A Vancouver Guldasta focuses on the Dhaliwals—a Punjabi family in Vancouver in the early 1980s—as they navigate through the experience of trauma and violence occurring in Punjab, and their daughter’s complicated friendship with Andy, a Vietnamese refugee teen who lives in their basement. The story takes place during the Indian government’s armed invasion of the “Golden Temple”—the holiest shrine of the Sikhs—in the epicentre of the Sikh diaspora, South Vancouver, BC, Canada. A Vancouver Guldasta is an examination of common experience, identifying home, and processing trauma.
Performed as a site specific piece in A Vancouver Special house, November 2017
Keywords: Sikh, Vancouver, South Asian, History, Political, Trauma, Intercultural, Vietnamese, Refugee, Boat People, Vancouver Special, Immigrant, Migrant, Domestic Drama, Operation Bluestar, Genocide, Human Rights