SAYHU’s Preservation Project (www.sayhupreservation.org) aims to gather archival materials in the digital form (as scans of of documents, digital photographs, videos and audio files) and conduct oral histories of South Asians in Texas to that document the diversity of experience across our our community. The Preservation Project is a digital archival repository that will be made available as educational resources for the general public and future researchers. Our project expands the limited recorded histories of South Asians living in the Southern United States. SAYHU uses digital tools for gathering and sharing information about our community to map histories and make connections. We draw the field of “postcolonial digital humanities” as a guide in our approach to the archives.
“Digital humanities practitioners, who are creating models of the world, are often designing models that rehearse the colonial dynamics of the cultural record. However, they have the skills necessary to participate in the proliferation of new worlds that challenge the disruptions within the digital cultural record and destabilize the role of colonialist and neocolonialist politics within it.” ―Roopika Risam, New Digital Worlds, 2019
What’s Feminist about SAYHU’s Digital Archiving Project?
One of SAYHU’s central tools of analysis is gender. We draw on concepts from the field of gender studies, such as (intersectionality). We take into consideration how gender―as it intersects with numerous other identities such as culture, class, race, class, sexuality and ability―informs the lives and experiences of South Asians in Houston. Based on what we have learned working with our SAYHU community, and the experiences of immigrants, we also incorporate trauma-informed research practices into how we conduct interviews and and invite people to tell their stories. We commit to an ethical approach to the work and a practice of mutual consent, as we build this archive with and for our diverse community.
Why should South Asians archive?
As South Asians, mainstream representation is hard to come by. What exists is oftentimes based in stereotypes rooted in racism, caste, colorism, and Indo-centrism (i.e. always about India/Indians, never about other South Asian countries and diasporas). It is due time to take matters in our own hands and record our own histories and account for it ourselves:
“...I just didn’t find enough mention of members of my community in official versions of history or beyond the broad stereotypes of gas station owners, techies, doctors, etc. It’s hard to address issues of visibility (or invisibility for that matter), identity, and belonging in isolation of events in the past. And when that ‘past’ renders entire communities mute and to the sidelines, then it’s time to look beyond what already exists in cultural memory and make space for new vantage points to history. That’s what drew me to archives - the platform it can provide for cultural representation.” ―Archivist Aditi Worcester, “The Other Asian: Reflections of South Asian Americans in Libraryland” in Pushing the Margins: Women of Color and Intersectionality in LIS, 2018
Existing archives such as South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), are doing this work nationally, while SAYHU’s archival efforts center our community in Texas. By archiving photographs, letters, and other material, or recording oral histories, we bear witness to our unique experiences as South Asians in the Southern United States. Moreover, we do our work with a feminist lens. SAYHU is intentional about including South Asian voices that are immigrant, queer, disabled, and otherwise marginalized and too often left out of archives! We hold space for these and more intersecting identities aiming for an access-oriented, and trauma-informed approach to archival work
How do you do feminist oral history?
Learn how to conduct an interview for a feminist oral history with a guide from SAYHU’s Preservation Project.
Learn More
Here’s how to record an oral history for the SAYHU Preservation Project and how to submit it to the archive.
Let us know what you think of our page or be in touch if you have great resources to share: info@sayhu.org
This page was created by Joshlyn Thomas and Rachel Afi Quinn.
