Tara Dorabji Leads Weapons Lab Protest, Francis Assisi, INDOlink, July 2003
Among Indo-Americans there is a generational difference that is as ideologically based as it is palpable. While the first generation more or less mainstreams, basking in the comfort of the model minority myth, the second generation has chosen otherwise.
While the first generation waves the flag for fear that they will be targeted by hate crimes, the second generation has the guts to proclaim that it is equally patriotic to protest, and to engage in acts of civil disobedience.
Tara Dorabji, of California, for example, has a passion that’s focused on disarmament. And her statements are bound to upset the status quo: “If we want other countries to have weapons inspections, let us start here at home,” she says with convincing logic. She articulates her concern: “The White House demands that other countries be inspected and disarm, but is busily building the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”
Dorabji has come to grips with the frightening truth that Weapons of mass destruction are right in her backyard. That backyard happens to be, Livermore, where the government’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is engaged in designing, developing and testing next generation nuclear weapons. It is also home to the government sponsored Sandia Labs, an offshoot of the one in Los Alamos, where weapons research is a key activity.
Which is why she points out that the Bush administration´s aim to free the world of nuclear weapons isn’t being applied to the United States. “While loudly demanding that other countries dump their suspected nuclear weapons, the Bush administration is ramping up its own nuclear program,” observes Dorabji, who is the Outreach and Community Organizer at Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs) in Livermore. CAREs motto is “peace, justice and the environment.”