Sunil Gulab

Abstract

Sunil Gulab is an artist, environmental scientist, and community organizer who has been an active member of the Lynn community for more than two decades. Born in Harare and raised in Chivhu, Gulab occupied an “in-between” space as an ethnic Indian in the apartheid state of Zimbabwe. He attended Huntington College in Montgomery, Alabama, where he encountered an eerily similar racial system that separated blacks from whites. After college, he moved to Jamaica Plain, where he worked as an au pair for a lesbian couple. As he grew comfortable expressing his gay identity, he eventually made his way to Lynn, a city for which he has enormous respect and affection. He attended several gay bars but was most at home at 47 Central. He served for ten years as a mentor for NAGLY (The North Shore Alliance for GLBTQ+ Youth), during which time he received his MBA from Boston College. His interview discussed racial systems of power, identity politics, and generational differences in the LGBTQ+ community.