Ankit Kazi is a Nepali curator, journalist, and editor based in Chicago. After starting out as an arts and culture journalist at the Kathmandu Post, she moved to Chicago and earned a master’s degree in visual and critical studies from the School of Art and Design (SAIC). He quickly developed a passion for documenting the history of Chicago’s South Asian queer community. Kazi’s first curatorial project in the United States, People Who Came Before Us, opened last month at the Institute of South Asian Studies.
Weekly spoke with Kazi about the importance of understanding one’s history, his experience researching a largely erased community, and his thoughts on queer South Asian American life in Chicago today.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
South Side Weekly: What made you start thinking about South Asian queer history in Chicago?
Ankit: I started researching before I moved to Chicago. I was curating queer spaces in my hometown in Nepal, so I did my own research. So I thought I should do something similar[in Chicago]because it gives me joy. So I started researching and found the name Ifti Nasim. (Editor’s note: Nasim is a gay Pakistani poet who moved to Chicago in the 1960s and later founded Sangat/Chicago, a community for queer South Asian people, which disbanded in the late 2000s. ) And then, in the spring of 2023, I said: It was held as part of the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project. It was started by professors from the University of Chicago, SAIC, and UIC. They were professors with LGBTQ backgrounds who saw the need to create a space where queer people from different generations could come together and build relationships. Because it was nowhere to be seen. It was part of a credit course for my degree. When I took the course, there were people from a variety of backgrounds, but no one was South Asian. This was a surprise to me. Because I’m sure there are older gay South Asians out there. And they actually tried their best to find people. They are still looking for South Asians to join the project, but said it’s always a struggle. So, that stuck with me.
We knew that if Ifti Nasim existed, he must have had friends, right? So I started doing research and had to write a paper. So I thought, “Why not research this for my dissertation?” Then I met Kareem Khubchandani. He is a professor of performance studies, dance, and theater at Tufts University. He wrote about Sangat in Chicago and discovered that many other groups existed. I learned about Khouri Zaban through SAADA (South Asia Digital Archives Association). I started interviewing people. When I interviewed someone, they were like, “Oh, you should talk to this person.” And I was able to interview them and meet a lot of people. They were doing great work in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, so why aren’t people talking about it?That’s how the exhibition started.
Mrittika: I find that people are very generous with their time and connections when they have a personal interest.
Yes, but it was very difficult for them to find time for me to browse the archives. And, you know, most of them kept their archives, but they didn’t intend to share them. It’s very difficult to actually donate anything from that time because it’s such a personal memory. You have kept them for years and have a personal attachment to their bodies. It was difficult to find people who wanted to donate.
Most of these people aren’t organized activists now, which is not surprising since you can’t make a career out of it. So when it comes to bread and butter, it’s completely understandable that when you’re busy, you don’t have time for anything else. It took me a while to find them, but some of them were really generous. I also interviewed people who no longer live in Chicago. Even though they moved to other states and other cities, they still shared and appreciated what I did on the project.
So you were already working at SAI (South Asian Institute) all along?
Yes, as a communicator. I pitched my idea and they agreed. Ifti was also friends with Shireen and Afzal (founders of the South Asian Institute). At first, I thought I would leave everything to Gerber/Hart (library and archives). Because they have almost nothing on this subject. But I thought that even if I did that, the people who would come across this archive would be people who were already interested in this research, but the general public would never see it. . So I thought that the exhibition might have some meaning.
The exhibition scenery, the people who came before us. Courtesy of the South Asian Institute. The exhibition scenery, the people who came before us. Courtesy of the South Asian Institute.
The design of this exhibition is very unique. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of coming up with it?
That space contains all the elements of a white cube gallery, but since it was mostly a text-centric archive, you can’t do much with it. These aren’t paintings you can hang on your wall and stare at for hours admiring the brushstrokes and colors. I kept thinking about what to do. And the commonality that I found in all of these organizations was that they were creating spaces. And the space will look different. Sangat creates spaces for people to come together for parties and other fun, while Kuli Zaban (an organization centered around queer women that disbanded in the late 2000s) creates political gatherings about intersectional activism and social realities. was held. So we thought, why not create a space where people can come and sit and learn about these people? And I wanted people to spend time in these archives because there’s a lot to process and you can’t just look at them and walk away. This is how the exhibition design began.
At first I imagined Ifti Nasim’s living room. People mostly met in Ifti’s living room. It also served as a party house and sometimes a hostel for people who lived there for several weeks. Another space was a small stage. They started doing jai-ho parties and Bollywood drag shows, and they did it uptown at Big Chicks. The space is so small, but it did so much.
Do you find that doing this work has deepened your thinking about the intergenerational continuity of Chicago’s South Asian queer community?
The generation before us did a lot of things. And it was also a very difficult time to be gay and South Asian. Especially with the AIDS crisis in the ’80s, and then in the ’90s, there were struggles like those experienced by queer people in this country. There are also many risks involved, especially for immigrants. As you know, there are always visa issues. They may deport you. And there were a lot of people who left home because they wanted to be gay. Or here, at least in America, they thought they could escape from their parents. Therefore, they were taking a lot of risks. But there were still people, people doing great work. They understood that the struggles of all communities are interconnected and that you can’t just talk about your own issues, but you can’t talk about racial justice or misogyny within queer circles. So they were addressing those real issues and issues that we’re still struggling with.
South Asian organizations such as Trikon, Sangat, and Quli Zavan did not focus solely on one type of activity. They were having difficult conversations. Not only were they active on the streets, they were also active in their living rooms, organizing potlucks, poetry sessions, and all sorts of other things. I think we have to learn a lot from them. And I think this project made us realize that we have a lot to learn from them. And we can recreate what they did and what worked for them. For things that didn’t work for them, we can do our best to avoid repeating them.
Where does the archive go after this?
Many of them were from people’s personal collections. If anyone would like to donate, we will send the archive to the Gerber/Hart Library. I want them to start an archive of South Asia. We don’t want this mixed in with the Asian American archives.
Can you elaborate on why you think a separate archive is necessary?
Yes, certainly. Because there is a huge population of Asian Americans. That doesn’t mean we aren’t Asian. We are Asian. We are very Asian. “Asian American” is a very discrete identity, and I think South Asian is also a distinct identity. In Nepal, I was never “South Asian” but Nepali. We have never perceived it that way. But here we all have to be grouped together for different reasons, very political and social reasons.
But these people also worked specifically for South Asian people. I mean, they were doing a lot of other things, but their target and community was always South Asian people. I think it’s time for libraries and archives to have their own South Asia sections. Another reason I’m concerned is that if this were included in the broader Asian American archive, this archive would be lost.
Some of the conversations that were being had about balancing identity in personal relationships, being diasporic, and negotiating South Asian gender norms are what many in the queer community are having today, decades later. is the same as Did you find their archives resonated with your Chicago experience?
I think what we need to understand is that we come from cultures that have always worshiped their ancestors, especially South Asian people. I don’t know about other countries, but especially in Nepal, we have always worshiped our ancestors, considered them gods and goddesses, and acknowledged what they have done for us. So I think this generation of young queer people needs to understand that as well. Whatever rights, whatever forms of emancipation, we have been able to achieve because of them. The government just didn’t start giving us rights. Through this project, I hope that people will think about their ancestors, find their own history, and dig into it. We hope to be able to tell and archive their stories. I think there’s a reason why people want to ban books, and it’s happening in this country. They specifically target queer books. Because these are history. And when you erase your history, you will always have a hard time understanding your own identity.
Well, I hope someone gets inspired and does something like this in their own community or in their own space.
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Mrittika Ghosh (she/her) is a bookworm, author, and arts journalist living in Chicago.
