California Sikh community Raises Money to keep City’s Fireworks Show Alive

• There are about 500,000 Sikhs presently living in the US, and it has also become the fifth largest religion round the world
• Turbans are sported by a majority of Sikhs, which makes some people think that they are Muslims

California, July 09, 2017: Visalia, a city in California, was close to having to cancel its annual fireworks show because of lack of funds; but when the mayor said to Amritpal Singh about the issue, the businessman saved the grand occasion of the Fourth of July.

Reportedly, Singh along with the rest of the Sikh community of the city rallied together and they raised $10,000 for the grand event, which is also going to be a benefit for charity for children. Mayor Warren Gubler was quoted as saying to NBC News, "Visalia considers this to be very generous and helpful. We appreciate their show of patriotic support, as one of our newer groups of American citizens."

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According to report published in The Week, it was found in a survey conducted in January 2015 that 6 out of 10 Americans knew "nothing at all" about Sikhism; while a mere 11 percent only, personally knew someone who was Sikh.

There are about 500,000 Sikhs presently living in the US, and it has also become the fifth largest religion round the world, but due to its presence under the radar in the US; a nationwide campaign for education was recently launched for educating the people and making them aware of their Sikh-neighbors. A Sikh from Fresno, California, Bill Singh Nijjer; was quoted as saying that while Sikhs have been living in central California, for about a century, "we haven't done any outreach. That is probably the reason we were targeted and misidentified."

Turbans are sported by a majority of Sikhs, which makes some people think that they are Muslims (even though most of the Muslims do not don turbans), and some also assume that it has been a major reason that caused violence against the Sikhs. Gagan Kaur, from Fresno was quoted as saying to NBC news, "Everyone I know has experienced discrimination. I hope that one day this [campaign] will allow our children to not have to go through what we went through."

– prepared by Antara Kumar of NewsGram. Twitter: @ElaanaC