In the months following Sept. 11, 2001, Samir Akhter, then eight years old, can recall being called "Bin Laden's son" by other boys at school. The boys would smash Akhter, who is of Pakistani descent, in the face with their lunch pails while taunting him. As years passed, however, the Bin Laden taunts ended.
Now when Akhter is teased, his offenders call him Saddam Hussein.
This is just one of the stories recounted in "Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath," a documentary presented by Dartmouth's South Asian group Milan and other cosponsoring organizations, in 105 Dartmouth Hall on Monday night. The film, which was edited down from 130 hours of raw footage, follows filmmaker Valarie Kaur in a cross-country journey to explore hate crimes and prejudice after 9/11.
Kaur was motivated to make the documentary after hearing the story of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man who was shot outside of a gas station in Arizona on Sept. 15, 2001, in an apparent hate crime. Angered by this and other acts of violence which received scant media coverage, Kaur, who was 20 at the time, temporarily left Stanford University to work on the project. Joined by her cousin, who acted as a cameraman, Kaur traveled across the country looking for stories about the event that she felt were not being told as America strived to present a face of harmony.
"How could both be the face of America?" Kaur questions in the film. "This unity, and this hatred?"
In the documentary, Kaur interviews individuals affected by racism after the terrorist attacks. Many of those interviewed in the film are Sikh-American. Sikhism, the documentary explains, is one of the youngest major world religions and is practiced by about a half million Sikhs in America, and about 23 million people worldwide. These individuals were often the victims of hate crimes after Sept. 11 because turbans are a part of the Sikh religious uniform.
In the film, several individuals point to the link between turbans and terrorists that formed in the minds of many Americans after Sept. 11. At one point in the documentary, when asked why she decided to make the documentary, Kaur responds, "So other people don't look at the turban and see an enemy where I see a brother."
After the film, Kaur and her co-filmmaker Sharat Raju opened the room to a discussion of the documentary. Several students and other guests spoke about their experiences with prejudice -- a result which Kaur said was one of the film's main goals.
"Our hope is that the film opens up a space for some deep dialogue," Kaur said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "There's a lot that we carry around inside ourselves -- no matter who we are."
Assistant Dean of Student Life Nora Yasumura alerted Milan to the possibility of showing the film after hearing about a similar screening at Tufts University. Yasumura also received word of the film from Tommy Lee Woon, the former dean of the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, who served as Kaur's advisor during her time at Stanford.
Kapil Kale '07, the co-president of Milan, said that the personal relevance of the work to many of Milan's members, as well as other students, was one of the main reasons why the group decided to show the film. Kale himself recalled an incident in which his father was called a terrorist by the parishoner at his sister's Catholic school.
"So many people with different skin colors or different appearances have experiences like that," he said. "We thought people would really be able to relate to [the film]."
During discussion, Kaur and Raju explained that they are currently touring around universities and film festivals with the documentary, which they hope to release on DVD with some sort of educational package in the coming months.
"This is the life of an independent film," Raju said. "We have to kind of struggle and push it uphill."
