Alumni Profiles Amisha Patel (Stanford, '97) Narika (domestic violence organization serving the South Asian community of the Bay Area) profile by Kamron Hack Amisha Patel has been involved with social justice issues since her Freshman Year at Stanford when she spent her Spring Break visiting organizers of the Western Shoshone Defense Project. However, she sees her first experience with actual organizing as being when she worked with activist Keisha Evans and the Ujima Security Council. As a community organizer for Youth United for Community Action (YUCA), Amisha became interested in getting young people of color into community organizing positions. With YUCA, she sought out a grassroots organization with which to connect young people. Fortunately, Keisha Evans was simultaneously seeking youth to participate in meetings that were primarily run by older people in the community. Keisha and YUCA began working together against Romic Environmental Technologies Corporation, a major contributor to pollution in East Palo Alto. Subsequently, Amisha, along with Keisha and Kris Hayashi and Craig Martinez, organized a summer youth program with the intent to teach youth the art of documentary film. In conjunction with learning the skills of production through workshops and field trips to television stations, the youth learned about such pertinent issues as HIV awareness, safer sex, police brutality, and Proposition 187. Each participant was given a student stipend, in the recognition that their work was valued and of critical importance in the community. Still at Stanford, Amisha continued organizing with YUCA as part of the work-study program. She was also connected with Berkeley's Chic Dabby of Narika (Hindi/Urdu word meaning "by and for women")-- a Domestic Violence Organization serving the South Asian community of the Bay Area. With Narika, Amisha organized a focus group of young women to talk about individual histories of domestic violence and abuse. The inspiration of these shared stories led the women to se connections to larger organizing possibilities of program development. Through her work and with the help of a grant from the state of California, Amisha has been able to help translate the recommendations from the needs assessment to concrete programming within the community. Narika has now joined forces with Nihonmachi Legal Outreach (NLO) in order to develop and implement a Pan-Asian domestic violence prevention project targeting youth and young adults aged 13-20 through artistic and creative empowerment. Amisha's motivation for exploring organizing was her realization that there are many injustices in the world that need changing. She has also learned a lot about the world crisis through reading works by such authors as Cherrie Moraga and Audrey Lorde. Amisha's realistic outlook on the historical and present conditions of the world keeps her dedicated to fighting for change. In addition to seeing inequity in the world around her, Amisha grew up watching her mother work 10-12-hour days in a factory, for very little pay. She would then have to return home to cook and raise a family. After 20 years of dedicated labor with little raise or promotion, Amisha's mother will soon be laid off because of the company's move to Oklahoma in search of cheaper labor. As Amisha worked hard fighting for social injustice throughout college, she began to realize the great life sacrifice that her mother made for her family. This has also created motive for her continued devotion to organizing for social change. When fighting battles that are often long-term and challenging, Amisha looks to her past and present mentors who are all strong women of color. Also, the young people with whom she has worked have inspired her with their stories of struggle and triumph. Another very important source of sustenance for Amisha is her friends who are also involved in organizing. The knowledge that she is not working in isolation, that there are others struggling in different ways right along with her, sustains her. She also finds solace in the knowledge that her work has often sent the lives of others as well as herself in a more positive direction. Amisha sees her work as a community organizer intrinsically linked to community building. With Narika, Amisha has helped to create safe spaces where young people can discuss the serious issues of their lives, such as date rape, sexual assault, and intergenerational conflict. At times, Amisha's work is frustrating. Though she is passionate about her organizing efforts, she sometimes feels that what she does isn't enough. The fact that initiatives perpetuating social injustice (i.e. 187 and 209) continue to pass, is sometimes disheartening for her. "The media continues to shape what people think and feel," especially in terms of propaganda that causes minority groups to see one another as the problem. They appeal to their personal, painful realities in order to keep divided, making it much more difficult to recognize the potential power of communities unified to ignite the fire of change. Amisha often feels the hopelessness that those in power want organizers to feel. As organizers are operating in crisis mode most, if not all, of the time, Amisha fears burn-out. She finds it difficult to strategize long-term when she is in the midst of short-term challenges. Amisha would like to see a decrease in certain non-profit organizations with an "altruistic umbrella" that collectively resemble a "mini-corporate America." These organizations are run by people (she admits that they are usually men) who give priority to their own agendas instead of to the causes of the communities for which they work. Other barriers that Amisha faces include a lack of a community organization infrastructure. There is little money or time for groups to discover their commonalities across diverse lines. {no money and no time} Although she acknowledges a need for certain groups to be unified within before they can connect with others, Amisha sees a grave need for coalitions and connections across communities of color that presently don't exist. As long as organizations fail to form connections, Amisha doesn't see a mass-movement occurring. With aspirations of large-scale revolutionary progress, Amisha continues to succeed with what she calls "little revolutions" in the individual lives of those with whom she works.