Simmy Makhijani

Dr. Simmy Makhijani

Simmy Makhijani is Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies. As an educator, activist, and scholar her work focuses on the intersections of art, living histories, youth organizing, cross-racial solidarity and movement building (with emphases in Asian American Activism Studies and South Asian American Studies). At CSUN, Professor Makhijani teaches courses on critical thinking and im/migration conceptualized through intersectional frameworks of world-ecology and solidarity. The core of her pedagogy is best described as seeding an imagination and building of a just social universe, because the future is up to us, all of us. While living in the Bay Area, she co-founded and co-ran United Roots (a green youth arts and media community center in Oakland) and has been involved with South Asians for Education Justice Collective, Asians 4 Black Lives, Third World Resistance Coalition, Bay Area Solidarity Summer, Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, Narika, Asian Women’s Shelter, South Asian Women’s Creative Collective-SF, and Art in Action. Professor Makhijani holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology plus a Masters in Asian and Comparative Studies and continues to share her research/writing with numerous community, activist, and education projects committed to the work of transformative/healing justice in action.

Education

PhD, California Institute of Integral Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology

MA, California Institute of Integral Studies, Asian and Comparative Studies

BA, Pennsylvania State University, Journalism

Selected Publications

Makhijani, S. (2020). “Desis Rising Up and Moving, 2000-Present.” In E. Hobson and D. Berger (Volume Eds.), Remaking Radicalism: A Grassroots Documentary Reader of the United States, 1973-2001.University of Georgia Press.

Makhijani, S. (2020). “South Asians on the Pacific West Coast (the Early Years): A Brief History of the Present.” In E. Shrake, T. Leon, and C. Chen (Eds.), Asian Pacific American Experiences: Past, Present, and Future (2ndEdition), Kendall Hunt Publishing. 

Makhijani, S. (2020). “Bloodlines of Ghadar: Two Generations of Radical South Asian American Women.” In E. Shrake, T. Leon, and C. Chen (Eds.), Asian Pacific American Experiences: Past, Present, and Future (2ndEdition), Kendall Hunt Publishing.

Makhijani, S. (2020). “#Asians4BlackLives” In E. Shrake, T. Leon, and C. Chen (Eds.), Asian Pacific American Experiences: Past, Present, and Future (2ndEdition), Kendall Hunt Publishing.

Fu, M., Makhijani, S., Pham, A., Richart, M., Tien, J., and Wong, D. (2019). “Asians4BlackLives: Notes from the Ground.” In D. Fujino and R. Rodriguez (Guest Eds.), Amerasia Journal,45:2, 253-70. Routledge/Taylor and Francis.

Makhijani, S. (2015). “Which Side Are You On?: Black and South Asian American Youth, Solidarity Activism, and New Generation Politics,” PhD diss., California Institute of Integral Studies.

Makhijani, S. (2013). “United States of Dissent: Converging Political Imaginaries of the Ghadarites and Black Panthers.” In SAMAR: South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection, Issue 41, published online.

Makhijani, S. (2008). “War Harvest: Can There Be Such A Thing As A Post-Conflict Society?” In Catamaran: South Asian American Writing, Volume 9, Thames Printing Company, Inc., Norwich, CT: Winter 2008.

Selected Honors and Awards

San Francisco State University, Outstanding Teaching, Service, and Dedication to the Principles of Ethnic Studies Award, 2021