Blue, green, saffron, red, pink and black turbans crowded around
Gov. Jerry Brown on the north steps of the Capitol on Saturday when he
signed two bills designed to battle anti-Sikh discrimination.
"Breaking
down prejudice is something you've got to do every day, and to help us
do that, I'm going to sign a couple of bills," Brown told an
enthusiastic crowd of 500 Sikhs from as far away as Texas and Colorado.
"Sikhs everywhere can see in California they are a powerful presence."
The
Workplace Religious Freedom Act, Assembly Bill 1964 by Assemblywoman
Mariko Yamada, D-Davis, ensures that employees receive equal protection
under law, protecting workers who wear turbans, hijabs and yarmulkes. In
California, employers faced over 500 cases of religious discrimination
in 2011.
Brown declined to wear a turban, saying, "I've worked hard to get my
head cleared," but honored the thousands of Sikhs who have given their
lives in a long history of struggle for religious freedom both in India
and the United States.
Brown also signed Senate Bill 1540,
sponsored by Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, changing how history and
social sciences are taught in schools so that students learn about the
history, tradition and theology of California Sikhs. Education
can blunt hatred, prejudice and fatal misunderstandings, such as the
massacre of Sikhs outside a Wisconsin temple, Brown said. Since the Gold
Rush of 1849, California's been built by waves of immigrants including
Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Mexicans, Punjabis and Europeans Brown
said.
"My own great-grandfather came here in 1852 from Germany and
didn't speak English," Brown said. "He was driving a stagecoach from
Placerville, then called Hangtown. ... There's always new and different
people coming around they speak 113 languages in California," Brown
said.
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