As a girl in New Delhi, Sabina Freedman participated in the Sikh tradition of langar, the community meal open to anyone in the city regardless of societal status, religion, wealth or lack thereof. It was a lesson in equality, with the diners all sitting cross-legged on the ground, but also in humility for a girl from a privileged background.
It was the langar that members of the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., were readying Sunday when Wade Michael Page entered the temple and began shooting. He killed six people before being shot to death by police.
“That’s what makes it so sad: the juxtaposition of this feeling of faith — the doors are open to anybody who wants a hot meal — and this person with so much anger comes in,” said Freedman, now 46 and living in Cape Elizabeth.
Maine is home to a small community of Sikhs, some of whom said Monday that shootings did not make them fearful and that they had never felt unwelcome in Maine. They said that people are generally unfamiliar with their religion — a 500-year-old monotheistic faith founded in India in the 15th century — and that they have experienced both curiosity and confusion about their faith. Some Sikhs contacted for this article declined to be interviewed.
Freedman, who moved to Massachusetts from India for college, said she has never experienced bigotry against her or her family since settling in Maine in 1993. She and her husband have three children. The family reflects both her Sikh and Indian background and his Jewish heritage.
“We live in Cape, my kids go to school here. We have friends who are from every faith. It could just as well have happened to our Jewish friends. This is not something where I feel like, ‘Oh my God, as a Sikh I feel afraid to live in the United States,’ ” she said.
Ranjit Singh Gill, a 69-year-old retired engineer who moved from Schenectady, N.Y., to Freeport in 2003, said there is a lot of ignorance about Sikhism. A couple of years ago, Gill and his wife prepared a one-page “Sikhism 101” handout for a gathering at their home. Even Hindus who shared his Indian roots were not that familiar with Sikhism, he said.
Gill said the beard and turban worn by many Sikh men lead many to confuse Sikhs with Muslims. “Anybody who sees a Sikh thinks: Osama bin Laden,” said Gill, who doesn’t wear a beard or turban himself.
The confusion is not new, noted Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, a religious studies professor at Colby College in Waterville. It happened after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but also during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979-81, she said.
Sikhs have been in the United States since the late 1800s, when a few began settling in California and working on farms before immigration restrictions were put in place, she said. Another migration, largely professionals, began in the 1960s and 1970s, she said.
Kaur Singh said the aftermath of the Wisconsin shootings provides an opportunity for Sikhs to explain who they are.
“It’s a very sad moment in both Sikh and U.S. history, because Sikhs are a part of U.S. history,” she said.
Freedman said that while Page’s motives are unknown, she thinks something in his personal life prompted him to turn his anger on a group of available people. She said although there’s been much discussion about confusion between Sikhs and Muslims, it doesn’t necessarily mean he was motivated by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“Even if Sikhs are confused for Muslims,” she said, “it’s not right that someone would direct that kind of anger at Muslims.”
Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at: akim@pressherald.com
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