Ten years ago, a white supremacist opened fire on a Sikh congregation in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring several others before taking his own life. An eighth person, Baba Punjab Singh, was left partially paralyzed and died from his wounds a few years later.

At the time, it was among the deadliest mass shootings in a place of worship since the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. It was also the most lethal assault on Sikh Americans since they began migrating to the U.S. more than a century ago.

I recall journalists covering the massacre not knowing much about the Sikh community. One anchor referred to the gurdwara as a mosque and referred to the murdered as Muslims. Another reporter described the gurdwara as a Hindu temple. A third described the Sikh religion as a sect of Islam, using the term “sheikhs” rather than “Sikhs.”

Scholars and government officials estimate the Sikh American population to number around 500,000. Cultural ignorance has often made them targets of bigotry.

As the author of “The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life” and as a practicing Sikh myself, I have studied the prejudices and barriers that many Sikhs in America face. I also experienced racial slurs from a young age.

The bottom line is there is little understanding in the U.S. of who exactly the Sikhs are and what they believe. So here’s a primer.

Founder of Sikhism
To start at the beginning, the founder of the Sikh tradition, Guru Nanak, was born in 1469 in the Punjab region of South Asia, which is currently split between Pakistan and the northwestern area of India. A majority of the global Sikh population still resides in Punjab on the Indian side of the border.

From a young age, Guru Nanak was disillusioned by the social inequities and religious hypocrisies he observed around him. He believed that a single divine force created the entire world and resided within it.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/american-sikhs-are-targets-of-bigotry-often-due-to-cultural-ignorance-187959