Josh Turner Poems

In less than 24 hours, the United States of America had experienced two major mass shootings — one at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas filled with students and one at a bar in Dayton, Ohio, as people were enjoying their night. The American Dream that immigrants worldwide have expected for themselves and their children has proven to be a farce. I am a Jersey City, New Jersey Native but my parents immigrated to America from Mumbai and Surat. Immigrants from India first arrived in the United States in small numbers during the early 19th century, primarily as low-skilled farm laborers. However, in recent decades the population has grown substantially. Now, as of 2015, there are over 2.4 million Indian immigrants residing in the United States. Compared to the overall foreign and native-born populations, immigrants from India on average are significantly better educated, more likely to be employed in management positions, and have higher household incomes. Indian Americans never would have imagined they would be targeted by armed domestic terrorists in the United States, a country that they risked everything for.

I was 12 years old on August 5th,2012 when a mass shooting claimed the lives of six innocent Sikhs at a Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. I was too young to understand why people who looked like me were killed. I was afraid and I was angry. America's greatest strength is the diversity of her populus. This hate crime gave a new meaning to being apart of the larger South Asian Community, it meant living with constant fear. My parents and relatives were beyond shocked, but they understood what this shooting meant to being brown in America. They understood what the lack of media coverage meant. The shooter, a white supremacist, was not prohibited from purchasing a gun even though he had received a discharge from the US Army "under other than honorable conditions." Additionally, Wisconsin state law permits people to carry their guns in temples and other places of worship unless they are personally notified that carrying firearms is prohibited by the property owner or occupant. Amardeep Kaleka, whose father founded the temple and was killed during the attack, confirmed that there was no such indication on the property of the Gurdwara. Families, including my own, hoped that this was the last hate crime against the South Asian Community. But they were wrong.
...