By Devika Koppikar After I graduated from college more than 20 years ago, I moved to new town, away from family and familiar surroundings. For a while, I felt lost, especially with regards to my Indian-American identity. Then, I found the Network of Indian Professionals (NetIP), a social and professional organization connecting South Asians http://na.netip.org/. My whole life changed. I …

By Devika Koppikar As a young man, Bill Imada didn’t want to identify as a Japanese American. “I wanted to be white,” said Imada. But on October 9, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)  recognized him for not only his leadership in the Asian American community, but also for promoting diversity in the media field.  Imada was one of four …

  By Devika Koppikar As one of the most diverse DC-area schools, 24 percent of Annandale High School’s students identify as Asian.  Nevertheless, the large Asian population does not necessary equate to the “model minority,” myth as 46 percent of the school’s population (including all groups) are classified as economically disadvantaged, according to the U.S. News & World Report. For …

  By Devika Koppikar In Sterling, Virginia, a Sikh family receives a letter threatening to be “shot dead” if they don’t leave the country.  On a routine evening stroll, two elderly Sikh men are murdered in Elk Grove, California. Kentucky Senator David Williams criticized Govenor Steve Beshear for attending a Hindu groundbreaking prayer. And a major-party candidate for U.S. President …

By Devika Koppikar During his trips to India, 12-year-old Shubham Banerjee wants to jump in and take away the pain of underprivileged people.             “He’s a very sentimental kid and gets swayed by small things (suffering he sees in the world),” said his mother Malini, a resident of San Jose, California, who regularly takes her children to feed the homeless. …

By Devika Koppikar     Many 18-year-olds spend time snapping candid photos with their iPhones. But, that’s not the case with Saumil Bandyopadhyay. Instead, the only child of an electrical engineering professor (father, Supriyo) and math/reading teacher (mother, Anuradha) spends his days conducting research on the infrared photo detector.     What is an infrared photo detector?     “It is a sensor …

By Devika Koppikar Cindy Shao’s 7-year-old daughter, Annie Chang, learned about Dr. Martin Luther King in school.  But this year, Shao, president of the Asian American Chamber of Commerce wanted Annie to experience a deeper lesson on the significance of the day. “Martin Luther King Day is not for a holiday or barbequing,” Shao told her daughter as they were …

By Devika Koppikar Alexandria resident Sue Okubo suffers from lung disease. Her lungs are not at full capacity, she said. Nevertheless, she uses her full personal capacity as an environmental activist—aiming to spawn clean air for Northern Virginia. Studies have shown that polluted air accelerates the onset of lung disease and many other health challenges, Okubo noted, which is a …

By Devika Koppikar     At age 16, Phyllis Kesslen’s son Randy* took Mandarin in school with only two other students. Randy, now 17, is currently fluent in three world languages: Mandarin, Spanish and Latin, in addition to his native language, English.     Kesslen said that if she had her son attended a public school, he would not have had the …

By Devika Koppikar After Sudha Patil and Pandit Patil retired from their jobs, (endodontist and mechanical engineer respectively) they started a new career – as vineyard owners. Originally from Maharashtra in India, the Patils opened the Narmada Winery in 2009 and named it after Pandit’s mother. “Pandit’s mother had to sacrifice so much and sold her jewelry for Pandit to …

By Devika Koppikar Sam Mukherjee, a retired scientist, found a mole on his skin three days after a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in 2006. Though painful, he removed this mole, caused by a tick bite infected with Borrelia Burgdorferi. He had contracted Lyme disease, his doctor confirmed, and his skin displayed a round rash typical to the disease. …

By Devika Koppikar Growing up in the Deep South in the aftermath of desegregation, my classmates often asked me why my mother wore a “red dot” on her forehead. Others asked me why, as an “Indian,” I didn’t wear feathers. It was my lifelong desire to dispel these misconceptions that led me to the screening of “Not a Feather, But …

By Devika Koppikar Bethesda, MD – Food writer Monica Bhide had cooking “cultural shock” when she saw a French chef in action earlier in her career.“While cooking, he took his finger, put it in the sauce and tasted it,” shared Bhide to a crowd of food connoisseurs at a recent presentation in Bethesda. “Growing up in a Hindu household, we …

By Devika Koppikar Hidden Menu is Asian Fortune’s series on where to find the authentic Asian meals not always found on restaurant menus. This month, Devika Koppikar explores Bollywood Bistro in Fairfax, Virginia. At first glance, many of Bollywood Bistro’s “off-the-menu” items don’t even look like traditional Indian cuisine. But take a bite, and you’re instantly on the rastas (streets) …