In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 20-year-old college student Valarie Kaur went on an epic journey across America to document the hate violence against minorities that had so increased since the attacks.

Her film, "Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath" is the result, and it will play at the Virginia Holocaust Museum this Sunday at 2 p.m.

The film examines the idea of "who counts as an American." Since September 11, a violent backlash on America's own soil has taken place, effecting Sikh, Arab, South Asian, Latino and other brown-skinned Americans.

The first person murdered in reaction to the September 11 attacks was Balbir Singh Sodhi, in Mesa, Arizona on September 15th. The federal government reported 1700 percent increase in 'anti-Muslim' hate crimes, from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001.

These statistics, as the film's website points out, do not include more subtle forms of discrimination, or that which went unreported.

Kaur worked with a crew who was also mostly in their twenties, all of whom worked without pay to make the film a reality. The initial stages of production were completed entirely due to grassroots donations. Eastman Kodak donated nearly half of the film stock.


After the film, there will be open discussion between the filmmakers and the audience. The film has been on tour across America, being shown in colleges, churches and various other venues since September 11, 2008. The tour will span 50 cities. [Link]

Four days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Balbir Sodhi decided to plant flowers outside his convenience store in Mesa, Arizona. Frank Roque, an aircraft mechanic, drove up to the store and shot Sodhi five times from his pickup truck. Roque committed the first lethal hate crime in a wave of hate crimes against Sikhs in the United States that exploded after 9/11, but it is a wave that has continued for the past seven years, from Arizona to Queens.

The morning before he was killed, Sodhi had traveled to Costco and donated all the money he had on him - $75 to a charity for 9/11 victims. But when Roque was arrested, he yelled, “I am a patriot.” His words would haunt the Sikh-American community long afterwards. Less than a year later, Sodhi’s brother was shot and killed when he was driving a cab.

Queens residents honored the seven-year anniversary of 9/11 last Thursday by offering solidarity to Sikh and Arab-American communities, whose members faced significant turmoil and violence since the terrorist attacks. Director Valarie Kaur and community organizations in Jackson Heights gave a screening of a film, “Divided We Fall,” at the Jackson Heights Jewish Center, the documentary chronicled Kaur’s attempts to document the violence against and resilience of South Asians and Arab-Americans after 9/11. A discussion on building community in the face of violence and racism followed.

“Jackson Heights is a living testament to what is possible in America,” Kaur said, looking into her multiethnic audience. “I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be today.”

Kaur originally decided to try and record the violence affecting her community when she first heard about Frank Roque and Balbir Sodhi on television. She was only 20 years old, but she traveled the United States for years in a Honda Civic with her brothers, asking questions, taking notes and telling stories.

To date, there have been more than 1,000 hate crimes against the Sikh community in the United States. Sikhism is the fifth largest world religion, and about half a million Sikhs live in the United States. The religion began in the Punjab region of South Asia, in what is now India and Pakistan. To demonstrate their commitment to spiritual sisterhood and brotherhood, Sikhs do not cut their hair and generally wear it in a turban. After the terrorist attacks, many Sikhs were misperceived to be Muslim and faced similar persecution through hate crimes, vandalism of religious institutions and verbal harassment.

Hate crimes and misperceptions are no joke in Queens, where South Asian and Arab-American communities suffered immensely after 9/11. Last June, hundreds of Sikhs marched through Richmond Hill to protest harassment and violence against Sikh children in city schools. That month, two children had their hair forcibly cut, and another child was assaulted when a student punched him with a key and tried to remove his turban. The Sikh Coalition said that of the 400 Sikh children they surveyed, more than 60 percent said they faced violence or harassment at school. [Link]

A documentary that chronicles hate violence in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks will be screened tonight at Irvington High School.

"Divided We Fall" is a full-length documentary created by Valarie Kaur, who, as a 20-year-old Stanford student, began traveling the country after 9/11 to document hate crimes against her fellow Sikhs as well as against Muslims and Arabs.

Observant Sikh men, who wear turbans and grow long beards, faced increased prejudice after the attacks from people who assumed they were Muslims.

The 100-minute movie explores the lives of several hate-crime victims in the five years following 9/11 and includes commentaries from scholars, lawyers, and legislators about race, religion, and what it means to be fully accepted as an American.

The film "reminds us that all of our neighbors deserve full membership in our community," said Jack Weinstein, director of Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit that helps teachers educate students about intolerance. [Link]

Some Sikh, Arab and Muslim Americans became targets of hate crimes in the weeks following Sept. 11 for wearing a turban and a beard, characteristics Americans began to associate with terrorists.

To raise awareness of these crimes, a documentary titled “Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath” was shown to about 50 people in the Reitz Union Auditorium on Monday.

Valarie Kaur, the filmmaker, traveled across the U.S. to interview victims of attacks when she was a college student.


“They were described as isolated incidents, but they were not isolated,” Kaur said in the documentary. “They were happening everywhere across America.”

The movie’s message prompted a subsequent discussion about diversity and how people should come to understand and accept other cultures.

“I understand why people want to be left alone,” said Farah Gulaid, a nutrition senior. “But I want to tell you. Just educate people, and let them know who you are.”

Tamara Cohen, UF’s director of Multicultural and Diversity Affairs, said popular culture complicates the image of an American. People want to claim a monolithic vision of America even though demographics are changing, she said.

Kaur’s reason for making the documentary was simple.

“So other people don’t look at the turban and see fear, hatred, something laughable, something less than human,” she said. “So people don’t look at the turban and see an enemy where I see a brother.” [Link]

Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath (2008), the first feature-length documentary film on hate violence following Sept. 11, 2001, will screen across the U.S. next month in a grassroots campaign for deep dialogue about racism, religion, and renewal in America.

Divided We Fall follows the journey of 20-year-old college student Valarie Kaur as she documents hate violence against Sikhs and Muslims in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001 and examines the larger question of "who counts" as American. On a two-year international tour, the film has won more than a dozen awards and reached 150 campuses and communities in 90 cities across the United States. [Link]

Divided We Fall, a documentary about the hate crimes committed against Muslims, Sikh Indians and others mistaken as Muslim, makes its statewide premier 7 tonight at Ohio University’s Baker Center Theatre. Valarie Kaur, a third-generation Sikh American who wrote and co-produced the film after a turbaned man was murdered in her town, will answer questions after the screening. She spoke with The Post’s Ashley Luthern about making Divided We Fall, and exploring race, religion and identity in times of national crisis.

The Post: What was the basis for your film’s title, Divided We Fall?

Valarie Kaur: In the aftermath of 9/11, I saw so many bumper stickers that said United We Stand, and it seemed to me that we forgot the second part of the saying, “divided we fall.”… In order to become fully united, we had to face the ways in which we’ve been divided.

Post: You are proud of your Sikh heritage and identify as an American. When you were filming, how did you feel and react when you experienced hate first hand?

Kaur: Well, it’s quite a way to come of age. It was the first time that I had seen myself as a foreign un-American. I realized I had to fight to be seen and understood. It was painful, emotionally traumatizing and I’d have nightmares. But what was happening wasn’t happening to just my community, but to Southeast Asians and Latinos, anyone who had brown skin or a beard. It had happened to Japanese Americans in WWII, and the Chinese Americans who were mistaken for Japanese. Every singe community in the U.S. at some time has been seen as outsiders….

Post: Are the people you interviewed in the film, and others around the nation, still experiencing the effects of the mentality of a post-9/11 national consciousness?

Kaur: Absolutely. The immediate numbers of hate crimes decreased in the months after 9/11, but what’s happened is a cultural shift into subtle, every-day prejudices against Muslims and those who look Muslim. For example, teachers don’t stop kids from calling other kids “terrorist,” but to us, it’s like our n-word. The task now is to decrease the number of those subtle acts of discrimination that never get reported as hate crimes.

Post: How has making this film turned into your quest for self-identity?

Kaur: Before making the film, during my childhood and teenage years, I hated the in-between space. I wanted to be fully accepted as white and Christian, or fully accepted as Indian. I wanted to belong like every kid. Through this journey, I’ve come to discover that this in-between space is one of tremendous strength, and if I owned the space I could speak truth. I realize the storytellers in our communities are the ones who are in-between. It’s given me tremendous courage to live own moral compass. [Link]

It has been nearly a year since I wrote here last, and yet 2007 was my most public year yet. I traveled the country on a national film and speaking tour, living out of my suitcase, moving from city to city, encountering stories and people and ideas like never before. If writing is my primary way of understanding my experiences, why did I not write? I was asked over and over again, and now in this new year, when I'm returning to myself and the world, I feel I must come clean.

It begins with a story, as it always must.

On August 31, 2004, I stood on a sidewalk in New York City with a camera in hand, taping a protest at the Republican National Convention. I was there as a legal observer, taping in order to protect against police brutality. The police came in with great force and bloodied people up in the street. When they saw my lens, they arrested me too. The handcuffs cut the blood from my hands. When I asked for them to be loosened, an agitated lieutenant twisted my hands and arm, slicing my body in pain. He walked away to make an example out of me.

I was detained behind bars for 16 hours. My arm was wrapped in a cast in the emergency room upon release. I was one of more than a thousand arrested that day. (For more, click here for my full story and my op-ed in Salon.)

A few days later, I started graduate school at Harvard. Instead of seeking therapy, I threw myself into philosophy as a way to think about human cruelty. While books steadied my mind, they could not reach the trauma burned into my body.

For the most part, I ignored my injury when making Divided We Fall. By the time the film premiered and began touring, the injury worsened into a severe chronic pain condition and brought my body to a halt last year.

I could not lift a toothbrush, let alone write an e-mail. I could not sleep for the pain. In the night, I would cry for my arm to be sliced off. I had made it my cause to stop violence against others, yet it was so easy to do violence to myself. I liked to scream at my body. It was the only way to say this is not of me. I prayed for someone to fix me - heal me - save me.

I stopped writing, not just for the physical pain that cut through my right side, but because a part of me had died. It was the part of me that trusted in the universe and my own ability to accomplish anything I dreamt -- the part that dreamt of flying. My wings had been cut, and I had to come to terms with my own fragility. I had fallen into a life of pain and prepared a graveyard for my ambitions.

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I became a master at covering up my pain on stage. I held the mic and told stories and listened to people's lives. It wasn't that my smile wasn't real, but that I learned how to create two selves inside of me: the public self who spoke and shone, the private self penetrated in pain, stripped of voice. It is taxing to tear yourself in two and live both lives. Fortunately for me, it is also unsustainable.

I knew I had to move. I headed west until I hit the ocean and made a home there. This is where a circle of friends and healers put me back together. They did not take away my pain; they taught me how to own it. I learned how to sit inside my pain and still speak. I learned not to hide it like some shameful thing but to honor it. I learned how to treat my pain as a guide. And it has become my teacher. It is teaching me to love my body as I love others, to live balanced days, to recognize the pain that others hide. And each day, it takes me to the ocean and makes me listen.

On my last walk to the ocean, the setting sun burned the sky a blazing orange, as if someone had taken a match to the horizon.

A man sat with his guitar. "You just had to run to the edge of the world, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," I said, astonished at his knowing.

Suddenly a fin appeared and disappeared in the water. Something inside me woke up. “It was nice talking to you.”

I was running before I knew I was running, the sand beneath my feet disappeared, and I leapt into the ocean to meet the dolphins. They were gone. I waited there, thick silvery water holding up my broken body. "Come back!" I cried out to them. "Come back to me! You are beautiful!" A beat.

And they came back.

Swimming swift and strong around me, their smooth backs silhouetted against the orange, I could see their eyes. And I was laughing and laughing and shrieking, ecstatic. My mouth moved before my mind:

“The universe loves me!”

And looking around there was no one, so I yelled again:

“The universe loves me!... And I am in love with the universe!”

Laughing at myself, I took in the silver water, orange sunset, dark heaving ocean, sparkling stars deepening into the blue dome, and for a moment felt myself held within the infinite.

“So you sent the dolphins as your messenger. To give me the message of your love."

Walking home soaking wet, I was alive.

There is an aspect of the universe that can kill you -- bind your hands, beat you down, bleed your heart.

But there's another aspect of the universe that is loving – it can redeem your pain with love. It depends on how you read it. The sea can drown you; the sea can return you to yourself. People are the same. I am the same. I have returned myself to myself.

We have this power inside us. (We are inside this power.)

So a new year begins. This year, unlike any other, I felt the earth turn and even wept when the clock struck midnight. It is a new beginning. And although we bring with us our past pain, I have come to see that pain itself can be the path to our new beginning.

We fall so that we can swim with the dolphins.

Thank you for reading. For an excellent review of my journey with Divided We Fall in 2007, check out our YEAR-IN-REVIEW.

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I’m using voice activated software to write again and will continue to blog here on my travels with the film and in life.

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And -- yes, I have a case against the city of New York.

Please click here!

“You’re cute for a terrorist.”

“Indian, Palestinian, same thing.”

“Turban equals terrorist.”

Frighteningly, these ignorant phrases were really spoken by American citizens after September 11. Politicians like to talk about how the terrorist attacks united our country against terrorism. But they don’t often talk about that other, more somber story of fear and prejudice that caused atrocious acts against America’s very own citizens during the aftermath of 9/11.

The murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, made an appearance in the media but was quickly forgotten. He was killed in cold blood in Mesa, Arizona, simply because he looked like the 9/11 hijackers. That her people were being violently targeted and misunderstood motivated college student Valarie Kaur to act.

The film Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath was conceived, filmed, and directed by Kaur. As a documentary chronicling Kaur’s journey across the United States, it is a powerful look at the backlash against Sikhs, Muslims, Arabs, and others post-9/11. It premiered in California at the Spinning Wheel Film Festival, part of the Sikh Heritage Gala, on Nov. 17 at the Screen Writers’ Guild Theatre.

Kaur began her trip to 14 cities across the country with a car, a video camera, and her Sikh cousin, Sonny. She traced acts of racism and violence as they occurred chronologically: Kaur and Sonny began with an interview of the victim of the first reported beating of an Arab-American at Ground Zero in New York, then continued to follow other stories of violence by word of mouth. [Link]

Filmmaker chronicled life for American Sikhs in the aftermath of 9/11


It was a few days after Sept. 11, 2001, when Valarie Kaur, a third-generation American of Indian descent and a Stanford University student at the time, decided to turn a senior honors paper on religion and violence into a videotaped road trip across America.

This wasn't exactly a pleasure outing. Kaur, then 20, was shaken both by the terrorist attacks as well as the vastly underreported spate of hate crimes directed mostly at male members of the American Sikh community.

The Sikhs are neither Muslim nor from the Middle East. It didn't matter. They wear turbans and beards as articles of faith, which made them targets for the ignorant and the vile among us.

"My grandfather crossed an ocean to be an American,'' Kaur, a Sikh, says at the start of the film.

"A century later, I crossed this country to discover what it means to be an American.''

What she found during her four-month, 14-city cross country trek was both ugly and inspirational.

Six years later, the college project is a thought-provoking and award-winning documentary one film critic describes as a "hopeful civics lesson on what it means to be an American.''

The film, "Divided We Fall: America in the Aftermath,'' is a gut check about how prejudices, stereotypes and misplaced fear can easily corrupt ideals and flourish during a national security crisis. But it's also about clinging to principles and higher moral ground. [Link]

In the aftermath of September 11, 20-year-old Stanford University student Valarie Kaur set out across the country to document what she called "the stories not being told, the faces not being seen." Kaur visited Northeastern Tuesday to share her story and film.

With no film experience and her cousin as her camera man, Kaur traveled the United States to record the experiences of Arab-looking Americans after September 11. Her experiences and footage developed into the full-length documentary "Divided We Fall."

"It has been quite a journey," Kaur said. "I just jumped in my car with my cousin and a camera, and it completely changed my life."

Kaur began her journey by focusing on her community, the Sikhi, a religious group centered on peace and contribution to the community. Many Sikhi's were targeted after September 11 because of their turbans, a required religious garb for men. According to Kaur's film, many people had the misconception that wearing a turban equated to being a terrorist.

One loss in the Sikhi community was that of Balbir Sodhi, who was shot by self-proclaimed patriot Frank Roque in Mesa, Ariz., in front of his family-owned gas station hours after donating everything in his wallet to families of September 11 victims.

The Sikhi community was horrified by the hate crime and by how dangerous its own country had become for them. In one day, they had gone from being an American to being an "other in this us-against-them war."

"The movie was very moving to me," said Diana Mai, a sophomore art major. "It's not just about being Muslim. It's about others. It's about racism and what it means to be an American."

What it means to be an American was the prevailing theme of the movie, which touched on the Japanese-American experience during World War II and the interment camps they were forced to enter to prove their patriotism.

Members of the Asian American Center (AAC) said students could have an impact on the meaning of being American.

"I first saw this film at an Asian American Student conference at Yale," said Christina Ho, a member of AAC who sponsored the event. "I left basically with a mission to bring this to our campus because we have a really great international affairs program, we have really compassionate people, and we really have an energy to create change at this school."

Kaur said she hopes the movie will generate change. She spoke to the audience about how she wished the perception of a man wearing a turban would change.

She said when she sees a turban she thinks of her cousins, her uncles and her lifestyle. When uninformed people outside of her community see turbans, they see a dangerous threat.

With each screening of "Divided We Fall" Kaur said she feels she is getting her wish.

"Witnessing how stories change the way people see has been the most joyful thing [about] touring with this movie," she said. [Link]

September 11th, 2001 shook the very core of American society. But for one religious faction, the terror attacks spawned a violent retaliation, unlike anything they had ever known.

This week on San Diego People, KUSI's Kimberly Hunt takes a look at the impact of 9/11 on the Sikh Community. A monotheistic faith begun in the 15th century. Its members preach a message of peace. But because of misdirected anger following 9/11, Sikhs have become the targets of violence.

The hate crimes prompted a young Sikh American to begin documenting the cases throughout the country, including a brutal attack in San Diego.

She turned those stories into a documentary called, 'Divided We Fall'. [Link]

After 9/11, family battles racial discrimination

After seeing turban- wearing and bearded Osama bin Laden take credit for the Sept. 11 attacks, some people have become suspicious of anyone who looked like him.

For Manjit Singh, who lived in the U.S. for seven years at that point, Sept. 11 was both a sad day for the country and the start of a scary time for his family.

Singh, Brownsville resident for four years and owner of the Place Inn Hotel on Alton Gloor Boulevard, is a Sikh. He wore the ceremonial turban and kept his beard long, but after Sept. 11 he faced the label of “terrorist” by strangers.

“‘Terrorist’ has become our n-word,” explained Valarie Kaur, a 26-year-old documentary filmmaker and a third generation Sikh-American.

She produced the film “Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath” to let people know what Sikhs have gone through over the past seven years and inspire unity in the small community.

“The whole idea is to draw from this courage and continue to fight, not with a sword but through talking and writing and standing up,” Kaur said.

Since Sept. 11, a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment has developed in some Americans, which has affected immigrants from India or the Middle East and their families.

“Sikhs are the only ones who wear turbans as a religious garment,” Kaur said. “In other cultures the turban is worn as a cultural attire.”

Turbans and uncut hair are associated with the Khalsa, the five articles that Sikhs are expected to wear as written by Guru Gobind Singh, a guru. He also granted the name “Singh” (lion) to all Sikh men and the name “Kaur” (princess) to all Sikh women. This meant caste should not separate Sikhs, according to Sikh doctrine.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Although the Sept. 11 attacks were organized by Muslim extremists, the public perception that terrorists wear turbans meant many people who had nothing to do with the problem would get caught in the crossfire.

On Sept. 15, 2001, Balbir Singh Sodhi was gunned down in Mesa, Arizona, by fellow Americans looking for revenge after the attacks.

“When Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed, although I didn’t know him personally, I had a connection to his family,” said Kaur. “It turns out he was the first of an estimated 19 people murdered in the year after 9/11, but it never really made national news.”

Sikhs around the country were targeted for their appearance, some violently, some with angry words.

Manjit Singh was working at a convenience store in Covina, California, and was used to the polite smiles and comments of his customers. Everything changed after that Tuesday morning.

“After that day everybody looked at me like ‘you did that,’” Singh said. “It was a different feeling. At that time everyone was getting angry.”

Worried about his wife and young children, Singh spoke with them about how to avoid conflicts.

Ultimately, they decided to move to Brownsville, where they have lived for four years. Shortly after arriving, Singh made the choice to shave his hair and beard.

“I never shaved in my life,” he said. “Here, everybody confronted me about where I came from. Now (without the hair) they ask if I know Spanish.”

Kaur said Singh was not alone in his decision.

“It is a deep and personal action to cut your hair, and that shows how deep the problem is,” Kaur said.

SPREADING THE MESSAGE

Seeing a lack of public knowledge, Kaur joined with director Sharat Raju and a team of filmmakers to produce Divided We Fall.

Kaur witnessed different generations reacting to prejudice differently. Kaur said third generation Americans like herself have found a new reason to embrace their Sikh heritage and stand up for their beliefs, while first generation Sikh-Americans are sometimes inclined to follow their beliefs in private ways to better assimilate into the American majority.

After watching Divided We Fall, audience members have told Kaur they were once scared of Sikhs, mistaking them for Muslims. While she appreciates the greater understanding of who Sikhs are, Kaur stressed no religion should be the subject of hate or fear.

“An attack upon anyone is egregious, whether or not they were misnamed,” she explained.

Singh, who has not seen the documentary yet but hopes to when it goes to DVD next year, said public awareness of Sikhs has increased since Sept. 11, and he and his family have become part of their new community.

“I like it here,” he explained, adding about 22 Sikh families live in the Rio Grande Valley. “It’s very easy going. Mexican culture and Indian culture are very similar. The food is similar and families are always together and families care for the elderly. It’s the same as India.” [Link]

he documentary “Divided We Fall” will be screened, with a panel discussion about religious tolerance to follow, at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Tivoli Theatre.

“Divided” is about the hate-crime murder of a Sikh man in the wake of 9/11 and a college student’s search for the meaning of being an American.

The screening coincides with the meeting of the International Interfaith Academies for Religious Leaders here this month. Panel participants, some from that organization, include Tarunjit Singh Butalia, John Thatamanil, Yehezkel Landau, the Rev. Peggy Thomas, the Rev. Vern Barnet and Star religion columnist Bill Tammeus.

Admission is $8. For more info go to opencircleonline.com. [Link]

We have some exciting news! Divided We Fall's premiere in Los Angeles a few weeks ago caught the attention of CNN, and Valarie Kaur and Sharat Raju sat down to a long interview with a senior producer. We just received word that the Paula Zahn show will feature the film in a segment this Tuesday night! Set your TiVos and VCRs now. And forward the message below to your friends across the country...

Tune in to CNN this Tuesday Night May 15 at 8pm Eastern / 5pm Pacific
Paula Zahn NOW Featuring Divided We Fall ( www.dwf-film.com)
Interviews with Filmmakers Valarie Kaur and Sharat Raju
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/paula.zahn.now/

“Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath” documents hate crimes against Sikhs, Muslims and other minority groups after the attacks of 9/11. It is the first feature-length film to analyze the impact of 9/11 on South Asian and Arab Americans.

The documentary follows Valarie Kaur, a Stanford student, as she drives across America interviewing victims of hate violence in the days and months after the terrorist attacks....

USC’s College of Arts & Sciences’ department of religious studies and Partners in Dialogue present the film at 7:30 tonight. The screening will be in Gambrell Hall auditorium on USC’s campus.

Partners in Dialogue is an inter-faith community-outreach program. It comprises members from Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Unitarian Universalist, Baha’i and Native American faith communities in the Midlands.

The screening is free and open to the public. For more information about the film screening, call Carl Evans at (803) 777-4522 or Tracy Wells, communications director of “Divided We Fall” at (803) 528-1003 or e-mail tracy@dwf-film.com.

To learn more about “Divided We Fall,” visit www.dwf-film.com. [Link]

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]

Macalester College will host the Minnesota premiere of Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath, the first feature-length documentary film to analyze the aftermath of 9/11 on South Asian and Arab Americans, at 7:30 p.m., April 3, in the Campus Center’s John B. Davis Lecture Hall.

The film documents hate crimes against Sikhs, Muslims and others after 9/11 and examines how Americans react to the perceived "other" in times of war. Filmmaker Valarie Kaur will be available for Q&A with audience and press interviews.

Directed by Sharat Raju, Divided We Fall follows then-college student Valarie Kaur in the days and months after the 2001 terrorist attacks as she drove across America interviewing victims of hate violence.

"Five years in the making, Divided We Fall invites audiences to experience the untold stories of 9/11," said Kaur. "The journey spirals into the larger question of who counts as 'one of us' in a world divided into 'us' and ‘them.’”

Divided We Fall features the story of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a turbaned Sikh man who was shot and killed in Mesa, Ariz., on Sept. 15, 2001, by a man who called himself a "patriot." The killing was the first of an estimated 19 "retribution" murders in the year after the Sept. 11 attacks. Many Sikhs who wore turbans were immediately targeted in the backlash. Half a million Americans and 23 million people worldwide belong to the Sikh religion, which originated in India in the 15th century and requires the turban as an article of faith.

Sodhi's murder compelled Kaur, a third-generation Sikh American who was then a junior at Stanford University, to take action. With her turbaned 18-year-old cousin as cameraman, she took to the road, documenting stories seldom seen or heard by mainstream America.

Kaur traveled through 14 American cities, from Ground Zero in New York to Sodhi's gas station in Arizona, and captured more than 100 hours of interview footage. People invited her into their lives to share stories of fear and unspeakable loss, but also of resilience and hope. Her journey ended in Punjab, India, where she interviewed Sodhi's widow, Herjinder Kaur.

A second round of production in 2005, supported by a New Filmmaker Grant from Panavision Camera and a generous contribution from Eastman Kodak, added interviews with noted scholars, professors, lawmakers and policy experts who provide context and analysis to the original stories Kaur gathered in 2001.

Kaur recently received her master's degree in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School, where she is the founding director of the Discrimination and National Security Initiative, an affiliate of the Harvard Pluralism Project.

"Terrorism and critical moments in the war on terror trigger hate violence at home," Kaur said. "If we can recognize Sikh and Muslim faces as 'American,' we can respond to the fear that divides our nation in times of crises and come one step closer to a more perfect union."

Raju, an award-winning filmmaker and recent graduate of the American Film Institute Conservatory, teamed up with Kaur to present the first full-length documentary addressing hate crimes in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

"In the months after Sept. 11, the phrase 'United We Stand' was on bumper stickers and signs all across the country," Raju said. "But the phrase has a second part -- 'Divided We Fall.' There's a bigger picture, and we must strive to bridge the divisions between us in order for those words to be more than just a slogan. We hope our film is one more step in that direction."

Divided We Fall is sponsored by Macalester College’s Lealtad-Suzuki Center, the office of the Dean for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and The Center for Religious and Spiritual Life.

Macalester College, founded in 1874, is a national liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,884 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its long-standing commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and civic engagement.

For more information, see the official film site: www.dwf-film.com [Link]