Humans of Cranston is a recurring column showcasing the stories of Cranston residents’ community involvement, diversity, and unique life perspectives.

Baha Sadr is a performance artist and community organizer currently serving as Rhode Island’s State Refugee Coordinator. He has been working with refugees in Rhode Island for almost twenty years and incorporates theater arts to teach English and facilitate drama therapy.

I grew up in Iran during the sixties, and the sixties in Iran back then was very integrated with what was going on in the West. I mean, we cheered for the space race, man on the moon and we were just so excited about America having that venture. We cheered for Muhammad Ali, we cheered for Beatles, and we had so many Western artists come to Iran during that time … I was taking Shakespeare; I really didn’t know what was going on with the differences between Middle East or Far West. And in 1978, I started noticing things were changing … I actually went to school in Vermont when I first came [to the US], and maybe within two or three days, the entire government just kind of went up into smoke. … I was watching images of Iranians demonstrating and I didn’t really know what was going on, and shortly after, the relationship between the US and Iran got a lot worse, and I was just shocked; this was not the Iran that I grew up in. … All the images that we were seeing on TV during the Iranian Revolution [were] that Iranians were angry, they were demonstrating, they were saying things against the US ... so being Iranian around that time in America was not a fun thing. But my frustration was [that] back then there was no social media so that you could present your side of the story and say, “hey! By the way, this is Iran, look at all these beautiful places,” ... it was just so frustrating to just have that one channel of news coming out and people were getting information through that.

My background is in creative arts, so when I was a kid, I used to write stories and actually put on shows and worked in puppet theater and would travel around the country, so I kind of took it upon myself to use that form of art and educate people in a non-threatening way so they can actually understand what Iran is, or was. So, I studied theater here and I worked in Providence, Boston, New York, Chicago, LA, Toronto … I started traveling around the world, and then I saw the demand that people have for learning English, so I felt like, I like to teach people how to speak English, because I was one of the ones who had to teach myself … and I started incorporating theater in my teaching methods. … I felt so fulfilled doing it that way and I didn’t really have the need to go back into theater because it was like, I’m incorporating theater into something that I really believe in, and I started teaching English in Providence in 1996, ‘97.

I became the Director of the Refugee Program at International Institute [in 2005], and that was a real challenge …  then last year, when the Afghan refugees arrived, I kind of sprung into action and given that we had a housing crisis, with all the people, resources, and experiences that I’ve had, I was able to make sure that none of the Afghans that are coming at such a rapid pace are left without a home, so everybody was housed appropriately, so it was pretty remarkable what we were able to do collectively, and I’m really proud that I was a part of that. And then, just recently, I was selected to be the State Refugee Coordinator, which is a really interesting job, because it allows me to think or work on a much different level, kind of work with all the organizations involved in refugee resettlement, figure out how to support them, and figure out what kind of system we need to have in place to actually make things work better.

I’ve been working with refugees for almost twenty years now, and refugees are extremely vulnerable, yet they’re extremely resilient, so you have to acknowledge their strength and find ways that you actually give them a platform to shine, to basically regain their strength, because they’re building their lives from scratch. … like, when the Liberians started coming in 2000, they spoke English and we did Julius Caesar; I said, “do you guys know who Shakespeare is?” and they said, “yeah, we do Shakespeare!” because they read English, so we did Julius Caesar with a Liberian accent. It was magnificent. … We did a drama therapy workshop [in 2019] with the unaccompanied children who arrived to the US without much support and unfortunately, their stories are not told, so we had a six-month workshop where they learned how to act, how to tell a story, and they incorporated their own story, but they preserved the names and all that for confidentiality, and actors from Wilbury acted them out. We got surprised by coronavirus so we couldn’t do it live anymore, we had to do it on Zoom. That was very challenging, but they did it, because they really liked it. … There’s a lot of therapy in drama itself.

This project has been made possible by a Rhode Island Foundation Community Grant and the efforts of the OneCranston Health Equity Zone of Comprehensive Community Action, Inc. in partnership with the Cranston Herald and Timothy McFate. The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Humans of Cranston participants do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the aforementioned parties. The presented stories are voluntarily provided, unpaid, and given verbatim except for correcting grammatical errors.

Want to nominate a Cranston resident to be featured? Email JB at jfulbright@comcap.org.