SAALT Spot Blog

Luna Ranjit, E.D. of Adhikaar featured in the NY Daily News

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Check out this glow­ing pro­file of Luna Ran­jit, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and co-founder of Adhikaar, in the New York Dai­ly News. Adhikaar is based in Queens and works to empow­er the Nepali com­mu­ni­ty through a vari­ety of activ­i­ties. We want to con­grat­u­late our fel­low Nation­al Coali­tion of South Asian Orga­ni­za­tions part­ner on their con­tin­ued suc­cess and this great expo­sure.

Check the full arti­cle out at: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2008/12/12/2008–12-12_a_helping_hand_for_nepali_women_new_to_n.html?page=0

A Loss of Life, A Community’s Responsibility

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Please read this op-ed writ­ten by mem­bers of the Nation­al Coali­tion of South Asian Orga­ni­za­tions (Rak­sha, Nari­ka, Man­avi, Maitri) on the recent mur­der of Resh­ma James in New Jer­sey

A Loss of Life, A Community’s Responsibility

As rep­re­sen­ta­tives of South Asian com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions work­ing to end vio­lence against women, we are sad­dened by the recent mur­der of Resh­ma James, a 24-year old South Asian woman, just days before Thanks­giv­ing.  The trag­ic shoot­ing death of Resh­ma James at the St. Thomas Syr­i­an Ortho­dox Knanaya Church in Clifton by her estranged hus­band has stunned the entire South Asian com­mu­ni­ty. In addi­tion to Ms. James, two oth­er indi­vid­u­als were injured, one of whom also died.

This act of vio­lence — the last in a his­to­ry of abuse per­pe­trat­ed by Ms. James’ estranged hus­band — has affect­ed indi­vid­u­als and the jus­tice sys­tems of three states: Cal­i­for­nia (where the abuse occurred); New Jer­sey (where the mur­der occurred); and Geor­gia (where the mur­der­er was appre­hend­ed).    

As com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers deal with the trau­ma and grief of this inci­dent, it is impor­tant to broad­en our lens to under­stand the epi­dem­ic of domes­tic vio­lence that affects fam­i­lies around the coun­try from all back­grounds.   

The mur­der of Resh­ma James is one inci­dent among many that affect South Asians and oth­er women in the Unit­ed States.  In fact, accord­ing to the Nation­al Net­work to End Domes­tic Vio­lence (NNEDV), inti­mate part­ner vio­lence claims the lives of three women each day in the U.S., and guns are the weapon of choice.    

Through our direct ser­vice and advo­ca­cy work with South Asian sur­vivors of vio­lence, we know all too well that domes­tic vio­lence can affect all fam­i­lies regard­less of reli­gion, race, socio-eco­nom­ic sta­tus, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, age, or immi­gra­tion sta­tus.  Maitri, Man­avi, Nari­ka and Rak­sha are orga­ni­za­tions that address domes­tic vio­lence in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, New Jer­sey and Atlanta.  Col­lec­tive­ly our agen­cies receive over 4,000 calls annu­al­ly from women seek­ing legal and health assis­tance, social ser­vices, basic infor­ma­tion about their rights, and refer­rals.  

Yet, the mes­sages that we often hear from with­in the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty are the same: that domes­tic vio­lence does not hap­pen in our com­mu­ni­ty; that it does not hap­pen with­in edu­cat­ed fam­i­lies; and that it is not an impor­tant issue for an entire com­mu­ni­ty to address.   From non-South Asians, we often hear that domes­tic vio­lence must some­how be unique to South Asian com­mu­ni­ties, giv­en our cus­toms, beliefs, and famil­ial rela­tion­ships, or that it does not occur based on false stereo­types they have about South Asians.

Women are bat­tered in every cul­ture, and the com­mon fac­tor is the social sanc­tion of vio­lence against women, across cul­tures. Our col­lec­tive work as a soci­ety then is to build safe com­mu­ni­ties where every­one can live free of fear.   We must bear the col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty of keep­ing every­one safe.  And that work can­not be done in iso­la­tion, by a few com­mu­ni­ty based orga­ni­za­tions such as ours. It has to be done by all of us, work­ing togeth­er.   

We ask you to sup­port the work of end­ing vio­lence against women and chil­dren in our com­mu­ni­ties.   We ask that you lis­ten to and empow­er sur­vivors in your com­mu­ni­ty.  We ask that you look at leg­is­la­tion that com­pro­mis­es sur­vivor safe­ty and speak out against it and to advo­cate for laws and poli­cies that pro­tect sur­vivors and pro­vide them with lin­guis­tic and cul­tur­al access to the jus­tice sys­tem, law enforce­ment, and shel­ters.

 The entire com­mu­ni­ty must be pre­pared to speak out against vio­lence and address it in our homes, places of wor­ship, cul­tur­al cen­ters, and social ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions.  We ask you to reach out to some­one who needs your sup­port.  Only as a com­mu­ni­ty can we pre­vent the mur­ders of women like Resh­ma James. 

Maitri, Man­avi, Nari­ka, Rak­sha – com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions work­ing to end vio­lence against South Asian women – are all mem­bers of the Nation­al Coali­tion of South Asian Orga­ni­za­tions.  

Aparna Bhat­tacharyya, Rak­sha (Atlanta)       1.866.725.7423          www.raksha.org

Atashi Chakravar­ty, Nari­ka (Bay Area)         1.800.215.7308           www.narika.org

Manee­sha Kelkar, Man­avi    (New Jer­sey)     732. 435.1414             www.manavi.org

Sarah Khan, Maitri               (Bay Area)         1.800.799.SAFE         www.maitri.org

What you need to know before you buy a home …

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Have you thought about buy­ing a home? Do you know what home equi­ty is? Are you won­der­ing what your cred­it score is? I have to con­fess that I know very lit­tle about the process of buy­ing a home and have been intim­i­dat­ed by it because all that I heard from fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends was about how stress­ful it was!

For­tu­nate­ly, when I was in Queens, NY last week, I was lucky enough to par­tic­i­pate in work­shop pre­sent­ed by Chhaya CDC called “The Road to Home­own­er­ship: Your Rights, Risks, and Rewards.” This very empow­er­ing and acces­si­ble work­shop demys­ti­fied what it means to buy a home and how you go about doing it. Right then and there, my ques­tions were answered and the process was bro­ken down for me. This work­shop is a part of a series that cov­ers var­i­ous relat­ed top­ics such as whether home­own­er­ship is right for you, finan­cial and cred­it basics, ana­lyz­ing whether you can afford a mort­gage, and how to avoid preda­to­ry lenders. These work­shops are par­tic­u­lar­ly time­ly, giv­en the recent fore­clo­sure cri­sis that has affect­ed many Amer­i­cans and has brought up ques­tions about how exact­ly the home­buy­ing process works in the U.S. If you’re in the New York City area and inter­est­ed in attend­ing one of these work­shops, vis­it Chhaya CDC’s web­site or email them at info@chhayacdc.org.

Chhaya CDC is an orga­ni­za­tion based in Queens that address­es and advo­cates for the hous­ing and com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment needs of South Asian Amer­i­cans in New York City. They pro­vide indi­vid­u­al­ized home­own­er­ship and finan­cial coun­sel­ing, work on ten­ants’ rights issues, and engage in com­mu­ni­ty out­reach on hous­ing and com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment issues. They also devel­op “know your rights” brochures for the com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing fact­sheet on how to avoid fore­clo­sure res­cue scams (avail­able in Eng­lish and Bangla).

Election Monitoring at Lakelands Park Middle School in Gaithersburg, MD

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On Novem­ber 4th, I served as the site super­vi­sor at Lake­lands Park Mid­dle School in Gaithers­burg, MD to con­duct an Asian Amer­i­can Vot­er Sur­vey and mon­i­tor and report any vot­er inci­dents. Our expe­ri­ence was amaz­ing in that most of the Asian Amer­i­can vot­ers we approached were more than hap­py to fill out our sur­vey and even more enthu­si­as­tic once we told them what it was for. It was on this day that I real­ized the impor­tance of col­lect­ing this data and get­ting a sense of the needs, chal­lenges, and pri­or­i­ties of our community.There is one inci­dent that sticks out in my mind from that day. There was a woman who I saw vote ear­li­er in the day come back to our polling site in the after­noon with a cam­era. She asked us to take her pic­ture near the “Vote Here” sign, near our “Asian Amer­i­can Vot­er Sign”, and even a pic­ture with us! Her emo­tion and excite­ment were vis­i­ble as she told us how she want­ed to doc­u­ment this his­toric day for her chil­dren. As the day unfold­ed, we saw vot­ers turn out in record num­bers and in a very real way, it struck me how impor­tant this day was. Peo­ple came out to vote despite the long lines, cold weath­er, and rain. They brought their kids, their par­ents, their pets, their cam­eras, and their excite­ment. I am thank­ful that I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness such an occa­sion.

Check back on the SAALT web­site for updat­ed infor­ma­tion about the vot­ing trends of the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty!

 
 
 
 

 

SAALT and Community Partners Issue Statement Regarding Recent Bias Crimes Targeting South Asians in New Jersey

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You may be sur­prised to learn that near­ly 200,000 South Asians reside in the state of New Jer­sey.  SAALT’s New Jer­sey Com­mu­ni­ty Empow­er­ment Project devel­oped from a series of meet­ings in 2004 with South Asian orga­ni­za­tions in New Jer­sey, allies, and con­cerned South Asian indi­vid­u­als.  Through these dia­logues, it became clear that South Asian com­mu­ni­ties in New Jer­sey are under­served and large­ly voice­less in pol­i­cy debates. To learn more about the New Jer­sey Com­mu­ni­ty Empow­er­ment Project, or to read our report high­light­ing key issues affect­ing the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty in New Jer­sey, “A Com­mu­ni­ty of Con­trasts: South Asians in New Jer­sey,” please check out SAALT’s local ini­tia­tives page.

In response to recent bias-crimes tar­get­ed towards the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty in New Jer­sey, SAALT, along with sev­er­al South Asian com­mu­ni­ty part­ners — Man­avi; South Asian Men­tal Health Aware­ness in Jer­sey (SAMHAJ); the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR-NJ); UNITED SIKHS; and the Sikh Coali­tion issued a joint state­ment con­demn­ing all bias crimes.  Read the state­ment below:

“We come togeth­er, as orga­ni­za­tions serv­ing South Asian com­mu­ni­ties here in New Jer­sey, to denounce the recent hate crimes and bias inci­dents that have tak­en place in our state.  The South Asian com­mu­ni­ty in New Jer­sey, with a grow­ing pop­u­la­tion of 200,000, has long con­front­ed bias and dis­crim­i­na­tion, begin­ning in the 1980’s with the attacks per­pe­trat­ed by the ‘Dot­busters’ and the post‑9/11 back­lash.  In addi­tion, our orga­ni­za­tions — Man­avi; the Sikh Coali­tion; the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR-NJ); South Asian Men­tal Health Aware­ness in Jer­sey (SAMHAJ); and UNITED SIKHS — have observed a rise in New Jer­sey, which we believe has fos­tered an envi­ron­ment where bias inci­dents and hate crimes can occur.

Today, we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty not only with the Gre­w­al fam­i­ly — vic­tims of a cross-burn­ing out­side their home; Mr. Ajit Singh Chi­ma — an elder­ly Sikh man who, on Octo­ber 30th, in Wayne, New Jer­sey, was vio­lent­ly punched and kicked in the face sev­er­al times by an uniden­ti­fied man, and as a result suf­fered sev­er­al frac­tures around his eyes and jaw; Gan­gadeep Singh — a fifth grade stu­dent who, on Octo­ber 8th, was attacked in Carteret, New Jer­sey while walk­ing home from school by an uniden­ti­fied masked assailant that threw him on the ground and cut off his hair — but with all sur­vivors of bias and hate crimes.

We stand togeth­er now because we must say no to any act of bias and intol­er­ance when it hap­pens.  We stand togeth­er to ask our elect­ed offi­cials and law enforce­ment agen­cies to pro­tect sur­vivors of hate crimes and to join us in con­demn­ing them.  As a vibrant seg­ment of New Jer­sey’s neigh­bor­hoods, schools, busi­ness­es, and non-prof­it sec­tors, South Asians raise our voic­es to call for jus­tice and equal­i­ty for all.”

Please join us for a march and ral­ly in sup­port of the Gre­w­al fam­i­ly on Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 15th at 3PM in Hard­wick, New Jer­sey.  The ‘Uni­ty for the Com­mu­ni­ty’ March will start at the Munic­i­pal Build­ing and end at the Gre­w­al res­i­dence with a ral­ly. 

Satur­day, Novem­ber 5th, 3PM
Hard­wick Munic­i­pal Build­ing
40 Spring Val­ley Road
Hard­wick, NJ 07825
If you’d like to attend but do not have a ride, please con­tact Qudsia:
(qudsia@saalt.org) or call (201) 850‑3333.

Addi­tion­al­ly, if you’d like to learn more about bias and hate crimes, check out a new resource by SAALT:  “Know Your Rights Resource Address­ing Hate Crimes”

Where were you on Election Day?

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I hope that you were vot­ing and mak­ing your voice heard. Around the coun­try, vol­un­teers from SAALT and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions from the Asian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty were at poll sites, pro­tect­ing the vote and learn­ing more about the vot­ing choic­es and bar­ri­ers faced by Asians. It was my first time being an elec­tion mon­i­tor and I was assigned to a poll site in Sil­ver Spring, MD (which is in the sub­urbs of Wash­ing­ton, DC). It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence on a num­ber of lev­els. First and fore­most, it was very pow­er­ful to see so many peo­ple after they had exer­cised their right to vote. It was the cul­mi­na­tion of a long, and some­times emo­tion­al, elec­tion cycle and you could feel the excite­ment in the air.

I saw a lot of peo­ple with smiles on their faces. Anoth­er notable trend was fam­i­lies com­ing in to vote togeth­er in which the chil­dren were vot­ing for the first time. As they filled out sur­veys, I could see the pride in the par­ents’ eyes. I moved to the Unit­ed States when I was twelve years old. My fam­i­ly had pre­vi­ous­ly lived in Sau­di Ara­bia, which was an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence all around, but there was a pal­pa­ble dif­fer­ence when we came to Amer­i­ca. This was a place where peo­ple set­tled, not just a place to pass through. It was not imme­di­ate, but Amer­i­ca became home. And when I became a cit­i­zen in 2006, I was old enough to have real­ly cho­sen become an “Amer­i­can”. I knew when I said that oath in the cour­t­house in Chica­go that, in a fun­da­men­tal way, my place in the world had shift­ed.

Even though I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote in the 2006 midterm elec­tions, I was beside myself with excite­ment about vot­ing in my first pres­i­den­tial elec­tions: to be mak­ing this huge, mean­ing­ful choice along with my fel­low Amer­i­cans (a deci­sion that I knew from per­son­al expe­ri­ence rever­ber­at­ed well beyond the US) was some­thing I had looked for­ward to for a very long time. In my fam­i­ly there are Amer­i­can cit­i­zens, per­ma­nent res­i­dents, H1‑B and stu­dent visa-hold­ers and Bangladeshi cit­i­zens. I vot­ed absen­tee in the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, so it was­n’t the whole Elec­tion Day expe­ri­ence, but when I stood in my lit­tle vot­ing booth, I felt my whole fam­i­ly there with me and I did my best to make sure my vote reflect­ed that.

I don’t know if it is the same for oth­er immi­grants and chil­dren of immi­grants, but the very act of vot­ing felt like some small but vital por­tion of my par­ents’ dreams and my dreams becom­ing a real­i­ty. Being an elec­tion mon­i­tor and see­ing peo­ple of all races and eth­nic­i­ties, of dif­fer­ent ages and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus­es seemed a qui­et and pow­er­ful affir­ma­tion of Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy at work. On a very prac­ti­cal lev­el, being there to help doc­u­ment any prob­lems or issues with vot­ing helped me con­tribute to a bet­ter under­stand­ing of Asian Amer­i­cans as a vot­ing pop­u­la­tion. This infor­ma­tion not only helps us under­stand our com­mu­ni­ty bet­ter, it informs pol­i­cy­mak­ers and politi­cians about the issues that mat­ter to us. I know that I will remem­ber Novem­ber 4th, 2008 for the rest of my life and I hope that the work that I and all the oth­er elec­tion mon­i­tors can make a sim­i­lar impact on our com­mu­ni­ty’s future.

We’re going to put up some more posts about peo­ple’s expe­ri­ences with elec­tion mon­i­tor­ing so keep a look out for them.

What Do I Need to Bring to the Polls? and Document the Vote!

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It’s almost here! Elec­tion Day! After a rather long pri­ma­ry sea­son, this elec­tion is com­ing to close in the most excit­ing way pos­si­ble. Vot­er turnout is expect­ed to be quite impres­sive and if ear­ly vot­ing is any indi­ca­tion Amer­i­cans around the coun­try are excit­ed (and com­m­mit­ted, with ear­ly vot­ing loca­tions in some states hav­ing wait times in excess of SIX hours) about hav­ing their say this elec­tion. So for every­one get­ting ready to vote on Elec­tion Day, make sure that the ID require­ments in your state don’t keep you from cast­ing a bal­lot. Lookup your state’s ID require­ment on www.866ourvote.org.

Also, while you’re wait­ing online, doc­u­ment the vote, take pic­tures or video of how vot­ing looks in your com­mu­ni­ty. If you have any inter­est­ing sto­ries to share about first time vot­ers or the excite­ment in your fam­i­ly or cir­cle of friends about vot­ing, we want to hear about it. Are you vot­ing, get­ting out the vote, or mon­i­tor­ing at the polls on Elec­tion Day? Bring a cam­era or video­cam­era with you to doc­u­ment pic­tures and sto­ries of South Asian vot­ers. Send pic­tures, video, writ­ten reflec­tions, quotes and more to saalt@saalt.org by Wednes­day, Novem­ber 5th at 5PM!

Here’s an inter­est­ing PSA I found that real­ly under­scores how mean­ing­ful the vote is, it may take a cou­ple of hours (so I sug­gest bring­ing a book… and maybe a fold­ing chair) but going out and vot­ing remains sig­nif­i­cant long after Elec­tion Day.

Make sure your vote counts on November 4th!

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This is a real­ly great video that out­lines how impor­tant it is to make sure that your vote counts on Elec­tion Day. There may not be enough vot­ing machines, your name might not be in the vot­er rolls, you may get asked for ID you don’t have to vote. So its very impor­tant that you know what your rights are, it can be the dif­fer­ence between hav­ing your say on Elec­tion Day or not.



More­over, by know­ing what vot­ers have a right to expect, you can make sure that those around you, vot­ing at your polling place, vot­ers from your com­mu­ni­ty and more! Vot­ers can con­front a num­ber of prob­lems at the polls, from poll work­ers who are not knowl­edge­able about the rules to dif­fi­cul­ties with lan­guage and Eng­lish bal­lots to unfair treat­ment based on race or eth­nic­i­ty. Remem­ber:

-Check your state’s vot­er ID laws to make sure that you have the prop­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to vote
‑If you or any­one you know needs help inter­pret­ing the bal­lot, it is your legal right to bring an inter­preter into the booth with you
‑If your name is miss­ing from the rolls, you have a right to vote using a pro­vi­sion­al bal­lot
     Want to learn more about your rights on Elec­tion Day, check out this SAALT resource

If you encounter or wit­ness any bar­ri­ers to the right to vote, call 1–866-OUR-VOTE.

 

 

South Asians in the 2008 elections

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How have South Asians been get­ting involved in the 2008 elec­tions? How have the ways that South Asians been involved in the civic and polit­i­cal process changed or evolved? What kind of vot­er turnout can we expect from the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty on Elec­tion Day? What’s at stake for South Asians in this elec­tion?



Hear the answers to these ques­tions and more in “South Asians in the 2008 elec­tions,” SAALT’s pre-elec­tion webi­nar. We were joined by Vijay Prashad (Trin­i­ty Col­lege Pro­fes­sor of Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies and the author of Kar­ma of Brown Folk among oth­er works), Karthick Ramakr­ish­nan (one of the main col­lab­o­ra­tors in the Nation­al Asian Amer­i­can Sur­vey), Seema Agnani (Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Chhaya CDC, a com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment non­prof­it based in Queens, New York), Ali Naj­mi (Co-founder of Desis Vote in New York) and Aparna Shar­ma and Tina Bha­ga Yoko­ta (Mem­bers of South Asian Pro­gres­sive Action Col­lec­tive in Chica­go). The full video of the webi­nar is here<http://www.saalt.org/categories/South-Asians-in-the-2008-Elections-Online-Webinar-/>. Stay tuned for SAALT’s post-elec­tion webi­nar, dur­ing which guests will dis­sect the elec­tion results, report the find­ings of mul­ti­lin­gual exit polling and look for­ward to the tran­si­tion to the new Admin­stra­tion and Con­gress.

History Repeating Itself: Xenophobia in Political Discourse

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With mere­ly one week until Elec­tion Day, it seems like can­di­date stump speech­es, pun­dit com­men­tary, and the vol­ley of talk­ing points from all sides are every­where you turn. And if you’re any­thing like me, you’re trans­fixed to cable news and media analy­sis about what’s been hap­pen­ing on the cam­paign trail.

Here at SAALT, we’ve been keep­ing a spe­cial eye on what’s being said in this high­ly-charged polit­i­cal atmos­phere par­tic­u­lar­ly as it relates to the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty. In recent years, we’ve unfor­tu­nate­ly wit­nessed a spate of xeno­pho­bic com­ments being made against our com­mu­ni­ty with­in polit­i­cal dis­course. Such rhetoric has emerged in var­i­ous forms, includ­ing chal­leng­ing the loy­al­ty of those who are or per­ceived to be Mus­lim. Sad­ly, this hear­kens back to the sen­ti­ments and actions that led to bias and dis­crim­i­na­tion against South Asian, Mus­lim, Sikh, and Arab com­mu­ni­ties in the after­math of 9/11 and raise con­cerns about the over­all envi­ron­ment lead­ing up to elec­tion. We encour­age the com­mu­ni­ty to remain vig­i­lant about such rhetoric.

Be sure to check out SAALT’s three-part toolk­it on xeno­pho­bia in polit­i­cal dis­course, which includes com­ments made by polit­i­cal fig­ures against the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty, remarks made against South Asian can­di­dates for polit­i­cal office, and tips on how com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers can respond to such rhetoric, which have been fea­tured by UC Davis Law Pro­fes­sor Bill O. Hing over at Immi­gra­tionProf­Blog.