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On September 15, 2001, a Sikh American gas station owner, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was going about his usual business in the arid Mesa city of Arizona, when 42-year-old Frank Silva Roque, a Boeing aircraft mechanic came to the gas station and decided to kill him thinking he was a Muslim man, as those practicing Sikhism are bearded and wear a turban.
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Roque who previously held a criminal record for an attempted robbery in California had reportedly told his friends that he was "going to go out and shoot some towel-heads" on the day of the attack.
This was only the first of the hate crimes recorded against the Sikh and the Muslim communities in the United States after 9/11.
"One of the things realized in the aftermath of 9/11 that we didn't have any plans or systems in place to respond to what was happening." Simran Jeet Singh, a professor of religion at Trinity University and Senior Religion Fellow for the Sikh Coalition, a civil rights organization based in New York City, told teleSUR.
"So people organized quickly and created efforts to deal with the issues and the Sikh Coalition (largest Sikh advocacy and civil rights organization) was formed as an immediate response to dealing with the issues of the violence after 9/11."
Sikh advocacy and civil rights organization have made significant gains since then, by developing organizations and institutions that are focusing on advocacy and community building.
"By creating teams who focus on legal work, media advocacy, political advocacy, education, or any other way we could help uplift the community and bring more attention to the Sikh religion. We are in a much better place now than we were then," he said in a phone interview with teleSUR.
Sikhism is a religion founded in the 16th century by Guru Nanak in Punjab, India, that rejected the Hindu caste-system and stressed treating everyone equally, with the core belief of helping and serving people.
The monotheistic religion has over 25 million followers worldwide with about 500,000 in the United States. But a 2015 survey by the National Sikh Campaign showed that a staggering 60 percent of Americans knew nothing about Sikhs.
According to Singh, ignorance is one of the major issues plaguing the country.
One reason, he said, is "a lack of education about different religious communities, here in the U.S. we don't typically learn about other cultures and religions in our schools, so there's a general level of ignorance about who other people are."
But it's not even about just 9/11, as the community has seen several incidents of violence since September 11, 2001. One of the most recent major episodes of violence erupted when a white supremacist, Wade Michael Page, opened fire at a Sikh gurdwara, in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in 2012. One woman and five men were killed.
"We are focussing on education and introducing people to the religion and on the other hand it's also sensitizing people about other religions (Islam) to make sure that we don't deflect hate to other community," Singh said.
"Our faith teaches us to protect others who are dealing with discrimination, and in doing so to address hatred and bigotry at its core," he added.
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Singh pointed out small victories in the light of these dark incidents which have severely impacted the community in the United States.
"Up until three years ago, FBI didn't track hate crimes against Sikhs as they didn't have a category for it. Even though, the crimes against Sikhs have been occurring for decades. we can actually measure how serious the problem is and start mobilizing resources," Singh stressed.
Sikh Americans had lobbied for several years for such official documentation. The community has also worked towards fighting workplace discrimination.
"The Sikh coalition has led the way on religious freedom in the workplace, ensuring that employers don't discriminate on the basis of identity," he said.
"We've been involved in cultural awareness training, in government institutions, on media platforms, and in school systems. We now have Sikhism represented in more school textbooks, so people are learning about Sikhism."
"But, at the end of the day, what really matters is that there is an increasing awareness of who Sikhs are and an appreciation of the community as belonging and as wanted within the American context. So that's quite a bit of progress for us," he pressed.
However, the community has seen a rise in hate crimes since U.S. President Donald Trump took office. Vandalizing of the Sikh institutions, gurudwaras, and racial slurs against turbaned men, are some of the recorded incidents among others.
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"Immediately after 9/11, things were the worst I had experienced in my lifetime and then over the last decade or so, things became increasingly better, more comfortable, and respectful," Singh said.
"And this past year has put us back to 9/11 levels in terms of hate, discrimination, and violence that we are experiencing."
"I think one of the differences is though, post 9/11 context, the hate-filled actions were sort of fuelled out of emotions lifted out of a collective experience, where as now our political leaders are actually sending messages that are marginalizing different communities," he stressed.
"Following the December 2, 2015, San Bernardino, California attacks and recent political rhetoric, the Sikh Coalition has received a sharp uptick in complaints alleging intimidation, harassment, discrimination and hate violence against Sikh Americans," the Sikh Coalition's website said.
To report the violent crimes against the community, the Sikh Coalition launched a new online resource, Report Hate.org, where "we have started collecting the data that is hardly being recorded elsewhere," Singh added.
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