Bela Achaibar: Unraveling the Fabric of Diaspora

Bela Achaibar ’25’s senior capstone project began with a skirt. 

It was a batik skirt gifted to her by her host mother when she studied abroad in Java, Indonesia. As her host mother handed it to her, she remarked in Indonesian: “Di Amerika, batik mahal” — “In America, batik is expensive.”

After returning to the United States months later, Achaibar spent her summer living with her grandmother in New Jersey. When Achaibar pulled out the skirt from her suitcase to show her, she absolutely loved it. “You can wear it to the temple with me!” she exclaimed. Though the textile was distinctly Indonesian, its colors and patterns evoked something deeply familiar for her Guyanese grandmother. 

Achaibar was struck by this moment. She considered how cultural artifacts could carry so much meaning across time and space: “How could this skirt that was emphasized to me as so particularly Indonesian represent home to my Guyanese grandmother living in Newark, New Jersey?” 

As a double major in Asian languages and civilizations (ASLC) and the practice of art, with a self-designed concentration in the material culture of the Indian Ocean world, this question would become the heartbeat of her senior capstone project. Achaibar wanted to learn more about how material culture — textiles, art, stories — adapts and endures through diaspora. 

Her own family — descendants of South Asia who arrived in the Caribbean as indentured laborers four generations ago — had carried fragments of cultural memory across oceans. The batik skirt, though rooted in Indonesian traditions, echoed the textures of their own displaced heritage. It wasn’t just fabric or an article of clothing; it was something that helped Achaibar understand how heritage and history can survive through material culture. 

Though I didn’t know Achaibar before this profile, our conversation left a lasting impression. As we spoke, it was impossible for me not to feel inspired by her infectious passion — her eyes lit up with every question, and she answered each one with a deep curiosity and care for her work. She carried the calm wisdom of an enlightened mentor and approached every topic with gentle confidence.

After more than an hour of meaningful conversation, I returned to my recording only to find the audio completely soundless. Distraught, I reached out to Achaibar to explain the situation, expecting frustration and annoyance. Instead, she responded with kindness and complete understanding, working with me to find a solution rather than dwelling on my mistake. In the short time I’ve known her, she’s shown herself to be someone who extends grace and forgiveness without hesitation — someone generous, warm, and deeply human.

Choosing Her Canvas

Achaibar grew up in Frisco, Texas. While she was always interested in history, she explained, “the way [it] was taught [in Texas] was limited and didn’t feel like I had the opportunity to learn all the histories I was really interested in.” 

She reflected on when she took A.P. European History in high school, where the class spent just one day talking about colonization over the entire year — a particularly frustrating omission given how central imperialism is to Europe’s history. When she brought up her issues with the curriculum, neither her teacher nor the high school administration made any efforts to fix it. Their rigid adherence to one version of history prompted her to further research how narratives are constructed — who gets left out and why. 

When Achaibar arrived at Amherst in 2021, the open curriculum offered the freedom to explore these questions and pursue disciplines that had been underrepresented in her earlier education. At the same time, she was still considering other paths. For a brief period, she envisioned a double major in physics and ASLC. She was drawn to what she describes as “the mystery inherent in physics and how it causes us to question the perceptions of the world that we take for granted." Physics had always been the science she liked most.

Still, while history, physics, and languages captivated her intellectually, art was a quieter, more personal pull. She’d painted for years, but had never considered it a serious academic pursuit until a guest lecture by Pakistani American artist and scholar Dr. Sarah Khan in Associate Professor of ARHA and ASLC Yael Rice’s class, “Art and Architecture of South Asian History,” changed her mind. “She talked about not seeing herself represented in art spaces … and I felt really seen myself,” Achaibar recalled. “I actually got kind of emotional when she was talking, and we were still wearing masks, so she couldn’t see my face, but I was tearing up.” 

After Khan visited the class, Achaibar stayed behind to talk with her. She told Khan that she was still unsure about what she wanted to major in, and that she was always interested in art, but too scared to actually pursue it. Khan responded to “just go for it … It might be scary and it might be hard and you might not like it, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.” 

Khan’s words pushed Achaibar to enroll in “Painting I, Introduction to Painting” with Visiting Lecturer in ARHA Gabriel Phipps, and she immediately fell in love with the course. Achaibar’s later encounter with Audre Lorde’s essay, “The Uses of the Erotic,” in  Assistant Professor of English, Dr. Frank’s course, “Foundations of African American Literature,” solidified her decision to major in art. Lorde’s framing of the erotic as a source of knowledge — trusting your mind and body to guide you — gave Achaibar the permission to embrace art as more than a hobby. She told me, “Painting is the number one thing that makes me feel in touch with myself [and] alive.”

After their conversation, Acahibar followed up with Khan over email to express how deeply their exchange had impacted her, and the two soon arranged a Zoom call. Later, during winter break, Achaibar reached out again — this time for advice on how to enter the art world. That conversation led to a job offer for the spring semester, which eventually turned into a summer internship and an ongoing part-time position.

Her work with Khan has spanned both studio and archival responsibilities — from organizing, moving, and preparing artworks for shows, to drilling and repairing ceramic pieces, unpacking books, and helping set up the studio space. She also assists in archiving Khan’s personal collections, documenting her textiles, printmaking, and ceramics series to build a comprehensive record of her work.

Unlearning and Reclaiming Space

One of the biggest challenges Achaibar faced at Amherst was learning how to advocate for herself — a lesson that began in high school but took on new depth in college. It took time to realize that asking questions, proposing new projects, and drawing connections across disciplines wasn’t just allowed at Amherst — it was actively encouraged. At Amherst, education wasn’t a playbook with fixed rules — it was a space to create her own intellectual path and pursue what she was genuinely passionate about. 

“When I came to Amherst, I don’t think I fully understood how to navigate the academic space that exists here, and how to create space for myself or ask for what I need,” she reflected. “That was really not the norm in my high school.” Learning to seek out support and trust her instincts became one of the most important and empowering takeaways of her college experience

Her first ASLC class, “Ramayanas in History, Ramayanas as History” with Assistant Professor of History and ASLC Mekhola Gomes, introduced her to a new way of thinking about narratives. The course included different versions, adaptations, and iterations of the epic across South and Southeast Asia, leading Achaibar to notice how stories change and evolve as they travel. “We just looked at all these different versions and iterations of the story, and it made me start to understand even more the idea that history is something that's constructed,” she said.

The insight became central to her academic approach. She designed her own ASLC concentration in “Material Culture of the Indian Ocean World,” studying how objects carry meaning across borders. 

A Cloth of Her Own

For her senior capstone project, an original research project completed through a 300- or 400-level course, Achaibar returned to the batik skirt that had first sparked her questions about diaspora and cultural memory. Inspired by the use of textile dyeing, she began exploring kalamkari — another South Asian dyeing tradition, often used for temple hangings and royal fabrics — to continue unpacking how South Asian visual languages persist over time and space. Kalamkari is considered a form of painted textile, which especially appealed to Achaibar, given her background in painting. 

Working with Rice, she set out to create her own kalamkari, ordering natural dyes, bamboo columns, and specially treated cotton. But she kept hitting roadblocks, and Amherst’s studios weren’t equipped for the traditional process. “Every time I would sit down to start working with the dyes … I would be missing some sort of item. It was so different to try and do it outside the context of somebody’s official workshop.”

In the meantime, she started drawing freehand on a large piece of yellow cloth she took from her grandmother’s house that was used in her aunt’s wedding. Achaibar began by copying traditional motifs — goddesses, lions, women weaving — but the cloth soon took on a life of its own. “I would ask my friends if I could draw them into the fabric,” she said. “At one point, I drew myself into the middle of the cloth … One of my friends thought it was Jesus Christ, and I thought that was really funny.”

By the end, the piece embodied her ideas about diaspora and cultural transformation. She called it her “creolized version of kalamkari,” referring to the practice of hybridizing multiple cultures into something new — in this case, those of India and Amherst College. The piece also wove in everything in between — her own experiences growing up in Texas, and her family’s history in Guyana on her father’s side. “It all informs the work together,” she explained, “and that is okay — it doesn’t make it less ‘pure’ or less ‘Indian.’”

She wasn’t just studying a textile tradition — she was adapting it, and layering it with the textures of her own history. “As culture, histories and oral narratives spread over time, they get creolized into the different contexts that they’re in … and each new version is just as valid as the last one.”

Returning, Rebuilding, Reflecting

One of Acahibar’s proudest accomplishments has been helping bring Nikita Shah, the only practicing kalamkari artist in the U.S., to campus. Shah’s visit included public talks, workshops, and discussions celebrating South Asian artistry; they even got to host a South Asian Students Association (SASA) event, which was much smaller and more intimate. “It was really awesome to look at the kalamkari pieces that Nikita brought and … take pictures of them and talk about what our mothers or our grandmothers would have liked,” Achaibar told me.

Looking back on the event, Achaibar felt it marked how far she had come. “It [was] a space that I wish I had had my freshman year, and it was really cool. I got to help create that.” She was grateful for how much help she had from the college and community as well: “I think it takes time and work and effort and obviously cannot be done without the support of the wonderful professors and other people who are here.”

As she prepares to graduate, Acahibar’s interdisciplinary studies at Amherst leave her with a profound understanding of how culture travels and transforms. Reflecting on her time at Amherst, she remarked how “It’s okay to draw from multiple references and exist within contradictions. [It’s] okay to go into a piece of artwork, not even knowing what you want to explore.” 

What began as a project about textile traditions eventually extended into a large-scale drawing — a nine-by-four-foot piece made with fabric markers — that built on her kalamkari work while embracing new forms. It became a meditation on complexity itself: how identity and culture are never singular or fixed. “I don’t even have the words to describe it yet,” she admitted. “But that’s the beautiful thing about art. It’s like you don’t have to know, because art is an expression of something that cannot be explained.”

Her batik skirt is a living document of her Amherst journey. It’s both an artifact and an inspiration — proof that the most powerful stories are often woven into the fabric of everyday objects. Achaibar leaves behind a legacy of intellectual curiosity and courage — an important reminder to embrace the incomplete, the contradictory, and the still-evolving.