“It was clear to me that offering a class like this would cater to an interest that was coming organically from students,” she says. “We got to hear people’s incredible stories, through MIT and beyond.” Tso had no previous experience with primary source research and says the experience of working on the South Asian project was “enlightening.”Īiyar says the engagement she saw in students like Tso is what prompted her to offer the class. Vassanji '74 and Pervez Hoodbhoy PhD ’78, a Pakistani nuclear physicist and activist. Tso interviewed several alumni for the oral history part of the project, including Canadian author M. “That was my first time actually doing history research on my own, trying to find my own sources,” says senior Kathryn Tso, a double major in history and materials science who worked on the project in 2021. So, the program funded students to conduct research at home instead. It was the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and MIT-India - one of the experiential learning programs run by MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, better known as MISTI - was unable to send students abroad as usual.
The South Asian Oral History Project began in earnest in January 2021 during Independent Activities Period. The idea for an exhibit to preserve this rich history came from Ranu Boppana, president of the MIT South Asian Alumni Association who was inspired by the "China Comes to Tech" exhibit hosted by the MIT Libraries in 2017-18. The exhibit will open in October 2022 in the MIT Libraries’ Maihaugen Gallery in concert with a series of events that include a day-long conference and a gala organized by the MIT South Asian Alumni Association. Students are also generating digital and visual content for a website and an exhibit. “You get a name from here, a picture from here” and you begin to piece together stories about people from the past, says Singh, who has been diving into the archives this spring for class 21H.S04 (South Asian MIT Oral History and Digital Archive), a special topic in history taught by Associate Professor Sana Aiyar.įollowing in the path of similar research courses such as 21H.S01 (MIT and Slavery), which Singh took online during the pandemic, the South Asian history class is introducing students to the techniques and methods of historical research while building up a body of materials that sheds light on the experience of MIT students and faculty from South Asia - a region comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan - and of South Asians from around the world, including the United States. Researching history in the MIT archives is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, according to junior Jupneet Singh.
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