Former Jaffna University student enters race for City Councilperson in Michigan

by Sumangala (“Sumi”) Kailasapathy

Hi! I am Sumangala (“Sumi”) Kailasapathy and have been an Ann Arbor resident for 13 years. I am originally from Sri Lanka, but have been living in this country for the past 19 years. I received my undergraduate degree (magna cum laude) from Wellesley College in economics and political science. I also have an MA and an MPhil in political science from the New School for Social Research.

I taught courses in Gender Studies, International Political Economy and Globalization at Eastern Michigan University for 10 years. Currently I am a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) at a downtown Ann Arbor firm.

I moved from Sri Lanka to the USA in 1991. While an undergraduate at Wellesley College, I worked with the local Chapter of Amnesty International to create awareness about the illegal incarceration of my fellow students back home. We also demanded AI change its mandate to agitate for the release of persons incarcerated by non-government actors.

I lived in Jaffna, Sri Lanka during 1980s when a civil war was raging there. After finishing high school, I went to the University of Jaffna to pursue my undergraduate degree in business. I was the treasurer of the University Students’ Union and was an active student leader defending not only the democratic, civil and human rights of the student community, but also that of the larger society under the dual threat of the military as well as the rebel group Tamil Tigers. The Students Union played a courageous role in defending the space of the civilians in an authoritarian environment. Many of my brave colleagues and teachers lost their lives in the process of defending human rights and dignity. Their courage and selflessness continues to inspire me to stand up for issues of greater good.

While I was an undergraduate in Sri Lanka, I also co-founded a women’s orgainzation called the Poorani Womens’ Oraganization. I was the treasurer of this organization after it was formed. In the initial stages, Poorani ran a safe house for the women who were victims of military rape. Then it metamorphed into promoting and undertaking micro financing in order to empower war-widows and destitute women who wanted to set up their own small businesses and projects that would provide them and their families with a livelihood.

Until Poorani inserted itself into the development arena, most NGOs were satisfied with donating sewing machines to war-widows and destitute women. Needless to say, this was informed by their limited imagination of gender stereotypes of womanhood. But a village that faced a massacre and ended up with 20 widows could not sustain 20 seamstresses. In the end most widows sold their sewing machines in the second-hand or used equipment market and ended up where they began: dependent and poor.

We at Poorani believed womens’ capacity and interests were limitless. We asked the women themselves as to what they wanted, and their answers were varied: one wanted seed money to set up a bicycle repair shop that had been run by her father and brothers before they were killed, one wanted to continue farming the fields that she and her husband had been doing and so on. Not one of them asked for a sewing machine!

How does all this link-up with the Ann Arbor City Council? It has many connections. First and foremost we need to listen to the constituents and find out what their priorities are and what they want. When everyone wants better roads and bridges why do we spend millions on a giant underground parking structure? When neighborhood committees want to preserve their single home character why do we force all these PUDs on them?

Jaffna, the civil war, and all my experiences seem a life time away from Ann Arbor in certain instances. But in certain other ways it seems like deja vu all over again. Accountability, transparency and a commitment to self determination are some of the core values that I bring to my political practice from my past experiences from back home. I give you my pledge that I will up hold these values as a City Councilperson if I am elected to office in November.

I have two sons, Ashwin and Keshav who attend Clague middle school and Logan elementary school. My husband Giri Jogaratnam is a professor at Eastern Michigan University and has taught there for the past 17 years.

Ann Arbor has provided us with a stimulating and nurturing environment for us to thrive. Running for City Council is a small way of saying thank you to all of you.