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I grew up in a sleepy suburb of Victoria, British Columbia, where my favourite local ritual was the Oak Bay Tea Party, which was held over the first weekend in June. Its marquee event was the midway carnival, but my most vivid memories surround the parade that kicked off the celebrations. Every year...

I grew up in a sleepy suburb of Victoria, British Columbia, where my favourite local ritual was the Oak Bay Tea Party, which was held over the first weekend in June. Its marquee event was the midway carnival, but my most vivid memories surround the parade that kicked off the celebrations. Every year, my family would get to the parade route early to eke out the same stretch of sidewalk to watch the passing cavalcade of cars, floats, and high school marching bands. As a kid, I thought nothing of the ritual and ceremony of the occasion or of the kinds of local identity and community solidarity that were displayed through these celebrations, similar to the Santa Claus parades 260 SEASONAL SOCIOLOGY discussed in this book’s introduction. Much of the Tea Party’s ritualism was steeped in images of genteel British culture, including its choice of the Mad Hatter as the event’s mascot, which reflects the kinds of identity cultivated in this upper-middle-class municipality that had been formed through the dispossession of Indigenous land. Parades often have very complex relationships to the places in which they are staged. Some parades, like the Oak Bay Tea Party, try to assert a common local or national identity for that place (Brickell 2000). In these circumstances, the floats, marching bands, and other entries in the parade try to communicate some sense of the collective norms and values of the people who frequent those neighbourhoods. As a kid, my other points of reference for parades were the Fourth of July parades featured on television sitcoms like The Wonder Years, where they appeared as a ritual of national cohesion that brought people together according to their shared sense of American identity. In other contexts, parades are staged by minority groups to express and combat their exclusion from a given place. For instance, St. Patrick’s Day parades were first held in the nineteenth century to challenge the discrimination faced by Irish immigrants by establishing a more visible and collective presence in their communities. Pride parades have also been a way for queer communities to combat homophobia by reclaiming public space for sexual minorities (Brickell 2000). This chapter examines the complex relationships to place that are created through the annual Vaisakhi parades in Metro Vancouver, which happen in Surrey and Vancouver over two consecutive Saturdays in April. Vaisakhi parades commemorate the founding of the Sikh Khalsa – the new spiritual order of Sikhs that was established in 1699 (Ballantyne 2006). The parades also mark a Punjabi harvest season, when crops like rabi and barley are gathered in this region of the Indian subcontinent. While it is tempting to think of Vaisakhi as a religious practice, in this chapter I suggest that we should also think of these celebrations as social and political rituals that are deeply connected to place. Sociologists use the concept of place to make sense of the complex attachments that people form to particular spaces like neighbourhoods, cities, and nation-states. I examine how Vaisakhi is shaped by different practices of multiculturalism that reflect connections to Canada as a distinct place that fosters certain kinds of identity. This requires some explanation of how multiculturalism exists as (1) a demographic reality, (2) a pluralist vision of social change, (3) a set of vernacular practices that occur in contexts of plurality, and (4) a set of government policies that sanctioned new patterns of immigration and images of national identity (Keith 2005; Mackey 2002; Thobani 2007). I also examine how Vaisakhi parades are tied to the neighbourhoods in which they are staged, places that have been shaped by processes of social and spatial segregation. Through these processes of segregation, areas of south Vancouver and south Surrey have become ethnic enclaves, a term used by sociologists to describe neighbourhoods where certain minority groups are statistically overrepresented relative to the rest of the city (Keith 2005; Walks and Bourne 2006). In this chapter, I draw on my ongoing qualitative research on the changing political circumstances of Sikh and South Asian communities in Metro Vancouver. When I use 261 MULTICULTURALISM AND THE CELEBRATION OF VAISAKHI the term “political,” I am not only referring to the workings of state institutions but also to the broader struggles over power and inequality that shape the social circumstances of groups like local Sikh communities. For this project, I analyzed various newspapers and magazines to see how these communities are represented in the media, collected historical documents from state archives that show how government institutions treated and interacted with these communities, and undertook observational fieldwork at Vaisakhi celebrations in Vancouver and Surrey. By integrating the information from these sources, I am able to explain how these seasonal celebrations reflect broader social and political processes that have shaped Sikh and South Asian communities in Metro Vancouver. Sikhi and the Complex Category of Religion In 2011, there were roughly 23 million Sikhs around the world (Mandair 2013). Nearly three-quarters of this population live in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, where Sikhi first emerged in the fifteenth century. I use the term “Sikhi” rather than the more common word “Sikhism” because its connection to the Punjabi word sikhna (“to learn”) better reflects the ongoing experience of learning that is prioritized in Sikh scriptures and practices (Mandair 2013). Sikhi is focused on the teachings of 10 successive gurus – a title given to people devoted to the spiritual emancipation of their followers. The last of these gurus, Guru Gobind Singh, founded the Sikh Khalsa by standardizing a series of rites that must be followed to initiate people into the distinct order of Amritdhari Sikhs. Men and women who are Amritdhari Sikhs typically show their identity by wearing five symbols of their initiation into the Khalsa: a steel bracelet (kara), undergarments (kachera), uncut hair (kesh), combs (kangha), and a ceremonial dagger (kirpan) (Ballantyne 2006). Of course, not all people who practise Sikhi are a part of the Khalsa tradition, nor do all Amritdhari Sikhs show their identities in the same way (Nayar 2008). Various symbols of Sikh identity figure prominently in the Vaisakhi parades, which are organized by the local gurdwaras. The Khalsa symbol (Khanda), which was formalized in the early twentieth century, appears on flags, signs, and T- shirts throughout the parade route (see figure 15.1). In each parade, the marquee entries are the nagar kirtans, processions of people who recite hymns as they walk through the community. At the front of this procession is a truck with musicians playing these hymns, with the principal book of Sikh scripture (Guru Granth Sahib) in the compartment above the driver. To understand the social realities of religion at events like these, many sociologists have used the ideas of Émile Durkheim. Émile Durkheim (1857– 1917) was a French sociologist credited with formalizing the discipline of sociology through his research on the rise of modern societies (as discussed in chapters seven and eight of this book). Durkheim was writing about a time of great societal change in Western Europe, which also had significant repercussions around the world. As he witnessed people moving en masse into cities, he came to define modern 262 SEASONAL SOCIOLOGY societies in terms of their heterogeneity (the mingling of social differences in cities), industrialization (increased factory production), and secularity (which he associated with the decreased prominence of organized religion). In his book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim (2008) draws on anthropological studies of so-called “primitive” societies to identify the rudimentary and universal features of religion as it is practised around the world. Contemporary scholars have critiqued Durkheim for the problems that plague his analysis. We should be cautious about perpetuating racist distinctions between “primitive” and “advanced” religions, which present Indigenous peoples as uncivilized and historically backward. These kinds of representations have been used to deny political autonomy to Indigenous peoples and justify different forms of violence against them (Simpson 2014). Others have questioned whether religion is actually a universal category, raising valid concerns that such a conclusion rests on Eurocentric assumptions that make all religions fit certain Judeo-Christian parameters (Masuwaza 2005); this critique is explained in more detail later in the chapter. What Durkheim (2008) offers is some recognition of the social dimensions of religion, as well as the complex dynamics that affect how we categorize social phenomena (Cooper 2017; Smith 2004). Unlike many of his contemporaries, who dismiss religion as a mere lie or illusion, he suggests that religion persists across various places because it serves real, determinate social purposes and reflects and informs specific values, concerns, and interests. For the sake of this chapter, I want to show how Durkheim’s definition of religion can help explain the complex ways in which religion, culture, and politics intersect during Vaisakhi celebrations. FIGURE 15.1 Vancouver Vaisakhi Parade, 2015. Photo credit: Bonar Buffam 263 MULTICULTURALISM AND THE CELEBRATION OF VAISAKHI Early in his book, Durkheim (2008) defines religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (44). In this passage, Durkheim suggests that the shared realities of religious groups are a function of how they envision and preserve the sacred – those symbols (e.g., the Star of David, the Khanda) and objects (e.g., communion wafers and kirpans) that have a special significance to the group. The sacred quality of these things is expressed and maintained through ritual practices that ensure they are “set apart” from the rest of reality, which is classified as “profane” or “mundane.” Yet Durkheim clarifies that no symbol or object is innately sacred; they acquire this sacred significance through the collective practices of the specific community of believers. For Durkheim, the ritualistic character of these collective practices is critical to the continuation of religion as they renew the group’s ties across periodic intervals of time and ensure that people continue to see themselves as a part of this group. Using Durkheim’s ideas, we can see how Vaisakhi celebrations do not merely express Sikh values and traditions; each year, the rituals that surround Vaisakhi also work to reinforce and redefine the collective ties of Sikh communities in the Lower Mainland. It would be a mistake to imply that religious communities are the only groups engaged in these kinds of rituals. After all, this book is focused on many of the different seasonal rituals that structure social life in Canada, only some of which are connected to religion. The fans of professional sports teams discussed by Nicole Neverson in chapter ten are bound together by different gameday rituals, many of which centre on team logos and colours that take on a sacred significance. The practice of watching hockey games at pubs and sports bars has a ritualistic quality that is similar to the religious rites described by Durkheim. Canadian nationalism is also dependent on people’s continued “religious” orientation to certain symbols (e.g., the maple leaf) and values (e.g., freedom and diversity), which are reinforced through rituals that are both mundane (e.g., the singing of the national anthem) and spectacular (e.g., Canada Day celebrations). Insofar as Durkheim’s ideas illustrate the religious character of modern social life, they work against the secular tendency to treat religion as though it is categorically distinct from politics, culture, and other realms of modern society (Asad 2003). In this regard, Durkheim’s ideas are helpful for understanding how Sikh practices cannot be analyzed apart from broader cultural and political processes, an idea repeatedly affirmed in Sikh studies scholarship. Recent research in the field of Sikh studies questions whether the category of religion accurately reflects how Sikhi has been practised apart from the influence of the British Empire and European notions of religion. Such understandings position the traditions of Judaism and Christianity as the models for all religion (Mandair 2009). Until the mid-nineteenth century, Sikhi was not practised outside Punjab, the northwest region of the Indian subcontinent in which it originated. From 1849 to 1947, Punjab was a colony of the East India Company and the British Empire (Ballantyne 2006). These imperial institutions dramatically impacted the way Sikhi was understood and practised. 264 SEASONAL SOCIOLOGY According to Mandair (2009), Sikhi does not easily fit with standard categories of religion; it only came to be understood as a religion, “Sikhism,” because it was made to fit Judeo-Christian notions of religion by European philosophers, anthropologists, and Sikh reformers. This transformation of Sikhi into a religion had multiple consequences. It affected how people classified sacred objects and shaped the practices that were deemed necessary to protect that sacred status. It also changed how people understood and identified themselves as “Sikhs” (Mandair 2009). Under British rule, people’s relatively fluid cultural practices were categorized into distinct and rigid religious identities: “Sikh,” “Muslim,” and “Hindu” (Ballantyne 2006). It was also during British rule over Punjab that some Sikhs travelled to Canada and other British colonies like Australia and Singapore, sometimes as part of anti-colonial movements that sought to challenge British imperialism and bring about self-rule in India (Mawani 2012; Mongia 2018). In Canada, Sikh institutions like gurdwaras have served multiple political functions that are not reducible to religion. For instance, in the early twentieth century, gurdwara leaders were instrumental in advocating for changes to immigration restrictions faced by Sikh and Indian populations and for demanding the enfranchisement of Indian-Canadians, who were summarily banned from voting in Canadian elections until after World War II (Nayar 2008). While Durkheim’s theory of religion helps illuminate the collective dimensions of social life, it would be a mistake to think of Sikh communities in BC as a single homogenous group. To assume that there is such a unified group of Sikhs is especially problematic given how Sikhi has been politicized in the wake of campaigns to create a separate Sikh nation state known as Khalistan. After India gained national independence from Britain in 1947, some Sikh groups demanded the creation of a sovereign country in Punjab, a region of the Indian subcontinent that spans the border of Pakistan and India (Axel 2001). In 1984, when these separatist movements were acquiring momentum, India’s prime minister, Indira Gandhi, ordered a military siege of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a gurdwara in Punjab that many Sikhs regard as their most important and sacred institution (Ballantyne 2006). This siege instigated a series of violent retaliatory events, including the bombing of two Air India flights allegedly orchestrated by certain Sikh separatist groups operating in BC. Over the last 30 years, divisions have emerged within local Sikh communities over people’s different positions on these Khalistani movements. While some Sikh groups have criticized the use of violence to realize an independent nation state, others have questioned whether Sikh communities in Canada should support this cause at all (Nayar 2008). Vaisakhi parades have been a catalyst for these divisions when participants include imagery that praises one of the Air India bombers as a Sikh martyr, imagery that has been denounced by Sikh community leaders and Canadian politicians who have appeared at the parades. Vaisakhi celebrations have also come to feature other political rituals of protest and public education. In 2015, the week after the Vancouver Vaisakhi parades, Indian prime minister Narenda Modi was scheduled to address people at the Ross Street Temple, prompting an array of local groups to erect a banner on Fraser Avenue that read “No Compromise on Canadian and Human Values. You are not welcome.” That same year, 265 MULTICULTURALISM AND THE CELEBRATION OF VAISAKHI the Mamta Foundation, a local non-profit organization devoted to helping impoverished children, entered a float in the Vancouver parade that politicized gender inequalities in Sikh and South Asian communities. Prominent on the float is an image of the tenth Sikh guru along with the words “you are not to associate with those who kill their daughters,” a message that presents gendered violence as antithetical to Sikhi (see figure 15.2). Across all of the political rituals that take place during Vaisakhi parades, Sikhi works in a manner that complicates prevailing European categories of religion, which assume it can be separated from the political (Mandair 2013). Even though “Sikhism” is recognized and understood as a distinct religion, its practise has become inextricably linked to a variety of political projects and practices. In the next section of this chapter, I explain how Vaisakhi has become the venue for political rituals more directly connected to the Canadian nation-state. Multiculturalism and National Political Rituals There has been no shortage of politicians at recent Vaisakhi celebrations in Metro Vancouver. Along the parade route on Main Street, political parties from across the spectrum set up tables to hawk their platforms and distribute paraphernalia that is branded according to their party’s trademarked colour (see figure 15.3). At the stages FIGURE 15.2 Vancouver Vaisakhi Parade, 2016. Photo credit: Bonar Buffam 266 SEASONAL SOCIOLOGY constructed for dance and musical performances, politicians like BC’s former premier, Christy Clark, and then-federal minister of immigration, Jason Kenney, have delivered speeches about Canada’s legacies of diversity and multiculturalism. In the following section, I explain how the presence of political figures at these celebrations exemplifies the varied political rituals that characterize Vaisakhi, many of which centre on the different meanings of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism as Ideology and as Policy Multiculturalism is broadly understood to be a type of pluralist ideology that values and cultivates cultural differences within a given political environment (Mackey 2002). In the decades after World War II, this notion of multiculturalism emerged in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom to counter enduring racial ideologies. Racial ideologies assume that there are innately different groups of people that can be distinguished and classified according to their worth and humanity (Gilroy 2000; Goldberg 2009). Sociologists often contrast the desired outcomes of multiculturalism and assimilation, that latter of which expects minority groups to abandon their cultural identities and practices to become more like the majority group (Bloemraad 2006; Mackey 2002). In the face of growing demands for equality and civil rights, multiculturalism promised, at least in principle, a new vision of coexistence premised on the cultivation and celebration of cultural difference (Fleras 2011). Insofar as Vaisakhi celebrations serve as a forum for the public expression of Sikh and Indian cultural practices, their recurrence exemplifies this pluralist ethos of multiculturalism. FIGURE 15.3 Political party tables at the Vancouver Vaisakhi Parade, 2015. Photo credit: Bonar Buffam 267 MULTICULTURALISM AND THE CELEBRATION OF VAISAKHI Multiculturalism is also used to describe government programs and policies that are guided by this pluralist ideology. In Canada, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is credited with formalizing multicultural policies in 1971 by further diversifying immigration sources and establishing programs to encourage minority groups to maintain their cultural practices (Mackey 2002). Prior to this, people from India were subject to various immigration restrictions that denied or restricted their capacity to (a) enter Canada and (b) acquire full rights of citizenship, explicit restrictions that were not removed until after World War II. It was multicultural policies that helped give Indians more opportunities to immigrate to Canada (Nayar 2012). Of course, critics of more recent immigration systems rightly suggest that the ostensibly neutral criteria used to judge who can immigrate to Canada continue to discriminate against people from the Global South (Bannerji 2000; Thobani 2007). Multicultural policies have also tried to cultivate the diverse cultural practices of minority groups in Canada; this objective sets these policies apart from those focused on assimilation, which force minority groups to adopt the cultural norms and practices of the majority group (Bloemraad 2006). During my research at the national archives in Ottawa, I found an array of successful proposals for funding from the federal government’s multicultural programs. Dated between the early 1970s and mid- 1980s, these proposals were submitted by organizations across Canada looking to promote Sikh, Punjabi, and Indian cultural practices and, in some instances, share them with the broader Canadian public. By looking to disseminate these practices beyond minority communities, these proposals run counter to public perceptions that multicultural programming has only promoted the isolation of cultural minorities. Insofar as Vaisakhi celebrations serve as a forum for the public expression of Sikh and Indian cultural practices, their recurrence each year exemplifies the pluralist ethos of multiculturalism. While Vaisakhi does not occur under the formal auspices of multicultural policies, the scale of these celebrations requires the co-operation of municipal authorities. In 2013, Vaisakhi was one of four celebrations that was granted civic parade status by the City of Vancouver, which guarantees the organizers a certain level of funding and tactical support from the city. Municipal, federal, and provincial politicians also make a point of demonstrating their commitment to multicultural diversity by taking part in the Vaisakhi celebrations, either by appearing in the parade or speaking to participants at the parade tents. In fact, the ubiquitous presence of politicians at these events has spawned criticisms that politicians are merely pandering for the so-called ethnic vote, leading some to suggest that Vaisakhi is yet another example of multiculturalism run amok. More conservative critiques of multiculturalism suggest that its ethos of diversity has stifled criticism of what they call barbaric cultural practices and practices that dilute Canadian values. Such accusations are contradicted by evidence that suggests minorities continue to face cultural and economic marginalization as well as more intense public scrutiny of cultural differences (Fleras 2011; Jiwani 2006; Thobani 2007). 268 SEASONAL SOCIOLOGY Vernacular Multiculturalism Yet it would be a mistake to reduce the multicultural dimensions of Vaisakhi parades to the policies and practices of state actors, given how these celebrations reflect and facilitate certain forms of vernacular multiculturalism, a term I use to refer to the unpredictable and informal ways in which cultural practices change as they collide and intersect under conditions of demographic diversity. Ordinarily, the term “vernacular” signifies a kind of dialect or language that is spoken in a particular region but has not necessarily been formalized or received any kind of institutional recognition. Here, the term “vernacular multiculturalism” refers to the overlooked processes of cultural change, improvisation, and intermixture that occur in spaces of ethnic and cultural plurality (Gilroy 2005; Keith 2005). These forms of multiculturalism are often overlooked when there is too much focus on official, state-based understandings of multiculturalism. Sociologists have criticized multicultural state programming for reinforcing notions of culture that are fixed in time and place (Bannerji 2000; Fleras 2011; Thobani 2007). That is, because the programming emphasizes the preservation of cultural traditions, minority groups are often made to feel that their cultural practices are irrelevant or out of place in contemporary social contexts. Conversely, by analyzing more vernacular forms of multiculturalism, we can pay attention to the ways in which cultural practices are fluid, ever-changing, and disputed by various social actors. The vast number of different cultural practices that take place during Vaisakhi make these celebrations excellent vantage points to examine vernacular forms of multiculturalism. At Vaisakhi celebrations, different cultural practices overlap and intersect in unpredictable ways. Kirtans, dance performances, and other cultural practices will resonate differently with the audiences at these events based on the range of perspectives of the people there. It would be a mistake to reduce this plurality of experiences and practices to the abstract and sometimes calcified notions of culture common to state policies of multiculturalism. Vaisakhi celebrations feature an abundance of colours, sounds, smells, and tastes that create the kind of convivial atmosphere that Gilroy (2005) suggests is characteristic of multiculturalism’s promise. Gilroy uses the term “conviviality” to capture the lively and exciting ways in which cultural differences can intersect, overlap, and produce new identities and practices in contexts where plurality exists. This aspect of vernacular multiculturalism is especially evident in how food circulates during Vaisakhi celebrations. Each year, I have seen businesses, families, and community organizations handing out a variety of food and drink to the celebrations’ participants: bottles of water, cups of chai, slices of pizza, samosas, plates of rice and curry, as well as samplings of sweets like gulab jamun. The practice of sharing food within and outside of gurdwaras has a long history in Sikhi. Yet compared to the more scripted forms of multiculturalism that are featured in news stories about Vaisakhi, the informality and personal care that characterize these practices also exemplify the spirit of vernacular multiculturalism. 269 MULTICULTURALISM AND THE CELEBRATION OF VAISAKHI Rituals of Place-Making Metro Vancouver’s Vaisakhi celebrations have complex relationships to the neighbourhoods in which they are staged. That these events have assumed such a large scale, attracting nearly 600,000 people in 2017, is a consequence of the historic presence of Sikh and South Asian communities in the Lower Mainland, which were among the first of these communities in North America (Nayar 2008). Vaisakhi parades commemorate and reinforce this historical presence, particularly in neighbourhoods that have been shaped by processes of residential segregation. Spatial Segregation Because Vaisakhi parades are organized around local gurdwaras, their specific locations in the region reflect the changing geographies of settlement and segregation experienced by Sikh and South Asian populations. The region’s first gurdwara was opened in 1904 by the Burrard Inlet, near where most of the first Sikh migrants lived and worked in the lumber mills. By the 1960s, this pattern of residential concentration had shifted, and most Sikh and South Asian people were living in south Vancouver’s Sunset neighbourhood (Nayar 2008). At the time, the area’s lower residential density offered less expensive housing to these residents as well as the opportunity to minimize their exposure to the discrimination and exclusion they experienced elsewhere in Vancouver (Indra 1979). Part of the neighbourhood became known as the Punjabi Market because it housed restaurants, grocers, and clothing stores that catered to a predominantly Indian, and especially Sikh, clientele. To reflect this shift in the city’s geography, south Vancouver’s Ross Street Gurdwara opened in 1970, a change marked by a nagar kirtan that travelled between the two gurdwaras. The formation of the Punjabi Market is an example of spatial segregation. Urban sociologists study patterns of spatial segregation, often to explain the formation of distinct city spaces like central business districts, “skid rows,” ghettos, and ethnic enclaves (Pattillo 2013; Wacquant 2008). Black ghettos in American cities are the most widely researched instance of segregation and can be traced to the turn of the twentieth century, when African-Americans leaving the American South were subjected to new forms of social and economic discrimination in the industrialized cities of the American Northeast and Midwest. Ghettoized areas formed through the systematic manner in which African-Americans were denied housing in white neighbourhoods and subjected to harassment, surveillance, and violence if they crossed the demarcated boundaries of the ghetto (Wacquant 2008). Urban sociologists claim that, because these boundaries have been so heavily protected and policed, many ghettoized areas develop their own infrastructures that duplicate the institutions that exist beyond their borders, a process referred to as institutional encasement (Wacquant 2001). The Punjabi Market neighbourhood more closely resembles the categorical features of an ethnic enclave than a ghetto. Ethnic enclaves are urban spaces where minority groups 270 SEASONAL SOCIOLOGY are disproportionately concentrated, but they are nonetheless characterized by less intense and enduring forms of stigmatization and territorial confinement than ghettos. In some instances, residence in ethnic enclaves is framed as a voluntary choice, independent of larger structures of race and social class. In Toronto and Montreal, ethnic enclaves like Little Portugal and Greektown have been more temporary sites of segregation, where immigrants reside before they are incorporated into the city’s broader social fabric. While the relative absence of research on the Punjabi Market complicates any definitive categorization, there is no evidence to suggest that its boundaries have been policed with the same intensity as ghettoized areas. The Punjabi Market also lacks the same degree of institutional encasement as most ghettos. Yet the boundaries that have distinguished south Vancouver and Surrey as ethnic enclaves must still be viewed as evidence of the formal and informal practices of discrimination experienced by many South Asian people in the area (Buffam 2013, 2019; Frost 2011; Indra 1979; Johal 2007). Place-Making and the Punjabi Market Vaisakhi celebrations are one way in which Sikhs’ enduring connections to this neighbourhood are remembered and recreated. With the recent growth of urban tourism, municipal authorities have employed different forms of place-based marketing to draw consumers to ethnic enclaves like Greektown in Toronto and Banglatown in London, United Kingdom. This process transforms histories of exclusion into commodified narratives of diversity, promoting the fixed notions of culture associated with state visions of multiculturalism (Keith 2005). Around the nucleus of the Punjabi Market, special street signs have been erected that mark the specific history of the area. In 2008, the provincial government of BC announced plans to create a $3 million India Gate to commemorate this history as well as market the area to tourists, serving a similar function as the gate in the city’s Chinatown. Certain aspects of Vaisakhi can be understood in a similar vein; after all, the Punjabi Market Business Association sponsors one of the main tents in which politicians address the crowd of participants on Main Street. In south Vancouver, Vaisakhi parades have acquired a new significance against growing concerns that community ties to the neighbourhood have been severed by the growth of the nearby City of Surrey as the social and residential hub of Sikh and South Asian communities (Nayar 2012). Beginning in the 1970s, more suburban cities like Delta, Richmond, and Surrey drew increasing numbers of Sikh and South Asian people, despite some early resistance from their predominantly white, working-class residents (Johal 2007). The growing suburbanization of the city’s South Asian populations has put a significant strain on the stores and restaurants in the Punjabi Market that had once catered primarily to Sikh and South Asian clientele. In December 2016, the nucleus of the Punjabi Market along Main Street featured empty storefronts peppered with “for lease” signs or applications for rezoning. Against this tide of suburbanization, Vaisakhi parades work to publicly assert an enduring connection between local South Asian communities and the changing place of the Punjabi Market. 271 MULTICULTURALISM AND THE CELEBRATION OF VAISAKHI Conclusion In April 2001, the Vancouver Sun published an editorial that waxed poetic about the plurality of religious and secular rituals that mark the passage of spring in Vancouver. At one point in the editorial, the reporter asserts that [f ]or the Christians in our midst, Easter is the most poignant religious milestone of the year. Good Friday marks the day of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, followed two days later by his joyous resurrection. For Jews, Pesach – or Passover – commemorates the ordeals of the Jews’ slavery in Egypt.... For Sikhs, this weekend is the anniversary of the day followers adopted the symbols of their faith and it is celebrated by parades. Even nature worshippers can find reason to commemorate mid-April, as the time the skunk cabbage blooms and the bears begin to emerge from hibernation. (A14) In this passage, similarities are identified between Vaisakhi and other ostensibly religious holidays on the basis of common symbolic features. Each symbolizes some experience of endurance, whether of religious persecution or of the hazards of winter, which frames these holidays as springtime rituals of rebirth and rejuvenation. Vaisakhi celebrations cannot be understood as strictly religious celebrations, even if they exemplify the religious dimensions of social life as they were analyzed by Émile Durkheim. The specific manner in which culture, power, and place intersect during Vaisakhi celebrations complicates the categorical distinctions that are typically drawn between religion, society, and politics. These parades have served as a medium to express political dissent about the practice of Sikhi in and beyond the Canadian context, reframing traditions as dynamic and contested elements of everyday life. As staging grounds for different visions and endorsements of plurality, Vaisakhi celebrations are at once a function of state policies of multiculturalism and a vehicle for the emergence of more vernacular forms of multiculturalism that foment new cultural practices and modes of intercultural expression. The ritualized practices that are so central to the parades are also reflective and productive of collective attachments to place, which are, in turn, an effect of shifting processes of segregation and suburbanization.