A premiere showing of Divided We Fall: America in the Aftermath, a full-length documentary about hate crimes after 9/11 will take place Tuesday, Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. in Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Admission is free.

The film was created by Valarie Kaur, a student from Stanford University, and award-winning director and producer Sharat Rajuto [sic].

They will answer questions at the end of the program.

After the attacks on Sept. 11, some so-called “patriots” across the country burned homes of Muslims or people they thought looked like Arabs, vandalized sacred buildings, and killed people.

According to the FBI, such anti-Muslim hate crimes increased from 354 in 2000, to 1,501 in 2001.

Divided We Fall weaves expert analysis into a cross-country road trip that confronts the forces dividing Americans in times of crisis, to discover who counts as “one of us” in a world divided into “us” and “them.”

Kaur, 20, a third-generation Sikh American, had planned a different topic for her senior thesis.

But after 9/11 and the murder of a family friend on Sept. 15, she set out across the U.S. asking, “Who counts as an American?” “Who looks like an American?” “Who looks like an enemy?”

She videotaped Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews, and other Americans, as they recounted their experiences.

In her own small California farming community, a man from her hometown was killed, another was nearly beaten to death, and a woman was stabbed.

Her senior thesis included a 30-minute video called Targeting the Turban: Sikh Americans in the Aftermath of 9/11.

The project first garnered awards as a thesis and book, before being made into a full-length documentary.

A post-film workshop with Kaur and Rajuto [sic] will be held in the Student Union Ballroom on Feb. 7, from noon to 2 p.m. Seating is limited and pre-registration is required. To register, contact angela.rola@uconn.edu.

Also on Feb. 7 at 4:30 p.m., there will be a reflection session at the Asian American Cultural Center.

Both Kaur and Rajuto [sic] will be present. [Link]