#TSAL Symposium: South Asian Diaspora and Black Lives Matter

On October 29, Dr. Akanksha Misra (PhD ’20, UW GWSS) moderated a symposium entitled “South Asian Diaspora and Black Lives Matter: A Cinematic and Literary Perspective” as part of the 2020 Tasveer South Asian Literature Festival. This virtual conversation brought together Professor Nalini Iyer (Seattle University), journalist Yashica Dutt, author Mary Anne Mohanraj, and filmmakers Tarun Jain and Yasir Masood. Panelists spoke about their personal and embodied experiences of casteism, racism, and citizenship in South Asia and its diasporas, as well as the potential for art to build solidarity across social and economic divides. “Let’s imagine and dream of other worlds while acknowledging that we have problems in our real world,” concluded Dr. Misra, “and that we are, at the end of the day, all on stolen indigenous land, everywhere in the world.” Watch the full video here.