Valarie Kaur: Oriented to Action

You know that person who constantly amazes you for their seeming ability to take on more and more and still get everything done? You know the type…the people who in addition to studying full time, have multiple projects that they are juggling successfully at once when most of us are challenged by the “day-to-day”.

These people have a unique ability to envision progress, to see themselves changing the world around them in a positive way.

Valarie Kaur is one such person. I spent some time on the phone with her recently after having been recommended to her through a mutual friend. I came away very impressed.

Valarie Kaur is oriented to action, to making a difference. She has that ability to put her visions and dreams into motion, even if it isn’t always the best of events that serve as their catalyst.

Kaur is proudly Sikh American. Her family immigrated to California over 100 years ago. She is a graduate of Stanford University, has completed her masters degree in theological studies at Harvard, and is currently in her first year at Yale Law School. Her personal journey has been anything but traditional, though.

Kaur was 20 years-old and in her junior year at Stanford when the attacks of 9/11 occurred. These events, and those that followed, particularly the hate crimes perpetrated against the Sikh community, and specifically the killing of Balbir Singh Sodhi four days later in Mesa, Arizona, spurred a voyage of personal reflection and discovery that has produced a noted undergraduate thesis and an award-winning documentary film, Divided We Fall.

This journey has oriented Kaur towards making choices in her own life that can make a difference in the lives of others.

Divided We Fall began as a way to document the challenges and the racism in post – 9/11 America, but wound up becoming a testament to the strength of the country reflected through its cultural diversity. It was surprising to Kaur how much of a general thirst there was for reconciliation and understanding, despite the predictable closed-mindedness of some and a few of the negative experiences that ensued.

As Kaur gathered hundreds of hours of footage documenting the response to what had happened, it became clearer to her through time that her “film should further the vision that we all have the capacity to embrace and celebrate difference, even during times of crisis.”

And, through hundreds of screenings of the film in colleges, schools, and community centers throughout the country, Kaur became even clearer about the power of film to tell stories, and that “these stories might have the power to save us”.

It seems that this is one of Kaur’s personal ways of coping….to take matters positively into her own hands.

And there have been other catalysts along the way, negative on the surface but positive in the impact they have had on Kaur’s world view. It’s even more impressive that, through all of this Kaur remains inherently optimistic about the human spirit.

In fact it is one such event that led her to study Law........ 

Kaur was documenting (as a legal observer) a protest in New York City four years ago that quickly turned ugly. She was swept up by the NYPD in the confusion that ensued, and was handled abusively, not given the opportunity to speak adequately for herself, and detained in central booking for 16 hours. She sustained injuries that had to be treated, and yet her almost immediate reaction was to wonder how it must be for others if she as a well-educated, articulate, rational person can be treated in this way. “What happens to people who have less - - education, means, understanding of their rights as human beings? What must it be like for them?”

She had always been impressed by how much faith people had in the legal system despite the fact that the legal system had failed so many of them. Kaur resolved to try to “make the world better in the way that I can.”

Law school appeared to be a way to continue to have this kind of positive impact on the world around her, to “help people with less of a voice”. This remains to be seen as Kaur is still in her first semester of her first year, and three years of law school seems a long time in “Kaur” years.

While she studies, she continues to coordinate screenings of Divided We Fall all over the country, and is working diligently to prepare the film for wider release. This strategy of taking the film out to the people is a unique and impactful one.

She recently screened the movie at the law school for 180 fellow law students and undergrads.

By showing the film in smaller groups, the experience has had the effect of stimulating meaningful dialogue. It has provided a forum for people to “safely tell their own stories....to speak about race and racism in a brave new way with the end of finding some reconciliation.”

And, that was at least part of Kaur’s personal goal at the beginning of this odyssey. 

Kaur remembers the impact, after almost five years of traveling and documenting these personal stories, when she met Balbir Sodhi Singh’s widow at her home in India and asked her the question, “What would you tell the people of America?”

Kaur expected bitterness and hatred, but instead was moved by her response. “I would tell them thank you. I can never forget the love they showed me. When my heart was in deep pain, thousands wept with me….Hindu, Muslim, Christian….”
According to Kaur, “there are similarities in the historical and continuing struggles of all communities to be recognized….Jewish Americans, Arab Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Muslim Americans…”.

“As Sikh Americans, my family has been in the U.S. for over 100 years, yet we are still struggling to be viewed as part of this American mosaic.”

This is a unique country in which there is progress in these struggles, and positive outcomes.

When Kaur speaks to groups large and small or is interviewed, she often refers to the Sikh proverb that her grandfather lived by: “Naam Daan Isnaan….To realize God and to realize yourself you must act without fear, here and now”.

Her first act in this regard was striking out to make Divided We Fall. We can only look forward to what she will accomplish next.