Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA)

ASATA, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, is a San Francisco Bay Area all-volunteer group working to educate, organize, and empower the Bay Area South Asian communities to end violence, oppression, racism and exploitation within and against our diverse communities.

Since 2000, we’ve been engaged in campaigns around racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, immigration justice, gender-based exploitation, and peace in South Asia and the United States. We are best known for our work on complicated crises affecting South Asian communities (e.g. Reddy case, INS special registration).

Our members direct our organizational priorities and run our programs. Our coordinators (or coords) manage ASATA’s day-to-day operations, such as fundraising and web site/email maintenance; provide support to members to run the organization; and make sure the organization stays accountable to our community and to the vision and values that our members have shaped over the years.

Most of our work happens through Circles (small, collectively led groups):

• Education Circle: Houses much of our political education work in ASATA and in our broader community

• Culture, Arts and Community Circle: Provides arts, culture and social activities through social justice lenses

• Campaign Circles: Form to lead specific campaigns, actions, and media work (eg. 10th Anniversary of the Reddy Case, ASATA Delegation to the United States Social Forum)

• Muslim Circle: ASATA has made a growing commitment to address issues of Islamophobia within the South Asian context and in our own communities, and we feel its necessary that a space be created for Muslims to gather in order to share, support, build and process together. The Muslim Circle is a safe discussion space to explore issues within Muslim communities, islamophobia, and to provide a space for community building for Muslim folks involved with ASATA and beyond. This is an open space that celebrates, welcomes and supports ASATA’s Muslim members of all identities and practices.

The Circles and members come together to share updates and make large organizational decisions at our general membership meetings and via our members-only email list.

Creating Safety in the Bay Area, Pakistan, and Around the World

May 13, 2010

Last week, Faisal Shahzad was arrested for allegedly trying to set off a car bomb in New York's Times Square. Local and federal branches of U.S. government have responded by spreading hateful messages that feed into a renewed fear of immigrants. These messages put immigrant communities at risk of being targeted by racist violence in the U.S. and our homelands.

Mainstream media and many progressive groups within the U.S. have been noticeably silent about what these messages mean for the safety of immigrant communities in America. The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA) is responding to this silence and countering some of the dangerous statements put out by government officials. Additionally, ASATA shares some thoughts on building the long-term, broad-based, multi-issue alliances needed to counter violent government repression that is currently targeting Muslims, South Asians, Arabs and members of other immigrant communities.

In President Obama’s inauguration speech, he said: "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." We agree with that message. But we’re seeing government agencies do the exact opposite.

Boycott Israel? Amitav Ghosh & the Dan David Prize

Dear Amitav Ghosh,

We wish to express our deep disappointment in your decision to accept the Dan David prize, administered by Tel Aviv University and to be awarded by the President of Israel. As a writer whose work has dwelled consistently on histories of colonialism and displacement, your refusal to take stance on the colonial question in the case of Israel and the occupation of Palestine has provoked deep dismay, frustration, and puzzlement among readers and fans of your work around the world. Many admired your principled stand, and respected your decision not to accept the Commonwealth Writers Prize in rejection of the colonialist framework it represented.

As scholars, writers, and activists of South Asian origin and those working on South Asia and on anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-imperial politics at large, based largely in the United States like you, but also in South Asia, we think this is an important moment to consider the reasons why South Asians should take a principled stand, along with others, in refusing to legitimize a state guilty of war crimes and illegal occupation and instead joining the growing movement for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

The coordinators are restructuring ASATA general meetings to make them more exciting and useful for our members :)

Till then, members are welcome to plug into the Education Circle meetings (it meets 2x/month), ASATA's work for the US Social Forum, and our online conversations. We're also hard at work on our member survey, which will help shape the direction of ASATA.

The best place to keep up with all the meetings, events and discussions is our members-only ASATA-internal listserv.

There's also our (high-traffic) Yahoo! group, which has current events from the South Asian diaspora and a whole lot more. Click on the "Get Involved!" link at the top left of this page to sign up.

If you're a member but you're not on the listserv, or if you want to meet up with a coord to share feedback or ask a question, email us at asata_coords@asata.org.

love,

ASATA coords

From Arizona to Afghanistan, No One Is Illegal!

The Land Belongs to the People who Work It!

International Workers Day- Fruitvale Rally and March
Saturday, May 1st

1pm-2pm program at Fruitvale BART Plaza

2pm March to Federal Building

In the midst of national marches for immigration reform, attacks on immigrant communities and working class people still continue.

Please join the ASATA coords for the May Day march and rally for workers rights and immigrant rights: 1pm-2pm at Fruitvale BART Plaza.

An Open Letter to Our Communities
With Love and Solidarity
from The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA)

We are saddened to learn about recent violent acts against members of our communities here in the Bay Area. We are equally saddened to learn about some proposed responses that will further attack our communities.

Quick Details:

A coalition of South Asian community members, agencies and allies is hosting a vigil to remember the life of Seetha Vemireddy. One of the many victims of Lakireddy Bali Reddy, she died of carbon monoxide poisoning on November 24, 1999.

November 20th Action
Time: Noon
Location: in front of Pasand Restaurant (2286 Shattuck Ave. near downtown berkeley BART station)

Action: The rally will gather for 20 minutes and then march to Bancroft to the building where Seetha (also referred to as Chanti) died, for a memorial and press conference. (please NOTE we will NOT be traveling to city hall)

A beautiful day, good people and a powerful rally. But, we certainly needed more South Asian representation ...

photo credit: Poonam from Design Action, Thanks!

We at ASATA oppose the continuing domestic “war on terrorism” and “war on immigrants”: movements that we understand as intricately linked.

For us, opposition to and mobilization around the various versions of HR4437 means showing our solidarity with other immigrant communities, particularly our Latino brothers and sisters, as they fight what is also our fight.

Immigration to this country does not denote positions of privilege, but of plight. The majority of us did not make a decision to migrate from our homes, families, and communities: we were forced here by the violent effects of global economic inequity. The U.S. government is using a double-edged sword as it coerces countries in the Majority World into Free Trade Agreements and then simultaneously criminalizes the people displaced by them.

We’re heartbroken. Birjinder Anant died last week in Oakland.

We knew him as a builder of activist movements, teller of bad jokes, reader of good books, connector of communities, tapper of shoulders, and a good friend to so many of us.

Birjinder has been the heart and soul of ASATA since his first meeting on September 18, 2001. His strength, commitment, and humility were an inspiration to many, and he was a driving force behind much Asian American and South Asian American activist work in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. His loss has truly shaken us. We offer our deepest condolences to others who knew and loved Birjinder as we did.