Author Archives: Taz

About Taz

Taz is an activist, organizer and writer based in California. She is the founder of South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), curates MutinousMindState.tumblr.com and blogs at TazzyStar.blogspot.com. Follow her at twitter.com/tazzystar

Baby, Baby…

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In the realm of health policy, the low birth weight of babies is used as a primary measure in infant health as well as welfare in economic research.

Low birthweight affects about one in every 13 babies born each year in the United States. It is a factor in 65 percent of infant deaths. [link]
[R]esearch has found that [low birth weight] infants tend to have lower educational attainment, poorer self-reported health status, and reduced employment and earnings as adults, relative to their normal weight counterparts…[B]irth weight has been used to evaluate the effectiveness of social policy. Research on the benefits of largescale social programs–including welfare and health insurance for the poor–typically use birth weight as the primary indicator of infant welfare. [link]

I would like to point out at this moment that I was a healthy 9 pound baby when I was born, well above low birth weight levels, thank you very much. Unfortunately when the time comes for me to have a baby, as a ‘U.S.-born Asian Indian woman’, I run a high risk of having a low birth weight infant, according to recent research coming out of Stanford.

U.S.-born Asian-Indian women are more likely than their Mexican-American peers to deliver low birth weight infants, despite having fewer risk factors, say researchers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford’s School of Medicine. The finding confirms previous research that showed a similar pattern in more recent immigrants, and suggests that physicians should consider their patients’ ethnic backgrounds when planning their care…They found that Asian-Indian women were more than twice as likely to have low birth weight infants as were white women. These infants weigh 2,500 grams (about 5.5 pounds) or less at birth, either because they grew poorly in the womb or were born prematurely.[link]

These results are important in the realm of South Asian American health policy and are significant, at least should be significant, as to how prenatal care for desi women are implemented. As a desi woman, it is important to be informed of this issue and as a policy maker, it has inherent long term effect in our community.

“You might ask, ‘What’s so bad about being small?'” said Madan, who points out that the growth curves used for this and other similar studies are based on white infants. “Is this just normal for Asian Indians? But we’re concerned because we know that abnormally small babies run a higher risk of fetal distress and often require more intensive medical care and longer hospital stays after birth.”

In addition, unusually small babies are known to be at higher risk for a variety of medical problems in adulthood, including diabetes, hypertension and an increased risk of heart disease – conditions that some studies have reported to be higher in Asian Indians. [link]

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Inqilab Zindabad, Si Se Puede!

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Inqilab Zindabad, Inqilab Zindabad!
Si Se Puede, Si Se Puede!

My ears are still ringing from last night’s Los Angeles rally on immigration… Ghetto birds hovered over head as I walked through the barren streets of Chinatown (barren that is, except for the motorcycle cops that lined the perimeter) to head to where the rally was taking place. Two things struck me as I entered the mass of people listening to the speakers at Olvera Street; the first is the overwhelming amount of red, white and blue flags I saw being waved. There was a Mexican flag here and there, but overwhelmingly it was brown fists holding American flags. The second was the air of festivity- the ladies were selling bacon wrapped death dogs by the rally route, the cotton candy man was walking around, and everyone was whooping and hollering. It was a celebration of the diversity that is America.

South Asian Representin’

As I stood to the side, I saw every kind of ethnicity represented; Mexicans, Koreans, Filipinos. And then, I saw them. A group of the other brown immigrants, our brown immigrants marching down the street. South Asian Network, the premier organization serving the South Asian community of Southern California were the main organizers of this contingent of desis. On Sunday, they had organized a town hall meeting on the issue of immigration in ‘Little India’. About 300 people showed up with a diverse representation of age, class, nationalities, and races. The forum was broadcasted on a live feed on KPFK and everyone there was given a chance to speak on why this issue is important to them, leading to a dynamic far-ranging discussion. Last night at the Los Angeles rally, SAN was there marching the streets with a representation of South Asians Americans.

There’s always a thrill of excitement when marching in any rally, but there was the additional spark of walking with a group of people chanting in Bangla, Hindi, Urdu and Tamil in a sea of “Si se puede!” At one point, the two uncle-aged taxi workers started dancing around in circles in front of the Mexican-American teens drumming. No doubt it was great to walk in solidarity with every other immigrant out there, but to be able to chant “Inqilab Zindabad” finally made it feel like mine.

The immigrant issue is a South Asian issue, despite, as Abhi pointed out in the earlier post, the lack of framing in the media. We are after all, if not immigrants ourselves, the son or daughter of immigrants.

”All of what is happening around immigration reform in the country is not a Latino-originated movement at all,” said Deepa Iyer, executive director of the South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow, based in Silver Spring, Md. ”There are also Asian and African groups working together. From where I stand, I feel that our community is greatly invested in the issue.” [link]

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Long Live the King!

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I was in Delhi last year when the Nepalese government decided to shut their doors to the outside world. No internet, no phone calls, no interaction with the outside world until they got the new government up and ready. It was an odd experience to be in a neighboring country and see things play out. Seems like things haven’t played out too well as people stormed the streets this past week.

Maoist Rebels in Nepal

Pro-democracy campaigners in Nepal vowed to defy curfews and launch a sixth day of mass protests on Tuesday against the king’s absolute rule as the monarch came under global pressure to end his crackdown. The street campaign is the most intense since King Gyanendra sacked the government and grabbed political power 14 months ago and some analysts say it is only a matter of time before he runs out of options…So far three people have been killed and more than 300 wounded in clashes as government forces opened fire on demonstrators, used rubber bullets and tear gas and beat them with batons. [link]

It’s not just curfews and storming the streets – freedom of speech has been greatly restricted…

Troops also beat up four Nepali journalists as they reported on the troubles on Monday, one local TV channel showed. The parties said that about 1,500 protesters had been detained.

Hmm. What do people do when they have something they want to say, and no one is letting them? You guessed it, they have a blog. United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal has been blogging from the streets with some pretty intense words of the play by play of rioting activities.

More protesters gathered today than yesterday. Protesters blocked the entrance to the city that prevented them from entering Nayabazar. A command of Armed Police Force requested the demonstrators to backtrack to which they didn’t agree. Both parties didn’t move from their stance. One of the protesters, Prof. Krishna Khanal remarked that people’s participation in agitation would weaken the royal regime. Mani Kafle, a pro-democracy poet was reciting the verses. The mass looked enthusiastic.[link]

Considering the climate in Nepal, and the expected fear that the Nepalese journalist must be living in, I find this blog to be courageous. One can only imagine what kind of risk the bloggers are taking by posting these very detailed and frank posts up. Dinesh Wagle, one of the bloggers for this site, will be speaking at UCLA on Wednesday April 12th at 3pm.

Wagle will discuss the dangers and difficulties of being a reporter in a nation where journalists continue to face threats from Maoist insurgents as well as their own government. He will talk about how blogging has provided him and his colleagues a medium in which to tell Nepal’s stories to the world.[link]

If in the Los Angeles area, I would highly encourage you to stop by for what I expect to be an interesting talk. The riots in Nepal were to be called off on Sunday, but the latest word off the wire says they will continue indefinitely. Their blog will be a good resource to what is really going on within the borders of Nepal. Only time will tell if the ‘Democracy Fighters’ will be able to truly influence the King into stepping down, but with this level of rioting and rising global pressure on Nepal, I have a feeling that the time will be soon.

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Piercings

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I had recently gone to a Bengali family party, and was sitting on the floor talking to an older auntie type, when I noticed she had something gold in her nose. I asked her what it was, and with a little pull here and there, she pulled out a punk-rock style gold septum ring. A little shocking, since as a desi girl I was more familiar with the more traditional nose piercings, but not the septum style. She continued by telling the story of how she got it as a girl, and and how the piercing was supposed to bring shanti on her husband- basically (what I garnered from my poor Bengali) anytime she exhaled, she would be bringing good luck on her mate.

Nose piercing was first recorded in the Middle East approximately 4,000 years ago… Nose piercing was bought to India in the 16th Century from the Middle East by the Moghul emperors. In India a stud (Phul) or a ring (Nath) is usually worn in the left nostril, It is sometimes joined to the ear by a chain, and in some places both nostrils are pierced. The left side is the most common to be pierced in India, because that is the spot associated in Ayuvedra (Indian medicine) with the female reproductive organs, the piercing is supposed to make childbirth easier and lessen period pain.[link]

The septum piercing that this auntie had is the second most popular piercing next to ear-piercings and even more popular than the traditional nose piercings.

The piercing is also popular in India, Nepal, and Tibet, a pendant “Bulak” is worn, and some examples are so large as to prevent the person being able to eat, the jewellery has to be lifted up during meals. In Rajasthan in Himachal Pradesh these Bulak are particularly elaborate, and extremely large.[link]

See mom, body piercings are a part of our culture! That line of reasoning didn’t quite fly as well when I presented it to her after I got mine. I personally opted for the chin-piercing better known as the labret back when I turned 22.

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National Sexual Assault Awareness Month

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April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month. To promote this important issue Lifetime Channel has descended upon Washington DC for “Stop Violence Against Women Week” going on now (April 3rd-7th) with a list of events worthy of Capitol Hill. This past summer, Lifetime dedicated a week around issues of human trafficking and they are interestingly using their media access to promote issues affecting women. I think this is great. It is rare that a television channel will make that kind of a commitment to their viewers. Violence against women is not just important to Lifetime viewers, but is an important issue in the upcoming midterm election as well:

According to a new “Lifetime Women’s Pulse Poll,” conducted for the network by Roper Poll, when women and men vote in the mid-term elections this fall, expected issues such as homeland security, jobs and the economy and the war in Iraq will be very important, but an issue that receives far less attention — preventing violence against women and girls — will be just as, if not more, important to them.[link]

As we all have read, violence against women can often hit closer to home than can ever be expected. It takes a powerful woman to live through the experience and an even more powerful woman to be able to share their personal story. In addition to the personal experiences, the statistics out there on violence against women are alarming:

  • One in three women worldwide will be beaten, raped, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.[link]
  • One in four girls will be sexually assaulted before the age of 18.[link]
  • An estimated 1 million women are stalked each year in the US, with about 1/4 of them reporting missing an average of 11 days of work as a result of the stalking.[link]
  • Researchers Anita Raj and Jay Silverman discovered that more than 40% of the 160 South Asian women living in Greater Boston they surveyed indicated that they were victims of intimate partner violence, and only 50% of women who experienced intimate partner violence were aware of services available to help. [link]

What is unfortunate to see is the taboo in the South Asian American community when there is violence against our women. But the important thing is, you are not alone. There is a national network of South Asian women’s organizations out there to support our survivors of the trauma of sexual assault.

Sakhi, based in New York City and a partnering organization to the Lifetime campaign, provides language specific culturally sensitive services to South Asian women because..

  • Abused immigrant women may hesitate to reach out to police, shelters, courts, and mainstream violence agencies due to barriers of language, financial constraints, and fear of deportation;
  • Women that reach out to Sakhi may be abused not only by their husbands, but also by in-laws and other family members; and,
  • Survivors may face the cultural stigma and shame of divorce in the community, and be told that it is their “duty” to keep the family and marriage intact, despite abuse. [link]

But New York City isn’t the only place with with access to these South Asian specific organizations, there is a national network of organizations listed here, and for our Canadian sisters here, here, and here. In Chicago, there’s Apn Ghar which has served over 5400 clients since 2000. SAHELI Boston is working on a newly launched Men’s Initative, to bring men into the dialogue. Maitri in the San Jose area has volunteers that speak Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Marwari, Oriya, Punjabi, Sindhi, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. ASHA in the DC area has recently intitated a partnership to find employment for survivors of domestic abuse. There are a lot of resources out there specifically towards our community, and almost all of these organizations have a toll-free hotline, multi-lingual support, assistance to find shelter, and referral to social, legal and mental health services.

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New Location! Los Angeles Meetup April 15th!

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Under the cover of darkness, I have broken free of the reigns of the basement of the North Dakota bunker. I have hijacked the SM Meetup Makin’ Machine and let loose a bee in Abhi’s office, you know, for good measure. I am here to truly serve you, Sepia Mutiny readers. The time has arrived. That’s right mutineers, we are having a Los Angeles Sepia Mutiny Meetup.

You hear that L.A. Mutineers? After months of teasing from Abhi, and drooling over the mutineers meeting up in other cities, we finally get to join the elite! Yay!

Date: April 15, 2006 Saturday
Time: 5:30 pm
NEW Place: Tribal Café, 1651 W. Temple St., #A, LOS ANGELES

Please RSVP in the comments section, to let us know how many people are coming. If you don’t come, and you live within a 50 mile radius of L.A., we will know, and we will find you. Especially since we did choose Noura Café Tribal Cafe because we are optimistic that people will come far and wide and we think they will be accommodating. I cannot divulge the details, but I promise it is THE SM Meetup not to be missed.

So Noura’s Cafe is no longer. Thanks Arun. We are shifting to the hipster part of LA now to Echo Park, and meeting up at the artsy new space of Tribal Café, located in the heart of Filipino town. Where are all the LA bloggers, readers, and lurkers at?

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That’s So Punk Rock

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Punk music and the subsequent punk movement is deeply rooted in fighting for the rebel cause and the fight against social injustices. I’m not talking the pop-angst of Blink 182 -type bands that are splayed across MTV, but the bands at the root of the brit-punk rock uprisings in the mid-70s as well as the emergence of the political hardcore punk rock scene in DC in the 80s. The lyrics are intertwined with anti-injustice words such as, “…and now I can’t sleep from years of apathy, all because I read a little Noam Chomsky” (NOFX), or with “…all the power’s in the hands, of people rich enough to buy it,” (The Clash).

I’ve been going to punk shows for the past 10 years, early on as a rebellious punk teen and more recently, clipboards in hand registering youth voters at the show, with non-profit groups like Music for America or SAAVY. Most often though at these punk shows, I was one of a handful of desi kids.

Unfortunately being a desi punk has its consequences…

Harraj Mann, 23, asked a taxi driver to play The Clash’s London Calling through the vehicle’s stereo. But the cabbie rang police after he heard the song which includes the line: “War is declared and battle come down.” A spokeswoman also said that it was not just the music Mr Mann requested, but the “overall impression” he gave that aroused the taxi driver’s suspicion. [link]

The irony is he was listening to The Clash, a brit-punk band of the 1970s known for their anti-racism sentiments as well as Led Zepplin’s “Immigrant Song.” Even more ironic is that it was the taxi-wallah that turned this guy in, though no mention of the ethnicity of said cab driver.

Police said Mr Mann, from Hartlepool, was released without charge after his arrest on board a Bmi plane at Durham Tees Valley Airport. Durham Police said a security check revealed he did not pose a threat.

He told BBC Radio Five Live: “I said to staff you’ve taken me off my flight due to my taste in music, in a more colourful way…I mean where does it stop? What if I was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, what if I was wearing odd socks, you know…I mean obviously the political climate these days is like walking on egg shells, but I mean there’s caution and then there’s taking it to the point where it’s absurd and ludicrous.”

Here, here, punk desi youth! “Look at those crazy kids, with their wild hair, and loud music,” is the most oft heard gripe from elder people but additionally, we have to deal with the profiling that comes with being desi as well. It’s a double whammy. Obviously, in light of the london bombings last year, I’m sure things must be harder for the day to day lives of desi youth across the pond. But would a terrorist really play The Clash in a taxi on the way to the airport? Common sense says no. Should I now start having to worry that today I wore a shirt that says, “Major Labels Lie” and was listening to Dead Prez in my stickered car? Well, maybe they have reason to worry just a little bit there… All I gotta say is, stay strong brother, and punk on.

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One Night In Paris. In West Bengal.

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Maybe it’s because I live in Los Angeles. But I’ll be the first to admit it. I love celebrity gossip. Imagine my surprise when I heard this report on the news this morning.

Mother Teresa. Totally see the resemblance.

Paris Hilton is on the short-list to play beatified nun Mother Teresa in an upcoming bipoic of the late Nobel Peace Prize winner. Film director T. Rajeevnath said his idea to cast the 25-year-old celebutante after a computer-generated image showed a close facial match between “The Simple Life” simpleton and the Albanian-born holy woman. “(Hilton’s) features resemble Mother Teresa’s,” Rajeevnath said. [link]

Waaaaait a second. Didn’t we just play the ‘who’s famous face matches mine’ game using a computer-generated image facial matching website here on Sepia Mutiny only a few months back?

I’ll just let you know that I ended up at a verrry interesting website, which scanned a picture I uploaded before telling me which celebrity in its database I resembled. See whom YOU don’t look like by going to MyHeritage.com y’self. [link]

I mean, Rajeevnath is Indian. Maybe he reads Sepia Mutiny and maybe, just maybe, that is what compelled him to pick Paris Hilton. That, and this:

But it was when the director read an article in which Hilton said she had turned down the chance to pose nude for Playboy maggie that he believed he had found the woman to emulate Mother Teresa’s good works. Shooting in several countries, including West Bengal will begin early next year.

Proceeds from the film will benefit the Missionaries of Charity.

Missionaries. Paris Hilton. Hmm… I wonder how familiar she is with that line of work…

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Taxi-Wallahs of America

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I spent my spring break last week interviewing taxi drivers about their working conditions, at taxi stands all across Los Angeles. It was my first week of conducting this research and we found handfuls of South Asian taxi drivers, far fewer in proportion to the taxi drivers in other metropolitan cities. I did get the chance to talk to a royal looking Sikh man with expansive white beard, who answered our questions predominantly in proverbs. Mostly though from what I saw, L.A. taxi drivers are immigrants from all over the world all working together in a not so forgiving career.

Taxi-Wallah

Luckily, the research we are doing here in L.A. is based on the success of the taxi worker alliances in New York City and the San Fransisco Bay. If you are in the Berkeley area this week, I highly suggest attending this talk (via The Seemamachine).

On April 5th at 7p, join Biju Mathew, an Associate Professor in the College of Business Administration at Rider University in New Jersey. Biju worked as a lead organizer for one of my all-time favorite organizations, New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance. NYTWA… is headed up by the wondrous Bhairavi Desai, whose leadership and commitment have resulted in health and legal services for NY’s taxi drivers, relief from burdensome and inefficient TLC practices, and a true spirit of organized power for the people that make the Big Apple move. Mathew’s book–Taxi! Cabs & Capitalism in New York City–canvasses the struggles drivers have faced within the taxi cab industry. His lecture will address same.

The lecture will be following the photography exhibit opening of “Taxi-Wallahs of Berkeley: Photographs and Narratives by Aditya Dhawan” hosted by the Center for South Asia Studies. You can see his taxi worker photos online and his exhibit will be running through June. Both events will be on the UC Berkeley campus. In the meantime down here in Los Angeles, I will continue to talk to as many taxi drivers as possible.

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America in South Asia

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Last spring, I went to visit my aunt in India who was at the time organizing the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit for that year. She worked in the Bangladesh government, was adamant about the mission of SAARC, and would often come home telling me the woes of work over afternoon chai.

Created in 1985, “…SAARC provides a platform for the peoples of South Asia to work together in a spirit of friendship, trust and understanding. It aims to accelerate the process of economic and social development in Member States… Cooperation in the SAARC is based on respect for the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence, noninterference in internal affairs of the Member States and mutual benefit.Summits, which are the highest authority in SAARC, are to be held annually [link].”

SAARC to the South Asian region has served as a tool to create a unified regional dialogue as well as present a South Asian perspective into the international markets. I thought it was interesting that as my aunt was working on creating a cohesiveness of South Asians in South Asia I was working to create a cohesiveness of South Asians in America. It looks as if though these two may be getting a little more intertwined.

The US is expected to formally apply for membership as observer of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)…US Under Secretary John Wright is to formally apply for membership to Dhaka, the current chairman of SAARC. Member counties decided at the last SAARC meeting to include Afghanistan in the regional grouping and invite Japan and China as observers.[link]

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