US
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You are not meeting my eyes. They are beneath the cloth I wear on my head, actually.
No, I am from America.
Yes, it is called a hijab.
No, this cloth is not hijab.
Hijab is not a covering, a hiding-away, a flinching-back. It is a coming-out, a blazing-through.
Hijab is not here for you to fetishize taking it off with your fingers/armies/democracy.
Hijab is suffering for democracy.
Reflections from the Camps: ECSS
“We have such high hopes and expectations for these radical desi spaces.”
Stop Urban Shield, Stop Violence Against Our Communities
If there is anything that Urban Shield and the racist history of policing in the U.S. teaches us, it is that the police and military are two faces of the same system of global repression and racism.
New Orleans thunderstorm, after the Boston marathon
birds echo and a tentative sun
retreats to darkness, knowing
far away news about to flood
our transplant hearts.
days, it’s been rising
pushing
up
seeking the jagged cracks in
facades of cheery every-day.
SWAT teams lockdown
again,
“please…not…a muslim…brown…”
one brown man after another flashed across the screen
we prayed
fearing marines neighborhood shellings on the screen
fearing our brothers pushed in front of a New York subway
fearing fear bursting into lives
Special Issue: The 2014 Indian elections
In response to the recent swearing in of Narenda Modi as India’s 15th prime minister, SAMAR releases this special issue which takes a deeper look at the differences between rhetoric and reality, and the connections between communalism and neoliberalism.
United States of Dissent: Converging Political Imaginaries of the Ghadarites and Black Panthers
Simmy Makhijani explores the personal and political intersections between the Ghadaries and the Black Panthers in the Bay Area. She invites us to ask how we might carve out political space as South Asians in relation to our shared and divergent radical pasts, through the lens of a 'polycultural' tradition.
Uncovering Multiracial South Asian America: A Review of Vivek Bald's Bengali Harlem
Seema Sohi reviews Vivek Bald's new book, Bengali Harlem and the Lost Hostories of South Asian America. She notes, "Bengali Harlem is more than an excavation of histories that have yet to receive their full due. By tracing the South Asian American presence in neighborhoods like Treme in New Orleans, Harlem in New York, and Black Bottom in Detroit, Bald focuses on the forging of multiracial communities in early South Asian America."
Lean Left: Young Radical Voices
Flash back to the first time you met another Desi lefty. Can you remember the quickening of your heart? Your excitement at finding someone who cared about the same issues and communities? For most of us, the moment we realized we weren’t alone in the world, struggling against the conservative expectations of our parents, aunties and uncles - when we realized that we had sisters and brothers in the cause who understand where we come from and where we wanted this world to go - was life-changing.
Drifting Across Desi Youth: Youth Activists Reflect on Social Justice, Resistance and Solidarity
Over one weekend in August 2015, three South Asian American youth camps took place across the US: Bay Area Solidarity Summer (BASS) in Oakland, CA, Chicago Desi Youth Rising (CDYR) in Chicago, IL and East Coast Solidarity Summer (ECSS) in New York City, NY. In an effort to collaborate long-distance, camp organizers asked the youth participants to collectively define three key concepts at the beginning and end of their camp expereinces. Below is a summary along with reflections on the camp experience.
