It’s important to know the context that I bring to my training and consulting work. These are the organizations and projects that I currently work, organize, and grow with, as well as my specific roles in each.

Racial Justice Consulting in Madison, WI
I am working with a friend to offer Racial Justice consulting services to organizations in Madison, WI. Dane County, which includes Madison, has recently come under scrutiny for being the worst county in the nation for Black people–due to an incredibly high rate of mass incarceration, an ever-widening achievement gap, income inequality, and more. We are trying to use this brief spotlight on issues of racial inequity to convince organizations to make lasting structural change.

Queer South Asian National Network (QSANN)
I began conversations to create a Queer South Asian National Network in 2014. The goals of creating a national network were to provide support, visibility, and leadership development for queer South Asian organizations around the country. We are still fairly few in number, and there is great potential in having an organized body. The group is very much emerging, and has focused on a queer South Asian analysis of immigration, anti-Blackness, and #BlackLivesMatter, and developing capacity building and leadership support for queer South Asian organizations.

Queer South Asian Anthology Project
The idea for Queer South Asian anthology grew out of the first ever dedicated queer South Asian space at Creating Change, the largest LGBTQ conference in the nation, in January 2014. I presented on a panel along with two friends and scholars, and the desire to hear more queer South Asian stories and analysis both was palpable. We are hoping that this project, to be published as a book, will make visible life-saving stories of how we live and love, thrive and struggle, grow and learn.

National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA)
NQAPIA is a national federation of LGBTQ Asian Americans, South Asians, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islander organizations. I am on the board of NQAPIA. Recently, NQAPIA has focused on the fight for immigrants’ rights, and for the specific and often overlooked needs of LGBTQ API immigrants and their families. NQAPIA is also building the capacity of our local organizations by hosting Regional Summits across the nation.

UW-Madison’s Multicultural Student Center & Institute for Justice Education and Transformation
This is where I currently work. The Multicultural Student Center (MSC) at UW-Madison provides a safe and educational space for students of color at the university. The Center is unique in that it operates from a social justice perspective and model. I am the Social Justice Education Specialist at the MSC, and I develop and facilitate many of the workshops offered by the Institute for Justice Education and Transformation.

Image is from the Our Migration Herstories workshop at East Coast Solidarity Summer.