Turbans Make Sikhs Innocent Targets

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.

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Times staff writers Peter Hong in Los Angeles and Rone Tempest in Sacramento contributed to this story.