Indian Indendence Day 2016: Let's Honor India's Freedom Fighters and America's Civil Rights Leaders by Raising Our Collective Voices

It's time again to celebrate India's long struggle for freedom from the British. For many desis, an integral part of August 15 includes attending an independence day festival or mela. Held in major metropolitan areas across the U.S., these events offer an opportunity for immigrants and U.S. citizens of Indian descent to enjoy delicious bhelpuri and aloo chaat, shop for jewelry or a salvar kameez and take in a variety show of second-generation kids dancing bharatnatyam or bhangra and Bollywood stars appearing in their most glamorous attire.

But on August 15, 2016, we Indian Americans must do more. 2016 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of significant migration of South Asians resulting from the Immigration Act of 1965. Whether our families arrived in the U.S. soon after the law's implementation or decades later, most of us don't realize how monumental the law was for the South Asian community. It marked a significant departure from the previous immigration system, which heavily favored immigrants from European countries to those from Asia and Africa. The law eliminated the discriminatory quotas and replaced them with a preference system based upon professional status and family reunification.

As we observe this important anniversary, we must consider what we want our collective impact as Indian Americans to be. Do we want to simply engage in consumerism as we acknowledge the long struggle of our freedom fighters? Does eating chole samosa and listening to Priyanka Chopra sing "Jana Gana Mana" remind us of the sacrifice of thousands of our forebears against British imperialism? Or do we instead want to take an active part in democracy in our new (or not-so-new) homeland?

If we want the latter, we must begin to become more civically engaged in our neighborhoods, schools and cities. We must regularly attend neighborhood council meetings and school board meetings. We need to join the PTA and city and county commissions. And most importantly, we must vote. Thanks to organizations like South Asian Network and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, we in Southern California have access to voting materials and ballots in Hindi and in many areas, poll workers who speak Gujarati and Bangla as well as Hindi. 2016 marks a critical presidential election, one in which no one can afford to stay home.

Beyond voting, we have to stand up with fellow South Asians as well as with Arab, African and Asian Muslims to oppose xenophobic comments and Islamaphobic policies. And we must work with other communities of color to challenge racial profiling guidelines masked as national security, regular police shootings of innocent African Americans and deportations of countless hard-working Latino and Asian women and men. In so many ways, we are beneficiaries of the efforts of their parents and grandparents. In the immigration context, it is largely because the civil rights movement shined a light on human rights and brought attention to the racist exclusions of non-white immigrants that the 1965 legislation was enacted and most of us arrived on American shores.

The struggles of African American, Latino and Asian Americans in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s as well as the sacrifices of our South Asian sisters and brothers in the first half of the twentieth century call for us to celebrate Indian Independence Day in a very different way this year. Let's honor their efforts by participating in the school PTA, advocating against racist policing and profiling and voting for policymakers who believe in an America that celebrates its diversity and abides by its constitutional principles. And let us follow their lead by raising our voices and continuing the fight for social justice in the twenty-first century.