Youth/2nd Gen
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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.”
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.
Reflections from the Camps: CYDR
One of my favorite parts of CDYR was the workshop on South Asian history with professors Shefali Chandra and Junaid Rana. We discussed everything from Partition and Hindu nationalism to settler-colonialism and ISIS. These were topics that I was somewhat familiar with, but I had never explored them with a South Asian lens. Especially during the timing of the retreat when the Israeli war on Gaza was occurring, it was fascinating to learn about how the partition of South Asia was engineered by the same white imperialists who created the state of Israel.
Book Review: Corona by Bushra Rehman (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013)
This fragmented, musical novel breaks the prettiness of memory, brings irreverent humor where it should, shows the crisscross of ethnic neighborhoods in New York City, and celebrates love in the midst of violence.
Rebellion and the Ghadar Centennial
How do we practice and understand revolution? How has the spirit of Ghadar shaped the communities we form in the present, and how have we transformed radical action in the 21st century?
The Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour: Building Our Movement, One Story At A Time
Anirvan Chatterjee takes us on a tour of Berkeley’s radical South Asian American history, and argues that historical memory is one of the key inspirations for contemporary political movements
Typography and Other Inspirations for Feminist Artistic Actions
A long history of agit prop inspires SAWCC's recent "FreedomSafetyNow" protest against gender-based violence.
