Many thanks to the tipster who posted a link on the news tab to this column by Errol Louis in the New York Daily News. Louis, whose columns often focus on ear-to-the-street developments in New York’s immigrant communities and communities of color, devotes today’s piece to the launch, this afternoon, of a report on safe learning for immigrants in the NYC public schools. It’s a broad, holistic understanding of safety that means fewer cops, more resources, and protection from immigration authorities.
What’s remarkable is that this report, based on two years of fieldwork supported by a prestigious non-profit called the Urban Justice Center, is the work of desis — the young brothers and sisters in DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) Youth Power. These young desi activists are taking on subjects that are important to all immigrant families and indeed to any family with kids in the New York schools.
It’s an encouraging example of identity politics used for inclusive, coalition-building purposes: the desi identification gives a group like DRUM its base and stability, but the work reaches far beyond the narrow interests of that base.
You can agree or disagree with this approach, or for that matter with the overall “Education Not Deportation” umbrella theme of this action, but it’s nice to see the DRUM Youth Power work give an opportunity for a major tabloid columnist to educate the city about desis:
The slang term Desi refers to immigrants from South Asia – including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and parts of the diaspora including Africa, England and the Caribbean.
They are part of the backbone of our city – including the cab drivers, domestics and restaurant workers who collectively form our largest and fastest-growing immigrant group.
Working-class Desi kids, according to a survey summarized in the DRUM report, are sick of seeing metal detectors, armed cops and bullying administrators prowling school halls.
“A climate of fear is being created,” says Refat (Shoshi) Doza, a 20-year-old Queens College student. “That’s not the way to teach a child.” Raquibul Alam Nayeem, a 17-year-old student at William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens, agrees.
To Louis at least, the sisters and brothers in DRUM are setting an example for all to emulate:
The Department of Education should listen closely to DRUM’s youth leaders, particularly the explosive allegation that some schools, in violation of longstanding city policy, may be turning over students’ citizenship information to immigration officials.
By standing up and complaining, these kids are learning lessons that will prepare them to be the kind of outside-the-box thinkers our city and nation need.
The report launches this afternoon at 5 PM at a community meeting in Jackson Heights, for anyone interested in attending. Congratulations and Big Up! to the DRUM crew for their hard work.
This is fabulous! One of the issues that you have when you do work with South Asian American youth is how little formal research/reports are out there to support the work you do. The Youth Power kids are creating just that by surveying their peers and launching this report. The development of this report not only empowers the youth involved in creating the report, but will show measured needs to the politicians at large. Way to go DRUM…!
I hope an NYC mutineer can make it to the launch and share with us what they see, as well as some details to the report!
Contrary- My Nepalese friend considers himself “less” of a desi, and my pakistani roomies consider themselves desi through and through. And I as a BanglaDESHI – American, i mean, the name desi/deshi is in the name of the identity! Don’t be silly.
Desi Pride, yo!
Please note: The discussion of who can or cannot be called “desi” is an extremely tedious one, which has been undertaken at length on any number of comment threads. While discussion of identity markers and their use is perfectly appropriate, it is also the prerogative of bloggers here to channel such discussion to places where it can be productive, and remove it when it risks thread-jacking. The reason I posted this story is to do with desi youth activism and political strategies in American urban settings, and I invite comments that address these topics, and will feel free to delete any others.
This is an interesting point. I’m not sure what to make of it exactly, because, on the one hand, this kind of knowledge is something I do like to see a mainstream columnist talk about, particularly based on a source with a a progressive/radical framework–regardless of whether people ever read the report. On the other hand, the idea of separating “diversity” issues from “social justice” content is a really insidious one–and I’m learning more and more–gets employed often to use identity politics to further the kinds of things that this report is completely opposed to.
Biju Matthew’s book Taxi has an interesting section on a food column by Eric Asimov of the New York Times that highlighted a dhaba that taxi drivers frequent. He says that as a result of the column, middle- and upper-middle class racial minorities and White people flooded the restaurant for a short time, while the regular clientele couldn’t access it. He uses it to ask why it is that the writing about the food was separated out from the social context–that taxi drivers eat it–and what this means in terms of class and nationality and whatnot. It’s worth a read.
but saurav, i don’t think those two examples compare well. if you read errol louis’s column, it’s really all about social justice. the educating-people-about-desis part is a by-product, albeit one that i felt was worth pointing out here. what the column points to, and indeed what DRUM is doing, is an effort spearheaded by an ethnically self-defined group that is explicitly for the good of a broader category than just that ethnic community narrowly defined. i like that DRUM is doing this, and i like that a columnist has pointed it out.
it differs from the asimov/dhaba example in so many ways. i mean here we’re talking about agency and coalition building, not inviting people to gastronomic tourism…
know’m sayin?
Sigh.
Sidd is so my new SM crush.
(sorry PropMacGandhi…!)
No, I understand this isn’t the same, and I understand what you were trying to do with the post. What I was suggesting is that to laud the report for its desi content in order to get to its politics is an interesting tack and posing the Asimov column as a worst-case scenario, not a comparable one for most readers (I hope).
I’ve been interested lately in how complex the intersection of identity and political mindset is for the purposes of tangible political action–mostly as a result of what I observed of the immigration marches, which probably wouldn’t have been possible on that scale without identity politics. So that’s where I was coming from.
Pfft.
it’s alright PMcG, i’m sure there’s room for both of us in Queen Taz’s harem…
Thanks for a great post. Here’s wishing DRUM the very best in its groundbreaking and much needed efforts!
Didn’t make it to the launch but the report is available here.
Thanks!
This report is ridiculously amazing and 100 pages of well put together facts, figures, testimonials. I’m in crunch mode with finals, has anyone else had time to read the report and synthesize it? ;-)I’m definately going to spend some time pouring over the text once life gets less hectic…
I would like you to write all my final papers for me! 😉
glance over, yes. synthesize…ummm…. i’ll say this–it’s well designed 🙂
where do i get a copy of this report?
I’m afghan and I’m NOT desi.
Most afghans don’t consider themselves to be South Asian, and certainly not desi – nor connected with these groups: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
We are central asians. Look at our people, and our land – it says it all.
Agree w/ Hamid.
as another afghan, I’d like to mention, we’re closer to Iran much more than India & the rest of the south asian countries.
Iran, NWFP, tajikistan, turkmenistan, xinjiang, uzbekistan……
watching bollywood movies doesn’t make one an honorary “desi” =.=