Going Beyond: Suzanne Persard, Writer and Activist
Suzanne Persard is the next in our series of interviews from contributors to the Beyond Bollywood exhibition. She is a writer, an activist, and a founding member of Jahajee Sisters a movement-building organization, led by Indo-Caribbean women, committed to social justice. Suzanne is also a contributor to the Huffington Post.
Suzanne Persard
Interview by Priya Chhaya
How did your family come to the United States?
Simeon Persard (Suzanne’s dad): We were in Jamaica and then the economy started to change for the worst. My oldest brother, George, came first, and I came to the Bronx in April 1979. I did air conditioning work all my life; I came to America and did the same thing for 35 years.
Patricia Persard (Suzanne’s mom): I wasn’t really excited to come to the U.S. because I was in a good job and I was due a promotion; I was a mortgage supervisor. I took entry-level jobs when I came here — [employers] wanted “New York experience”. We were homesick. We only came with $50; you couldn’t take more than that out of the country.
Can you can speak to your work with LGBTQ and Women Empowerment groups. Why is this important? How did you get involved?
Jahajee Sisters emerged out of a critical need to challenge the culture of silence surrounding sexual and domestic violence in Indo-Caribbean communities. Following the deaths of Natasha Ramen, an undocumented Indo-Caribbean woman murdered by her rapist in Queens, and Guiatree Hardat, an Indo-Caribbean women who was murdered by her ex-fiance, an NYPD officer, we were appalled by the absence of outrage from Indo-Caribbean communities in New York City and the normalizing of gender-based violence.
From an intergenerational group of women meeting in the living rooms of Richmond Hill and the Bronx, Jahajee Sisters to a fiscally-sponsored organization running community-specific arts and empowerment programs; reproductive justice programs; and social justice programs with a focus on sexual, domestic, and intimate partner violence.
As an LGBTQ activist and organizer, I wanted to openly speak out about LGBTQ rights in the Indo-Caribbean community and shatter stereotypes and assumptions. Of course, this was initially terrifying — simply speaking openly about LGBTQ rights in spaces filled with women who were the ages of our mothers and grandmothers was unprecedented, but the impact has been phenomenal. I want to commit the rest of my life working within these communities and as for long as LGBTQ individuals struggle for social and economic justice.
Can you reflect on your personal experience growing up an an Indo-Caribbean young woman in NY?
As a first-generation Indo-Caribbean kid in the U.S., the language of indentureship entered my vocabulary at an early age. I recognized a relationship to India in a sort of mythological sense: knowing that my roots were from a place that I’d never traveled to, from a culture with which I was connected to but simultaneously excluded from in many ways.
But I am forever grateful that I was born a New Yorker. I grew up in a Jamaican neighborhood in the Bronx, and on Sundays, I’d travel to the Indo-Caribbean hub of NYC, Richmond Hill, with my parents. Somewhere between the Bronx and Queens, I saw white picket fences dotted with pooja flags and cars blasting reggae. In these spaces, my identity never required lengthy explanations or abridged history lessons. I believe New York City is singular in this way, though, for allowing the recreation of multiple worlds and communities through the traumas of migration.
In addition to her work as an activist and organizer, Suzanne is also a writer. She shared with us one of her pieces. Here is Elegy:1838; written in 2012.
Discussion