Issues on Leadership within the South Asian Community

Parmatma Saran, Thomas Abraham, Zahid Ali Syeed

 

Professor Saran

Thank you for coming back. We started a little late by ten minutes but we are catching up. We are only five minutes behind now. We are waiting for our second panel, “Issues on leadership within the South Asian community”, to begin. As I told you earlier, this is our second attempt organizing a conference on South Asian concerns. I remember last time when we organized this, there was a write up in “Newsday” on the South Asian community in the United States. It is a coincidence perhaps, but last month I believe that “Newsday” had a full edition on India. And as you all know, President Bush made a visit to India as well as Pakistan very recently. So it looks like not only South Asian communities here, but also South Asian countries are coming into the lime light which is very appropriate as we start talking about some of these issues. Many of you know that as a result of a change in immigration laws in 1965, large numbers of people started coming from South Asian countries and it is a considerable population now. On the bases of my work on the Indian community, I know the population is over two million. Pakistan is perhaps next and then Bangladesh and Nepal and so on in terms of population. In all these years, some 30 years or so, communities are now quite established. Initial issues focused on economic adjustment, getting jobs, fighting discrimination and so on, but issues have somewhat shifted from the early years and now we are talking more about political involvement and participation on the part of South Asian communities in main stream American politics. In that context, we know leadership becomes very important. Instead of inviting scholars who are engaged in the study of South Asian communities like myself, the conference committee decided that this time we should invite our leaders. People who are really working at the grass roots and helping South Asian communities to come to the forefront and become part of the mainstream. So keeping that in mind, we had invited four individuals to sit on this panel. One member, Mr. Jewel Chowdhury is not going to be with us due to a family emergency but the other three members are here. Our first presenter is Dr. Thomas Abraham. Thomas is a very old friend of mine for a good 25 to 30 years. I am not going to introduce all these people because there is a biography in your program, but I cannot resist talking a little bit about Thomas. His name is synonymous with the Asian community in the United States. You cannot think of this community without thinking of Thomas. He has done so much work and put together so many organizations. Currently he is heading the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin. It has branches, all over the world and Professor Nanda, myself and many other people are involved his effort. Without further ado, I am going to invite Thomas Abraham for his part of the session. Thomas… (Applause from viewers)

 

Thomas Abraham:

 

Thank you Parmatmaand good morning everyone. I am going to speak on issues of leadership within the South Asian community and from an Indian America perspective. What I am going to do is give you a little bit of history on the leadership that developed has within our community, from last century to the beginning of immigration in the 60s, to what is happening currently and what we hope to accomplish in the future. Projecting from the U.S census of 2000 to 2005, the Asian Indian population in the United States is about 2.4 million and if you add up the 250,000 people of Indian origin, mostly Indo-Caribbeans, our population will reach to about 2.65 million. Of these, close to 1 million people reside in three states that are New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Looking at the history of Indian community leadership in America, the thrust of the early community movement was for campaigning for India’s independence in the early 1900s, with the dark movement initiated in 1913 in San Francisco and India league in 1940s. And these early pioneers were more or less involved full time in campaigning for India’s independence, providing testimony in congress and creating favorable American public opinion through media. Some of these people included people like JJ Singh and their leadership was a huge success. In the 1950s, there was a small group of Indian students attending various universities and after graduation many students went back to India but some of them stayed. But basically in the 50s and 60s, the community leadership was with the student University based organization. The first major community group that evolved, or formed, in New York City in the late 1960s was association of Indians in America. In 1976, AIA, lobbied for Indian Americans and listed the group as a separate category in the upcoming U.S census of 1990. The group was also responsible for having Asian Indians listed under the minority category of Asian and Pacific Islander. The biggest draw back of the group when it was initiated in the 60s was that they could not reach out to the large Indian population who recently migrated in the late 60s and early 70s. These groups of immigrants from India formed several Indian associations and were based in large cities and smaller towns and along with this several language, religious and regional based groups were formed in all major cities. By the early 1970s, there were about 15 Indian groups in New York City alone and in a unifying effort, the Indian consulate in New York took the initiative to form a joint committee of Indian organizations. It became an active group to celebrate some of the commonly organized programs such as Indian Independence Day, Gandhi Day and later of course, some of the community related activities. Slowly as the community grew, it did not limit itself to Indian programs alone, but also started getting into the other traditional American programs including the Bicentennial Celebration, American Independence Day and the Parade of Nations. So we saw some success of the joint committee sort of coordinating our groups in New York and the next step was to form a federation of Indian associations in New York. At the time, in 1977, I was serving as a chairman of joint committee and doing my Ph.D at Colombia. I had a lot of time because I was a graduate student while other people were all busy trying to establish themselves in their jobs and things like that. I thought to myself, let me do an experiment, so I had the opportunity to initiate this FIA in New York. It was officially launched in 1978. I was a president of it for five years from mid-70s to early 80s. In 1979, we campaigned with the Asian community to declare Asian American week, which President Carter signed, and this has now become Asian American month in May. With the success of FIA in New York, we formed a FIA in various other cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and all of the major metropolitan cities. And in a unifying effort in 1980, we organized the first international convention of Asian Indians in North America in New York City and it was then that we formed the first National Federation of Indian America Associations and FIA. In the 1980s, we saw another phenomenon happening, that is, all of the professional groups getting together, American Association of Physicians of India, Indian Americans Forum for a Political Education and the Asian Indian Hotel/Motel Association. I just want to tell you that this hotel group and doctors group are very big. They say that Patels own more motels then Hilton and Sheraton’s combined and they have really combined their forces because they have a big, big group something like about 14,000-15,000 members, and same thing with the American doctors. Of all the communities, Indian doctors constitute the largest population of doctors in America, close to about 50,000 medical practitioners. Indian Americans practicing among the total of American doctors. But another thing happened, as a community grew; back in home we have close to about more than 20 different languages so the community started growing in the language bases and that was the Telugu Association of North America Federation of Kerala Association of North America, Federation of Tamil Association, International Punjabi society. Similarly other language based groups such as Kannada, Maharashtrian, Bengali, Oriya and Assamese and Rajasthani, they start doing their own national convention. In fact these groups have much bigger attendance than when we organized a program on the Indian community level. If you or I organize a program on the Indian, we might get maybe 500 or 1000 people but these groups might get as much as ten thousand people, people from all over the globe. The Gujurathis form the largest community but unfortunately they haven’t been able to form a viable national organization. The reason being that, within the Gujarat community, there are nationally organized, caste based organizations that include the Swaminarayan, Pattidhar Samaj, that is the Patel group, Brahmin Samaj, and the Rajput organization. and the many of the Gujurathis as a group are already motel owners so they have this nationally and they can get to go to the motel /hotel association. But there is a conference coming up in August of this year in New Jersey and it is going to be a big Gujarat gathering.

 

With the growth of community organizations, American political leadership is increasingly reaching out to the these groups. The community has also played its part to promote some of the its members for political appointments. In 1987, President Reagan appointed Doctor Joe Cherian as commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This was the first cabinet level appointment on a Federal level for all Asian Americans, and of course for Reagan, we had a few others appointed in Reagan’s administration and also the senior Bush’s administration. Then we have Clinton who appointed several people, and the current administration under George Bush, who appointed Bobby Jindal as Assistant Secretary of State and who later wanted to run for the governor of Louisiana. There was Gopal Khanna who was Chief Technology Officer of the Peace Corps and then later Chief Financial Officer of the White House, and Karan Bhatia was another person, who was Assistant Secretary of the Department of Transportation. This is one concern that we have, that is, getting political appointments at the Federal level. If you look at the Indian American share of the Bush administration appointments, we may have a total of 7 or 8 while the Chinese American community has done very well. In fact, they do have a large share of 100 or so political appointments. Here I do want to point out that our community involvement with our Asian community has not been going strongly except in some pockets in Chicago and New York. I was personally involved in the late 70s, trying to get more meetings in Chinatown with the Chinatown Planning Counsel, Organization of Chinese Americans, Japanese American Citizens League, but our community did not get into the forum of moving to one Asian community except that when somebody wanted to promote themselves. When someone wants to promote him or her, they come up with the Asian American Democrats or Asian American Republicans and finally once they get their jobs, they will get out of the organization. So we have seen so many groups in the last 20 years promote themselves, and they get the appointment and then they are out. But I think even within our own community, the political appointments have come just because of their personal involvement with a lot of the political outfits rather then promoting our own candidates. I mean the time has not even come yet for people to promote a Pakistani American or Indian American for a position. We are lacking in this regard. I am talking about at the South Asian level. We are not even going to the next level of promoting within the broader Asian community. I think there is a big need for community leadership in that area and we should put some thought into how we can accomplish that. Now in terms of political involvement, I can make a point that really it got started in late 70s. But in the 1982 election, a lot of our people actually participated in fund raising efforts. In 1984 and 1986, we participated in the presidential and congressional elections and our community participated actively in the 1992 presidential election. In fact, we have a distinction of raising a lot of funds for campaigns for presidential and other public office candidates.

 

Now in terms of Indian Americans, we need them in the public office. We currently have one congressman, one state senator, four members of state assembly, they have been in several mayors in small cities. However, if you compare our strength of 2.7 million people to the 6.5 million Jewish communities, our share of political office is still small. South Asian communities has to promote themselves more in the political arena starting with the PTAs, school boards, local community boards, city and state national elections. The community leadership has to promote good candidates for public offices. In terms of legislative campaigns, when I was in the National Federation of Indain American Associations, we actively campaigned to preserve the family unification clause in 1980 and were very successful there at first. In 1987, when the Reagan administration wanted to give massive aid to Pakistan for an airborne surveillance system, we actively campaigned for that to stop that. Of course, our administration did not do that, so this conflict between Indian community and Pakistanian community continues in the 1990s. Now at this point, it is no more of an issue. The U.S administration is very close to Pakistan and the U.S has found a great ally in India with whom it can have nuclear, military and business ties. From the community perspective, another important development in the 1990s was the formation of the India Caucus in the capital. We have now the largest caucus in the capital, close to about 200 members. I think it is about 190 to 200 or something like that. Now the community group also provided leadership and charitable activities in India including the group which I was hading, NFIA, AIA, the doctors group, the motels group, the Maharashtra foundation, the Keala group, the national foundation, the national Telugu Association, various federation India of association in various cities and India association, various religious and language based groups organization have been providing a lot of funding for charitable activities. In the year 2001, after the Gujarat earthquake, the American Indian foundation was launched with President Clinton as its patron. The group raised million of dollars for rehabilitation of earthquake victims’ relief as well as the Tsunami victims and continued to support other charitable activities. Now what is happening in the 90s is different because these previous efforts were all done by the first generation Indians. In 1990s, several new organizations emerged with new groups of people involved in them. The young Indian American formed it into an Indian professional in the mid-1990s, around the same time, Indo-entrepreneurs, people who were successful in Silicon valley and that better be a big, big set. Now we have other groups which are promoting Indo-U.S relations including Indo-U.S India friendship counsel, India-American Political Leadership, Indian-American Center for Political Evidence, and then U.S impact. We do this from three years back so they are all giving a lot of leadership along with other community groups, the Indian-American forum for Political Education, my own group, Global Organization of People of Indian Origin and then FIA. We take the issues on a regular bases and last year, we all grouped. The first time all national groups joined for a congressional recipient in the U.S Congress. Now there are other groups who are providing social services. The South Asian Counsel for Social Services which I was involved in and includes taxi drivers. In fact, the, I put it in to a book called “Unlocking the Golden Door.” Although we talk about the community as well as establish it, there are a lot of people who need help and these groups are doing what there too. In terms of providing services, the community leadership has to come forward more to see that the services are provided to people who need services It has created for India as well as the community, higher education that is one of the issues I want to mention in that some of our students are trying to seek admission in Ivy League schools. Right now, if you are an Asian, even if you are qualified compared to other communities you might not get admission, although, we have a good person in Asian groups in many of these schools. Now in terms of corporate leadership, we have recently done well, but I just saw yesterday from a report that, compared to all other communities, white, black, Hispanic and even women, Asian Americans find it more difficult to get promotion in corporation, university and government jobs. There is still discrimination in the work place, especially for the professors trying to get tenure and although there have been some successes, we need to do more with a long-term agenda. Another thing we have done is started India Studies in over a dozen universities right now. There is another issue which we need to look at , especially since 9/11, and that is tolerance with respects to our community. We have one person got killed in the southwest and there are some of religious institutions that were attacked. Senior citizens, suddenly we find that all the people who migrated in the 60s and 70s have all become senior citizens. There are not many good senior centers or nursing homes where they can have vegetarian food and/or Indian food so that is another issue to look into. Another thing the leadership has to do is take a proactive stand in terms of tackling major community issues. And in this regard, we had to work closely with Asian groups. Finally, building our own South Asian community, it is the first time some of us are coming to the political arena. But we need to see that we have a common agenda within our South Asian community and also involve the next generation which I see as the toughest challenge. We need to promote the younger generation to take over our cultural and civic organizations. I just want to share one last comment. Within the community, we always talk about the proliferation of our community organizations, and the disunity among our groups. But if you look at the 6 million in the Jewish community they also have a proliferation of organizations, however they have created a perception of unity. Whenever there is a huge issue concerning Israel, usually the Jewish American community arises and they always work to support Israel. That is what out community needs to do regarding the Indian platform as well as the South Asian platform as well as the Asian platform. Thank you very much. (applause from viewers)

 

Professor Saran:

 

Thank you, Thomas. As you can see, he is very knowledgeable. He has given you a very comprehensive picture of the Indian American communities. I teach a course on Indian Diaspora at Baruch and I remember inviting him last semester and after his presentation my students told me that he knew more about the Indian Diaspora then I did. To save my face, I had to tell him that I am also a sociologist and he is not. And I am going to now introduce our second speaker, Mohammad Ali. He was born in Pakistan but raised in Queens. He is a ingénue by day, lawyer by night, and he is also a prominent community activist. Mohammad Ali. (applause from viewers)

 

Mohammad Ali:

 

I want to thank everyone for being here. It is a great honor to be present at this conference and be a part of this distinguished panel. Before I begin, I want to sort of clarify and qualify my remarks. The Pakistani community is a very heterogeneous group of people and I represent one view based on my experiences and observations. So that is probably a good way to begin a discussion of the Pakistani community. What I want to do is to give you an overview of where Pakistanis come from, in other words, what is it that makes a Pakistani? So I want to give you an overview of Pakistan first and then talk about how we got here to this country and where we going to in terms of politics and our views. To start, in terms of describing Pakistan, it was created in 1947 as a homeland for the Muslims of India. The founders of Pakistan and the leaders of Pakistan at that time were very similar to the leaders of India and were very secular and progressively minded people, but yet they found the need to have this nation for Muslims. Pakistan not only brought the Muslims in India together, but also brought together five national and ethnic groups with their own distinct history and language. Pakistan from the get go, struggled to find a true identity because of the various ethnic identities, groups, languages and religious concepts. The struggle for identity has also manifested itself in a political system that existed in Pakistan. The one dominating and unifying force has been the Pakistani army. The Pakistani army has ruled over Pakistan for I would say almost 15, 16 percent of the history that Pakistan has existed. The various generals from the Pakistan army had their own concept of democracy and this sort of undemocratic system has made an imprint on the Pakistani nation and community. This system has also lead to a lack of trust in government, but at the same time, a thirst for democracy and a need to be able to represent themselves. It is this thirst for democracy and democratic institution that has been one of the driving forces for the Pakistani community to migrate to places like the United States. Pakistanis have been coming to the U.S for almost 50 years and in the beginning, in the 60s and 70s, most of them came here as students which was very similar to the Indian community. In the late 70s and early 80s, a lot of professionals and a lot of the best and brightest minds of Pakistan came here for economic reasons. Then during the late 80s and 90s, we had a better representation of a social economic class of people from Pakistan and different ethnic groups also came from Pakistan during that time. Presently there are approximately between 500,000 to 1 million Pakistanis in the United States. This Pakistani community is dispersed across the United States but their concentration is on both coasts, the East coast and the West coast. Members of the Pakistan community predominately fall on both sides of the social economic spectrum of American society. There are Pakistani-Americans that have achieved the American dream and are doing very well in society, but there are great numbers of Pakistani-Americans who are struggling for survival in this land. The political views of the Pakistani-American community depends primarily on the stage of the immigration process they fall on. But there is one common view that most Pakistani Americans agree upon and that is that they must be more involved in the political process. This view has existed for almost a decade but it really came to the surface after 9/11. And I do not really want to go into 9/11 because I think in this short amount of time that I have, I would not really do it justice. I would like to suggest to AAARI, that maybe a separate conference or an additional discussion might necessary to explore the impact of 9/11 on the South Asian and in particularly, the Pakistani-American community. So that is basically where we are right now. The Pakistani-American community here is still struggling for identity. There is pockets of the Pakistani community that see themselves as South Asians, there is a pocket that sees themselves as Muslim Americans, and there is a pocket that still considers themselves as Pakistani. They are very much involved in Pakistani politics and American politics is not important. So depending on which identity that a Pakistani-America takes, that influences their political views. So for a Muslim or a Pakistani-American who considers themselves a Muslim American first, his or her views will be more toward promoting the Muslim religion, forming mosque and providing social services through the mosque. For Pakistani-Americans who consider themselves part of the largest South Asian American community which numbers almost 3 million, their feeling is to be more part of the political mainstream and to go out and actually solve problems and be part of the community rather than a separate group. The Muslim American fringe of the Pakistani community is more likely to be a separate group. The Pakistani community that is still Pakistani, they are still living in Pakistan and their ideals and the customs are still pretty much influenced by the Pakistani politics there. So depending on how you classify yourself, the needs and the reasons for being involved in politics are dependent on that. The people who want to be part of the mainstream, they see that the Pakistani American community needs better affordable housing, they see a need for more job opportunities and more civil rights and that is basically where we are as a Pakistani-American community. The future I think will all depend on which group is able to get more resources to move forward. (applause from viewers)

 

Professor Saran:

 

Thank you Mohammad. You made a very good suggestion about organizing something on the effects of 9/11 on South Asian community. As a matter a fact, we had a full conference on that topic sponsored by this Institute. I had a brief presentation on that and I think we have something available in writing which I would be happy to share with you. Our next speaker is Zahid Ali Syed. He has an interesting background. We are talking about getting into politics, but he is the one who is in the middle of politics. As a matter of fact, very recently, he ran for state assembly, is that correct? He was a candidate for Democratic Party as well as Working Family Party. He didn’t make it but that is not important to know, he still got 33 percent of the vote. We may not make it the first time but if we continue in our efforts, we are going to see results. He is also very active as a labor union leader and lives in Long Island. At this time, I am happy to invite him to share his part with us. Zahid. (applause from viewers)

 

Zahid Ali Syed:

 

First, I want to say thank you to all of you for joining us. It is a really good effort that you have put into bringing the South Asian community together. I think it is the best thing we can have. Let me tell you a little bit about me. Seventeen years ago, I came to this country from Karachi, Pakistan and when I came to this country, I didn’t know where to go. I was standing at that boat like many of us, or you know that your parents did it like that, so I was standing at that boat and thinking where to go. And today I recently ran for the New York State Assembly, so it shows that this country really is a great country, and full of opportunities which you just have to unveil.

I started my life as a cashier in one store and from there, I got involved in a labor union and I was the first South Asian who was elected secretary treasurer for the Machinist Union in about 1996. And recently, about two years ago, Tom Swozzi from Nassau County, appointed me the first South Asian Commissioner for Human Rights in New York. And again, I was the first South Asian who ran for the New York State assembly on the Democratic ticket. Those things gave me an opportunity to run and represent my community. It was a special, very short three-week election. I had to prepare everything in three weeks and it was really good to see lots of my friends and family come together. In fact I raised the most money in that district ever in 40 years. That seat was held by a Republican for 40 years and we were able to get $65,000 in three weeks. The whole community was not involved because I did not have time to reach everyone, so my supporters were mostly people who were activists and my friends, because I have a long record of being active in the community, so that is how I did it. And it proved to the community that some of us can run for public office and I think this is the time for our community to come out and say yes, we want to do that, and I proved that we can do that. If I can do it despite coming from another country 17 years ago, then for most of you who were born here, raised here and go to school here, you can also do it. You do not have a language barrier and all of these things that I had.   So I encourage you guys to run for office. It is really great to see our community run for political office and to have our own representative. But I am here to talk about South Asian leadership and like my other friend, speak about community leadership. Yes, most of us here have our own community groups. We sometimes call ourselves Indian, you know South Indian or Pakistani, Punjabi Indian, Punjabi Pakistani, Hindi- Pakistani and all these things. And that really divides us. If we come as a South Asian community, I think we can achieve so much more. The perfect example is the Latino community. They have differences and problems too, but when they come together they say Latino community, so why can’t we call ourselves a South Asian community? I think we are the most educated community, I mean, the most educated immigrant community in America. Tell me, which community has 100,000 doctors who are serving across the nation? There is no community except the South Asian community who has that many. If we come together I think we could achieve so many things and the involvement in politics, yes it is very important because you see, for example, like after 9/11, what happened to our community. When you have a problem, you do not have a problem as an Indian American or Pakistani-American or Bangladeshi American, you have a problem because they see you as one group. This is a problem for education in that you have to educate the people. Believe me this is a great country, people are so nice, you just have to go educate them and most of you, have friends who are Americans. You sit with them, you talk to them, they know you and then they love you and this is a perfect example of how I got the seat from the Democratic party and how they nominated me to run for the New York State Assembly. I am an immigrant, I came from a different country, yes, but they gave me an opportunity because they see my background and what I did and they say that I did all of these things so this is very important. Some of our young generation should come out as a South Asian and run for offices and have their own political representation because if you relate all these problems, human rights problems, immigration problems, all these problems are connected somehow to politics. And once we have our politician, our own representation, from among our community, I think we can do so much better than what we are doing today. Because then these people will understand your problem and they will fight for you and you can go to them and say hey listen, we helped you to be our elected official, now it is time for you to show what you can do for us and they will do it. So this is very important for us to get these things and you know, recently about last year, we created a one South Asian political election committee and in less than one year, we have so much recognition. Last time we had a barbeque party there were twelve elected officials. We also had a breakfast and something really good came out of it. When we had this breakfast, you know, many of our community people, they do not have a concept of breakfast. It was the first time we did a South Asian breakfast, so when I called some people, they said Zahid, are you crazy to put a breakfast together for the South Asian community. (Laughter from viewers) They will not come out. I said well, if they do not come out with me then they are not a leader and we are not doing something good for the community. But I want to see if I can be successful or not, so they said okay. So we arranged the breakfast and we planned to have 100 people. I tell you the truth, I was amazed to see 200 South Asian people were there and many of you present in the audience today were there. They will testify that many politicians were there, indeed Queens and Long Island politicians were all there. Because they see that this community is growing, this community has so much potential, we have everything in our community so the leadership just has to come out and get involved. And the young generation is very important. I mean leadership is there, but a young generation has to be involved in the politics also. If you guys come out and participate in these things, I think we can achieve all our goals. So that is it. Thank you very much for your time. (applause from viewers)

 

Professor Saran:

 

Thank you Zahid, We are doing very well in terms of timing. We have another fifteen minutes for comments from the floor and discussion, so please feel free. Professor Nanda.

 

Professor Nanda:

 

Professor Saran, thank you very much. Thomas, you have done miracles in all these years, your leadership has been an example, and Professor Saran, and you have done a whole lot for the community. Thomas, I wanted to find out from you, have what you recently have been doing on human rights and what needs to be done? Because under ‘Globi’s’ auspices we did make an effort on Fiji, we did make an effort on Sri Lanka and from the petition that we sent to Sri Lanka, the Sir Lanka government established a human rights commission. In Fiji also, we have some effort in that we provided the constitution about discrimination of people of Indian origin but recently what has been happening because I have not followed it very carefully and I do want you to know that I am at your command. I will be happy to do more on human rights.

 

Professor Saran:

 

Thomas, before you speak, would you clarify ‘Globi’ is. Many people might not…

 

Thomas Abraham:

 

I did not have time because I wanted to say something about the global organization. See what happened in 1988, when the elected government in Fiji was over thrown in a coup and there was also violations here, especially you know, we have this dot buster issue in the late 80s in New York and one person was killed in New Jersey. And then we also had human rights violations of our people in Guyana, in Trinidad and South Africa. So with all of this going on, we thought we needed to put together a global network even before all this globalization happened. We thought about it even before the Soviet Union was going out. So we had the first Global Convention of People of Indian Origin but at that time there was no internet and the telephone calls were so expensive, so we traveled all over the world where Indians reside and we had the convention in 1989 in New York City. About 3000 delegates from 26 countries came and we formed this global organization of people of Indian origin. Professor Nanda has been quite active with the filing of the petition on human rights violation on Fiji as well as in Sri Lanka and we have continued that afterward. In fact, our community was outside of the political mainstream in Ghana, in Trinidad and of course Doctor Jagan became president, and Pandavi became the prime minister. Mahindra Chowdry became the prime minister. But again after Mahindra Chowdry became prime minister in Fiji he was also taken as a hostage in the year 2000 and we campaigned, we went to the United Nations. We are members of the UN Human Rights Commission, quite active still, all of us. At this point the human rights violations are not a major issue for the Indian community or all over the world, but we still keep track of it. I would say that in Fiji, there is still apartheid in the sense that the Indian community which is 45% of the total population. According to the constitution, Indians should have about 14 cabinet ministers and they are not getting that. They are giving some to meet the constitutional mandate and they use some namesake ministries and the Indian community said no, and they are sitting in opposition. And as a group of… you ask me, what we are doing? Even one of the initiators of this Fiji coup was going to be appointed as ambassador to the United States and we campaigned with the State Department not to have him here. We went to stand against India. I mean our interest we are not an extension of India. We are independent. So we told the government of India, when the new prime minister was going to India, we said to cancel the trip, although they had their own political reason because India also wanted to be a world power, they wanted to be in the UN security counsel but they wanted to reach out to other countries, smaller countries for support. But we had to look out for our interests, so we said to India, you cannot have him in there because he is not taking care of the Indians. So we keep an independent view, we look at the human rights violations in India and after that other places and keep on going.

 

Professor Saran:

 

Thank you. Gentleman in the back,

 

Jeremy:

 

Thank you. I am Jeremy from the program of South Asian. All of you mentioned having the South Asian leadership community address mostly domestic issues. So I am curious as to what particular foreign policy issues could you see as South Asian leadership addressing and that there could be a lot of coordinating on?

 

Thomas Abraham:

 

You see there used to be a conflict between the Pakistani-Indian communities because of what was happening back home. But now things are changed and the people would like to see the government of the United States help to create good relations within Pakistan and in turn also help out communities here. As I mentioned the conflict is no more there, otherwise we could not even see eye to eye with the Pakistani community. I mean we considered them as enemies and am talking about the late 80s. But not anymore, I mean things have changed (laughter from viewers – “somewhat” from Prof. Saran) so we see that there are opportunities right now and we are getting closer and closer to in terms of working towards that.

 

Zahid Ali Syed:

 

Another thing is also a long time ago, we were living together in India as an Indian community, but now, like most like my kids, they don’t understand India or Pakistan or Bangladesh problems. Like many of you guys sitting here, I see young faces here, so they do not really watch these things on the TV or you know, talk about these things. But they consider themselves more ethnically South Asians. They want to do something here as South Asian Americans. So like myself, when I came to this country as a 23 year old, they do not care much about what is going on over there at home. And at that time if you asked me about all those problems in India or Pakistan or Bangladesh, I really did not put too much of my effort on issues and what is going on over there because we want to live, here and this is our country now. And for our young generation, we want to be involved in many issues here like in American politics, immigration problems, human rights problems here because our community is growing very fast and this is the second largest growing community in America right now. We want to see what we can achieve here instead of going back home and thinking about what can be done.

 

Professor Saran:

 

Mohammad, do you want to add to this?

 

Mohammad Ali:

 

I think the Pakistani-American community here really loves the concept of democracy. And they would like to see this country, sort of not just only talk about democracy, but also go out and implement democracy. Of course, not only in Pakistan but also across other Muslim countries and other third world countries.

 

Professor Saran:

 

If I may just add a footnote to your response, as for South Asian communities in the United States, they still tend to think of themselves as Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and what have you. They have not come to realize that now that they are living in America and they are a part of a new community, that is, an American community as well as a South Asian community. Our institute, under the leadership of Doctor Tam and others, has been working towards those goals and that is the reason we have organized conferences like this and that we have people and leadership who help us to recognize the fact that we have issues here. As a community we can never forget our background and our heritage. I mean it is good to have that but we must come to terms with the fact that we have a common interest here as members of the new community in which we are living. Once that consciousness is raised then hopefully we will be able to come up with policy suggestions and influence and the United States Congress and politicians not only for the interests of India or Pakistan, but our own interests as a community here.

 

Thomas Abraham:

 

Parmatma. See what has happened in the last 15 years in India? Liberalization, the new movement to get more people to invest, something like that also played a major role. Like a lot of prime minister Rao’s nephews and nieces, who are all over the America, when they go back they question you what the hell are you doing? It is change in the politician. Every politician has his or her children, nieces, nephews, everybody here. When they go back, they question them and wonder what the hell are they doing?

 

Professor Saran:

 

I think we’ll give a chance to two members of the second generation. We’ll come to you in a second.

 

Unknown person

 

Thank you. I like to pose questions especially to Mr. Ali and Mr. Zahid, who are doing especially grass roots work in your community. I would like to know what work have you been doing around recent debates threatening immigration and immigration policies? And specifically, I don’t remember the numbers HR like 4438 or something like that would criminalize immigrants. Have you asserted pressure on political leaders here in New York and especially a few senators who have taken somewhat wishy-washy stand on what is going to happen to the immigration policy?

 

Professor Saran:

 

Mohammad, you want to respond to that?

 

Ali:

 

Yes. There have been different letter writing campaigns, there have been different forms to voice concerns or opinions. But it is that again, the community is not organized yet to the point where we can make a real effort into stopping something like immigration laws that are totally opposite to what this country was founded on and what is beneficial for our community. Our efforts are more towards finding affordable housing, finding services and resources for the people who live here. We are sort of building ourselves as a work in progress in terms of being able to go out and have more influence over senators and the congressmen and general influence over the politicians.

 

Zahid Ali Syed:

 

The majority of our community does not know that we have immigration problems that are why the South Asian community does not get involved so much in immigration issues like the Latino community. The Latino community are so much more involved in these immigration laws and are, you know, fighting for it. But our community is not really involved in it. I was one of the organizers for the rights of immigrant workers. When I did that I was representing the South Asian community and that time was when we had one of the largest immigrant rights rallies occurred in United States history. But how many South Asians came? That was the question. And I did so much, like I was going door to door to people’s houses, and most of these people said they have a green card or their family sponsors them. Most of these people did not think that they had a problem so they did not want to address immigration issues or problems. Yes, in our community some people have a problem but you see after 9/11, most of those people who had immigration problems left. There are only a few people who are still there and fighting for their immigration status and that is why our community does not come out and fight these problems.

 

 

Professor Saran:

 

Thank you. Mr. Ma.

 

Edward Ma:

 

Yes. Thank you, Professor Saran. And in my experience when I mention Asia, that includes all of Asia, South Asia, and East Asian. Your comments challenge me, so I am glad to see your struggle and efforts because I can feel confident that an outcome is that benefits people later on. My question is that the three of you have not mentioned anything about the voter registration. As a Chinese community advocate, I did a lot of work around voting because votes can speak very loudly and can be empowering.   Many years ago, Ed Koch said that he did not want to go to Chinatown because only 1500 people vote so why bother? but this year we did registration (I am founding member of Chinese American Voters federation). You know what? We sponsored the democratic mayoral debate and we all worried that no one would come, that nobody would come and we worried that the Chinese would not come, but they all came. But after this mayoral debate May 2^nd of last year, then May 22^nd and May 26^th, you know what? the Mayor and governor came to New York to Chinatown to have a press conference on lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s 800 million dollars left from Bush’s initial $21 billion and they gave to Chinatown 32 million. The Republicans saw that if they did not come to Chinatown, then Chinatown will be taken over by democrats. So I am glad, you know, I am happy to see commissioner Syed play politics as it is a shining example. So it is voter registration I am questioning. Why with so many Pakistani and Indian doctors, why you can’t you organize hundred thousands of doctors. Also, why can’t the hundreds of grocery and newsstand owners and even the taxi drivers, organize and be as strong and powerful because they can be just as powerful as other labor unions.

 

Professor Saran:      

 

Thank you, Mr. Ma. Because we have time constraints, I would just like to add to your comment related to community leadership for voter registration and all that. Of course, it needs to be more aggressive as far as organization and professionals are concern. At least I know in the Indian community, there is a very strong organization of Indian physicians they are doing a fantastic job here, as well as in India. Before we close, I am committed to recognizing two of our young members here; you are next and then you.

 

Lisa:

 

Thank you. My name is Lisa.

 

Thomas Abraham:

 

Parmatma, can I question this question for one second? Just a small one.

 

Parmatma Saran:

 

Okay. Quickly.

 

Zahid Ali Syed:

 

Like you said, regarding the registration, the voter registration, yes, voter registration is important but when you are talking about American politics, it includes everything, but the voter registration is not important when people do not come out and vote. When I was running for office, there was 2,300 South Asians living in that district and they did not come out and vote. So what happened? If these 2,300 people came out to vote, I could win this election. So when you are going out and education people to register to vote, it is not only registering the votes, but also tell them to come out and vote, that is the most important thing.

 

Parmatma Saran:

 

Ok, go ahead

 

Lisa:

 

Hi. I want to know what you guys think are the main obstacles facing South Asian organizations. In organizing today I think that there is a lack of focus on the working class. I think there is a visible gap between the professional class post 1965 and the new immigration and the organizations like taxi workers alliance. Do you feel like that there is not enough emphasis on the working class and how do you incorporate working class people in various organizations that you are a part of?

 

Thomas Abraham:

 

Yes, as you would put it, the taxi workers association in an already active group, but all other professional groups are also organized. The pharmacists are organized, the nursing groups are organized now. Doctors, of course were already organized much earlier. Even the convenient stores people, they are becoming a much, much bigger with 711 stores and all over. So there is professional group, but all these other people, they are all members of some other group, that is, some where members of other cultural groups. But when it comes to the professional level, those cross cut within out community no matter where you are from. It does come up but there are small organizational efforts needed in terms of reaching out to the ordinary people in other professions where they can organize.

 

Professor Saran:

 

Thank you, Thomas. Yes?

 

Sam:

 

Hi. Good Morning. My name is Sam Fran. I teach at the inner city public school. You answered most of my questions but I just want to comment because my question was already asked. Mr. Syed I have to disagree with you. I have been working with the immigration problem for a number of years and there are literally thousand and thousand of people who are being impacted by these terrible immigration policies. I think part of the problem is that we don’t recognize it and that we put a social stigma on our community for coming out and saying I have an immigration problem. There are people who are organizing of various class levels and various national origins but I think the validation has to come forward, that we do have a huge problem, not just post 9/11, going back decades where you know, families have been torn apart, families have not seen each other for a number of years. I think it is a community issue and not just a policy and legal issue. In order to organize, we need to recognize that it is an issue that affects thousands of our community members.

 

Professor Saran:

 

Thanks very much. Because we are behind, I would appreciate if we can continue this discussion in dialogue during our breaks and lunch and all that because we have to accommodate next session. I want to thank all the members of the panel for your very interesting presentation, very educational information and of course, all of you for being here and so patiently listening to them. I see numbers of my students and colleagues and I particularly want to recognize an old friend, Lenny Garden, an India expert and he’s also present in the (1:05:21) matters foundation. Mr. (1:05:23) was one of the earliest immigrants to come to this country and settle down in New York. Thanks very much. We have about ten minutes and then we are coming back to this place for the next session.