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'Be vigilant about your rights and freedoms'

Arthur J Pais

When best-selling novelist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni was asked a few months ago to deliver the keynote address at a convention of journalists, she wondered for a moment what she could say to people who wrote real-life stories.

Then the author of The Unknown Errors of Our Lives and Sister of My Heart remembered that her novels and short stories were partly based on real-life incidents.

Divakaruni, whose fictional characters often pay a price for forgetting their values and life lessons, reminded over 1,000 journalists at the convention about the importance of preserving memory.

People often forget the inconvenient, unpleasant incidents, she said.

Asian Americans, who have suffered many inequities in America, should always be vigilant so that their rights and freedoms are not taken away, she said addressing the 20th anniversary convention of Asian American Journalists in San Francisco.

The Asian American communities should make sure that there will not be a need to fight the old battles. At the same time, they should also find out what the new challenges are, and tackle them immediately.

"There are a lot of battles that we've fought and won," she said.

"I'm sure that many people in this room have their own stories of what it cost to get us here. It's important to remember those stories, to honour them and to learn from them, so that we and our children do not have to repeat them."

AAJA, which promotes career development for Asian Americans and fights to dispel societal and media stereotypes about Asians, has nearly 2,000 members and 18 chapters across America.

It also seeks to encourage Asian Americans to study and work as journalists, monitors the media for fair portrayal of the community, and hopes to increase the number of Asia-Pacific American journalists and news managers.

Silence has to be broken "over and over again", Divakaruni said, "because ignorance stems from silence.

"And from ignorance, it's only a step to prejudice; and from that, to racism and hatred and violence," she continued.

Divakaruni, who has taught literature for over a decade in San Francisco and Houston, co-founded Maitri, a resource group for indigent and abused South Asian women, 10 years ago. She has constantly decried elitism and found fault with Indian American communities for not doing enough for women and struggling immigrants.

She said successful Asian Americans should never forget those who are still struggling for their American dream.

"Many of us are sending our children to the best schools and colleges, many of us are products of the best schools and colleges," Divakaruni, mother of two boys, who earned her doctorate from University of California, Berkeley, continued.

"But not all, and we mustn't forget those who are not here in this room, those who do not have the opportunities that we have. I think that is part of our responsibility today."

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