Turbans Make Sikhs Innocent Targets
By LARRY B. STAMMER
Times
Religion Writer
September 20 2001
Alarmed by numerous
mistaken-identity attacks on their believers, turban-wearing Sikhs are
prominently flying the American flag from their Southern California temples out
of patriotism--and for their protection.
While there have been only a
handful of incidents reported in the Southland, more than 200 have been reported
across the United States by Sikhs, whose faith originated more than 500 years
ago in northwestern India. The incidents range from having garbage thrown at
them to an Arizona homicide in which the Sikh owner of a convenience store was
allegedly shot by a man who called himself a "patriot."
Southern
California Sikhs said Wednesday they are playing it safe. Some wonder whether
they should no longer wear the religiously required turbans that resemble those
worn by suspected international terrorist Osama bin Laden, a Muslim. Other Sikhs
are being urged to avoid arguments and to walk away from disputes.
At
Sikh temples in the Westside's Pico-Robertson district and at the corner of
Vermont and Finley avenues in the Los Feliz neighborhood, the Stars and Stripes
is being displayed.
"We're patriotic people and we care very much about
America," said Siri Atma Singh Khalsa, an American Sikh convert at the Guru Ram
Das Ashram in Pico-Robertson.
A Sikh Web site reports that that most
anti-Sikh incidents in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York
and the Pentagon involved verbal harassment. Among other incidents, a Sacramento
temple reported vandalism, a Sikh was verbally threatened in Torrance, and Sikh
schoolchildren have been harassed by classmates, according to
www.sikhnet.com.
In Fullerton, a Sikh ice cream truck vendor was
reportedly chased out of a neighborhood by a resident wielding a baseball
bat.
"Some people are suffering from these things" in Southern
California, said Bhai Rajinder Singh Rattan, head priest at the Gurdware Sahib
Vermont temple. He said the turbans remind people of Bin Laden.
"All
people are very good," Rattan said, "but some people are misunderstanding us
because of our turbans and beards."
Mohinder Singh, editor of India
Journal, published in Santa Fe Springs, said Sikhs in America are bearing the
brunt of anger that should be directed toward the Taliban, the party that
controls most of Afghanistan, where Bin Laden is believed to be in
hiding.
"The problem is that Taliban [members] don't live in America," he
said.
Now, a sign hangs from the Los Feliz temple's front balcony that
says, "Sikh Community Strongly Condemns Terrorist Attacks on America and Prays
for the Victims."
Baptized Sikh men, many of them from Punjab state in
northern India, wear turbans as a sign of their faith. Sikh turbans
resemble those occasionally worn by Muslims, but a Sikh turban completely covers
the head. Islamic turbans do not. In addition, Sikhs do not cut any body hair,
including mustaches.
Sikhism, whose followers worship one God but believe
God is called by many names, has been practiced in the U.S. for more than 100
years and claims 400,000 adherents in the country today. Many Sikhs arrived at
the turn of the 20th century as lumbermen and railroad and field workers in
California, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest.
Punjabi farm laborers
worked in the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Imperial valleys, where they were
often incorrectly called "Hindus" by growers.
Most California Sikhs live
in the northern half of the state, including an estimated 25,000 in the Bay Area
and 10,000 in Yuba City, Marysville and Sacramento agricultural communities.
- - -
Times staff writers Peter Hong in Los Angeles and
Rone Tempest in Sacramento contributed to this story.
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