The immigrants' preferred profession originally was to work on farms, eventually buying their own farmland. Others worked in railways in various capacities or in sugar mills or, as in Panama, at the Canal. Some of them drove vehicles and taxis, eventually buying their own wheels and setting up transport conglomerates. Still others carried out 'Pheri' (retail peddling) by going door to door to sell items of common use, and in time set up small supermarkets. Others took to money lending and, in due course, dabbled in real estate. Several members of second and third generations are becoming professionals and entrepreneurs.

Turban, Marriages, and Linkage with Punjab

There had been a lot of to and fro traffic of Sikhs between countries they settled in and Punjab. For early migrants, the first visit home took several years to materialize. Some even returned permanently to India. Most of them migrated as single males, and some returned to get a wife. Others who had left their wives called for them as soon as they were in a position to receive the family. Yet others who were single (and even some who were married in India) decided to take on local wives. In some cases, this could have been even the maid working in the house. Acceptance was a critical issue and local marriage was the first step in the process of assimilation.

It wasn't an easy choice though. One hears only good things about Punjabi-Sikh parents (fathers in most cases) once they settled down. The general comments from their siblings and others were that the Sikhs were hard working, honest, generous but rather strict with the family in terms of the siblings' upbringing. Several of them sent money home, at least in earlier years of settling down before their local families' needs became more pressing. Money transfers for "izzat" or philanthropy were not as significant a feature compared to the migrants to North America and the UK in the Twentieth Century.

The effort of each migrant was to continue to keep Sikh symbols, especially the turban. The British encouraged post-war disbanded Sikhs soldiers to migrate and, in some cases, paid for their voyages. So far as the British employers were concerned, it was easier to maintain Sikh identity, but in other situations, it was a problem. There was also security in numbers, but those who were isolated had to give up the turban sooner or later. Those immigrants who had spouses from Punjab persevered with the turban for a longer period. Very few, if any, in the second and third generations kept the turban in order to get better social acceptance. Local wives either encouraged or demanded greater assimilation, and the men could not put up much resistance to what was becoming inevitable.