Meeta Kaur is a recovering creative writer and community advocate in
Union City, California. She received her MFA in creative writing at
Mills College and a Hedgebrook writing residency in 2006. She was also
the recipient of the Elizabeth George award for emerging creative
writers, and has written for Asian Week and Sikh Chic. com. She wants
to cultivate a mutually healthy and compassionate relationship to
writing in all its forms.
With the recent terrorist attacks around the globe, the South Asian and Middle Eastern communities in the United States are on high alert. Backlash towards these communities similar to the post 9/11 hate crimes that took place has resurfaced. Over Thanksgiving, a Muslim American cab driver in Pittsburgh was shot in the back by a passenger. CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, reported the passenger asking the cab driver about his background as a “Pakistani guy” before he brought out his rifle.
Community advocate Meeta Kaur discusses Dr. Prabhjot Singh and his wife Dr. Manmeet Kaur's reflection and response to the violent attack that took place in September.
California Assemblymember Mariko Yamada was able to relate her
experience as a Japanese American to the discrimination faced by Sikh Americans, and
champion equal employment opportunity through the introduction of AB 1964.
After successful response to Fly Rights, an app developed to document incidents of TSA profiling, the Sikh Coalition prepares to forge ahead with a second version.
New Hyphen columnist Meeta Kaur shares her experiences integrating cultural foods into a healthy, family-friendly diet.
Sometimes a book can weave its way into your consciousness so deeply that the characters and stories merge with you, mirroring back buried pieces of you, and expand your thinking in unimaginable ways.
Living with a turban in a post-9/11 world.
Growing up in Northern California, I remember chatting with my father as he tied his pagri. We started in the bathroom where he brushed and tied up his beard under his chin. We then moved to the dresser mirror in my parents’ bedroom, where he stared at his reflection, carrying on a muffled conversation with one end of 15 feet of black starched cloth anchored in his mouth. He repeatedly circled his turban in a rhythm across his left temple and back around up to his right temple until the material was neatly wrapped around his head, without wrinkles.
Forcing a community into silence about their experiences is another form of terror that is seldom talked about.