A voice for area South Asians

As a child in Pakistan, Hamid Khan recalls playing cricket in the dusty courtyard outside his home while his mother drank chai and discussed politics with neighbors. He often listened as they criticized their country’s leadership and lamented the massive displacement after the partition from India. By the time he was a teenager, he was politically active himself, regularly participating in anti-government demonstrations.

Khan’s passion for politics has continued here in the U.S., where he serves as executive director of the South Asian Network, a grass-roots organization in Artesia dedicated to community outreach, advocacy and service to people from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In 15 years as the head of the network, Khan has organized campaigns on behalf of taxi workers, negotiated back pay for laborers in Little India and lobbied for comprehensive immigration reform.

Now Khan, 52, has his own weekly radio show, called “Beneath the Surface” on KPFK-FM (90.7) about global migration and South Asian issues. In a time when violence in his native country is constantly in the news, Khan tries to provide perspective and critical analysis by talking on the air with authors, academics and activists. Recent shows have focused on U.S. foreign policy under President Obama, the situation in Sri Lanka and the displacement of millions of people from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“He is very knowledgeable about the whole region,” said Alan Minsky, KPFK senior producer. “He knows the nuances intricately of Pakistani politics, which are very complex. He brings that to listeners in a very accessible manner.”

For Khan, the show, which began in March, is simply an extension of his policy and advocacy work. He wants to debunk myths and help prevent discrimination. “It’s extremely critical to reach out to all communities,” he said. “It’s our obligation to inform the community and to build bridges.”

The son of a police officer and a homemaker, Khan graduated from college in Pakistan with a degree in economics but always dreamed of flying planes. When he was 21, he got a visa to travel to the U.S. and attended flight school in Orange County. He began flying small passenger planes and later became a commercial pilot for UPS, where he worked for nearly 20 years.

Even as he traveled the world for work, Khan was never far from politics -- both of his native country and his adopted country. He frequently attended demonstrations in Southern California. In 1986, he helped some Pakistani friends successfully file a discrimination complaint against an Orange County nightclub chain after they were denied entry.

Soon after, Khan started inviting friends to his house to discuss creating an organization for South Asians to counter racism. He began holding monthly town halls, each attracting a few hundred people. The South Asian Network -- located in a strip mall along Pioneer Boulevard -- became an all-volunteer nonprofit in 1994 and now has 16 staff members and an annual budget of nearly $1 million.

In 2006, after years of volunteering full time as the group’s executive director and flying full time for work, Khan resigned from UPS and took a drastic pay cut to focus solely on his South Asian Network work. The organization now has several ongoing projects, including preventive health workshops, case management for domestic violence survivors and legal clinics on immigration issues. This week, Khan, who is a naturalized citizen and lives in Long Beach, plans to walk 75 miles through the Arizona desert to raise awareness about immigrant deaths.

Khan said his next goals are stepping up his campaign against the city for failing to end corruption in the taxi industry and continuing to challenge the federal government’s national security policies that he said have resulted in the “demonization of the South Asian community.”

Sakina Begum, a Bangladeshi immigrant who works as a cook, said she first learned of the South Asian Network in 2004 through a friend when she had severe stomach pains and didn’t know where to seek care. Later, she sought help when her landlord raised her rent and served her with an eviction notice and again when she landed in deportation proceedings after someone posing as an immigration advisor took her money and gave her incorrect advice.

“When anyone has a problem, Hamid tries to help,” said Begum, who occasionally volunteers for the organization.

The South Asian Network played a key role after Sept. 11, when there was a rash of violence and discrimination against American Arabs and Muslims and people mistaken for them. Through town halls and one-on-one meetings, Khan and his staff educated the South Asian community about their rights and provided assistance to hate-crime victims. “It was overwhelming, the sheer need,” Khan said. “But we were ready.”

The next year, when the U.S. government started a “special registration” program as an anti-terrorism measure, Khan set up a table outside the federal building to warn people -- mostly Middle Eastern men -- who had been ordered to report to authorities what they could face as they responded to the order, and he referred hundreds to on-call lawyers.

“He is someone who has really been a vigorous advocate,” said Robin Toma, director of Los Angeles County’s Human Relations Commission. “He is just so deeply committed to the work and to social justice and to challenging unfairness wherever he sees it.”

That work has not endeared him to everyone, however, especially businesses and companies at the opposite end from his very vocal labor rights campaigns.

“Whenever someone is as outspoken as Hamid is, there are bound to be people who are displeased,” Toma said.

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anna.gorman@latimes.com