There have been signs
Posted on 05/28/2015 2:35:28 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Standing before a Kerman High School class on Wednesday, Raj Sra talked about being the only Punjabi kid at his Tulare schools growing up.
He was called many names.
“Everything you can imagine: raghead, camel jockey,” Sra said, who now works as an information systems and technology administrator for the Fresno County Office of Education. “People had no idea where India was. They thought anybody with a turban was Muslim or from Arabia. It was just some far-off place.”
Fresno County school officials, in partnership with local Sikh leaders, are working to change that skewed perception. Together, they produced a five-minute educational film about Sikh culture and dress that debuted Wednesday before a Punjabi language class. Principal Pam Sellick said Kerman High is one of only two public schools across the state that offer Punjabi as a language elective.
Filming the movie was spurred by a report released last year, titled “Go Home, Terrorist,” that documented the bullying of Sikh American students. The report was compiled by the Sikh Coalition, a national organization created after 9/11 in response to discrimination and violence against Sikh Americans.
Researchers surveyed more than 500 Sikh schoolchildren at forums in Fresno, Boston, Indianapolis and Seattle and found that around half of them were bullied. Fresno County had the second-highest percentage of students who reported being bullied (54.5%) after Indianapolis (55.8%).
At a Fresno State forum last spring that addressed such bullying, Simran Kaur, western regional director of the Sikh Coalition, recalled a young college student who grew up attending Fresno schools. He talked about how he became suicidal after constant bullying related to his traditional dress.
“In many ways, we all felt like we had let that young man down,” Kaur said. “And so I think that was educational for us all.”
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
“It must be because I had the flu for Christmas.”
Oh hell — go ahead and get a tattoo.
Let your freak flag fly.
Oh I get the point. You’re offended by anyone who moves here and doesn’t adopt “American” clothing and hair styles. Even if they’re hard working, don’t bother anyone, and just go about their business.
If it’s a clean turban, they are Sikh, if it’s a dirty diaper, a devil worshipper.
You must be tons of fun at parties. Then again, I imagine you aren’t invited to too many.
There have been signs
Hey, did you see who just (today) won the national spelling bee? Co-champions. Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam. Can you believe those names? Who do you think let them in? Do you think they dress funny? I’ll bet their parents do. Darn foreigners, making regular American kids look bad.
I think I found a picture of our friend.
Have you shared your views with any Orthodox Jews? Those guys have the “costumes” you make fun of and they strap boxes to themselves. What’s up with that?
How about those dress-wearing, funny hat-donning Catholic and Eastern Orthodox priests?
Nuns in their crazy head gear? Get rid of that! This is America, right?
Scots in their kilts. I bet you think they’re really cross dressers, don’t you?
Do you only dislike some people who keep their own clothes for religious or modesty reasons? Or are you willing to be consistent and condemn all of the above?
Plus the Amish. Have you griped at them lately? Hats. Clothes. Customs. Everything you hate, fresh from 17th Century Germany. Hardly modern. Never ones to assimilate.
Or is it just the Sikhs?
You said they need to assimilate.
Orthodox Jews have gone out of their way to retain their culture, clothes, food, a separate system of law and lawyers. They have their own communities, neighborhoods, schools, etc. Pretty much everything.
Amish, too. Clothing, culture, language, rules, schools, etc.
We Catholics maintain our own funny customs, and our own system of laws and lawyers, schools, foods, holidays. Our priests even wear funny clothes, hats, and sometimes dresses. I’m not married until the Catholic Church says I am. I am not free from marriage unless the Catholic Church says I am. We don’t sound assimilated, do we?
How about them weird colonials with their tight britches, puffy shirts and powdered wigs? Never should have let those guys in.
If I were to change my religion, it would probably be to Sikh.
they seem to understand the evil of Islam!
The fact that all Sikh men wear the Kirpan shows their mettle.
I know”Ceremonial”, but still pointed and sharp! Also allowed in public schools.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/23/student-allowed-bring-religious-knife-school/17763379/
“Very polite people who need to stop wearing the weird costumes.”
There you go again, attacking Hillary’s pants suits!
“And drop the exceedingly foreign customs.”
Like Obama’s bowing to foreign royalty! ;^}
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