"Failing Families" op-ed in Baltimore Sun

DC Muslim Film Festival- "Art Under Fire"

The South Asian Face of Detention

SAALT Hosts Naturalization Event in Montgomery County Maryland
In an effort to provide resources about the naturalization process to South Asians in Montgomery County, SAALT co-hosted Citizenship Day 2009, a free naturalization event for Asian Americans. On Saturday, November 14th, over 60 community members were able to speak directly with attorneys and gain assistance with their naturalization applications. The event also included a panel session with experts on the citizenship process, including Lily Qi (Montgomery County Executive’s Office of Community Partnerships), Richard Caterisano (Baltimore U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services), and Nadia Firozvi (Asian Pacific American Le

Muslim Americans and the Obama Administration: Amb. Maksoud at the AMA-F
The American Muslim Alliance Foundation (AMA-F) held their inaugural policy forum last night. The speaker was Dr. Clovis Maksoud. Dr. Maksoud was uniformly addressed as “Ambassador” and rightly so since he has a long and distinguished career as a diplomat, acting as the Chief Representative from the League of Arab States to India from ‘61-’66 and was appointed to the same function to the United States and the United Nations in 1979. He is now a professor at American University. It was a privilege to hear from an expert who has worked in various capacities around the world and has a learned and complex understanding of the global and domestic Muslim community.

The First National Asian Pacific American Workers’ Rights Hearing!
The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) congregated the very first National Asian Pacific American Worker’s Rights Hearing this past Friday, Nov. 13, 2009.  SAALT was one of the many organizations that co-sponsored this historic event.  The hearing consisted of several Asian immigrant workers from all over the United States of America that made their way to Washington D.C. to testify on the exploitation they experienced in the workplace as well as the threats they received when dared to practice their right to unionize.  These workers appealed to the audience through their poignant

Janet Napolitano on Immigration Reform
Last week, I attended a speech at the Center for American Progress by Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano, who was appointed to the position by President Obama and had previously served as the governor of Arizona, has been tapped with leading the efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform in Congress. Napolitano spent most of the speech talking about how conditions had changed since the last push for immigration reform in 2007. She particularly highlighted how enforcement and border security in the Southwest had created greater stability and ameliorated concerns t

South Asian LGBT Organizing
Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of attending a panel on South Asian LGBT Organizing. I must say, it doesn’t happen often enough where I get to attend events and mentally shout “COOL!” every few sentences. I confess that until last week, my knowledge of South Asian queer issues (vs, say, SA American) consisted mainly of what I thought I knew about the 377 ruling, and the book, A Lotus of Another Color, which I had found back i