Multicultural exceptionalism: Race and gender in the Sikh diaspora of the transnational Pacific Northwest.

Multiculturalism discourse simultaneously produces, celebrates, and erases differences. This paper explores racial violence within the Sikh diaspora of the transnational Pacific Northwest (PNW) to understand how multicultural discourse has obfuscated the criminalization, incarceration, and surveillance of the Sikh diaspora. I draw from an analysis of Deepa Mehta's film Beeba Boys as well as ethnographic fieldwork to analyze the tropes of the 'Surrey Jack' and the 'Kent Boy,' two pervasive stereotypes attached to young Punjabi men in the PNW. I show that these caricatured masculinities reveal the limits of racial inclusion by reproducing stereotypes that characterize Punjabi Sikh men as 'dangerous.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]