Publications

Reports | Tes­ti­mo­ny & Pol­i­cy Rec­om­men­da­tions | Fact­sheets & Brochures | Train­ings & Webi­na­rs | Mul­ti­me­dia Projects

Reports

SAALT’s work in the after­math of 9/11 focused on doc­u­ment­ing the lived expe­ri­ences of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, pro­vid­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for struc­tur­al and pol­i­cy change. In the final 10 years of the organization’s his­to­ry, the reports shift­ed to iden­ti­fy­ing the under­ly­ing caus­es of hate vio­lence aimed at South Asian, Mus­lim, Sikh, and Arab Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties, linked to the U.S. gov­ern­men­t’s poli­cies of sur­veil­lance and the War on Ter­ror. In its final years, SAALT exam­ined the addi­tion­al dis­par­i­ties result­ing from the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. We invite you to revis­it our reports and publications:

  • Amer­i­can Back­lash (2001):
    Released with­in two weeks of Sep­tem­ber 11th, this report doc­u­ment­ed 645 inci­dents of harass­ment, phys­i­cal vio­lence, van­dal­ism and bul­ly­ing tar­get­ing South Asian, Mus­lim and Arab communities.
  • From Maca­cas to Tur­ban Top­pers: The Rise in Xeno­pho­bic and Racist Rhetoric in Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Dis­course (2010):
    SAALT doc­u­ments the rise in racist, xeno­pho­bic and Islam­o­pho­bic rhetoric with­in polit­i­cal dis­course, and how it affects polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion and civic engagement.
  • SAALT Issue Briefs on Impact of Racial and Reli­gious Pro­fil­ing in South Asian Com­mu­ni­ty (March 2010): SAALT pro­duced pol­i­cy briefs that high­light the impact of racial and reli­gious pro­fil­ing on the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty in the con­texts of trav­el, immi­gra­tion and surveillance.
  • Com­mu­ni­ty Resilience (2011):
    On the 10 year anniver­sary of 9/11, SAALT presents sto­ries of resis­tance and resilience of indi­vid­u­als, orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ties with exam­ples of sol­i­dar­i­ty practice.
  • In Our Own Words, Nar­ra­tives of South Asian New York­ers Affect­ed by Racial and Reli­gious Pro­fil­ing (2012):
    Along with our part­ners, Desis Ris­ing Up and Mov­ing, The Sikh Coali­tion, UNITED SIKHS, South Asian Youth Action, Coney Island Avenue Project and Coun­cil of Peo­ples Orga­ni­za­tion, SAALT released a report that doc­u­ment­ed nar­ra­tives of South Asian New York­ers who endure height­ened scruti­ny in their dai­ly lives, affect­ing their per­son­al lives and sense of iden­ti­ty, as well as basic deci­sions regard­ing liveli­hood, wor­ship, and education.
  • SAALT State­ment for U.S. Com­mis­sion on Civ­il Rights (2012):
    SAALT pro­vid­ed writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing a meet­ing of the US Com­mis­sion on Civ­il Rights focused on AMEMSA communities.
  • In the Face of Xeno­pho­bia: Lessons to Address Bul­ly­ing of South Asian Amer­i­can Youth (2013):
    In this col­lab­o­ra­tion with SAALT, Mon­isha Bajaj, Ameena Ghaf­far-Kuch­er and Kar­ish­ma Desai pro­vide exer­cis­es and les­son plans for edu­ca­tors work­ing with South Asian Amer­i­can youth.
  • Under Sus­pi­cion, Under Attack: Xeno­pho­bic Polit­i­cal Rhetoric and Hate Vio­lence against South Asian, Mus­lim, Sikh, Hin­du, Mid­dle East­ern, and Arab Com­mu­ni­ties in the Unit­ed States (2014):
    SAALT’s report finds that South Asian, Mus­lim, Sikh, Hin­du, Mid­dle East­ern, and Arab com­mu­ni­ties are sub­ject to an increas­ing­ly hos­tile cli­mate in the Unit­ed States, char­ac­ter­ized by fre­quent hate vio­lence and ris­ing xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric in the nation­al polit­i­cal debate.
  • Pow­er, Pain, Poten­tial: South Asian Amer­i­cans at the Fore­front of Growth and Hate in the 2016 Elec­tion Cycle (2017):
    SAALT pro­vides the first com­pre­hen­sive report doc­u­ment­ing hate vio­lence and xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric aimed at South Asian, Mus­lim, Arab, Sikh, Hin­du, and Mid­dle East­ern Amer­i­cans dur­ing the his­toric 2016 elec­tion cycle. This report exam­ines the dra­mat­ic demo­graph­ic growth of South Asians across the Unit­ed States, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the South, and reveals how this growth inter­sects with his­toric sys­tems and poli­cies of injus­tice lead­ing to a sharp rise in vio­lence dur­ing the most divi­sive Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in mod­ern Amer­i­can history.
  • Com­mu­ni­ties on Fire: Con­fronting Hate Vio­lence and Xeno­pho­bic Polit­i­cal Rhetoric (2018):
    SAALT’s report doc­u­ments hate vio­lence and xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric aimed at our com­mu­ni­ties from Elec­tion Day 2016 to exact­ly one year lat­er in 2017, reflect­ing lev­els of vio­lence not seen since the year imme­di­ate­ly after Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. The report also under­lines the way inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty informs hate — both the iden­ti­ties of vic­tims tar­get­ed and the sys­tems that crim­i­nal­ize our communities.
  • Unequal Con­se­quences: The Dis­parate Impact of Covid-19 Across South Asian Com­mu­ni­ties (2020): SAALT’s report looks at the impact of the ear­ly months of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic by cen­ter­ing accounts from local South Asian Amer­i­can orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing those most affect­ed, as well as find­ings from SAALT’s com­mu­ni­ty sur­vey that elicit­ed near­ly 400 respons­es. The report exam­ines not only COVID-19 infec­tion and fatal­i­ty rates in South Asian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties, but also inter­sec­tions with esca­lat­ing threats to immi­gra­tion, work­ers rights, men­tal health, hous­ing, lan­guage access, as well as hate vio­lence and domes­tic violence.

Testimony and Policy Recommendations

With the sup­port of allies, includ­ing those in the NCSO, SAALT advo­cates for pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy change on Capi­tol Hill by orga­niz­ing and col­lab­o­rat­ing on Con­gres­sion­al Brief­in­gs, writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny, and tar­get­ed lob­by­ing to advance pol­i­cy recommendations.

Factsheets and Brochures

Through these bite-size doc­u­ments, SAALT presents crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion around key issues (like cit­i­zen­ship and (im)migration, vot­ing rights and vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, jus­tice-cen­tric health and safe­ty, and region­al demo­graph­ics) more acces­si­ble for South Asian Amer­i­cans. Many of these resources are avail­able in South Asian lan­guages, thanks to sup­port from Respond Cri­sis Trans­la­tion and oth­er lan­guage jus­tice part­ners in our network.

Trainings & Webinars

In vir­tu­al and in-per­son spaces, SAALT engages com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in dia­logues on issues like com­bat­ting caste suprema­cy, dis­man­tling anti-Black racism, and empow­er­ing anti-colo­nial strug­gles. To sched­ule a small­er train­ing or webi­nar with SAALT, email us at info@saalt.org.

Multimedia Projects

SAALT also uses mul­ti-media tools, rang­ing from web­sites and inter­ac­tive maps to video inter­views and curat­ed blog posts, to engage var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in a vari­ety of dialogues.