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Spring India Day at San Francisco’s Union Square

6Jun

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Culture

Spring India Day at San Francisco’s Union Square

By Sharon Simonson As many as 30,000 people are expected to descend on San Francisco’s Union Square today to experience Spring India Day 2015, a first-ever showcase of Indian culture, arts and crafts in the Bay Area’s most famous shopping and tourist center. Organizers hope to bring a bit of home to the city’s Indian population and a taste of India to the broader community. “I am a really proud Indian,” said Ena Sarkar, president, chief executive and executive producer of WomenNow TV, an event platform and weekly talk show for South Asians that is carried by KTSF Channel 26 television. "I want people to understand India and Indian culture, to remember that we can create a bridge between here and India, and I want people to know how vibrant we are and how the nation has so much...

Riding the Waves Across Cultural Divides

By Sharon Simonson SAN JOSE—Ten years ago, Shreeja Sharma probably could not have found her job in Silicon Valley — or anywhere else in the United States. No, she is not a computer scientist honing technology's cutting edge. She is something a lot cooler — a global citizen riding today's transnational currents of cultural change. A former “radio jockey” for India’s national broadcaster, All-India Radio, Sharma grew up in Delhi, speaks three languages, claims Canadian citizenship and a U.S. green card, and has lived in four countries on two continents. Since January 2012, she has peeled her eyelids back at 5 a.m. each weekday to commute an hour from her East Bay home to the East San Jose radio studios of Desi 1170 KLOK AM. (A “desi” is an Indian person who lives outside ...

A World Grows in Sunnyvale

By Sharon Simonson SUNNYVALE and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — The Silicon Valley Asian Indian population is growing faster than all other racial and ethnic groups countywide and will shortly overtake the Vietnamese as the valley's second-largest Asian population after the Chinese, despite the Vietnamese population’s own substantial growth. With an estimated 120,000 people, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the increased Indian population is manifesting across business and social institutions in multiple valley cities. Storefronts along El Camino Real, a central Silicon Valley thoroughfare connecting multiple communities, reflect the change, with new restaurants, clothiers and grocers selling Indian foods, spices and traditional garments filling more and more spaces. At...