Leaving Our Mark

SALDEF, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, runs a competitive internship program called Sikh Lead that places young Sikh Americans in congressional offices and government agencies in Washington, DC. The film follows the interns through their summer, capturing what it means to be present in the halls of American power as visibly Sikh young people who are there not as guests or observers but as participants with work to do. It's a program built on the straightforward premise that representation in politics has to start somewhere.

Leaving Our Mark is a film about civic engagement as an act of community investment. The young people in the program are smart, motivated, and clear-eyed about what they're doing and why it matters. They are building relationships, gaining skills, and demonstrating by their presence alone that Sikh Americans belong in rooms where decisions get made. The film captures the energy of that realization and the particular excitement of being part of something that feels genuinely consequential.