South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) is a national non-profit organization dedicated to fostering an environment in which all South Asians in America can participate fully in civic and political life, and have influence over policies that affect them. Approximately 2.7 million South Asians live in the United States, tracing their backgrounds to Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and the diaspora, including Trinidad/Tobago, Guyana, and Africa. SAALT works to achieve our mission through a social justice framework that incorporates the strategies of policy analysis and advocacy, community education, local capacity-building, and leadership development. Each of these strategies are linked to specific programs which you will find more information about on this website.
Raising Our Voices: South Asian Americans Address Hate (Part 1)
Part One
In January 2001, SAALT began work on a 26-minute documentary entitled "Raising Our Voices: South Asian Americans Address Hate." Produced by Omusha Communications and guided by SAALT Board members and volunteers, the documentary set out to raise awareness about the increasing hate crimes and bias incidents affecting South Asian communities, especially in the late 1990s. In fact, in 1997 and 1998, South Asians were reporting the highest incidences of bias-motivated crimes in the broader Asian American community.
The documentary features South Asian survivors of hate crimes and their families in Queens, New Jersey, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, as well as organizers, lawyers and community advocates who mobilized the South Asian community and demanded justice. When the film was completed two weeks before September 11th, 2001, little did we know how the landscape of the South Asian community in the United States would change. With the alarming increase of hate crimes, bias incidents, and profiling that South Asians, especially those who are Sikh and Muslim, endured in the days and months after 9/11, SAALT re-envisioned the documentary and shot additional footage.
The documentary has been out since 2002, but you may not have seen it in its entirety yet. It has been used in classrooms and townhalls around the country and we encourage you to engage with it, comment on it, and if possible, to share it with friends, family, coworkers and community members.
Feel free to use this documentary in your community, university, or your personal network of colleagues and friends.
