In Memoriam: Jane Singh

Jane Singh, who taught courses on South Asian history, literature, and social issues in the Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies program of Ethnic Studies between 1991 and 2016, passed away at 83 on August 18, 2024 in Yuba City, 2024, where her parents had settled after immigrating from the Punjab before the 1917 Barred Zones Act. 

Singh inspired and was well loved by her students, many of whom maintained their interest in South Asian American history and social justice and went on to become teachers, attorneys defending workers’ rights, and community activists focused on social justice and racial equality. 

In 1991, students from Jane Singh’s first Asian American Studies class organized a group called the Women of South Asian Descent Collective. In light of the paucity of materials by and about women in the South Asian diaspora, they produced an anthology of writings by and about South Asian women titled Our Feet Walk the Sky, which was published by Aunt Lute Press in 1993. Editors of the anthology were Sheela Bhatt, Preety Kalra, Aarti Kohli, Latika Malkani, and Dharini Rasiah. Jane Singh wrote the Foreword and served as the project’s mentor.

Singh received her PhD at Berkeley in the South Asian Languages and Literature Department. Her dissertation was titled “Echoes of Revolution: The Role of Literature in the Gadar Movement.” Between 1986 and 1990, she served as an outreach coordinator for the Center for South Asia Studies, arranging lecture series and conducting workshops on South Asian studies at various high schools, colleges, and public institutions. She also worked with the UC Berkeley Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies and the Oakland Public Library as director of the National Endowment for the Humanities People of South Asia in America project. The position involved conducting research, writing and curating and materials for the exhibition, and coordinating a national tour. 

Also committed to ensuring the inclusion of South Asian American women in educational materials for and about Asian American women, Singh served on the editorial boards of three Asian Women United of California publications: Making Waves: Writing: An Anthology of Writings By and About Asian American Women (1989), Making More Waves: More Asian American Women’s Writing (1997), and InvAsian: Asian Sisters Represent (2003). She was also on the advisory boards of the Asian Women United of California video documentaries Labor Women (2003) and Slaying the Dragon: Reloaded (2011).

In Singh’s classes, students learned about what was going on in British India at the turn of the century, and about the lives of the Sikhs and other South Asians who lived and worked alongside Mexican and indigenous Californians. She encouraged her students to participate in various community projects, inviting them to events that she organized at the Center for South Asian studies and exhibitions that she curated at local museums. She also encouraged students to submit their writing to various anthologies she was co-editing.

Singh’s students remember her efforts to bridge scholarship with the communities beyond the walls of the university.

One of Singh’s undergraduate students, Vijaya Nagarajan, contributed her work to the South Asians in America exhibit at the Oakland Museum. Her project ultimately led to her dissertation work many years later. Now professor of theology and environmental studies at the University of San Francisco, Nagarajan remembers Singh’s mentorship and generous support which, she contends, “gave me the vital confidence that helped me pursue my intellectual and community interests.”