@anirvan

@jeridanskyI know someone whose US last name is LNU
Last name unkn of an.
He decided to go with the name

#southasianamerican

Happy #BlackHistoryMonth!

I want to share something really cool that I discovered.

I've been digging into intersections between Black and #SouthAsianAmerican history, and found something new.

We know about Punjabi Mexicans and Black Bengalis.

But I just found 3 examples of Black women in New York and Chicago married to Punjabi/Sikh men back in 1940.

👇🏽 Keep reading for the whole story

1/n

#USHistory #AsianAmerican #EthnicStudies #BlackHistory #Geneadons #Histodons #Sikh #MastIndia #Desi

I'm a volunteer for Bay Area Solidarity Summer, an annual 5-day training for emerging progressive South Asian American activists, ages 18-23.

We used to use Twitter, now trying to to get the word out on Mastodon.

🙏🏽 Can you please boost for visibility?

CALLING ALL #SouthAsianAmerican / #Desi ACTIVISTS:

5 days at Bay Area Solidarity Summer can help you sharpen your analysis, develop strategies for change, learn histories, and grow networks. Apply by 3/19.

More at https://www.SolidaritySummer.org/

1/n

Exactly 100 years ago, the US Supreme Court's ruling in "U.S. v. Thind" led to every single Indian American having their citizenship forcibly removed.

But how did the mass denaturalization *actually* happen?

@prof_erikalee found the receipts and shared them here:

https://www.saada.org/tides/article/united-states-of-america-vs-vaishno-das-bagai

Here's what she found…

(thread continues)

1/n

#BhagatSinghThind #Histodons #CivilRights #SouthAsianAmerican #Desi #AsianAmerican #Racism #USHistory

A business card for Bombay Inn, one of the earliest Indian restaurants in San Francisco.

It was located at 700 Great Highway, next to Ocean Beach.

The menu on the back of the card featured everything from lamb curry and papads to enchiladas and bacon waffles.

Source: https://www.saada.org/item/20130307-1316

This presumably dates to on or after 1920, per this list of new businesses on the @internetarchive:

https://archive.org/details/sanfranciscobusi2131sanf/page/n105/mode/1up?q=%22700+great+highway%22+%22bombay+inn%22

#SouthAsianAmerican #Desi #SFBA #SanFrancisco #AsianAmerican #FoodHistory

Happy Christmas!

I recently rediscovered this 1911 Christmas story about a kind bearded Sikh immigrant in California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

It's quite charming, and was published during a time of vicious anti-Indian violence up and down the West Coast.

I cleaned it up the OCR, and you can now read the full text at:

https://www.secretdesihistory.com/a-sikh-american-christmas-story-from-1911-b1aff8516465

#Christmas #Sikh #SouthAsianAmerican #AsianAmerican #California #SanFrancisco #History

3/ Creating public evidence of a brown immigrant woman, a survivor of local and state racism, isn't about diversity points for Wikipedia. It has real world impact.

I've met folks who walked down Kala Bagai Way in #Berkeley, CA, got curious, looked her up, and landed on our page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_Bagai

I sometimes take #Wikipedia for granted but it's such an important tool to help make meaning of the world.

#AsianAmerican #SouthAsianAmerican #Histodons @histodons

@writing @asianamerican
@nonprofit

Asian American Writers' Workshop is running its annual pledge drive: "From book launches to fellowships to workshops to the incredible authors you read every day on #TheMargins, YOU make this work possible! We hope you'll think of #AAWW this #GivingTuesday and beyond 🌻

Great org and great people doing great work. #nonprofits #asianamericans #writing #literature #southasianamerican

More info at https://aaww.org/donate/

still trying to figure out hashtags!

👆🏽 So this thread is for my #SouthAsian #SouthAsianAmerican #SouthAsianDiaspora #MastIndia #AsianAmerican #AAPI #AsianAmericanHistory #SanFrancisco #BayArea #SFBay #History community

From @anirvan. A lovely thread re:#southasianamerican history:
https://mastodon.social/@anirvan/109396052286512325

#southasianamerican #desiamerican et. al variants

Hey, it's #TombTuesday!

I recently came across a cluster of graves of Afghan/Pakistani men buried at the Sacramento California City Cemetery.

Some, maybe all, were associated with the Afghanistan Welfare Association.

These graves give us a glimpse of early histories South Asian American and Muslim mutual aid and community care.

See their names here:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?lastname=Khan&location=Sacramento%2C+Sacramento+County%2C+California%2C+United+States+of+America&locationId=city_20094

Photo by Tom Spaulding, https://flic.kr/p/duXTe

#SouthAsianAmerican #AsianAmerican #AAPI #history #Muslim #MutualAid

One of the joys (and weirdnesses) of telling #SouthAsianAmerican histories is how people will share their own stories with you.

Today, I met a man, maybe in his 70s, who told me about moving from India to Tuscon in the late 70s, and the people he met.

He had first hand accounts of old Punjabi Mexican families, and shared an intriguing story about early Singh fathers and their role in popularizing Pima cotton.

I started digging into the story, but nothing obvious came up in books and papers…