Life has been a little unusual in Oak Harbor for two businessmen, and it’s all due to what they look like.

Dark skin, full beards, long hair, wearing turbans or hats, and having pronounced accents have made the men the targets of suspicious Oak Harbor residents, who have wanted to know what the men are doing here. The Oak Harbor Police Department has even checked them out, in response to callers’ requests.

Paramjid Singh, whose nickname is Pami, and Amrik Singh Rai know they look similar to the pictures of the 19 terrorists that are presumed to have carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. They said they understand why people are suspicious of them.

However, they hope that people will not continue to fear them or judge them based solely on their appearance.

Singh and Rai are from East India, and they follow the Sikh religion. They are not Middle Eastern and they are not Islamic, they said in an interview on Monday.

The two men are business partners. They own Henderson’s restaurant and the adjacent Queen Ann Motel on SE Pioneer Way. Singh and Rai purchased the businesses in July, which didn’t give community members much time to get to know them before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, they said.

The most recent complaint from a concerned community member came on Halloween, said Karen Shivers, an employee of Singh and Rai. Shivers manages the Queen Ann Motel.

Singh and Rai passed out candy to children in front of Henderson’s on the night of Oct. 31. A woman called Henderson’s to inquire why two Middle Eastern-looking men were giving candy to children in front of the restaurant, Shivers said. When a waitress told the caller that the men own the restaurant and were giving out candy like many Oak Harbor merchants were, the caller still seemed disbelieving, Shivers said.

“She was irate…and that woman goes, ‘Well, I thought some white guy owned that restaurant,’ ” Shivers said.

People should get to know Singh and Rai, Shivers said, a message she wants to relay to the Oak Harbor community.

“They are good-hearted and will do a lot of good in this community if you give them a chance,” Shivers said.

Singh came to the United States in 1982 and settled in New York. He could not speak English and he had little education. He worked 12 to 14 hours per day, he said, as a dishwasher, in order to save up enough money to start his own business. After six years in New York, during which time he taught himself how to speak English, and four years of living in New Jersey, Singh moved his family to Mt. Vernon. There he owns both Truck City Truck Stop and Crane’s Café. Singh is married, and his wife helps him with the family businesses. They have four children.

Rai emigrated to the United States in 1990 and he is Singh’s partner in the businesses. He is married and has two small daughters.

Both men said that they haven’t encountered any discrimination in Mt. Vernon, nor in Bellingham where they go to temple. Singh attributes the greater level of understanding and acceptance to the larger East Indian populations in those areas.

“It’s fine. We don’t have any problems (there),” Singh said. “It’s a little bit different here.”

“They stick out kinda like sore thumbs,” Shivers said.

The men said they came to the U.S. for freedom and independence. As a Sikh in India, Singh said, “We had a problem with the government, we wanted independence.”

Singh and Rai both said that they love life in America and are thankful for the chance to prosper and to raise their families in a land of freedom and opportunity.

Said Singh: “I love this country. I do everything (that) is needed.”