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Community News Service, LLC, publishers of US1, Hamilton Post, Ewing Observer, Lawrence Gazette, Bordentown Current, Hopewell Express, WWP News, Princeton Echo, Trenton Downtowner & Robbinsville Advance, has a NEW position to fill:

Community News Service, LLC, publishers of US1, Hamilton Post, Ewing Observer, Lawrence Gazette, Bordentown Current, Hopewell Express, WWP News, Princeton Echo, Trenton Downtowner & Robbinsville Advance, has a NEW position to fill:

Community News Service, LLC, publishers of US1, Hamilton Post, Ewing Observer, Lawrence Gazette, Bordentown Current, Hopewell Express, WWP News, Princeton Echo,Trenton Downtowner & Robbinsville Advance, has a NEW position to fill:

Advertising Sales Representative

Full/Part-time display advertising sales rep needed. Established account list provided plus cold calls required. Sales experience a must. Candidate must be self-motivated, energetic, outgoing and customer-service oriented.

Full/Part-time display advertising sales rep needed. Established account list provided plus cold calls required. Sales experience a must. Candidate must be self-motivated, energetic, outgoing and customer-service oriented.

Advertising Sales

Full/Part-time display advertising sales rep needed. Established account list provided plus cold calls required. Sales experience a must. Candidate must be self-motivated, energetic, outgoing and customer-service oriented.

e-mail resume as well as references and salary expectations to: e-mail resume as well as references and salary expectations to:

Thomas Fritts, Community News Service

Thomas Fritts, Community News Service

E-mail: tfritts@communitynews.org

E-mail: tfritts@communitynews.org

EOE

EOE share their stories as a look at the Indian community in New Jersey, described as “the largest ethnic group among the Asian diaspora” in the state.

According to the Indian American Impact Project, an organization that was founded to promote the voices of Indian Americans and South Asian Americans in politics, “nearly 5% of New Jersey’s population is South Asian, more than any other state in the nation.”

The website continues that “over 1 million Asians live in New Jersey, with Indian Americans making up the largest ethnic group,” particularly concentrated in Middlesex County—Edison and Iselin’s Oak Tree Road, known as “Little India,” is a bustling shopping district at the cultural center of the community.

According to a May 2022 Washington Post analysis of Census Bureau data from 2020 in “An American life: How Asian migrants built unique communities,” Mercer County itself recorded a 48.2% growth of Asian American and Pacific Islander, or AAPI, populations since 2010.

The four storytellers from the Mercer County area are Shazard Mohammed, Hamilton/Ewing; Shivani Patel, Princeton Junction/West Windsor; Yogesh Sharma, Lawrenceville; and Shoba Panoli, Pennington.

“My whole intention was to uplift and celebrate the diverse tapestry of India,” Bora said in an interview, noting that she worked alongside the GFS team, especially Greene, to identify demographic “lenses” such as age, language, religion, economic status, immigration, ability, region, caste, and sexual orientation to incorporate a wide spectrum of storytellers.

Each subject was then liberated from these labels, symbolically unchecking the boxes, as the exhibit materials explain, and prompted to recount a story that affected their life.

“Local Voices” expanded as Bora began to see the emerging pattern of personal agency in each narrative, creating a colorful mosaic of people with roots across India and the globe who collectively followed at least seven religions and spoke more than 10 languages.

After seven months of planning, the group gathered at the Grounds for Sculpture for an all-day retreat in February that included storytelling workshops and training, as well as individual photography sessions in which the subjects “were asked to arrive in clothing [that] made them feel powerful and celebrated,” according to the GFS exhibit page.

The speakers then collaborated with female BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) photographers to envision portraits capturing their most authentic selves, selecting which image would be on display.

At the end of the retreat, many of the storytellers left behind objects of significance and scheduled their respective video sessions.

Although the subjects spoke for hours at a time with Bora and photojournalist Danese Kenon, the managing editor of visuals for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the exhibit could only feature a single three- to five-minute story from each person.

Bora disclosed that the full versions would be preserved in a personal copy for the participants as well as in the archives of the exhibit partner, the South Asian American Digital Archive, or SAADA, to document the comprehensive oral histories.

“Local Voices” is a “living exhibit” focused on cultivating relationships over the program itself, but the theme of art with a pulse is familiar to Bora and a natural extension of her own craft.

Inquirer to the Tampa Bay Times in this world. As a trained journalist, I’m always curious about the world around me. I was raised in a household of storytellers and disruptors,” she added.

She lived in places like Washington, D.C., Iowa, and Indiana, even settling in Cape May for a three-year period where she wrote for the Press of Atlantic City.

But in 2008, Bora relocated from Florida to Philadelphia, where she has resided ever since.

While she would continue to freelance, Bora decided to experiment with her artistic inclinations and co-founded the Sattriya Dance Company with her sister-inlaw, Prerona Bhuyan, in 2009.

Sattriya is a living dance tradition that originated in the Hindu monasteries of Assam over 500 years ago.

Although the art form had been traditionally practiced by celibate monks, the Indian government recognized Sattriya as a major Indian classical dance in 2000, which led to more women “embracing” the art form, Bora said.

Now, Bora is currently an adjunct instructor at Lincoln University and has since returned to the newsroom as the managing editor of suburban coverage for WHYY, a Philadelphia public radio station.

“I grew up with my grandparents in a very rural Indian town, surrounded by art and culture and discussions of politics. Both my grandfathers were freedom fighters, and so I was raised in this atmosphere where culture and stories were always part of my education in this world.”

“Then, as an immigrant living in diaspora, I’m always thinking about what it is like to be an immigrant, how important our stories are, how important identity is, [and] how important stories are in terms of also passing our experiences and wisdom to the next generation and connecting us to our habitat. Stories connect us in very, very deep ways as humans.”

“When somebody’s sharing a story with you, it has a very spiritual overtone, because it’s something very sacred that somebody’s trusting you with their vulnerabilities and their experiences,” Bora said.

“Especially when people who do not have a chance to tell their story are invited to share their story. They are transformed, and we are transformed from listening to their experiences.”

The response has been “overwhelming” from both local and Indian media, according to Bora, with the exhibit having attracted about 500 or so attendees on opening night alone.

Bora said that because of her initial focus on the practical, behind-the-scenes aspects of the project, she rarely had the time to consider the tremendous “impact and outcome” the stories might carry.

But seeing the subjects take “collective ownership” over their stories and embrace the empowerment that comes with that, she added, deeply impacted her as well.

Now, Bora noted that she takes comfort in knowing there is this extended family of people to support each other, and the resilience she has personally learned from them has been invaluable.

Originally from the Northeastern Indian state of Assam, Bora finished her undergraduate and a master’s degree at two institutions in New Delhi before continuing her studies at the Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in Illinois, where she graduated with another master’s degree.

Bora has worked in newsrooms around the country, tackling business and technology at papers from the Philadelphia

“As a practitioner of this art form, I am drawn to stories. I’m also deeply aware of what it means to not be represented in mainstream art tapestries; it is so specific and nuanced. I guess it makes me a lot more sensitive to folks who are in the margins, because I feel like I operate from the margins, too, with my art form. My journalism is a sense of inquiry and curiosity, and that training of being objective, listening to people, and asking questions is what informed and drove this project,” she explained.

“Everything I do informs how I move

“To be on this journey with them, in sharing their joy and their sorrow and their trauma and then how they overcame so many of life’s hurdles, I was on all those journeys with them, and so it’s been really, really beautiful,” she said.

“It’s important to tell your story. It’s very crucial for each one of us to record the stories of our families, of our elderly people, [and] of our own stories. Stories are magical; stories are transformative; stories help form community and allow us to really be better people,” she said, adding that everyone should tell and claim their stories, as well as place that same value on actively listening to what others share.

See Local Voices, Page 6

At its core, Bora emphasized, “Local Voices” is a “connective project.”

“It is owned by the community; it is driven by the community; and again, it’s an offering that speaks to love, loss, and resilience that connects us all as humanity,” she said. ***

Shazard Mohammed Ewing/Hamilton

Born in the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, Shazard Mohammed, better known by his nicknames “Todd” or “Toddy,” immigrated with his family from the town of San Juan to the Mercer County area in

Mohammed lives in Ewing but owns Roti Plus Caribbean Restaurant at 1147 South Olden Avenue in Hamilton, which he opened in 2021 after helping his uncle, Ramesh Hayban—the then-owner of Trenton’s Hot on D Spot, now under new ownership and the name of Annie’s Hot on D-Spot Roti Shop—run the Trinidadian restaurant.

In his “Local Voices” interview, Mohammed explained that he had never previously traveled outside his country before deciding to take “a page out of history” and follow in the footsteps of his “forefathers who left India to come to Trinidad to become something better and make a better life for their family. They had a 90-day journey, and I was only getting on a plane for five hours.”

As a high school dropout, Mohammed shared that he was unsure about his future in America, but after landing on a Wednes- day, by that Monday, he “started working at a factory for eight bucks an hour.”

“By the time I left in 2009, I was making almost triple digits,” he said, but the “pressure” of the workplace began to weigh on him, with the “insults” negatively affecting his state of mind.

“Being called ‘highly paid morons’ and having to do dirty work that no one else wanted to do, I felt like I was in slavery. It was taking away from my mental health, so I decided this [was] no longer going to work for me, so I left that and had no idea what I was going to do to support my family.”

After learning through reading his trusty Home Depot books and watching videos, Mohammed took up a job as a handyman, eventually becoming a self-taught licensed contractor in the construction business.

Mohammed then expanded on the troubles of his economic situation, which included veering into the restaurant industry after making an ultimately ill-fated agreement with a family member and having to pick up the pieces himself when it fell apart.

Without this person in the picture, Mohammed “was a housing inspector for hotels and multiple dwellings,” forced to “juggle both jobs, working full-time, and coming to the restaurant afterwards,” he said, starting to get visibly upset from speaking about the toll it took on him.

“There [were] days I drove home and didn’t even know how I got home. It was just all muscle memory,” he continued, breaking again with emotion. “I told my wife, ‘I have to choose. Either we sell the business or I give up the state job.’”

In the end, Mohammed had to forfeit his retirement plan with the state and continue investing in the business, but as Bora said in her interview for Six09, he was able to create “a place that’s home away from home for so many people,” not just the local Trinbagonian population.

“At times I want to quit. I want to give up, but then I see people come in sometimes— and I’m a humanist, and I also struggle with depression—and some days I see sadness walking in the door, and I just say a few kind words, I serve them with a smile, I ask them how their day [is] going, how’s their family, is everything okay, and by the time they leave, most of them [have] a smile on their face,” Mohammed said.

“That brings joy to me to know that I’m not just running a business; I’m running a business where someone can feel safe when they come in here.”

Some speakers in “Local Voices” were asked additional questions, such as the meaning of their names and why they chose their objects.

Shazard, for example, means “prince” in Arabic, a suggestion from his mother’s best friend, who assumed a grandmotherly role for Mohammed and remarked that he “looked like a prince” at birth.

Meanwhile, his nickname, “Toddy,” came from his older brother, who gave him the title after a young Shazard would ask for a milkshake of the same name.

“Coming to America, people just started calling me Todd. Because I was intimidated or shy to let people know my true name, which is Shazard Mohammed, after 9/11, I just carried the name Todd, so most people thought I was American when they [spoke] to me over the phone, not knowing that I was of an immigrant culture,” he said.

Mohammed’s object is a hoodie with the coat of arms of Trinidad and Tobago, which bears the motto “Together we aspire, together we achieve.”

When people ask what it means to him, Mohammed says that he encourages them, again, to be humanists and to tackle greater challenges as a community.

“I take that to heart, because my interpretation of it is, ‘If we unite, we can conquer; if we come together as people, we can overcome any obstacles in our way,’ so I do wear that hoodie with pride,” he said.

Shivani Patel

Princeton Junction/West Windsor

Shivani Patel, also known as “Shivu,” was born in New Jersey and spoke about her experiences as a young person with autism and epilepsy, as well as the difficulty of managing both conditions while grieving the death of her beloved “late dada” or “dadaji,” which means paternal grandfather.

“When he died, it was so tragic, and it was so sad,” Patel said, adding that it also felt “humiliating” for her because her grandmother “knew nothing” about her autism.

Without his comforting presence, Patel found it “really hard to understand everything after losing dadaji and being with only her” during visits to her grandparents’ house in London.

“But after losing him, I have learned— thank God—how to control myself, etc., how to even control my own medical issues when having a super moment, like [an] unspeakable, un-breathable type of episode

See Local Voices, Page 8

Mohammed chose to display a sweatshirt with the coat of arms of his home country, Trinidad and Tobago, because he follows the “humanist” motto of the nation he immigrated from in 2000: “Together we aspire, together we achieve.” of high blood pressure issue when something doesn’t make me feel like, ‘Okay, I’m not comfortable in this position. I need to run away,’ or ‘I need to scream my head off, and I’m about to feel like I’m going to faint.’”

The red khartal, a wooden clapper consisting of blocks and jingles, above, is an ancient musical instrument that resonates with Patel.

“Thanks to God and Grandpa, remembering all that and praying all that, I know how to handle those issues, because Dada used to tell me when I was younger that, ‘If you don’t calm down, you’re going to have a heart attack or a seizure, try to calm down,’ and I would manage it, I would calm down,” Patel explained, adding that in the time since his passing, she has worked on remembering the techniques he taught her to cope with stressful situations.

To Six09, Bora described Patel as “a beautiful spirit” who arrived at the retreat in “her full, glorious self,” eager to embody that strength for others.

Patel’s object is the khartal, a two-piece percussion instrument from Rajasthan, India, where a pair of “wooden blocks with small dimples are held in each hand,” then “clapped together when devotional and folk songs are performed,” she said.

The sound comes from the meeting of the cymbals, typically brass plates, adorning the two parts.