Clik here to view.
The Right to Stay
I wait for Jong-Min You in a small Asian bakery close to the Bay Parkway subway station in Bensonhurst. It’s an early summer evening in May and Bensonhurst is lively and bustling with Chinese-run fresh...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Surviving China’s Cultural Revolution
When China’s Chairman Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution half a century ago, his avowed goal was to preserve the communist ideology. Mao then believed that the ruling Chinese Communist Party...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sarees by Word of Mouth
At the corner of Broadway and 74th Street, a Bangladeshi woman is opening the storefront gate to an unassuming shop filled with ornate sarees, shalwar kamise, and decorative jewelry. Within an hour of...
View ArticleCollateral Damage
Shahina Parveen is the mother of Shahawar Matin Siraj, who was convicted in 2007 of allegedly conspiring to plant bombs in a Manhattan subway. Shahina maintains her son, Matin, is in prison for a crime...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Ice Cream That Never Melts
She grew up in Chinatown and worked in her family’s ice cream shop since she was 12. Through all these years, the shop survived, withstanding the many changes that have altered the landscape of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
From Prison Chaplain to Imprisoned Chaplain
As a chaplain at Guantanamo ministering to Muslim detainees, James Yee’s job was to counsel and listen to the detainees. Many of the prisoners told him about acts of torture committed against...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dragon Ladies
“We’re never going to elect a Chinese person here,” a woman in Queens threw a campaign flyer at Grace Meng, who was then helping her father, Jimmy Meng, in his bid for a New York State Assembly seat in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shaping a World Without Domestic Violence
Early in the morning on January 1, 2018, New York City suffered its first homicide of the year. Twenty-six-year-old Stacey Singh was found stabbed to death in her own home in Richmond Hill, Queens, on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mapping Displacement and Resistance in Sunset Park
Teresa Gutierrez’s cadences in Spanish pulsated through the television screen as she described the changes happening in Sunset Park, her neighborhood in Brooklyn. “The rents are so high that our...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Where South Asian Men Process Trauma
Against a backdrop of Bengali folk dancers, bhangra dance lessons and panipuri-eating contests, a handful of men in their twenties approached other South Asian men, of different builds, sizes and ages....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fear, Anxiety and Panic
Beit al-Maqdis, a mosque in Sunset Park but edging on the border of Bay Ridge, has 56 Google Reviews, all of which average an excellent 4.7 stars. “Very Good,” wrote Nassef Mohammed, rating Beit...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What Does it Take to Create Art that Bridges Divides?
Flanked by a cluster of her sixth-grade students, Cecile Chong leaned forward gently, brush pen in hand, over a table lined with bright sheets of red paper. Waves of her long, black hair cascaded over...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Absence of Atta and the Dearth of Dal
In 2015, Kavitaa came to the South Asian Council for Social Services (SACSS) on 45th Ave in Flushing, Queens, to seek help. An elderly South Asian woman, she was unable to speak English and fluent...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“It’s now in our hands!”
During what I imagine was a cocaine-fueled burst of creativity, Freud assessed the uncanny — that strange feeling a person has when he or she experiences something familiar. A bit like deja vu, but...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Love in the Time of Minder
“Looking for dulhan,” one reads. “Seeking the same halal/haram ratio like me.” Another proclaims. “Iaminterested” all in one go. Each profile leads with a one-liner, some spanning a simple greeting and...
View ArticleUnsettling the Nation from the Land: A Conversation with Manu Karuka
Manu Karuka and I first met in 2002. That year, I made the decision to pursue a PhD, in my late 30s, after working for twelve years as a documentary filmmaker. Manu and I were both in a seminar on the...
View ArticleUnsettling the Nation from the Land: A Conversation with Manu Karuka, Part Two
The following is the second half of a two-part interview with Manu Karuka, the author of Empire’s Tracks. Read part one, on anti-imperialist immigrant movements, the alternate history of the...
View ArticleIf You See Me, Don’t Say Hi: An Interview with Neel Patel
In Neel Patel’s debut short story collection, If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi, which comes out in paperback this week, we meet a wonderful array of characters, nearly all of whom are trying to protect...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Voices in the Archive: An Interview with Monique Truong
For much of the 2010s, the generous and brilliant Monique Truong was researching, traveling, and writing her third novel, The Sweetest Fruits, which released in early September 2019 from Viking Books....
View ArticleOccupied Kashmir: Poetry and Disappearance
How do you simultaneously disappear people and their hope? Can you keep that hope alive through writing? On this episode of AAWW Radio, we learn more about the current brutal lockdown in...
View Article