"As a Zoroastrian who has lived in Pakistan, Azerbaijan and the US, I am interested in preserving migration stories and archival work through oral documentation,” stated Sharmeen Mehri (pictured). She was awarded a fellowship by the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) in October 2021 to examine and preserve the migration experiences of Zoroastrians from South Asia settled in the US. She will carry out and conduct oral interviews to highlight an often overlooked minority group in the South Asian diaspora. "By recording a diverse range of voices, this archive will document how Zoroastrians preserve or adapt their cultural expressions within the context of the broader American immigrant experience,” noted a write-up in What’sOn, the newsletter of the 
Karachi Zarthosti Banu Mandal. As an international student from Karachi, Mehri is currently pursuing her PhD in the English department at the University of Buffalo after completing her Master’s degree at Hunter College, City University of New York where she was a teacher of writing and rhetoric.
"I am also interested in the relationship between belonging and home, especially to address how Zoroastrians influence and are influenced by the new homes they inhabit. How does this new home challenge old forms of tradition or belief? How do they preserve those parts of their culture they deem significant? And how do the struggles and successes in the process of migrations shape how they view themselves?” Mehri summarized her approach in an e-mail to Parsiana.
"This project will bring to light voices that have been underrepresented in the diaspora,” she mentioned. "I would like to talk to more female Zoroastrians, Irani and Parsi subgroups from South Asia, various age groups and represent the unity as well as the contradictions within their narratives of migrating to America. What have they left behind and what do they miss?” Mehri would welcome inputs from those willing to share their experiences on her email address smehri@buffalo.edu.
On the SAADA website Mehri will share the personal stories of the South Asian Zoroastrian migrants and explore how their Zoroastrian identity helped shape their assimilation experiences in the dominant US culture. She will write two essays for SAADA’s TIDES magazine. The project will continue until September 2022 within which time she also plans to create an online museum exhibit and a public event.
Daughter of Roshan Mehri, president of the Karachi Parsi Institute, and the late Behram, Sharmeen is an alumna of the Mama Parsi Girls’ Secondary School in Karachi and did her middle school in Baku, Azerbaijan. "The Zoroastrian identity has been a strong part of my upbringing. As a community I think we are quite proactive to help others and support one another,” she observed. She believes that certain traditions that need to be revised should be understood in the context of historical and political dimensions that necessitated them.