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Transcript
from interview with Kevin B. Lee
by Gurpreet Singh, on Radio India, December 18, 2005
Listen to audio of interview here
Q:
What motivated you to make Dastaar?
A: Many
things, but I think the story begins in my daytime job who
works in a corporate office. I have a co-worker who is Sikh.
He knew that I do filmmaking and asked me to do a favor for
him, which was to go to his son's high school that weekend.
They were having a cultural diversity event there. He and
a group of Sikhs were going to have a classroom where they
would present the Sikh culture to the parents and children,
and he wanted me to document it with my camera. I didn't know
anything about Sikhism at the time. This was March 2004.
I went
to the classroom and I was really amazed by how seriously
and enthusiastically the Sikh parents and children had taken
this classroom and decorated it. They really wanted to share
Sikh culture with the others. But parents would see men wearing
turbans and beards standing outside the classroom and they
would take their kids and walk by. They wouldn't go inside
the classroom. When I saw this happening it really opened
my eyes to just how casually discrimination happens, just
by judging people by their appearance. It really made me feel
that people should have some way of understanding that it's
not just what they see on the surface.
Then I
learned more about what was happening in the New York area.
A man was beaten up by five men who saw his turban and thought
he was a terrorist. His name was Rajinder Singh Khalsa. A
subway driver, an Irish American Sikh named Kevin Harrington,
was asked by the subway system to take off his turban or be
fired. Things like that were based on misunderstandings of
the Sikh identity.
It was
very easy for me to follow these cases, and interview people.
People were incredibly open and willing to explain what was
going on. It was amazing because up to that time they had
no one who took an interest in them from the media to cover
Sikh issues and identity. I was one of the first people to
go to them and ask them questions. I felt very lucky that
I could help them in this way and I learned an incredible
amount from this experience.
Q:
You come from a Chinese background. What inspired you to make
this film about Sikhs?
A: I think
any reasonable and curious person could have the experiences
I had. It doesn't matter if you are Chinese, or white, or
black. If you encounter another culture and you are fascinated
by their values, and you also see what other people don't
see –- how they misunderstand the culture –- then
you feel, as a human being, you almost have no choice. You
have to do something about it. If you feel like there's an
injustice or misunderstanding, it becomes your duty to clear
that, to explain that.
But as
a Chinese American, I feel some kind of connection to the
Sikh community as another minority that’s had to face
discrimination. In some ways I take a lot of inspiration from
the Sikhs because the discrimination they face is so much
more than what a Chinese American faces. It's so much more
visible. So I look up to them as people who really stand up.
They are not afraid to wear their identity on their head and
say, “'This is who I am, I am not afraid, I am not ashamed.
I'm proud of who I am.'” And when I see that I have
to look at my own identity and ask myself, “'Am I proud
of it too?'” So I take that as an inspiration.
Q:
Why did you choose Dastaar as the name of your film?
A: That's
the central symbol that's cause so much misunderstanding and
grief for the Sikh community in North America. It's also a
key symbol for the Sikh identity in terms of all the values
that it represents. It's related to the kesh, the unshorn
hair, which is one of the five K's, the central values of
Sikhs. And it's the most visible symbol of the Sikh identity.
When you see a man with a turban, you know that’s a
Sikh and that they stand for the Sikh ideals of peace, justice
and equality of all human beings. The struggle is to define
that symbol. So many people think it means Osama Bin Laden
and terrorism when it means the exact opposite.
Q:
What fascinates you the most about Sikhism?
A: The
more experiences I've had, the more doors it has opened to
so many aspects of life. At first it was a racial community
that was discriminated. Then it became a religious community
that was discriminated. The more I learned about Sikhism,
it's also about politics, society, music, family and community
values. The more I learn about the Guru Granth Sahib (holy
book) and japji (daily meditation scripture), I learned that
it's not just religion, it's poetry, it's literary art.
There's
just so much richness to Sikh culture, it touches on so many
aspects of life, you feel that it's a whole world in itself
that reflects all the things that we care about in life. But
for me it's a different way to understand those things. For
me it's a mirror that I can look at my own life and my own
values. My background is Christian, but I've always had some
problems with Christianity that I struggle with. To be so
acquainted with Sikhism allows me to understand my background
more. The way the Sikh community works makes me think of the
Chinese community, how it works, and its challenges in this
country. It's allowed me to look at my own background in a
completely different way and learn a lot from that.
Q:
Racially motivated attacks don't happen to Sikhs alone. What
made you decide to focus on just one community?
A: There
are so many groups who have suffered in the wake of 9/11.
For me it started with one community, and that community in
itself has such a rich experience that it's almost too much
for me to focus on that. I just wanted to do a really good
job understanding one community's struggle. It's a huge task
to present the struggles of everyone, and I'm just one person.
I think there's a belief in Sikhism itself, to just focus
on the “"Nam ." Just focus on one thing and
everything else falls into place. You can be very ambitious
and try to tell everyone's story and touch everything but
sometimes if you just look at one community or one issue and
really understand then it reflects on everything. You have
a much deeper understanding of everything that's involved.
That's what I've taken as my path to understanding this problem.
Q:
Who were the people involved in these attacks and how organized
were they?
A: With
the attacks of Rajinder Singh Khalsa, it was just five men
who were drunk. They were at a christening, they stumbled
outside the restaurant, they saw Rajinder Khalsa down the
street and they beat him up when he refused to walk away.
He tried to explain who he was and what his identity was and
just made them angrier so they attacked him. So that's just
a casual incident and it's very sad.
On the
other hand you have Kevin Harrington struggling with the Metropolitan
Transit Authority, the New York subway system. With that it's
very mysterious because it’s him versus an organization.
You don't know if it's one man on the other side of the organization
trying to make life hard for him, or if it's just a problem
with the law, the rules that are written, and instead of trying
to understand Kevin Harrington and his religious beliefs and
accommodate and respect those beliefs. They just throw the
rules at him and say, "You can't wear a turban while
you're operating the subway." But it makes no sense because
he's driven a subway car for 20 years with a turban on his
head, and they never had a problem with him. And all of a
sudden they have a problem with him. And you wonder why do
they have a problem with him now? It's very inconsistent and
mysterious. That's the sad thing when you have to face a whole
bureaucracy that has no face, they just have their rules.
It's hard to figure out who you can talk to fix this situation.
He's still struggling to fix this right now.
Q:
How is the current situation with Sikhs in America different
from after 9/11?
A:A number
of organizations in the Sikh community have done a lot in
the last four years to influence lawmakers and community leaders
to understand who Sikhs are. If you look at it in a certain
way, it's been an opportunity and a blessing for the Sikh
community to really become a force and a presence in mainstream
society.
The general
impression from people I talk to is that prior to 9/11, most
Sikhs, when you ask them what they want out of life, they
just wanted to do their jobs well, earn an honest income,
raise their kids, send them to school. Just be in the background
of society, don't call too much attention to themselves and
live a good life. That's what everyone wants. But after 9/11
they were forced to be in the public view. They were targeted,
they were discriminated against.
But this
has been an opportunity for the Sikh community to take that
situation and really take charge. To have this problem and
take it to the government, to take it to leaders, and say
“"Look, you don't understand, this is who we really
are. We are being discriminated against unfairly."”
And as a result, people know who Sikhs are.
Before
9/11 people didn't know who Sikhs were. Still, most people,
if you ask them what are Sikhs, they don't know. They'll think
that's a Muslim or a terrorist or an extremist. But more and
more people are understanding. Because of that Sikhs are more
a part of society now than they ever have been in the history
of the United States or Canada. When you look at it that way
it's very positive, and we can keep going in that direction.
Q:
How has your documentary succeeded in challenging the stereotyping
of Sikhs in the U.S.?
A:It's
had great success within a limited scope. Currently it's still
distributed by myself. I partner with certain Sikh organizations
to have it seen at gurdwaras, community organizations and
schools. But most of the time it's just me making connections
with people almost by accident. The way that you and I met
was you saw the movie at a film festival. It's been playing
mostly at film festivals, and great things have happened through
that.
It played
at a film festival in New York, and there were teachers who
were there. They went because they wanted to see movies about
Asia. They saw this film and they said, “"This
is amazing. I didn’'t know anything about Sikhs before.
I didn't even know there were Sikhs in the U.S.!"”
They met me after the screening and they asked more questions.
I said, “"If you want to learn more, do you want
to visit a gurdwara in Richmond Hill?"” They said
they'd love to. So I teamed up with a gurdwara in Richmond
Hill and about twenty schoolteachers were taken to the gurdwara,
given a tour. They sat through the kirtan (service) and ate
langar (free food service). They had an amazing experience.
They were really grateful for it, and now they want to take
their students to a gurdwara to visit a gurdwara too.
It's amazing
how this keeps going and going. A year and a half ago I had
no idea that this was going to happen to my life. I didn't
know anything about Sikhism. And the journey for me has been
one door leading to another door and it never stops. You meet
one person after another and you keep learning and you keep
sharing with other people. It's just been an amazing experience
that makes me feel so much more connected, not just with the
Sikhs but with the world, in bringing everything together
and learning from the process. It's been fantastic.
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