On a Saturday morning every May, a saffron flag rises over a borough hall on Cooke Avenue, and the streets of a small industrial town fill with hymns. The Sikhs in Carteret, New Jersey have turned a four-square-mile borough on the Arthur Kill into the unofficial centre of Sikh life in the Garden State. It is one of the highest per-capita Sikh populations of any municipality in the country, gathered in a place that spent most of the twentieth century smelting copper.
The Place
Carteret sits in the north-eastern corner of Middlesex County, a borough of just 4.93 square miles bounded by water on two sides. The Rahway River draws its northern line, separating it from Linden in Union County. The Arthur Kill forms the eastern edge, the tidal strait that divides New Jersey from Staten Island.
It was incorporated in 1906 as the Borough of Roosevelt, then renamed in 1922 after Sir George Carteret, one of the seventeenth-century proprietors of the colony. For most of its life it was a factory town, its waterfront lined with chemical works and metal refineries.
By the 2020 census, Carteret counted 25,326 residents. Nearly a quarter of them, 22.9 per cent, identified as Asian. It is now described as the most diverse community in Central Jersey, and among the most diverse in the entire state.
How It Became Sikh
The story of the Sikhs in Carteret is, at its root, a story about work and proximity. The town was built on industry, and industry is what first drew immigrants to its grid of modest streets near the water.
The Chemical Coastline
For more than eighty years, the U.S. Metals Refining Company ran a copper smelter on the Carteret waterfront, from 1903 until it ceased operations in 1986. It was part of what locals called the Chemical Coastline, a stretch of riverfront given over to smelting, chemical manufacturing and heavy industry.
That industrial base made Carteret a working town with cheap housing and easy access to jobs across the region. When the smelters and chemical plants began winding down in the 1970s and 1980s, the borough deindustrialised along with much of New Jersey. But the housing stock remained, modest and affordable, within reach of New York and the warehouses and businesses of the Turnpike corridor.
That combination, low prices and a central location, is exactly what newcomers look for. It is the same arithmetic that drew earlier waves of Ukrainians, Hungarians and Poles to the borough, and the churches they left behind still stand as evidence.
The First Gurdwara
The institutional history of Sikh Carteret begins in 1998, when the community established Gurdwara Singh Sabha, the borough’s first Sikh house of worship. For its first years it operated from a rented space within Carteret itself.
In 2005 the congregation moved to a permanent home just over the municipal line, in the Port Reading section of Woodbridge Township. The gurdwara settled on Port Reading Avenue, a short street that would soon hold not one Sikh temple but two.
Two Temples on One Street
In August 2004, a second congregation founded Gurdwara Dashmesh Darbar at 800 Port Reading Avenue, less than half a mile from Singh Sabha at number 941. Two gurdwaras now anchor the same modest street, a density that few corridors in the country can match.
Dashmesh Darbar did more than hold prayer services. In January 2005 it opened Dashmesh Academy, a school that has grown to enrol more than 300 students, teaching the Punjabi language, the Gurmukhi script and Sikh history to a generation born in New Jersey. For families raising children far from Punjab, the academy answered the quiet anxiety of every diaspora: that the language and the faith might thin out within a single generation.
From Pews to Politics
As the community grew, it moved from the gurdwara into the council chamber. In 2016, AJ Johal was elected to the Carteret Borough Council, the borough’s first Asian Indian-American council member. He had earlier become its first Asian Indian-American member of the board of education.
In early 2023 Johal was named council president, the first Sikh-Punjabi to hold the post in Carteret. A local businessman who owns gas stations in the borough, he framed the milestone plainly. “It is a great honor to serve as the first-ever Sikh-Punjabi council president in Carteret,” he said.
His rise mirrored a wider arrival. In November 2017, the nearby city of Hoboken elected Ravi Bhalla, New Jersey’s first Sikh mayor, a turbaned attorney who called his win a representation of the American dream. The Sikhs of north and central Jersey were no longer simply settling. They were governing.
The Borough That Raises the Flag
Few American towns mark the Sikh calendar the way Carteret does. The borough hosts an annual Sikh Day parade and Nagar Kirtan, a religious procession that has run for more than a decade.
The day begins at 11:30 in the morning with a Sikh flag raising ceremony at Carteret Borough Hall, 61 Cooke Avenue. At noon the Nagar Kirtan sets off from Borough Hall toward Carteret Park, at the corner of Cypress Street and Carteret Avenue, with floats, hymns and community leaders moving through the streets. At the park, volunteers serve Guru ka Langar, the free communal meal that is open to everyone regardless of faith.
Mayor Daniel J. Reiman has hosted it as a borough event rather than merely tolerating it. “The Sikh Community is an important part of our Carteret family,” he has said, calling it an honour to take part in a procession that draws Sikhs from across the region.
The Landmarks
Gurdwara Dashmesh Darbar, 800 Port Reading Avenue, Port Reading. Founded in August 2004, this is one of two gurdwaras that anchor the community just over the Carteret line. It runs daily prayer services and a free vegetarian langar, and it organises the borough’s Nagar Kirtan procession.
Gurdwara Singh Sabha, 941 Port Reading Avenue, Port Reading. The congregation that started it all, established in 1998 as Carteret’s first Sikh temple before relocating here in 2005. It has been expanding into a new three-storey building of more than 21,000 square feet, a measure of how far the community has come from its rented beginnings.
Dashmesh Academy, 800 Port Reading Avenue. Opened in January 2005 within Dashmesh Darbar, the school teaches Punjabi, Gurmukhi and Sikh history to more than 300 students. It is where the second generation learns to read the script of its grandparents.
Carteret Borough Hall, 61 Cooke Avenue. The Memorial Municipal Building is the civic heart of the borough and the staging ground for the Sikh community’s biggest day. Each spring the Nishan Sahib, the Sikh flag, is raised here before the Nagar Kirtan steps off.
Carteret Park, Cypress Street and Carteret Avenue. The terminus of the annual procession, where the langar is laid out and the day’s programme concludes. For one afternoon a municipal park becomes a Sikh gathering ground, with hymns over the public address and strangers fed for free.
St. Demetrius Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral, Carteret. A reminder that Carteret was a town of immigrants long before the gurdwaras arrived. The cathedral and the borough’s other Eastern European churches mark the earlier waves who came for the same factory jobs that built the place.
The Carteret Waterfront, along the Arthur Kill. Once the Chemical Coastline of smelters and refineries, the riverfront has been reclaimed for public access under a series of borough lawsuits and redevelopment projects, including a planned ferry to Manhattan. The shoreline that once kept the town’s industry now promises to connect its residents to the city.
Where They Came From
The Sikhs of Carteret are overwhelmingly Punjabi, drawn from a global migration stream that has carried Sikhs out of Punjab for more than a century. The faith and the homeland are closely bound: Sikhism was founded in Punjab, and its sacred geography remains there.
Much of the worldwide Sikh diaspora traces to the Doaba region, the fertile plain between the Beas and Sutlej rivers known for its dense villages and its extraordinary rate of emigration. Doaba is so closely tied to migration that it is nicknamed the NRI belt of Punjab, its districts of Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr sending generations abroad to Britain, Canada and the United States.
The mechanism in Carteret was the same one that built every other diaspora enclave: chain migration. A few families found work and cheap housing, then sponsored relatives, who in turn sent for others. A rented prayer hall in 1998 became two gurdwaras and a school within a decade. The town did not advertise itself to Sikhs. Sikhs told one another about it.
Carteret Today
Today Carteret holds the largest concentration of Sikhs in New Jersey. Estimates of the community range from roughly 1,000 to 2,500 residents, with South Asians making up close to 14 per cent of the borough overall. By per-capita measures it ranks among the most Sikh municipalities in the United States.
The texture of that presence is everywhere once you look. The gurdwaras on Port Reading Avenue draw worshippers daily. The flag goes up at Borough Hall each spring. A Sikh businessman sits at the head of the council table. And the broader Punjabi commercial world of central New Jersey, anchored by Oak Tree Road in nearby Edison and Iselin with its hundreds of South Asian shops and restaurants, sits a short drive away.
It is worth being honest about the town’s burdens too. The same waterfront that drew industry left a legacy of contamination, and U.S. Metals Refining settled a class-action lawsuit with nearby residents over lead and arsenic in the soil. Carteret remains a working-class borough, not an affluent one, and its Sikh community has built its institutions through pooled resources rather than wealth. That, perhaps, is the more remarkable thing. A modest factory town, asked to make room, made a homeland.
For more on how Sikh communities have anchored themselves across America, see the stories of the Sikhs in Richmond Hill, Queens and the older agricultural settlement of the Sikhs in Yuba City, California. New Jersey’s diversity runs deep across its boroughs, from the Turks in Clifton and the Turks in Paramus to the Egyptians in Jersey City. For the broader picture, the borough’s own history and the wider Punjabi American story trace the same arc of arrival.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Sikhs live in Carteret, New Jersey?
Estimates of the Sikhs in Carteret, New Jersey range from roughly 1,000 to 2,500 residents, the largest concentration of Sikhs in the state. South Asians make up close to 14 per cent of the borough, giving Carteret one of the highest per-capita Sikh populations of any municipality in the United States.
Where are the gurdwaras near Carteret?
Two gurdwaras sit just over the borough line on Port Reading Avenue in Woodbridge Township. Gurdwara Dashmesh Darbar is at 800 Port Reading Avenue, founded in 2004, and Gurdwara Singh Sabha is at 941 Port Reading Avenue, founded in 1998. They stand less than half a mile apart.
What is the Carteret Nagar Kirtan?
The Nagar Kirtan is an annual Sikh religious procession hosted by the borough each spring. It begins with a flag raising at Carteret Borough Hall, 61 Cooke Avenue, then proceeds to Carteret Park at Cypress Street and Carteret Avenue, where volunteers serve the free communal meal known as Guru ka Langar to everyone.
Why did Sikhs settle in Carteret?
Carteret offered affordable housing and a central location near New York and the region’s job corridors, the legacy of its long industrial past on the Arthur Kill. Sikh families settled through chain migration, sponsoring relatives until a single rented prayer hall in 1998 grew into two gurdwaras and a school within a decade.
Are there Sikh elected officials in Carteret?
Yes. AJ Johal was elected to the Carteret Borough Council in 2016 as its first Asian Indian-American member, and in 2023 he became the first Sikh-Punjabi council president in the borough’s history. He had earlier served as its first Asian Indian-American board of education member.
Where in Punjab do Carteret’s Sikhs come from?
Like much of the worldwide Sikh diaspora, the community draws heavily on Punjab and especially the Doaba region between the Beas and Sutlej rivers, an area so tied to emigration that it is nicknamed the NRI belt of Punjab. Its districts of Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr have sent migrants abroad for generations.
If your family’s story passed through Carteret, or any of the places Sikhs have made home in America, Atlas of Home can trace that journey. From the villages of the Doaba to the gurdwaras of Port Reading Avenue, to wherever you are now.