This conversation is part of the Brown Voices project conversation series, where I talk with South Asian Americans across creative fields, professions, and lived experiences. Their stories bridge the research behind Brown Voices: South Asian American Experiences in Schools with the real lives Brown people are building.
Most of the research behind Brown Voices documents difficulty with things like the model minority myth, pressure, feeling disconnected, the feeling of when culture goes uncelebrated, and other challenges South Asian Americans face in schools. But Saloni Nahar’s story of growing up a Brown kid in the US is a rare gem: a story of a South Asian American who grew up feeling seen.
Saloni is a multi-hyphenate creative in the Chicago film and theater world: she’s an actor, filmmaker, co-producer of the web series Anxious Brown Girl, and founder of the Chicago Actors Hub, which connects and uplifts local artists. She has trained at The Second City, The Annoyance, and the Black Box Academy. She is also someone who has thought very carefully about what it means to show up for her community, and for the people around her who are building things too.
I spoke to Saloni for the Brown Voices project about growing up Desi in the Chicago area, what her schools and teachers did right, representation and “the South Asian American experience” on screen, and what she would tell young Brown kids who are still figuring out their path.
Saloni grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and attended public schools that grew both increasingly more diverse and more culturally celebratory over the course of her K–12 years. But the foundation wasn’t built at school. Her parents were intentional about finding Desi community wherever they could. She shared a story of how her mom once approached a random brown family in a grocery store because she saw their child—that family ended up becoming one of their closest family friends.
My parents just did a really good job finding community. Even though originally it wasn’t just in our school district, it was all these Desi families in surrounding suburbs and we got together for all the holidays. I feel like that kept us really comfortable and connected to our identity.
Saloni Nahar
Her mom went further than social gatherings. She taught Hindi and Marathi classes out of their home every week, and she was strategic about making them appealing to kids who didn’t necessarily want to learn a language they’d never hear at school.
My mom said: guys, now you can tell secrets to each other in other places. She tried to make it feel good and cool to know this other language. And then we were like, yeah, okay, we need to learn this secret language.
Saloni Nahar
What her family built (a cultural community that existed independently of whatever was or wasn’t happening at school) is an example of a protective factor: having a place where your identity is celebrated, even if school isn’t that place is a buffer against feelings of being overlooked or even against racism and microaggressions.
(Related: what the research says about community and South Asian American students)
One of the most specific and surprising parts of our conversation was about a federal program most people have never heard of.
Saloni’s mom received grant funding through STARTALK (a National Security Agency-funded initiative that provided grants for summer language camps, plus teacher training focused on critical need languages including Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Russian, Hindi, and Urdu). The funding made the camps completely free for participants.
For my mom’s Hindi camp in the Chicago area, it was for kids in elementary school, and for the parents. Incredible. Their kids got a free summer program. And I actually assisted and taught in this program when I was a freshman in college. Even for us, being teachers in college for these young Brown kids, just very formative.
Saloni Nahar
Saloni herself attended STARTALK camps in high school—camps where students could study Mandarin Chinese or Hindi and Urdu for the summer. They were free, immersive, camps with kids from across the country.
Language learning in a summer camp setting—some of the best summers of my life. All we did all day was learn these languages and at night we just hung out and had fun.
Saloni Nahar
Note: STARTALK concluded its active new grant cycles a few years ago and is currently defunct.
Saloni’s school experience is not the one documented in most of the research behind Brown Voices. And that’s exactly why it’s worth sharing.
We discuss a fourth-grade Ellis Island event where every student presented about their family’s country of origin (her mom helped build a beautiful float with a peacock) and years of World’s Fair at her high school (where India had multiple booths and multiple performances every year). Saloni attended schools that made consistent, intentional choices to celebrate cultural heritage.
From the beginning, every year it only got more and more available to me, celebrating my culture. I really feel lucky about the progression.
Saloni Nahar
Saloni’s educators celebrated and honored their students’ backgrounds. Her experience contrasts with participant accounts in Brown Voices, but also highlights that the disparity in experiences isn’t just due to resources or demographics, but is due in large part to what a school culture is like.
(Related: what teachers can do to support South Asian American students)
Anxious Brown Girl is a web series about a young South Asian woman navigating her first corporate job. Saloni co-produces the series, and also plays Rita, a more seasoned Brown colleague who gets annoyed at the eponymous anxious brown girl’s fumbles.
We discussed the tendency to critique South Asian American representation as though there’s a single correct version of the experience. Saloni shares:
I get really upset when I hear people critiquing Mindy Kaling or Lilly Singh and saying I don’t relate to this. The South Asian experience isn’t a monolith. The way Mindy Kaling grew up is very different from how I grew up. As a writer, you have to write from your experience because what is most personal is most honest.
Saloni Nahar
(Related: South Asian Americans are not a monolith)
What she wants instead isn’t better representation from the same few people. It’s more people feeling empowered to write at all.
I’m seeing so many young people now step into filmmaking and feel like they’re allowed to. You can’t ask the couple of people who’ve worked so hard to represent everyone. You have to be able to work in the environment that already exists. When you’re one of the first people doing it, you’re gonna do it how you need to.
Saloni Nahar
When I asked Saloni what success means to her, she started with a quote she reminds herself of often:
I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.
Jim Carrey
Building a career in entertainment, a field that runs almost entirely on external validation and the relentless cycle of creating and achieving the next thing requires a reframe like that. Saloni adds:
Success to me would be feeling like I showed up well. And otherwise, I don’t think it’s gonna mean anything to experience it alone. That’s what Jim Carrey was referring to.
Saloni Nahar
…for Saloni, the feeling of success keeps coming back to relationships: showing up for the people in her life who are building things, even when she’s deep in production and her bandwidth is thin. Showing up to a friend’s launch; donating to a crowdfund for a friend’s film instead of waiting for the engagement party or baby shower; sending a thoughtful comment of encouragement.
I can specifically remember a tiny comment that someone left or a word of encouragement that was the difference between me being like, “wow, this is stupid and not gonna work,” to “okay.” Knowing that it can be that small made me realize: showing up matters.
Saloni Nahar
Saloni’s answer to this one is deceptively simple and probably the thing most South Asian American kids most need to hear.
You have so much time and you’re allowed to change your mind. I just hope the next generation gets to just pick. And that means whatever path you’re in, you want to be there. Nothing can be a waste of time if it all connects to each other.
Saloni Nahar
She also offered something I haven’t heard anyone else in this series say: a gentle defense of the kids who might actually want to become doctors or engineers.
I hope there’s a young generation that wants to go into medicine or engineering because nobody’s telling them that that’s what they have to do. If you’re choosing it freely, choose it.
Saloni Nahar
This conversation is part of the Brown Voices project, an ongoing series bridging the research behind Brown Voices: South Asian American Experiences in Schools with the lived experiences of South Asian Americans across fields and generations. Brown Voices rereleases this fall.
Saloni Nahar is repped by Grossman & Jack Talent and 10 MGMT. You can see Saloni’s creative work at @nayadinfilms, and learn what Chicago Actors Hub is up to at @chicagoactorshub.
Follow the Anxious Brown Girl series on Instagram at @anxiousbrowngirlseries.
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— Punita
