By: Nowshen Pranthi

SAPNA NYC is an organization dedicated to supporting the needs of South Asian immigrants living in the Westchester Square and Parkchester neighborhoods of the Bronx. Their programs transform the lives of South Asian immigrant women by improving physical and mental health, expanding economic opportunities and building a collective voice for change.

By: Nowshen Pranthi

The Bangladeshi Historical Memory Project sat with Annie Ferdous, a legendary Bangladeshi choreographer and dancer based in New York. Annie Ferdous is one of the founders of the Bangladeshi Institute of Performing Arts, and she’s been sharing her work with the Bangladeshi community for over 25 years.

Where are you from and what work do you do now?

I received my Masters in Social Studies from Dhaka University of Bangladesh. From Dhaka, I first went to London for two years in 1986. I worked in London and got married to a nice Bangladeshi man, and migrated to…

By: Sharmin Hossain

Sharmin Hossain talks with Sharmin Sadequee, the sister of Ehsanul Shifa Sadequee, who was charged and imprisoned by the FBI 10 years ago as militarized police forces of the United States began targeting Muslims post 9/11. This April, we honor Shifa who spoke out against the U.S. violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, translated literature, and worked on a publication website, and sentenced to seventeen years in a Communication Management Unit. Sharmin shares the hurt from being separated from her brother, the details of his case, where he was in solitary confinement for over three years without fair…

Sharmin Hossain sits down with Chaumtoli Huq, public advocate, educator at City University of New York’s Borough of Manhattan Community College, and mother of two beautiful children. Chaumtoli created Law at the Margins, a dynamic social media platform that highlights the ways laws and social justice aspirations work together, and is directing the production of Sramik Awaaz, a documentary on the Bangladeshi labor organizing movement. For the full transcription, click here.

Tell us where your family is from and what kind of work you do.

I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh on September 6th. It was in 1971 during…

By: Sharmin Hossain

Jensine Raihan is a fierce femme working with Desis Rising Up & Moving, a revolutionary South Asian working class organization in New York City. Throughout her years at Townsend Harris High School, Jensine led groundbreaking work addressing anti-Black racism in New York City’s public school system, and lives as a dedicated liberation fighter in Queens. This year, Jensine founded DRUM’s gender justice initiative: Eckshathe, to build feminist leadership in South Asian spaces. …

Amader Golpo: Meet Shahana Hanif, Bangladeshi visionary

By: Sharmin Hossain

Shahana Hanif and I met while organizing in New York through our mutual friend Alok Vaid Menon; it was love at first sight. Here was this gorgeous, tall Bangladeshi femme born and raised in Brooklyn, wearing this vibrant salwar kameez to an Arundathi Roy reading in Manhattan, sharing her poetry with the South Asian organizing community. She also graduated from the City University of New York, and we had shared our traumas as Bangladeshi femmes over Kati Roll after Basement Bhangra one night. With Shahana, I learned about the visions…

With Bangladeshi residents of New York, the Bangladeshi Historical Memory Project works with oral histories to document the cultures of resilience in the Bangladeshi diaspora. In order to address the historical amnesia around our ancestral lineage, migration and partition stories, this archive serves as a place for historical memory.