 Photo by Lori McKinney By Kiran Singh Sirah
It’s been a tough few months for many - due to the injustices and stark inequalities in our world, far and near our homes. I’m reminded however in amongst the broken stories of our world, for those of us who can, we need to cultivate joy, to use our artistry, to help us and others, come alive. Through this, we can help heal, repair, connect, and shift stories for the change we wish to see in the world. Shortly, I'll be returning to West Virginia for a three-day "we need to talk" deep-dive storytelling, arts, and creative changemakers convening I have the pleasure of co-designing and facilitating, which is themed around stories of “home,” what we bring, what brings us joy, and what kind of home we’re imagining for the health and well-being of our community's future. A topic, as friends will know, that is close to my heart, and core to the essence of storytelling and narrative reflection. Returning to an idea a friend reminded me of recently when we say we’re in traffic, we have to remember we are the traffic. In the same way, the world isn't separate from us; we are always integral to it. We don’t come into the world; we emerge from it. And as inspiring artist-activist Arundhati Roy suggests: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” *Photo by Lori Mckinney- 2:00 am at World Culture Festival. The last time I was in West Virginia. When my friend Lori encouraged me to stay up late (which I don't normally do) and join an all-night community jam, to put a bit more play and joy into my work-life balance! By Kiran Singh Sirah
I want to take a moment to express my heartfelt appreciation to Smithsonian Folklife writer, Eileen Jones and the incredible production team at Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage for capturing the essence of our experiences at this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival. For me, storytelling has always been a spiritual practice, a creative outlet that holds immense power. It is not only a means of cultural expression but also a tool for building peace, social justice, community empowerment, and change. I firmly believe that the potential to make a difference through storytelling belongs to all of us. No one person owns it; it is a collective power that we all possess. The two weeks spent on the National Mall will remain an unforgettable experience, one that I will always cherish. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue this important work, collaborating with grassroots communities, philanthropic peacebuilding and humanitarian foundations, and individuals who believe in the transformative and sacred power and potential of storytelling to build social empathy, cross-cultural understanding, peace, equity, and justice. Thank you, Eileen Jones, and the Smithsonian Folklife team, for capturing the essence of our journey and reminding us of the potential we hold within ourselves and in our relationships with each other. Let us continue to use storytelling as a force for good, as a means to create a world that is better for generations to come. Together, we can make a difference. Read the Smithsonian Blog by Eileen Jones Illuminations & Reflections: Storytelling as a Sacred Gift As a participating partner in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Storyteller and Folklorist, Kiran led daily “kitchen table”-style community conversations that explored stories as living expressions of culture, faith, and tradition that help us make meaning as we move through the world. These sessions explored the sacred power of storytelling to build meaning in our lives and peace in the world, the art of sharing stories in service of understanding each other better and celebrating our similarities and differences. Here are the five themed talks Kiran shared. Each one was followed with interactive activities and facilitated conversations. Over a two-week period, Kiran led around twenty story circle themed conversations around these topics:
 By Kiran Singh Sirah
I come from the Sikh tradition, a faith that many people in the United States don’t know a lot about. While it’s the world’s fifth-largest religion, it’s also a tradition that is often misunderstood here and abroad and especially in India, which is where it originates. Growing up in England in the 1980s and 90s, my father (who wears a traditional Sikh turban) was frequently accused by strangers on the street of being a terrorist. For my entire life, Sikhs being referred to as terrorists has been a racial slur that people sometimes use out of hate, but mostly use out of ignorance and misguided fear. I’m sure you can imagine how the problem escalated in the wake of September 11th. I was born in England. Simran Jeet Singh, a religious scholar who wrote a booked called The Light We Give, is my American counterpart, a Sikh with Punjabi roots who was born and raised in Texas. He has also dealt with a lot of racism and misunderstandings in his life. He wears a turban like my dad’s, and has also been called a terrorist. Singh points out that one of the many ironies of a common taunt he receives – “go back to where you came from” – is that even in India, Sikhs are a minority who have faced genocide and terrible human rights violations against a government that persecutes them. But of course, if he were to go back to where he came from, that would be Texas! It’s a pertinent reminder to not judge a book by its cover. Another irony layered into this persecution is that the Sikh tradition is all about equality, justice, and unconditional love for everyone – even those who would wrong us. Sikhs are the original social justice warriors. We believe in loving our neighbors, respecting other people’s beliefs, community service, and honoring difference. These values are very holy to us, and we put a lot of emphasis on them, and on the practical matter of how to live up to our values in the course of everyday life. Because we’re human, we don’t always live up to those values. But it’s important to try. Lately I’ve been reflecting my Sikh roots and beliefs in preparation for my presentations at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C, (taking place June 29 – July 4 and July 6 – 9 on the National Mall. You’re invited!) I’ll be leading daily “kitchen table”-style conversations that explore stories as living expressions of culture, faith, tradition and meaning making. The theme of the festival is living religions. The Sikh faith, like Catholicism and Islam and any number of the world’s religion, isn’t static; it’s always changing over time, and of course varies from region to region or even person to person. With Sikhs in particular, doctrine isn’t really a big focus. So instead of talking about the theological roots of my Sikh beliefs, which go back hundreds of years, it makes more sense to talk about how these values were passed along to me: as a story. When I was little, my mother taught me something she called “the journey of five.” She described it as a sort of heroic quest where you embrace and learn from five traditions different than your own, at the end of which you fully come into your own as a Sikh. Our journey of five took us to a variety of places and events (Midnight Mass, for instance), and afterwards we’d talk about faith and love and difference. This experience was so real to me that I only recently became aware that this was seemingly my late mother’s idea, and not a traditional Sikh teaching—a perfect example of how “living religions” work within our families and among communities. My mother’s journey of five has always stayed with me, and perhaps as a result (along with the Sikh tendency to focus on learning and curiosity), I’ve always had an interfaith bent. Early in my career, when I was a teacher in Scotland, I lived just off the Royal Mile. I liked to joke that John Knox, the founder of the Scottish Reformation, was my neighbor because his historic house was actually literally a stone’s throw away. St. Giles Cathedral, the Church where he preached during the Reformation, was a place that I would go to rest and regroup after work. Sometimes I’d sit there for a while—before an antiwar protest, for example—and embrace the beauty of that sacred space. I loved the stillness and the quiet. But I also loved how I could hear the soft sounds of traffic and activity outside. It gave the space a womblike quality that was comforting and affirming, and it was always a good place to collect my thoughts. The journey of five isn’t just about learning about different religions. It’s about community, places, and experiences. Different ways of life. It’s a form of spiritual travel, not unlike enjoying a trip abroad and experiencing the wonders of new sights and how other people do things. It’s good to go home, but there’s always something to take with you—maybe a newly cultivated appreciation for a food, a new form of greeting, or the memory of a beautiful painting in a museum. I’m reminded of the time more than two decades ago, just out of school, when I lived in a shared flat. It was a ragtag crew, including writers, poets, artists, travelers—and a little mouse called Simon. We always had a basket with different kinds of bread on the table. Some days the basket was filled with fresh bagels or delicious fresh almond croissants taken from the bakeries where some of my roommates worked along the Royal Mile. Some days the bread was stale and hard, and other days, by the time I got out of bed, there were just multicolored seeds and crumbs. The contents of our breadbasket were unpredictable, much like the household itself. By telling you about it now, you understand more about who I am and where I’ve been. Every story is a new opportunity to share our humanity, even if we do so imperfectly.I try to remember that when I’m confronted with ignorance and hostility toward my own faith, and as I encounter beliefs that are new to me.  By Kiran Singh Sirah
The first time I visited America, it was 1988, and I was just 12 years old. I came with my older brother and my mum and dad, who had saved for years to give us one of those classic American vacations. We went to Disney World and had our picture taken with Mickey Mouse. We went to see Sea World and met baby Shamu. And of course we went to New York City, where my father took us to see the Statue of Liberty. It was cinematic, like the films I had grown up watching. I returned to New York as a young man, as a student in the U.S. for the summer. I remember looking around and realizing just how many different types of people there were in New York. (It was much more diverse than where I had grown up.) I walked across Manhattan, ate a hog dog, and watched four cops from two different divisions have an all-out argument on the street. It was like a scene from the American police procedurals we watched on TV back home. I walked all the way from Harlem to an art gallery in midtown Manhattan, stopping at a tiny Jamaican café to get a bite to eat en route. Every moment was a story I could tell my friends as soon as I got home. It really did feel like a montage from the movies. After a few days, I took an Amtrak train from Central Station to Chicago. It was an overnight journey, but I spent most of my time in the smoking carriage. That’s where people stayed up late to chat. It was a lively scene, and it happened to be the Fourth of July. America was just too exciting to go to sleep. I’ve always loved that Americans like to talk. They’re less shy to spark a conversation than we are in the UK, and seem interested in knowing where you come from. They ask about your heritage. In the smoking car, knowing I was from Britain, a fellow passenger assumed I was a fan of the Beatles. But I hadn’t really listened to the Beatles at all! I told them I was more into New York hip hop that we loved so much in London: Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh crew, Grandmaster Flash, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys (alongside Bhangra, the Cure, and Adam and the Ants). Weirdly, I was the only boy where I grew up who seemed to be into Motown music. I only had one Motown cassette tape, so in New York I bought some mix tapes from a guy who was selling them on a street corner. He had a boom box attached to this wheelchair, and he blasted out tunes while passersby would dance and sing along. This is the kind of thing I still love about big city America. After an early career in education, the arts, social justice, and peacebuilding, I was offered a fellowship to come to the United States to study at UNC-Chapel Hill. After all the paperwork, the last thing to do was obtain my student visa at the U.S. embassy in London. Looking around for the building, I could see the embassies of France, Germany, and Spain. They looked like town houses, whereas the U.S. embassy was a giant fortress with armed guards. From the outside, it was intimidating. But after moving through security, when you were inside, everyone was so personable and welcoming. I arrived in Raleigh with just two (very full) suitcases. I had packed some smart pants and a nice shirt in preparation to meet my new professor. When we met at Starbucks, and she wore sweatpants, I realized Americans are a bit less formal than us Brits. As I began my studies, I felt anxious about fitting in and making friends. The work was intense and there were some difficult moments. I struggled a bit but my teachers reminded me that it was my experience they were interested in, not necessarily my qualifications. One professor encouraged me to think about studying Americans as “the other.” As a Brit, and as a person of color with an accent, I was in an interesting position to observe and ask questions. She encouraged me to think about how my work could help the nation to speak to itself and understand its own stories and potential. This resonated with me and my past experiences as an outsider or “other” in the West of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Spain, and Colombia, all places I had worked. I had facilitated programs and roundtable conversations around issues of historical sectarian divisions, racial tension, and violence, helping people be in dialogue to envision a better story for themselves and for their communities. In North Carolina, I wasn’t the most astute academic student, but I brought a lot of experience and curiosity to the table. My professor encouraged me to gain experience — to do ethnographies, work with farmers, and tailgate at football games. These were new experiences for me, and I felt wide awake. I talked with people in a homeless shelter to learn how displaced people think of home. I observed the Occupy Wall Street movement and performed a spoken-word poem with protesters. Before I began, I looked up and saw a big star-spangled banner waving in the air and realized my associations with that flag were starting to feel different. I was beginning to see in my mind’s eye not just those iconic cinematic images that I had grown up with, but a greater diversity of people, places, and ideas. Since then, I’ve been invited to give talks in places like South Carolina country clubs where Robert Lee’s portrait hangs on the wall, and in traditional African American performance venues and churches. I’ve had the chance to offer my respects to indigenous elders on behalf of my ancestors. I’ve helped communities discuss contested symbols including the Confederate flag and monuments. At some point, I finally stopped noticing people’s accents, and they stopped noticing mine. Coming from an urban background, I was surprised when a friend referred to me as a “rural practitioner.” But I’ve embraced Appalachia as my own and find myself, at times, defending the South and the stereotypes people use to ridicule this place I call home. What I have learned everywhere I’ve lived and worked is that no one story ever defines a place. We need to hear them all. Across the world, from China, across Europe, and through Africa, people have built monuments that we see over and over again on postcards and in movies and our mind’s eye. These are the images we see on Wikipedia and associate with places that we don’t necessarily know very well. As a kid, I thought of America as the Statue of Liberty, but now I associate this country with the image of the humble kitchen table. I think of hospitality, and how most Americans welcome newcomers and feel curious about people who are different from them. I’ve been invited to many a dinner and potluck (my favorite kind of gathering), and shared many stories with the people who I’ve invited to my house to sample my spicy cooking. Our ability to share the traditions and stories that we bring from all over the world here in one place together is what makes this nation so unique—and I genuinely believe it’s the country’s greatest asset. I feel a responsibility to nurture and contribute to that. Collectively, we have to make sure there’s room for everyone to grab a seat at the table, and that everyone feels welcome enough to share.  By Kiran Singh Sirah
In the 1980s, the United Kingdom’s national rail service was notoriously slow. I was a kid then, so I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I’ve heard that if someone was late for a meeting, they could always blame it on the rail service and everyone would harumph and agree. Eventually, the company embraced its bad reputation as part of its rebranding. Instead of claiming that their service was the fastest or the best, their motto became: “British Rail: We’re getting there!” I’ve always loved how they played to British sensibilities, almost as though the company itself became one of us. I mention it because I’ve been thinking about that motto a lot as a new American citizen, as this young nation goes through change and reaches towards its amazing potential. The United States is an idea in motion—and we definitely have more work to do. Since I moved here, I’ve observed the progress of socio-political movements like Occupy Wall Street. I’ve watched Black Lives Matter rise, and be suppressed, then rise again. I always look at these movements through the lens of storytelling and the desire that people have to feel heard, recognized, and understood. And I like to remind people that this is a service we can all offer one another, anywhere, at any time, for free. Sharing our stories with one another fosters a culture of empathy and helps us cultivate compassion for other people’s experiences. The U.S. is full of these stories, bursting from struggle, perseverance, pain, sorrow, joy, celebration and more. People are striving for a better sense of themselves and of others, and for the people who lived before our own lifetimes. We even struggle to see what the world will be like for future generations we’ll never know. I think we’ll only rise to our potential as a nation when we can make room for all these stories in their multiplicity. I learned a selection of our nation’s most iconic tales when I was studying for my U.S. citizenship test, which for me was an interview with a federal officer in Nashville. I had to memorize the answers to 100 civic questions, though I’d only be tested on 10 of them. It was a fascinating process. I learned that Benjamin Franklin helped found the nation’s first free library, that there are three branches (and six parts) of U.S. government, and that the last day you can send in your federal income tax forms is April 15th (a good reminder!). Alexander Hamilton wrote the first Federalist Papers. Susan B. Anthony fought for women’s rights. My American wife, who helped me prepare, learned a few things as well, and even our six-year-old got into it. Getting ready for this test became a family activity. I nailed my 10 questions, which was a huge relief. Afterward, we went out for Jamaican food. The oath of allegiance ceremony was scheduled for January 26th at the courthouse in Knoxville, Tennessee. I drove there with my wife and daughter the night before, choosing a hotel room close to my favorite restaurant in town, Yassin’s Falafel House. The owner, Mr. Yassin, is a Syrian American immigrant who was once voted the nicest person in America. (He truly is, and you can feel it in the food!) I’ve followed him on social media for years, and was sorry to see when his shop was smoke bombed some time ago. I’m not sure why that happened, but I can guess—and that story is just an example of the struggles that so many immigrants face in this country, even when they’re beloved in their communities. Loaded up with carryout coffees (and a muffin for my daughter), we walked a few blocks in the early hours of the dark winter morning. We had all dressed for the occasion. I wore a shirt and tie with a suit jacket and smart pants. My wife was dressed up, and Mirabel, who is six, wore a beautiful mermaid dress and a shiny tiara. In the waiting room before the ceremony, I was handed a letter from President Biden. This was part of everyone’s welcome package, and in it the president talked about being part of, and contributing to, an idea. It reminded me of my experience obtaining a green card. There was a plaque of Ronald Reagan on the wall that read: “We draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world.” I have to tell you, it felt like Ronald Reagan was speaking directly to me. Ten years and two Subarus later, the magic of the mountains surrounding these mountains have become my home. At the ceremony in Knoxville, there were 150 of us from 51 different countries. After the official opening (which felt a lot like a board meeting), our names were read out loud, one by one. It reminded me of my undergraduate graduation, but this was better. I received a certificate, a handshake, and a little American flag as I walked offstage. Eight or nine women from the Daughters of the American Revolution greeted us and invited us to join them for juice and cookies. I could see how genuine their welcome was, and Mirabel enjoyed getting lots of attention for her outfit. I registered to vote and did an impromptu interview with a local TV station. It was a really uplifting experience. After the ceremony, we visited the candy store and had lunch before we drove home. In India, there’s a tradition that when something new occurs—a celebratory moment or a new beginning—you eat something sweet as a blessing for the journey. So later in the day, we all shared our candy. Often, the stories we see on TV or read about on the internet suggest that we, as a nation, are divided. It’s easy to take that as a matter of fact. My fellow Americans, I can say that it’s not! There is much more to what is going on if we can learn how to listen in new ways and respect the sensibilities of all our neighbors. I take my opportunity to contribute to our shared idea of the United States very seriously. I feel committed to helping people and elevating the storytelling potential of this nation, so we can cultivate a culture of listening to one another and embracing diverse traditions. As a country, we still have a lot of difficult work to do to bring healing, validation, and recognition to difficult stories that have been suppressed or intentionally ignored. We need to get to know the people where we live and learn more stories about this place we all call home. I really do believe it’s an idea worth striving for. To borrow a motto: We’re getting there!  Kiran and Daniel, in Tennessee By Kiran Singh Sirah
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about listening. The late storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham, one of the matriarchs of the American storytelling movement, liked to say that storytelling teaches us to listen. Stories can’t exist without at least one listener, after all. One of the things I enjoy most about the events such as the National Storytelling Festival and other similar festivals, is the sheer spectacle of an audience sitting in rapt attention as a single storyteller works. The modern world, with its constant demands on our attention, doesn’t offer many such opportunities these days. Kiran and Daniel, in Tennessee I have learned so much about the art of listening from my friend Daniel Kish. Blind from early childhood, he’s a world expert on echolocation, the process that animals including bats, dolphins, and now humans can use to locate objects by sound. Daniel is famous for developing a technique that uses tongue clicks to produce sounds as a way to “see” and understand an environment. (One expert has described the technique as an “acoustic flashlight.”) Over the years, Daniel has trained both blind and seeing people on his methods. In a sense, what Daniel is doing is helping people remove their fear of the dark, both literally and metaphorically. He once told me that he likes to begin the training process by “neutralizing fear of the dark unknown.” He wrote, “We essentially remove fear from ourselves and our lives. Life then becomes an intriguing tapestry of puzzles, adventures, and discoveries.” Many of Daniel’s observations over the years have resonated with me, in part because I know that storytelling contains information that help us navigate and understand the world around us. It’s human nature to fear the unknown, and it can be helpful to have a guide. For blind people, of course, those fears are quite tangible, since the unknown can be present immediate physical danger. Daniel once described echolocation to me as “establishing the knowns within the unknowns, something like navigating by the stars. You chart your way by establishing points of reference, a bit like making it into a story.” Listening can help all of us navigate unfamiliar and even scary situations. The parallels between Daniel’s work and storytelling have been even more clear to me when he has discussed other methods of navigating unfamiliar environments. Here’s Daniel again, on working with sighted guides during travel: Blind people typically engage sighted guides to facilitate their safe, effective, and graceful navigation through, interaction with, and understanding of their environment. Insofar as the guiding process necessitates physically guiding the movements of a blind person, it also requires narrative descriptions. Much as a hearing interpreter helps a deaf person interact primarily with the social environment through the interpretation of spoken language, a sighted guide helps a blind person interact primarily with the physical environment by interpreting visual elements through narratives as well as physical guidance. These narratives aren’t just expository verbiage landing on a blind person’s consciousness like some podcast or radio channel streaming. These narratives are actively captured and processed through what I call a “comprehension matrix,” and ultimately formed into images. In essence, they are coded in the brain as stories, or elements that comprise stories, and rich in substance, character, and information. For a blind person, these narrative stories and story elements help to establish a blind person’s mental construct of the world around them and their relationship to it. For a blind person, physical guidance is typically the key to their interaction with the world, but it’s the narratives and rich exchanges that are the key to a blind person’s understanding. Though Daniel and I initially met a conference where he participated in a workshop I was leading (and I attended one of his talks), we have since become very good friends. He lives across the country, in Long Beach, California, and we occasionally use FaceTime to have long conversations. We were pandemic buddies, which paved the way for his special visit to Appalachia last year. He stayed with me for a week, during which I got to introduce him to our region’s BBQ, my favorite walks and hikes, and my family. Daniel also met with my storytelling colleagues to discuss his work and share his thoughts and ideas. When he was here, I shared with him the three different routes I take often by car. There’s one that I use when I’m in a hurry, and one that’s good for when I have a bit more time. Finally, there’s the much longer one, my favorite, which winds along country rural roads with no traffic. Daniel encouraged me to try a sort of driving meditation, where I aim to notice something new or surprising on the route. It’s a way to develop focus and pay attention by using sight and sounds. This practice is something I’ve kept up. I know I’m not doing it when my mind is preoccupied or too busy, so the goal is always to get back to paying attention again and remain present in the moment. Daniel also introduced me to the idea of soundscapes and how they change over time: the sounds of the wind, leaves falling from trees, and noises from humans or animals or cars. We can hear the subtle shifts when we pay close attention. When we went on one of my favorite hikes, along the Appalachian Trail beside Watauga Lake, Daniel helped me notice more of this audio input based on the natural amphitheater that our trail had beside this lake, in the Fall. Via email, Daniel has shared with me some sound clips of various activities of real-time recordings of chirping birds that he made. I was amazed by how he could describe their movement and the physical location of houses by listening to the sounds that the birds were making. One time, a bird made its way into his house on accident. He could hear the sound of the bird panicking because it didn’t know how to get out. As it flew back and forth across his living room, he could hear other birds outside, moving in parallel. Daniel said that, as he opened the back door to let the trapped bird out, he noticed a sound from a small flock, like a call and response to help guide the lost bird to the exit. In another clip, he shared the sounds of some ravens, and described how they moved from tree to tree, how to distinguish between males and females, and the sizes of each. I started making my own recordings of soundscapes, like the bird noise near my dad’s house in England, the sound of coffee percolating, and the sizzle of onions and cumin seeds roasting in my cast iron pan. With thanks to Daniel, I have realized that is actually one of my favorite sounds. Deep listening is not just a source of information, but also of wonder. Daniel once told me about a time he decided to climb a tree when he was a boy. No one had told him that the sky was far away, so he wanted to try to touch it. As he got further up, it dawned on him that the sky was out of reach. In the branches, listening to the sounds from the ground and across the fields, was when he discovered his love for soundscapes. I invite you to join me in practicing the art of these many types of listening: to feel informed, to light dark paths, and to inspire wonder and awe.  Kiran's family. Kiran is bottom row, second from right. By Kiran Singh Sirah
The first annual National Storytelling Festival was in 1973, and as we get ready to celebrate our 50th year I’ve done a lot of reflecting on that first convening and what it has meant. I wasn’t there (I hadn’t even been born yet!), but I feel a deep personal connection to it, in part because this has also been a milestone year in my family. Fifty years ago, in 1972, my parents were forced to flee Uganda under threat of death from an evil dictator. And 2022 is also the 75th anniversary of the partition of India and Pakistan, which led to a terrible refugee crisis that also affected my people, including my granddad, who was forced to fight. My family’s stories survived through the stories they carried with them when they were displaced and driven out of their homes. In 1973, with almost nothing but the clothes on their backs, my parents landed in a small town in the south of England, where I was born four years later. So when I say that you can lose everything—your home, your treasures, your clothes—but no one can take away your stories, I really mean it. Your stories belong to you, and they will keep you company wherever you go. For me, as a child, stories were what my parents used to tell me and my brother about where they came from, about my grandmother, and about other faraway family members and places and traditions. Growing up in an immigrant family in the south of England, I didn’t often see myself reflected or represented when I looked around. (I was the first person of color born in my hometown.) But I learned a lot at our huge family gatherings. (My extended family is scattered all over the world—mostly in the UK, but also in India, Canada, and several East African nations.) We would gather at the cul de sac at the end of the street of our small concrete housing estate. Sometimes there were 50 or 60 or more of us, including my parents and my grandparents, many first cousins, and many more extended family members. My aunties would turn our garage into a restaurant-style kitchen with large cooking pots called patilas. With my uncles and cousins, I would help chop the onions. There were so many! And as we prepared the food, which would take all day or multiple days, there was laughter, music, banter, and songs that continued late into the evening or even the early morning. My grandmother often played the dholki drum as people clapped and danced. Sometimes our elders—and especially my grandmother, our large and proud matriarch—would sit under the tree in the backyard, or on the sofa in the house, and everyone would gather around to hear a story. They told us stories of survival, courage, love, faith, and belonging. Often, they spoke in Punjabi, our mother tongue. Even in my memory, these occasions retain a sense of vibrancy. My family loved to celebrate life. I remember someone mentioning to me that they had noticed a big party at our house, and I had to tell them it was actually my mother’s funeral. Even though it was a difficult time, we felt smothered in love. At nighttime, my little cousins and I slept side by side on the floor while the adults stayed awake to take turns singing old Bollywood songs. Every corner of the house was occupied, and we’d wake up to the smell of my aunties making hot masala chai. On nice days, we would head to the seaside for a picnic. I think that, over the years, I’ve sought out that warm and lively atmosphere in many places where I’ve lived and worked. It’s a good, comfortable feeling, and I think our Festival has it. Jonesborough is a place where people of different ethnicities, traditions, ages, and backgrounds come together in fellowship and story. People are generally happy to be there. There are different families and friends and perspectives. And through the stories themselves, we hear what my colleague Nick Spitzer, who hosts NPR’s “American Routes,” describes as “information disguised as entertainment.” Just as I learned about my family and our heritage in my family’s informal gatherings, the stories that we hear each year at the Festival are teaching us about other places and times and traditions. Stories and our modes of sharing them are intrinsically linked to identity and understanding who we are, where we come from, and what we value. In recent years, in the U.S. and elsewhere, issues of identity have increasingly come to the fore, often with the terrible baggage of tension, conflict, and unrest. It’s incumbent upon us to unpack stories about our collective heritage, and find ways to honor everyone without becoming defensive about traditions that no longer serve us as a society. When I was a kid, we were sometimes told folk tales at school assemblies. At night before I’d go to bed, I’d switch on the globe lamp in my bedroom and imagine different places in the world. The seashore was close to our house, and during the day I’d look out over the water and imagine other places, knowing that one day I’d get to travel and see them myself. Every day, as kids and as adults, I think we’re all just trying to make sense of the world we live in. We’re continually searching for meaning and purpose, and we’re naturally curious. We have a deep desire to seek out truth, and to meet and connect with other people. And sharing stories with each other is integral to all of that. Our faiths and traditions, the way we craft quilts or pass along recipes, and even the way we decorate our front porches or put stickers on our cars tell stories about who we are and what we believe. When we look at the world in this way, it’s clear the idea that one story or identity could replace another is false and even silly. Life is not a zero-sum game where your success comes at my expense. Our stories are interconnected and interwoven, and there’s room for everyone to pitch in, because together these tales form a tapestry that is always expanding (much like the universe itself). Stories are a form of magic. And you can’t capture magic with a formula or an algorithm. Business consultants and advertisers might use the language of storytelling for their own purposes, but stories aren’t transactional. In public relations, or on the news or social media, people look for the shortest way to tell a story. And I think that approach is wrongheaded, and that we’ve all suffered for it. To really understand something—let’s say the U.S. South, or the country, or the subcontinent of India—a three-minute elevator pitch isn’t going to work. (Certainly, if I’d asked my grandmother to a story in three minutes, I’d have gotten what is known in the business world as negative feedback!) A single story or a single article or a single book also isn’t going to work. We need to listen to many different perspectives to better comprehend the big picture. Stories also help us build important mental and emotional muscles. Kathryn Tucker Windham, one of storytelling’s matriarchs, often talked about how the role of storytelling is to help us to truly listen. Stories can’t exist without at least one listener. But modern life and its distractions discourages us from cultivating that skill and that appetite. Storytelling is a real counterargument to the sense of powerlessness that many of us feel when there is trouble and conflict in our communities and in the world. It’s not just a force for social change; storytelling is social change itself. It helps us connect, engenders new understanding, and inspires us to act for positive change in the society in which we live. I think stories can help us see past the surface of our political opponents and rehumanize one another in an environment that encourages us to do the opposite. We have a natural tendency to be interested in the stories of people like us. But every story holds some form of truth. How much are we willing to listen to those truths, fully and intentionally, and without judgment— even when they’re different from our own? A festival is an opportunity to broaden and expand our understanding of one another, and to delve in and hear complex stories that have been forgotten, neglected, or suppressed. It is a curious combination of ancient and modern. Stage become spaces in which traditions can be preserved for future generations and serve as a living art form here and now. As listeners, connect with others, even if we’re just sitting together quietly. Multiculturalism is a foundational American value that we need to celebrate, not fear. The story of this nation is bigger than any one of us, yet it is closely tied to our individual identities. There’s beauty in each and every person’s experience, if we only take the time to listen and understand. As we celebrate our 50th year dedicated to the art of storytelling, I’ll be thinking about those gatherings I used to have with my family, and the warm sense of wonder that came from learning about where we all come from. I wish that for everyone, as a time to hear stories that foster a sense of joy and comfort, and an open mind and heart to listen.  Engagement photo by Kiran Singh Sirah
I recently got married—a small, lovely, do-it-yourself affair. One of the things that was fascinating about planning our own ceremony, vows, and celebration is how we thought about tradition, which is so important to both of us. On the surface, at least, we come from two very different traditions on a cultural, geographical, and spiritual level. Marie is from Appalachia, but her ancestry is from the west of Scotland, where I lived for many years. The more we discussed the details, the more I was struck by how much we have in common. It was a big question from the beginning: with most of my family in another country, what would be the best way to honor my roots? I think our natural tendency as people is to think of tradition in our families as unchanging and maybe just a little bit separate from our daily lives, like fine china you pull out for a special occasion. We feel reluctant or even afraid to change the way our parents, grandparents, and so on did things, so there can be a sort of rigidity that creeps in. But traditions aren’t fragile or even static. In fact it’s quite amazing how much they’re able to flex over time. Traditions are living things, not empty rituals, and they should serve us, helping us celebrate the past even as they guide us into the future. As we planned the wedding, we thought about the elements that were most important to us. Nature and especially water were in the forefront, as well as the DIY spirit. When Marie told me she wanted to do something in the backyard, I loved the idea because that’s very much how I grew up. We did everything at home, and made lots of things ourselves. When Marie told me her mother offered to make most of the food, I said, “Is she okay with this?” And Marie said, “100%! She grew up poor, so this is what we did.” That made sense to me, because my family was the same way. Even as we thought about ways to incorporate traditions from other parts of the world like henna painting, I kept coming back to how both of us are Appalachian, if perhaps in different ways. I’m newer to the area, and grew up in England, not unlike the first migrant Appalachians. My grandfather, like Marie’s, was a carpenter. Both of our grandmothers made quilts. And our families were both involved in revolutions against the British: the American Revolution for hers, and the Indian Revolution for mine. There’s something about the values of family life, cultivating a connection to the land, and grassroots efforts that feels very core to rural identity. I grew up in England in a semi-urban town close to London, but my family—my parents and my grandparents—didn’t come from there. My mother grew up in East Africa, my grandparents come from villages in India, and their traditions and beliefs and values have always felt very core to who I am. I learned about them through family stories that felt tangible, real, and at the center of my upbringing, rather than some distant fairy tale about the past. Long before I visited the rural village where my mom grew up, I understood it through the power of story, and through the ways in which my parents interacted with the world around us. When I moved to Appalachia, there was an almost uncanny sense of coming home. I vividly remember the first time I visited the Hicks homestead in Beech Mountain, North Carolina. Our first stop was to see Ted Hicks and Rosa Hicks (who were both in the hospital in Banner Elk at the same time). After listening to Ted tell Jack tales from his hospital bed, we drove up the mountain to see the homestead. I got a phone call as soon as we arrived because Ted had timed how long it would take to get to the home, then called to make sure that we arrived. That was exactly what my grandparents encouraged us to do: always check to make sure that a visitor has arrived. Inside the house, in the living room, there were fabrics and quilts, a familiar aesthetic from my travels in India. Marie and I were engaged in Hot Springs, North Carolina, which some of you may know as the place where Cecil Sharp, the English folklorist, collected folk ballads and songs from the mountains. In many ways, this place helped him lay the landscape for what would become the Appalachian revival. Hot Springs is a beautiful place because it’s on the Appalachian Trail, and it has the ancient French Broad River that runs right through. The whole area feels very magical. After renting a cabin, we sat down on a rock by the river, and I proposed. I didn’t want to get down on one knee because that didn’t feel right. Instead, we sat as we always have—side by side—on a rock. We watched the sunset and listened to the noise of the rapids. I opened with a nod to tradition, asking Marie if she remembered what red signifies in India. I told her, “Red has been an important color for centuries. When you buy a house and paint part of it red, or you paint patterns in red henna, it’s a color that represents life, love, blood.” And as she looked out across the river, I took out a little piece of red string that I’d put in my pocket in preparation, and I showed it to her as I said, “I give you my life, my love, and my blood.” And I tied that piece of red string around her finger instead of an engagement ring. Marie is an artist, so I knew she’d want to pick one out for herself. It was a beautiful moment. Later, as we walked along, I suggested we play Pooh Sticks, which is a game from Winnie the Pooh that we used to play as kids. Basically, you stand on a little bridge, and each drop a stick over one side at the same time. Then you peer over the other side of the bridge to see which stick comes out first. Marie and I dropped our sticks, and mine sped underneath the bridge. When we went across to the other side, we saw that both our sticks had been intertwined to form a cross and emerged together. It felt symbolic of the journey we were going on together,like nature was giving us its affirmation. With a lot of my family spread out across the UK, and with the ongoing effects of the pandemic, it seemed impossible to have a large family gathering. A backyard celebration felt right. We incorporated traditions in a way that both honored the values we grew up with and also felt authentic and right to us. We realized that, in our own space, we really had the freedom to add the love and flavors that we wanted. And I’d encourage anyone to do the same, whether you’re planning a wedding or a barbeque. The playlist, the color, and the foods are all tools we can use to celebrate who we are. I think about the pagan roots of St. Brigid’s cross, a Celtic symbol that has been very much embraced by the Christian tradition. In a similar way, I think we need to not just represent our cultures, but also unpack them. I may be a newer Appalachian, but I’m Appalachian all the same. Marie may have been born here, but she has roots in Scotland. Underpinning these facts of geography are the values we inherited from our families, our heritage, and our upbringing: a respect for things made at home, by hand. Gestures that come from the heart. Our ancestors and revolutionary spirits crafted stories with their heads, their hands, their hearts, and their souls. We heard them, and in turn we’ll craft our own.  By Kiran Singh Sirah
Earlier this month, I was a keynote speaker at a Rotary peace conference in Houston. We were a group of about 1,500 people, many of whom are leaders in their communities, and all of whom are interested in peacebuilding. They were from all over the world. And every day, I was asked the question: what led me to become a peacebuilder? There are so many ways I could answer that question, because I’ve been doing this work in one way or another for my whole adult life. And even before that, I can trace the answer back to the values that were instilled in me by my parents, who were both refugees that were driven from their home by a genocidal dictator. I can and do share my “origin story” as a peacebuilder in terms of my family, or explain the trajectory of my career as I’ve been doing this work—but I don’t think that’s what people are really asking when they say: “Why do you do this?” I think what they want to know is why I believe that peacebuilding is possible. Almost everyone believes in peace, at least in theory. But I think a lot of folks have lost hope in it as a real, attainable goal, and as something we can strive for together. Too many people see peacebuilding as a huge, daunting, totally unrealistic goal. And so an important part of my message everywhere I go is that peacebuilding isn’t just demonstrations and organized actions; it can also be comprised of unexpected connections, small acts of kindness, and quiet conversations in our day-to-day lives. This is work that all of us can do every day, and I think that the stories we share with one another are the structure on which we can build a better future. To that end, I wanted to share a few ideas based on stories from my own life about how I think we can go about this work. 1. Cultivate a can-do attitude. When I was a little kid on the south coast of England, I’d look out across the sea and imagine the world. I was curious and I wanted to travel, and I loved hearing the stories about the places where my parents had been. When I told my mom I wanted to see the world, she said, “Go on, then.” I packed up a small bag and set out that evening. Of course it started getting dark, and then my socks got wet in a creek a few blocks away from my house. I headed back home, determined to try again a different day. When we were kids, we had an outsized sense of our ability to do things and our personal impact on the world. We were also less afraid of looking foolish. I remember organizing political protests at my elementary school and writing letters to Ronald Reagan. I think as we get older, the world drums out some of that enthusiasm and earnestness and belief that we can do big things. Part of the work of any type of activism is simply recapturing and nurturing that sense of belief that came so naturally to you as a child. 2. Seek perspective. In high school, one of my teachers, Mr. Ellis, had an interesting and unusual approach to teaching history. Instead of reading about the past, our homework was to watch the evening news. We’d learn about then-current events like the conflict in Northern Ireland and the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and then the next day in school, we’d discuss them. We’d work backwards to learn about what had led to those conflicts, building a deeper, broader sense of understanding. Mr. Ellis encouraged us to explore the different events that started wars, and to research different sides of the story. Essentially, he asked us to work like detectives, to probe and ask questions and to seek the stories behind what we saw, so we could form our own opinions. 3. Remember that entrenched problems aren’t permanent. Sometimes it’s helpful to see an old problem with fresh eyes. In Glasgow, Scotland, there’s an old and horribly violent rivalry between two of the country’s soccer teams, Celtic and Rangers. When I first moved there, I was shocked by how sports and religion and politics all intertwined in this rivalry. Watching a game, you could see hundreds of years of religious turmoil between Catholics and Protestants unfold as fans threw potatoes on the field to mock the descendants of Irish immigrants. And across the city, after games, violence would spill out of the pubs and onto the streets, or even start conflicts between neighbors and families. As a newcomer, this conflict was shocking to me. But in my conversations, people explained that it was just part of the culture that would never go away. There was a feeling of complacency or even acceptance. I started a program to address it, and I think part of the reason I was able to act was simply because I hadn’t grown accustomed to the problem. 4. Don’t reinvent the wheel. When I was a young education curator, a very talented photographer called Jenny Matthews came for an exhibit and a series of talks. Over coffee in the museum café, I asked her if she’d be willing to offer me a bit of advice. I told her I had this desire to go and do human rights work in the world, perhaps to start a nonprofit. She said, “Why do you want to start a nonprofit when there’s already so many great ones out there?” She really encouraged me to go find an existing project to support that aligned with my vision. When we’re getting started in our careers, I think there’s a certain amount of ego we bring to the table. But often we can get so much farther if we build on something that already exists. 5. Positive outcomes compound over time. In today’s world, I think we get a little too caught up in the hard facts of metrics. Statistics and measurable outcomes are great, but these tools can’t capture the cumulative and long-term impacts that peacebuilding and storytelling can have. There are questionnaires and other tools we can use but that information can’t reflect the big picture of what people then go on to contribute in families, schools, workplaces, and wider communities. These are returns on investment that unfold over lifetimes. I’m still learning from the stories that my parents, teachers, and other mentors shared with me when I was very young. I think about them all the time! I think when we share a story, we don’t necessarily know the impact it will have on someone else. There’s a lot about this work that’s unknowable, but that doesn’t mean the work isn’t taking place. Stories are living things that shape our understanding and drive us to act. I think of storytelling and peacebuilding as wide and nebulous movements that we can all be part of and contribute to and benefit from. You don’t have to work to end all wars, everywhere. You can just do a little bit every day to make your community a better place to live, and go from there.  Kiran Singh Sirah
In the West, when a baby is born, we welcome them “into” the world. In China, the turn of phrase is a little more poetic: they say a baby comes “out of” the world. The idea is that, even before we were born, we were already part of this place, deeply interconnected with nature. Scientists take an even broader view. They say the elements of our bodies are made of ancient stardust. As a folklorist, I’ve always been interested in how individuals and cultures understand themselves and their origins. In comic books, characters often have an origin story – some definitive event that explains how they became who they are. But real people are much more complicated. No single story defines us. We come from multitudes, literally and figuratively. When I think about who I am, personally… I am my grandfather, who built a well in the scorching East African sun so workers passing by could drink fresh clean water. I am my ancestors, who came from the rural villages of Northern India to defy an empire—and won. I am my parents, who fled persecution in Africa. They arrived in a cold country with nothing but the shirts on their back and taught me about where we came from through their stories. I’m a Sikh – a learner and a disciple. A core belief in Sikhism is that we must travel around the world to learn about five different religions or belief systems. We’re meant to immerse ourselves in those traditions and communities, and when we’ve finished with the fifth, the journey is considered complete. Becoming a Sikh requires learning about others, and what it means to be part of our collective human family. In England, where I was born, I was called an Indian. In Scotland, I was English. Here in the U.S., I’m British, or sometimes European. But I’m also Appalachian now. All these identities reflect the truth in a different way. They reflect where I am, and often where I am not. Places – our communities, and geography itself – evolve in a similar way, changing to encompass new truths and contradictions over time. All of this was on my mind recently during a special convening led by Yo-Yo Ma, the musician, that took place in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The cellist brought together around 45 artists, musicians, scientists, scholars, Cherokee elders, and community leaders to dig deeper into our collective history by exploring the interplay of culture, music, storytelling, and nature. I was working as a thinking partner with Yo-Yo Ma and his team in partnership with our friends from The Office of performing arts and film, the National Park Service, the Cherokee Museum, Big Ears Festival, Tremont, Black in Appalachia, and other participants. We began with dinner under a tent placed at a high elevation overlooking Purchase Knob, an incredible view. We all understand Appalachia as a place of beauty and a place of tradition. But if we dig deeper, it’s also a place of pain and hardship. We think of the mountains as a fixture. But their name as we know it was conceived by the federal Appalachian Regional Commission. That was relatively recent history, and we know that indigenous people lived here long before that. The Cherokee people, for instance, have been connected to these mountains for over 12,000 years. We often think of the United States as a “young” nation. But it is also a place where people have lived and created meaning for a very long time. At the convening, Tom Belt, a Cherokee elder, spoke about how people don’t own land. Rather, we belong to it. We belong to the mountains, and help make that environment what it is, and it shapes who we are in return. It’s interesting to consider that Great Smoky Mountains National Park—one of our country’s most beautiful national parks—is in many ways a human construct as much as it is a natural place. It is an idea, and an imposed identity. In the process of shaping the park into the iconic national treasure we understand it as today, many people were displaced and dishonored, and their identities were buried, if not entirely lost. Many who were at this convening work on different projects that help us understand those mistreated people and their stories better. Our ranks included specialists on Black and Latinx history, Scotch-Irish ancestry, Native American heritage, and more—all there to explore the diverse culture that came from our mountains, in all their beauty and complexity. I was there to lead our morning workshop, as well as a deep-dive meditation in which I was joined by Yo-Yo Ma and Jarrett Wildcatt, a traditional Cherokee flutist. As we talked about culture and identity, many of us discussed the pressures of assimilation to suppress what makes us different. In folklore studies, we talk about the need to “dig where you stand” – to unearth stories that might not be visible on the surface. There is always more to a place or a person than meets the eye. When we celebrate a region, there is often a romantic, nostalgic spirit in the air. But we also need to make room for the more difficult issues and legacies that people are grappling with. These experiences are just as important to understand and share. They are part of our collective history. One of the questions we were there to discuss with Yo-Yo Ma was the interplay between culture and the environment. I think this relationship is especially strong in Appalachia, where music and stories have long been inspired by the natural world. How do we see ourselves as separate from, or integral to, our natural surroundings? This is an essential question that can get lost during the busy days of our ultra-modern lives. My young stepdaughter is learning about Jane Goodall in school. The questions she asks us at home (for example, “What’s the difference between animals and humans?”) are naive yet profound. We often acknowledge the wisdom of our elders, but children are wise in their own way. They aren’t afraid to ask the most essential questions. Yo-Yo Ma encouraged us to each tap into our inner child, to recapture that sense of curiosity, imagination, and possibility that helps us imagine a better world. The boundaries of a national park are artificially imposed, just like the lines of a state or a nation; the birds and other animals don’t recognize its borders. What can we learn from that way of being? The air, the land, our rivers, and our seas can teach us how to foster a more inclusive, calm, and peaceful world. Most of the attendees at the convening were from North Carolina and Tennessee, yet many of us weren’t previously aware of each other’s work. How can we transcend false boundaries and real barriers? What values do we have in common? What lessons can we learn from each other’s experiences? How can we better appreciate and preserve different kinds of beauty? The arts offer subtle but satisfying answers to these difficult questions. They help us make sense of terrible world events in a more productive and fruitful way than scrolling the news or social media feeds on our phones. I left Great Smoky National Park very early in the morning to drive to Richmond, Virginia, where I was giving a talk to the people who help preserve the Main Streets across the nation. I remember hearing about the tragic shooting in Buffalo, New York, as I was driving, and now as I write, there has been an unspeakable massacre of elementary school students and their teachers. In these moments it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness—a feeling that our world is irreparably broken. My partner is a studio painter. Once, when I was stuck on a painting I was working on, she told me that we have to work through what’s broken to create meaning in art. I’m reminded of the poem “Keeping Things Whole,” by Mark Strand: In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing. When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body’s been. We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole. Looking around today at our nation, and our world, we have the difficult task of continually moving through what’s broken. As we grapple with uncomfortable truths about climate change and human cruelty, we have to work very hard to keep things whole. When someone asks you for your story, it can mean all sorts of things. You might talk about your family, where you went to school, or your job. You might mention cultural traditions, or the folk tales and wisdom of your people. You might remember grand historical tragedies, or intimate personal loss. Our lives are composed of all these influences—places, people, and textures. Only in exploring them fully can we gather what we need to build a better world, one story at a time. At the convening, a colleague quoted a poignant line from Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer: Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart. I invite you to pay attention to the world we were born into—or out of—before our bodies and bones are returned to the stars. |