Dalip Singh Saund was born in a village in Punjab Province, India, in 1899. In 1956, after emigrating to California, getting a Ph.D. in mathematics at U.C. Berkeley, working in agriculture, and serving as a judge, he became the first Asian Pacific American elected to the United States Congress.
A veteran of the generation that remembered how immigration, naturalization, and civil rights laws were biased against them, Dr. Saund participated in Democratic Party politics and served as an elected official to make sure that liberty and justice were extended to all.
Half a century later, in the midst of new national policy debates about immigration, naturalization and civil rights, a new generation of Americans with South Asian ancestries came to American University’s Washington College of Law from Mar. 16 to 18 to attend a conference sponsored by South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow and the South Asian Law Students Association.
More than 150 individuals and representatives of 40 groups met with national policymakers, discussed emerging issues, and built the coalitions that will allow them to have an ongoing impact on policy debates here on Capitol Hill. The Leadership Summit marked the first time that many of the community-based groups had met with national policymakers or with others involved in similar grassroots work throughout the country.
“South Asian Americans are largely invisible when it comes to policy issues that affect marginalized members of our community,” said Deepa Iyer, executive director of SAALT, a national non-profit dedicated to civic and political participation by South Asian Americans. “We need to have a place at the table with decision-makers and our allies in the progressive movement. The gathering of groups and advocates at the summit is a step toward that goal.”
Nationwide, nearly 40 community-based organizations serve the South Asian American community. Here in D.C., the South Asian American presence has been felt in the last few years through local chapters of groups such as the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin, Network of South Asian Professionals, and South Asian Bar Association, but the summit introduced a new generation of South Asian Americans to the ways of Washington.
At the congressional briefing, Rep. Mike Honda, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, emphasized the importance of South Asian American involvement in the national decision-making process. Leaders from the South Asian Network (Los Angeles), the Sikh Coalition (New York City), and Apna Ghar (Chicago) spoke about emerging issues in their local communities.
“It was really great to meet on the Hill and realize that there is a space for us to share our needs and demands,” said Padma Rangaswamy from the South Asian Policy and Research Institute in Chicago.
The summit also included roundtables with community members and government agency representatives from the Office of Minority Health, the Office of Violence Against Women, the Department of Justice, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Rinku Sen, publisher of ColorLines magazine and director of the Applied Research Center, addressed conference attendees at a reception, encouraging them to build partnerships with other progressive and ethnic groups.
The summit included skill-based workshops on coalition building, engaging in legislative advocacy, and using participatory research in organizing work. Substantive discussions focused on civil rights, the criminalization of immigrants, and access to basic social services and benefits.
“Our group talks to people locally about what’s going on, but it was helpful to hear the work that is going on at the national level from a civil rights standpoint,’ said Anirvan Chatterjee of the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action.
This gathering of progressive groups and individual advocates from around the country reinforced the need for further collaboration in the future. “It is important for the South Asian American community to organize ourselves so that we can fight for immigration reform, or other issues, together,” said Nahar Alam, founder and director of Andolan, which organizes low-income South Asian American workers in New York City.
Like other Washington-based leadership training seminars, the SAALT Summit helped local advocates understand the ways of Washington and develop national networks. Imagine how far Dalip Singh Saund could have gone if he had had this kind of training early in his career.