Demonised as migrants, mistaken for Muslims: Sikhs in US are victims of hate

Sikhs are tired of people calling them towel head or diaper head or terrorist

At the time, the U.S. was suffering through deep economic distress, a panic-filled recession that had begun the year before.

The angry anti-immigrant sentiment was ascendant. And hundreds of Sikh men who had traveled from India to Bellingham to toil in the lumber mills paid the price.

Documenting hate

Hate crimes and bias incidents are a national problem, but there’s no reliable data on the nature or prevalence of the violence. ProPublica is collecting and verifying reports to create a national database for use by journalists, researchers and civil-rights organizations. 

Some 500 white men, many of them members of the