History
Sikhs arrived in Washington State as early as the late 19th century, when Punjabi workers arrived in the Pacific Northwest's lumber and railroad industries. Bhagat Singh Thind, a prominent Sikh-American civil rights figure, trained at Camp Lewis in southern Washington during World War I. The Pacific Northwest was often the first point of entry for Sikh immigrants from Canada. The modern community grew substantially after 1965, particularly in the 1970s–1980s, and expanded dramatically from the 1990s onward with the rise of Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, and the broader Seattle technology ecosystem.









