New Jersey Sikhs seek
end
to post-9/11
ignorance
By RITU JHA, thnt
Online from the Web, December 9, 2007
Six years after 9/11, the Sikh
community continues to be the target of hate crimes in the United States, said
Linda Singh, a Carteret resident.
"People still confuse us with Osama bin Laden and terrorism and it's very
troubling," Singh said.
Singh will speak on behalf of the Sikh community Monday at the Governor's
Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Immigration Policy's public hearing. The
hearing is the first forum the panel has held since it was created by Gov. Jon
S. Corzine in August.
The meeting is scheduled from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday at the Labor
Education Center in New Brunswick.
Singh said she will speak on behalf of the Sikh community in New Jersey and will
ask the governor to launch a Sikh awareness training program to eliminate bias
attacks against Sikhs and safeguard the community.
She said that last year a Sikh boy, a seventh-grader, was attacked at a Marlboro
school. His parents then moved their son out of the country, sending him
to school in the United Kingdom.
Singh, who is an Irish-American and married to a Sikh man, said she does not
fear for herself because she is white. Noting there is a large Sikh
population in Carteret, she said, "I fear for members of my community.
"I am protective of them, because of the level of ignorance that still exists
after 9/11," she said.
New Jersey is a state of diversity, and diversity isn't something to be feared,
she said. Education is necessary.
"We are calling on Gov. Corzine to be pro-active. We are asking him to set
up diversity training for state and local government workers, including police,
and at schools," she said.
Hardyal Singh, director of United Sikh, a Sikh organization based in Oak Ridge,
Morris County, said law enforcement officers and school staff should be given
some sort of diversity training that teaches, "who Sikhs are."
He said United Sikh, for the past year, has been working with various schools,
educating students about the community.
"We tie a turban in front of the students to make them aware" of the Sikh
culture, Hardyal Singh said, adding the program is given to pupils in the fifth
grade and up.
(Emphasis Added
rjha@thnt.com
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