'The violence is always there': life as a Sikh in Trump's America
Surjit Malhi always imagined that violence against American Sikhs was something that happened to other people. Yes, he wears a turban, a long unshorn beard and bright clothing, which mark him out as different from the European American majority in Turlock, the farm town 90 miles east of San Francisco where he has made his home since 1992. Yes, he’s aware that random attacks against Sikhs and other south Asian Americans are on the rise.
In his mind, though, he is also a pillar of the community, a staunch Republican who counts the area’s elected officials among his friends and can be sure, in an emergency, that the district attorney, or the Turlock mayor, will answer his call.
Malhi is a man loved and admired for his fundraising efforts on behalf of the families of fallen police officers, his appearances at community festivals and the convoys he’s organized through his trucking company to help the victims of California’s wildfires and last year’s devastating floods in Houston.
None of that helped, though, when, at the end of July, two white supremacists jumped him and showered him with baton blows as he was out erecting lawn signs and banners in support of Jeff
