WHO WAS AMANDA GESINE, ACHORWOMAN & PRODUCER ?
"MISTAKEN IDENTITY ... Discovering SIKH AMERICANS" (Color made-for-TV 56 min) opens with full portait faced 21-year old Amanda Gesine WINKLEVOSS saying: "I knew nothing about ... about Sikhs ..." and represents mainstream America living behind the white picket fence ... apart from the influx of recent ethnic immigrant majority.of the 60s She represented America that stood stunned after 9/11, wondering ... questioning ... demanding to know - how anyone in the world could hate their country so much !
She was from Greenwich, CT, and had stood stunned on New York's Park Avenue watching the smokey, horrific terrorist attack in a distance on that day. What had America done that was so terrible, that strangers attacked her country so mercilessly ... leaving so many innocent people to die. On TV networks people were filmed jumping out from the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center.
National and international TV networks and media filled the screens and front pages with highlights of the attacks in New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.
From Day 1, there were attacks on Sikhs began, mistaken for terrorists, simply because they wore turbans and beards for religious reasons . Scenes of young American men throwing beer bottles at turbaned taxi drivers (estimated 32% of South Asians who drive NY cabs), including beating up old men in turbans with baseball bats.
On Day 3, the film crew attended the candle light vigilance at Union Square where Amanda met and discussed what was happening with three to four Sikh men and women. The young girl, born in America, shared her story. She learned how Sikhs of different ages were being singled out because Americans blamed them for their resemblance to the suspected Arab perpetrators.
Hate crimes were being committed daily, as Amanda read of how turbaned Swaran Kaur Bhullar, 51-year-old mother of three, stopped at a red light. Two men on motorcycles yanked open her door and shouted, "We're going to slash your throat" and stabbed her head twice, leaving her for dead in San Diego, CA, one of the first 36 suspected "hate" crimes reported by the police.
Within days of 9/11, 290 crimes and other assaults on Sikh Americans were documented nationwide - a trend towards racial distrimination, verbal abuse and physical assaults and killings on people who wore turbans and beards - a misguided media portrayal which hit the Sikh community as the mistaken identities.
Amanda recalled the story of how as the first twin tower collapsed on 11 September, surgical resident, Dr. Nijher Singh, from Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn rushed to the scene, scavenging supplies from abandoned ambulances. He set up the first triage center at Ground Zero and organized the makeshift morgue.
Next day, American citizen Nijher ran his first public survival errand in Manhattan. Everyone stared at his turban and whispered: "There goes one of them now ." Someone yelled, "Go home to your country." He stood numb, because the day before he had worked a 24 hours shift and not a single word was uttered.
It became Amanda's mission to explain to Americans who Sikhs really were. It was her goal to make the film and have it broadcast on PBS throughout the USA. But at this point, she herself knew nothing about Sikhs and Sikhism and the film shows her fascinating journey into discovering her Sikh neighbors.
More information check out website: http://www.cultural-diversity.co.uk
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