South Asian Network
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SAN was recently featured in Divyabhaskar, a Gujarati newspaper, for our march in favor of LBGTQ+ South Asian communities in Artesia down Pioneer Boulevard.
Here is a link to the original newspaper in Gujarati with the article found on page 27: https://digital.theindianeye.us/DBNA/070822/.
Keep scrolling to read a translated version of the article:
“On Sunday, June 26, the South Asian Network Group organized a Pride Rally on Artesia’s Pioneer Bee in Los Angeles. The rally was also accompanied by a good group. The South Asian LGBTQ community aimed to raise awareness and demand that they be given the same respect, rights and hobbies as anyone else in the community. May, it is not a shame to be a lesbian. The physical condition given by nature must find a place in society without shame. LGBTQ – lesbian y, transgender, quet, questionmg People have the same rights as other people in the society, there were many people in this rally for the purpose of meeting, every citizen of the world should cooperate to bring awareness about LGBTQ community. These people are ashamed of their sexuality, because people look down on them and do not respect them. His family, friends and society looked at him not out of prejudice, but out of respect and joined hands to ensure that the community had all the rights to join.”
Artesia/Los Angeles
–Divyabhaskar
Shakeel Syed wrote this Op-Ed about Independence Day, the path this nation has been down since our independence, and how independence from the British centuries ago has not meant independence for all.
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We know that the lonely Native American female warrior as the statue of freedom atop the Capitol Dome was cast in bronze by a foundry that used enslaved labor. No different is lady “liberty” (in New York), which was also erected by the enslaved.
And, the White House could not be standing shining all these years if not for the sweat of the enslaved blacks.
Without forgetting this sordid past, let’s fast forward.
The claims of the more recent Presidents occupying the White House ranged from: “Government is not the solution to our problem, Government is the problem,” (Ronald Reagan) to “Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference,” (Barrack Hussein Obama) to the most recent one by the orange hair monster “Make America Great Again.” In these words, there’s very little of greatness and a whole lot of pettiness. Here is why.
Our petty Presidents and politicians of all persuasions continue tounashamedly plot policies that set back the lives of 99% Americans and advance the lives of the 1%.
Our petty Presidents and the Congress always find ways to give more to thewrongly named “Defense Department’s” budget of $800+ billion, while neither are ashamed to trim down the resources to education, healthcareand other social services.
Today’s Supreme Court is like the Torquemada of American law. Tomas de Torquemada, the 15thcentury Dominican friar who became the grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, who was largely responsible for torturing and the burning of heretics. The modern Tomas de Torquemadais yet to be found with bloody instruments in their hands, but they are the owners of their blood stained pens banishing women of their rights to their bodies.
While the “free” America continues to insist for a safer world for herself, at any cost, it fails to protect her very own. Every day, armed men and women wearing blue uniforms kill unarmed black and brown men and women.
The most dramatic wealth gap is between middling millionaires, who have seen only “modest” gains, and the booming billionaires, who now seem to defy economic gravity.
We claim our nation to be the richest, but it is more debt-ridden and even more debt-dependent than ever before. This indebtedness is what Thomas Jefferson feared the most when he said, “I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared.”
While celebrating this Independence Day let us not forget the immeasurable human pain and poverty that continues to exist amidst us, and let us continue to fight for the oppressed and against the oppressors, in it we shall find our true collective independence and not by waving the cheap Chinese made American flags!
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Shakeel Syed is the Executive Director of South Asian Network.
Hina Ahmed, the Deputy Director here at SAN, recently had an Op-Ed published in India West regarding the recent Roe v Wade ruling. Keep scrolling to read!
Anti-abortion ruling is not taking our country backward. It is moving our nation forward, but to a future that is going to be far more sinister than the pre-abortion era. Here are a few reasons for my concern.
And I can list a few more reasons, but you get my point.
So, what do we do and where do we go…? I suggest we make a few concrete demands from those whom we elected.
In the interim, we must remain agitated and re-commit ourselves to help women access abortions and other reproductive health care and to protect them from the harsh burdens we all will inevitably face.
We can neither afford our nation to go backwards nor can we allow our country to go forward with laws that sets us on a path of self-destruction and for future generations to come.
Rise my people. If not now, then when and if not us then who!
Hina Ahmad serves as the Deputy Director of South Asian Network.
Shakeel Syed, our Executive Director at SAN, recently had an article published in India West—an Indian/Indian-American online publication. Access this link to read the article!
Here are a few short excerpts from the article:
“The recent murder of the innocent people on both coasts reminds us of the mordant wit of the Sufi mystic who said ‘I love the moon because it brightens the sky and helps us navigate the dark night. And I hate the sun because it only comes out during the day when it is bright anyway.’
Most of us are capable of missing what is perfectly obvious, especially when we allow our thinking to become fogged with strong emotion.
Yes, we should condemn the murder and mourn the loss of lives from Laguna Woods to Buffalo but we should also struggle to open our eyes and discern the perfectly obvious patterned behavior here.”
“In an age of connecting the cosmos, America must learn to make connections here on earth between corrosive psychological violence and lethal gun violence, between our tribalism and ‘their’ isolation and alienation, and most obviously between all those bullet-riddled corpses and the smoking guns that any lost soul can so easily buy or steal. Otherwise, we may continue to believe that sunlight is a waste because the days are always bright anyway.”
The South Asian Network, an advocacy group based in Southern California’s Little India in Artesia, will soon receive $200,000 to expand its programs around mental health, citizenship assistance and small business support.
Bank of America today announced the five winners of its Racial Equity Award, part of its philanthropic efforts. One of the honorees is Manjusha P. Kulkarni, who in 2020 co-founded Stop AAPI Hate, an organization that tracks anti-Asian harassment nationwide.
The award allows Kulkarni, who lives in Los Angeles, to direct $200,000 to a nonprofit of her choice — and she decided on the South Asian Network.
Part of the funds will go toward creating a small business mentorship program to help combat negative effects on local South Asian small businesses from the pandemic and anti-Asian hate. The program will get started in a few months with at least 50 mentors.
