On tonight’s show, we share two feisty and powerful tales of grassroots activism. On the first half of tonight’s South Asian edition, members of ASATA – the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, an activist collective in the Bay Area – remember and reflect on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Co-authors and ASATA members, Sunaina Maira, Madihah Akhtar and Sabiha Basrai read salient excerpts from their paper titled “South Asian American Progressive Organizing in the Bay Area: Reflections on a Post 9/11 era.”
The paper also highlights the many changes and challenges that Muslim and South Asian American communities have experienced, and, continue to experience in the two decades since 9/11. It also shines a light on the multiple ways in which these communities have responded resiliently, against racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia. To read the full paper, visit asata.org on or after Sep 11, 2021.
Music Credits: Music played in the feature can be found here.
In the second half of the show guest producer Anuj Vaidya interviews environmental activist Sanjiv Valsan in Bombay, about efforts to save Bombay’s urban forests, and to rewild them – that is, to reclaim them, to make them wild again, to reforest them – by planting native species.
Show hosted and produced by Preeti Gamzeh; editorial support: Ruhi Putta; tech support: Frank Sterling