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Gilbert Garcia has been arrested in the assault on 82-year-old Piara Singh on May 5 in Fresno, California. (source: Crime Voice)

Attacker of Fresno, CA, Sikh senior deemed unfit to stand trial

October 23, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Back in May, Gilbert Garcia attacked an elderly Sikh man named Piara Singh with a metal rod outside a Gurdwara in Fresno, California. Piara Singh, 82 years old, was hospitalized due to the injuries he sustained that included severe head injuries and collapsed lung. He was discharged home where he is recovering from his injuries. The attack was quickly deemed a hate crime based on statements made by Garcia after the attack. On Monday, after a third medical evaluation, it […]

Categories: Hate Crimes • Tags: California, Fresno, Gilbert Garcia, hate crime, hate crimes, Piara Singh

Adding to a history of defacement

October 3, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Recently, in Yuba City, California, the vehicle of Suk Dulai, a Sikh man and coach of a youth baseball team in the Sutter Buttes Little League, was vandalized with a racist message carved into the paint stating “We want no Hindus at SBLL.” “If this continues, what’s going to be the next step?” said Dulai. “That’s the most scary part of it.” The Yuba City police department is reportedly treating this incident as a hate crime. This crime is not […]

Categories: Hate Crimes • Tags: California, hate crimes, Suk Dulai, Sutter Buttes Little League, vandalism, Yuba City

Prabhjot Singh. (Source: Columbia University)

Sikh man attacked in apparent hate crime in New York

September 23, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

The news spread very quickly yesterday that another Sikh American has been attacked in what appears to be a bias-based assault. Dr. Prabhjot Singh, a Sikh physician and professor at Columbia University, was attacked in Harlem, New York, on Saturday night by a mob of young men on bicycles who issued epithets such as “Osama” and “terrorist” during their attack. Dr. Singh was taken to hospital and discharged on Sunday with a fractured jaw and other injuries. “We heard ‘get […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Hate Crimes • Tags: Columbia University, Harlem, hate crimes, New York, Prabhjot Singh

"Santokh Singh Sahi speaks with guest during a meet-greet with members of the Sikh community, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013 at the Glen Avon Library. " (Credit: STAN LIM/Press-Enterprise)

“If you tell me why you shave, I’ll tell you why I keep my hair”

September 16, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

After a Gurdwara near Riverside, California, was vandalized in late July with the word “terrorist” spray-painted on its walls, the Sikh community held an open house to engage with its neighbors in the area: Santokh Singh Sahi, 72, a member of the temple, Riverside Gurdwara, said the open house Tuesday night, Sept. 10, and the support the temple has received leading up to it decreased the apprehension temple members felt after the vandalism. “We feel more safe and secure because […]

Categories: Hate Crimes, Interfaith • Tags: Antonio Arias, California, Graffiti, hate crimes, Jurupa Valley, open house, Riverside, Santokh Singh Sahi, Sikh Gurdwara of Riverside, vandalism

The US flag is raised in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. (Source: Martin Ramirez)

“Since 9/11”

September 15, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

The neighborhood in which I live is one of those that sprung up during the real estate bubble eight years ago. The houses are, for the most part, very similar. Composed of four or five standard models, the streets offer a consistent character of a typical Californian subdivision. There is one house among the many, however, that is a bit different. It is unique in that an American flag waves outside its front door. The residents of that house are […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Events, Hate Crimes, Reflections • Tags: 9/11, hate crimes, Islamophobia, Sikhophobia, xenophobia

When Captain America wore a turban

September 13, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Earlier this summer, Sikh cartoonist Vishavjit Singh provided a glimpse of his foray through New York City dressed as the superhero Captain America. In an article in Salon magazine published this week, Vishavjit Singh shares more about his experience in challenging stereotypes: I have been skinny all my life, and I felt a stirring of anxiety to be so exposed. Family and friends have pointed out my thin-ness for years, and the self-consciousness has sunk deep into my psyche. Before […]

Categories: Art, Civil Rights, Reflections • Tags: Captain America, comics, Fiona Aboud, hate crimes, Navdeep Singh Dhillon, New York, Sikhtoons, Vishavjit Singh

Workers install seven domes now adorn the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek earlier this month, as tributes to the lives lost in last year's shooting rampage by a white supremacist. (Source: WISN-TV)

Guru Gobind Singh’s Zafarnama and Oak Creek, Wisconsin

August 27, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

What manliness you have shown by extinguishing a few sparks? You have made the conflagration brighter and more furious. — Guru Gobind Singh to Aurangzeb, Mughal emperor of India, 1705. In 1705, the tenth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh, wrote a letter in Persian entitled Zafarnama (“Epistle of Victory”) to Aurangzeb, the Mughal emperor of India who engaged in a campaign to eradicate the Sikh people, resulting in the execution and deaths of the Guru’s four young sons […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Hate Crimes, Reflections • Tags: Aurangzeb, Guru Gobind Singh, hate crimes, Oak Creek, Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, Zafarnama

"A statue of Martin Luther King stands across from the historical Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala." (Photo: Ken Wells, Bloomberg. Source: USA Today)

Still “mountains to climb” to combat hate

August 26, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

In USA Today, Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center offers an assessment of where the country is today, 50 years after the March on Washington: “We still have mountains to climb. The best estimates suggest there are a stunning quarter-million hate crimes in this country every year. Hate groups have been rising steadily over the last decade and now number more than 1,000. Our public discourse, including that of a shameful number of politicians, preachers and pundits, is […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Hate Crimes, Reflections • Tags: 16 Street Baptist Church, Alabama, Birmingham, hate crimes, March on Washington, Mark Potok, Southern Poverty Law Center, USA Today, White supremacy

Celebrating diversity in the wake of hate

August 16, 2013 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

After two Sikh grandfathers were shot and killed while on their daily walk in a suspected (and yet, unsolved) hate crime in Elk Grove, California, in March, 2011, the city council sought to promote the diversity of and among its residents: In October 2011, each council member appointed two of the more than 30 applicants to serve on the 10-member Elk Grove Multicultural Committee… “I thought the creation of it was very timely, not just because of the shootings but […]

Categories: Events, Hate Crimes • Tags: California, Elk Grove, Elk Grove Multicultural Festival, Gurmej Atwal, hate crimes, Sacramento, Surinder Singh

Considering the experience of Sikhs in America.

Tag: hate crimes