One of the foot soldiers in Toronto’s underground music scene, Rosina Kazi is the lead singer of the band LAL and she has recorded with State of Bengal, Toronto Tabla Ensemble, Titonton, Moonstarr, Abacus, da grassroots and more. She has been instrumental in the growth of many of the City’s artists and DJ’s, providing venues and forums for their musical expression. More importantly, she has managed to add an air of consciousness and political awareness to many of those events, and this awareness is the most distinctive factor of her music. She grew up in the Canadian-Bangladeshi community where politics and art went hand in hand. She grew up singing and dancing traditional Bengali folk music and dance and went on to play in choirs and bands up until high school.
Rosina teaches and performs spoken word, which is another outlet for her passion for community and art. Through her community arts organization, ‘COMMUNITY CENTRE’, Rosina also works with youth and facilitates spoken word, song-writing and indie art making programs. Rosina created COMMUNITY CENTRE to teach youth and to support artists who needed support with their own projects. Thus far COMMUNITY CENTRE has produced three albums, for Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah (supported by the OAC), Brazilian singer Luanda Jones (OAC and Canada Council) and Queer Dance Music Artist Troy Jackson.
Rosina has been composing music professionally for over 12 years. She has recorded 4 albums with the band LAL, and has guest appeared on over 10 recordings (from techno to folk music albums). She also plays harmonium, and composes using samplers and laptops. Her passion is connecting with different communities and having a conversation through words and music. One of the ways she does this is to also program different festivals and community based programs such Masala Mehndi Masti, Afro Latin South Asian Festival, and Mayworks. She has created a style that incorporates her singing voice and her love of reciting poetry, which is very much informed by hip hop and spoken word cultures. She continues to teach spoken word workshops for organizations like Diaspora Dialogues, Buddies in Bad Times, AQSA Zine Collective, The Royal Music Conservatory and more.
Find out more about Rosina, lal and her revolutionary music here:
Minoo Netervala, on far right, rides a carousel with friends, 1952.
The women are from the University of California Los Angeles, and the men are from the University of Southern California. The female student wearing the sari would have been rare in this period since most students from India were men.
On July 2, 1946, partly due to the assistance India provided to the Allied Forces in World War II, Congress passed the Luce-Celler Bill. This removed restrictions on Asian Indian immigration and gave India an annual immigration quota of one hundred. Asian Indian immigrants now had naturalization rights. Asian Indian men who had not seen their wives and children in over thirty years were now able to send for their families and build a new life in the United States.
Sikh taxi drivers gather at work in New York City. South Asian Americans drive more than half of all taxi cabs in the city.
The taxi industry is tied up in America’s botched history of South Asian racial classification. In 1984, when applying for licenses, drivers were asked to indicate their race/ethnicity. The choices given were: white, black, Indian, Asian, Hispanic. As a result, the The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) was surprised to find their drivers to be 34% white, 27% black, 15% Indian, 12% Asian, 11% Hispanic, because: “The Indian category, originally meant to refer to Native Americans, [was] selected by most drivers born in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as well as some drivers born in northeastern Africa.” Recognizing the impossibility of a New York City workforce composed of 15% Native Americans, the questionnaire was amended in 1992 to include the category Asian Indian.
Protect brown girls from being made fun of because their food has unique smells and colors and tastes.
Protect brown girls from racists incapable of extending the slightest bit of grace and accommodation.
Protect brown girls who end up sitting alone while eating because their peers refuse to acclimate despite demanding acclimation. Protect brown girls who feel left out and excluded because of where they obtain their nutrition.
Protect brown girls who wonder if it’s worth it to bring the food they love for lunch because they’re afraid of the comments they’ll hear. Protect brown girls who love the food they eat and don’t understand why other people don’t agree.
Your food tastes awesome. Your food is part of your heritage, part of you, and you deserve to eat it with pride. Your peers who view you and your food with derision, rather than curiosity, are narrow minded; it is heartbreakingly unfair that you are being asked to shoulder the burden of their contempt. I hope you continue to enjoy the foods you love despite others questioning you. I hope you are able to eat what you want, when you want, without feeling the need to stifle this part of yourself. And I hope you are able to find a social circle that accepts you, fragrant, vibrant food and all.
We’re honored to host a cover reveal today for A THOUSAND BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS, an anthology edited by WNDB’s own Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman and featuring stories from a diverse group of talented authors. Congratulations!
More information from the publisher:
Star crossed lovers, meddling immortals, feigned identities, battles of wits, and dire warnings. These are the stuff of fairy tale, myth, and folklore that have drawn us in for centuries.
Fifteen bestselling and acclaimed authors reimagine the folklore and mythology of East and South Asia in short stories that are by turns enchanting, heartbreaking, romantic, and passionate.
Compiled by We Need Diverse Books’s Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman, the authors included in this exquisite collection are: Renee Ahdieh, Sona Charaipotra, Preeti Chhibber, Roshani Chokshi, Aliette de Bodard, Melissa de la Cruz, Julie Kagawa, Rahul Kanakia, Lori M. Lee, E. C. Myers, Cindy Pon, Aisha Saeed, Shveta Thakrar, and Alyssa Wong.
A mountain loses her heart. Two sisters transform into birds to escape captivity. A young man learns the true meaning of sacrifice. A young woman takes up her mother’s mantle and leads the dead to their final resting place. From fantasy to science fiction to contemporary, from romance to tales of revenge, these stories will beguile readers from start to finish. For fans of Neil Gaiman’s Unnatural Creature sand Ameriie’s New York Times–bestselling Because You Love to Hate Me.
so honored and thrilled to be included in this anthology which releases next summer with Greenwillow Books! <3 cindy
South Asian Woman In Urgent Need of Bone Marrow Donor
One of my best friends was diagnosed with leukemia and is in need of a life-saving bone marrow donor. If you’re South Asian could you please register for the cheek swab kit?
Please share widely and encourage your friends to sign up, you could help my best friend beat cancer.
Text “FORLIYNA” to 61474
Update: We just learned from Be the Match that the overwhelming majority of new registrants in the system are SOUTH ASIAN. YALL, WE’RE DOING THIS!!!
Y’ALL YOU ARE DOING THIS. THANK YOU! PLEASE KEEP SHARING. WE WILL FIND HER A MATCH!
Update: if you haven’t registered yet please do. Liyna needs to find a match ASAP. Please sign up, you could save a life.
South Asian Woman In Urgent Need of Bone Marrow Donor
One of my best friends was diagnosed with leukemia and is in need of a life-saving bone marrow donor. If you’re South Asian could you please register for the cheek swab kit?
Please share widely and encourage your friends to sign up, you could help my best friend beat cancer.
Text “FORLIYNA” to 61474
Update: We just learned from Be the Match that the overwhelming majority of new registrants in the system are SOUTH ASIAN. YALL, WE’RE DOING THIS!!!
Y’ALL YOU ARE DOING THIS. THANK YOU! PLEASE KEEP SHARING. WE WILL FIND HER A MATCH!
South Asian Woman In Urgent Need of Bone Marrow Donor
One of my best friends was diagnosed with leukemia and is in need of a life-saving bone marrow donor. If you’re South Asian could you please register for the cheek swab kit?
Please share widely and encourage your friends to sign up, you could help my best friend beat cancer.
Text “FORLIYNA” to 61474
A FAQ:
Who are they looking for?
Ideally, someone who is 18 - 44 of South Asian descent. Gender does not matter (have been asked this a lot). If you are not South Asian, I would still consider requesting a swab kit, because you might be a match/hero for someone else’s best friend.
Thank you everyone for reblogging and sharing, please continue to reblog and share and sign up for this!
Owning her bisexual label since she was 19, Apphia is warrior, a survivor, the voice in the room reminding it to be bi-inclusive refusing to tip-toe around biphobia and bi erasure, a hugaholic, a poet who loves to sing. She founded an LGBTQ support group in her hometown in Pune, the bustling high-tech hub 100 miles outside Mumbai India called “Birds of a Feather”; moderates and hosts BOZ an online group for Bisexuals in/from India; contributed to “Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals around the World”; and is currently the Board Chair for SALGA-NYC, New York’s largest South Asian LGBTQ organization.
Apphia is the first known asylee who was granted asylum in the USA as an out bisexual and is currently working on Immigration Issues through the Bisexual experience.
NOTE:It is very important to us that this conference is accessible to everyone. Because of this, we ask that you think critically about what you’re able to contribute; whether that’s more than $70 or less. Pay more if you can, less if you can’t! No one will be turned away due to inability to pay.
