What My Dad Taught Me About the Power of Owning Your Own Story

The below is an excerpt of the book “Digital Storytelling: The Rise of User-Generated Content” set to publish May 2021. It expands on my personal ‘why’ for building Terra Digital, a platform on a mission to make storytelling more accessible.

My dad is a tall Punjabi man who wears a turban and is a bit heavyset.

I have a complicated relationship with my father. My parents divorced when I was twelve and he became a distant figure in my life when my mother and I moved out of the house to start over in an adjacent town. He routinely blamed her for the separation and I, like many children of divorce, often found myself in the middle of contentious communication, unsure of exactly what role I was supposed to play.

In adulthood my father and I have attempted to mend our relationship. In this newfound, albeit strained, camaraderie, I’ve seen the ways in which his personal life story served as a tool in building his business and securing a place in his community. He’s always been loud and extroverted about his experience weaving through American society as an Indian immigrant, but it wasn’t until recently I came to understand why he put so much emphasis on his heritage and ethnicity.

My dad is the American dream incarnate. He came to the US in 1972 with little money in his pocket and a commitment to build a life for himself and my mother. He started working in car dealerships as a salesman, ultimately earning a management position in a small dealership in Fresno County, California.

Eventually, he and my mother saved enough so that he could buy and run his own dealership. Over time that dealership became so successful he was able to buy another, and then another. He ended up running a small empire of dealerships (Audi, Chevrolet, Subarus, Suzukis, and others) across California before retiring in 2017.

Throughout his fifty years in the States, he fell in love with his work — not necessarily with cars, but the small business itself. He devoted himself to the nuts and bolts of running a company, invigorated by the intricacies of making it work. However, with his success (and broad influence in the towns and cities where he operated) came discrimination and often intense racism (sometimes even death threats). Rather than attempt to hide the things for which he was targeted, he chose to use what made him different to his advantage.

The way he talked about growing up in India and his experience coming to the US as an immigrant — that is what won people over.

The story of immigrants from humble beginnings with a strong work ethic is one often told in the US. However, I believe it bears repeating as it is easy for people like myself to take for granted the liberties and opportunities afforded to us simply by virtue of where we are born. “When I came to this country, I had nothing. My parents were poor, and there were no opportunities in India,” my father often said when sharing his story with employees, customers, or friends. With this statement, he was able to illustrate much more than he said — a commitment to hard work, an ability to imagine and realize a better future, and a belief in the opportunity America can afford to some (though too often not all) of its citizens. He was able to build trust, deepen connections, and reveal some part of his character by sharing his story. The narrative he told not only invested others in his success but also invited the listener to share in it.

And for what it’s worth, his story is one to tell. He and my mother entered into an arranged marriage in 1970 in Northern India. He came to the US and worked for two years alone before earning enough money to fly her to California.

Growing up, I remember him regaling us with long monologues about his experiences in the Indian Navy or illustrating a point via anecdotes from his own upbringing when he didn’t have much money. As his son, I often felt like I was listening to a rambling lecture, caught somewhere between a stream of consciousness and professorial circumlocution. He always had a point, but it often seemed like he could take forever to make it. However, I’ve since come to understand his eagerness to tell his story in a different context.

Since arriving in America, my father has stood out. When you’re not white, your perceived racial identity and religious signifiers are what people see first. As a turban-wearing brown man with a long white beard, my father has felt compelled to explain his existence to a world that does not readily accept him. If his physical identifiers were the basis on which many would choose to reject him, or worse, persecute him, then his story was how he would win them over.

One of my earliest recollections of this was on a business trip to Puerto Rico in 2002.

As we often did, my mom and I tagged along for my father’s conference. During his time off, we would hang out by the pool or go sightseeing. On this occasion, we were walking in a shopping mall when a group of young boys stopped and stared at him. They were my age (around eleven) and I was petrified, desperately wanting to be accepted, or at least unnoticed. As they took us in, their eyes widened and they started to point and shout comments: “Terrorist!” “Are you related to Osama bin Laden?” and “Why are you wearing that weird thing on your head?” It felt like they were circling as the words surrounded us.

My dad smiled and politely greeted them and we walked away. To my surprise, he seemingly paid no mind to any of it. I on the other hand was mortified. Being a vulnerable, fragile teenager, I didn’t want to walk around with my dad anymore because I was embarrassed by how he looked and the attention it brought to us — or perhaps more to the point — to me. Part of me thinks he realized that, for which I feel immensely guilty, but we never really talked about it.

Teenage boys are the worst.

I have always wondered how experiences like the one in Puerto Rico affected him. I know he went through worse, but, like many Asian parents, he never wanted to discuss his feelings. What I observed was that he absorbed the blows life gave him and used them to his advantage.

He brought those stories into the workplace, illustrating that while you can’t control other people’s politeness, treating others with respect and patience are always in your control. When speaking to his team, he was an immigrant speaking to a room full of immigrants. Many of my dad’s employees were Mexican and El Salvadorian and the unfortunate reality is that they all dealt with racism of various severity levels. To hear those stories from your boss must have not only been powerful but extremely reassuring — a sort of confirmation that you’re not alone.

His stories — the lessons he pulled from his own life experiences — connected directly with anyone who had ever felt different. The empathy and understanding he conveyed allowed him to develop strong business relationships that bolstered his success.

My father is obsessed with status and the ways in which society views successful people. There weren’t many paths for Sikh men in America to follow, so he carved his own. When he made enough money to purchase a large dealership in Riverside, California, a mid-size, blue-collar town in inland California, he wanted to join a country club. Upon receiving his application, the board asked him to come in for an in-person interview to see if he was a good fit. After sitting and talking for a while, the board was on its way to accepting him as a member. At the last moment, one of the board members said in all seriousness, “Singh, you know you’ll have to take off the hat when you’re at the club.”

Turbans were not exempt from the club's “no-hat” policy. My dad responded, “The turban is a part of my religion. I am a Sikh. And it is a sign of respect to God.” As he did to the boys in Puerto Rico, he smiled, thanked the board for their time and walked out.

The board didn’t budge and rejected his application.

Of the experience, he would say, “You have to stick to what you believe in and not change for anyone,” and, “You must meet hate with courtesy and respect — never anger.” He ended up joining a different country club. After hearing the story many of the immigrant and minority club members left the racist club and followed him to the other. Over the year he would create life-long bonds with many employees and business partners who shared experiences of marginalization in a white male-dominated society.

That ability to take an experience and make it your own was something I realized had immense impact.

In 2014, I moved to Washington, DC, excited, wide-eyed, and naive. Like many millennials in DC during the Obama administration, I wanted to save the world and felt I knew exactly how to do it.

As a college student and Fulbright Scholar, I focused on foreign policy and international relations. As an Indian American, I regularly felt I was being pulled in two directions and the foreign policy community embraced this duality.

It was a comfortable home for someone like me. It’s an industry in which having multiple identities was not only commonplace but also respected.

My first job was at a think tank called the Aspen Institute. I was an assistant editor and public affairs associate in the communications department. Everyone who worked there was well-credentialed and brilliant — or so their titles made one think. In every corner of the office, there was a director or vice president of a major policy issue. As a junior employee and new arrival to the DC political arena, I was intimidated and eager to prove myself. I copyedited long reports, helped put together numerous community book talks, and even got two articles published with my byline.

The organization was structured by policy area. There was a national security team, justice and civic identity team, sports and society team, and so on. Teams operated in silos and it was rare they crossed paths on projects or events, aside from the hallmark Aspen Ideas Festival each year. Outside of the week-long festival in Colorado, the only real thing that tied us all together was the logo: a blue Aspen leaf.

As I got to know people outside of my team, it seemed there was one other common experience at the Aspen Institute: a constant feeling of panic and stress. Despite success and growth within the organization, after a few months in what proved to be a toxic work environment, I quit.

“So, I hear you’re leaving,” my boss said.

“Yes, but I’ve had such an amazing experience. I’m so lucky to have gotten the opportunity to work here,” I said.

“Well, you weren’t that good of a writer anyway. You probably would have lasted another month or so.”

The comment blindsided me. Our working relationship had been overwhelmingly positive and I had not expected the exit interview to be confrontational. I certainly had not anticipated that my boss, who hired me and proactively supported my development, would call my qualifications into question. With hindsight, I can understand the pressures a manager is under to retain staff and that manager-employee relationships can feel personal. But at the time, all I felt was frustration that he had made me feel guilty for leaving a job I hated.

I found myself talking about that exit interview frequently with other young writers and marketing types in DC who just starting out in journalism, media, marketing, or communications. Many of us had experiences with similar managers whether on Capitol Hill, think tanks, or NGO offices. Ultimately, this miserable experience helped me form long-lasting professional relationships.

Throughout my dad’s life, he’s been able to identify what experience he could tell stories about to help him succeed.

You can always see yourself in a story you love. When my dad speaks about his past, he invites you to step into his shoes and experience what he experienced. The power of his story sparked my own.