Preservation & Politics: Archiving South Asian Experiences
By Akhil Jonnalagadda
When I stumbled across the archiving field recently in the midst of a frantic job search, I felt what most of us may feel when we think about it: the word “archive” conjured up sterile images of Colonial Williamsburg or Gilded Age industrialists that provoked within me a tepid “I’m sure it’s important work, but honestly who cares?” I’m a student of history who spent his years in school pouring through innumerable articles and arguments about the past, but I’ve been tragically underexposed to the efforts of public historians in capturing all that is still alive and is to be preserved. Any such work that I was made aware of seemed to fit along a clearly defined version of American history that positioned me and those like me as outside of it, as the archives’ audience that should learn and assimilate, as passive ornamental observers who couldn’t possibly have a contribution.
I identify with two cultural identities—that of a Houstonian and that of a South Asian— and as I grow, I find the lines between these distinct entities blur into a complex, irreducible, ceaselessly evolving organism. This phenomenon of “Houstonian South Asian-ness” locates itself in a spectacular historical moment that is explained only by infinite genealogies, stories, and memories that have been largely neglected by the Official Recorders of History. Rarely do we find serious public historians, either professional or amateur, take on the American South, let alone Houston, or on ethnic and cultural minorities, let alone South Asians. Most striking of all, existent attempts are frequently blind to the deeply and inexorably political elements of such work, often leaving it to the historically marginalized to articulate, preserve, and assert their own narratives.
The mission to preserve the history of communities of color in Houston is one of existential concern. We live in a city with a woefully poor memory; unchecked gentrification and beautification projects have overseen the routine demolition of buildings and the rapid cycling through of restaurants and small businesses. Additionally, the looming threat of climate change and its early effects on Houston have compounded the profound loss of memory in a city teeming with organic, diverse, and thriving culture. It is in this context that I am proud to be involved with SAYHU, which has initiated a Preservation Project to address the need for capturing and crystalizing what could otherwise be lost. In addition to locating the South Asian experience within Houston’s historical narrative, SAYHU’s insistence on centering a politics of justice and equity in its work is what makes the effort indispensable.
If one were to briefly outline the commonly-recited history of Houston off the top of one’s head, what one would likely run through is a story of white settlers, treaties and battles, and then a sudden jump to NASA and, more recently, the energy industry. It is easy to forget the explosively diverse masses that make the city run—where did we come from, how did we get here, and how do we understand ourselves here? It’s imperative that we try to grasp a whole image of South Asian-ness in Houston, one that dives deeper than the usual suspects of upper-caste, educated, and wealthy “role models” and asks the difficult questions of privilege and power, before these accounts slip away into oblivion. This is precisely what a southern South Asian feminist analysis of Houston’s history can allow us to do. The South Asian experience here is an ever-expanding network of diverse identities, and by discerning where each identity exists on the axes of power, addressing emergent deficiencies, and elevating unheard voices, SAYHU’s Preservation Project has the opportunity to insert corrective histories into our Story of Houston.