Performances of “Dishwasher Dreams” in Chicago in February. Book, performance, and film events in New Orleans and New York in March, and a special event at the Schomburg Center in Harlem in April featuring a community forum with children and descendants of the Bengali Muslim men and African American and Puerto Rican women who built lives together in mid-twentieth century New York City.
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Friday, February 15 – Sunday, February 17
Chicago, IL
Aladdin Ullah performs his one-man show “Dishwasher Dreams” directed by Chay Yew, with tabla accompaniment by Avirodh Sharma.
Friday, February 15 @ 8pm
Saturday, February 16 @ 4pm
Presented by Silk Road Rising
Pierce Hall at The Historic Chicago Temple Building
77 W Washington St, Chicago, IL
Event Details: http://www.silkroadrising.org/live-theater/indio
Sunday, February 17 @ 7pm
Victory Gardens Theater
2433 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago , IL
Event Details: http://victorygardens.org/onstage/disconnect-events.html
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Thursday, March 7 @ 6:30pm
New York, NY
New York University
Asian/Pacific/American Institute and
Department of Social and Cultural Analysis
Location: 5 Washington Place, New York, NY
Admission: Free
Event Details: http://www.apa.nyu.edu
NYU’s A/P/A Institute and Department of Social and Cultural Analysis celebrate the release of Vivek Bald’s much anticipated Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America with a multimedia book talk. The program will feature a performance by actor and playwright Aladdin Ullah, whose father’s own migration history inspired Bald’s research, a screening of an excerpt of Bald and Ullah’s documentary film in-progress, In Search of Bengali Harlem, and a reading from Bald’s new book.
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Saturday, March 23 @ 4pm
New Orleans, LA
Tennessee Williams Literary Festival
Panel: “The South: Literature of Exile, Refuge, and Return”
with Vivek Bald, Frank Cha, Ayana Mathis, and John Jeremiah Sullivan.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom
214 Royal Street, New Orleans
Admission: See Festival website
Event Details: http://www.tennesseewilliams.net
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Saturday, April 6 @ 5:30pm
New York, NY
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Langston Hughes Auditorium
Location: 515 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY
Admission: Free
Event Details: http://www.nypl.org/locations/tid/64/node/65912
RSVP via Eventbrite
A book event with theater, film, and community forum presented by afro-latin@ forum, Asian American Writer’s Workshop and the Schombug Center for Research in Black Culture.
Join us for a celebration of the publication of Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America (Harvard University Press) by scholar and documentary filmmaker Vivek Bald. This special event will explore the little-known stories of Muslim men from the Indian subcontinent who settled in Harlem in the 1920s-50s, married Puerto Rican, African American, and West Indian women, and became a small but significant part of the neighborhood, selling hotdogs from pushcarts, opening the neighborhood’s first Indian restaurants, and interacting with Harlem’s other Muslim communities.
Bald will read from his book, which traces out these and other early histories of Indian Muslim men who settled in places like Tremé in New Orleans and Black Bottom in Detroit. East Harlem actor/playwright Alaudin Ullah will perform an excerpt from his one-man show”Dishwasher Dreams,” which focuses on the story of his father Habib, who was one of the first Bengali men to settle in Harlem. The event will also include an excerpt from “In Search of Bengali Harlem,” the documentary film on which Bald and Ullah are collaborating, followed by a panel discussion and community forum with children and descendants of some of the Bengali men who settled in Harlem in the mid-twentieth century. Plus a special guest DJ set by Himanshu Suri, aka Heems, formerly of the rap group Das Racist.
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