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The smell of baking naan and boiling curries wafted through the air last night at the Khalsa Care Foundation in Pacoima. More than 100 members of the Sikh community met to recite chants for protection from violence and honor those lost over the weekend in a shooting that left seven dead and wounded three others in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Representatives from a half dozen religious faiths and politicians gathered at the center saying they wanted to help educate Southern California about Sikhs and their beliefs.
The center lies outside the boundaries of Congressman Brad Sherman’s district but would fall inside the redrawn borders of a new district he hopes to represent come November. He visited the center to say that, this week, all Americans wear a turban.
Simran Kaur Khalsa said that Monday's service was a part of a regular ritual that takes on added weight this week.
"Every sixth of the month, we have a prayer service where we pray that no religious organization, church, mosque, temple would ever be attacked. So it happened today, too, so we had our regular service except of course the focus was on what happened in Wisconsin."