Here's How A Canadian Sikh Immigrant's Love For Basketball Helped Him Deal With Racism

From being a millionaire with two businesses to his name and a Toronto Raptors superfan, Canadian Sikh immigrant Nav Bhatia has come a long way.

When Bhatia immigrated to Canada from India in 1984 he couldn’t find work with a qualification as a mechanical engineer.? In the early years Bhatia was at the receiving end of a bevy of insults for belonging to the Sikh community.?

More recently, a Canadian journalist, Muhammad Lila took to Twitter to share the beautiful story of a superfan of the Toronto Raptors basketball team in which he shared Bhatia's journey through the years.

Twitter

Bhatia chose to fight the insults and prejudice with a positive attitude. When he finally landed a job with a?a Chinese car dealership owner, Bhatia sold 127 cars in the first three months, became manager and today owns that dealership along with two others in Ontario – Hyundai Mississauga and Genesis Mississauga.

?“As a brown turbaned guy with an accent he couldn’t get a job as an engineer, so he wound up working as a car salesman at dealership in a rough part of town,” Lila wrote.

“In any other city (looking at you, MIL), a guy like Nav might stand out. But not in Toronto. We’re a place where immigration works. Multiculturalism works. Ask anyone who’s been to a Raps game and they’ll tell you it’s the most diverse place in the world,” Lila wrote.

In the Twitter thread Lila also highlights how Canada has opened it's door to? immigrants now and taking a jibe at US President Donald Trump, Lila wrote, “That while the world is building walls, Canada is building bridges. A guy like @superfan_nav is our best symbol of that.”

Read the thread below:?

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And that's not all Nav Bhatia is doing his bit to dispel the anti-immigrant fear among kids too, by buying them tickets to the Raptors game and showing them 'they belong'.?

He also has a foundation that raises money to build basketball courts for kids. Bhatia's story is proof that sports is a level playing field and huge source of integration; it has the power to dispel negatives like racism.?