The Abridged version:
- Five immigrant storytellers will take the stage Tuesday in Sacramento to share their personal stories as part of an Immigrant Stories event.
- Many will be sharing their stories to a large audience for the first time. Free tickets are available at capitalstorytelling.com.
- A video at the bottom of this story features artist Janine Mapurunga, a native of Brazil, sharing the story of her journey to the stage.
Five storytellers will take the stage Tuesday in Sacramento to share their personal stories as part of the “Immigrant Stories” event at Sacramento State, now in its fourth year.
“It empowers people to take agency and control over their own narrative,” said Lisa Cantrell, executive director of Capital Storytelling, which puts on the event at Sacramento State.
The storytellers are either first-or second-generation immigrants.
Event theme is ‘Resistance, Liberation, and Joy’
“We’re amplifying stories from this community,” said Cantrell, a Sacramento State professor in the College of Education. “We are not as an organization, as a society, we are not forcing a narrative on someone.”
Cantrell said the theme of the event this year is “Resistance, Liberation, and Joy.”
Capital Storytelling is a Sacramento-based non-profit organization that offers classes and workshops on oral storytelling, podcasting, comedic storytelling. How to tell your personal story is one workshop topic.
The organization often identifies storytellers in the classes who might be a good fit for the Immigrant Stories event — working with them for several weeks leading up to the event to help shape their stories.
Many face a live audience for the first time
Many of the immigrants are sharing their stories to a large audience for the first time.
That was the case last year for artist Janine Mapurunga, a native of Brazil who faced a difficult childhood before landing in the Sacramento region. She said sharing her story was part of her “healing process.” She performed at last year’s Immigrant Stories event in front of an audience of more than 100 people.
In the weeks leading up to the event, Mapurunga said she “thought about quitting many times” because she feared backlash from her family.
But she found comfort in developing her story alongside other immigrants — who also were telling their own stories.
“It fills my heart with the sense of gratitude for their vulnerability, which also makes it okay for me to be vulnerable,” Mapurunga said.
In the video below, PBS KVIE followed Mapurunga last year on her journey to sharing her story, and how she charted her own path in life.
Free tickets are available to this year’s event at capitalstorytelling.com. For security purposes, attendees will receive location details or the virtual link after reserving tickets.
Shelley Ho is a visual journalist at Abridged.