South Asians are helping build Chicago’s progressive movement

Somebody organized Mueze Bawany’s mom. He doesn’t know who it was — maybe Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, a longtime community organizer who had been trying to convince Bawany to run for alderperson of the 50th Ward. 

Bawany and his family immigrated to Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood from Pakistan when he was three years old. He’s a high school teacher, community organizer, and member of the Chicago Teachers Union. He’s also someone who wasn’t interested in running for alderperson. He prefers being under the radar. So Ginsberg-Jaeckle brought in some help to try to convince Bawany. 

“My friend Nash texted me and I was like, ‘Why are you trying to ruin my life?’ I’ll frame that text if we win, InSha’Allah, on the wall,” Bawany said.  “But once my mom found out, it was game over.”

Bawany’s mom didn’t necessarily know what the role of alderperson entailed, but after he explained to her she was proud that someone was asking her son to do something.“For people who felt really small in this city and in this community and in this country, for them to know that their kids and their grandkids are loved and supported and appreciated, it means the world to them,” he said. 

His mom told him the family had been through a lot, observing that making sure other people don’t have to go through the same struggles fuels him. He said she asked him, “‘Can this election help you support people in ways that we wish we would have been supported? If so, it’s more of an obligation on you to try.’’’

Bawany is one of two South Asians running for Chicago City Council in the February 28  election. The other, Denali Dasgupta, is a mother of three, a foster parent, and a policy researcher with a background in data science. She was born and raised in the suburbs of New York City with parents who immigrated from India and is running for alderperson in the 39th ward on the city’s northwest side. 

Their campaigns are indicative of the growing presence and power of South Asian Americans in Chicago’s progressive grassroots movements that take on issues such as immigrant rights, prison and police abolition, and economic justice. 

“I’ve really loved that there are South Asian organizers and artists and people who are visible in different kinds of ways in different parts of the work than there ever was,” said Amisha Patel, who has been an organizer in Chicago for over 30 years. “Having two really progressive lefty candidates for City Council that come from the South Asian community is very exciting.” 

According to the South Asian American Policy & Research Institute, South Asians are one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in Illinois. The impact South Asians have made in Chicago can be seen, literally, from anywhere in the city. One only has to look up at the skyline and see the Willis and Hancock towers. Both were designed by Fazlur Rahman Khan, an immigrant from Bangladesh. The mile-long strip along Devon Avenue with its countless shops, restaurants, clothing, and jewelry stores has been nicknamed Little India. 

In 2011, Chicago elected Ameya Pawar to City Council; he was the first South Asian to win city or state office in Illinois. 

“After I won I felt a tremendous responsibility to represent the Asian community at large,” Pawar said. “I felt the pressure to be successful because I didn’t want to be the first and last.”

With the February 28 election approaching (early voting started at the Loop supersite in January and will open in all 50 wards on February 13), Chicago is at a unique juncture. Sixteen alderpersons decided not to run for reelection. Across the city, progressive community organizers, activists, and policy makers are running for City Council.