This weekend, the South Asian Awareness 

Network hosted their 19th annual conference 
“Rising Tides: Pulling Together to Push 
Boundaries.” While this year’s virtual setting 
looked different from previous round-table 
dialogues at the Michigan League, the social 
justice awareness organization delivered a 
rather engaging program with discussions of 
activism, identity and breaking boundaries. 

Over the course of three days, the conference 

shifted between speaker talks and facilitated 
breakout room sessions. Speakers included 
Hoda Katebi, Chicago-based organizer and 
creative; independent entrepreneur Ankita 
Bansal; state Rep. Ranjeev Puri, D-Canton; 
author and entrepreneur Suneel Gupta; 
entrepreneur and influencer Shivani Bafna; 
and Rukmini Vijayakumar, artistic director 
and choreographer. 

During talks, attendees were encouraged to 

engage in the chat with virtual reactions and 
comments that each speaker could interact 
with, and the virtual breakout sessions during 
dialogues offered an easy way for speakers and 
moderators to enter rooms and speak directly 
to attendees. The stimulating perspectives 
of everyone involved made the transition to 
Zoom fairly seamless, and is a testament to the 
assiduous efforts of the entire SAAN team. 

DAY 1: FRIDAY, Hoda Katebi — Keynote 

Address

The conference started off with a keynote 

address from Chicago-based abolitionist 
organizer Hoda Katebi on Friday evening. 
Katebi spoke about approaches to abolition 
and the inherently political nature of fashion 
from her home, with her cat on standby. 

As Katebi explained, “fast fashion is 

necessary under capitalism,” and “violence 
(most 
often 
gender-based 
violence) 
is 

necessary for fast fashion.” As she took us 
through the steps of the global clothing 
production cycle and the corresponding 

exploitation at each level, she quickly 
condemned ethical and sustainable fast 
fashion as “fake news.” 

Katebi swiftly connected the performative 

reformation of fashion companies to that 
of the military and its very performative 
notions of democracy, alluding to the deep 
interconnections of all institutions in which 
individual choice is never the sole determining 
factor. She called out the perpetuated narrative 
of trying to “buy the revolution” through 
brands that preach sustainability and instead, 
she encouraged what she calls “collaborative 
intersectional movement building” which 
requires taking a step back and holding the 
institutional structures accountable. 

As consumers of goods under capitalism 

wherein we “(are) not supposed to know what 
happens on … production floors,” our power, 
she said, lies in our ethos. Consumer power 
lies in what we can and cannot control, and 
she attests to this with one final sentiment: “I 
might use plastic straws, but I’m still trying to 
defund the military.” 

DAY 2: SATURDAY, Ankita Bansal — 

Unapologetic Pursuits: Rise of a Phoenix

On Saturday, Ankita Bansal started off 

the first full day of programming with a talk 
about her journey from starring in the Netflix 
reality TV show “Indian Matchmaking” to 
expanding her global denim brand THERE! 
with her sister Gayatri. In her first-ever talk 
to a university crowd, she opened up about 
her failures in the entrepreneurial world and 
encouraged all attendees to embrace their 
“unapologetic pursuits,” which remained the 
central theme throughout her address. 

“I wear my failures like a badge,” Bansal 

beamed as she told the audience about the 
great impact each one of her deterences had 
on her career and in her personal life. In one 
breakout room dialogue, attendees talked 
about how Bansal’s sentiment of embracing 
the lessons of failure is often lost in the 
pressures of hustle culture. 

In picking up many of her insights on the job, 

Bansal preached the importance of “bring(ing) 

in a personal aspect when growing a brand.” 
She talked about the value of community and 
the importance of authenticity, saying that 
“building a community takes a lot of heart 
and soul, not money.” For THERE!, this 
meant unique size customizations and open 
communication with individual clients. 

Alongside her business journey, Bansal 

is passionate about cultivating good habits 
and daily routines, warning against the lack 
of fulfillment from a 24/7 hustle. “When you 
start your day with (just) working, it leaves 
you in a space where you are not satisfied,” she 
said. 

With her closing workshop, Bansal 

encouraged attendees to pursue a new activity 
with a more self-oriented goal in mind for the 
next 21 days through a social media challenge 
collaboration with SAAN. 

Ranjeev Puri — Dichotomy of Activism 

within South Asian Generations

Newly-elected state Rep. Ranjeev Puri, 

D-Canton spoke about his identity in relation 
to politics, the importance of a culturally-
competent campaign and the dangers of the 
monolithic South Asian political identity. 

As the first person of color to represent 

the 21st District of Michigan, Puri walked 
through his campaign strategies to effectively 
reach older generations of the South Asian 
community in the diverse city of Canton 
through engagement with ongoing cultural 
and religious occasions. He delved into the 
inherent politics of “desi dinner parties,” and 
he expressed the need for getting those strong 
opinions at the dinner table out to the ballots. 

Despite his status as the first Sikh-

American in Michigan State Legislature, 
he drew a very necessary distinction in his 
political identity: “I’m not a South Asian 
legislator, I’m a legislator who happens to be 
South Asian.” He contended that in resisting 
the monolithic South Asian political identity, 
the diaspora must lean into the core values of 
our identities and experiences to then speak 
out to all people. 

“To a lot of people,” he stated, “we are just 

brown,” but Puri said his rather progressive 
agenda got a lot of pushback from older Desi 
generations who have anti-Black Lives Matter, 
anti-pride and anti-immigrant sentiments. 
Puri explained that he understood these 
outdated attitudes to be rooted in their own 
respective experiences. 

Through knowledge of struggle and feat, 

older generations of Desis taught younger 
ones to be good and do good in the society 
they are brought up in, Puri said. However, 
he encouraged younger generations to take 
charge of the political narratives in the South 
Asian diaspora by advocating for those same 
values for all people because “the (only) way 
we see our community succeed is when we see 
all communities succeed.” 

Suneel Gupta — Finding Happiness in 

Your Work

As the final speaker of Saturday’s program, 

entrepreneur and author of his new book 
“Backable,” Suneel Gupta highlighted the 
difference between career and craft, only 
the former of which can be discovered on a 
LinkedIn profile. 

He discussed a three-word framework for 

navigating through purpose and meaning in 
life: definition, devotion and detachment. He 
spoke about valuing character over reputation, 
prioritizing consistency over time and falling 
in love with the problem over its solution. 

His perspective on finding your Dharma, 

or calling, hit home for many of the students 
as they continued to self-reflect on attachment 
to career-based identities in breakout sessions. 
Gupta suggested a familiar failure-embracing 
approach to finding happiness in your work, 
saying “the opposite of success is not failure, 
it’s boredom.” 

He concluded with a workshop activity 

asking attendees to add something they want 
to learn in 2021 to a shared Google Document. 
After responses had stopped, he asked everyone 
to write their emails next to at least five items 
in the growing “To Learn List” that they could 
provide guidance for. As email links popped 
up next to statements like “I want to learn how 

to practice mindfulness” and “I want to learn 
how to speak another language,” attendees 
felt overwhelmed with how easy it had been 
to find guidance and seek out help. Members 
expressed their appreciation for the exercise 
and Gupta left them with one final push: “Let’s 
go do the things that make us feel alive.”

DAY 3: SUNDAY, Shivani Bafna — 

Sharing Your Authentic “Why” on Social 
Media

As the first speaker for Sunday’s program, 

influencer and University of Michigan 
alum Shivani Bafna talked about her unique 
journey in the entertainment industry and the 
role social media plays in it. 

Originally a pre-med student, Shivani 

completely switched her career path as she 
realized what she really wanted to do. Soon 
after her graduation from the University 
in 2018, Bafna took the leap and moved to 
Mumbai, India, to pursue her career within 
Bollywood where she entirely immersed 
herself into industry work, from modeling to 
interviewing to creating social media content. 

She turned to her social media platform to 

share her journey because as she said, “There 
are so many … experiences that we gloss 
over that are crucial to our journey.” She 
encouraged an awareness for all the steps 
that influence the journey — both the good 
and the bad. While she agrees that “what we 
share on social media is a curated highlight 
reel of the best wins of our lives,” she 
proposes more vulnerability in storytelling 
one’s journey online, sharing the equally 
influential failures along the way. 

In the technology-driven age of ever-

changing social media trends and followings, 
one breakout room dialogue debated the 
downsides to “making Instagram casual 
again.” Attendees also discussed the pressures 
that influencers like Bafna are faced with as 
she strives to tell her story and create a more 
empathetic space in the online world.

In my sister’s university library in Corpus 

Christi, Texas, I sat isolated behind a stack of 
books, crying as I lay on the dirty carpet with 
my sneakers propped up on the bookshelf 
and my headphones in, playing Solange’s 
“Cranes in the Sky.” Her music has always felt 
like an escape, and this particular moment 
culminated into release. For a good hour, I 
cried there –– I was reaching a new point in 
my life in which I would soon begin college 
without an idea of how I would pay for it. It 
was the pain of all my fears synthesizing.

The pressure of reality meeting the 

pressure of the divine feminine. That is a 
Solange song. That is me. 

My mamí taught me to be a girl on the run, 

like a blood rite. Though I only met her briefly 
in the flesh, I learned at a young age to pack my 
bags in a night and flee at a moment’s notice. 
Fleeing felt like liberation, and “Cranes in the 
Sky” sings to the absence of a destination that 
I found so iconic to my journey. In her feature 
on the “Exploder” podcast, the 34-year-
old Houston native explains these lyrics 
and describes her fleeing experiences. She 
discusses not only hyperbolically traveling 70 
states in the physical form, but also 70 states 
of mind — all in search of the feeling of home. 
She explains not being able to find a home, 
something we can all relate to and embrace. 
It is that realization when you hit a certain 
age of no return and suddenly home doesn’t 
feel like home anymore. That fleeting feeling 
of normalcy that you start to encounter as 
you become an adult, the result of leaving 
what you know for constant new beginnings 

— the forever pursuit of the peace that comes 
with home. She has a way of humanizing 
herself in her songs, and in this one she 
grounds herself into artfully exploring the 
complexities of being in a million different 
places at once, searching and longing for 
that comforting feeling of finding peace in 
one particular place. In “Cranes in the Sky,” 
she sings the lyric, “Don’t you cry, baby,” and 
when I first heard this, I was overcome with 
a sense of rational comfort –– meant to evoke 
feelings of community, the uplifting spirit 
of family or friends, all of which can guide 
you out of a depression that otherwise can 
become seemingly eternal. She explains in 
the podcast that this is something she learned 
from her mom –– that “on the third day (of 
a depression) you get your ass up and you 
ride.” Inspired by her mother, the lyrics are 
an endearing way of expressing the need to 
hold yourself together at times and move on 
from your strife. The beautiful harp playing in 
this song unites a sense of feminine regalness 
and peaceful serenity. Factors that all go into 
shaping the song into a beautiful, comforting 
tune in which you can find home. The entirety 
of Solange’s album A Seat at the Table, which 
includes “Cranes in the Sky,” is masterful with 
songs that praise Black excellence and power 
through artful ballads and interludes. They 
provide a tranquil sense of home found in the 
here and now. 

Solange makes my running feel like my 

own personal love story; like a short film on 
the dos and don’ts of self-love. Her harmonies 
and high notes singing to me, my grace and 
giving way to the wings on which I soar. My 
chosen background music to the soundtrack 
of coming of age. Her music video for “Binz” 
does something very similar for me –– the 

filmography feels genuine, personal; she 
dances playfully in her home to her lyrics. 
The video first caught my attention while I 
was in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The city had 
an interesting type of chaos to it. The beaches 
often had people covering every inch of the 
shore, and streets were lined with dancing 
adults and children alike, moving freely and 
effortlessly. You might even catch a soccer 
match happening down the narrow streets 
or walk by as firecrackers are popped at 
your feet. It was booming with culture and 
excitement, yet for me, it was a lot to take in. 
However, chaotic as it was, I still felt this 
sense of loneliness as I began to explore 
myself in this new place that grew to feel like 

a home away from home. I was building a 
connection to my spirituality and soul, and 
my internship allowed me to feel like my life 
was full of meaning and purpose. The work I 
did was with youth learning and unlearning 
the effects of different kinds of inequality and 
sustainable living. However, I was one of the 
only Americans in my cohort, which comes 
with a lot of weight. I was struggling to balance 
the demands of nonprofit work and leisure, 
all while maneuvering three languages and 
cultures. Not to mention I was over four 
thousand miles from home in a land foreign 
yet familiar, with its tropical energy reminding 
me of Cuba. It was a difficult and interesting 
time, and Binz took me somewhere new:

“I just wanna wake up to the suns and Saint 

Laurent

Hundred thousand dollars on the fronts 

and the blunts

I just wanna wake up on goodbye, only I.”
This song evokes a solitude that feels 

peaceful and easy; through it, I learned to find 
home in the self. In moments dancing along 
the beach coast or swimming at dusk or crying 
in the shower on long nights, I found home. 
But most of all this song taught me to have a 
happy outlook on life. It made living feel a little 
easier.

On an internship application I skimmed 

over recently, one of the essay prompts asked 
me this: “Explain the importance of _____ in 
today’s society.” Several words immediately 
came to mind. Love, respect, empathy. 
Accessibility and accountability. Grassroots 
organizing. Healing. Then, grief. 

But as I put my pen down, I realized that 

perhaps “grief” was not the right word. I 
thought about how many of us have faced 
more than enough grief to last a lifetime — a 
grief stemming not only from loss but also 
from silence and injustice. Many have faced 
grief spanning months, years and generations 
— some even since the birth of our nation. 
Some have been born into, and have left, this 
world carrying a grief I will never be able to 
understand or attest to.

As I revised this sentence, I then reserved 

the word “grief” for a more nuanced form: 
“grieving.” The word as a verb, as a process, 
as a doing unto oneself … To be grieved. To 
respond to something that has caused intense 
distress and sorrow. To be arrested by a 
conviction for action, one which is born of an 
anguish that cannot be neglected and should 
not be prolonged but must only be resolved.

It grieves me to think about a lot of things.

It grieves me to think about those whom I 
may have hurt, however pure my intentions 
may have been. It grieves me to think about 
the problematic habits of my own Korean-
American 
community 
that 
have 
been 

normalized. It grieves me to think about the 
moments in which I have chosen to assume the 
safe role of a bystander rather than be an ally. 
It grieves me to think about the often-painful 
and still-uncorrected history that I have lived 
through and thus, ultimately contributed to 
writing. 

But are we, the American public and 

especially those who lead this nation, grieved? 

Does it grieve us to think about our 

choice to incarcerate almost 120,000 
Japanese Americans in the name of 
“military security” in 1942? Does it grieve 
us to think about the racial slurs hurled at 
these families, the blinds drawn on train 
rides to these camps for protection from 
onlookers who sought to attack them? Does 
it grieve us to think that the Supreme Court 
ruled against Fred Korematsu — who 
refused to abide by the government’s orders 
to relocate to a camp — and still has yet to 
officially overturn the decision? Does it 
grieve us to think about the racialized fear 
and hysteria that we have, and have had, 
the capacity to hold? 

It may grieve us. But does it grieve us 

enough to refuse employing the very same 
tactics of anti-Japanese sentiment during 
World War II against Muslims and Muslim 
Americans today, only rewording the guise of 
“military threat” to that of a “national terror 
threat?” Did it grieve the Supreme Court who, 
despite their repudiation of the Korematsu 
ruling, still voted to uphold the analogously 
racist Muslim travel ban in 2018? 

Does it grieve us to think about what took 

place on Jan. 6 of this year? Does it grieve us 
to think about a faith in white supremacy so 
strong that it would drive a group of people 
to scale the walls and smash the windows of 
the Capitol? Does it grieve us to think about 
those present in the Capitol building, streets of 
Washington, D.C. and even onlookers across 
the country seized in a moment of intense fear 
and vulnerability? Does it grieve us to think 
about the threatened democracy of a nation 
once, and still, divided?

It may grieve us. But does it grieve us 

enough to hold the one responsible for what 
took place this day accountable? Did it grieve 
Congress enough to impeach Donald Trump 
again? Did it grieve Sen. Mitch McConnell, 
R-Ky., who, despite his acknowledgement 
and condemnation of the former president’s 
incitement of the insurrection, still voted to 
acquit Trump?

We must be grieved by these traumas 

and by a host of others that continue in 
scrolls of unspeakable horrors and still-
silenced stories that have yet to surface. 
And if we do claim to be grieved by our 
wrongdoings, it is difficult to believe that 
those in power, who are able to correct 
or prevent the very pain they inflict, are 
nearly grieved enough. If the darkness of 
our nation did, in fact, grieve us, we would 
never dare to allow the same patterns of 
history to be left unchecked, forgotten and 
repeated again.

This is not to say that a vote in an 

impeachment trial, or the decision of a 
single Supreme Court case, or even the 
rewriting of a history textbook can reverse 

our collective wrongs and unclench the 
hatred that chokes our nation — these 
manifestations would only be attempts 
at undoing injustice after the fact. This is 
not to discount the efforts of those who 
evidently have been grieved by such events 
— who have fought, marched and organized 
tirelessly to create a world in which it is 
love, and not a repairing of grieved hurt, 
that moves us forward.

But as I witness the unfolding of history 

and the precedents that ultimately are 
being set by our collective nation, as I read 
into the past and look into the future, the 
question remains: 

Are we grieved, as a nation? Have we 

ever been?

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Wednesday, March 3, 2021 — 5

South Asian Awareness Network hosts annual social justice conference 

A seat at the table

ANA MARIA SANCHEZ-CASTILLO

MiC Columnist

Design by Eileen Kelly 

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

EASHETA SHAH

MiC Columnist

YOON KIM
MiC Columnist

Design by Janice Lin

Are we grieved?

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

