Keep Moving On: The Migration of a Punjabi-Sikh Family

In 2017 Amrit Singh experienced the deaths of his grandmother and uncle. Soon after his mother was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Raised in a family that lacked open communication among each other Amrit struggled to understand his place in the world as the lives and histories of the people closest to him were being lost to time. When the family comes together to care for his mother over the course of her treatment Amrit begins a journey of unearthing and preserving the stories of his elders. He discovers the details of his fathers years travelling undocumented and working at sea the political and economic factors that sparked his familys relocation out of Punjab the challenges they faced as new immigrants in Canada and how key moments of his life still connect to his parents migration. Keep Moving On is a memoir that finds parallels between family members born in different eras and circumstances and explores themes of mental health intergenerational trauma religion death and race through the lens of Amrits upbringing as a first generation Sikh-Canadian. It is a story of discovery hope resilience and the importance of making the most of the present.