Source: Macalester News

http://www.macalester.edu/whatshappening/press/2007/033007.html

St. Paul, Minn. - 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.