{"id":4189,"date":"2025-07-15T22:11:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/?p=4189"},"modified":"2025-07-16T01:11:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T01:11:26","slug":"sasi-student-spotlight-makenna-brar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/2025\/07\/15\/sasi-student-spotlight-makenna-brar\/","title":{"rendered":"SASI Student Spotlight: Makenna Brar"},"content":{"rendered":"

I began my journey as a UFV student in the Fall of 2021, but I had not heard much about SASI until 2024 \u2013 when faced with a presentation from Dr. Satwinder Bains in my South Asian Literature class (ENGL 380) with Dr. Rajnish Dhawan. You can imagine my surprise when learning about the South Asian Canadian Digital Archive (SACDA \u2013 an initiative of SASI) in class and suddenly seeing images of my great-grandfather on the projector screen in front of me!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My own ignorance of the existence of SASI up to this point can be chalked up to my lack of involvement on and within the UFV campus. As someone born and raised in Abbotsford, I never viewed my attendance at UFV as anything other than academic. Go to class, maybe grab a snack between my classes, and go home \u2013 that was the extent of my time on campus. However, as I progressed through the years of my degree, I learned which classes I preferred, which professors I learned well from, and began making friends with those familiar faces I saw time and time again in my classes. This led me to getting more involved within the English department, and the English Students Association (ESA). <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This past December in 2024, I finally bit the bullet after months of contemplation and applied for the Honours program within the English Department. The next few months consisted of ironing out project details and setting up courses alongside my amazing Honours co-supervisors, Dr. Rajnish Dhawan (Associate Professor of English) and Dr. Heather McAlpine (Associate Professor of English and English Department Head). This, of course, included the exchange of many emails, some at unusual hours. One particular Saturday morning, as I checked my phone like the morning paper, I saw an email that had been waiting in my inbox since 8:30 AM from none other than Dr. Dhawan. Except, instead of anything to do with coordinating Honours project details \u2013 it was a recommendation that I apply for a position with SASI. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMuseum Assistant at the Sikh Heritage Museum, Gur Sikh Temple, National Historic Site \u2013 funded by Young Canada Works\u201d, the attached job posting read. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I scanned the position requirements \u2013 am I even qualified for this? What do I know about Museums? I let doubt creep in; I\u2019ve never even thought about working in a museum before \u2013 when was the last time I even went to one? (It was actually the Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum in Drumheller, Alberta \u2013 back in 2017). Well, I\u2019m definitely not qualified to work in the largest Dinosaur Museum in Canada, but the Sikh Heritage Museum here in Abbotsford? I\u2019m a Sikh Punjabi Canadian born and raised in Abbotsford, I had to remind myself that my own Nanima and Nanapapa (maternal grandparents) were married right here in the Gur Sikh Temple in 1971. If I wasn\u2019t particularly qualified for this position, then I knew that my lived experiences would carry the day. With this surge of confidence, I sent in my resume and cover letter, hoping for the best. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fast-forward to today, I\u2019m working away in the SASI office developing programs and event ideas, assisting with the execution and lead-up of events that were already in the works, aiding with social media content and writing, and I have even given a few tours of the National Historic Site itself. Right now, I\u2019m looking forward to the new exhibit launch at the Sikh Heritage Museum on July 20th, titled <\/span>Chandra Bodalia\u2019s Legacy: The History and Heritage of Gurdwara\u2019s in BC. <\/span><\/i>I hope to see\u00a0people I know and those that I don\u2019t! \u00a0I am learning a lot, and I know I can take all my experiences here with me into my academic studies and my future career paths. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for what the future holds, I plan on enjoying the rest of my summer at SASI, alongside working on my independent research study for my Honours project!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I began my journey as a UFV student in the Fall of 2021, but I had not heard much about SASI until 2024 \u2013 when faced with a presentation from Dr. Satwinder Bains in my South Asian Literature class (ENGL 380) with Dr. Rajnish Dhawan. You can imagine my surprise when learning about the South … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":4193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4189"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4194,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189\/revisions\/4194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/sasi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}