Dr. Sarbjit Singh By Minahil Quazi (关明溪)

I interviewed Professor Sarbjit Singh, an Associate Professor and chairperson of Sport Management. He is an Indian American. Firstly we talked about what Asian means to him. He sees it is a huge positive identity that he resonant with being a South Asian American. We continued on to talking about how he makes the identity his own and how he has dealt with it. Professor Singh talks about the garment, turban, that is worn my Sikhs. He says he used to wear one, but as he got older, he found himself wearing it less. He talks about the discomfort it gave him due to him feeling like he’s sticking out amongst the crowd, as well as the general physical discomfort. However, he did not completely stop wearing the turban, he found himself wearing it mostly for religious, ceremonial, or formal events. Even after he stopped wearing it regularly and cutting his hair he found his family being accepting of his decisions without making him feel excluded or shunned.

We started talking about cultural traditions and foods. Professor Singh talks about the culture and how he likes the idea of service, or Seva, and how it’s a part of the culture.  He also mentions that it’s a big part of himself because how much it was with him culturally. We then talked about Asian dishes and which ones are his favorites, his choice was a dish called Chicken Makahni, or in English, Butter Chicken, it’s a curry which is spicy and made with milk, tomato, and butter. We then shifted to talking about desserts and sweets. South Asia has a lot of sweet dishes, one of the ones we talked about is a sweet called Gulab Jamun. Gulab jamun is made by frying milk solids and being soaked in a aromatic sweet syrup.

To wrap it all up he talks about his proudest accomplishment in his career, being at Farmingdale, he’s been here for 12 years, been promoted, and has been a chairperson for 5 years. He feels that his time at Farmingdale and what he has done is the proudest career accomplishment he has.