The seeds of social activism were planted early in Nisha Agarwal’s bloodstream. The current Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office took up causes and showing her community organizing skills since she was a little girl.

Her parents, psychologist mother Rita Agarwal, and father, Suresh Agarwal, a nuclear engineer, encouraged her to speak her mind and back it with action, she recalls. Agarwal is among numerous Indian-Americans of this generation who have brought their social activism into public office and policy reform from inside, after banging on doors from the outside.

Read the full article here.