South Asian Progressive Action Collective

07/10/2019

Come and join Red Power Entertainment and American Indian Movement for this day of resistance! Music, food, beverages, and a good cause! From 9am-9pm. Please share widely!

04/17/2018

A grand jury has cleared the police officer who actually killed the teenager of any responsibility.

11/13/2017

Webinar for AAPI, Black and LGBTQ DACA immigrants and their families on Nov. 28. Please check it out and feel free to share.

Tue, November 28, 2017 - 10:00am to 11:30am PT WebinarThis past September, the Trump Administration announced the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, with all benefits to be revoked by March 2018. DACA provided nearly 800,000 immigrants with the opportunity to l...

09/13/2017

Would love to get progressive South Asian innovators in this very first Obama Foundation Fellowship cohort. Applications opened today and are due Friday, October 6th @ 6:00pm CT.

The Obama Foundation Fellowship program seeks to support outstanding civic innovators from around the world in order to amplify the impact of their work and to inspire a wave of civic innovation.

10/18/2016

Just a quick reminder that I'll be introducing AMITAV GHOSH tonight, one of my very favorite contemporary writers (in my top ten!). So excited. :-) This event is free and open to the public; seating in the auditorium is first-come, first-served.

Tue., Oct. 18 at 6 p.m.
Harold Washington Library Center, Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
400 S. State Street, Chicago

Amitav Ghosh discusses his new book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Are we deranged? Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In An Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability—at the level of literature, history and politics—to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.

Library event listing: https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/events/5771a477b2be2fb7460adbbc

(photo by Sumit Dayal)

In a rare Chicago appearance, acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh joins us to discuss his new book titled The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable.Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our...

07/07/2016

Hey SAPAC'ers. I know it's been a LONG time since I have posted anything on this page. SAPAC has been inactive for a few years now, but I'm feeling pretty compelled nowadays for this group to re-emerge. I don't know WHAT a "SAPAC" will look like, but I definitely feel as if our presence is missing in this city. Personally, I feel as if I am not seeing enough Asian American solidarity around the Black Lives Matter movement and I would like to see that change. So, I welcome anyone else who is feeling frustrated, angry, and a little hopeless and lost to join me this Tuesday (July 12) evening for the DOJ Investigation of the CPD's community forum in Uptown (details below). I don't know what exactly it's all about or if anything good will be resulted from it, but I know it can't hurt. Perhaps we can all meet up afterwards and see what we can do moving forward. Please message me if you are interested in joining. Love and Light.

The tragedy in Louisiana demonstrates that too many of the very people we pay to protect us still lack basic respect for our lives (BE WARNED, the video linked below is graphic and heartbreaking http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alton-sterling-shooting-baton-rouge-police-sparks-outrage-protests-n604431?cid=sm_fb_msnbc_native?cid=sm_fb_newsnation).

The question is, what are you willing to do about it?

If you're in Chicago, Illinois, The United States Department of Justice will be hosting forums THIS Tues (7/12 at Truman College, 1145 W Wilson Ave) and next Thurs from 6:30-8:30pm (7/14 at the Kroc Center Chicago, 1250 W 119th St) to ensure community members & other stakeholders have an opportunity to share their thoughts, experiences and solutions and ensure police transparency and accountability.

Please come if you can--your voice is needed.

If you're not in Chicago, you've got to band together with others who don't think that your tax dollars should go towards mistreating fellow community members and fight for the implementation of recommendations like those made of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Police Department in the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force Report http://chicagopatf.org/ and beyond.

01/31/2016

A quick note that submissions close today for Jaggery. "Jaggery, a DesiLit arts and literature journal, connects South Asian diasporic writers and homeland writers; we also welcome non-South Asians with a deep and thoughtful connection to South Asian countries, who bring their own intersecting perspectives to the conversation. (By South Asia we mean Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.) Our hope with Jaggery is to create a journal that offers the best writing by and about South Asians and their diaspora. Dark, complex, intense—and totally delicious."

Jaggery, a DesiLit arts and literature journal, connects South Asian diasporic writers and homeland writers; we also welcome non-South Asians with a deep and thoughtful connection to South Asian countries, who bring their own intersecting perspectives to the conversation. (By South Asia we mean Afgh…

12/01/2015

It’s Giving Tuesday, and I know everyone is seeing a barrage of non-profit requests, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. I run two literary organizations, and we’d like to extend our reach in 2016; we hope you can join us. All staff are volunteers for both organizations (along with an occasional paid student intern); our overhead is exceedingly minimal (web hosting costs, basically). The money you donate goes directly to writers and artists. Here’s what we do, and what we’d like to do:

The Speculative Literature Foundation is a science fiction and fantasy 501(c)3 non-profit that offers several grants and a comprehensive resource website. Grants offer talented writers a little extra time and money so they can develop their work further; this is especially valuable for work that may not be commercial in nature. We currently offer five grants: the Gulliver Travel grant, the Older Writers’ grant, the Working Class Writers grant and the Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds grants. The first two are currently funded by generous donors; the working class and diversity grants are currently funded for three more years.

In 2016, we’d like to bring back the Fountain Award for excellence in short fiction; to do that, we need to raise $1000 this December. Any new donations received by the SLF will go first towards the Fountain Award, and then towards solidifying future grant support. We’re also potentially interested in setting up new grants; if you’re interested in donating money towards a new grant, please get in touch, and we’d love to discuss it.

Donate to the SLF here: http://speculativeliterature.org/donation-info/

DesiLit supports South Asian and diaspora literature, with Jaggery, an international literary magazine, local chapters that offer book clubs and writing workshops, and the Kriti Festival, which takes place periodically in Chicago. Currently, Jaggery has a very small budget, $250 / issue, for three issues / year. We’d like to at least double that for 2016, so we’re aiming to raise $750 this December. More would be even better – before too long, I’d like to be paying at least $100 / story. The SLF functions as fiscal sponsor for DesiLit, so all donations are tax-deductible.

Donate to DesiLit here: http://desilit.org/support-us/

That’s it, folks. Please let me know if you have any questions!
thanks,

Mary Anne Mohanraj
Executive Director, DesiLit and the SLF

The Foundation welcomes gifts in any amount, and all donations are tax-exempt. All donations of $50 or more come with an (optional) SLF pin. Alternatively, you can send a check or money order to: Speculative Literature Foundation ℅ Mary Anne Mohanraj 332 Wisconsin Ave. Oak Park, IL 60302 Thank you f…

10/16/2014

Jaggery is looking for two volunteer webmasters; if you can help, please take a look! It should not be too onerous, as we only put out three issues / year. :-)

*****

Webmaster: Technical

Skills:
* Expertise with HTML, CSS, PHP, and UNIX command lines.
* Experience with maintaining and operating a WordPress installation. Experience writing plugins a plus.

Responsibilities:
* Upgrade WordPress, plugins, and themes as needed.
* Implement design changes as needed.
* Fix bugs, install new plugins, and implement new features as needed.
* Document procedures as needed.
* Work with WordPress webmaster to publish issues.

Time requirements:
* About 1 hour a week (or less) most of the time.
* About 3-5 hours a week during periods of heavy maintenance, upgrades, or other significant changes.
* About 10 hours a week for two to three weeks before each triquarterly issue.

Webmaster: WordPress

Skills:
* Experience with maintaining and operating a WordPress installation.
* Proficiency with HTML. Familiarity with CSS a plus.

Responsibilities:
* Help get each issue's content posted. Upload images, format material with HTML tags for posting online, create table-of-contents, enter proofreading changes, etc.
* Maintain the WordPress installation. Address problems as they arise; keep everything updated to latest versions.
* Moderate comments and manage comment spam.
* Maintain staff mailing lists.

Time requirements:
* About 1 hour a week (or less) most of the time.
* About 10 hours a week for two to three weeks before each triquarterly issue.

*****

Please e-mail [email protected] with a brief bio (noting relevant experience) if interested!