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SAADA: Redefining tales of

South Asian American

Keeping intact the reminiscences of South Asian American history
Culturati and culture, SAADA, a digital archive platform by Samip Mallick, has

chronicled over 3,000 items in a stint of ten years
ArshiyA sethi
eet Samip Mallick — Co- however, was my South Asian American
Founder and Executive identity. And it was not until college that I
Director of SAADA — the became aware of it”.
Dr. Arshiya Sethi writes South Asian American Ancestry, identity and citizenship in the
on cultural issues. Digital Archive, for- immigrant population of the American
After a rich career of M merly, the Director of the melting pot, occupies the consciousness
working on tangible Ranganathan Center for Digital Informa- of most Americans. Immigration, ever a
and intangible aspects tion at the University of Chicago Library, hot topic in the United States, has been a
of the ecosphere of the with an M.S. in Library and Information seminal part of the historical and political
arts, she runs the Kri Sciences from the University of Illinois and discourse here, since the founding of the
Foundation that a Bachelors degree in Computer Science nation, making up an enormous part of the
promotes arts, from the University of Michigan College history and heritage of America. Tracing
activism in the social of Engineering. I encountered the South ancestry, ethnicity, genealogy through
and development Asian American Digital Archive acciden- DNA testing is a big industry in USA oc-
sector, especially via tally while searching for information on cupying considerable media advertising
‘artivism’, and the a pioneering Indian dancer who taught space. Among one of the reasons for this, is
generation of knowl- Indian dance to an early generation of to seek a sense of community.
edge on intersecting Americans in America but is conspicuous “Realising, that South Asians had
issues. by his absence in any accounts of Indian started arriving in the US in larger num-
dance. The only image I found of this bers beginning in the late 1800s and early
dancer was in the SAADA cachet. An email 1900s and that South Asians were barred
to its Director got me a prompt reply, and a from US citizenship from 1923 to 1946 was
chance to understand why Samip Mallick, completely new information to me” said
a ‘born in America’ citizen of USA, thought Mallick, who was previously the Assis-
of creating this archive. tant Bibliographer for the Southern Asia
“My parents immigrated to the US Collection at the University of Chicago
from India in the late 1960s, part of the Library and has worked for the South Asia
SAADA’s digital initial wave of immigrants following the and International Migration Programs
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
at the Social Science Research Council.
archives include I was born in Michigan, in the suburbs of “It made me begin to wonder why it was
more than 3,000 Detroit, and raised there for most of my that I didn’t know these histories growing
childhood. I say most because we did move up here in the US. What I realized is that
unique items, to Pune when I was 8 and lived there for these stories, like those of so many other
constituting two years. But, other than that time, most minoritized communities, have been over-
of my formative experiences were in the
looked and excluded. Our stories are not
rare historical US” explains Mallick. included in textbooks, they are not taught
They say that you can take an Indian out in classrooms, and they are not reflected
photographs, of India but not India out of him. So was in media”.
letters, postcards, the case with Mallick. “Through my par- This realization and learning more
newspaper ents, I was always conscious of my South about the South Asian American com-
munity and its history was transforma-
Asian identity. We would attend religious
clippings, and and cultural functions throughout the tive for him personally and helped him
re-imagine his place in the mosaic of
year and had many family friends from
ephemera the community. What I was less aware of, American society. Dr. Michelle Caswell,

Tehelka / 31 august 2018 60 www.Tehelka.com