Finding A Way In: Reflections on Advocacy
Next week (1/23/2026), South Asian Solidarity Movement will be hosting a community gathering centered on joy, justice, and connection. As we prepare for it, I’ve found myself reflecting on how I came into this work in the first place—and what advocacy has come to mean for me over time.
Three years ago, Cindu Thomas-George reached out to me, seemingly out of the blue, to get to know me and eventually invite me into a leadership role with South Asian Solidarity Movement. I was genuinely caught off guard. I even told my wife that she might be better suited for it than I was (hello, imposter syndrome).
Before that outreach, I had attended a SASM event on White Adjacency. I walked away intrigued and validated after being part of conversations that were in-depth, educational, and vulnerable—centered on experiences I had lived but didn’t yet have language to describe. Still, the idea of joining the team felt both intimidating and compelling. Advocacy spaces can carry an unspoken assumption of confidence, clarity, and expertise, and I wasn’t sure I fully belonged in them.
Over time, I met the rest of the leadership team—Cindu, Rebekah James Lovett, Rahul Sharma, Psy.D., Pooja Shah, and Neena Hemmady—and we’ve since welcomed Shanta Kanukollu, Ph.D. and Ammara Khalid, Psy.D. What became clear was that this wasn’t a space demanding perfection or certainty. It was a space grounded in learning, reflection, and a willingness to stay in conversation even when things felt uncomfortable.
To be honest, I’ve sometimes felt out of my depth in advocacy conversations. For much of my career, my work in mental health has been the primary way I’ve understood and practiced advocacy—through clinical work, education, and community spaces. Outside of that, my engagement looked familiar: attending a few protests, donating when I could, and having long coffee-shop or hookah-lounge conversations about systems, inequities, and what should change.
What SASM has helped me understand is that advocacy doesn’t have a single entry point or expression. Many people care deeply about injustice but struggle to find where they fit within movements that can feel overwhelming or defined by extremes. It’s easy to disqualify ourselves by believing we don’t know enough, haven’t done enough, or aren’t doing it “the right way.”
At the same time, it’s important to name that for many people—those who are undocumented, caste-oppressed, economically disenfranchised, or otherwise structurally marginalized—advocacy isn’t optional. It’s lived, urgent, and unavoidable. Detachment is a privilege not everyone has.
Lowering the barrier to engagement isn’t about minimizing that reality. It’s about recognizing that movements need many roles and many ways of showing up if they’re going to be sustainable and accountable to those most impacted.
That’s the balance we try to hold at SASM. Our events focus on specific social issues, include voices with depth and lived experience, and intentionally make space for dialogue—so people can listen, reflect, ask questions, and locate themselves within the work rather than outside of it.
Which feels especially important right now.
On Friday, January 23rd at 6:30pm, at Healthy Hood in Pilsen, we’ll be hosting New Year, New Beat: Finding Joy in Justice. It’s been a long and heavy 2025 for many of us. Burnout is real. This gathering is an invitation to center joy—not as escapism, but as a form of resistance and renewal. A chance to reconnect, restore, and remember that justice work is relational and human at its core.
You don’t need to be an expert or have attended a SASM event before. What matters is a willingness to engage honestly and find a way of being in this work that feels thoughtful and sustainable.