Faiza Hasan
Beat Memo

After a lot of thinking, I have decided to choose minorities as my beat for the term. Being a part of a minority myself, I feel I can relate to and feel deeply about the subject.

And since I have covered human rights in Pakistan and am greatly interested in HR issues, the minority beat seems like a natural choice for me.

The issue of minorities and how their rights are guaranteed and protected by the state, has fascinated me in the past year and I would like to do detailed research and work on the subject. Living in the Bay Area and seeing the huge influx of South Asians in the region, I would like to do stories about the changes (if any) they have brought to the area. I would like to find out more about the SA population, how they vote, why they seem to concentrate in areas like Freemont, which are then become mini Asian islands. There are so many more stories that I feel can be done about the SA population here.

About their success in the IT industry, how the slump has affected them, about various successful entrepreneurial ventures they have undertaken other than IT, about visa issues and problems, about the cultural changes taking place within the society as their children grow up as Americans, about how in a new world and society some SA’s rigidly turn to religion and their home culture for support and familiarity. I would be particularly interested in doing stories on women rights.

One story in that regard that has stuck in my mind and which I find no one has really covered, is about cases of spousal abuse among women who come here on spousal visas (H 4). They are not only financially dependent upon their husbands but are also relie on them for their visa status and are thus open to all kinds of abuse. Again another story I would like to do is on forced marriages and how the US state deals with such cases. To me it seems that the list can go on and on and I do believe that this particular segment of the minorities beat has been underrepresented in the past. I think that my background and experience would be an asset in covering this beat, especially where language and understanding the people is concerned.