Grantee SpotlightPreserving and Sharing the Untold Stories of the South Asian American Experience

Samip Mallick, founder of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), discusses the organization’s goals with Sewell Chan, Executive Editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and Luce Board Member. SAADA aims to preserve and share the stories of the diverse South Asian American community through an innovative digital archive model. The conversation highlights SAADA’s efforts to amplify marginalized voices and its initiatives, including walking tours, publications, and a planned Luce-supported storytelling center, all aimed at making these histories more accessible to the public. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. The full interview is available in the video below.

How SAADA ensures that South Asian Americans are recognized as an essential part of the American story.

Sewell Chan: Archives are inherently repositories of stories, and I’d love to begin by asking you for yours. What inspired you to found this innovative, cutting-edge organization that collects stories of members of the South Asian diaspora across the U.S.?

Samip Mallick: My personal search for belonging led me to start the organization. Like many children of immigrants, I grew up trying to understand my connection to the American story. My parents immigrated from India in the late 1960s, and I was raised in Michigan, where I felt a sense of displacement—not fully connected to the American story. I thought I’d find that sense of belonging by living in South Asia, so I did. But, like many children of immigrants, I never felt more American than when I was there. That experience made me question where I could truly feel at home.

Through that exploration, I began learning about South Asian American history—a history I knew nothing about growing up—and became more and more rooted, building a deeper sense of belonging I had always been missing. That personal search ultimately led to the creation of SAADA, recognizing that many others are also seeking belonging, and that archives—by preserving and sharing our communities’ histories—can help provide it.

Sewell Chan: You were trained in library science, focusing on archives. Why do you think archival methods are crucial compared to other storytelling approaches like journalism, oral history, or traditional print archives?

Samip Mallick: I didn’t know what archives were when we started. The co-founder of SAADA, Dr. Michelle Caswell, is now a professor of archival studies at UCLA. We met by chance while working at the University of Chicago. I was searching for a sense of place and belonging at the time. Michelle, not South Asian herself, was pursuing her master’s in archival studies. She introduced me to the field, and through our conversations, I realized that South Asian American stories weren’t being systematically collected, preserved, or shared by any institution. Without action, these stories risked being lost entirely.

For 16 years, SAADA has ensured that South Asian American stories are preserved and shared. We began as a traditional archive, digitizing and preserving photographs, newspaper clippings, correspondence, and community publications. Over time, we’ve expanded to include walking tours, published books, and even an animated film. While the archive remains our core, we now explore multiple ways to bring these stories to life and connect them with our community and the public.

Sewell Chan: You chose a digital model where original materials are retained by the institutions or individuals sharing them. How does your digital archive differ from a conventional archive with boxed, indexed records?

Samip Mallick: We developed a digital archive using a post-custodial model. This means we collaborate closely with archival institutions but, more commonly, with community members and organizations. We leverage digital medium to preserve and share materials while allowing the originals to remain with their owners. It’s a powerful model, especially since no physical repository focuses on South Asian American stories, and many of these materials sit in basements, attics, or file cabinets. Without SAADA’s intervention, they might never be seen by the public.

We work closely with the community to make these materials accessible while allowing the originals to stay with those who own them. That’s important because these materials often have deep personal significance—family photographs or documents from parents or grandparents. People may not want to part with them, but they recognize the value of sharing them and trust us to do so. This model allows us to deeply collaborate with our community.

Sewell Chan: Walk us through the process when a community organization or family wants to participate. How do you select the right materials, digitize them, and make them accessible?

Samip Mallick: Each collection has its own story—both in the materials it contains and in how it comes together. Whether it’s an individual, a family, or an organization, we work closely with contributors to tailor our approach. Unlike traditional archives, which often have rigid criteria for accepting collections, we’re highly responsive to community needs. Since SAADA is often the only chance for specific stories to be preserved and shared, we do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Sometimes materials are sent to our headquarters in Philadelphia, where we digitize them. We’ve also worked closely with UCLA, where Michelle teaches, and students have helped with digitization on the West Coast. When necessary, we get creative—for instance, I’ve spent days digitizing materials with portable scanners at people’s homes. We also enlist local volunteers and partners to help with collections. We find a way to make it work, whatever it takes to preserve and share a collection.

Sewell Chan: It sounds like you’re taking an inclusive approach—not limiting the archive by what you accept but aiming to include most entities or individuals who approach you.

Samip Mallick: Yes, though we do have areas of focus, such as early South Asian histories, because they’re rare, fragile, and easy to lose. Pre-1965 histories have become a strength of the collection. But post-1965, as the community grew substantially, we’ve focused on groups historically marginalized within South Asian American spaces or whose stories are often overlooked.

That said, I feel a responsibility to think creatively and expansively to ensure these stories aren’t lost. Many of us—including myself—know so little about South Asian American history. Almost daily, I learn something new that broadens my understanding of our community’s past. To define South Asian American history rigidly would ignore its complexity. It’s much richer and more nuanced than we can currently grasp. As SAADA and researchers continue their work, our understanding will only flourish.

Sewell Chan: The terms Asian American, South Asian, and South Asian American encompass vast regions, languages, religions, national stories, and heterogeneity. How do you ensure the stories you gather reflect that diversity? Do you include communities from places like the Maldives or the Himalayas? How do you define South Asia and the diaspora?

Samip Mallick: We take an expansive view of South Asia, though our focus is on South Asian communities in the U.S., which today includes over six million people. When SAADA began, the community was fewer than four million, so it’s grown significantly in the last 16 years. Our mission is to reflect that diversity—not just those who immigrated directly from South Asia and their children and grandchildren, but also descendants of people who migrated from other diaspora regions like Guyana, Trinidad, South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania.

These individuals may trace their heritage to South Asia through multiple generations, but their stories are part of the South Asian American experience. What ties us together, despite our differences, is our shared identity here in the U.S., our history, and our collective future.

Sewell Chan: Indian Americans are now the largest Asian American ethnic group in the U.S. For the first time, we have a South Asian American Vice President, Kamala Harris. How do you trace the arc of South Asian Americans’ experience, especially post-9/11, and what’s changed in the past 25 years?

Samip Mallick: It’s impossible to understand South Asians in the U.S. today without considering history long before 9/11. South Asians began arriving in significant numbers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, coming from a South Asia under British colonial rule, and settled for the most part on the West Coast. Those early immigrants faced severe xenophobia and institutional racism.

In 1917, Congress passed an immigration act that effectively barred South Asians from entering the U.S. In 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that South Asians couldn’t become American citizens. Recognizing this trajectory—from early exclusion to today—provides essential context for understanding the post-9/11 era and our community today

Learning that history, which wasn’t taught to me growing up, profoundly changed my understanding of our community’s struggle within the racial context in the U.S. It highlights how xenophobia and racism against South Asians have persisted, even if the forms have evolved over time.

Sewell Chan: SAADA started as a digital archive, but you’ve since produced print publications and are now planning a physical space. Can you describe the organization’s evolution?

Samip Mallick: Our evolution has been driven by the question: how do we make these stories accessible to the public? When we started, no other organization was preserving or sharing South Asian American stories. We began by making materials available online, but I quickly realized that wasn’t enough.

I noticed most South Asian Americans—myself included—knew little about their own history. It wasn’t enough to host these materials online; we needed to bring the stories to people where they live and interact. That’s how our programs and events, built on top of the archive, developed, recognizing what needs to be done to make these stories truly connected with members of our community and the public

One example is Revolution Remix, a walking tour in Philadelphia. Starting at the Liberty Bell, it takes participants through historic sites in Old City, weaving in stories of South Asians in those spaces from the 1780s to today. People leave the tour seeing Philadelphia—and American history—in a completely new light.

The same with the publication of Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America. As a young person, I wished for a resource to introduce me to South Asian American stories. So, we created one: a book with contributions from 64 scholars, artists, journalists, and community organizers aimed at high school and college students. That book is now in over 3,000 schools, libraries, and homes.

This work isn’t just about preserving history—it’s about connecting stories to people today. With support from the Luce Foundation, we’re planning a storytelling center in New York City. The storytelling center will be a transformative space where South Asian Americans can walk in and see their stories. Our goal is to create a space where the community can collect and preserve stories today for future generations.

Sewell Chan: Tell us more about how the storytelling center will operate. It’s not exactly a museum, right?

Samip Mallick: That’s right. It’s not a museum in the traditional sense, though there are overlaps with what museums offer. It’s a dynamic space where people can both learn about and contribute to history. I wanted that sense of active participation reflected in both the name and the approach to the storytelling center. When you visit, you’ll encounter exhibits, photographs, and materials from the archive that deeply connect visitors to South Asian American stories. But beyond that, it’s also a place to contribute—because we’re all active participants in shaping the evolving South Asian American narrative.

For example, one feature will be the opportunity to record personal stories. We’ve already launched a project called First Days, where immigrants and refugees share stories of their first day in the U.S. What struck me is how vividly people remember that moment, even if it happened decades ago. In the storytelling center, visitors might record their own first-day story or their family’s or bring a cherished photograph to digitize and add to the archive. We’re designing the space to foster interaction and recognize that every person’s story adds a vital thread to the broader tapestry.

Sewell Chan: Can you name three South Asian Americans that every American should know about?

Samip Mallick: Sure, my choices are more personal than definitive, highlighting figures that shaped my understanding of South Asian American history.

The first is Anandibai Gopalrao Joshi, who became the first South Asian woman in the world to earn a medical degree. Born in India, she was married off at a young age and lost her first child soon after birth. That tragic experience inspired her resolve to become a physician. In 1883, she traveled to Philadelphia to study at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1886. Her story resonates with me personally. It’s her story that we are creating the animated film about, and it’s also part of our walking tour in Philadelphia. Amazingly, our office window overlooks the area where she once lived.

The second figure is Dalip Singh Saund, the first South Asian—and indeed, the first Asian American—elected to national office in the U.S. He immigrated in 1920, earned a PhD from UC Berkeley, but was barred from citizenship due to racist legislation until the late 1940s. Once he became a citizen, he ran for office and, in 1956, was elected to Congress. His story challenges the common misconception that South Asians didn’t arrive in the U.S. until the late 1960s, which is when my parents immigrated. Learning about him reshaped my view of the community’s longer history.

Lastly, I’d highlight the stories of those historically marginalized within the South Asian American community. Through SAADA’s Archival Creators Fellowship, we’ve supported 24 fellows—originally funded by the Mellon Foundation—who focus on underrepresented narratives. This fellowship has been some of the most meaningful work SAADA has done. It’s a reminder that while mainstream narratives often present a singular image of South Asian Americans, our reality has always been far more complex and diverse.

Fellows have included themes and perspectives ranging from LGBTQ+ stories to Dalit and caste experiences, incarceration, and public health crises like HIV/AIDS. Each project highlights a vital but often overlooked aspects of our community. Seeing these fellows bring new dimensions to light has been incredibly rewarding, expanding what we understand about the South Asian American experience today.

Sewell Chan: You’ve been with SAADA for nearly 16 years. What’s next for the organization—and for you?

Samip Mallick: This is an exciting time for SAADA and me. I was the sole staff member for years, but now we’re fortunate to be growing as an organization—expanding our team, resources, and outreach. It feels like we’re part of a more significant movement with other communities who’ve been historically excluded from the American story. Together, we’re working toward a shared goal: creating a more inclusive narrative reflecting America’s reality. Being part of that movement is energizing and inspiring.

Sewell Chan: Is there anything else you’d like the Luce Foundation audience to know about SAADA?

Samip Mallick: I’d just say that reshaping a deeply entrenched narrative takes all of us. If any part of this conversation resonates with the listeners, I hope they will engage with SAADA’s work. But just as importantly, I encourage them to explore their own family or community stories—or stories they’ve been curious about but haven’t yet discovered. Change begins with recognizing that something is missing and the desire to change that.