-time webinar about Punjabi inter-generational recipes and food heritage. Punjabi-American women in the Central Valley share the recipes they learned from their foremothers, as well as those they’ve passed down through the generations in California. Come learn a new recipe and try your hand in cooking your favorite Punjabi dish.
Watch the recording here.
Thursday, May 18: Harleen Kaur Bal’s Film Screening & Jakara Youth Activism
6:30 PM
Unpacking Immigration explores the lives of immigrant meatpackers whose unseen and undervalued work bridges the crucial missing steps in “the farm to table” concept in food production. This short film, written and directed by Harleen Kaur Bal, shares the story of a longtime Punjabi Sikh meatpacker in California’s Central Valley. The film traces his migration journey, the human toll of meatpacking work, and the fraught notions of home and belonging for working-class immigrants and their families in the “land of opportunity.” Youth activism in the Jakara Movement will also be highlighted. The filmmaker will lead a Q & A.
If you're interested in scheduling a film screening or talk by Harleen Kaur Bal, please contact her at hakbal@ucdavis.edu.
Harleen Kaur Bal is a PhD student of sociocultural anthropology at the University of California, Davis where she is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the intersection of work and wellbeing in relation to the South Asian diaspora, particularly intergenerational Punjabis. She recently directed a short film, Unpacking Immigration, that explores Punjabi migration and meatpacking labor in California’s Central Valley. Harleen also engages with questions centered on food production, transnational wellness practices, and everyday life within contemporary capitalism in the U.S. Public scholarship and creative multimedia approaches inform Harleen’s scholarly work.
Friday, May 19: Dr. Gurdev S. Khush Papers Dedication Ceremony, UC Davis Library
5-7 PM, Shields Library Courtyard
This event will commemorate the dedication of Dr. Gurdev S. Singh’s paper to the UC Davis library. Dr. Khush is a Geneticist, Plant Breeder, and UC Davis Alumnus (1960). Collections to be donated to UC Davis library pertain to contributions to world food security and poverty alleviation, correspondence with Professor G. L. Stebbins and Charless Rick, graduate supervisor and postdoctoral mentor at UC Davis respectively, correspondence with other colleagues, invitations to participate and speak at international conferences, drafts of speeches and addresses during award ceremonies after receiving Japan Prize and World Food Prize, Wolf Prize and other prizes, documents related to the Green Revolution, biographical materials including diplomas, photographs with world dignitaries, and honors, reports of scientific visits to rice growing countries, miscellaneous pamphlets and press clippings, scientific publications bound together into five volumes and reviews of his book Cytogenetics of Aneuploids published in 1973.
Watch the recording here.
Additional Programs
Podcast with Professor Emeritus Gurdev S. Khush
Dr. Gurdev Khush shares his stories of pursuing his graduate education at UC Davis in the 1950s, as well This episode is brought to you as part of UC Davis’ Punjab Week of programs related to cultivation, farming, and food production. Join us as your hosts, Dr. Nicole Ranganath and Elmira Louie, chat with Dr. Gurdev Khush, a world-renowned agronomist and geneticist who has won the agriculture equivalent of the Nobel Prize thanks to his tremendous research in increasing the global supply of rice during a time of exponential population growth. Dr. Khush has worked with many diverse nations as part of his 35-year career at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, created the Khush Foundation to provide scholarships to future Punjabi scholars, and is among the first people of Asian descent to have been offered an assistant professorship position at UC Davis.
“The Other Land of Five Rivers:” Podcast with Historian Nicole Ranganath
In this episode of Dialogic, Elmira Louie is joined by Dr. Nicole Ranganath and PhD student Harleen Bal to discuss the dynamic and influential histories of Punjabi communities in the Central Valley of California.
Recorded for the DHI by Elmira Louie and produced by Natalie Robertson.