Things are going to improve: Harmeet Kaur Dhillon

Chandigarh-born

Harmeet Kaur Dhillon

, who is the first Indian American member of the

Republi can National Committee

, said Sikhs had always been the subject of discrimination and scrutiny.

The attorney based out of

San Francisco

had performed an 'ardaas' to open the ceremony where Donald Trump was officially declared as the Republican nominee for the top post. In an emailed interview with The Times of India, Harmeet said, “The worst era started in 2001, after the 911 attacks.Race relations in this country took a turn for the worse under President (Barrack) Obama, who, ironically, despite his epochal ascent, was racially divisive and did not really address these issues well.“

Though despair and uncertainty are the two most common feelings that minorities in the US speak of after Trump's election, Harmeet said “many forgotten Americans -from unemployed to business owners-feel a sense of hope that was missing during the Obama years“.

Harmeet has been a “longtime“ Republican activist. “I was deeply concerned about the wrong direction this country was heading in under President Obama; it would have continued under (Hillary) Clinton. That is why I felt that the country should be given a great chance to change direction under Trump,“ she said.

Harmeet said most men in her family wore turbans and that she, too, had been at the receiving end of ra cial discrimination, more so as a child than as an adult. Still, she felt, things were going to improve in the near future.

“I am optimistic about what future will bring. Sikhs in America, particularly the younger generations, are well informed, politically aware, and are active participants in the po litical process,“ she said.

Harmeet hinted at improv ing relations by making inter actions more open. “When at our national convention last July, I opened the evening of the President's nomi nation with a part of the Sikhardaas prayer, the response from my fellow Re publicans and from other Americans was overwhelm ingly positive, respectful, and wel coming,“ she said.