Sikh and Muslim women seek freedom to wear head coverings

Nov 08, 2009 (San Jose Mercury News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Their head wear displayed a full palette of colors and patterns, and symbolized different faiths. But the two dozen Sikh and Muslim women who gathered Saturday at a Fremont community center knew their turbans and scarves had a singular effect on many others in a country where their beliefs are in the minority.

They make the women stand out as different, and to some, threatening.

"Around Sept. 11 this year, I had someone call me a terrorist," said Jasdeep Kaur, a middle-school counselor and volunteer with the Sikh Coalition in Fremont that organized Saturday's unusual joint forum with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Santa Clara to address discrimination that women of both faiths face because of traditional religious head wear like her black dastaar turban. "We are visually standing out compared to everyone else."

Organizers said local Sikhs and Muslims had never held such a multifaith forum to address shared concerns about discrimination and profiling, but decided to do so because it remains a daily concern. While the overt hostility that peaked shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by Islamic terrorists has subsided, more subtle discrimination persists, they said.

"There's a lot of covert discrimination out there," said Harsimran Kaur, a lawyer and director of the Sikh Coalition.

Organizers said they were unaware of specific incidents locally since last week's fatal shootings at Texas' Fort Hood Army base,

allegedly by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a distraught Muslim psychiatrist. But Harsimran Kaur said the possibility of trouble arising from that incident "is a huge concern."

Sikh and Muslim women are expected to cover their heads. In the Sikh faith, which traces its roots to 16th-century India, both men and women cover their hair, which they do not cut. In Islam, which began in seventh-century Arabia, women cover their heads as a sign of modesty.

But in the predominantly Christian U.S., at war in two Muslim countries, the head wear isn't always welcomed. Nura Maznavi, a Muslim lawyer, said she recently handled a case in which a Vietnamese Muslim mother of two in Sacramento was told by her boss at a collection agency that she would have to choose between her traditional hijab covering and her job. Then, during the discrimination case, the collection agency declared bankruptcy.

Though the event was aimed at women who cover their heads in both faiths, a couple of Sikh men attended as well.

Parvin Singh, a San Jose software engineer who wore a blue turban and matching T-shirt that read: "My turban "... a figure of majesty," said he hasn't had much trouble in the Bay Area, but has been hassled at airports in East Asia, where the Sikh faith is uncommon.

"Sometimes," he said, "we get into situations where we just need to speak our rights to them."

Malika Khan of San Jose said she was harassed for wearing the hijab to her job as a clinical lab scientist at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose. But after complaining of discrimination, she won an apology.

"By standing up for your rights," Khan told the gathering, "you do get results."