my husband dredges up things from the past

“But we are different people from Muslim people.

“Our appearance looks like Osama bin Laden and those of Afghanistan,” Suminder Sodhi, a friend of the Arizona victim, said at the time of the first attack.

The men are easily identifiable by their beards and turbans, a tradition that’s lasted for 500 years.īut the attire and appearance have also meant that they are often mistaken for Muslims, and are targets of anti-Islam attacks. The United States is home to about 700,000 Sikhs, nearly all of Indian origin. “Everybody should feel at home,” he said Sunday. Rajwant Singh, from the Maryland-Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said Sikhs growing up in the United States should not feel as though they don’t belong. While the shooter’s motives are not yet known, what is clear is that the incident has dredged up the sense of shock and sadness Sikhs felt 11 years ago. Police have received information that the suspect “may have been involved in” the white supremacist movement, but that has not been confirmed, Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said. Witnesses said the gunman had a 9/11 tattoo on one arm. Wade Michael Page, 40, an Army veteran, was the gunman and was killed by an officer at the scene, police said Monday. In some extreme cases, Sikhs were set upon by groups of people and beaten.Īs the incidents waned, the community had hoped the worst was behind them – until Sunday, when a man shot and killed at least six people at a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee, wounded a police officer and was himself killed by another officer’s bullets.

Some Sikhs had their houses vandalized others were spat upon.

My husband dredges up things from the past