Our Research
To help accomplish our goals, SALDEF produces materials and research to help educate the Sikh American community about public policy. By creating reports and briefings to help local and national legislators understand the interests of the Sikh American community, we help bring the voice of 700,000 Sikh Americans to the table. Our goal is to use this voice to promote an inclusive perspective on public policy.
Virtually Vulnerable: Exposing the Human Cost of Digital Harassment
The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) announces the release of a groundbreaking report, Virtually Vulnerable: Exposing the Human Cost of Digital Harassment. This comprehensive report delves into the escalating issues of online harassment and censorship, specifically targeting the Sikh diaspora and allied communities like secular Hindus, Indian Muslims, and Dalits.
Dissent Across ‘Democracies’
For two years since the Punjab Farmers’ Protests, SALDEF has worked extensively to surface censorship related issues to social media companies and to offices of Congress.
Our expert Policy & Research team offer up a set of recommendations that they’ve developed from the latest cutting edge research, as SALDEF continues to push social media platforms to adopt policies to prevent the erasure of their most vulnerable users.
When #Sikh Was Banned Worldwide…
…SALDEF took notice. This groundbreaking research delves into the social media censorship from the Punjab Farmers’ Protest while offering an in-depth analysis and policy recommendations. Discover the blueprint of our ongoing fight to prevent the erasure of Sikh Americans online.
Turban Myths
This research was conducted with Stanford University, Turban Myths: The Opportunities and Challenges for Reframing Sikh American Identity in Post-9/11 America. It explores the public perception of the Sikh articles of faith and the role of the media in creating an implicit bias against the community.
Taking on Hate and White Supremacy: Policy Recommendations Ten Years after the Attacks in Oak Creek, Wisconsin
The Sikh community is historically understudied in the United States. As a policy organization dedicated to building leadership capacity in our community, SALDEF has spent much of the past decade conducting in-community surveys and qualitative research to better understand and portray Sikh Americans to policymakers in Washington, D.C., and nationwide. As we approach the ten-year anniversary of Oak Creek, we re-examined our research and outreach over the past decade and prepared this snapshot of where the community stands ten years on.
National Sikh American Survey
Sikh Americans have lived in the United States for over a century; however, limited information is known about the Sikh American community. While a few studies have documented critical aspects of the Sikh American experience up to this point, there has not been a national survey that measures the multiple facets of the lives of Sikh living in the United States. The report begins by explaining the methods used to create, advertise, and implement the survey. It then details the most important findings of the survey. It concludes with the seven recommendations based on the survey’s finding that policymakers, researchers, foundations, new organization elected officials, and Sikh organizations will find useful to understand Sikhs across the United States.