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GUESTS: Jyoti Chand, community advocate working for the Civil Rights unit with hate crimes, discrimination, and GLBTQI issues, Rubaiyat Karim, advocate for domestic violence survivors in the South Asian community

As we announced on yesterday’s show, Republicans in the Senate reached agreement earlier this week on bipartisan compromise proposal on immigration reform. The proposal would apparently put a majority of the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented workers on a path to citizenship. But the prospects of adoption by the Senate now appear uncertain as Republicans and Democrats clashed late into the night over parliamentary procedure. It is likely that a vote would not be taken until after the Easter break. Meanwhile, immigrants across the country and here in Southern California, continue to organize. There are a number of events in the coming days and weeks. On today’s show we turn to the South Asian immigrant community. Approximately 350,000 – 400,000 people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal live in the L.A. area, making it the second largest concentration of South Asians in the US. This Sunday, the South Asian Network will be hosting a town hall meeting on immigration in Artesia. Taking place at the Artesia Community Center, the town hall forum will be a call to fight racism and xenophobia.

A CALL TO FIGHT RACISM & XENOPHOBIA

SUNDAY, APRIL 9th, 2006, from 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm at the ARTESIA COMMUNITY CENTER, 18750 CLARKDALE AVE. in ARTESIA, CA 90701

For more information call Joyti, Rubaiyat or Hamid at 562-403-0488 or visit www.southasiannetwork.org

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

Arundhati Roy said, “In the midst of putative peace, a writer can, like I did, be unfortunate enough to stumble on a silent war. The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out.”