Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #southasianamerican, aggregated by home.social.
Hello Bay Area!
I’ve been posting about the process of creating a San Francisco South Asian Radical History Walking Tour
Well, our public SF opening weekend is coming up July 12 and 13, and over half the spots are already registered.
Please reserve a spot if you’re interested
Trump just signed an order putting language requirements on commercial truck drivers.
But we know who this targets: the 100,000 South Asian truck drivers, many of whom are Punjabi/Sikh, who power the industry
(If you’ve ever wondered why there’s delicious Indian food on the highway between SF and LA, now you know why.)
https://www.sikhcoalition.org/blog/2025/breaking-new-executive-order-on-trucking/
It’s a scary time for health equity, but here’s some good news!
While other universities and health systems are buckling, UCLA Health is still working to serve the specific health needs of the diverse communities they serve
January's MAGA-vs-Musk H1B debate ended w/Desi workers treated as punching bags
One reason I'm a member of the Bay Area's leftie Alliance of South Asians Taking Action is because they have the ability to deal with nuance
ASATA just published its understanding of how H1B workers fit into a larger vision of the dignity of immigrant workers, including spouses, kids aging out, Muslims, and green card applicants trapped in line forever
https://www.asata.org/post/777134732867731456/guest-worker-statement
Normalizing hate has consequences.
From Desi social media: This Indian American nurse was brutally attacked by a patient who explained that “Indians are bad. I just beat the s*** out of an Indian doctor”
Narika and all the other South Asian American feminist/anti-DV/anti-violence groups do such critical work in our communities
https://indiacurrents.com/narika-opens-second-transitional-home-in-bay-area/
“They had endorsed Trump’s racism and xenophobia, hoping it would conveniently spare them as the exception. So, unable to call it racism—lest this exposes the hypocrisy of their endorsement…Hindu groups are crying Hinduphobia”
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/2/27/its-regular-old-racism-not
Indian American media is finally picking up on the fact that Musk doesn’t really like us, even if he posts approvingly of the H1B visa
https://indiacurrents.com/musk-to-rehire-doge-staffer-who-posted-anti-indian-hate-on-social-media/
Damn. Kash used to be a South Asian Bar Association board member, and a diversity mentor?
There’s never been a more deserving life member of the #DesiWallOfShame
"The task force, which released its report in August 2024, acknowledged that caste-based discrimination exists at Rutgers, stating that it 'limits the potential and opportunities of some in our university community.'"
6/x Fave reads of 2024…
We need historical fiction to make South Asian American history come alive.
"Step up to the Plate, Maria Singh" by Uma Krishnaswami is a sweet middle grade novel about a Punjabi-Mexican girl navigating race and citizenship in WW2 era California.
https://www.leeandlow.com/books/step-up-to-the-plate-maria-singh/
People sometimes ask why ethnic news media is important. Here’s an example of a journalist covering a larger story, using a very different lens.
https://indicanews.com/five-indian-origin-individuals-feature-in-president-bidens-clemency-list/
There are professional style guides out there, but @anildash’s explainer might be enough
https://anildash.com/2019/11/21/a-primer-on-south-asians-and-desis/
“‘Your family is from India, you have no respect, you have no rules,’ she said in the video. She then reached for her phone and said she was going to record while calling him ‘tandoori” in a derogatory way.’”
https://autos.yahoo.com/news/indian-american-family-subjected-racist-211732890.html
Trump's people are threatening to denaturalize citizens. Folks are scared.
For anyone who believe this could never happen, a racist Supreme Court *already* did this.
In 1923, every single Indian American was stripped of their U.S. citizenship. It was the first mass denaturalization of an entire ethnic group.
Telling the story of Vaishno Das Bagai is more important than ever.
I research South Asian American histories in Berkeley, California. I just came across the earliest story yet.
In 1880s Berkeley, a turbaned figure known as Old James wandered the hills.
The “Hindu” immigrant milker on a dairy farm was a curiosity to neighbors.
James' life, as a child on the farm remembered it, was a mix of labor, opium addiction, prophecy, and maybe loneliness. 🧵
I wrote about him at
https://www.secretdesihistory.com/old-james-1880s-berkeley
#SouthAsianAmerican #histodons #AsianAmerican #Berkeley #BerkeleyCA
New Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour!
Our next several tours are all sold out, so we opened up a surprise tour next Saturday, November 9 in Berkeley, CA. Last I checked, there were only 12 spots left. Please come join us.
"South Asian voters in the battleground states are overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning and can be the decisive margin for victory. Vice President Harris leads President Trump by 48 points among South Asian voters"
I guess I'm sad, but not surprised:
"Don’t get me wrong — I get that there’s a pipeline for second-generation immigrants: from elite private schools to becoming a multimillionaire to conservative politics. Proximity to wealth and power is enticing, strong enough to distort and misshape long-held values and beliefs. And we do have some sense of what her beliefs once were."
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-09-23/usha-vance-jd-vance-immigration-politics
"At a time when the unfinished agenda of the Civil Rights Movement is under attack and the freedoms we cherish are at risk, the widespread characterization of Indian Americans as rugged individualists pits us against other communities who have faced marginalization for generations and glosses over South Asian American communities who face poverty and other barriers."
The Indian American Muslim Council in CalMatters: “We must teach our neighbors and local legislators to distinguish between Hinduism the religion and Hindutva as a supremacist political ideology."
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/06/hindu-nationalism-india-california-politics/
"Growing up in India, I was, unfortunately, no stranger to racist biases. Some of my aunts believed fair skin was more beautiful. Villains in books…were usually portrayed with darker skin…A South Indian friend who moved to Bombay was…called 'Kaalu' (black) at school. We might try to pass off these examples as 'small things' but they aren’t…even subtle bias against dark skin can build a wall between South Asians and other communities of color."
https://indiacurrents.com/silence-is-violence-examining-our-own-bias/
"To combat misperceptions, some have begun educating their Los Angeles neighbors on their own. Kashalkar helps organize weekly Zoom meetings to discuss India’s future with Americans. Geeta Sikand, a registered dietitian nutritionist originally from New Delhi and a communications director for Americans 4 Hindus, a pro-Hindu super PAC, said she’s submitted at least 35 'rebuttals' to the Los Angeles Times, none of which have been published."
Thank you #HindusForHumanRights, for speaking out on Palestine in our community spaces
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7A5N-IOKyl/
https://www.hindusforhumanrights.org/en/blog/hindus-for-human-rights-stands-firm-after-walking-out-on-vp-kamala-harris-at-ia-impact-summit
Sometimes I still pinch myself
#KalaBagaiWay #Berkeley #AAPIHeritageMonth #SouthAsianAmerican
I research South Asian American history in Berkeley, California. And though I hate relying on colonial police/surveillance documents to understand stories of movements, some of the materials are gold.
This 1913 report from British arch-villain super-spy Hopkinson relies on informants to describe tensions among the early pre-Ghadar Indian nationalist students at UC Berkeley.
It includes all kinds of juicy details, including…
(1/3, continued below)
We led our 272nd Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour last weekend, when two participants unexpectedly brought a story alive.
On the tour, we use street theater, visuals and storytelling to explore the anti-Emergency movement, when international students at UC Berkeley organized to resist Indira Gandhi’s state of emergency in India, between 1975-1977.
#SouthAsianAmerican #SouthAsianDiaspora #Berkeley #PublicHistory… (1/4)
"On social media platforms such as Twitter, and Blind, an app used by tech professionals many of whom are Indian immigrants, any criticism of hate crimes in India is quickly met with accusations of being unpatriotic or engaging in whataboutism, effectively stifling meaningful dialogue. This inconsistency speaks to a deeper issue of our insecurities, and our inability to introspect our cultural shortcomings."
📣 PLEASE SHARE & SPREAD THE WORD!
Know an emerging South Asian American activist, ages 18-23?
Bay Area Solidarity Summer is a lifechanging 5-day training to grow skills, build networks, find mentors, and launch new projects.
It runs Aug 7-11, 2024 online and in-person in Oakland, CA
Apply by this Sunday, Mar 31 for first priority. More details on our website, including some of our other favorite programs.
“The Hindu supremacist movement is not only harmful to Indian, South Asian, and Muslim Americans, but runs deeply counter to our values of collective liberation”