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Oral history interview with Ifti Nasim
An interview with Ifti Nasim conducted by Kareem Khubchandani in 2009, two years before Nasim passed away. Ifti Nasim was one of the founding members of Sangat, an early South Asian LGBT organization in the United States.
Oral History Interview with Alex
Alex is an Indo-Guyanese drag performer. In the oral history, Alex describes growing up in New York, navigating their Indo-Guyanese and Sicilian identities, their connection to multiple faith traditions, and their experiences as a drag performer at the intersection of these identities.
Oral History Interview with Bishakh Som
Bishakh Som is the author of the graphic novel Apsara Engine. In the oral history, Bishakh describes growing up in Ethiopia and New York, studying and practicing architecture, "hatching" as a trans person, and storytelling through illustration.
Veena Wilhelm Oral History Interview
Veena Wilhelm is a mental health therapist who works in Seattle, Washington. She is originally from Andhra Pradesh, India.
Oral History Interview with Fariha Róisín
Fariha Róisín is a queer Muslim poet, podcaster, writer and artist. She is the author of the poetry collection How to Cure a Ghost and the novel Like a Bird.
State Senator Roxanne Persaud Oral History
Roxanne Persaud, a New York state senator from Brooklyn, left Guyana in 1984, at the age of 17. Her parents and most of her siblings had already emigrated from the country several years before, sponsored to come to America by a nurse aunt. Sen.
Nariza and Ryan Budhu Oral History
Nariza Budhu, who emigrated from Guyana in the early 1980s, speaks with her American-born son Ryan Budhu, an attorney at a law firm, a photographer and past president of the South Asian Bar Association of New York. Nariza recounts coming to New York City for the first time to seek medical care for her toddler Ravi, who was born premature and had a heart defect.
Chitra and Pritha Singh Oral History Interview
Chitra Singh is a singer/songwriter and a nursing aide. Here, she and her sister Pritha, co-founder of the Rakjumari Cultural Center, an Indo-Caribbean arts and culture organization in Queens, share the family's history of double diaspora and some of the objects, including an intricately carved brass lota, that made the journey across generations from India to Guyana to New York City.
Kokila Bahadur Oral History Interview
Kokila Bahadur, a retired registered nurse, speaks with her niece Gaiutra about coming to America alone in her late twenties, when she was a married mother of two. She came as a nurse trainee at the Jersey City Medical Center in 1966, the year of Guyana's independence.
Salima and Aliyah Khan Oral History Interview
Salima Khan, a high school teacher and college adjunct lecturer in Queens, converses with her daughter Aliyah, an associate professor of English Literature at the University of Michigan and author of Far From Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean.