Journey to the Faraway Land

In the early part of 2021, my friend Sunanda Sahay shared about a project she was spearheading as a part of and initiated by the Acton Historical Society (AHS) and the current co-president Doug Herrick. Over the past couple of decades, especially in the last decade, Acton has been getting a big influx of an Asian population, and the AHS wanted to record this journey through immigrant stories and experiences. The project focused on the two largest demographics, the Chinese American and the Indian American Actonians. The AHS hosted a session in May 2021 representing the Chinese American community that was led by Dawn Wang. A similar session, led by Sunanda, is planned to represent the Indian American on Sunday, Oct 3rd at 4 pm EST.

When Sunanda explained the project to me in Jan 2021, I did a quick search to learn about the journeys of Indian American Actonians. About when and why they moved to Acton and what their experience was as a part of raising a family in Acton. I found next to nothing and the project made even more sense. A few decades and generations down the road if people of Indian descent wanted to know more about their ancestors’ journey it would be hard to find. I was excited to volunteer for this project - to help research and learn more about early Indians, study the growth in the Indian population over the past decade and reflect on the outlook of the new wave, woke generation of Actonians.

Sunanda’s plan was to interview about fifteen Indian Actonians with various backgrounds and ages, some early movers and long time residents, others who have contributed to Acton in some way and others that many of us would relate to about our journeys and why we picked Acton to settle in. Sunanda, Doug along with Sandhya Dasu who is a fellow volunteer in the project and I interviewed these representatives of the Indian population in Acton, for the better part of the first half of 2021. We learned about people’s amazing stories including but not limited to their early struggle and to a generally satisfying life in Acton. Indian Actonians shared interesting stories about their move, about cultural shock, about diversity, equity and inclusion and their minority experience, about building their homes away from homes and starting businesses, and about giving back to the community that they now call their own! We heard from people of all ages - perspectives from seniors and youth alike.

Some of the early Actonians we interviewed, who moved starting 1975, were Keshava Srivastav, Sheelendra Kulkarni (lost his wife Vidya, a renowned Acton realtor, recently), Sukhjinder Bajwa, Neelima Das, Pallavi Gandhi, Pradeep and Sunita Shukla. Others who have been active contributors to the Acton community, culture and business scene are Sahana Purohit, Suman Adisheshu, Humsha Naidoo, Aasma Gilani, Sandeep and Sangeetha Ulman, Anuradha Mazumdar, Yogesh Dave, and the youngest interviewees, Acton Climate Coalition member and a recent ABRHS graduate Sargam Nohria, and last but not the least our newly minted Select Board Member Himaja Nagireddy. The full interviews will be available in the AHS archives.

On Sunday Oct 3rd 4 pm EST, Sunanda and Doug will speak with and moderate a panel of five (out of the sixteen that we interviewed) Indian American Actonians which will be broadcast on ActonTV. At the same event, there will also be a showing of a 20 min movie that I created out of 16 hours of interviews, to capture the Indian American Actonian story in a nutshell. Looking forward to many of you registering at https://tinyurl.com/y884ed74 to listen to the panel and watch the movie.

This project chronicling the lives of so many for our future generations also threw light on some interesting statistics of our town. In the past decade, the Indian population in Acton grew almost 4 times from 3.05% in 2010 to almost 12% in 2019-20. Acton’s Asian population has slightly more residents of Indian than Chinese descent (46% vs 41%) whereas Boxborough has significantly more residents of Chinese than Indian descent (61% vs 25%). As we add to the ethnic diversity of the town, more people of Indian descent are taking on active roles within the local community. These accomplished Indians that we interviewed as a part of this project made us proud, not only in what they have achieved, but as a representative sample of so many others, who have done great things in their adopted country, yet we were not able to interview due to a limitation on time. Those who continue to make a positive impact and mark in this society. For example, Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement is an ABRHS graduate. This project may be the first of its kind, but it is not expected to be the last.