Exhibit And Panel Discussion: ‘Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape The Nation’

Exhibit And Panel Discussion: ‘Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape The Nation’

WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter.

Immigrant communities in the U.S. are popularly known for their food, dress, and cultural arts. In an era when immigrants are under assault, politically and literally, immigrants now think more about urgent issues confronting their daily lives.

“Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation” is a Smithsonian-curated travelling exhibition. It highlights Indo-American heritage and daily experience and runs at the Field Museum through Jan. 7, 2018. The exhibition, the last in a series of related Chicago events, is co-presented by the Field Museum and the Indo-American Heritage Museum (IAHM). 

With us to discuss pertinent issues facing Indo-Americans in Chicago and the U.S. are IAHM’s president and vice president Padma Rangaswamy and Amita Banjeri who are both board members and co-chair the “Beyond Bollywood” program. And as an historian, Rangaswamy teaches courses on immigration history, world history, and global cultures at numerous universities. She’s author of the books Indian Americans (New Immigrants) and Namasté America: Indian Immigrants in an American Metropolis.

We’ll ask what concerns they share for America’s Indo community in the era of Trump. A panel discussion will feature this and other issues.

“Beyond Community: Indian Americans Shape the Nation” takes place at the Field Museum on Sunday, Dec. 10 at 1:30 – 3:30 pm.