Source: San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/31/BAGT3FGDR01.DTL
On October 31, 2005 the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "A teenager accosted Sukhdev Singh Bainiwal, 39, at Home Depot, saying he should take his turban back to the desert where he might actually need it. Another time, a fellow driver swerved toward him, saying 'Arab, get out of here.' And once, the driver of a car near his rolled down his window to ask if Bainiwal had told his family he loved them that morning. A member of Santa Clara County's Airport Commission and a software engineer at Sun Microsystems, Bainiwal is a Sikh. He is one of 500,000 in the United States, some 40,000 in the Bay Area alone, according to area Sikh leaders. Like many Sikhs, he has been threatened or harassed repeatedly since Sept. 11, 2001, by people who think he is Muslim and equate that with terrorism... Bay Area Sikhs say these incidents and the terrorism of Sept. 11 created an awareness in their community... San Jose's gurdwara hosts regular community meetings and invites neighbors to an ice cream social to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July each year. Among other forays into politics, Bob Dhillon, a member of the committee to build San Jose's gurdwara, has run twice for San Jose City Council. The Realtor also is a San Jose planning commissioner. But that's not enough, Sikhs said. 'Politically we are not quite there yet,' said Ram Singh, a member of the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission and a member of the governing board of the gurdwara in Fremont. 'That's what we're telling our people -- get more involved in local activities.'"