In September 2001, Valarie Kaur was a 20-year-old college junior, studying religion and international affairs. She planned to go to India to interview people about religious conflict.

Then, like millions of others, she saw the T.V. images of the world trade towers falling again and again. They were intercut with images of a bearded and turbaned Osama bin Laden.

"On the third day, I began to read the crawling on the bottom of the screen that read,'Sikh man killed in Mesa, Arizona in hate crime,' she says. "His name was Balbir Singh Sodhi. He was murdered in front of his gas station by a man who called himself a patriot. He was the first of an estimated 19 people killed in the aftermath of 9/11."

Kaur changed her travel plans. She set off across America instead.

Kaur is a third-generation Sikh-American. She wanted to teach others that the people she considered brothers and uncles were not scary just because they looked different....

Kaur says after her journey, she has become a critical idealist, someone who remains hopeful despite being keenly aware of the realities of prejudice. She says, just as the passengers on the bus helped her professor, it's often the small acts of ordinary people that define the American identity.

"I think all of us are given a window in life where we are presented with a choice that terrifies us, but seems incredibly important, or turning back to what seems stable and secure."

For Valarie Kaur, that choice ended in making her film, "Divided We Fall." [Link]