Here's to 2025
Welcome to Export Quality, your home for news by and about South Asian Americans and Canadians - and everything in between.
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Happy New Year friends! Here’s to making new, better mistakes, old friends, beautiful days, and restful nights. I’m lucky to have more than 200 of you here to start off 2025!
I haven’t written a newsletter issue since right after the election because I haven’t had much to say on much of anything since then, but I was also focusing on my work and personal life.
I’m not one for New Year’s ‘resolutions’ these days but I do want to lay out what you can expect from Export Quality in the coming months:
More issues in your inbox every week
A wider variety of news from desi diaspora journalists. When I started this project we were in the thick of American political news, which happened to be one of my main beats as a reporter and editor, but I want to include more stories from my colleagues about the arts, sports, essays, op-eds, documentaries, and hyperlocal news. too.
Paid tiers! As I navigate the newsletter space, I’ll be adding some options for paid subscribers later this quarter with access to exclusive content.
More fun and maybe some more personal writing. I don’t know if we need to replicate what Sepia Mutiny was to all us old folks in the room, but I loved what that community was - a little corner of important fun and ‘I’m so happy I’m not the only one’ on the big internet.
And now if you’ll allow me to get a little personal…
While New Year’s Eve was a blast full of great friends and in-depth conversations on unhinged celebrities and the intricacies of using the word ‘like’ too much, January 1 was anything but fun. In those early hours of the year, I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stop the tears. (I’ve been having a lot trouble sleeping the last 5 weeks or so, something I’ll be working on in 2025 so I’ll take any tips people have) Instead of continuing to toss and turn, I grabbed my notebook. Here’s what came to mind at 4 am (with some edits):
There are people you will never be right for, sometimes even your close friends. You’ll never be hot enough, have enough money, come from enough money, be too much of some arbitrary ethnic identity, too harsh, too weak, too dark skinned, too independent, or too ‘needy’ emotionally. There were a lot of tears about this one. As brown women, as women, we’re constantly told to improve ourselves. ‘New year, new you!’ is embedded in our DNA, but I want to reject that this year. I’m almost 43, I don’t need yet another new me. Today I woke up understanding there’s liberation in never being the right amount of anything for someone - constantly trying to ‘fix’ yourself ends up being pointless and you can just relax into who you are.
Taking a 6 month ‘break’ in 2024 was one of the best things I did. I cut my workload down to barebones, spent more time with my parents, and took care of my physical health. I came back to NYC recovered from professional burnout (and maybe a little recovered from heartbreak), 30 lbs lighter, and renewed in general. But none of that matters if you don’t remember what led you to the place of needing that break in the first place. Write it down on a post-it note and stick it next your laptop.
To paraphrase one of my personal icons, Jane Fonda, ‘good girlfriends put starch in your spine.’ Bad ones will indulge men gaslighting you about your own feelings or refuse to have difficult conversations. I’m lucky to have some really good ones in my life.
Being an observant person is both a blessing and a curse. It’s great to be able to read a room fairly accurately, it comes in handy during story interviews and on dates. But catching micro-expressions can also lead to a lot of time spent analyzing (read: upset) in my head. There’s got to be a way to observe without absorbing without also being dense, a thing I should look into this new year.
Do more yoga and lift heavy things, on repeat.
I don’t know what’s going to happen with media/journalism in this second Trump administration but I’m clear on my role in the industry: continuing my work with community/hyperlocal media, a mentor for younger journalists and freelancers, and telling the stories I think are important from outside the Beltway.
Pizza is the best. (It was late, I was hungry.)
That’s all for today as I dive back in to some new reporting I’m doing and plan out what stories to share for the next issue. In the meantime, here are some pieces to start off 2025:
has a great newsletter on ‘ease’ in 2025 and her Smart Reads are always interesting, important reading. has a lovely newsletter as well. I always appreciate her thoughts on the arts and books.Central Desi, run by the amazing Ambreen Ali, and 285 South, managed by the wonderful Sophia Qureshi, should both be on your reading lists particularly if you’re interested in what’s going on in New Jersey and the Atlanta metro area.
For Nepali community news, definitely follow one of my former Elections Reporting Fellows Kishor Panthi and his work for NEPYork and Khasokas.
My books this week: Listening to Loot by Tania James (thank you NYPL) and re-reading my selection of Carrie Fisher novels since she is my writing style happy place.
If you have not banned yourself from buying new books because you have too many at home you haven’t read yet (I see you, I am you): please shop here! All the proceeds from this Bookshop.org storefront, run by my lovely Lakshmi Gandhi and Lauren Hardie, go towards supporting journalists of color in need. Unfortunately there may be more than a few in that boat this year.
See you all in your inboxes soon!