Representatives of nearly all U.S. national Sikh organizations - including United Sikhs, the Sikh Coalition, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Sikhs For Justice - gathered with lawmakers April 24 on Capitol Hill for the launch of the American Sikh Congressional Caucus. While most political caucuses typically organize around common affiliations or ideological goals, the Sikh Caucus joins the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus as one of the few organized along racial or ethnic lines.
At the event, the 28 founding members from the U.S. House of Representatives - twenty-one Democrats and 7 Republicans - pledged to bring attention to American Sikh issues, such as hate-crimes, school bullying, employment discrimination, and racial profiling. A long-standing ban on turbans has also prevented American Sikhs from enlisting in the military. The caucus’s first priority is educating Congress, said Representative David Valadao (R-CA), co-chairman of the caucus with Representative Judy Chu (D-CA), whose California district includes more than 25,000 Sikhs - the largest Sikh population in the U. S.
Sikhism ranks fifth among the world’s religions – including being India's most prominent ethnic community – and there are roughly 500,000 Sikhs living in the U.S. But their distinctive, colorful turbans made them targets after 9/11 of racial profiling, discrimination, and bias-motivated violence by individuals who incorrectly associated them with terrorist attacks on our country.
The momentum to form the Sikh Caucus hit full steam after white supremacist and Army veteran, Wade Michael Page, killed six people and wounded four others in a shooting at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, August 5, 2012. Page also seriously wounded a police officer in a shoot-out before killing himself. The FBI investigated the mass shooting as an act of domestic terrorism, not a hate crime, and concluded in November that Page acted alone. While other attacks occurred against Sikhs before and since, the Wisconsin shooting drew the attention of the White House, where President Obama flew the flag at half-staff and called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to "express condolences for the victims of the senseless attack.” First lady Michelle Obama later met with victims and families in a private gathering at Oak Creek High School in Wisconsin.
After other incidents – including a Dayton 500-weekend wounding of a Port Orange, Florida, Sikh man in February - more than 100 members of Congress asked the FBI to start tracking hate crimes against Sikh, Hindu, and Arab-Americans something the Washington-based Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund first requested in November 2010.
The FBI’s decision is expected in June.