Spring semester is over and the Baltimore summer is quickly heating up. It’s been a busy few months–in April, Nalini and I gave a talk on Roots and Reflections at the University of Washington South Asia Center. During the same trip to Seattle, I organized a panel for the Association of Asian American Studies entitled “Contestations and Collaborations: Creating Asian American Archives and the Challenges of Representation” with Samip Mallick from the South Asian American Digital Archive, Neena Makhija from the Sindhi Voices Project, and Theo Gonzalves, professor of American Studies at UMBC. My paper, “From Observer to Insider to Observer: The Challenges and Possibilities of Community Based Research” explored the issues that arise when representing community histories and working with institutional and community partners who are invested in retaining historical narratives of South Asian success.
I also gave a workshop for the University of Washington Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Department titled: “What’s Next: Moving Beyond Graduate School with Your Feminist Studies PhD.”