By Eddie Morales | United States |
A new collection of books about the religion and its culture is bridging communities and educating the public.
Library Director Jill Lininger is standing in front of the Sikh book collection in the Oak Creek library. Fluorescent lights illuminate multiple shelves displaying about 120 books and movies.
There are coffee table books on Sikh art, holy scriptures, history books and documentaries.
She points out her favorite book in the collection. “So this book is called Ajeet Singh: The Invincible Lion. And it has a young boy, I’m gonna guess he’s probably six or seven years old. And he is making the muscle pose with his arms above his head showing off how strong he is.”
It’s a story written in English and Punjabi about a boy’s triumph over bullying at school.
The collection was made available to the public in April. Lininger says it’s a continuing effort to educate locals about Sikhs since the Oak Creek Sikh Temple shooting in 2012.
“I think that what’s most significant about what we have here is to start with, it’s a lot of books about Sikhism for non-Sikhs,” says Lininger. “And so it allows the community to start to learn about the diversity in our community and learn about what Sikhism is as a religion and as a culture.
An official at the Oak Creek temple, Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal, says after the shooting, hundreds of people visited the temple to learn more about Sikhism. He says the library’s collection is another resource for non-Sikhs to better understand the religion.
“We try to put in books that are very simple, short and concise that give the factual information without any kind of controversial subjects in it to introduce to the people who Sikhs really are, what their real values are,” he says.
Read the full article, ‘Want to know about Sikhism? Head to new book collection in Oak Creek’ (23 May 2022, WUWM), here.
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