Victoria Virasingh was born and raised in Arlington, VA, and is the daughter of immigrants from Ecuador and Punjabi Sikhs. She earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from Stanford University on a full scholarship. After completing her education, she worked for Senator Diane Feinstein and then pursued a career in technology at Palantir where she founded and led the Future of Work team. She returned to her home in Arlington to focus on community building, local politics, and working with nonprofits. In this episode, she shares her experience growing up in America, what led her to run for congress, and her hopes for restoring the American Dream.

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Omi is an accomplished actor who has worked in both film and television in the United States and abroad. He has had roles on hit TV shows including, “The Office,” “Arrested Development,” and “Bones.” He is best known by Bollywood fans for his performances in “3 Idiots,” “The Desert Rose,” and “American Aliens.” 

We talked with him about his experience growing up in the high desert of California and his acting career. We discuss his time on “The Office” as the only Sikh character and he also shares his dream of documenting the story of Dalip Singh Saund, the first Sikh and Asian American Congressman.

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Ben Rekhi is an award-winning Sikh filmmaker from northern California. From working with the Coen brothers to producing Hindi horror films, he has made a name for himself in the film industry. His notable past work includes Waterborne (2005) and The Ashram (2018), and most recently, he directed Watch List (2019) in Manila, a crime thriller set in the drug underworld during the time of Rodrigo Duterte's extrajudicial killings. The film was nominated for a Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Ben has recently turned to documentaries including his recent film, The Reunited States. The documentary is born from his passion to bridge divides and share the lives of people who were challenging biases. He hopes viewers will walk away from the film knowing that “we all have a role to play in bringing our country back together.” Ben continues to look for opportunities to heal our nation and world through the power of storytelling.  

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/sikhmeetsworld.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.