Community Care in South Asian Organizing Work
By Sahana Mehta
For South Asian organizers and activists today, self and community care are vital to our survival and resistance. I emphasize community care because capitalist structures constantly force us to push it to the wayside, in favor of toxic individualism. In discussing community care in South Asian organizing, I will touch on the following topics: intergenerational networks of solidarity, emotional labor and cultivating the margins, and harnessing collective power and care to sustain our work.
Intergenerational Networks of Solidarity:
I put this point first because I believe that locating ourselves within histories of South Asian resistance grounds us in the work in a way that ties us to our pasts, presents, and futures. In order to do this locating work, we must engage in the ongoing process of excavating our histories. Because of constructions like the model minority myth, many South Asians living in the U.S. struggle to connect themselves with stories of resistance. However, over the past few years, I have learnt that resistance is found where you might least expect it. In my own process, I have talked to my family members about issues ranging from their experiences in pre-Independence India, to their struggles to gain education, to the racism they experienced upon arrival in the U.S., to mental health stigma, to South Asian American women’s activism in the early 2000s, and so on. During this continuous work, one can also enter spaces dedicated to South Asian resistance. For young people (~18-24), programs like Bay Area Solidarity Summer, Los Angeles Summer Solidarity Initiative, Chicago Desi Youth Rising, East Coast Solidarity Summer, and South Asian Americans Leading Together’s Young Leaders Institute create communities of South Asians committed to dismantling systems of oppression. In these communities, I have found mentors, friends, and above all, comrades in the struggle for justice.
Emotional Labor and Cultivating the Margins:
In order to cultivate practices of community care, we must recognize the emotional labor that goes into creating community and organizing spaces, as well as the people who are doing that labor. More often than not, South Asian femmes will perform the labor of creating and sustaining our communities. Furthermore, those whose narratives are constantly erased in South Asian spaces are often called upon or forced to do the labor necessary to make that space habitable for themselves and for others who share their identities. For example, because Indians and Hindus dominate most South Asian spaces, those who are neither Indian nor Hindu often have to expend their energy to remind others that they are not Indian/Hindu, and therefore cannot identify with whatever is being said or done. In order to create strong and lasting South Asian community spaces, those who come from dominant identities must do the work of unpacking their privileges, and learning about other histories and experiences, coming to recognize the deep and perplexing complexities of the region we call “South Asia,” as well as its diaspora.
Harnessing Collective Power and Care to Sustain Our Work:
In order to do transformative justice work, our organizing communities must take the time to create methods of community care that are sustainable for the group, as well as the individual. Furthermore, we must understand and work to heal our traumas. In her article, Reckoning with Trauma 16 Years After, Deepa Iyer, founder of South Asian Americans Leading Together, author of We Too Sing America, and incredible South Asian activist, writes “If our movements, campaigns, and organizations are expected to succeed in post 9/11 America and beyond, we need cultural, systemic and institutional changes that respond to the emotional toll of collective, individual, and historic trauma” (Iyer). Like Deepa, I believe that we will have to do organizing work to dismantle the structures that prevent us from pursuing collective care. And though we must do this work, it is important to remember that our movements cannot embody justice if they replicate capitalist and oppressive strategies.
In times of intense violence and fascism against our and other communities, we must learn to recognize our intersectional identities in their totality, and from there, pursue this labor of love.
Bibliography
https://medium.com/@dviyer/https-medium-com-dviyer-reckoning-with-trauma-16-years-after-sept11-98e063b6197e
Sahana Mehta is a rising second year at Scripps College majoring in Feminist Gender Sexuality Studies and International Intercultural Studies. She is also a former Sakhi Development Intern. Sahana is involved in a lot of organizing work on her campus and is committed to cultivating radical South Asian spaces wherever she can.