Feature APA Studies Graduate: Nayantara Sen

Ms. Nayantara Sen graduated from Michigan State University in December 2007 with a Bachelors of Arts in English, and a specialization in Asian Pacific American Studies and Women, Gender and Social Justice Studies. Nayana has academic training in the fields of postcolonial/diasporic identity politics, immigration, LGBT and minority/marginalized peoples and women’s rights, African-American, Native American, and Asian-American issues, as well as in gender and women’s studies. She spent most of her undergraduate career exploring literary and pop-culture representations of LGBT, minority and immigrant communities. Nayana has also conducted graduate research work in Afro-Asian intersections as they apply to, and are negotiated through second-generation Asian-American youth and youth culture, especially in terms of music, dance and identity.

In addition to researching postcolonial and diasporic identity as it relates to APA communities, she also writes poetry and fiction that is heavily inspired by APA struggles and activism. Many of her poems and stories address issues such as women of colors’ exclusion from popular cultural transcripts, historical re-memory, violence and oppression directed towards immigrant communities, cultural permeability and LGBT voices. In 2007, Nayana’s Senior Honors Thesis consisted of short fiction and poetry about immigrant and APA diasporic struggles. 

Nayana currently works as the Program Director of the East Lansing Film Festival, and is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Amplifx, a local progressive magazine and non-profit that is geared towards amplifying community voices and providing a clearinghouse for local activist efforts. She is also a community activist, and organizes around eco-friendly initiatives, global alternatives to war and injustice, fair media representations, economic justice and LGBT and people of color rights. 

Her future is definitely bright and we wish her well.