Thursday, November 5, 2020
6:00pm-7:30pm
Webinar Registration: go.umd.edu/saae
Join us for a panel discussion on current themes and issues surrounding South Asian Americans in the DMV featuring Darakshan Raja (Co-founder, Justice for Muslims Collective), Jyoti Mohan, PhD (Historian & Author), and Lakshmi Sridaran (Executive Director, South Asian Americans Leading Together).
This event is brought to you by the Asian American Studies Program (UMD), the Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy (UMD), the South Asian Student Association, and the Asian American Student Union.
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Panelists
Darakshan Raja is a community builder and organizer who is committed to building institutional power of Muslim communities in the region, with a particular focus on the leadership of Muslim women. Darakshan currently serves as a co-director of Justice For Muslims Collective and leads JMC’s strategic visioning, power-building and leadership development efforts in the greater Washington region. She also leads JMC’s organizational development, and advocacy on issues around gendered Islamophobia, immigration, surveillance and the Muslim Ban. She currently serves on the DC government’s Street Harassment Advisory Committee as a religious tolerance appointee to implement the Street Harassment Prevention Act in DC.
Jyoti Mohan, PhD is a historian who works on South Asian and South Asian American issues. She has taught on South Asian American history and culture widely in the NCT area and remains actively connected with South Asian organizations which seek to promote South Asian participation in public life. She is the author of Claiming India: French Scholars and the Preoccupation with India in the Nineteenth Century.
Lakshmi Sridaran is the Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), a national South Asian racial justice policy and advocacy organization. From 2014 to 2019, she was SAALT’s Director of National Policy and Advocacy where she developed SAALT’s policy and legislative agenda, which focuses on immigration, racial profiling, and combating hate violence.