“Bottom-up organizing is the only way real change happens:” Interview with Pranjal Jain
The original interviews I did for Youth to Power were longer than could fit in my book, but I wanted to share the valuable information with you all. These interviews will be up online as a permanent, free resource for people, young people in particular, looking for inspiration.
— Jamie Margolin
Pranjal Jain, (she/her), 17, is an activist for rights of Indian women and an immigration rights activist.
Jamie Margolin: What is your story — how did you become an activist?
Pranjal: I discovered I was an undocumented immigrant the same year that President Donald Trump was elected in the United States. I was fifteen years old and it was a huge shock to me that I was in the United States illegally. I always knew I was an immigrant, but I didn’t know I was undocumented. I immigrated as a baby, so I had no recollection of coming to America.
When I found out my immigration status, it changed everything. Before, I lived my life like a regular American citizen. I have been very privileged because I was able to become a naturalized American citizen soon after I found out my status, and I was blessed with opportunities many undocumented immigrants never get. I wanted to pay it forward.
So after Donald Trump got elected, I noticed that there was a real need in my community. There are many undocumented immigrants in my community from all over the world who are now living in fear. It doesn’t help that we are a community majority people of color, and the election of this president helped embolden white supremacists who now felt they could attack us without consequence.
After seeing this spike of despair among fellow POC in my community, I decided to take action. I organized a post-2016 election healing event after school about the acceptance of people of all races, genders, and sexualities in our community. Organizing my whole school to build power and strength after the election (as a community of color reeling from the rise to power of white supremacy) was my first real event that I organized wearing the hat of a social justice organizer. Since then I have organized countless events, campaigns, and projects working on different aspects of justice for the people I care about. I do whatever I can do to uplift my community, especially immigrants and undocumented people, and people of color.
Have there been times your identity as an Indian immigrant has affected your activism?
All the time!
I constantly get “You dirty immigrant” and “You illegal human” hate. The hard part is I am not 100% American or 100% Indian. That gray area gives me a unique perspective. Coming from a South Asian, somewhat conservative family, I have seen my family deal with the disparities Indian women face. Things that Americans would typically see as “third world country” stuff manifests in front of my eyes.
That’s why I’m working on creating my own NGO for Jaipur, in Rajasthan, where my family is from. [It] is one of the most patriarchal states in India. In my culture there is a glaringly patriarchal, hierarchical system. When I go visit my grandma, I can see the clear gender disparities. For example, women are automatically expected to cook. I remember my mom would always say, “No one is going to marry you if you don’t know how to cook.”
But nowadays, because of the work I have done changing the minds of those within my family and community, my parents don’t subscribe to those gender inequities South Asia promotes.
What are your strategies for creating change?
I firmly believe we need to educate young people and so that youth are equipped with the knowledge they need to be successful.
Even when I was twelve I was educating my peers. When I gave my menstrual equity workshop, none of my peers knew what it was about. It was so scary. I was shaking; it was super vulnerable. I was putting a target on my back. But because I was vulnerable, my peers latched on and understood. They opened up. A White, popular jock started sharing his sister’s period story. My curriculum made my classmates see where they needed menstrual equity in their lives.
It’s so hard talking to people about stuff most people wouldn’t want to talk about. Getting up there and breaking the taboo is hard. As a South Asian woman, the shame and taboo is so real with stuff like sexuality and menstruation, and I had to overcome my own culturally ingrained shame. I bet if my grandparents were in that room listening to me educate a classroom about menstrual inequality, they would hide their faces in shame and be like, “Is this our granddaughter? Is that who she is?”
Yeah, it is who I am!
Is it fair to say you have dismantled some of the patriarchy and created change within your own family?
YES! I dismantled that sexist hierarchy by rejecting it. Every time my grandma nags me to go cook I’m like, “No, Grandma, I’m doing homework. Why do you never ask my brother to cook?”
I changed the way my family operated and thought because I didn’t take the shit they forced on me. When I was younger, my grandparents were always like, We can’t wait for you to have kids and be a good housewife, but now they say, “I’m so proud you got into Cornell University and are studying to get a law degree.”
Change happens within families. It happened within mine. It’s so important to create change with the people in your own life.
I was texting family friend, practically my cousin. We’ve known each other since birth. He made a PMS joke and I gave him so much shit for it. I told him, “You know I fight for menstrual equality, why are you making offensive jokes like that?”
He called me an annoying femi-nazi. I get that term, “feminazi,” all the time. There’s nothing Nazi-ish about wanting equality for women, and that term always infuriates me. It’s so hard confronting family and friends, but if you can’t change the people in your own life, how are you changing the world?
The other day I was in a car with my best friend, who is a girl, with my dad. She’s Muslim, and my dad asked her when do young kids start fasting for Ramadan. She told him, “Boys start when they’re twelve or thirteen; girls start when they get their period.” Now for context, my friend has an extremely conservative family, and if her father had heard his daughter even mention menstruation, he would have freaked out. But now my dad, at hearing about menstruation, had no reaction. When we got out of the car my friend said, “I remember that workshop at school when you talked about working in your own house to destigmatize menstruation. I just saw you made that change in real life with your own dad. That’s so cool.”
Why is it the little actions that can change the world?
I believe so strongly in grassroots. The nonprofit I am working on forming to empower and uplift women back in my community in India is going to be 100% grassroots change. Let’s say my NGO doesn’t reach everyone — but even if I impact one family and get them to see the value in their females and send their daughters to school, it will be the best thing ever.
Change is so much more measurable when it’s grassroots. When you do something grassroots, you’re changing something concrete and important.
After the Parkland shooting every teen was #antigun but then the fad fades away… they just post online about gun control but don’t actually do anything about it in their community.
Grassroots is where the change happens. In our communities. Bottom-up organizing is the only way real change happens.
