Many Americans received two stimulus checks in 2020 and into 2021 as part of the federal government’s coronavirus relief program. President-elect Joe Biden’s relief plan proposes a third round of checks of $1,400 each; however, the third check could take months to arrive due to expected pushback from Republican legislators and additional time for the IRS to distribute the funds.
While the stimulus checks were expected to spur increased consumer spending and jumpstart the economy, many recipients actually used the checks to pay down debt or build up their savings instead. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reported that of the first round of $1,200 checks, U.S. households spent approximately 40%, saved 30% and used another 30 percent to pay down debt. Even in lower-income households that could not cover an unexpected bill equal to their monthly income, stimulus check recipients were likely to use the money to pay down debt and did not have any greater propensity to spend the check than in higher-income households.
The NBER report found some differences in stimulus check use across demographics, including that larger households spent more of the money, younger and more educated households were more likely to save and those who were out of the labor force or lived with parents were more likely to spend. While African Americans surveyed were more likely to use most of their checks to pay down debts and Hispanics were more likely to spend, the report did not find statistically significant results for Asian American stimulus check use. The report also did not include a dedicated category for those who donated their checks, though many recipients opted to do so in order to assist others suffering disproportionately from the pandemic’s impacts.
While the aggregate data remains limited regarding Asian American stimulus check use, Brown Girl Magazine asked some South Asians what they did with their stimulus checks.
Sachit G.
Sachit is an actor and filmmaker who is spending his stimulus check on clothing from various small brands he connected with through social media.
“I thought it’d be a good way to help small businesses during this time. I’m an actor and filmmaker so I will be wearing their clothing pieces in my upcoming video projects as a way to advertise for them,” Sachit said.
He plans to release a video in the coming month featuring his purchases on his Youtube channel. He will feature brands like Amandla Apparel and EUMELANIN, Black-owned businesses based in Detroit, and South Asian-owned Saffron Lane Co and Modern Desi. He received his check via direct deposit from the IRS.
[btx_image image_id=”83252″ link=”/” position=”center”]Sachit G. wears a shirt from Indian brand Saffron Lane Co., which he purchased with his stimulus check.[/btx_image]
Shefali P.
Shefali works in law enforcement and plans to spend her stimulus check on a 2022 trip to Antarctica. Like Sachit, Shefali wanted to support businesses that have been affected by the pandemic.
“I’m looking forward to spending my stimulus towards travel. The industry has been crippled due to the pandemic and lots of people have lost their source of income,” Shefali said.
She also received her check via direct deposit.
Sagarika D.
Sagarika is a graduate student whose prior and current financial situation qualify her for the stimulus checks. However, she has yet to receive either payment.
“I’ve been calling the IRS to figure out what is going on and I really don’t have clear answers. I now have to claim the check in my tax paperwork this year. If I ever do get the money, I honestly am going to put it into my savings account immediately. I moved back home and don’t have to pay rent right now, which is what it would’ve gone towards immediately otherwise,” Sagarika said.
While she describes her situation as “privileged and fortunate,” she expressed concern for others who also did not receive the payments they are owed and may experience irreparable harm as a result.
Tina L. and Aysha Q.
Tina and Aysha, breaking news and politics editors here at Brown Girl Magazine, both received stimulus checks this year and plan to donate the money to charitable causes.
“I honestly wasn’t expecting a check but since it is based on your 2019 tax return and I didn’t have an income then because I had just graduated from law school, I got one. I don’t need it now and especially since I’m saving so much money by temporarily moving back in with my parents,” Tina, an attorney, said.
Aysha, who is a full-time journalist at Daily Kos, plans to donate her check to the Thaakat Foundation, a nonprofit organization that focuses on education and sustainable development.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the South Asian community in the U.S. particularly hard. A report by South Asians Leading Together (SAALT) details its impact on South Asians in various urban centers across the U.S., highlighting issues like domestic violence, immigration complications and unsafe working environments. South Asians are four times more likely than the general population to have underlying conditions that make them more susceptible to both contracting and dying from COVID-19. In addition to the social and health complications, the South Asian diaspora has also been affected by pandemic-induced economic hardships that have impacted the country more broadly. Stimulus checks are just one tool in the fight against the pandemic’s effects, and the Biden administration will certainly have miles to go to ensure that individuals and businesses get the help they need to weather the rest of the storm.
Every year on August 5th, the Sikh American community remembers one of our community’s most devastating tragedies in recent memory — the Oak Creek massacre. On this day in 2012, a white supremacist gunman entered the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, a gurdwara (Sikh house of worship) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin where he shot and killed six worshippers and severely injured others. This violent attack was the deadliest mass shooting targeting Sikh Americans in U.S. history, and at the time, was one of the worst attacks on a U.S. house of worship in decades. Six worshippers — Paramjit Kaur Saini, Sita Singh, Ranjit Singh, Prakash Singh, Suveg Singh Khattra, and Satwant Singh Kaleka — were killed on that horrific day. An additional community member, Baba Punjab Singh, was severely paralyzed and ultimately passed away from complications related to his injuries in 2020. Others, including Bhai Santokh Singh and responding police officer and hero, Lt. Brian Murphy, were seriously wounded during the shooting.
In 2022, the community came together to demonstrate that we are undaunted. My organization, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) joined in supporting the anniversary observance at Oak Creek: a remembrance eventcentered around the theme of “Heal, Unite, Act.” The Oak Creek Sikh community hosted a series of in-person events, including the 10th Annual Oak Creek Sikh Memorial Anniversary Candlelight Remembrance Vigil on Friday, August 5, 2022. The program included a representative from the White House, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Oak Creek Mayor Dan Bukiewicz, and representatives of the families who lost loved ones. Being there in Oak Creek 10 years after the tragedy was deeply meaningful — both to see the inspiring resilience of this community and to remember how much remains to be done.
In D.C., SALDEF continues to fight for policies that improve the lives of Sikh Americans. I had the honor of chairing the most recent iteration of the Faith-Based Security Advisory Council at the Department of Homeland Security, providing recommendations at the request of Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas. Consequently, the three subcommittees published a report that emphasized the importance of greater accessibility, greater equity, and greater transparency in counterterrorism efforts that for too long revolved around surveilling populations like the one that was senselessly attacked at the Oak Creek gurdwara in 2012. Leading the FBSAC as a Sikh woman, and representing a community that was highly targeted alongside Muslims by both white supremacists and in post-9/11 counterterrorism profiling, was an opportunity to push the Council to advocate more fiercely for further information-sharing between communities and law enforcement, extending grant opportunities for security for Gurdwaras and other houses of worship, and building trust between the government and Sikh communities. In addition, I advocated for accountability for the damage needlessly caused to Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and Hindu (MASSAH) communities by federal agencies historically pursuing “counterterrorism” objectives which has resulted in eroded trust rather than the development of strong partnerships.
Although we have made great strides in this country, there is still more to do. Through our work we have partnered with many across the nation to come together and find solutions through tenets central to Sikhism and America — unity, love, and equality.SALDEF continues to strongly endorse the policy framework articulated across the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (H.R. 350 / S. 963); Justice for Victims of Hate Crimes Act; and the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) Improvement Act (H.R. 6825). We believe strongly in mandating federal agencies to create dedicated offices to investigate domestic terrorism; allowing prosecutors to feasibly indict perpetrators of hate crimes; and allowing religious nonprofits to access federal funding to enhance their own security.
While 11 years have passed, the effects of the Oak Creek shooting are never far from the minds of Sikh American advocates and the community we serve. SALDEF will not stop taking a stand against senseless violence and hate crimes. We continue to work in unity with our community and movement partners, and fight for better policies that will actively keep all of our communities safe. Through tragedy, we find hope. We know there can be a world where people from all backgrounds and cultures can practice their faith freely and, even though it has eluded the Sikh American community in the past, we still believe this world is possible.
Photo Courtesy of Amrita Kular
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Kiran Kaur Gill is an accomplished professional with exemplary executive experience. In her role as Executive Director, she is responsible … Read more ›
June 21, 2023June 22, 2023 4min readBy BrownGirlMag
The following open letter is written by Hindus for Human Rights, an organization advocating for pluralism, civil and human rights in South Asia and North America, rooted in the values of Hindu faith: shanti (peace), nyaya (justice) and satya (truth). They provide a Hindu voice of resistance to caste, Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), racism, and all forms of bigotry and oppression.
Dear President Biden,
As Indian-Americans, human rights organizations, and concerned allies, we are writing to urge you to engage publicly and meaningfully to push back against the Indian government’s escalating attacks on human rights and democracy, especially ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the United States.
Despite objective evidence that India’s democracy is under critical attack, you have not spoken out about this crisis. In early 2023, Indian authorities conducted retaliatory raids on the BBC’s Delhi and Mumbai offices for releasing a documentary about Prime Minister Modi. The week before the Summit for Democracy, the Indian government made three successive attacks on Indian democracy. First, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party expelled Rahul Gandhi from Parliament. Second, the Indian government shut the internet down in Punjab, severely impacting the rights for Sikhs to peacefully organize and protest. And third, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that Indians can be found guilty by association for terrorism. And yet, not one representative from the Biden Administration said anything about even one of these developments. Instead, while Islamophobic violence gripped India in late March, you invited Prime Minister Modi to speak at the Summit for Democracy. Mr. Modi visits DC at a time when the state of Manipur has experienced heavy communal and anti-Christian violence after Modi’s ruling party pushed an initiative to undermine Indigenous rights in the state.
“As privileged members of the diaspora, it’s our duty to challenge the repressive practices of the current regime in India. We stand in solidarity with those … opposed to the government’s attempt to reshape the country into a Hindu nationalist state. https://t.co/RxU9wUy2Zy
— Hindus for Human Rights (@Hindus4HR) June 19, 2023
Even when confronted with questions by Indian reporters about human rights in India, your administration has only had private two-way conversations about how both of our governments can always improve. Quite frankly, we find it unacceptable to see such equivocation on Indian democracy from an administration that has been strident in its defense of American democracy and the rule of law.
India is one of the fastest autocratizing nations in the world, mostly thanks to the current government. Freedom House has rated India as a “partly-free” country for the past three years, and has blamed Prime Minister Modi’s government for a rise in discriminatory policies, including persecution against Muslims and caste-based violence against Dalit and Adivasi communities; harassment of civil society, protestors, academia and the media, and the targeting of political opponents. It has also rated Indian-administered Kashmir as “not free,” citing violations of human, civil, and political rights after the Modi government revoked the territory’s autonomous status. In Reporters Without Borders‘ press freedom ranking, India has dropped to 161 out of 180 countries in 2023. India has appeared in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Impunity Index — which examines accountability for unsolved journalists’ murders — every year for the past 15 years and currently ranks in 11th place worldwide. According to PEN America’s Freedom to Write Index, in 2022, India was one of the top 10 countries that jailed writers globally. The Varieties of Democracy Institute characterizes India as an “electoral autocracy” and blames India’s descent into autocracy on Prime Minister Modi. And the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has said India has been one of the top 15 countries at risk for a mass atrocity event every year since 2017, which reflects the toxicity of Indian politics under Modi.
“If the President meets with PM Modi, then the protection of the Muslim minority in a majority Hindu India is something worth mentioning…if you do not protect the rights of ethnic minorities, there’s a strong possibility India starts pulling apart.” Thank you @BarackObama! https://t.co/RhcMNfiqaR
— Hindus for Human Rights (@Hindus4HR) June 22, 2023
Given the magnitude of this crisis, we ask you to engage directly with Indian-American and human rights civil society leaders to explore solutions to address India’s human rights crisis. We also ask you to employ the tools at your disposal to ensure that the Indian government cannot attack Indians’ human rights with impunity. As the 2022 Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor report details, several government individuals have committed human rights violations that, under U.S. law, would qualify them to be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act. Indian security forces that have engaged in human rights violations should have security assistance rescinded, under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
Finally, we urge you to publicly call on the Indian government to honor its commitments to human rights, including calling on Prime Minister Modi and his cabinet to halt the use of anti-terror laws to arbitrarily detain political critics. You can publicly denounce the rising numbers of political prisoners and the weaponization of the rule of law in India to shut down criticism. Even if you are not willing to personally criticize the Prime Minister, you have ample opportunity to criticize the Indian government’s misuse of public trust and public institutions to consolidate power and undermine the will of the Indian people.
This morning in DC, on the lawn of The White House at the welcome reception for Modi.
As President of the United States of America, you hold a unique position to lead the fight against authoritarianism. Prime Minister Modi will listen to you when you speak. But he and his allies will only change if you take a stand publicly. We urge you to listen to those of us who care about India and ensure that one man cannot steal the futures and the rights of our loved ones in India.
— Signed by countless organizations and individuals leading the charge (linked here).
