Sadaf Siddique
With Faith in Her Heart
Asra Nomani leads a progressive Muslim women's movement.
ON HER ANNUAL TRIPS to India as a child, Asra Nomani had the drill down pat: enter the aircraft in jeans but change into traditional clothes in the tiny lavatory. Always wear loose clothes and always, always cover your behind. But it wasn't only her clothes Nomani was used to switching identities as well. What she didn't realize then was that it was something she would later confront as a writer and activist.
Brown is the New Black
Tanuj Chopra’s post-9/11 story punches at the heart.
“Indian Niggas ... Pakistani Niggas ... Bangladeshi Niggas ... haven’t y’all heard? We’re the new niggas!”
From the first sentence of the film Punching at the Sun, director Tanuj Chopra draws you into the gritty, racially charged world of his young main character, Mameet Nayak. While the film focuses on a South Asian teenager coming of age on the mean streets of Elmhurst, Queens, it is also one of the first films to deal with the experiences of the South Asian community in a post-9/11 world.