Oral History Interview with Rangoli
Anish, Deepshikha and Satvika are co-founders of Rangoli, an LGBTQ+ South Asian group based in Pittsburgh, and editors of Mirrors, an LGBTQ+ South Asian anthology. They describe their personal histories individually followed by a discussion on how their involvement with Mirrors and Rangoli.
Jahin Rahman Oral History Interview
Jahin Rahman talks about his work as founder of EYDB and the organization's activities during the pandemic.
Content Warning: violence against children
In this slideshow, you will see:
Food delivery and aid during the pandemic.
Volunteer gathering workshop as a part of community initiative in Queens.
In this slideshow, you will see:
Bronx Mutual Aid (BMA) Pro Palestine Rally.
BMA at Bangladeshi dance school that was used as food storage in Bronx.
BMA Food delivery.
Anti-Rape Rally in solidarity with survivors in Bangladesh.
BMA census work.
V. V. ('Sugi') Ganeshananthan Oral History Interview
V. V. ('Sugi') Ganeshananthan is an Ilankai Tamil American fiction writer and scholar based at the University of Minnesota. Her first novel is titled Love Marriage and her second novel was forthcoming at the time of this archived interview. Sugi discusses her upbringing and experiences being in Tamil American spaces.
Meenadchi Oral History Interview
Meenadchi is an Ilankai Tamil American facilitator and practitioner of non-violent communication. Meenadchi's interview is important to this project by discussing how collective healing might be facilitated for the Tamil community, where many community members have inflicted, and simultaneously were victims of, armed violence of fellow Tamils.
Maya McCoy Oral History Interview
Maya McCoy (she/her) leads organizing efforts with the Ilankai Tamil Feminist collective known as Maynmai. At the time of this interview, she is also a second year medical student, having made the transition into medicine soon after spending time in Sri Lanka on a fellowship.
Roshni Rustomji-Kerns Oral History Interview
The interview was conducted as part of SAADA's ACFP 2021-2022. This interviewee discussed her early childhood and family life in Karachi and Mumbai before and after the Partition of India and Pakistan. She described the differences and similarities of being brought up as a Parsi woman in India and Pakistan.
Bella and Anibel Comelo Oral History Interview
Bella Comelo and her daughter, Anibel Comelo-Ferris, are both of Goan Christian origin and both have a long history of labor organizing here in the US, Bella through her job with the school district and Anibel through her work as a university professor who also served as a union organizer.
In this slideshow, you will see:
Pabitra Khati Benjamin Oral History Interview
Pabitra Khati Benjamin speaks about her childhood, moving to the US as a child, going back to Nepal with more privilege, and her journey to become an organizer. She reflects on race, caste, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and the relative privilege Asians have compared to Black, Native American, and Latinx communities.