Friends, family mourn loss of Salima Nagji

Second-year psychology student earned ACLU scholarship, planned to be an attorney

Shane Nelson
Published: Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Salima Nagji, a second-year psychology student who aspired to be an attorney, died in a car accident in Orange County on Dec. 25. She was 19.

Her roommate Sadaf Ali, who was in the car with Nagji, described her best friend as honest, friendly, cheerful and “full of life.”

“We could get dressed up and ready to go to a party, and get lost – we always got lost – and drive around and have so much fun ... Some of my best memories were when we weren’t even doing anything,” Ali said.

Nagji was motivated to earn her bachelor’s degree in three years, said her brother Kamil, a fourth-year computer science student at UC Berkeley.

“She wanted to beat me ... She might have, she probably would have, because I was going to take a little longer,” Kamil said.

Family and friends said Nagji was very involved in her school and community. She volunteered weekly at her church as a religious teacher aide, Kamil said.

“She had a big heart – she tried to help people all the time,” he said.

She was also a member of the Indian Student Union and performed in their annual culture show during her first year at UCLA, he added.

In addition to her academic and volunteer activities, Nagji also worked as a fall quarter intern in the public policy department of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Nagji was elated to learn she got the competitive ACLU internship, Ali said.

Tenoch Flores, an ACLU press aide, said Nagji was eager to learn everything she could about civil rights so she could be a great attorney.

She worked on two projects last quarter. Since the Southern California affiliate is one of the oldest in the country, it has a vast collection of photographs taken over the last 50 years. She worked to reorganize some of these vast photo libraries.

For the second project Nagji helped organize a September event during Banned Books Week called Expresión sin Fronteras – expression without borders. Nagji helped generate publicity for the event that explored the limits of free speech for Chicanos in popular culture. It had a great turnout, Flores said.

Zahra Giga, Nagji’s cousin and a first-year business economics student, said the hardworking student initially wanted to attend UC San Diego because she was not sure she would get into UCLA.

But when she received her UCLA acceptance letter, the San Diego plans became an afterthought.

“She did everything she wanted. She had a good life ... It was just too short,” Giga said.

Nagji’s family plans to start a memorial scholarship in her name.