Periodically, we’ve discussed whether there is any real solidarity amongst the different South Asian communities in North America. What do wealthy 2nd gen suburban doctors, for instance, really have in common politically with recent immigrants working as shopkeepers and taxi drivers in ethnic enclaves in the inner city? It’s a difficult question to answer, though that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to answer it.
A recent blog post by Dr. Anonymous at Pass the Roti drew my attention to an attempt to find a common agenda by a number of South Asian American Groups, including South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). The groups have come together to form the National Coalition of South Asian Organizations to release a position paper, which attempts to assemble a political agenda that will find broad support amongst various constituencies who can all be described as “South Asian American.” The groups that have endorsed the document are pretty diverse — including a number of South Asian women’s groups, gay rights groups like Trikone, and progressive youth groups like SAYA and DRUM. Interestingly, one finds three Sikh advocacy groups endorsing the agenda (SALDEF, Sikh Coalition, and United Sikhs), but not, as far as I can tell, any groups that are specifically oriented to advocacy for Hindus, Muslims, Jains, or Desi Christians. I’m curious about where that seeming imbalance comes from.
The full agenda (PDF) has nine categories, which Dr. Anonymous was kind enough to transcribe from PDF to HTML for us. I think most of us might agree with the first header (below) as a high priority in an election year, though I’ve been writing for Sepia Mutiny long enough to know that it’s almost never true that everyone agrees with anything:
Civic and Political Participation: Ensure full and equal participation for all in the civic and political process
• Promote naturalization and voting among South Asians
• Preserve voting rights of South Asians by eliminating voter intimidation and suppression
• Ensure limited English proficient citizens’ access to the right to vote
• Ensure that votes by all eligible voters count
• Eliminate xenophobic comments against South Asians and other communities of color in political discourse
• Increase political participation and civic engagement of South Asian community members
The only point here that seems questionable to me might be “Eliminate xenophobic comments against South Asians… in political discourse.” I’m not sure how that could ever be made to happen, so why put it on an agenda?
Some of the other headers might be more controversial/debatable for the readers of this blog, who, as we’ve seen, span the ideological spectrum — left, right, and center. For instance, the “economic justice” category might have some readers disagreeing:
Economic Justice: Promote economic justice and financial security for South Asians
• Support the right to collect a decent living wage with benefits
• Ensure work environments are free from exploitation and provide protections for labor trafficking survivors
• Support the rights of workers who seek to organize regardless of occupation or immigration status
• Provide protections for those affected by workplace discrimination
• Cease immigration enforcement at the workplace
• Ensure access to financial education and vocational training opportunities for immigrant and limited English proficient workers
• Ensure enforcement of tenants’ rights and fair housing policies
• Support affordable housing for immigrants
• Ensure access to fair and affordable credit for immigrants
I personally strongly support the points related to housing and tenants’ rights (many recent immigrants I’ve known live in quite poor conditions, and sometimes they are unaware that landlords have certain legal obligations to their tenants.). I’m less clear on the question of “immigration enforcement at the workplace,” because I think USCIS raids at factory, hotel, and restaurant could be defended along the lines of “well, it’s the law.”
I also personally strongly support the subheader on Gender Equity:
Gender Equity: Advance gender equity within the South Asian community
• Support programs aimed to address and prevent gender-based violence within the South Asian community
• Support programs that provide linguistically accessible and culturally appropriate services for South Asian domestic violence survivors
• Support policies that protect and empower immigrant domestic violence survivors
• Support immigration policies that protect and empower dependent visa holders
• Strengthen policies aimed to prevent all forms of trafficking and provide meaningful resources to survivors
• Develop policies aimed at curbing transnational abandonment of spouses
• Increase culturally and linguistically appropriate health services for South Asian women
• Promote programs and policies that foster the economic empowerment of South Asian women
And finally, one more SAALT NCSO agenda item I feel strongly about is reform of the immigration system:
Immigrant Rights: Promote immigrant rights and just reforms to the immigration system
• Ensure a just and humane approach to reforming the immigration system at the federal level
• Expedite immigration application background checks related to security-related delays
• Ensure the naturalization process is accessible to all eligible immigrants
• Ensure that the immigration system promotes the reunification of families
• Support immigration policies that protect the rights of immigrant workers
• Support immigration policies that protect and empower domestic violence survivors
• Support immigration policies that protect and empower all dependent visa holders
• Cease enforcement initiatives and national security measures that disproportionately affect immigrants and promote profiling
• Ensure that immigrants are not deported from the United States for minor violations of the law
• Cease sharing information among various law enforcement agencies for immigration purposes
• Oppose policies denying public services to non-citizens or permitting state and local law enforcement to carry out federal immigration law
• Ensure compliance of detention standards and provide alternatives to immigrant detention
• Strengthen due process protections within the immigration system
• Standardize the adjudication of asylum-related forms of relief
Ever since the immigration reform bills of the mid-1990s, stories about decent immigrants screwed over by technicalities and minor infractions have been unceasing. And the immigration process as a whole currently causes misery for millions upon millions of immigrants, including those that assiduously play by the rules. (I have blogged my complaints about the indecency of today’s immigration system often; but for starters, see this post… with its 341 comments!)
What do people think about the SAALT NCSO agenda as a whole? Any nitpicks, or major disagreements? (Read the whole list at PTR or here.)
full disclosure: i’m one of those cool, sufi bon vivants, but not to play into stereotypes too much, I’m bangladeshi. oh and i have NO problem self-identifying as south asian, since, strangely enough, i’ve never found the two terms to be mutually exclusive. i’m also one of those goofy progressives who doesn’t hate india, isn’t ashamed to be muslim AND south asian and thinks that dwelling on differences is so passe and working together (both within the south asian community and with other communities) might actually be a worthy goal. it makes me sad that instead of having a conversation about the topic at hand (the National Action Agenda) and reading through it and testing out its strengths and weaknesses people are slinging mud, taking potshots and using divisive (and sometimes downright racist) rhetoric to derail the conversation. maybe what i’m saying has little value to you because i’m bangladeshi, or because i’m muslim or even because i’m a woman, but i’ve always found that using my own personal experience to make assumptions about everyone else’s stories or picking on people who don’t agree with me was simply bad manners. i don’t pretend to know what other people go through just based on my own experiences and i think its sad that people can’t decide which is worse: being lumped into a category with people you find distasteful or lumping others into categories because you find them to be distasteful. anyways, that’s my position and if you disagree that’s fine by me…
Two issues that should on an agenda: 1. Resolution to the Kashmir issue 2. Resolution to the civil war in Sri Lanka
to be clear, i think where ABDs are really weak and americo-centric is on the level of geopolitics. where i think a lot of DBDs undersell the connection is on the personal/human level. also, please do remember that all of us raised in this country were probably the “indian kid” in our classes while we were growing up. we don’t have to “admit” to ourselves where we were born, we’re quite aware and were reminded rather frequently….
. we don’t have to “admit” to ourselves where we were born
or, where our ancestors for those born here. sorry, interjected by own birth abroad….
Uh, I bet ideas about a ‘resolution to the Kashmir’ issue would break down pretty differently between ABDs and DBDs, and, also, those with particular political affiliations. That’s the problem with this kind of thing – unless, as was said above, it’s about very broad issues such as civil liberties, I don’t see such organizations having much widespread participation. I mean, what righty or free trader South Asian isn’t going to be leery about the use of ‘economic justice’ above?
Like, I said, if you want it to work you are better off having an umbrella organization that just blandly encourages everyone to ‘get involved’ and have members of all political and advocacy groups a part of this larger umbrella organization. Even then, I still don’t see this working. Or at least, being representative of more than a part of the larger community.
47 · Sulabhv: I did not get the salvation army part
Thats what Razib was referring to.
speaking of economic justice, this sticks out from the above list of things that are supposed to bring all us South Asians together: Ensure access to fair and affordable credit for immigrants. I can see that being interpreted in many ways, given our current economic issues……
Kleenex chahiye?
Get a life. Wonder how one can call oneself “1.5” if one comes to US when he is 5.
as a self-identified wheat-american, i think we need an organization where I can just watch mollywood and eat jalebis along with johnny walker black. oh…i’d like the soundtrack replaced with bob dylan.
58 · vivek said
I don’t think we should be in the business in telling how an individual wants to identify himself. The problem comes when you see political mileage in the formation of an identity that does not really exist. Or if the purpose of such an identity is intentionally racist or divisive and more-so in this case, self-flagellation.
Socio-Cultural identity cannot be scientifically defined but can still be subject to peer-review. And those critiques should be constructive.
“Joe, none of the neighbors I had before you were half the man you are. And since you are half a man yourself, that makes them into some sort of fraction I cannot figure out”
Anyone who thinks that Hindus and Muslims can get along together to achieve same goals needs to study history of the subcontinent over the past millenia. Dont people see any meanings in creation of the Pakistan?
I second that ISA comment. An ISA dominated by FOBs has a completely different mandate (airport pickups, temp acco etc) than an “South Asian Asso” (Indian “culture” which means dance from phony Bollywood songs). For the nth time. Dancing to the tune of “bholi si surat, aankhon mein masti” is not Indian culture.
Moreover
When I talk to ABD kids who want to join my Fraternity or when I just interact with them. They all have a common theme about a change in treatment post 9/11 for a little period, from there peers.
You and I have not been in High School or Middle School environments post 9/11 where our peers are as educated/accepting/open minded/mature as the ones we’ve encountered in our sheltered College environs have been. We have NOT been through the same experiences. So before you start handing out kleenex’s, save some for the results of your own mental masturbation.
there – their…
I hate myself so much for that!
RahulD
Thanks for that RahulD.
How does RahulD know that
?
Easy on the assumptions, yeah?
Maybe its hard for RahulD to imagine that an ABCD can be opposed to the idea of “South Asia”.
So much for NOT stereotyping.
65 · vivek: How does RahulD know that
My bad, I shouldn’t have jumped the gun on that and made those assumptions.
But that begs me to wonder, if you HAVE been through the same experiences and you are not empathetic – well where is the progress of knowledge or understanding?
Now go and pick on the points that I made that are actually more thoughtful.
Okay you want me to be emphatic?
“Wonder how one can call oneself “1.5” if one comes to US when he is 5.” “Dont people see any meanings in creation of the Pakistan?” “temp acco etc” “South Asian Asso”
Your phraseology and verbage are NOT the product of Amreekan Publik Edumacation, they are from the same NCERT, SSC, ICSE Grammar & Composition of India, that I grew up on.
Besides, if you want to be called an “ABCD”, I’m sure you can form your own group along with all those other “ABCD”s who want to form the “ABCD’s against South Asia”
One major difference between us DBDs and the ABDs we are not worried about our dientity. Most of us are very happy with what we are and have no “identity” issues. Endless navel-gazing annoys us.
Desi_Like_You : at #17. Loved your post, we need more of that attitude.
There is a big contrast between a newly arrived DBD and an ABD, but over time this gap of culture, accent, outlook only narrows, the extent can be more or less depending on individual. Sooner we find that in the eyes of a non south asian we are pretty much same, better it will be for us. I think this effort to find a common minimum agenda is a step in the right direction!
Nara,
Are you for real? It is difficult growing up when you are the only brown kid around. I am not sure how you can discount someone’s legitimate issues with a broad brush. I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it can be. DBDs have no identity issues because for most part they grew up around people who looked like them and they were not constantly asked where they were from. I think little respect goes a long way.
Unfortunately, I am. Some identity issues are to be expected when you grow up with the other but excess is the norm among ABDs. Just pick up a Jhumpa Lahiri’s book if you want to see what I am talking about.
Punjabi Sikh men were some of the first South Asians immigrants in the US, when India was still under British rule. Because they were familiar with dealing with the British legal/political system, they were also some of the first/only Asian immigrants to become engaged politically at that time. Perhaps this is just their legacy?
72 · Nara said
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirad_C._Chaudhuri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V.S._Naipaul
well nara, its probably a class thing more than an abcd thing. when you’re an artist or ivy leager or blog commentator you like to analyze the minutiae in ways real people don’t. so like this kid in jr high asked me why he never sees me in hebrew school and i replied i’m not jewish resulting in him asking why then is there a jew in my name. been pro-israel ever since.
Vivek: Most South Asianists blame partition on us Hindus, so the meaning progressives derive is that “you can’t live with Hindus”. This enables them to shout about plebiscite in Kashmir, effectively a vote for ethnic cleansing, while saying they have no conflict with living in a pluralistic democracy like the US.
nara: Just pick up a Jhumpa Lahiri’s book if you want to see what I am talking about.
Oh, anything but that. Where’s Manish V when you need him?
Hope you are Man, or it would have been too much for that kid to handle 😀
Punjabi Sikh men were some of the first South Asians immigrants in the US, when India was still under British rule. Because they were familiar with dealing with the British legal/political system, they were also some of the first/only Asian immigrants to become engaged politically at that time. Perhaps this is just their legacy?
This probably is a factor. And another factor is that groups like SALDEF, are very politically engaged and generally more progressive because of their experience in India; I know with SALDEF, some of the founders of that group, came to the US after suffering persecution and oppression in India in the ’80s – after Indira Gandhi’s assasination. I spoke with a SALDEF founder a few years back, and his experience in India, where his civil rights were violated and he was also tortured, makes him take more seriously about the idea of politically engagement in the US, be vigilant on a backslide in civil rights issues, and therefore fits in nicely with the progressive principles like SAALT – SALDEF like SAALT, seem to stress, a shared experience that all minorities can have in the US – and tries to unite on issues, that they think are better for American society as a whole – these issues cut across socio-economic differences or at least that is the thought.
i may be alone here, but i’m just thrilled to see all this disunity and infighting here. that’s the desh i love. none of that lame fuzzy communal unity for us. divided we rise.
the more i think about it, moornam’s theory of india as natural chaotic libertarian paradise makes sense.
progressives have a simpler word for it, feudal.
This is key. The trick is to understand what’s “South Asian” about it in an American context, what’s “left-liberal” about it (in an American context), and what’s American about it, in an American context. And pick a strategy after that. For example, I think the agenda is really very good for an American context but it doesn’t go far enough on immigration and worker rights.
I don’t understand these comments about “oh this will never happen”–so what if it takes fifteen years? Half of Rome wasn’t built in a day 😉
This is needlessly divisive. British colonial practices were ALL ABOUT identity politics, hence the legacy in South Asia. You think the idea of “India” and the idea of “Pakistan” are not contested in those countries? That people don’t worry about identity in Sri Lanka? That people in Gujarat and in Delhi, both sites of pogroms by the BJP and Congress respectively, don’t involve identity? That feminists in South Asia don’t struggle with class, caste, religion, ideology, and other factors in addition gender? That casteism doesn’t involve a form of “identity”?
It’s more accurate to say that:
a) ABD identity politics is annoying to you; fair enough, I agree with what I think razib was saying that it can get excruciating to read variations on the same conversation time and time again, so I can’t imagine what it’s like for a non-ABD; and b) that politics of “identity” takes many different forms in different contexts.
well, told you they where eurocentric. but if marx’s right, capitalism inevitably rises from its demise
Stop being such a reactionary. It’s not good for the world.
84 · Dr A Wants His Handle Not Censored By The Spam Filter said
Hmmm? that’s deceptively convincing. sort of the political equivalent of the ‘ol “take off your clothes” line.
47 · Sulabh said
Sulahb,
I have the utmost respect for members of the Indian armed forces. Heck my relatives are in the Indian Army. Where do you get off saying that ABDs that serve their country are accorded more respect. Trust me I’m thankful when someone says something good about my service. I feel the same way about my relatives. They want to protect the desh they were born in. I want to protect the land where I was born. Plain and simple. America is my home, just like Bharat is your home.
Manish
48 · Bridget Jones said
It’s the other way round. South Asian associations for the most part tend to be anti-a-particular-community (at best tepid wrt it), revel in some mythical “shared values” of secular groups (yeah, right a religious state, with parties subscribing to its tenets becomes “secular”), and decry if not ignore the pan-Indianness that comes from 10s of official languages, and 100s of communities and traditions that are celebrated daily. Instead comes political correctness that converts a truly inclusive and multicultural phenomenon such as Di(pa)vali into a abomination called “Aawaz”, and along with that comes calls for “autonomy” for a certain region of India. But reality catches up sooner or later. So even “South Asian” associations that set out to defang the reality of India’s centrality (due to geography and history) end up becoming “Indian” because of the sheer numbers, and the imbalance of the agenda. Let’s say we discuss electoral politics, there are at least 2 every year in India and it is riveting stuff. What do we balance that with, coups and dictators? So gradually the phoney South Asian “identity” gives way to a truly multi-cultural Indian identity. Every land in the present day SAARC is endowed with enough vitality and culture to have its own group. Why merge this into a mish-mash of nonsense?
When there are no means to convince, sometimes it is best to simple articulate one’s self to set the terms of disagreement as one sees them for one’s self and sense of sanity. Keeps the conversation a lot shorter too. 😉
Manish_y
[quote —-] Where do you get off saying that ABDs that serve their country are accorded more respect [unquote —-]
Please read my comments I am talking about “this” blog, just go through the archives to verify. BTW: I am an American and I am thankful to you for your service to my country.
been pro-israel ever since.
I know. Cant believe that we have to continue to occupy those pesky Palestinians.
31 · RahulD said
That’s not true Rahul. The ones who decry India also decry the Liberation.
Regardless of the differences between ABD’s and DBD’s and their self-identification, there are a fair number of issues that they can share a common stand on under a minimal “South Asian” umbrella, i.e those problems faced by Desis due to connections with and origins in South Asia, including civil liberties, ethnic profiling, discrimination, and hate crimes. Regardless of whether your parents moved here from India 50 years back, or whether you just moved here last week (or regardless of your identification with South Asia, one of the countries/communities of the Desh, or a third-country from the diaspora), you’re equally likely to be the target of hate crimes or on the spot “ethnic profiling”.
SAALT’s agenda on the other hand, while it does support those issues that affect Americans originally from the Desh(s), is overly broad and also supports some broader left-wing issues that large parts of the community won’t support.
SAALT’s agenda on the other hand, while it does support those issues that affect Americans originally from the Desh(s), is overly broad and also supports some broader left-wing issues that large parts of the community won’t support.
i remember when i was interested in the history of the gay rights movement back in the early days there was a debate about focusing on gay rights in a specific and narrow way which most gays could agree on (bad then, this involved repealing sodomy laws, clamp downs on gay establishments, anti-discrimination, etc.), or try and integrate themselves into a broader left social justice movement. obviously the outcome wasn’t and isn’t black or white, but in the early days it seems that the narrow focus angle won out because they judged that there were marginal returns on a few issues that everyone could agree on as opposed to focusing on lots of broader issues which might have shrunk their membership down to a very left-wing activist core.
71 · umber desi said
A perfect retort to such non-innocuous questions would be to ask the questioner as to which European country he/she is from or maybe ask whether he is Irish-American, Italian-American or German-American ?
A perfect retort to such non-innocuous questions would be to ask the questioner as to which European country he/she is from or maybe ask whether he is Irish-American, Italian-American or German-American ?
i’ve stated this before, but i want to add that “where are you from” is a lot less common today than it was 20 years ago, and tends to come form older people (boomers on up) who grew up in a black-white america.
i used to work at amnesty international when they struggled with issues similar to what razib decribes in the gay rights movement. there was constant pressure on the organiztion to expand out into broader issues progressives though intricately connected to AI core mission: freeing prisoners of conscience. But AI wanted to remain as non-political as possible, keeping a broad membership, although its members where pretty left of center anyway.
well the issue on the table was whether to condemn apartheid, which would seem like a slam dunk except AI did not like to take ideological stands. but most people there wanted to come out against apartheid since it is, by definition, a violation of basic human rights. but i threw out on the table the notion that so was communism, by definition, at least in the marxist-lennist sense. and, you might be surprised, they took that argument very very seriously…how could they consistently come out against apartheid while leaving communism alone, at least theoretically.
well i lost, after al i was just a teenager. and i’m sad to see AI mission continue expanding, and even shrink in in regards to Prisoners of conscience..as those jailed for hate speech no longer qualify.
95 · razib said
do you guys remember: “what does your father do?”
been pro-israel ever since.
Good to see some one else here that supports the good guys.
Cant believe that we have to continue to occupy those pesky Palestinians.
pesky?????????????
A perfect retort to such non-innocuous questions would be to ask the questioner as to which European country he/she is from or maybe ask whether he is Irish-American, Italian-American or German-American ?
Unless I’m mistaken over 70% of desi/south asians in the United States are born outside of the country. It probably the same for all groups outside of white, black and native americans.
You two are ignorantly confusing the chaos of India and the intractable divisions among desis with libertarianism. What exactly do you find libertarian in the caste system?