Greg Lucas of the San Francisco Chronicle offers this article on the problems facing Sikhs in the Bay area after 9/11. Lucas notes, for example:

• A teenager accosted Sukhdev Singh Bainiwal, 39, at Home Depot, saying he should
  take his turban back to the desert where he might actually need it.
• Another time, a fellow driver swerved toward him, saying "Arab, get out of here."
• And once, the driver of a car near his rolled down his window to ask if Bainiwal had told his family he loved them that morning.
• Three Sikh cabdrivers have been shot in the Bay Area since then, two fatally.
• Someone also shot at the sign for Vacaville's Sikh temple, or gurdwara.
• Last year, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the gurdwara in Stockton, California's oldest.
• And just this month, the Sikh temple in Lodi was spray painted with anti-Muslim epithets.

The article offers a brief and useful introduction to Sikhism and some Sikh traditions. It also discusses possible solutions to this mistreatment. Kavneet Singh, regional director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, argues: "We realized we needed to be more proactive, more civically involved, to let people know who we are.... People are less likely to be afraid of something they know."

Similarly, Ram Singh, a member of the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission and a member of the governing board of the gurdwara in Fremont, notes, "Politically we are not quite there yet.... That's what we're telling our people -- get more involved in local activities."