April Advocate: Prioritizing Education and Awareness

As a part of our ongoing effort to empower the community, a Know Your Rights Forum was held in Las Vegas, NV. Representatives from the FBI, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Las Vegas Metro Police Department discussed issues, such as cyber fraud, hate crimes, and employment discrimination. Each agency also presented career opportunities in their respective agencies to the sangat. To read a more detailed report about this, please click here. To conduct a similar forum in your community, please contact us. Founded on the principle of dasvandh, One Tenth Designs, an apparel company that donates 10% of each sale to a non-profit organization, will donate 10% of proceeds made in April to SALDEF. We encourage the Sikh American community to support this charitable company, thereby supporting SALDEF. Following the opening of the new San Jose Gurdwara in California, a local news station interviewed a number of Sikh American attendees of the celebratory event. In the airing of the segment, however, a young Sikh American student, whose image was displayed, was wrongly identified as a Muslim. SALDEF immediately contacted the local CBS station to notify them of their error, at which point they corrected the segment for the evening broadcast. SALDEF thanks volunteer Satinder Singh for bringing this error to our attention. Last month SALDEF volunteers Satinder Singh Mahli and Kavneet Singh conducted three one-hour workshops for roughly 100 students at Castro Valley High School in Castro Valley, CA. This is the fifth year SALDEF has been invited to participate in the school’s Days of Diversity event. The first workshop provided an introduction to Sikhi and the history of Sikhs in the U.S., and was followed by a question and answer session, while the second workshop focused on specific civil rights issues faced by Sikh Americans. Students watched a turban tying demonstration and received SALDEF’s 2011 Pocket Calendars and Who are the Sikhs brochures. Later in the month, SALDEF Chairman Manjit Singh similarly presented on the Sikh faith to social science students at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, MD. The group of 25 students were very engaged and active participants in the discussion, and one student even had the opportunity to have a turban tied. If you would like SALDEF to conduct an anti-bullying or cultural awareness presentation at your or your children’s school, please contact us. Last month, SALDEF staff attended the Safe Schools Advocacy Summit, a three-day summit highlighting national support for the Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA). The SSIA, which would require schools and districts receiving federal funds to implement and report on anti-bullying programs, was introduced in the Senate on March 8 and in the House on April 15. As part of the summit, more than 90 meetings were held with Senators, representatives and congressional staff to garner support for this bill, which would importantly protect Sikh American students. SALDEF has joined a broad coalition in addressing a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asking for changes to current immigration policies that force the separation of immigrant families. Notably, a 2009 DHS Office of Inspector General report estimated that between fiscal years 1998 and 2007, the federal government deported over 108,000 parents of U.S. citizen children. The letter, which can be read here, urges DHS to reform policies that protect family unity and stability.