Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week.
Kiran Singh Sirah wears many hats: as a public folklorist, storytelling artist, peacebuilder, and cultural narrative practitioner. He’s the founder of Storytelling: A Gift of Hope, a project that harnesses the art of storytelling to create intimate healing and justice spaces to build dialogue, agency, and change for communities, on their own terms.
I first spoke with Sirah for a Daily Yonder story about the International Storytelling Center, where he served as president for a decade. He’s since worked as a program designer and facilitator with luminaries like Yo-Yo Ma, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and Dolly Parton. His mix of experiences and identities keeps him thinking about who we can be as citizens, and as a nation. Enjoy his reflections about the bridge-building power of story and commemorating America’s 250th birthday with the Smithsonian.
Kim Kobersmith
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The Daily Yonder: Can you share a little bit about your background?
Kiran Singh Sirah: I’m the grandson of freedom fighters from northern India, and the son of political refugees that fled genocide in Uganda in 1972. Even though I was brought up in the south coast of England, my heart is really connected to rural communities. My mother grew up in a small rural town on the Kenya-Uganda border and my ancestors come from the rural villages of northern India. Now I’ve lived in rural Appalachia for 13 years.
Storytelling work is really something that’s integral to my upbringing, my way of seeing the world. When people ask me what my methodology is, it’s my mother. She taught me how to create community, how to invite strangers into your home and create a communal space to respect their dignity and bring them alive. She did it in her living room, with our neighbors, with the garbage truck men, with children. And she created a space which was about belonging. Acceptance. Love.
DY: How did you get into storytelling, and what does it offer communities and organizations?
KSS: I was hired to work in the National Museum of Scotland right before 9/11 and realized that the idea of multiculturalism, the idea of empathy towards others, these values were under attack. In response to attacks on a synagogue and a mosque, I organized a folk festival – a storytelling festival – where people of multiple faiths and cultural backgrounds could come together and celebrate their traditions. There were Scottish Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, Protestants, Baha’is, Hindus. We created this place where we could share these cultural narratives, these faith-based narratives, but also these personal narratives. That was where I started to see the power and the beauty of storytelling to build a sense of community.
As a Sikh, we believe in the dignity of all human beings. When I think about what brought me into storytelling, it’s not really a profession, it’s my faith, it’s my belief, it’s my values, it’s my sacred duty. I was taught to spend your life bringing balance to an unfair world. To commit your life to justice and equality and serve all humanity. And when you do that, then you are contributing to society.
DY: How does the art of storytelling help us to tap into new ways of relating to each other?
KSS: When I was working in Northern Ireland and the west of Scotland and asked to address the historical sectarian divisions that go back to the times of Reformation, I thought, “How could I do this?” When we get to be a witness to someone else’s story, we start to see this universality that exists in all stories and we get to imagine what kind of world that we want to create together. That transcends these other constructs of politics, religion, nationality. Storytelling is really the essence of our humanity.
A story is a way to soften the truth. To enable us to have hard conversations in a nuanced way. People from across divides can come together, and have a moment where they say, let’s work together, let’s build something together, let’s have hope together. I saw people do that and it felt really powerful to me. It felt like this is the path for building a balanced world, a fairer world, a just world.
DY: How has the practice of storytelling grown out of rural folkways and life?
KSS: I like to think of Appalachia as The Library of Congress for living traditions. Often in historically isolated places, geography has helped to preserve many traditions and art forms. These traditions have emerged and are kept alive in these rural spaces by networks of people, by tradition bearers. The true narrative specialist is someone that knows their own story and knows their own community.
There’s a great African folktale called The Storyteller Knows Me. A man introduced a television to this village and suggested that now they can have access to stories from all over the world. After a year, he came back and the TV was discarded. He asked a villager about it, and the villager said, I’m off to see a storyteller that’s performing at this hut, because that storyteller knows me. When you know your neighbor, you’re willing to work through the complexity and the struggle to get to somewhere. I think rural communities really have the answer to addressing a lot of the political divisions in our country: On a micro level, we’re doing it.
DY: You have done a lot of work using the shared practice of storytelling to cultivate healing, civic imagining, justice, and belonging. What are some experiences you have had that speak to the intersection of storytelling and rural America?
KSS: During my early Rotary Peace Fellow studies, I was invited to Fort Benning, one of the most controversial military bases in the world, to train American troops. My topic was how to think about storytelling as non-violent communication, how to build relationships to prevent violence. I found myself helping young troops understand how to tell the story of their rural backgrounds, because those kinds of stories connect with the tribal leaders that they were working with in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a peace activist, I never thought I’d end up being in a space like that.
Last year, I was invited to Marshalltown, Iowa, a mid-sized rural town of about 27,000 people. The primary industry is meatpacking, so over decades, it’s attracted a lot of migrant communities, from Latin America, Mexico, Burma and multiple African countries. The population is now 45% Latino. One offering was storytelling walks, where people paired up and talked about the past, the present, change and future aspirations. We designed a culminating event, with a mariachi band and a multilingual potluck, with local people telling their own stories to their own community. We had around 800 participants: young people, elders, people from multiple backgrounds, immigrant justice activists.
DY: This year, you’re co-leading the America 250 initiative We Hold These Truths with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. What does the project entail, and what hope does it hold for our nation right now?
KSS: For We Hold These Truths, we’re taking the notion of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival and anchoring it in around 20 festivals spread across the country. We’re taking the most recognizable part of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence and asking people, “What does ‘truths’ mean to you?” It’s an imagining where people all across this country, liberal, conservative, immigrant, people that call themselves long-time Americans, young people, every person can share their truths and look at what traditions are important to them. These conversations are co-designed with each collaborating festival. People get to be part of this time capsule archive that explores this notion of past and present and future.
We’re continually shaping the story of this nation, and its potential to be what it can be based on the values of equality, democracy, and freedom. People want to make the world better, the nation better, and I see people across this country trying to do that. I think this is a lot of beauty to hold and to cherish and to celebrate, even in this particular time right now. It’s a time of turmoil, and it’s a time of crisis, and it’s a time of pain, but I also feel that if those values can hold strong, we can turn turmoil into something beautiful.
DY: What storytelling practices can readers lead in their own places to strengthen civic ties and build stronger communities?
KSS: Storytelling is a slow art movement. It’s not to be rushed. There is no formula for compelling storytelling. It’s about cultivating what exists in your heart, the values you feel are worth lifting up. If it moves your heart, it will likely move the hearts of others.
Storytelling is really, at the heart of it, about listening. Give yourself time to listen to yourself. When you incorporate a daily writing practice, the story naturally emerges. Go for a walk with your story, and think about how you can use it every day in your life. I guarantee that you will start to see the nuggets, the gems of your own stories that you will know how to use or share in times of joy, in times of pain. And in a way that you can advocate for the causes that are important to you. If it moves in your heart, it’s there for a reason. Harness it so that you can tell people why you exist.
This interview first appeared in Path Finders, a weekly email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each Monday, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Join the mailing list today, to have these illuminating conversations delivered straight to your inbox.
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The post Q&A: Folklorist Kiran Singh Sirah appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
