(RNS) It’s a weekday afternoon, and Jaspreet Singh is usually at work, but power drill in hand, he’s attaching new “security cameras in use” signs to the outside of the Sikh temple in Buena Park, Calif.

Singh took the time off from his job as an information technology manager to protect the temple where he serves as a board member after he learned it had been vandalized.

“I was definitely shocked because our community is very peaceful. We don’t preach any hate. We respect all religions,” he said.

He was less surprised when he found out that the graffiti painted onto the walls of the temple’s parking lot and a truck parked there included slurs about “ISIS” and “Islam.” “Whenever terrorists attack, or any such incidents happen, there have always been backlashes,” he said.

And anti-Muslim backlashes have often targeted Sikhs, who are frequently mistaken for Muslims. The turbans worn by Sikh men in particular prompt the perpetrators of hate crimes to assume that their targets follow Islam.

The graffiti at the temple, Gurdwara Singh Sabha, was discovered on Dec. 6, four days after terrorists with apparent connections to radical Islamists killed 14 people in San Bernardino, about 50 miles from Buena Park. Leaders of the gurdwara, or Sikh house of worship, asked authorities to investigate the vandalism as a hate crime.

The Sikhs in Buena Park, where the gurdwara serves 1,000 people, were hardly the only members of their faith targeted after the San Bernardino massacre.

“We’re already seeing a spike in incidents. We’ve had several reports of community members experiencing hate speech,” said Gurjot Kaur, attorney with the Sikh Coalition, a national organization that provides legal assistance to Sikhs facing discrimination.

Sikhism is the world’s fifth-largest religion, with about 25 million practitioners, including more than 500,000 in the U.S. It originated in Northern India independently from Hinduism, Islam and other religions. Most Sikh men wear turbans and beards as signifiers of faith.

Their style of dress lines up with stereotypical symbols of terrorism, said Simran Jeet Singh, professor of religion at Trinity University. (He is not related to Jaspreet Singh; many Sikh men use the surname Singh.)

“My father came to this country in the 1970s. Back then, he was called ‘ayatollah.’ When I was a kid I got called ‘Osama bin Laden.’ Now we’re being called ‘ISIS,’” he said. “All of these xenophobic slurs come from a misunderstanding of who Sikhs are.”

Simran Jeet Singh said often anti-Muslim political rhetoric lumps together unique religions and Middle Eastern and South Asian ethnic groups, he said.

Soon after terrorists linked to the Islamic State group attacked in Paris in November, for example, Canadian Sikh journalist Veerender Jubbal was photoshopped to appear as one of the suicide bombers. The image spread widely around the Internet and some news media even published the image, believing it to be authentic.

Sikhs have also often been targets of violence. Days after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a man ranting about “towel heads” shot and killed a Sikh gas station owner in Mesa, Ariz. In 2012, a white supremacist killed six Sikh worshippers in their Wisconsin gurdwara. And in September, a man shouting “terrorist” beat a Sikh man unconscious outside Chicago.

That perpetrators of these crimes should attack Sikhs, mistaking them for Muslims, is not surprising, said Randy Blazak, a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon who researches hate crimes.

“The notion of hate crime is always based on not just who the target is, but the perception of who the target is,” Blazak said. “There are often anti-gay attacks where the victim isn’t gay or anti-illegal immigrant attacks where the victim is not actually an illegal immigrant.”

Simran Jeet Singh said excusing discriminatory acts as cases of mistaken identity skirts the larger issue.

“By framing it as mistaken, there’s an implication that there’s a correct identity who should be targeted,” he said. “And it takes away agency and accountability from perpetrators, like it should, in some way, be forgivable.”

Whether or not attackers strike their intended targets, Simran Jeet Singh sees anti-Muslim sentiment and actions as evidence of a larger problem. “Political rhetoric now is certainly fanning the flames of ignorance and fear,” he said.

Buena Park’s Sikh community understands that firsthand.

When Jaspreet Singh headed to the store to buy security equipment and supplies to clean up his vandalized gurdwara, he said a woman in the store’s parking lot shouted expletives at him, telling him to get out of the U.S. Still, he said he has loved living in the U.S. since arriving from India 12 years ago, despite the bigotry directed at him and his community.

The teachings of his faith remind him to stay optimistic.

“If a tragedy happens,” he said, “all the communities should come close and protect each other rather than splitting ourselves and hating each other and blaming each other.”

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(With Piya Sinha-Roy and David Gregorio)

Three more women accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault on Wednesday, providing detailed allegations of abuse they said the veteran television star subjected them to decades ago.

Colleen Hughes and Linda Ridgeway Whitedeer said Cosby, 78, had sexually assaulted them in the early 1970s, while Eden Tirl said he sexually harassed her on “The Cosby Show” set in 1989.

The women were speaking at a press conference hosted by celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who represents 21 of the more than 40 women who have come forward in the past year accusing Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them.

Ridgeway Whitedeer said Cosby forced her into a sex act in 1971 when she met him for an interview on a movie set. At the time, she said, she was an aspiring actress and had been married for a while to a television agent who also worked for the comedian.

“As undignified as this is, it is my turn to take the empty chair that I saw on the cover of the New York Magazine, because I was assaulted sitting in a chair on a job interview and I was not drugged,” she said.

Representatives for Cosby did not respond for comment on Wednesday, and Cosby has never been charged.

Hughes, a former American Airlines flight attendant, said she encountered Cosby on a flight to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, and he accompanied her to her hotel. She said she lost consciousness for a few hours after drinking champagne with the comedian and confronted him about the incident a year later.

Tirl, a former model, said she was guest-starring as a police officer on “The Cosby Show” in 1989 when Cosby sexually harassed her in his dressing room.

Los Angeles police are currently conducting a criminal investigation into a complaint brought against Cosby, who has canceled TV projects and live shows due to the momentum of allegations.

Last month, Cosby lost a bid to fend off a lawsuit that accused him of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in 1974. He will answer questions under oath at a deposition on Oct. 9.

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It was a welcome sight for fishing enthusiasts. Trucks bearing “live fish” signs backed into the Big Bear Lake Municipal Water District lot and shot hundreds of thousands of small trout out of pipes and into the water the morning of April 1.

About 750,000 fish have been released into the lake in the past two weeks. Another 500,000 will arrive later this month.

The fish, which MWD was able to secure at a discounted rate, are a nice boost for the Big Bear Lake fishing industry, especially following the recent cancellation of two local fishing tournaments. But they’re also an indication of a rough outlook for the fishing industry statewide.

“No one has fish right now,” said MWD General Manager Mike Stephenson.

Fish hatcheries across California have been struggling to cope with the state’s historic drought. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife evacuated fish from two of its hatcheries last summer as dry conditions persisted and water temperatures rose. Other hatcheries have attempted to save fish by installing massive water cooling systems. The Calaveras Trout Farm, a regular supplier for Big Bear Lake, is simply closing up shop for the season.

“The farm has been in operation since 1971, and we’ve never had an issue,” said Tim Goodson, the farm’s owner. “Last year we struggled, but this year the lake is going to go dry.”

Goodson’s Snelling, California farm depends on water from the Merced River, which is fed by Sierra snow pack. With snow levels in the Sierra Nevada at a mere 5 percent of average, some waterways near Goodson’s farm are expected to go dry this summer. Without cool mountain water flowing in, the water at Goodson’s farm will become stagnant and too hot to support baby fish.

Goodson called the situation “dire,” and said he has had to lay off his seven full-time employees. “We produce 600,000 pounds of fish a year, and this year we sold about 80,000 pounds and we’re shutting down,” Goodson said.

Stephenson said Big Bear Lake usually waits to buy fish that are bigger—the majority of the new fish are 2 to 8 inches long—but said he is happy to be able to secure any fish at all for this season. The MWD built new fish cages for the occasion. About 200,000 fish will be raised in the cages until they grow larger.

“It was now or never,” Stephenson said. “React now, or suffer a whole season without fish.”

Stephenson said the Calaveras farm offered him the trout for “pennies on the dollar.” The 1.25 million fish cost about $95,000 and might have cost more than $3 million in a good year, he said. He is optimistic the investment will make a lasting impact.

“This will make a difference for three years, easily,” Stephenson said. “Even though they’re smaller fish, it’s 20 times the number of fish we got last year.”

For now, the effects of the drought have brought some good news for fishing in Big Bear Lake, even if it’s bad news overall for California’s $1.3 billion fishing industry.

Goodson just hopes things turn around for trout farms like his. “Next year we’re hoping we get rain, but if this continues I’m not sure what we’ll do,” Goodson said.

Photo courtesy of Big Bear Lake Municipal Water District 

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Her coy smile is hard to miss. The new mural on the west wall of the Broadway Cafe in Big Bear City shows a rosy-cheeked girl with long eyelashes about to bite into a steaming hamburger.

“Let’s have a burger, baby,” she says.

The mural will be instantly recognizable to some. It’s the work of an LA-based street artist known as Sand One. She has painted a series of cheeky young women on walls around the world, and her work has gained her a sizable cult following. In early January, Sand took her first trip to Big Bear and left one of her signature paintings behind.

Chuck Norton, whose wife Brenda is one of the cafe’s owners, was cooking burgers in the kitchen last month when Sand approached him with the idea. “She just walked in here one afternoon and asked if she could do a painting on the side of the building,” Norton said. “She said everywhere she goes she likes to leave her mark.”

It’s true. The 23-year-old artist started painting murals as a teenager. In the years since, she has embellished walls from Chicago to Puerto Rico to Guatemala to Miami with spray-painted compositions.

“This is when I feel alive—painting,” the gregarious artist said in a phone interview from her LA studio.

In the male-dominated world of street art, Sand makes herself stand out with ultra-feminine images. Don’t let the frills fool you.

“You see these big walls with eyelashes and cupcakes, but I paint like a man,” Sand said. “I can paint big walls. Don’t help me, don’t touch me, don’t lift my ladder, I bring my own equipment.”

All of Sand’s paintings feature one of the many, stylized characters known as “dolls” she created. The girl with the fang-toothed smile on the side of the Broadway Cafe is a character Sand calls Wolfy.

“Each doll has a story. Each one relates to a girl that’s somewhere out there,” Sand said. She added she likes using the dolls as her subject because, “Women can morph into anything, we’re easy to adapt.”

Wolfy, for example, is cute, but she can also be ferocious, Sand said. She joked that Wolfy will be tough enough to handle Big Bear’s cold climate.

Recently, the dolls have gained even more popularity and Sand’s business has grown. The artist, who has nearly 40,000 followers admiring her work on Instagram, started taking more custom orders for small paintings and also launched a clothing line. The attention from fans has kept her busy.

“I been painting nonstop for like three months and I haven’t left my studio,” Sand said. “I wanted to get away from LA. I live downtown and it’s always super crazy, so I was like, ‘you know what? I’m going to Big Bear.’”

She recruited her mom, her siblings and a cousin to join her on the impromptu mountain getaway. She said she assured her family the trip would be strictly for relaxation.

“They were like, ‘You’re not painting right?’ But I needed to tell people I was there,” Sand said. She had taken note of the temptingly blank, cream-colored wall on the side of the Broadway Cafe. On her last day in town she hopped out of the car and told her family, “Just give me 30 minutes!” She had secretly packed her supply of spray paint.

Sand said it’s not just any business that lets her start painting—she estimates for every 20 businesses she approaches, only three will agree to let her adorn the walls.

When she came to Norton with the idea, he said he called around and checked with everyone he could think of, including the cafe’s neighboring businesses, to ask if a mural would bother them. He said everyone seemed to be in favor.

“So far, the reaction has all been positive,” Norton said. He added that he has even had a few customers come in for a burger just because Wolfy’s sly grin caught their attention.

Norton said there is some maintenance planned for the cafe later this year. There’s a chance the owners may need to repaint the cafe’s exterior walls and cover up the mural.

“I told (Sand) she could come back if we do maintenance,” Norton said.

Sand said she’ll be ready anytime.

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On their last day of shooting on location in a lakeside cabin in Big Bear on Aug. 29, film producer Mike De Trana and his crew of about 30 were a little sad to be leaving the mountain behind.

“Big Bear is quiet, the people are nice, everywhere you point a camera looks amazing. It’s been great,” De Trana said.

De Trana and the writers, actors and camera operators who were with him, are something of an anomaly in Big Bear these days. The area once served as a backdrop for almost any Hollywood film that needed a forested location. “Gone with the Wind,” “Old Yeller” and “Heidi” are just a few films that have put Big Bear on the big screen. But filming here has dramatically declined in recent years.

“It has absolutely declined,” said Sheri Davis, who liaises with Hollywood filmmakers and Big Bear permit departments for Film Inland Empire. “In recent years there just weren’t the commercial and film shoots that have always been Big Bear’s bread and butter.”

Big Bear is not the only California location that’s seen a slowdown in lights, cameras and action. Film production statewide has tumbled 50 percent over 15 years, according to a report by Film LA. That is the reason Governor Jerry Brown accepted a deal with state legislators on Assembly Bill 1839 on Aug. 27. The bill, when final, will increase film tax credits in the state from $100 million to $330 million and will do away with some red tape for filmmakers. Lawmakers hope it will bring film production back to California—not just to Hollywood, but to places like Big Bear, too.

Davis, who has worked in the film industry around Big Bear for decades, said she first noticed a slump in business with the economic recession beginning in 2008. But when the economy started to pick back up, California’s film industry did not. Filmmakers had started looking to other states and countries to save money on taxes and permit costs, Davis explained.

Big Bear once had the appeal of offering mountain scenery just a few hours from Hollywood. But if filmmakers are looking for mountains these days, they may find tax incentives more inviting in Colorado or Canada—so inviting that they’re willing to travel farther.

And while sometimes Big Bear is too close to Hollywood, other times it’s not close enough. When filmmakers don’t want to travel, Big Bear can seem like too much of a drive.

“Big Bear will always have to compete with the Angeles National Forest. When they come out to Big Bear, they have the additional cost of traveling extra miles,” Davis said.

In 2007, nearly $6 million was spent on TV and film production in the Big Bear area. In 2013, the number was just shy of $2 million, Film Inland Empire estimates.

Filming in Big Bear has not disappeared completely though. The projects made here are just different than they once were. Alex Hamilton is a film location manager based in Big Bear. She said she has to take occasional projects down the hill to keep busy, but she does get some work in Big Bear, too.

“This year I’ve been nice and busy,” Hamilton said. “Most of the work here is car commercials and low budget movies.”

De Trana’s film, “House by the Lake,” falls into the latter category. He said he had originally wanted to shoot his low-budget independent horror film in Malibu, but the costs of shooting there were too high. For his production, Big Bear had advantages: cheap permits and a city government that wants to accommodate filmmakers.

“Everyone here has just gone out of their way to make things easy for us,” De Trana said. For young filmmakers like him, that’s appealing.

The city of Big Bear Lake definitely likes to have film productions in town, said Cheri Haggerty, director of intergovernmental and community relations for the city. City Council budgets about $20,000 annually toward contracting with Film Inland Empire to promote filming in the area. And Haggerty said businesses and residents don’t seem to mind.

“For the most part what we hear is a lot of support.” Haggerty said. “On occasion, when homeowners do have complaints about film crews in their neighborhoods, we’re quick to work with neighbors, and we try to find a balance. It usually works out for the best.”

Haggerty said the city is well aware of the economic impact that film crews bring with them. For example, De Trana and his crew of 30 stayed in Big Bear for 12 days. In that time, they paid for lodging, ate at restaurants and rented boats, in addition to the money they paid the city for filming permits.

That’s exactly the kind of impact Governor Brown and other supporters of AB 1839 hope to see statewide. In his official statement, Brown said he hoped the bill would put “thousands of Californians to work.”

AB 1839 has had some opponents. Critics pointed out that several politicians behind the bill rely on Hollywood campaign donations. Others were concerned about the bill’s price tag—backers had originally asked for a $400 million credit; $330 million was a compromise. And some analysts have called the bill’s projected economic impact into question. But in general, the bill has been portrayed as critical for keeping California competitive with other states and has received broad bipartisan support in the state legislature.

It isn’t officially signed into law yet, but locals in the film industry are already crossing their fingers it will do what it’s designed to do when it goes into effect in 2015.

“Film producers go where they can get the best deal,” Hamilton said. “Hopefully it will keep features in LA and that way Big Bear will get more business, too.”

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