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APEX Express
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
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Today’s episode of APEX Express is preempted for a fall 2024 fund drive special.
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Today’s episode of APEX Express is preempted by a fall 2024 fund drive special.
The post Special Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.
Today’s episode of APEX Express is preempted by a 2024 election special, hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
The post Special Fall Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – September 5, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Host Miko Lee speaks with playwright Naomi Iizuka and graphic novelist/activist Eddie Ahn.
For more information about the show’s guests:
the MAGIC THEATRE and PLAY ON SHAKESPEARE present: Richard IIA new translated version by NAOMI IIZUKA from William Shakespeare
August 21 -September 8, 2024Tickets available here.Eddie Ahns AdvocateSHOW TRANSCRIPT
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Miko: [00:00:34] Good evening. Welcome to Apex Express. This is your host, Miko Lee. And tonight we’re going to talk about retelling stories. So join us as you hop along the Apex Express. Welcome one and all to Apex Express. This is your host, Miko Lee. And tonight we’re talking about retelling stories. I had the opportunity to speak to two artists. One is the playwright, Naomi Iizuka and the second is the activist artists graphic novelist Eddie Ahn. So first up, take a listen to my interview with playwright, Naomi Iizuka. Before we recorded the interview, I actually had a chance to talk with Naomi and we worked together many moons ago. We actually were calculating based on our children’s ages. We work together in theater at Berkeley rep. And it is amazing to see Naomi retelling, so many stories in so many different cultures and genres. And here we talk about her experience rewriting Richard II which I had a chance to see at the magic theater. It has some absolutely amazing production values, and I encourage you all to go check it out. We’ll put a link to the show in our show notes. So check out my interview with Naomi Iizuka. Welcome Naomi Iizuka to Apex Express. We’re so excited to have the award winning playwright whose adaptation of Richard II opens at the Magic Theatre August 23rd and runs through September 8th. Welcome Naomi.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:02:30] Oh, thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here and so honored.
Miko Lee: [00:02:34] Well, we’re honored to have you. I want to start with my big question, which I adapted from the amazing poet Chinaka Hodges, which is who are your people and where do you come from?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:02:46] That’s a beautiful question. I think that my people are adventurous and iconoclastic, and that means that they come from many different places, geographically and also spiritually and artistically. I definitely feel an affinity for the Bay Area. it was the first place I really. Came to in my sort of adult life and I feel a great affinity for theater people and theater artists. we are, I think, a community of artists that come from, you know, all sorts of traditions and we make this evanescent event. And I think there’s something really beautiful in that.
Miko Lee: [00:03:31] Ooh, evanescent event. I really like that. That sounds so pretty. I’m wondering what legacy you carry with you from your people.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:03:40] I think, an awareness of history, an awareness of Mystery sort of just beyond your peripheral vision that there are stories that haven’t been told that there are tremors and voices just underneath the surface of the every day And a real curiosity about that, and I think that that cuts across a lot of, people in my life who actually are not only in theater, you know, people who are, attorneys and in academia and scientists. I mean, just, I think, I think it’s, a kind of an adventurous, um, curiosity. I think that that is what I’ve inherited.
Miko Lee: [00:04:18] Oh, thank you for sharing that. I’m wondering if that lends itself to the fact that you’ve adapted a number of classics. We’re going to be talking about Richard III, but I know you also did a version of Hamlet that was set in Oakland, Orpheus, and the Odyssey, and Japanese folktales. Can you talk a little bit about what sparks your curiosity around adaptations?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:04:40] That’s a great question. I think that adaptations at their best are conversations with ghosts. And I guess I really enjoy that. I enjoy this idea of, in some way being in conversation with. Consciousnesses that are not maybe here on this plane of existence anymore, but have left their thoughts and their, big questions, they’ve sort of embedded them in these works of art. And so when you adapt Shakespeare or you adapt a Japanese folktale, I feel like you’re in conversation with These ghosts and they’re wise and they’re playful and they’re mysterious and they’re, challenging. And I, I love that. I love that experience.
Miko Lee: [00:05:25] Aside from the adaptations, have you had personal experiences with ghosts?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:05:30] Oh, wow. I would say yes. but I, I, I maybe not. That’s something maybe I don’t want to talk about.
Miko Lee: [00:05:39] No worries. I always love to hear. I have had experience with ghosts. So I always love to hear other people’s ghost stories. I get it. If you don’t want to talk about that’s okay. Can you talk with me about this adaptation of Richard II? And I’m wondering how you got involved in this adaptation?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:05:59] Well, it’s a commission. So I was asked to adapt or really translate is the word that I think is more accurate, a Shakespeare play. And it, it’s a project called, play on where a bunch of contemporary writers were asked to translate Shakespeare. What that means is that we were really asked to do a deep dive into the original texts. I’m going to say plural because I think there are different versions even, and figure out the most muscular, vivid version of Shakespeare. Of Shakespeare that we could figure out for contemporary audiences. So it’s less about putting our own spin on something. It’s really about really wrestling with that material and finding this muscular Present day version of the material that is true to the original, and that brings to light the original and what sort of underneath the surface, you know, for contemporary audiences.
Miko Lee: [00:07:03] And since Richard II is about power and corruption, and we’re in this election season, we just are in the midst of the Democratic Convention, I’m wondering if you see parallels with Richard II and what’s happening now in our political realm.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:07:18] I do. I mean, and it’s interesting because I think that even though this play is centuries old, it does very much speak to the present moment where you have really different ideas about what is the right direction for a country and for a government and what it means to govern. And I think that I cannot think of more timely questions. And also candidly, this sort of anxiety, that’s, I think, an anxiety that we all feel in this moment where there are really You know, strong differences and and we’ve had some really, difficult divisions in our country and in within our own families. And I, and that is so, so much at play in Richard II. There’s, these arguments that people have they’re life and death and they’re within families and they’re within, you know, they’re within countries and how they are resolved really changes the trajectory of the future. So yes, 100 percent it’s so timely. It’s, it’s unbelievably timely.
Miko Lee: [00:08:24] And you’ve done a lot of works that are around, of adaptations, we talked about you doing those, but also you’ve done a lot of works that are around really intense issues from sexual assault and good kids and refugees and anonymous and unhoused youth and Polaroid stories. What draws you to storytelling? What draws you to the specific stories that you have been telling?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:08:48] I think that there is an answer to that question that is both conscious and aware and unconscious and more subterranean. So what’s probably the most truthful answer is, I don’t know, there is a kind of curiosity and hunger that I think I’ve had. I know I’ve had for my whole life, my whole life that I can remember where I want to know what the story is. I want to, you know, I see a person and I want to know where they came from. you know that, that excitement that I, I suspect many of us feel when you go into a library and you see all those books and you think, what are the stories? So that’s the more sort of subterranean, um, sort visceral, impetus for storytelling. I think as I’ve gotten older and I’ve thought about it and I’ve become a teacher, I think that storytelling is incredibly powerful. And I think that how you tell stories and who gets to tell stories is so powerful. And I, and I think I’m perhaps stating the obvious, but I think it’s something that I remind myself of on a regular basis. And so. My desire to tell stories that, maybe aren’t told or aren’t told in a way that is familiar is really deep. I, I think that that’s perhaps maybe the most meaningful way that at least I can move through the world and the, and the writers and artists that are around me, the storytellers, dancers as well, and choreographers. I, I, think they share that, this sense that who tells the story and how you tell it. It matters a lot.
Miko Lee: [00:10:20] And so much of this work is really powerful and is really trying to hit at sometimes hidden histories, stories that we don’t hear as often. I’m wondering if you think of yourself as an activist.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:10:33] You know, I haven’t In all honesty, I don’t, but I think I am, I think I am because I feel really acutely, certain things that must be said, and I think I’m realizing that the act of saying them and saying them you know, over time is actually an activist posture, you know, that you, have an engagement with the world that doesn’t slacken that, continues over time and you stand your ground. And I think that if that can be something that, I can contribute in some small way. I will feel that there’s some meaning to what it is I do.
Miko Lee: [00:11:14]And I’m wondering, because you’ve done genres, many different genres, from writing for TV, and then also stage, and writing for children’s theater and adult theater, I’m wondering if, how each of those play into your writing process. Do you write differently when you write for TV versus stage? Do you put on a different hat to get into character so that you could do that? Do you write differently for children’s work? I also see some of your children’s theater pieces as being like really around intense issues. So I’m just wondering about how you blend those and if you kind of divide up parts of yourself or what is your approach to writing in these different genres?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:11:51] I think it’s a great question. I always start, maybe not always, but I think 99 percent of the time I start with character because I think that when you start with character, you start with humans. And when you start with humans, you start with mystery. And I think that that to me feels like the most exciting starting point, whether you’re writing a play for young audiences, or whether you’re writing, a translation of a Shakespeare play, or whether you’re writing something for television. So I think that’s a common thread, starting with the human mystery inside of a life, inside of an individual, inside of their circumstances. that’s, I think, the starting point always.
Miko Lee: [00:12:33] And you’ve been collaborating with Campo Santo and John and now the magic for so many years. Can you talk a little bit about the benefits and or challenges of long term collaboration?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:12:44] Think long term collaboration is perhaps one of the greatest gifts that an artist can be afforded because it means that you have a home and sort of looping back to an earlier question of yours, you have a tribe of people, a community of people that you’re connected to and, and you have a shared, responsibility to the storytelling. And that, As I get older, feels so, it feels rare and it feels really precious because I mean, when I work with Camposanto, I just, you know, now I, and I’ve, you know, talking with Margo or Sean and Catherine Castellanos, I’ve known them for such a long time and I’ve watched them work and I’ve been in awe of their work and they, there’s a way that we connect through the work that is, deeper than, than the surface layer, that you’re able to sort of plumb depths that you sometimes can’t when you’re, just starting out working with someone, you know, and they may be a wonderful artist, but you just don’t have those years of, knowledge and, trust.
Miko Lee: [00:13:57] Yeah, so many layers that you can rely on and that trust and the connection. Um, I guess they’re kind of the family when we were talking in the very beginning, your tribe of people, the theater people.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:14:09] They are very much my tribe of people. I mean, I, I love them and it has felt like coming home, you know, to, to work with them.
Miko Lee: [00:14:16] Yay. I’m wondering if your ethnic tribe growing up in multiple parts, you know, being born in Japan and Indonesia and U. S. and being mixed race, Japanese Latin American, how does that impact your creative process?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:14:33] You know, I think I’m still answering that question. I think one thing that is really heartening is when I was younger, I felt very much like, oh, I don’t fit into any box. And there aren’t that many people like me that are, you know, multi ethnic and multi racial. And, as I’ve gotten older now, and I look at, for example, my son’s generation, I’m like, that is now, I don’t know if it’s the norm, but in California, there’s, so many people who are, mixed in and the mixtures are, you know, they run the gamut and I think in terms of my own work, maybe what that led to early on was an awareness that. the reality of lived existence for most people is complicated and not easily paraphrasable, and I think that that bred in me a certain humility and also a certain, there’s a certain challenge there, you know, like, how do I, How do I evoke the truth of this really complicated reality that is not just my own reality, but, so many of us, right? we’re not one thing. We’re, we’re many things, some of which are not always visible or some of which are in some ways hidden.
Miko Lee: [00:15:46] Have you ever written a play that’s a Japanese Latin American play?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:15:51] not explicitly, no. I mean, I think a lot of the plays that I’ve written, they, they are, I would say, flexible in terms of their casting and in terms of their point of view.And I think that they invite, they invite that kind of collision. But specifically, no.
Miko Lee: [00:16:12] Well, I would be so curious to see your take on, like, the Japanese Latin American kidnapping and incarceration of that whole community. Yeah, there’s so many stories that have not been told about the JLA community.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:16:26] So many, yep.
Miko Lee: [00:16:28] I’m wondering if there is a story that you grew up with that you remember your family telling you that’s helped to frame your creative process?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:16:36] Oh, wow. That is a really great question. my maternal grandmother, was a, kind of a mysterious woman. And I, I wondered a lot about her and I think there were a lot of secrets in her past. I think she is somebody it’s actually less about the stories that were told and more about the questions that not only I had about her, but my mother had about her, my uncle had about her, that we just never fully found out. We, you know, we discovered when she was well into her seventies that she was blind in one eye. She never learned to read or write and it was a little bit unclear. Estranged, I guess, from her family of origin. yeah, it just, there’s so many questions about her. I think the other story from my father’s side of the family, from the Japanese side of the family, which I have written about, actually, because my father told the story, from when I was, for as long as I can remember, my father was a, was a very young child in World War II and he was Japanese national and he, and he was in Tokyo with his family and their house was bombed. And my father was not in the house. He was supposed to have been in the house, but he, Kind of, he was very little. He was, I think he was like five or six, and he had wandered away. My father, kind of, the moral of the story for my father was always like, you know, don’t do what people tell you, because if you do, something bad may happen. So he didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He didn’t stay put. He wandered away. And, and he, as a result, he survived, you know, and, think That was a story that I, I still think about. and I, if you knew my father, it would make a lot of sense because he has this really, um, very, defiant is not the quite the right word, but he really knew who he was and he wasn’t going to sort of take it from anyone. He was just going to, you know, do it his way. and that story felt very much, you know, the origin story of that personality.
Miko Lee: [00:18:35] So he had encouraged you to be a rebel, to kind of be who you are.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:18:40] A little bit. But you know what’s so funny is I, you know, growing up, I was not like my father. You know, my father was, you know, he would, he told many stories. I’m not gonna, I can’t tell you all of them, but you know, he was kind of a naughty kid growing up and, and he got in trouble, you know, he was, you know, and, and I was not that way. I was the opposite. I was a really, you know, very obedient, good student. Actually, in a strange way, my father, I think had the last laugh because I did turn out to be in my life choices, I think rather rebellious, but that wasn’t nobody’s meeting me as a, you know, as a teenager or a child would have thought that they would have thought, Oh, you know, what a well behaved, polite, you know, good student and then I turned out to have a kind of a very different trajectory. It’s interesting.
Miko Lee: [00:19:24] What’s the first play you ever wrote? How old were you? And what was it?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:19:28] I think the very first play I wrote was this very strange play. I was, a senior in college and it was called Betty Ford and the Dream Commandos. I think I have only a copy that’s paper because I wrote it on a typewriter. That’s how old I am. And I, I, it was a really expressionistic, strange piece that was that they did site specifically, it was short. I think it was maybe a 20 minute play. And I honestly don’t remember the story of it. I remember fragmentary moments of it. I remember there was a chorus of dream commandos that were sort of like sort of ninja like and there was a Betty Ford character who was kind of in a haze. Yeah.
Miko Lee: [00:20:12] That is so wacky. Why Betty Ford?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:20:16] God knows. I don’t know. I mean, I
Miko Lee: [00:20:18] Betty Ford as like First Lady Betty Ford or Betty Ford as in running the rehab center?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:20:24] Well, I mean, it was the same person and I think you put your finger on it, which is that I This was a woman that I think I, as a young person, I remember watching her on television and thinking, and this was before the sort of drug rehabilitation part of her life. I just thinking like, she has a hard life. She seems, you know, she’s smiling, but I, I think behind that smile, well, again, it gets to that human mystery. I, I guess I was curious about her. She seemed like somebody that, Had this persona and had this sort of public facing, way about her, but that there was a lot of sort of still waters run deep about her too. So I think, I think that that was, that made me curious, you know?
Miko Lee: [00:21:07] Oh, I would love to have a reading with playwrights reading their first plays. That would be so fun.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:21:13] That’d probably a little sad. Scary.
Miko Lee: [00:21:17] I, there’s a beautiful exhibit art exhibit where they had children’s book authors. The, um, this was a museum of children’s art did it and they had their work now beside a work they created when they were a kid and in framed and it was so gorgeous because. Everyone really showed that even when they were like five years old, they were already creating their style. So
Naomi Iizuka: [00:21:40] That’s fascinating. Yeah.
Miko Lee: [00:21:41] So I just love, I would love to see playwrights that from playwrights. Anyways. I’m wondering if you can talk about your daily creative process, like what do you do? I mean, I, I talked to Isabel Allende about this and she said, every morning I get up, I get a cup of tea, I make myself go into this room and I write, even if it’s painful. Yeah. And even if it’s bad, I’m wondering if you have like a set schedule or how do you do it?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:22:06] I don’t have a set schedule. Mainly, I, I wish I, I did, and I may be able to now in my life, but I think for many years just juggling a day job. And, and I, and I still have, you know, I teach and I, I write for television and so it’s, it’s a little hectic. and I was a single mom. But now my son is in college, I just actually dropped him off. So I think I will have my schedule be a little different. What I do, which is I think related to what you just described, is I make sure that I write every day, but it’s not always at the same time. So sometimes if I have the luxury of, a day where I, don’t have to be somewhere at 8am, I will write in the morning. And I do like very much sort of waking up, brewing a cup of coffee and, writing. But I also write, you know, late at night. In fact, I was, you know, just dropping my son off at college and, he was asleep. And, I was sort of in a different part of in the Airbnb where we were staying. And I, Just wrote, you know, so I was like, as long as I’m writing a certain amount of time or certain number of pages a day. But I also agree with what you described in Isabella and his process that it’s really important to write even when you don’t feel like it. And I tell my students that all the time, because, you know, if you just wait till you feel like it, then you know, you may not write very much. So you have to write even when you don’t feel like it. And even when it feels like the writing is hard, or it’s not what you want it to be. And then it will, if you keep at it, you know, it will be.
Miko Lee: [00:23:32] Thanks. Okay. My last question for you is what are you reading, watching, or listening to right now? First thing that comes to your mind, what are you consuming?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:23:41] That’s so great. I am reading, right now this, I guess you would call it a graphic novel Uzumaki, which is kind of iconic. And I had read part of it a while back, but I am kind of reading the whole, like all the volumes. And it’s this Very strange, I guess you’d call it J horror, dystopian, comic, but it’s beautifully illustrated and the story is really mysterious and compelling. I’m listening to Pod Save America just because it’s election season and I’m really curious you know, what those guys have to say. And I haven’t seen it yet, but I just actually texted Sean. I’m going to see that this weekend because it just came down to San Diego. I’m going to see Sing Sing with Coleman Domingo and Sean San Jose. And I cannot wait. I’m so excited. I feel like I’m the last person to see it because it was in New York and it was in LA and then it opened in San Diego just as I was like leaving to drop my son off at college. So I’m seeing it this weekend.
Miko Lee: [00:24:41] I just actually was looking at this note from Stephanie Shu saying go see it tonight. I will get you free tickets for Sing Sing. I was just thinking about that. I should go see that tonight.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:24:52] I’m so excited.
Miko Lee: [00:24:53] Me too. Very excited. and Coleman also lovely Bay Area person. Uzumaki, that looks fascinating. Supernatural psychological horror is what is the genre.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:25:06] No, it’s, it’s, it’s really extraordinary. And, the thing is, is the reason I’m, I’m reading it now is I have like the full collected, all the volumes in one sort of giant omnibus. And so I’m reading everything, you know, all of them from beginning to end. I’d read the first, the first one, which is probably the most famous one, but it’s great. I mean, even if it’s not your cup of tea, it’s, it’s so cool. I love it. It is kind of my cup of tea, but, but even if it’s not, you will love it.
Miko Lee: [00:25:32] Okay. Thank you for the recommendation. we’re going to post links for people to buy tickets for the show at the magic. Is there anything else that you’d like to let our audience know about you and your work?
Naomi Iizuka: [00:25:44] I think you covered it. You’re a really good interviewer.
Miko Lee: [00:25:49] Thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express. I’m going to see the show this weekend. I can’t wait to see it and I’m excited to see what else you create next. Thank you so much, Naomi.
Naomi Iizuka: [00:26:00] Thank you.
Miko Lee: [00:26:01] Next up, listen to Florente Aguilar a Manila born guitarist and composer whose arrangements and composition successfully craft the balance between respect and redefinition of tradition.
MUSIC
That was Florente Aguilar, a Manila born guitarist, and you are listening to Apex Express. Next up, take a listen to my conversation with advocate, activist and graphic illustrator, Eddie Ahn. It is quite amazing to hear from an artist, who’s an activist, who’s telling their story. And tonight it’s all about how we retell stories, whether that’s rewriting a traditional piece like Shakespeare or rewriting the tale that is your life and doing it. In graphic illustration style. So listen to my interview with Eddie Ahn.
Welcome Eddie Ahn to Apex Express.
Eddie Ahn: [00:29:40] Thanks for having me.
Miko Lee: [00:29:41] I’m so excited to be able to talk to you about your new graphic memoir of family, community, and the fight for environmental justice. Loved reading your book and looking at the artistry. It’s so powerful. So I want to start with my very first question that I ask many guests, which is who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Eddie Ahn: [00:30:04] Gosh, the book itself covers a lot of my people, particularly my family, myself. I am now, two generations removed, of course, from my grandfather, which the book begins with. he himself was, uh, very brilliant person from all accounts, was a translator for the U S army and South Korean army during the Korean war. And then, I am also, you know, this, the son of immigrants, my mother and father who came from South Korea to the US and really built their careers and their family here. So I think a lot about that migration pattern and how it’s influenced who I am today and what I do.
Miko Lee: [00:30:44] And what legacy do you carry with you from those ancestors?
Eddie Ahn: [00:30:48] I think a lot about their successes and failures. so the challenges that they encountered along the way. My grandfather, of course, was A survivor of a lot of trauma he himself went through the Korean War. and then also was separated from his family a lot after, you know, the Korean DMZ, the demilitarized zone was settled. So for him, his life is really one of, Very, very deep trauma and tragedy, having been separated from most of his family. And then he had to go start a new family in South Korea. And a lot of the book covers, the initial kind of devastation he faced. And then later on that the challenges he faced, even as an entrepreneur, very well educated person trying to survive in South Korea and my mother’s resentments around that are also covered in the graphic memoir as well. So a lot of it is like, Dealing with that family kind of conflict and also understanding it in the scope of my own life and how I’ve chosen to pursue nonprofit work to begin with in the United States.
Miko Lee: [00:31:51] Thank you for sharing that. talk to me about the title of the book, Advocate, and what does that mean to you?
Eddie Ahn: [00:31:58] So the title of the book was always meant to have multiple meanings. It was about advocating for oneself, one’s own identity, one’s own career choice against, very different family expectations. And then it’s about professional advocacy. It’s about advocating for diverse communities. The nonprofit I work for is called Bright Line Defense, and we do a lot of environmental justice work. And environmental justice is oftentimes the intersection of issues on the environment, race and identity, and the economy, and then grappling with the intersectionality of those issues. There’s a lot of complexity in what I do. And part of the title of the book reflects that and advocating again, for oneself. And for other communities.
Miko Lee: [00:32:46] I love this. And I related to this a lot in terms of nonprofit work. I’m wondering if you could share a little bit more about that, about Asian American expectations, particularly your family, Korean American, and the value of nonprofit work.
Eddie Ahn: [00:33:01] For my own family, my parents in particular, I think their expectations for me and what I was going to do with the educational degrees that I obtained. So I went to a really good school, Brown University in Rhode Island, and then I obtained a law degree at UC College of Law, San Francisco. For them, their expectation was, go out, become highly credentialed, and then go make money. Their metrics of success in the US was about a financial metric of success. and for myself, I never quite took to that, for better, for worse, perhaps for myself, which is also covered in the book, but it’s also because I valued social work and the active building community, so much and for them, they struggled with that choice. It wasn’t exactly what they saw as succeeding in the U S but for myself, it was always incredibly important to do and pursue.
Miko Lee: [00:33:53] I think that power of your convictions really shows up in the book strongly because I think the classic Asian American story, you did the things, you got the Ivy League degree, you got the law degree, and your connection with your grandfather. I’m wondering about your family’s feeling about your connection with your grandfather in terms of being an advocate. What was that like for them and the expectations for you?
Eddie Ahn: [00:34:18] That’s a great question. in many ways, they saw the connection that I had with my grandfather early on. So even in the book, I describe moments where I’m reading at his feet, you know, from his library collection, and we would talk about different topics. My Korean back then was always, you know, a shaky, maybe at best, it was conversational. But a lot of what he would relate to me were about complex subjects that, at the time, even as a child, I didn’t fully understand. But at least I understood the feeling, the depth behind them, which is why I really enjoyed talking to him. I think my mother reading the book has been actually really surprised at the moments of connection I found. For instance, I drew a photo of myself with my grandfather that she didn’t even realize existed. So, Seeing how that relationship has unfolded even through the creation of this book, um, for my mother has been actually really interesting to do.
Miko Lee: [00:35:14] Oh, I love that about your mom and kind of getting a another vision of the history just by seeing a photograph but an image you drew of a photograph. There’s a beautiful resonance there and the style of illustrations that you do has a, a soft beauty to it that’s kind of lyrical. I really appreciate that. I’m wondering if you could talk with us about the inspiration for creating this memoir and in the style that you did in the graphic novel style.
Eddie Ahn: [00:35:45] I love comics because a lot of it is not just about the art and the panel itself. It’s how the story actually moves from panel to panel and how the art gets juxtaposed against larger scenes, for instance for myself in doing this graphic memoir, it was a big jump. for myself, like I’m self taught as an artist to begin with. So understanding, you know, things like. Perspective, coloring, anatomy, those are all things I had to learn as I created this particular graphic memoir. and part of the storytelling technique I use in this graphic memoir is also heavily relying on color to move the time periods of the story. So, for instance, my childhood is represented in shades of red. My days in college and up until law school are represented in shades of green. As I start to go through a more transitional stage in life, like getting more deeply into nonprofit work and trying to figure out how to use my law degree, those are all represented in So for me, like I really want to use color to create that sense of era changes and then also create. Flashbacks and flash forwards in the narrative as well that I think you can really only do in comics. I do think comics is a really unique medium in the way, especially if you’re evaluating it or reading it in printed format allows you to turn the page back and forth and enjoy it.
Miko Lee: [00:37:12] What came first, the story that you wanted to tell or the images?
Eddie Ahn: [00:37:19] The very first comic I ever posted, because I originally started publishing these graphic memoir comics on Instagram, was about my Oakland Chinatown work. So my first job out of college was as an AmeriCorps member, working as an after school programmer. I taught arts and public speaking for elementary students, third through fifth grade. I think very nostalgically about that time. It was a really great experience overall to work with youth who were really into receiving the best education possible. They went to Lincoln Elementary School in Oakland, Chinatown. it was a lot of thinking about the joyful moments and then balancing against the difficulties of nonprofit work. So I was an AmeriCorps member, and if folks know, how Financially stressful that position can be. It’s essentially at the time it was less than a thousand dollars a month for 40 hours a week. So it was a very under-resourced position. Maybe it’s one way to put it, as you know, one tries to serve the community as well.
Miko Lee: [00:38:20] So can you share a little bit about your artistic process?
Eddie Ahn: [00:38:24] So I started with fiction when I worked in comics. And in fact, one of the first zines I ever created was, essentially collected comic strips for hyphen magazine, which was a great, Asian American issues magazine. And I really enjoyed telling stories through the lens, essentially the lens of fictional characters. So for instance, I had a talking turtle character that was trying to sell coffee across San Francisco. again, going back to my grandfather, very much patterned after my grandfather’s failed entrepreneurial ambitions. So for me, there was a lot of joy in creating these comic strips, mostly illustrated in black and white. so just simple inks. When I started writing my own, graphic memoir, I was thinking more like what were big, ambitious kind of swings. I wanted to take at storytelling, which is why I started doing the more complex color scheme I described earlier. and then part of it was even trying to figure out what was the tone that I wanted to adopt when I even, was creating these comics on Instagram. So for me, like, it started very early on, perhaps in 2016, I started illustrating the first pages on paper. And then I didn’t even publish them until February, 2020. So that was roughly like a week or two before the pandemic where I posted the first, comic and then the audience for it on Instagram grew a lot. So from a couple hundred from back then, to now what’s probably over 80,000 followers.
Miko Lee: [00:39:56] Oh, that is so exciting. And by the way, I think, you know, this hyphen magazine, we’re part of the same family because hyphen is part of the AACRE network that Apex Express is part of too.
Eddie Ahn: [00:40:05] Yes. I’m, I’m a big fan of AACRE to begin with. And yes, I’ve always had a lot of affection for the generations of leadership that, have essentially built up hyphen over a long period of time.
Miko Lee: [00:40:16] I love that. Can you talk a little bit about how you combine your artistry with your community organizing?
Eddie Ahn: [00:40:23] Yes, I, in the past I created my art through a series of zines, but then I had to learn how to market and essentially promote myself. And I think my community organizing skills did come into play when I was either going to say zine fests or local arts festivals, as well as Essentially creating art shows, solo art shows in San Francisco. So for each, self published comic book, I would essentially do an art show centered around it. and they, the venues ranged, you might know some of these venues like 111 Minna, marvelous coffee and wine bar, which is now closed, dot art bar and gallery. so there were a number of venues that I would set up essentially, a larger kind of act of community building through art. So I think a lot about those days because, this is all pre pandemic. I really enjoyed bringing together, folks in my nonprofit world, as well as, family and friends to come and appreciate, you know, essentially two or three years worth of art creation nowadays, the book tour has been a very different experience. So that’s very much, you know, through a more established publisher, Penguin Random House, and then going to, a number of bookstores across the US has been also a really fun experience to do.
Miko Lee: [00:41:41] What have you learned from going to all these different bookstores?
Eddie Ahn: [00:41:45] I’ve gotten a better sense of history, how book selling actually happens, and New York, for instance, I did a, a large event, over a hundred people came to The Strand, in Manhattan, which has its own very long history in New York’s literary scene.
Miko Lee: [00:42:00] Ah, one of my favorite bookstores, The Strand. Yeah. It’s so exciting.
Eddie Ahn: [00:42:04] It’s a really beautiful venue, where they hold their literary events. So, I’ve been very fascinated by how people come together around art through the book tour. And, the Strand event itself was a huge joy because it was, Set up as in conversation with another author, and I like to do those events because it feels less like I’m talking at people and more like I’m talking with a person and then seeing the audience’s engagement with material, either through some audience members just flip through a couple pages, and then they’ll immediately have questions, or they might have come to the event having read the entire book at this point with their own kind of set of nuanced questions. So seeing the whole range of questions through a number of events has been also a very fun experience.
Miko Lee: [00:42:55] And in the book you write about your family’s expectations around non profit life, what do they think now about you as an artist, as a graphic novelist, and kind of going on this book tour? Where are they at with your career now?
Eddie Ahn: [00:43:10] My father actually got to experience some public art installations that I’d done in San Francisco. So, there are these utility boxes which are in the middle of the street. And then my art was blown up to essentially be wrapped around them and then displayed. And the art still exists. This was installed way back in 2019. And it’s still around today. So for my dad to see that, take pictures of it, touch it with his own hands, I think was a really good experience. He really did appreciate the physicality of that art and how it’s displayed in such a public way. Uh, unfortunately nowadays he’s too sick to enjoy the book. but my mother on the other hand has read the book and I think One nice coda to, everything that’s described in the book, you know, despite all the conflicts with my family about non profit work is that my mother has grown to appreciate what I do a lot, as a result of reading the book. She says she’s read it three times now and has cried on each reading, which initially I was worried about because I thought, you know, She was really perhaps, sensitive about our family and how I describe our family conflicts in the book, but it was really more in her own words about how underappreciated nonprofit workers are at times and how she felt. A lot more empathy for them. As a result, I was really surprised by that observation. I really didn’t think she would ever care much for what I do for a living. But, yeah, I thought that was a really nice, reaction on our part.
Miko Lee: [00:44:38] Oh, I love to hear that. switching a bit to you as a young organizer, you started pretty young, you know, with AmeriCorps and then working in nonprofit world. With your experience now, what message would you give yourself when you were just starting out as a student organizer?
Eddie Ahn: [00:44:56] Oh, I think at the time I was fairly cheerful about everything. And I, I think that attribute still, endures to this day. I think it’s a really important a character trait to have when one does nonprofit work, because I think it’s easy to go through life expecting a lot of things to wonder why you aren’t getting X, Y, Z, for myself. What I would tell my younger self is, you know, continue with that cheerful attitude, perhaps have better boundaries at times to on average, my employers have been quite good in the nonprofit sphere, but I do think generally it’s easy also to work. Perhaps too much, and to demand too much of oneself in service to community. So maybe, one thing I’ll tell my younger self is, to pace yourself too and just be more focused on things that, really excited me at the end of the day. you know, the flip side of that, maybe a counterpoint is like, it was important to try out a lot of stuff too. So, I think it all worked out in many ways, just trying out things that it may not have been the most efficient use of my time, but I still learned a lot.
Miko Lee: [00:46:02] Speaking of pacing yourself, you currently have more than a full time job as an executive director of a environmental non profit. You’re on several boards and commissions, and just have written this graphic novel. What do you do to take care of yourself?
Eddie Ahn: [00:46:19] Um, I do enjoy, you know, like most people streaming shows and, even one quirk of mine that I enjoy relaying is like, I’m very much into the let’s what’s called the let’s play movement. it’s watching essentially other people play video games on YouTube and myself, like I can play a video game. I have, played several, over the last few years that I really do enjoy, but there’s something very kind of therapeutic about watching someone else be productive or. perhaps entertaining themselves, without me having to, figure it out myself. So I think part of it is like just being able to relax and just watch a screen is, is, relaxing a form of meditation.
Miko Lee: [00:47:00] Okay. Thanks for that. What do you want folks to understand after reading your graphic novel?
Eddie Ahn: [00:47:08] One interesting thing I’ve thought a lot about is how the book describes non profit work is not about saving communities. and that sometimes it’s referred to in academia as like the savior complex or messiah complex. I do think just being Aware of the complexity of our world and how difficult it is to resolve or fix issues is a core message of the book I hope comes across, and in many ways, comics, you know, is dominated by the superhero genre too, which I think a lot, and of course I love superhero comics to begin with. I do read quite a few of them. And then what I’ve been fascinated by is thinking through like, Superheroes themselves as characters are out to often fix the world or save the world and so thinking through that dynamic and how this comic is not about that, I think has been a good thing to go through for myself as an artist. So I hope that message comes across despite it being a comic.
Miko Lee: [00:48:15] Thanks for that. I think it’s, as opposed to the superhero genre, I see your book more in the personal stories like Pee Booie’s The Best We Could Do or Marianne’s Persepolis. I see it more in that genre of like really personal family storytelling as opposed to a superhero genre. It’s so powerful.
Eddie Ahn: [00:48:38] Thank you. Yes, I agree. I really appreciate those books as well and how they’re able to essentially highlight the perspective of the protagonists alongside the environments in which they grow up in, whether it’s family or a nation state, etc.
Miko Lee: [00:48:55] And I appreciate how your graphic novel really has your trajectory, you know, going from understanding family, but also really your adult life as somebody that works in the nonprofit field. I think it’s really new in that approach. What’s next for you?
Eddie Ahn: [00:49:12] Oh, gosh, I am still drawing. I am never wanting to give up on art at the end of the day. I think it’s how I’ve improved as an artist is that I do drive myself to think through, a larger, better project. On Instagram, I’ll continue to publish more comics in the future. I am planning through a potential mural project in San Francisco. Uh, it would be very different than the utility box art installations I’ve done in the past. as for my nonprofit work at Brightline, I’m still very much enjoy it. I have a incredible, team that I work with and I. I’ve really come to appreciate everything that Brightline has as a result of early years of grinding work that I put in and then to see other people also put in really high quality work for the organization has has been a joy to me personally. So I hope to keep on doing what I’m doing at Brightline for a long time to come. And yeah, I guess we’ll find out in the coming years ahead.
Miko Lee: [00:50:14] I like, I, I, one, I’m curious to find out more about the mural, excited to learn more about that, and it sounds like you’re going to hold these, both sides of yourself as the artist, as the non profit leader, you’re going to continue to do them both. I’m wondering, so much of non profit life is, we’re learning by experience, you know, we’re, and so I’m thinking about, The connection with being a self taught artist like you’re always just learning something. How has being a self taught artist impacted your artistic work and your work in nonprofit world?
Eddie Ahn: [00:50:47] I think it’s improved my patience, both in non profit work and in evolving my art style. everything I do is drawn by hand, so I typically just work pencil to paper, ink over pencils, and then finally, Copic markers, their alcohol based art marker, to lay on the color, and that technique essentially evolved over, gosh, uh, eight, nine year period to you and get to where the book is now, the book itself is the culmination of well over 5,000 hours, and each page, you know, on average is probably somewhere between 20 to 30 hours. So just having that kind of discipline to develop everything around the book, has really taught me a lot, I think about life. And then also it’s been a nice form of meditation unto itself to just to be able to create art. For that long of a period, over, you know, essentially a long, timeline has, has been really good for my own processes, thinking processes around nonprofit work, because it pushes me to, be creative in the nonprofit work itself.
Miko Lee: [00:51:59] Well, Eddie Ahn, author of Advocate, tell our audience how they can find out more about your work.
Eddie Ahn: [00:52:06] The book can be found, in a number of local bookstores at this point, Penguin Random House has done excellent work in distributing across the US of course, it can be found at most major booksellers, such as Barnes Noble, bookshop.org, et cetera. and they can also find my art online for free on Instagram. The handle is at E H A—those are my initials, Eddie Ahn—comics, as it sounds.
Miko Lee: [00:52:37] Thank you so much. We so appreciate hearing, from you more about your book and we look forward to seeing your murals and seeing the work that you do out in the community.Thank you so much.
Eddie Ahn: [00:52:48] Thanks again for having me, Miko. Really appreciate you.
Miko Lee: [00:52:50] Please check out our website, kpfa.org To find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preti Mangala-Shekar, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tanglao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.
The post APEX Express – 8.29.24 – Retelling Stories appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Important Resources* QTViet Cafe website * Instagram * Facebook * Register for QTViet Cafe’s 8 Year Anniversary * Bilingual Letter for a Free Palestine (English/Viet)
TranscriptCheryl Truong: Good evening! You were currently tuned in to APEX Express. I’m your host Cheryl Truong, and tonight is an AACRE night. What is AACRE, you might be asking. Comprised of 11 grassroots, social justice groups, the Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality Network — AACRE — leverages the power of its network to focus on long-term movement building and support for Asian Americans committed to social justice. Speaking of AACRE groups, APEX Express is proud to be a part of the AACRE network. Tonight. We have some special guests from a collective near and dear to my heart. Hải Võ and Jean Jean Phạm from QTViệt Cafe. QTViệt Cafe is a project of Asian refugees United, which is one of the 11 Asian American social justice groups within the AACRE network. Hải, do you want to kick us off by introducing yourself? And QTViệt Cafe?
Hai Vo: Co chào mọi người! Hi everyone. Thanks Cheryl for inviting QTViệt Cafe to be here today. My name is Hải. I go by my name. It means ocean in Việt. And just so excited to be here today. , I’m part of the Queer Trans Việt Cafe Collective. We are a cultural organizing hub by and for queer and trans Việt folks for our freedom and liberation.
And we do that through the creative arts, ancestral life ways, and, connecting intergenerationally with our parents, our elders, families, and friends. We’ll be celebrating eight years, and I’ve been a part of it in the beginning when Mơ asked me to help advise and start the project.
What started out as an idea to essentially really bring us together and meet other queer and trans Việt people, and with a little bit of SEED funding from the Impact Hub and Youth Impact Hub Oakland project and fellowship, we’ve been able to not just grow our numbers, but also really more importantly, My healing and then our collective healing.
Just so grateful to be here. And I’m just so excited that Jean, you can join us. Jean is just amazing all around, such a thoughtful intuitive person, designer, friend, just all around beauty of an artist. Thank you for introducing me to the world of visual art and just so many things that you’ve just been exploring over the years. So, yeah, I’ll pass it over.
Jean Pham: Oh my god, thanks Hải. That’s honestly too generous. And thanks for inviting us here, Cheryl.
That’s really awesome that we have this opportunity to share about QTViệt Cafe and our work. My name is Jean. I use they/ them pronouns. I’ve been a part of of QTViệt Cafe since 2018 when I first moved here to the Bay Area and honestly was looking for queer and trans Việt Namese community, which although I grew up in Orange County, I have always found it very difficult to relate and find other QTViets I’ve been a part of the various programming and events that QTViệt has put on, including our Healers and Artists cohort. I think my role in QTViệt Cafe is honestly to just , go with the flow. I try to make myself available as much as I can. I try to help with designing things. A big cornerstone of QTViệt Cafe is repairing our connection with our ancestral and cultural heritage in a way that still celebrates and maintains our queerness and transness at the forefront.
A lot of this I found has been through the culinary arts, which to me was a big point of growth. Literally using taste and smell to connect us with memory and feeling and healing. QTViệt Cafe is honestly such a special place here. It started in Oakland here in the East Bay, but we have members all across the Bay Area and even outwards in different states and locales.
So it’s been a pretty amazing journey to see how vast the QTViet Cafe network has expanded and definitely excited to talk about it. So yeah, I’ll just check there. Again, thanks for having us.
Cheryl Truong: Thanks so much for sharing that, and especially the culinary aspect of QTV, I think is really what makes y’all so, so special.
And honing that ancestral connection through food, too, is something I noticed that you all do , extremely well. Hai brings up that we’re celebrating eight years of QTV at Cafe, coming up very, very soon, which is such a long time to celebrate trans and queer Việt Namese magic. I want to know what does this milestone mean to you, maybe it tastes a certain way, maybe it smells like nuoc mam or something like that.
Jean Pham: Yeah, eight years is a long time. I think it’s longer than any relationship I’ve ever had. , I’ve always found the QTViet Cafe such a beautiful, open space. It’s very different from any organization I’ve ever been a part of. There’s been times when, I’ve been overwhelmed and had to step away, but I’ve always just been invited back and I’ve been given that grace to be as involved as I want to.
There’s something we practice it’s called penguin theory where we try to support the inner penguins like who you know move in advance of work but also have space for us to be modular. We built this bastion of work here in a Bay and I’ve eight years I think really to me starts or begins this journey of connecting with a greater diasporic queer and trans Việt Namese collective.
So, last year was a big points in our journey as QTViet cafe, because we were able to. a fundraise and take about a dozen members to go back to Việt Nam and connect with Queer and Trans Việt Namese in Saigon. And that was just honestly, such like a unbelievable thing. Totally out of my imagination that we were able to do it.
But now it really peaks our imagination of yes, , there’s queer and trans Việt Namese people all over the world. Next year marks the 50th year since the Việt Nam War had ended, and there’s diasporic queer and trans Việt Namese all across the U. S., but also France and Germany, Australia, Japan. We were able to form these meaningful connections here in the East Bay, but I think what I’m thinking about now is how do we take these lessons we’ve learned in community building and creating our own traditions and connecting with other locales, like in the queer and trans people in Australia , LA or New York or Texas of which, they do exist.
There are other collectives, queer and trans Vietnamese there, but, how do we further unite the different threads of Diasporic Viets, and so it’s kind of a very hard question to answer, but I think, again, we have such a strong organizing and magic that I think People that we connect with, they get why does work is important and it’s what’s what’s needed right now. To build these strong points of relationships and solidarity across different locales internationally and outside of our own safe collective spaces.
Hai Vo: Yeah, I resonate with everything that Jean shared. I think for me, eight years of continuing to gather and to organize and to be with one another means that the vision of a cultural healing hub, by and for queer and trans people to learn our ancestral ways, to be creative with one another, to heal with our elders still resonates like it still matters. I’m getting emotional about it because I just been thinking a lot about, this question. We’re approaching 10 years and even 12 years. And I keep asking myself, as a queer Việt person, am I more free? Am I more liberated? I think I want to be asking myself that question deeply in the next phase of my life. Having gone through a journey on my own to explore my own gender, sexuality and be more loving of my trans femness and explore my art around food and food waste and being a diasporic cultural food worker, but also explore my eco- femme writing and erotica. Those things are really exciting for me, but also when we started QTViet Cafe, I came to peace with potentially being estranged from my parents. I noticed that a lot in our community, like that’s a possibility.
After my mom passed in 2018 and inviting my dad to, you know, I’ve invited my parents every year to come to QTViet, they haven’t. Me inviting my dad to bring a picture of my mom for the altar. For me, like, okay, that’s the cultural organizing piece. But deep down, I just really wanted to celebrate my mom and I just wanted my dad to be there. And to like witness how I’ve grown, witness my friends and family, witness the chosen family that I’ve built over time. And my dad came and my dad stayed through the program. My dad donated. My dad could have chosen not to go.
My dad could have left the program. My dad could have not donated. If anything, he could have probably done a lot of things Not in support of what we do. And not to say that this happens with every person or every family, but I think that for me, that’s the power in trying to heal our relationships with ourselves and our families and with each other.
Every year I hear more struggles, as queer and trans Việt people, and I also hear more joys and liberations, and so I think for me, yeah, eight years means that, we still are surviving, and we are still thriving any way that we can. Whether that’s through our foodways, our practice of trying to continue the language, whether it’s connecting on our different art forms, I’m hopeful. Eight years means being more of ourselves, and it means being able to experience one another being more of ourselves.
In my relationship with my dad, I’ve been able to be more honest. I see my dad as more honest, and I hope that by doing this cultural organizing work and arts as a way to practice healing justice, I want more of us to see each other as human. Queer, trans, Việt-ness is not a sickness or a disease. But also our parents are more than that role, that they’re humans who experience war and trauma and are also healing too.
And so, I think, that’s a big part of what eight years means to me. Eight years also means we have, like, hundreds of recipes. I still haven’t written out all the recipes, but in my mental Rolodex, we have lots of recipes, lots of songs, lots of poems, visual , art pieces, photos, videos. We just have so much art that expresses the queer trans Việt experience, especially the diaspora. I’m excited to, create more of it and also help archive that and document that and celebrate that as we approach, 10, 12 years and into the farther future.
My example is specific to my dad, but I think that we all heal in different ways with ourselves and our relationship to body and spirit, our relationship to other family, other friends, how we relate to each other, how we relate to the world. I see that in, in every one of us.
Jean Pham: Everything Hai is saying is so important and beautiful. The landscape that QTViet formed in eight years ago was in many ways very different from now. There’s a lot more shift in their communities too. Eight years ago, for example, I grew up in Orange County. Little Saigon, outside of Việt Nam, it’s the densest Việt Namese population, where in San Jose, it’s like the largest Việt Namese populations outside of Việt Nam . Still at their core like very deeply conservative locales.
And, it’s one of the reasons why I was seeking community in the eight years since then I think we’ve seen a kind of a shift. Our generation of Việt Namese diasporic students, descendants, inhabitants, we’re challenging the politics, reckoning of, what does it mean for us, who descendants of refugees, people who hold all these different complexities, who also struggling to find our own space, what does it mean for us to, create and shape our own worlds, or to even resist against some of the things we were taught.
I’ve been in QTViệt Cafe for most of my 20s, and I really feel the collective has honestly raised me in many ways that changed me for the better. I remember, one of my first QTViệt Cafe meetings, everyone was just cooking. I came in, like, on time.
I was coming from a very different environment in terms of political organizing, where it’s very we have a set agenda, everything’s really disciplined. In QTViet Cafe spaces, we spend most, like, an hour or two just kind of checking in with each other, making sure everyone just felt okay and present, and able to move. A big part of it is still just being in community, cooking with each other, sharing recipes, and that’s so central to the work.
It’s a slower pace, but I also felt like it’s also ingenuous. It’s really about building relationships and families. So many of us have complicated relationships with our blood families and. within QTViet Cafe spaces, sometimes we do talk about it, and sometimes there is space for us to explore that form of hardship, but people just understand. If we come in a space as a queer and trans Viet, there are certain experiences that are almost unfortunately, , universal, or you can just deeply feel.
And everyone just almost telepathically holds that space for each other in a very, like, beautiful way.
Cheryl Truong: You bring up how last year you were all able to go to Việt Nam, to the motherland. What is the landscape there? Like politically, emotionally, spiritually.
Jean Pham: Yeah, last year we went in October, it was almost a week before Halloween I believe, and we had been preparing for this journey for half a year and it was actually delayed. Originally there were plans for , queer and trans Việt Namese.
to go Việt Nam together in 2020. But because of the onset of the lockdown, these plans were
not scrapped, but just put on pause until we could travel in a meaningful and safe way.
I would say the landscape in Việt Nam with the queer and trans, community we met, it was a big shock to me. It was, very loving, you know, like
When I told my parents I was going my mom sent me this large message about how dangerous Việt Nam is, it’s like a third world country, that people are gonna try to scam me or steal my belongings and that I should always be on guard, that even my friends can’t necessarily be trusted because they might be fooled too.
And I didn’t necessarily believe her all the way, right? I think I thought she was being a little bit just overprotective. And when I met people in Việt Nam, no, it was like the exact opposite. Everyone was very curious, where are you from? Why are you here?
We met with a collective called the Bạc Xỉu Collective. Bạc Xỉu is a type of Việtnamese coffee. I thought it was interesting that both our collectives are named after community spaces that revolve around coffee. The Bạc Xỉu Collective were very, like, loving and open to us.
They were just so curious that our group existed. A lot of them practice the art of drag, but they also had members who were involved with very different art forms, pretty similar to us. I think one of the questions I was trying to reckon with was, what does it mean to explore your queerness and transness, when you’re not confronted with whiteness in the way that we are as people living in America. Obviously, white supremacy is global, but I felt it’s such a new way to be queer in Việt Nam, if that makes sense. One of the highlights from meeting the collective was one of the first nights when we had rented this apartment suite and we invited a lot of the locals to come over and we just had a nice little kiki moment.
We had brought over gifts. Hải is always very hospitable and gracious and prepared. Hải brought this entire suitcase full of seeds of gifts of prints of artwork that we had created and we exchanged it with them and they also just had a moment where we went around in a circle just shared who we are.
It was bilingual. I was really nervous. I was like looking up on Google Translate, how to say something very, it was just like, Hi, my name is Jean. I’m from California. This is something I know how to say, but I was just so nervous in the moment that I was using Google Translate for it. But everyone was so nice. Local people in Việt Nam can speak, especially young people have a level of fluency in English so we were able to communicate pretty effectively, despite some of the language barriers. But I remember they were just interested and wanted to learn more. I honestly wish I could have stayed longer and just been in that moment forever.
I think the last thing I’ll add: we just had a little like cute little party moment and I was like, what music do I put on? And so I just put on my regular music that I put on for, folks at home, like all like the gay boys and stuff I hang out with. And I just found that everyone, like Rihanna is universal.
Like you put on Rihanna and no matter where you are in the world, people will freak out which I thought was so hilarious.
Hai Vo: A thousand percent agree. I loved everything that you shared, Gene. That question around, yeah, I love that you brought up that question.
As someone who grew up a part of my life in the diaspora, white supremacy and whiteness, it’s just, it just happened. It’s just every day. Most of the Bạc Xỉu Collective is a lot younger than our group. Most of the country actually is very young. I think a good percentage, if the majority of the country is under 25. I bring that up because I think that there’s a level of a cultural revolution happening around art in general in Việt Nam in my experience in the last, let’s say last like six years that I’ve been going almost every other year.
And then to be able to meet other queer and trans Viet folks who were born, grew up there, live there, to hear them say things like, Yeah, I want to do drag and I want to do drag forever and this is what’s going to free me and liberate me. , that’s like very inspiring. I think in many ways, those of us who grew up here or, had time here in the diaspora, whiteness kind of, distracts, makes distractions, , and so , to, hear these young queer, Việt, local folks be so adamant and, and really, , trying, like, they’re going to shows, they’re making their own shows, they start doing their own events, asking for tickets and working with local shops and local bars to make their dreams happen. The one maybe kind of interesting thing that I want to share that I thought about in your question, Jean, is we met Bạc Xỉu Collective at a time when I went back, with Mơ, also part of QTViet Cafe, end of 2022. And up until that point, I had done visits back starting 2018 after my mom passed and, I wanted this trip to be a bit of a pre trip, kind of a research trip, and getting ready for the bigger trip with the dozen of us that Jean mentioned,. So, the night after we landed, we were introduced to the Bạc Xỉu Collective. A lot of these local Việt drag artists started this collective because they were in houses that had folks who were other than Việt, of them white European folks, and so they just were like, we want to create our own all Việt drag house, and do this show all in Việt.
You know, make it bilingual, but centered on Việt-ness. , I think that’s what we’re trying to do. In the diaspora. I think there’s different nuances in the places, but to be able to hear a queer drag Việt show Mostly like 95 percent Việt, and for most of the the space that we were at, was mostly Việt, I was like, oh, this is what it feels like to be at home. It was both and both comforting, exciting, my creative curiosity was going, but also there were moments where I was like, I don’t understand that, you know?
I think they experienced their own challenges as artists over there , in trying to center their Việt-nesa and then we have our challenges here too. but they have a lot of freedom and access and connection to their Việt-ness because that’s our motherland. During our time there where I was able to bring, parts of our altar that we bring and we practice here as part of our gatherings to honor our ancestors and, It was interesting, before that kiki that Jean mentioned I was asked if I could share about the altar, and then for some reason, I think at the end of the night I realized I didn’t share, and then after we danced and catwalked, Some people started leaving. Some of the collective members, noticed the altar, and then they started bowing and recognizing Chị Phụng and Xuân Diệu, and they were wondering who put it together.
I think it was just me noticing them knowing what this is, where I didn’t have to explain. Them just honoring them, just taking a minute, like, it was like a minute of our hundreds of minutes that we had together that night. But I just started getting emotional and crying that night because this is a moment where I don’t have to explain. There’s my kin who get it.
And they looked at me after and they’re like, well, you’re crying. And I’m like, yeah, I’m crying because this practice, this ritual I feel only a few of us get it in the diaspora. What seems so special here in the diaspora is actually just very normal.
They were like, yeah, this is what I know about Chị Phụng and you should look up these other queer ancestors that I didn’t know about. And I’m like, oh my God, this is one of the reasons why I wanna be here. So better understand our people. They were like, yeah, look at this up. Look at this up. Like look this, look up this person. Two nights later when we had our show together, we brought elements of the same altar, but Bạc Xỉu also brought things. They brought, their contributions and offerings to the altar, and food. It was a collaborative ritual that we had together and before the show as part of the hype up and the prep. We got to cúng mǎ to honor our ancestors and I’ll never forget that moment to be able to practice ritual in addition to the show where we’re sharing our expressive creative arts. Everyone knew the importance of why we were doing that and that we come from a deep lineage of queer trans, have probably paved the way and fought for their existence and for our existence to be here. I think that spiritually, that’s a way that I felt like I was able to connect over there. I’d also say in your question, Cheryl, I think the last time I heard the the government approves same sex marriage. I would say culturally, it’s a whole other story. I think because of colonization, imperialism, um, queerness and transness has been erased. And so I think that why it’s so important for us to do this work in the diaspora because, our parents and our elders, they have left a motherland and so there’s a gap in culture and understanding, and, it’s a harder struggle to justify that actually, no, we have queer, trans, Việt history, and we come from a lineage of queer folks, and I think that for me that cultural work is so important because by sharing the history of our people, by sharing our creative expression, by sharing the struggles of, who we are both here in the diaspora and also in Việt Nam.
And a lot of those struggles are around the same things. Family acceptance, belonging, economic justice, employment, , access to resources, access to healthcare, jobs. Those things are actually very similar , in my meeting, in my connecting with queer folks there.
Those systems that are, creating those struggles are the same, like they’re the same capitalist, Corporate imperialist systems. What I’m hopeful for is that what we’re doing as queer and trans Việt folks in the diaspora, connecting with queer and trans Việt folks who are in Việt Nam know– I want to imagine a world without borders.
For me the art and the creativity and trying to transform the struggles that we all experience as queer and trans people to stories and actually life ways of resilience. I’m hoping changing hearts and minds. Will ultimately transform practice and policy. The government might be saying one thing, but at home, it’s actually a different story. That’s why our work is important to try to change heart and minds. I want to get to a place where my dad would be like, okay, yeah, same sex marriage. My child and their friends, are members of the community who are respectful and joyful and wanting to contribute to society, just as much as our, just as much as our queer trans, Việt ancestors have to.
Cheryl Truong: Thank you so much for bringing us here, Hai.
You’ve highlighted some really important point. Colonization capitalism, white supremacy. These are, systems of oppression that while they manifest differently, as you say, they are global in nature and. In escapable and then impact is both here in America and also in Vietnam.
The motherland, like the forces at play are very much the same. I really appreciate the insights that both of you have shared, especially in response to Jean’s extremely evocative question about what it means to explore queerness and transness when you’re not confronted with whiteness. Hai,, your story about the altar and Bạc Xỉu Collective connection to ancestral practices and rituals. They’re embracing of our trans and queer Viet histories. And how. How it creates this deep sense of kinship. I think these are powerful reflections. The diaspora. You know, as you say. As a result of imperialism and capitalism.
Makes us a bit disconnected from these wisdoms at the motherland and what you share truly clarifies. And sharpens. What’s up the forces at play and the vast systemic issues that we’re confronting. But also, it really deepens my admiration for. The extremely revolutionary work that QTVIet Cafe is doing to bridge this gap and are in our world, filled with borders.
Okay. We’re going to take a quick music break. But stay tuned. We’ll be right back.
Cheryl Truong: And we’re back. You were listening to apex express on 94.1, FM KPFA and online@kpfa.org. You were just listening to change the world by baby Chris.
We are still here with Hai Vo and Jean Pham from QTViet Cafe. For the first half of our show, we were reflecting on what eight years of QTV at cafe means and also learning. And also about the trip that they took together as a collective to Vietnam last year to learn more about trans and queer. Experience of local Vietnamese of local Viet. And of course, as the artists that they all are, they created a film about it.
Let’s get back to the show.
Speaking of changing hearts and minds, tell me about this documentary that you all created when you were in Việt Nam.
Hai Vo: I think the idea started because, so my parents and my brother left as boat people in 86 and I was born In Iowa in 87 after being sponsored by a Presbyterian Church.
I went for the first time to Việt Nam when I was 7 and again when I was 12. I remember my parents were obsessed with camcorders. I don’t know if you all have this but, there’s still so many VHS tapes that I think I need to digitize, But I think the spirit of homeland trips being documented in my family is such a thing.
When I was thinking about this trip, 2018, when I started coming back when I was 12, it wasn’t until 22 years later, when I was 34, that I came back after my mom passed. Going back, I was , curious about how people document their experience going back to the homeland and these days with reels and social media, people doing daily blogs and just all the things, I was curious. But I think there’s an element of that kind of old school, just document everything. And then coming back here a few weeks later, just over dinner, just see everything unedited. Um, so, yeah, that was part of the inspiration and then fortunately, 1 of our collective members, and, and members Tracy Nguyen and folks with the Sunkist SunKissed,they’ve been documenting the QTViet Cafe experience since the beginning, really.
So much of what’s on YouTube and online of our work is, through their documentation. Basically was like, Sal, I don’t have a lot of money. We don’t have a lot of money, but here’s a little bit of money that I fundraise so far and we can keep fundraising as part of the collective effort. What do you say about trying to document this experience with us? I think what’s so powerful about the collective is by it for us. Knowing that Sal and other folks who practice videography and film are already part of the collective and are already interested in a trip, I think, it’s easier to share and connect on the goal of connecting with other queer and trans folks.
We’ve never done a trip like this and then two, we’ve never documented a trip like this. Everything was new. And we were going into it. We had like ideas of how we wanted to film this and there were some proposals and we Filmed some of the activities that we had before the trip like some of our planning retreats and some of our fundraising events. Sal did some interviews of how we felt before in all the feelings of like anxious and excited, nervous.
And I ultimately was just like, Sal, here’s our best agenda, here’s like a guide of what each day will look like. Ultimately, I want to give all of us a creative permission just experience this trip and to let’s do our best to document it.
And as long as we’re truthful and honest. As long as we can just share our full humanhood, whatever happens on the other side, I think will be amazing. After that, it just had a little bit of relief knowing that. Honestly, we were inspired by Videos that other queer trans folks were doing in Việt Nam. It’s like abstract and editorial and like voiceover and like, it’s just like, just put it out there. That was part of our inspo. I think just as much as, our identities and sexualities and gender are fluid, I wanted to encourage, the film and documentation to be just as fluid. Fortunately, we had folks who were filming and doing sound, and with the support of , everyone in the collective, we’re all taking photos and doing videos.
We’re, hoping to just share honestly and report not just our experience, but also share the struggles that we experienced as queer and trans people, the struggles that queer and trans people, in Việt Nam experience to the power of what it means to collaborate together and, um, do something historic and do a first event there ever. we hope to share our post trip reflections of what it’s meant for us.
Jean Pham: Yeah, it was just like a fun process for us to take upon this trip and each of us in our own way, document it. QTViet Cafe has different disciplines of artists– filmmakers, photographers, writers, dancers, and so forth, that one of the things we were also asked to do was, to take our own photos and to share it throughout the entire process.
For me it was a different experience because this is my first time going to Việt Nam. My parents came here in 89 and I was born in 95. I guess if you’re not a part of the diasporic Việt Namese American population, there are certain, like, ideas held about Việt Nam that some people from the older generation have about, Việt Nam as , a socialist country. And also, like, what it means for people who are refugees to be reckoned with, how their country has transformed. And so I’ve never gone back to Việt Nam because my parents honestly thought this is like a lost country. It’s not home for us anymore. And so a lot of ideas about Việt Nam and what it is now, we’re, Reproduced and given to me and of course, like it’s a lot of unpacking too, right?
Because I honestly don’t believe a lot of these held ideas that they have about Việt Nam. And it was important for me to want to experience that. Việt Nam for myself, in a way where I could truly see what the country is and not in a way that necessarily demonizes it or even romanticizes it.
A lot of like diasporic poetry and art and writing I feel kind of like hinges or teeters that like point of almost romanticizing their ancestral country. And I think it’s important for us to unpack all these like held beliefs and biases. In college, I did a lot of poetry, slam poetry, and I always recognized the language barrier is a big part of access, not being able to fully understand or communicate with our parents is a tension that many like second or third generation Americans face.
The way that I think QTViet Cafe interacts with that is pretty ingenious, but also very, what one should do, which is just simply to learn the language. We need to teach each other the language so that we can communicate with each other in Việt Namese. That was another big part of our preparation too.
Some collective members. held Việt Namese classes for us to talk to each other, talk to locals, talk to other queer folks. And also the language is important because as much as we have our own lingo and slang as queer and trans communities here, so do they in Việt Nam, in Việt Namese.
With the documentary, not everyone has the same experience, right? For me, it was my first time. So I was trying to visit places where my parents grew up, trying to see the city from my own eyes. Some people had a lot more connection with Việt Nam and had visited it, Việt Nam and Saigon many times before.
So in a documentary, there are certain members of the collective that have like more keyed interviews that kind of talk about that difference because even within our collective, we’re not monolithic in terms of our experiences and you can see the different ways like we’re shaped by it.
I think the last thing I’ll share with you is definitely, and Hai, and I kind of talked about this. It’s in conversation pretty often, but a lot of eateries, Việt Namese restaurants in the US are kind of stuck in time because a lot of them are, restaurants that are Staffed and created by diasporic Việt Namese refugees. The food has like definitely developed a lot in Việt Nam. And so has the language. It almost feels like, you know, us in a diaspora, us here in California, we’re in like a time bubble. And going to Việt Nam breaks that. And lets us experience what does Việt Nam look like now in like 2024, 2023. Now that it has like modernized.
You know, most people, most queer and trans Việt Namese people we’ve met were either in underground economies or they’re gig workers or they’re freelance workers. I think there’s a lot of parallels between the ways that queer and trans people move here and also in Việt Nam.
Although there is definitely like that point of us visiting Việt Nam as Americans. or people who have American passports, there is a class dynamic to it. So yeah, it, I would say part of the complication is There are things we were trying to resolve within our own bodies by going back to Việt Nam, but also things we had to reckon with, like the differences too, and how, I think for me, one of the most jarring things was realizing that in Saigon, there are provinces or like neighborhood, entire neighborhoods that are home to just people who immigrated out from their countries and had access to a larger degree of wealth and who are actively perhaps displacing Saigonese locals and realizing that if I wasn’t careful, then these are structural issues that can be created if we don’t examine our place like in context.
Yeah. And I’ll check there. Yeah.
Cheryl Truong: Thanks so much for sharing Jean and Hai. That’s just about all the time we have left tonight. For those interested in seeing the premiere of their Đồng Quể documentary, learning more about QTViet Cafe. And or celebrating eight years of queer trans Viet magic, please join QTViet Cafe on September 1st in Oakland, California. They will be having an exciting celebration. ? Hai, how can people learn more?
Hai Vo: Yeah, we’re excited to invite everyone to our eight year anniversary. We’re premiering Đồng Quể, which is the film of their Việt Nam trip. We are planning to have it, on Sunday, September 1st. 5 to 9 at Firehouse Oakland in Chinatown. And, yeah, we’re live on the tickets and registration.
It’ll be up on our IG, @qtvietcafe, it’ll be up on our Facebook, it’ll be up on our website. Folks can also subscribe to our newsletter too via our website. Yeah, September 1st, Sunday, evening time, 5 to 9, Chinatown at Firehouse in Oakland.
Cheryl Truong: Thank you all. So thank you both so much for being here for coming on the show. And for our listeners, please join us September 1st at the firehouse in Oakland. You hear all of these stories, these intimate details at Jean and Hai have shared with us income to live. For those interested in learning more. QTViet Cafe’s socials Facebook, Instagram website, all that good stuff will be in the show notes as well as a link to their registration form. As well as their bilingual letter for a free Palestine. That was written in collaboration with members of QTViet Cafe, the Dallas, Asian American historical society, and also various other community supporters.
This letter is bilingual. It starts off with dear family. And is meant to catalyze an intergenerational conversation about Palestine. Everyone has a different relationship story to our families and lineage, so this resource is a conversation starter so please check it out.
It’ll also be in the show notes.
Thank you all so much for listening and I’ll see you next time. .
Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
The post APEX Express – August 22, 2024 – 8 Years of QTViet Cafe! appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – August 15, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – August 8, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Tonight we present our sister podcast Continental Shifts. Hosts Gabriel and Estella speak with Tavae Samuelu.
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Swati Rayasam: [00:00:35] Good evening, everyone. You’re listening to APEX Express Thursday nights at 7 PM. My name is Swati Rayasam and I’m the special editor for this episode. Tonight, we’re wrapping up the podcast continental shifts created by bi-coastal educators, Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owoimaha-Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the concept’s podcast, Gabe and Estella, talked with union leader and educator Yan Yii about creating culturally relevant classrooms, the importance and emotional toll of teachers being a social safety net for marginalized students, and the ever-growing union presence in education. Tonight. They’re talking to Tavae Samuelu about what it will take to organize across ethnic groups, specifically Pacific Islander and Asian communities, beyond ethnic or national lines. And what future we’re visioning for when the US empire falls. If this is your first touch into the conshifts podcast, I strongly recommend diving into the apex archives on kpfa.org. Backslash programs, backslash apex express to check out the previous episodes. And also to check out the podcast on ConShift’s site at continentalshifts.podbean.com or anywhere podcasts are found. But for now, let’s get to the show.
Tavae Samuelu: [00:02:05] When Toni Morrison talks about Invisible Man and asked this question of like invisible to who? Like, what do I care if whiteness sees me? Also know I come across folks who are like, I say API cause I was taught that that was inclusive. And I was like, I bet you a PI didn’t tell you that [laughs].
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:02:27] What will it take to organize across ethnic groups, specifically Pacific Islander and Asian communities. In this episode, we rap with the amazing Tavae Samuelu to strategize ways we might organize AAPI folks across and beyond ethnic or national lines.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:48] What up, what up? Tālofa lava, o lo’u igoa o Estella. My pronouns are she/her/hers, sis, uso.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:02:53] What’s good, family? This is Gabriel, kumusta? Pronouns he/him.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:56] Tavae Samuelu is the daughter of a pastor from Leo Lumoenga and a nurse from Salemoa in Samoa as the executive director of Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, she’s a passionate advocate for Pacific Islanders and is committed to liberation for all. Tavae was born, raised, and currently resides on Tongva territory. She credits her time on unceded Ohlone land for her political consciousness. During the pandemic, she has learned that her most important title is Auntie Vae. I had the pleasure of meeting Tavae at the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance Conference in Vegas a couple of years ago when I sat in on her workshop related to organizing Pacific Islander communities. It was, and I’m sure I’ve told her this by now, one of the first times in my life I have ever felt seen as a Samoan woman. Uso, thank you so much for joining us today. Please go ahead and take a few minutes to further introduce yourself to our listeners.
Tavae Samuelu: [00:03:57] Thank you, Stella. I’ve heard you say that before and it always makes me tear up [laughs]. That’s also probably the most rewarding aspect of this job, of this community work, to be able to hear from people that they feel seen and validated. By, you know, by what we do and what, by what we put out there in the world. As I said, you know, currently residing on Tongva territory, what is momentarily known as Long Beach, California, until we get this land back to who it rightfully belongs to. You know I’m really clear and really intentional in this pro indigenous approach of naming the original stewards of this land because it’s important to me that we know who to return the land to when this empire falls and that we’re really clear, right? Not to just be in solidarity as a performative aspect, but naming our indigenous siblings who continue to exist, who are incredibly resilient and are still the experts on the best way to take care of this land and each other and how to be good relatives.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:05:13] She said, “when the empire fall,” I went [laughs].
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:05:16] When the empire, when the empire falls. When…so.
Tavae Samuelu: [00:05:19] I mean, let me credit to Dakota Camacho, who taught me to say “momentarily known as” I was like, yeah, that is a manifestation, if ever. I like that. I’m gonna, I’m gonna borrow that. Let me also cite Dakota Camacho for that.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:05:33] Tavae I would love to know just a little more about your backstory. What brought you to this work in particular, organizing in the Pacific Island community and spaces.
Tavae Samuelu: [00:05:43] My path was circuitous. I think there are a couple of milestones that are important to be explicit about. I’ve been Pacific Islander my entire life, right? Whatever that means to be born into racism and understand that race is a social construct. And so what it means to be Pacific Islander has also changed every single moment of my life. I would say that the way that I language and articulate my Pacific Islander identity most definitely needs to be credited to black feminist thought and that despite being Pacific Islander my entire life [laughs], it wasn’t really until, you know, I was an undergrad at Cal and an ethnic studies major and introduced to Audre Lorde and bell H=hooks and Angela Davis and especially Kimberlé Crenshaw, right? The person who so often is not credited enough for coining intersectionality. But I want to be really clear, I didn’t understand Pacific Islander until I got language from these black feminist thought leaders. Folks who were so so brilliant about naming what it means to walk around in a world that is both racist and sexist. And then, through an ethnic studies class that was on time on American History, right? I’m a first year Cal and it also meant I went kindergarten through 12th grade not hearing a single thing about Samoans. And had to get to my freshman year of college to see anything about us and having a lot of critical questions about why that is right. And everything leading to one thing or another. I was like, oh, well, there’s not enough of us in higher education. So, well, why aren’t there enough of us in higher education? I know. Brilliant smart, talented Pacific Islanders. So you start getting into like the systemic and institutional barriers around. So there was a lot of critical race theory consumption that happened for me really in gaining an elitist language for things that I experienced my entire life, right? And then after getting black feminist thought, then being able to read about Pacific Islanders through Epeli Hau’ofa and Sia Fiegel and Haunani Kay Trask and so many ancestors and elders who really blazed a trail around things, who became definite, and more recently, Teresia Teaiwa. So I say that, and there’s also a piece of it where I would love to say that there was like this drive that came from this really positive place, but a lot of it was just anger. Like that initial phase of building your political consciousness where you wake up and realize how up is, oh, man like, what can I do? And then sort of moving throughout these other phases of political consciousness building where then I’m like, oh, but there are ways that I participate in the systems that disenfranchise us, but also that internal work and still being there. And so even most of my organizing and like even professional career has actually been in multicultural spaces outside of the Pacific Islander community. And it’s really only with EPIC that I’ve been able to deeply engage in that. And the irony of being called Palangi or the Samoan word for white my entire life and then never feeling Pacific Islander enough and now being charged as the leader of a national Pacific Islander organization that is frequently asked to define PI, so, you know, that is the irony of the universe for me.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:09:07] There was so much, so much there. Our listeners cannot hear me like banging on the table and snapping and, but, again, you are another guest who has affirmed the absolute importance of ethnic studies in our education, in our process, and you are another guest who has affirmed the absolute necessity of black feminist thought, like in all of our upbringing and conscious awareness rising. And like maybe there’s a case study here in season one [laughs] that’s formulating on how we became the educators and organizers that we are. Gabriel, you were a social studies classroom teacher, and then moved into taking on union labor work like heavily, what was some of your motivation or inspiration to make the move from the classroom and step heavy into union labor organizing?
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:10:16] If I’m keeping it 100 percent real, I didn’t want to leave the classroom. I loved the classroom. I still love the classroom. It was the foundation of just my passion in specifically the Bergenfield community, which we’ve talked about in the past episodes has a larger Filipino population. So not only was education, just a pathway to be able to help uplift, engage my people, young folks in my community. But the union organizing space in Bergenfield was also formative in allowing me to engage on a broader scale. So that said, when making the transition out of the classroom, which was a difficult decision, to step into the union organizing space on a statewide level, it was really just with the possibility of being able to support educators on a larger scale and have a broader impact and specifically in my role in professional development, I consider this the only type of full time union work that I would leave the classroom for because it’s the closest to the classroom. And in professional development, I think there’s this old school perception on PD that’s really sit and receive canned PowerPoints. And I feel like this conversation around organizing, there’s actually a really fascinating exploration between facilitation, education, and organizing. They all pull from the similar skill sets, right? Sharing resources, bringing people together in shared learning, collective understanding, trying to figure out how the collective wisdom can allow us to just transform the community spaces, the up society in which we live. All of the things, Tavae set it off so we can do that she established some new rules. But to keep it relatively brief, I would say the professional development role and the opportunity to organize on a larger scale is the only reason that I considered leaving the classroom.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:12:30] I know you, you touched on this already, but I’ll go ahead and ask it and I’ll ask both of you and I’ll toss it to Tavae first. In what ways does your culture and your identity inform the work or vice versa?
Tavae Samuelu: [00:12:46] I think that it always has. There was a point at which I thought I needed to come to EPIC and sometimes that’s still true. That I needed to come to EPIC in order to give primacy to my Pacific Islander identity, I had spoken earlier about most of my professional career and even like, as a student organizing was done in multicultural spaces that were, you know, in, in this sort of umbrella way identified as black and brown. But they weren’t spaces where I was PI, I was like, you know, most often a woman of color, more broadly, a person of color, but there was never really an understanding of Pacific Islander. Whether people knew it or not, everything I was doing was in a very Pacific Islander way. From the way I speak to things that people would have identified as very humble. I was like, oh, that’s just how PIs do it, right? That there’s a protocol to things. The deference to elders, the, I love my best friends says, all I do is quote people [laughs]. But there’s this part to me where it’s like, everybody quotes people I just cite my sources. But there’s a part to it too where even citing your sources is very Pacific Islander in that you are naming the genealogy of something, of a thought, of a practice, of a story, right? That you are always going back to the roots of where you came from and that conclusion. And also like a lot of ways where things that I was recognized for was in storytelling. It’s like, oh, that’s a really good. And folks not realizing like, oh, that’s, that comes from me being Pacific Islander. Like that comes from me being Samoan. Not in spite of, but because of it. And so now there’s a lot of ways where the work is defining Pacific Islander. And this other really interesting piece that EPIC does leadership development. That means we work with a lot of young people and the vast majority of our young people are second, third, fourth generation, right? Fairly removed from their indigeneity. And because of that, growing up in diaspora, in particular, growing up in the U. S., that there’s always this thirst for Pacific Islander culture, and that’s what they come to us for but also this notion and kind of this living conversation about what is PI, right? And that we ask them, and then many of them not feeling Pacific Islander enough, like that being the through line. But when you ask, like, what is Pacific Islander, is advocacy Pacific Islander, is education Pacific Islander? And oftentimes hearing from them, really troubling narratives that they’ve internalized about what PI is, and then having to untether and tease out, like, where did you get that from? Where did that story come from? Did it come from PIs? Very often, not, right? That, that what it means to have to constantly interrogate the ways that white supremacy controls how you understand yourself, controls your story, right? And so, you know, what does it mean that to our young people, that being PI means automatically and inherently means being part of the military, because that’s what it means to be a warrior culture. Or that being PI is playing football or that being like that many of the narratives that they had taken to be factual were also grounded in the consumption of their bodies and wanting to trouble that notion. Right? And then also empower them to participate in the creation of a new narrative. So we sort of sit at this place where our work is to both remember culture, spread that remembering, and also watch it evolve and empower our young people to participate in that evolution and feel ownership of it.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:17:05] I’m just gonna have a real moment right now on this episode and just say I wish I had a rewind button right now just to run that back because I’m trying to process some of the knowledge you just dropped and thinking about the ways that our culture and identity inform the ways we show up in spaces, specifically the ways that our perception is grounded through the lens of white supremacy culture and the consumption of our bodies is the way that you framed it, but how do we transform those narratives to be grounded in our own indigenous authentic cultural lens. So just Tavae, thank you for jumping in there. I was thinking about this question in what ways does my culture and identity inform my work? And I’m going to keep it real with you that I’m still exploring that right now. I recognize that the knowledge of self, the knowledge of Filipino history is something that I am becoming more familiar with and drawing more connections with in my adult life. Of course, being Filipino, having the cultural roots be present in my life, but also being a first generation person in a predominantly white suburban area, assimilation is something that is very much the reality for first generation folks. It wasn’t until college, it was an educator, a professor Osei, on the literature of African peoples that started to help spark that critical race consciousness and sent me down a journey to become more race conscious and explore that. So to respond in short, the cultural identity, I’m still exploring that now, but I will say this. that the more that I learn, the more connections that I’m starting to realize. Being that I’m now heavily involved in the union spaces, and that’s been a big part of my journey recently, I’ve come to learn about the farm workers and the Filipino organizers across Hawaii and the West Coast that have been pivotal in American history, labor organizing that I wasn’t aware of. It was actually a moment of pride as I learned about that through APALA so APALA was one of the places where I was educated about this history and I’m realizing a lot of the connections that I’m making in my people, cultural roots.There’s something there that I’m still unpacking right now, still exploring right now, and that’s part of this Continental Shifts podcast. It’s a real time exploration of how our culture and identity inform the ways we show up now. So that’s, that’s how I think about it in this moment.
Tavae Samuelu: [00:19:56] I love that and I think even as you were saying that what comes up for me is a lot of stuff too. That’s also what’s unique about EPIC is because I know our young people everywhere else they go will tell them that culture is a deficit. Right. It’s the thing that you need to put away in order to succeed. And that we’re also really clear of like, well, we are asking them to define success. It’s not about aspiring to whiteness. Right. That I’m not trying to replace American exceptionalism with PI exceptionalism. And this other piece around culture is like, culture is not a costume. But it’s most definitely a uniform for me, right? Like that when I go to the Capitol, if I’m lobbying in Sacramento, if I’m in D. C., I’m wearing my mom’s fulakasi so that everybody can see, right? So to bring her with me as like a physical reminder. But also so my people see me there, right? Like a pulakasi, you wear it for ceremony. You also wear it to do faius or work when you’re in service, right? So if I’m wearing a pulakasi, you know that I’m there for teltua. You know that I’m there to be in service, and that signaling to our young people, and then like the ceremony part of it, right? There’s a sacredness to it. So if I’m in it, you also know, like, that you know what I’m there for. You know I’m about that business if we’re, if we’re in it. And you know, it tells other people, like, yo, this is how much we belong in the capital that I didn’t put on, you know, I didn’t put on some pantsuit or a blazer or whatever the case so that white people will recognize me. I put on a fulakasi so you all could see me. Right? And I think, and I’ve talked to this to a couple of folks about it, right? Like when Toni Morrison talks about Invisible Man and asked this question of like invisible to who? Like, what do I care if whiteness sees me? Like, the first time white people saw us, they decided, like, we were savage and they needed to take our land from us. It’s actually not safe for white people to see me. Like, I just need our folks to see each other, right? And this other piece too, around narratives and story and culture, right? Like, that’s the importance of APALA, of EPIC, of, of Ethnic Studies, is like, it’ll give you the stories white supremacy never wanted you to know about yourself, right? That, like, white supremacy will tell people about the Aloha spirit, and that, like, Kanaka are just so grateful for tourism to have you on their land. It’s like, yo, my favorite stories about Native Hawaiians are when they killed Captain Cook, cause that just like stepped out of line and tried to take too much right.
Like, those are my favorite stories. And so, you know, they’ll tell you about us being warriors to recruit our young people for empire, like, yo, if you’re gonna talk about words, talk about the Polynesian Panthers who stood toe to toe, inspired by the Black Panther Party to surveil the cops who were harassing, deporting and doing all of this up to our community. Or like tell the stories about our healers, right? Big Pharma will copyright things that we’ve been using to treat and heal our people for years so that it’s not accessible on our lands. Like those are the stories where I’m just like, yo, I need all of our folks to know more of this. And I think even to that note Estella and I got to, after that APALA workshop got to reconnect through LE GaFa. And LE GaFa is also really important, like all of these language revitalization programs that are coming up, because even in a Fa’a Samoa or like a Samoan context, the three pillars of identity are land, family, and language, right? And so many of our young people come to us, you know, if you’re in diaspora, that means you, you’re divorced from your land. Many have lost language and then family is complicated. Family is real complicated [laughs]. And so how did we also become that space of redefining Samoa?
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:23:36] Oh, sis. So much has been said, but when you were speaking earlier, I thought back to how I felt when I first met you. And for the first time I was seen by my sister. You know what I mean? Like, I have never been in space with other Samoan women and felt at home until then. And then in thinking about LE GaFa and why I chose to take the class at 30, trying to learn a language is hard at 30, trying to learn Samoan at 30 oof! It is one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever accepted in my life. But every time we are in class, things just feel like they were already in my bones. And I didn’t have a name for it or I didn’t know what it was. So folks are always telling me, Stella, you’re a storyteller. And you know, obviously I’m a theater major. Ended up in storytelling. And it’s definitely a part of my practice as an educator. But like, now I know, well, that was in my bones, that is my lineage, that’s my heritage, that’s my ancestry. From both sides, you know, you know what I mean? I’m Nigerian and Samoan, I get it strong from both sides of who I am. I just love holding on to that thought that all of these things that someone tried to rip away from me, tell me was not okay, they couldn’t because it is deeply innate. It is literally in… in me and it cannot be taken. And so my journey throughout my life to it was just that. It was something that was misplaced and I just had to find it again and I’m happy that I am there and to what Gabriel said earlier, that was definitely a reason why we chose to start this podcast because I can see it on my social media feeds, that there is a thirst, especially among young Samoans, to find out more about what’s going on, I now have so many, oh, Samoan daily words and Samoan proverb, you know what I mean? Like so many folks I’m following and people are also trying to learn the language, I’m meeting and making connection with random Samoan artists on Instagram who now are in the LE GaFa class. And like everyone is now connected through social media. Because all of us, like you said, we are living in diaspora and those three parts of ourselves, we are now having to find. They’re misplaced and we’re in search of them and are lucky and blessed to be able to find each other so that we can rediscover those pieces of ourselves.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:26:09] Tavae, when you were talking about the different stories that aren’t told that should be told, you got me thinking about Lapu Lapu in the Philippine Islands, the chieftain that defeated, Magellan and stemmed off the first wave of colonizers coming through to the Philippines. I didn’t learn about that in my, in my fourth grade class when I had to do a history research project. I learned about Magellan discovering the Philippine islands and that’s not the story. Tell me the story about Gabriela Silang and all of the Filipino revolutionaries. So I was feeling what you were saying earlier. And also, with the deficit narratives that are placed on us, Dr. Tara Yasso, who introduced the Community Cultural Wealth Framework, the idea to challenge the dominant culture’s narrative, the deficit thinking around us, and recognize the value-based, asset-based, capital-based thinking of cultural wealth that we’re bringing to spaces, that’s real.
Swati Rayasam: [00:27:07] You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online at kpfa.org.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:27:22] Tavae, I do have a question about your organizing work with EPIC. That’s a dope name, by the way just got to shout that out. But what success have you and EPIC had in organizing across PI communities?
Tavae Samuelu: [00:27:37] Credit for the name goes to Ono Waifale. You know, so EPIC started in 2009 by a group of young Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander leaders, mostly in higher ed, Ono, and a lot of it’s sort of like the seeds of it planted, in the Pacific Islander leadership pipeline. So there’s like a lot of hands that went into building it. Ono Waifale was one of the young people who went through that. And so the name EPIC comes from him. You know, something about the word success gives me trepidation. Like I have a thing about it, and maybe this is also me having a hard time just discerning between, humility and insecurity of like when you call something a success that people come and like want to hold you accountable to that. There are things that I feel good about, things that I feel proud about and. You know, it’s my own recovering perfectionism that has me hesitant about it. That has me like, Oh, if I call that a success, there are so many things that I would have nitpicked about it, that I would done differently. You know, I’m always going to say the young people are my favorite part of this work of EPIC as an organization. On like that Huey P Newton, like, the revolution is always in the hands of young people. There’s also a way that they are the best compass and litmus test, right? In that audacity that young people have of it could be better. And I’m just like, Oh, that’s dope. Like, cause I think there’s also a lot of ways where you know, I’m always an aspiring radical elder and trying to figure out how I can be that radical elder right now. But recognizing, a lot of the markers for adulthood and maturity are about sometimes, like, how much closer you get it to status quo, to like being more served by existing systems. And so there’s a way in which I’m going to age out of this role. And I’m always looking for the young person who’s going to take it on and keep up that mantle of demanding more, right. Of keeping us accountable to that. And so I think it’s always the young people who are like over inspiring and also so brilliant and have so much heart around this and are such a good reminder because there’s also ways in which they’re closer to the problem because of their youth, right? And so because they’re closer to the problem, they have more solutions and they’re also a better way of vetting the viability of something that I might think is so great, but I’m doing all this grass top of what do I know if I’m spending all my time talking to funders and elected officials?
Like, I need the young people who tell me stories about I couldn’t do homework because I had to do files for my mom and my grandma. And then I also had to take care of my little siblings and like, that’s the kind of \ where I’m like, Oh, that’s actually what should be dictating our policy agenda, right? Of like, how young people are thriving in this world, right? Because they’re always going to be the marker of a healthy society, right? And that because they are part of that most vulnerable group, because they inherit so much . And then also the ways that we’re developing young people into adult allies. Like, how are these young people also then looking at themselves of like, oh, let me be that, like, that OG that all the younger folks can come to as well. Like that they’re preparing themselves also to take up the mantle and they feel good about it. Like that they feel ready and maybe if not ready, that they feel supported like, when they take that on, all the adults aren’t going to disappear. And then there’s also like a relativity to it, right? Like, in many spaces, I’m the youngest ED, or I’m the youngest “leader” whatever that means. And so there’s me kind of also feeling young in that way, but then sometimes I’m like, oh, I’m the adult in the room [laughs]. Lamenting that ugh I gotta be the grownup. So I think that piece too is a weird in between that, that I’m in, but like I I think those are the parts of EPIC that feel good. And I think this speaks to the API aspect of this episode and where we’re going to be diving deeper in. It’s always a success to me when I’ve got more accomplices and allies for the Pacific Islander community. Right. When I have more people beyond PI’s that are asking about us, that are fighting for us. Right. And that’s a solidarity and then, you know, this is also an inspiration and something I like feel good about the direction that we’re moving in is being really explicit about our organization being pro black and pro Indigenous and anti racist. Not because it’s trending, because Imma be in this, [laughs] like even after it stops trending, but because it also signals to folks that we’re a safe place to land. That if we say it out loud, you can hold us accountable to it, but you also know that you can come here and talk about and go there with us.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:32:48] What you said about young people, I think, is my favorite part about being a classroom teacher. It is, I think, exactly for that reason. And I can sit and sit and lesson plan, lesson plan, lesson plan, get to class, and kids are like, nah. Now you, that’s corny. You thought it was, you thought it was great, but Miss, let me tell you, but then I love that they feel absolutely comfortable telling me that it’s not as dope as I thought it was [laughs]. And then we, you know, I just let them take over the lesson at that point. What are the critical issues that you foresee us needing to mobilize around? Maybe it’s right now or in the immediate future.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:33:28] Yeah, I guess what’s present for me based on this conversation has me thinking about education, thinking about the stories and the narratives that are out there, and thinking about decolonizing curriculum as a primary frontline issue, but I actually need to shout out Kai, who was one of our guests, that decolonizing curriculum, if we flip that framing to indigenizing curriculum, is perhaps a better approach in terms of how we are more historically and culturally responsive in our approach. Why is that important? I think it’s important to mobilize because I’m starting to recognize that the narratives that are being shared throughout public education in this country really do have a major impact on perpetuating white supremacy culture and continuing the violence that we’re seeing. So, the obvious physical violence, but the forms of emotional violence and trauma that are just part of the mythology of the ways this nation state perpetuates white supremacy, patriarchal culture, capitalist system at large. So, I feel like part of my educator roots always calls me to that. But I think because Tavae and Estella, you’re making sure we’re grounded in understanding the youth perspectives that’s present on my right now as a critical issue. And that’s also going to be now and forever, perhaps, right? Oh wait, no, actually, Tavae, I’m gonna take some learning from what you shared at the beginning. The empire, when it falls, right? We’re preparing for when it falls. So I’ll just, I’ll leave it there.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:35:17] I think right now, like, educators across the nation, an immediate charge is to pass ethnic, like, ethnic studies has to be it everywhere, across the board, preschool to 14, like, mandatory, we’ve got to make sure that ethnic studies, um, so whatever state association across all of our unions. When ethnic studies ends up on your legislative body on the floor, yes on ethnic studies and push it and make sure that, it is what it’s supposed to be and not some watered down, BS where you’ve taken out words like anti blackness and white supremacy. Let’s make sure that. Every child has access to that, and it is what it’s supposed to be because, like you said, I’m not trying to hear about Magellan discovering some he didn’t discover in the first place. I’m trying to learn my whole truth, and it’d be great if I could get it, you know, starting at preschool instead of having to go, like Tavae put it earlier, I had to get that elite language in order to name the stuff. Like, I shouldn’t have to go all the way to Graduate school, undergrad to figure out who the hell I am and then do something with that. So ethnic studies, I think, is the thing that needs to happen like right now.
Tavae Samuelu: [00:36:43] Well, I guess I’m also thinking about this ethnic studies piece too, because I fully support it and I know there’s like a save PI studies coalition full of brilliant, like PI educators, also like very much Manawahine which folks should definitely follow. I think there’s this piece too, where if you’re going to mandate ethnic studies, I also need a pipeline for teachers of color and not just a pipeline, but Right, to support and retain teachers of color. Because there’s this concern that I have too of what does it mean that most teachers are white? Like that’s the other part, right? I was like, oh, white people are, I’ve never met a white person who teaches ethnic studies well. Never. I don’t even know if it’s possible, but you’d have to break yourself to do that, right? And also to think back of, like, the origins of ethnic studies in the 1969, the Third World Liberation Front. What it was created to respond to, the fact that it was also meant to be a college, not a department of, what does it mean to do ethnic studies in biology, right? Like, what does it mean to do ethnic studies as a lens through which we observe everything, right? Because if you have ethnic studies, you actually don’t need US history anymore. Like, if you have ethnic studies, you don’t need European history anymore, because ethnic studies is all of that, right? It’s all of that. It also, you know, I agree, Ethnic studies it taught me a set of values and a way to look at the world and not just stories, right? It made me question all the things of like, what is essentially like the propaganda that our young people receive in formal education spaces [laughs]. And so I say this too, of like, yes, absolutely, all of that, it should be accessible, it should be invested in, it should be from us, there should be a naming of the fact that the US and education systems are, traditional education systems are invested in and fans of revisionist white supremacist history and that there’s simultaneous campaigns that need to happen. And I defer to you all in your expertise and brilliance as educators. Right.
Every issue is a critical issue right now. Everything. You know, especially like COVID-19 and Pacific Islanders, I think in the context of this episode, in this podcast, this conversation, I’m at an impasse with Asian Pacific Islander or API, the terminology as an aggregate has been around since, you know, 1970s ish, and for me, because it’s been around that long, it means that, API spaces and organizations have had since the 1970s to figure it out. So we’re in 2021 right now and I’m having conversations with folks about what about PI and like there’s a request for patience that just frankly is not fair. There’s also just, like, this dynamic that doesn’t get investigated. So when I talk about being at an impasse, it’s that PIs already don’t do API, that data disaggregation is actually just a request for data to catch up to the ways we already organize ourselves as communities API is a false promise and a site of erasure for many communities, not just Pacific Islanders, right? That Southeast Asian, South Asians, Filipinos as well get erased in these things, right? That even under API, we were still actually just being held responsible for a majority East Asian representation. And that it doesn’t investigate the inequitable dynamic that exists between and AA and PI so this impasse is that the work that we do in advocacy is in recognition of the fact that power and resources are still distributed and disseminated through API. So we have a critical conversation to have as a community because PIs are already not using PI, and it’s actually Asian Americans that use API and that it doesn’t feel very good, these accountability conversations of calling folks in of like, how can we be good relatives? How can we talk about, because there’s also like, you know, Asian American spaces aren’t talking about colonization, like the PI as a colonized people, all the forms of racism that we experience being facilitated through that means, and, you know, if we’re real, that some of our PI nations are colonized by Asian Americans, like not American, but like Asian nations, right? That there’s like some healing that needs to happen. And so this, I don’t know that it’s a critical issue so much as like a critical conversation that needs to occur in our communities that is inclusive of PIs. Cause I also know I come across folks who are like, I say API cause I was taught that that was inclusive. And I was like, I bet you a PI didn’t tell you that. So, yeah, you know, I think about that in the context of this episode, but there’s this other piece too of like, You know, my family and I had COVID back in August, and so that was its own, I don’t know that I say wake up call, because I, like, what’s the humble way to say, like, I’ve been awake? It was asking this question of, like, what facilitated our survival, right? And a lot of actually what came to me was around labor. Was around union organizing and those wins of like we survived because I got a livable wage. I have paid sick leave I have like health insurance I have all of these things that I’m really clear were won by unions were made possible by labor and they’re treated as privileges right or even like speaking English Like, all of these things that I was just like sitting with, like, oh, those are actually now shaping our demands of how we are going to move our advocacy work, or, you know, that we’re housed, all of these things where I was like, oh, these are actually, there’s not one critical issue, because the insidious nature of racism and poverty is that it could manifest itself in so many ways in our community that lead to premature death, and in that, like, Ruthie Wilson Gilmore way where she defines racism as the set of systems that lead to premature death. So that being like, oh, those are all the critical issues for me.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:43:12] We need to, we, we’re going to have to like come up with a syllabus for this episode, like to drop this [laughs] episode next week that has everyone cited all the articles and all the things listed so that we can like, yeah, I’m disseminating a syllabus with this episode. And I think that you were, you were right in that. First of all the disaggregation of data is something that is a theme that has come up on nearly every episode too in this podcast. It was another reason why, when Gabriel and I met, that was one of the first conversations we had because I have been very vocal in our caucus that there is some healing and reconciliation needs to happen. There is a reckoning that needs to happen. We need to deal with the anti blackness and et cetera, et cetera. In our caucus, right? And the fact that this caucus is meant to represent too many dang people and you try to squeeze us all together and make, like, all of our issues one issue, and it just does not work like that for all of the reasons that you said, but it doesn’t mean you said, how can we be good relatives? It doesn’t mean that moving forward, we can’t be good relatives and figure this out. I think you’re right. We’ve got to stop and have the conversation, before we can really move forward. And it’s probably gonna be a long conversation. It’s going to be a long conversation and one that happens continuously and in various spaces, but it definitely needs to happen moving forward aside from what you’ve already shared with us, what do you think it will take to increase the visibility of our communities and mobilize PI people around some of the critical issues that you’ve already talked about.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:45:08] So Estella, your question has me thinking, and the energy from this episode in particular has me fired up, if I’m keeping it real, that if we’re talking about visibility for our communities, obviously organizing is at the core of that, making sure that we lift up and create spaces for our people to come together and discover that collective wisdom within our own respective communities. But the fire that you all lit right now has me thinking that just being unapologetically and fearlessly courageous in the face of white supremacy culture within our own spaces, whether that’s in the organizations, institutions, businesses, all of the places that we exist. I’m recognizing actually in this moment that one of the things that Tavae said earlier about not being seen by white supremacy institutions is actually safer, which is also very true in the way that things manifest. But what I’m feeling right now is increasing visibility. We’re in a moment where, we’re in this moment where our ancestors have prepared us to do battle in the ways that we are in our generation to try to disrupt the colonizers in our own respective ways. So those are my thoughts.
Tavae Samuelu: [00:46:34] Well, you know, I think the part of your question that I’m grappling with is this visibility piece, right? Because there are a lot of ways where I feel like our community is actually hyper visible, right? Like we’ve got The Rock, we’ve got Jason Momoa, we’ve got like all of these like really visible figures in our community who are also like very loud about our culture. And so there’s this piece where I sit with is it that we need to be visible or is it like in this, man, I don’t want to cite Chimamanda Adichie because she’s like super TERFsy uh, and she had this Ted talk about like the danger of a single story and that actually, what, what troubles our visibility is the community is the singularity of our story here in the US, how there’s like one thing that people get to know about. And I think, and maybe it’s better to think about Stuart Hall and how he talks about there’s no such thing as good or bad representation, because good and bad is constantly changing, right? Even the word bad in some contexts means good. In that sense, that actually what you’re looking for as a community is a multitude of representation so that nothing becomes the single story of your visibility. Of how you’re seen and understood, right? That that’s also like, what white supremacy gets that white people get to be poor and wealthy. They get to be teachers and doctors and criminals, right? And even when they’re criminal, we make it Godfather and like, glorify that criminality and so I think that’s the part of our community is of wanting that to of, like, how do we get to see ourselves everywhere so that there isn’t a limitation around how we mobilize. I also think, and I think this is always the conversation around representation of, like, how do I feel represented? Like you know, I never felt, Tulsi Gabbard is a Samoan woman, and I never felt represented by her like, that’s not my people. And so, even that representation piece of, and I’ve stated this before, of like, yo, if it’s not pro Black and pro Indigenous and anti racist, it doesn’t represent me. Like, those are not my people.
Like, I’m not throwing down with people who aren’t trying to get free. And so if I’m thinking about representation to invisibility, like I want our folks to be exposed and see as many examples of freedom as possible. That the other thing about young people and like language and all this stuff is young people already, really anyone like has a sense of what is not fair or doesn’t feel right. That our young people actually, and many of us as marginalized communities, are experts in oppression. Like, you don’t need to teach us what up looks like, because we’ve experienced it our whole lives. And so what does it mean to develop and invest in and build a whole pipeline and lineage of folks who are experts in liberation, who have so deeply exercised that muscle that they don’t know anything else, that they only know how to be free. Like, I think that’s the part where I’m thinking about, like, that’s the kind of visibility I want to see. That’s the kind of that I hope that our young people, that I, like, not just our young people, that I also need. And that I also am seeking so much, especially during this pandemic and always as somebody who struggles with anxiety and depression is, you know, on that Miriam Kaba, like hope is a discipline. I am internalizing more and more what that means. You to have to exercise hope as a discipline, as a muscle that needs to grow. I mean, I’ll share this with you all, like, thank you Stella for saying happy birthday. It is, just probably one of the most difficult birthdays I’ve ever had. It is hard to age during a pandemic. In particular, like, because it’s so macabre right now. But also because I’ve been wading through a lot of survivor’s guilt. For the last couple of months, I’m just kind of like wondering why other people didn’t make it and I did and so I have like a systemic analysis of all the privileges that kept me alive, but I’m still sitting here feeling guilty about making it or about surviving COVID thus far. And then sitting on a birthday, then having, like, every wish just felt really warm, but also sharp. And having to, like, say thank you to every single one to, like, exercise a muscle of gratitude. Like, try to replace some of that guilt with gratitude. But all that to say that I think this is also the direction that EPIC is going in, that like, when I think about these critical issues that it’s like translating this thought experiment into tangible action around stuff. I’m sorry, I turned it off, I just completely lost you all.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:51:53] No, I’m, I am with you, I was, y’all, like, I’m. dizzy from just shaking my head. Yes, I legit got lightheaded a second ago. Like, I was just shaking my head. What you just said, I was just like, isn’t that the dream? Like, isn’t that what we were supposed to be fighting for all those years ago and still today? A whole generation of people who don’t know what it is to experience oppression. Like, that’s the dream. Like, that’s the dream. That, that is what we want and so what you were saying about visibility, you know, I’m, I constantly am struggling, like, with, I think, yeah, The Rock is there, but like, he’s a wrestler, he’s a movie star, you know what I mean? Like, it’s always that same story. And while I appreciate him, I do, because being Black and being someone I always felt like a damn unicorn and The Rock was the only one who was there, who existed other than me and my brothers. And so I do appreciate him and the other celebrities or stars that we have to look to. But like you said, I want where we get to be. Any and everything and all of those things all at the same time.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:53:19] I’m not sure if this makes it to the episode, but I have to express my gratitude for you just coming through and blazing this whole conversation. And really, I feel like there’s just so much that I can’t wait to. process and think through. I feel like the impact in this conversation alone is just gonna reverberate not only in my experience, but also our listeners that are tuning in. So Tavae, thank you so much.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:53:47] Recovering perfectionist, that phrase. I’m walking away with it. Actually, it just posted something on like characteristics of white supremacy and the ways in which I was thinking about the ways in which as a theater educator, I have been guilty of perpetuating characteristics of white supremacy because it’s so much a part of the way theater folk we do things. And so I was thinking like, but no wait, theater folk and artists, we also have the skills to dismantle white supremacy. It’s also in the way that we do things so we do know better and when we know better we should do better so that recovering perfectionist is like in me and it also speaks to something that Gabriel has shared earlier about, you know, assimilation and being a first gen and that very typical immigrant story or child of immigrants like you’re going to go to school get straight A’s and essay like that show. And then your only options are doctor and lawyer. And don’t come talk to me about anything else. So, you know, that that’s definitely always been a part of. Me too, is it being in the diaspora and first gen American born, and always feeling like whatever I’ve done is not good enough. And, but then I’m like, but in whose eyes, whose eyes is it not good enough? And if it’s in mine, then I need to sit with that and work past that. So recovering perfectionist, that’s where I’m at.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:55:14] My favorite line from today was aspiring radical elder. I’m holding on to that one. I was feeling that.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:55:22] I wrote that one down too. Fa’a fatai te le lava. Thank you for listening.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:55:28] Salamat. Thank you for listening.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:55:29] We want to thank our special guest Tavae, one more time for rapping with us tonight. We really appreciate you.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:55:36] Continental Shifts Podcast can be found on Podbean, Apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:55:43] Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube for archived footage and grab some merch on our site.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:55:48] Join our mailing list for updates at CONSHIFTSPodcast.com That’s C O N S H I F T S podcast dot com. Follow us at con underscore shifts on all social media platforms.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:06] Dope educators wayfinding the past, present, and future.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:56:10] Keep rocking with us, fam. We’re gonna make continental shifts through dialogue, with love, and together.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:16] Fa’afetai. Thanks again. Deuces.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:56:19] Peace. One love.
Swati Rayasam: [00:56:20] Thanks so much for tuning into apex express and an extra special thank you to Gabe and Estella for allowing us to feature your incredible podcast. Like I said at the top, you can find other episodes of the ConShifts podcast on our site at kpfa dot org backslash programs, backslash apex express. Or even better, you can go to the ConShifts site to listen on Podbean or wherever podcasts can be found. And make sure to follow them to keep up with where they go next. Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We think all of you listeners out there keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Miko Lee, along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida, Kiki Rivera, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Cheryl Truong, and me, Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support and have a great night.
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – July 25, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – July 18, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Important Resources: APSC 4 Action Toolkit * Asian Prisoner Support Committee Website | Instagram * Purchase Arrival: Freedom Writings of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders*
Transcript:Cheryl: Good evening! You were currently tuned in to APEX Express. I’m your host Cheryl Truong, and tonight is an AACRE night. What is AACRE, you might be asking. Comprised of 11 grassroots, social justicegroups, the Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality Network — AACRE — leverages the power of its network to focus on long-term movement building and support for Asian Americans committed to social justice. Speaking of AACRE groups, APEX Express is proud to be a part of the AACRE network.
Tonight. I have the incredible honor to introduce you all to some very special friends of mine, members of the Asian Prisoner Support Committee APSC, which is also one of the 11 groups with the AACRE network. These individuals are among the most incredible people I’ve had the privilege to know. And tonight we’ll be delving it to their stories and the important initiative that they’re leading which is called #PardonAPSC4?
Their journey is not only one of immense resilience and courage, but also a Testament to the importance of community care and how community based approaches keep us safe way more than surveillance institutions or police ever will. So join us as they share their stories and also stick around to learn more about APSC’s newest anthology, Arrival: freedom, writings of Asian and Pacific Islanders, where you can actually find some of their art and writings in physical form. So to start here with us, are Maria, Peejay, Bun, and Ke who put the four in APSC4. Peejay, do you mind kicking us all off with what the #PardonAPSC4 for campaign is all about?
Peejay: So APSC 4 are staff members at APSC and we all do different work at A PSC but our primary is helping our community. In general, fighting deportation, helping folks come home and reintegrate to society and supporting them with other needs that they may have, right? Mainly just to become successful citizen and. APSC4, despite our work, we all have backgrounds in incarceration, we’re impacted, which means we’re also at risk for deportation. And the campaign is born out of a desire to keep us home to fight our own deportation. And so we need the Governor Newsom to actually issue a pardon so that we can continue to do this work and stay with our family.
Because otherwise, they would eventually, deport us. And as immigration is a very hard thing to deal with, and there’s not a lot of options, especially with folks with convictions. And pardonness for us is like mainly the only thing that can help us stay home. And APS v4 mainly is to, it’s a campaign to ask community members to support us, that mean elected official, that mean community members that you know, family members, anyone who’s willing to support us, and basically uplift our campaign as well as reach out to elected and to Governor Newsom and encourage him to pardon us so that we can stay home and do this work.
Cheryl: Thanks Peejay. You’re literally hearing about the campaign directly from the people who are leading the way. So we know about APSC 4. We’ve heard a little bit about their campaign. But I also want you all to know about the people within APSC 4. And this is very in theme, especially with APSC’s upcoming anthology Arrival, which captures stories of Asian American Pacific Islander individuals inside prisons, or who have been detained by ICE or have been recently released from ICE or prisons and as well as stories from impacted family members. So until you all get your hands on that, which is available for purchase now at Eastwind Books of Berkeley Berkeley. Which you can get at asiabookcenter.com. I would love to introduce you all to the beautiful, incredible, inspiring people of APSC 4. everyone’s nodding their head.
It’s really cute. So let’s start with,, maybe Ke, do you want to introduce yourself? Let our listeners know, who are you? Who are your people? Where do you come from?
Ke: Hi, my name is Ke Lam. My first, that’s my full name is Nip Ke Lam which means in finishing my father’s business in my language.
So I’m Chinese Vietnamese. I also am a refugee baby who came here when I was four years old to America. So my people are all the impacted folks, all the juvenile lifers. And everyone that’s trying to make a change in their life and looKeng for a second chance.
Cheryl: Thank you so much. I love that. Maria, do you want to introduce yourself next? Who are you? Who are your people?
Maria: Hi, my name is Maria Legarda and I’m the reentry consultant for APSC. My people are impacted folks, incarceration, immigration, detention, the survivors and, the resilient women who are still inside, those are my people.
And my APC family and the community members who work towards change to improve our communities. People just didn’t decide one day to commit crimes, right? There’s always a reason behind because of events that led to that.
People that make changes in the community to help it make it better for them to have that. Those are my people too. You know what else? I forgot what the question was.
Cheryl: Maria, you answered. Everything perfectly. The question was who are you and who are your people? And you answered it by giving a huge list of who your people are and I think that’s very definitive of who you are as a person. But is there anything else you want to add to that, Maria?
Maria: I think that covered it all.
Cheryl: Beautiful. All right, Peejay, do you want to introduce yourself?
Peejay: So I am Peejay, real name is Borey Ai, but I go by Peejay, and Peejay has been in my life for many years longer than I can remember, but it has shifted and shaped in different forms, but I answer to both now, and I am a child refugee, I’m Cambodian, my family escaped the Khmer Rouge when it happens, and then I immigrate to Thailand to find refuge, and my mom and my dad met there, and so I was conceived and was born in Thailand, came to the United States when I was five, and yeah, and then got in trouble, trying to resettle into the, to the new environment, new culture, and I end up in prison.
I share that to say that my people are folks who are impacted, people who I can relate to, and my experiences, so the refugee folks community And, my elders at CERI, obviously APSC and AACRE are all my community members and anyone who is in a fight, like where I’m learning, as I sit in a lot of different coalition spaces, doing my work, as an advocacy with APSC, and I’ve learned that a lot of community members are sharing the same work, sharing the same values, sharing the same goals, and the people that I’m in community with, so they are my people.
And yeah, just like with Marie, like anyone who’s striving to make changes to better our community members who are impacted is my community.
Cheryl: And last but not least Bun.
Bun: Hey, y’all! Thank you. My name is Chanton Bun, but I just go by Bun. I’m a, I was born during the genocide in Cambodia.
I grew up in the refugee camps. Came to the U. S. when I was about six or seven years old. I’m formerly incarcerated. I’m a father of three boys. Grandfather Yeah, I’m the reentry coordinator here at Asian Prince Support Committee. And I also mentor at risk youth in our community.
My folks are the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated, the community the youth that is growing in our community now. And just supporting our community through a lot of these traumas that we still
Cheryl: It’s so interesting hearing all of you introduce yourself because I work a lot with the APSC four members just through AACRE.
But and I just learned that bun is a grandfather.
Bun: Yeah, I was gonna say that I’m not that old, but I am a grandfather.
Cheryl: All right now is that we’ve had the chance to hear from each of you about your backgrounds and the communities that you represent and the people that you carry with you. I would like to delve a bit deeper into your personal stories. Each of you have faced unique challenges and experiences that have shaped who you are today. Could you each share with our listeners a bit about some of the hardships that you have all encountered along your journey?
Bun: Oh, I can go.
Yeah. Growing up yeah, I grew up in the refugee camps. So I was faced with like starvation not knowing what safety was, there was, living in the refugee camps. There were so many I saw so many people hurt or walKeng in almost dead.
I think I was numb to it coming to this country. I was faced with bullying a lot and being discriminated against. Being poor wasn’t really. And I didn’t realize we were poor because in the refugee camp, we were poor. So like coming here, we had, we had a roof on our head and food and, family all around the fear of, somebody coming into our house, just taKeng our stuff or, doing what they want because we were in refugee camps when I came to the United States.
I didn’t realize we were poor for a long time. But the bullying and the discrimination was really hard. I remember even the school discriminated against us because I guess they didn’t know where we’re from. One of my memory was me and my cousins and an uncle, we went to school and we all wore slippers.
They called our parents to come pick us up and say, you guys cannot wear slippers. You need shoes. And like our parents didn’t realize that we’re like that’s what we wear for shoes. So that’s one of the first like memories. I knew that we didn’t understand the U. S.
And then, you know, Keds around the neighborhood. We’re just picKeng on us because we didn’t speak English or we didn’t understand the rules we were, and then it was just like a bunch of us Keds. Cause when I came to LA, I lived in an apartment with about 25 of us living there because our cousins and stuff, all we came from Texas, our cousins were here.
And we just wanted to be together because we’ve been separated for a while. And all we knew was me, my uncles, and my cousin, we walked everywhere together. Some of us caught on caught English earlier, so we understood more, some didn’t. So we’re just guiding each other. And then when we were bullied Our parents told us to just take it.
And we knew that in, in the refugee camp we had no power. We took whatever they wanted. I remember getting robbed like three times a week and they’re taKeng our pots and pans. So like keeping quiet was a thing. So we just kept quiet and we didn’t trust authorities at all. Never complained to the principal or the teacher at all, but then we grew into That, that, that, that fear grew into anger and the need was protection.
So the boys in, in, in my family is nah, we’re not taKeng this no more. And we just started defending ourself, fighting and just or my thought, and I’m pretty sure like all my, my, my uncles and my cousin’s thoughts were like, we got to protect. Each other because we can’t walk home crying all the time or we can’t walk home seeing our cousin walk home crying.
So we just said the next time we’re going to fight back and whatever the consequences and the cost. The consequences of coming home, like the teacher calling like, Hey, you’re going to fight. That’s what the consequences because our parents was like against fighting against violence.
But, the consequences of getting detention in class wasn’t, that wasn’t nothing to us. We were scared of coming home, but that, that led into a lifestyle of violence, a lifestyle of feeling that I need protect myself from everything and don’t matter what the situation was. And, it tumbled into joining gangs for protection and in the gang lifestyle.
overtook that fear and we just, gravitated to it because it gave us strength. It gave us a sense of, sense of brotherhood, a sense of safety, a sense of I’m not going to get hurt no more. So that’s how my life spiraled.
Cheryl: Yeah, the interesting thing about radio is that y’all can’t see their faces when Bun was telling the story, literally everyone in this room right now, we’re nodding their heads, and y’all can’t see that because it doesn’t translate into radio.
Ke, I saw you nodding your head a lot. Do you want to share your story?
Ke: My story is very similar to probably Bun’s and Peejay’s being come here as a refugee baby. I don’t remember my whole journey to America. I just remember my journey in America. I just, I remember growing, we moved around a lot in California.
We came into San Francisco, moved around. I remember home for me was the barrier, but predominantly San Francisco. And we moved all over the city. We lived in Chinatown, 100th Point, Petro Hill, Sunset. I remember as a Ked parents separated when I was about six. No, in and out of relationship when I was seven.
So they, they basically wasn’t around for me or each other. They dealt with, dealing with trauma. My mom lost her parents on the way to America. Yeah. My mom’s parents was actually murdered by pirates in the open South China sea. So she dealt with that and she did not deal with that to cope with that.
So she, she did what she did best. And that’s, is finding an end jobs and then dealing with a husband who was abusive. And so we live when we moved to patrol Hill. We got our place got robbed all the time. We ended up having to put bars on our doors and our windows. I remember my mom would say, don’t go outside.
Knows anytime of the day. So I basically was like in a prison in our little apartment. And I had to run this. I remember trying to go to school one time by myself and I got jumped multiple times. I remember they, they do rocks at me. They do run eggs at me. They push me push me down.
They didn’t let their dogs chase after me. So the funny joke about that, I said, I was grateful for them because they actually made me really good at track and field, so I was able to run real fast and jump fences, so that was, I like, I was grateful for that. But I took, the route to school was only five minute walk, but it took me 30 minutes every day to, one each way to come to go to school and come home, just so I could avoid my bullies.
I remember one time they actually caught up to me when I was like eight years old, and I had to, I had really no choice but to fight. And after that day, after they jumped me, after I fought one of those guys, I remember I was standing over the Ked that I fought, and I saw the parent just yelling at me like how you let that chink, that Chinese Ked, that chink beat you up.
And then I saw his friend walKeng up to me like they about to assault me, and I’m like, I’m about, I’m, I’m about to get messed up, but instead they congratulated me. They said good job, welcome to the neighborhood. And so I’m like, from that day on, I normalized violence. Violence is the way to solve your problems, and it’s also the way to be accepted in the neighborhood.
And that’s, and that opened my eyes to, everywhere I looked, there was violence, all different forms of violence. My mom was gone all the time. She was never home. I became a parent. My mom had my second, third oldest my brother. And I end up becoming a parent at eight years old, raising my little brother for a whole year by myself because the neighbor was some old elderly Asian couple just didn’t care about him.
He had diaper rashes and I just took care of him. I built a lot of resentment towards my mom. I’m like, you abandoned us. You abandoned me. You abandoned my brother. What Kend of mother are you? I remember I went out, I stole diapers, stole formulas, stole food, also begged for money at the streets not in the neighborhood, but, different parts of the cities and yeah, it just, I, it felt, I felt like my mom didn’t care.
My dad was never around, he was out of the picture, so I didn’t even think about him. My teenage years. I became really good at sports, played a lot of sports growing up. At the age of 15, we moved to Richmond, California, where I got introduced to the gang lifestyle. I didn’t know nothing about gangs.
It was the first time I actually grew up, I went to a school where there was a lot of Asians. In San Francisco, all the schools I went to were predominantly Blacks and Mexican and Pacific Islanders. And I didn’t know, certain words meant certain things, and then I learned what a blood and a crib is.
I didn’t know what that was, because I remember growing up in San Francisco, we used the word, the term blood all the time as a form of, like family. And so when I went to Richard and they were like, what’s up? I was like, what’s up, blood? And they were like, just cuz. I’m like, cousin?
I was confused. I didn’t like, I didn’t know what that meant. But then I didn’t know that by me hanging out with them that their enemies also became my enemies. And and then I remember if I walked around by myself, their enemy would try to attack me thinKeng I was one of them, which I wasn’t.
And so I became a wannabe at the time and I like associate with them. I started KecKeng with them. But one thing that drew me really close to the gang, the Asian gang, was that our story was very similar to each other. They understood my story, understood this story. We all struggled. I remember growing up, I had to be a translator for my parents, my mom.
She would take me out of school and I resented her for that. Why? I didn’t want to learn English. And so that was, and that just came on as I got older. That resentment came and then I committed my crime when I was 17 years old because I was trying to show my homeboys like you got to show me love.
I’m gonna be there. I want to be the best I could be. I wanted a name for myself. I wanted that respect. And I didn’t think about the consequences at the time. My life was on, it was on the road down destruction. So I didn’t care about myself and I didn’t care about nobody else and I didn’t care about my siblings either at the time.
And so that’s what ended up happening to me before, growing up as a Ked.
Cheryl: What about you, Peejay?
Peejay: Yeah, I think what Keechi said, like my life And Bun and his similar, like I came here when I was five and then like I got bullied right away, right? Like at the earlier stage. And at the time I didn’t even, I didn’t even understand it, even know what it is. And I think like this one story Kend really highlighted my introduction to bullying.
I was in the park, a bunch of Keds laughed at me, right? They’re laughing, right? And so I’m like, at the time I didn’t know they were laughing at me. They were just laughing. And so I laughed. I thought they were laughing, because we’re friends or something, right? They liked me. So I laughed too.
I didn’t know what that was laughing about, but one of the Keds got angry and came up and punched me in the face. I realized, he punched me in the face, he was screaming and yelling at me, I didn’t know what he was saying but I understood right then and there he wasn’t laughing with me, he was laughing at me.
So what happened, I laughed too, so it got him angry, learned right away, What like bully was right and then I wasn’t like well accepted, share the same story of like most Southeast Asian community, we get spit on we get beat up, in school and things like that.
But I think the message I got, most deeply about I’m not wanted, is, we talked about that the Cleveland elementary school shooting, that was where I was with the first school shooting in the United States where Southeast Asian community was targeted by, And I lost my cousin during a school shooting.
But that was like a big statement, some dude showed up in the, in the playground, climbing up the roof with an AK 47 and shooting at us, right? They were like telling me, that’s a big statement you’re not wanted, for me it was like, I grew up in a very bad environment as it is, where there’s a lot of gangs, there’s a lot of violence, a lot of shooting, a lot of, stuff happening in the neighborhood and then, getting constantly bullied all the time and, spit on and tell you that you’re not wanted to go back to your country.
And then when that happened, I just shut down, I didn’t believe that my environment is safe anymore. And I, obviously when you’re in a refugee camp, like when I go you don’t feel safe, you know what safety is, right? So I grew up never feeling safe, right?
And I was moving around. And so that led me to gangs, right? Like he, I joined a gang. I felt the love in the gang. The bully stopped, and they started giving me hugs, showing me love and as someone who craves acceptance, since the day you step into a new country, just wanting to belong somewhere that felt really good, and I was a Ked. I was like, man, I felt so good. Like I felt like I belong somewhere. Like people care about me. This is my family. And for me, like that, that bought me into this idea, like this is what most of my life is about. I’m going to give everything for these, for the homies.
And, the Ke, I agreed to commit a crime, At 14 and end up in the prison system as one of the youngest juvenile lifer, and I was pretty much raised in the system. I think I spent more time in prison than I’ve been home, been out on the street. So everything I learned, in prison, right?
And then I came home as an adult after 20 something years. And not like trying to just, as an adult in a new society with not a lot of experience. So fortunately, people like he, people like Bun, Maria, who does this work, that’s why APC4 Reentry Program is so important, right?
Because people like me didn’t know how to use a cell phone, didn’t know how to turn on a computer, didn’t do a lot of stuff, right? I’ve learned a lot of stuff in prison. So I have a lot of advantage as I was investing in myself and doing my programming to earn my parole, but even still this stuff, I didn’t know, and I imagine people it was worse than both of I was to have some knowledge and have a lot of access that I did, but I’ll show you, I’ll show you to say it’s hard, it’s hard in our work, help transition. I remember he took me shopping, show me how to use Bart, how to use public transportation. The trajectory of my life would have much been different. If I grew up in a different environment, like that’s something I was clear about. And so now like we try to create those environment for our community because we’ll know better.
We learn from our past experience and now like giving back to our community. Is, for me, it’s like, for me, like this work is my life, like it’s my life because I’ve lived through it, like someone saved my life, I didn’t want to make it home without people showing up, doing this work.
So I feel like for me giving back and continuing this work is part of the commitment. Creating change and giving back, but I feel like I was meant to do this, like I, I came home with a purpose, I went to prison with absolutely no clue, just trying to survive. And I came home with a purpose. I feel like I have some Kend of meaning in my life. So that’s Kend the short summary of my life. I like my connection to APS C is my work and my work is my life.
Cheryl: (Peejay I think your genuine passion for what you do really shows, and I’m sure our listeners can feel it too.) Maria, please. We would love to hear your story.
.
Maria: For me. Unlike Peejay, Ke, and Bun, I wasn’t a refugee, during the war. I immigrated to the U. S. During the time when the economic the economy in the Philippines is not doing great.
I was born during the time of the Marcus dictatorship. That was during Ferdinand Marcus regime in the Philippines where we were under his dictatorship for 30 years. During that time, growing up. I had siblings and my younger sister became ill, with my parents being gone all the time taKeng care of my sister.
It was a difficult childhood, from what we were used to, and just the changes. In our lives. And at that time, my parents did the best that they could to support us, all three of us, but because they don’t know actually what was going on with my sister, right? It was difficult for a parent to see their child.
Child suffering, and she was young. She was only four. So at that time, I was left to take care of my brother. And it was the two of us, fending for ourselves. It took a toll on my parents, and the time spent with me and my brother and my sister were very limited. And I felt abandoned.
This was our life before, my sister got sick. We were happy. We’re going on vacations summer. By the beach, even if it’s just, right there, you go to the beach with your chocolates and you just hop on the, the side of it’s the islands, right? So we had fun.
We just stopped doing all those things. And the only thing we knew was my sister was sick. That was it. My parents didn’t know how to explain something that they don’t know either what was going on. So I guess that my expectation is such a young age is, my parents were in my world.
So expecting them to tell us like what was going on and the feeling of that abandonment and that unworthiness being unloved and cared for really was there, it’s just there, but I never manifested it because I didn’t know how to, but I knew what I was feeling inside. And so when parents fought my sister’s condition got worse and eventually at the age of 10, she passed away, so my parents would, my parents, other than the heartache, the heartbreak of losing a child was left with huge financial debt.
In, in our culture, the eldest takes care of the family, right? So at that time I was going to school my parents provided for us that we can still go to school. It was hard. We managed it. We went through a lot, but in the end my parents did the best that they can for me and my brother.
So I, I had the opportunity, to come to the U S. And I came here by myself without any contingency, any plan, but the idea that maybe when I get there, then I’ll figure it out because I see a lot of people leaving the Philippines, coming over here, finding work. So I’ll also do that.
And that was the trend during that time. In the 90s, a lot of people were immigrating to the U. S. to find like a better life, right? And so when I came during that time I mentioned that longing, the attention, that abandonment. And so I was here alone and I met someone. I met someone and everything that I needed, that person listened to me.
He cared. He loves me. He actually, somebody does actually care how I feel. And so I never thought that he would be the person to hurt me. And so we were talKeng like really getting to know each other. And then six months, we decided to meet. And on the day we met, I became a victim of sexual assault.
And Again, the, it was worse, there were, I don’t even have words for how, I felt after the betrayal because my whole world just shattered, and being alone here, it wasn’t, it’s not like the Me Too movement that we have now. Back then, we don’t speak of it. And one thing I did at that time that I tell the women now, the young women, it is not your fault because I met him.
Do I really know him? No. Growing up in a culture where you just don’t go out with somebody you don’t know, right? That was the time then people were meeting chat rooms, online dating. So I carried that guilt with me that it was my fault. For a long time, it took me a long time to really process that it wasn’t my fault.
It was done to me. I didn’t ask for it. But I carried that. So drugs were the only thing that I was able to cope with because it made me numb. It made me forget. It gave me that false sense of power that I can take control back of my life. Not knowing that once I use drugs, I, it, I become numb to it all.
And that eventually led me to incarceration. And so now after years of self introspection and just understanding what has, what the challenges and, the difficulties and all the heartbreaks that I had went through in life, going to self help groups and hearing the other survivors overcome it And stepping out of that that it was my fault, having to hear that the first time is what broke me free from that. Now, in my line of work, I can easily recognize it, because I was there. I know how it felt. And I always I’ve been, blessed to be able to grant that space, that safety space for our folks, men and women, when they share their struggles, because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. So I do, I’m passionate about my work because I’ve seen how I’ve turned things around.
I saw myself, how I picked myself back up. I saw myself when I was really down that at the end of the day when people around you care enough to get to know you more than your past, you’re going to get through it, and my, work in APSC And Ke would be the I came out of detention and Ke was one of the first one of the first people that I met other than Nia, Nia was a volunteer at that time with APSC and being undocumented it was hard for me to get anything.
So Ke was there from the beginning. This is what you need to do. Don’t worry. I’m going to walk you through it. And without Ke. guiding me through those steps it would have been much harder. It was already hard, but this was going to be extremely harder if he didn’t give me the guidance. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but he knew something to guide me.
So that’s why that’s how I Eventually got to work with APSE because the first time they had their internship program, I think five minutes into posting it, I already submitted my application because I knew that the journey that I was taKeng on at that time as an undocumented immigrant, I know that there’s going to be ways that I’m gonna, I have to find another way.
Because I’m not the only one, and I know a lot of women coming home, men and women that are coming home are going to need their IDs, are going to need their social security, are going to need all their documentation, and who’s best to explore them, right? Than me. Why? Because right now, this is where God has me, right?
He has me on this path to help people. So let’s get it done. And so that’s why I stay with my APSC because I believe in what they do for a community because they started with me.
Cheryl: Maria!. That is such a beautiful point. And I think that last sentence that you shared is really why I admire the work of APC. So, so incredibly much, like not only is it work. For. Impacted folk. But it’s also led for and by impacted folk who really understand the experiences of what it’s like. And when your work is led by those who have truly experienced the impact firsthand. You approach people with a level of empathy that makes a real difference.
And I’m listening to the things that you’ve all shared. You know, it’s clear that what often matters most are the things that people like me who have never been behind bars often take for granted, you know, it’s things like. You know your stories of needing Ke to. Teach you how to navigate BART? How do you secure your ID? What’s a. Social security number. And the emotional support that comes with helping someone reintegrate into society. I truly don’t know where a community would be without the incredible work that you all do with APC for.
Now I’m eager to learn more about the impactful work that you’re doing within our community. What has been some of the most rewarding aspects of your work in. Reentry support and mentorship. Time is a factor. So maybe we could hear from maybe two of you.
Bun: I think the most rewarding about re entry for me is, Watching the person I’m helping know that they have support, in my life there was nothing out there to support us other than gangs. But just. Watching them know that they have support, empowering them and their family to understand the system understand a person when they’re coming home with family relations, and also relationships with their Keds because a lot of us have been incarcerated for so long.
Just that, like he always say the first 90 days are important to show them the support that they really need because like myself, I was lost. I was like a loss, the last person coming home. I didn’t even know how to cross the street. It took somebody to come take me to cross the street and walk me down the street because I wouldn’t do what I was like, I can’t do it.
It’s terrifying. But yeah just. A lot of folks often think like reentry is like a, no, we have to go get you a job, get you this. And those are important too. But the important thing is the little things like, teaching, teaching somebody how to answer their phone, teach them how to, setting up their calendar, teaching them across the street, walKeng, maKeng decisions when we’re ordering stuff, taKeng them shopping, letting them shop for themselves.
So these are the little things that. A lot of us and especially myself, I could speak for having anxiety, it was a really big anxiety of learning how to navigate society when I came home. I think a lot of our folks in reentry and. And it’s crazy. Often, like when we take them on everybody in RedsKens is thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m like, what are you thanKeng me for? This is what you deserve, and then you’ll hear it. They’ll thank us all day. And we want to relate to them. This is what you deserve. This is what all of us deserve when we’re coming home. This is what all of us deserve when we’re growing up in our communities is this support from people that looks like you.
People come from the same background, people that understand you. That’s what really give me a lot of joy when I do my work is to seeing folks know that they do have support from folks that have been through it and folks that look like them, folks that’s been through things like them.
So that’s my biggest joy when I do this work,
Ke: I like to jump in real quick I remember when I came home before all the rest of my colleagues here. I had no one like no one knew how to navigate the system. No, I like I came home with a loss of status. So I didn’t know that I wasn’t American that, I got released from immigration.
And it just Kecked me out. And then it’s I want to go get an ID. And it’s we need two form of IDs. And I’m like, what do you need? They need, they said, we need a birth certificate or a passport. And I said, I have neither, no, neither one. And they said, what about a green card? I said my green card is no good no more.
According to what they told me. So I’m like, I have no former I. D. I couldn’t get I. D. And it took me a while to get I. D. And just learning how to navigate barred and everything. It was I have a lot of gray hairs behind it. I have my head on, so you can’t see, but it was really difficult to navigate.
And then it’s I had no one that looked like me that went through that process, right? And there was no program for A. P. I. folks that’s coming out to have that support. And I’m so grateful for Asian Prison Support Committee for giving me that, for opening that door for me to learn this process, but also to receive the help.
And I think for me, the highlight like Bun named a lot of the great stuff. I think for me, the it’s my way of maKeng amends for the harm that I caused. That’s why I do this work. I can, I could have left this job for a really good trade job, get great money, maKeng six figures a year, but I’m like, I need to get back, because that, this is my way of healing myself, not just the other person, it’s just, it’s Kend selfish to say that.
But I if I can’t heal myself, how can I help heal the next person? And that’s why I do this work. And I remember one of the guys I picked up from immigration, he’s he had a choice of his family and us, formerly incarcerated folks, to pick him up. And he’s I’m grateful for you guys to pick me up.
And I’m like, why? He said, because you guys understand me. You guys understand if my family came, it would have been a such a disconnect with them because they wouldn’t understand it was like you have to do this, you have to do that. And then this is what you should do is but for us like we know what to do, and then we understand like choices, being incarcerated for decades and coming out like choices is really difficult for us, people tell what do you want, and we like, I don’t know.
We was limited to what we had inside. And so that’s why I keep doing this work. Like with the rest of them, it’s like giving back, but also at the same time healing. We’re on this healing journey together.
Cheryl: I know I only said two people, but I really watched the way Maria’s eyes fricKen sparkled when I asked this question.
Maria, I want to know what has been the most rewarding part of worKeng at APSC?
Maria: Am I that I’m easily read? No, because the one thing and he and by with no we had a client, she had a drug past these two, she was, she had a, oh my god, I said that backwards past drug use. And she worked on actually worKeng on getting her substance abuse, counseling.
So we help her get through it online classes register for her use gift cards to get that online classes paid like every avenue that we could think of we helped her get that in the same time. She was trying to get custody of all her children. And so walKeng her through her online classes and being there by her side, like just cheering her on, you can do this.
And so with her heart and mind into it, she was able to do it. She graduated. She finished it. And at the same time it was just getting hit with left and right with different problems, around getting custody of her child children. But because she has the support of a PSE. She said, I would have never been able to get through all this if not for your weekly calls that you check up on us.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s me, whether it’s Ke, Bun, because it’s a, it’s an effort, a team effort, right? Me and Bun would go there when she needed us, as a support. And so when she finally finished her school she was able to go to an internship. And now she works for another nonprofit organization, and she actually refers clients to us now because she became a substance use counselor.
And then on top of that, gained custody of her three Keds. How much more work an AP has to do, right? With family reunification, that’s what it’s all about. It doesn’t matter what your past was, it matters like how you’re going to move forward. Yeah, your past, they’re always going to bring it up, right?
Because you have a record. But what they’re not going to be able to take away from you is what you go from this point on, from that abusive relationship, and you were able to take it out, and you’re able to do something with your life and get your Keds back, and now you have a home for them. That’s what the work is about.
It’s not just about helping people, when they first come home, but it’s that care that you nurture them in their journey. That’s why our job is not eight to five, unfortunately, and it doesn’t, our job doesn’t stop after six months. They become family to us and that’s really what APSC is about, and that’s one of the joys seeing her graduate, become a counselor and have her Keds back.
So that’s our APSC, one of our stories, our re entry stories that really we talk about it all the time.
Cheryl: I could speak the praises of the incredible work that APSC 4. Does forever. But until then we have to take a quick music break. To our listeners. If you take anything away after hearing these stories, it’s that we need to collectively demand that governor Newsome, pardons APSC 4 for. Formerly incarcerated leaders like the APSC four are at the heart of our movement. They’re compassion and resiliance inspire us all to create change in our communities. And yet despite their work and transformation. Maria Key bun and PJ remain in this immigration limbo and are at risk of being detained by ice and deported. Uh, deporting APS. Core staff would devastate our community.
So please join me in urging governor Newsome to take action now to pardon APC for. To protect them from deportation by going to this link. bit.ly/APSC4 for all in capital letters. It’ll also be linked in our show notes.
Once again, the link is bit.ly/APSC4 this is an all capital letters. This is a direct link to the APC for action toolkit, which will give you different action items you can do to join us in. The fight to part in APC for. There’s a call script for governor Gavin Newsome. Demanding the protection of APC for there are sample tweets you can send out. There is a petition. You can sign there also graphics you can share on social media. So please, please check out this link. You could even do this during our music break. Once again, the link is bit.ly/APSC4 N all capital letters. When we come back, we’re going to be tackling broader issues and systemic change.
So don’t go anywhere.
Cheryl: And we’re back. You were listening to apex express on 94.1, FM KPFA and online@kpfa.org. You were just listening to change the world by baby Chris. We have currently with members of APS C. Maria Key PJ and bun. And the first half of the show, we delved into their personal stories, struggles and advocacy efforts. But in order to give you all a comprehensive understanding of their stories. We need to talk about the broader systemic dynamics that are at play. So let’s dive back in.
Bun: For me
immigration need to look at what we’ve been through and also what California said, we got a second chance. We earned our second chance. We have proven that we are change, and we, APSE4, have proven that coming back to the community, we are an asset to our community. I think they need to really look into that.
Folks that have been have proved themselves through the board, through finishing their term, that we all deserve a second chance. If a citizen deserves a second chance, why not us? And what is the difference, other than we were born somewhere else? Our lives, our family, our communities here.
So yeah, they need to really look into what a second chance
Ke: mean.
I don’t think there’s anyone in the world that has not made a bad choice in their life or a mistake. Like to be defined by the worst day of your life for the rest of your life. Like, how is that just, especially in a country that is You know, the pillar of human rights, we say who built America, immigrants built America.
How do we make America great again? We save our immigrant and refugee community. That’s how we make America great again. It’s not by, I look at it when you put people through the immigration system, it’s like slavery all over again. Prisons, no different. It’s like slavery all over again. If we talk about humanity, we talk about a just system.
We talk about second chances. We talk about people. These are people that are incarcerated, not numbers, not products. not just a person that made a terrible choice, these are people, mother, father, grandfather, aunties until we start seeing people as people, we will continue to dehumanize them.
And yeah, yes, we made some bad choices in our life. But at the same time, like Bunce said, we are redeemable. Just give us that second chance to show you. And that’s what APSC’s Board has been doing. We’ve been showing everyone that we, yeah, we own it. We, yeah, we take accountability for what we’ve done.
At the same time we’re showing you that we’re not that same person anymore. And put it out there for everyone is yes, look at, don’t always look at the harm that people cause, but look at the reason why they made that choice. And if you understand where they came from, it’ll tell you why they did what they did, but also you give them that chance, they can show you that they can make a difference.
Yeah, I know like
Peejay: the way I see life now, and this is Kend of like mind boggling to me because a lot of people like are conservative or very smart. We’re educated. And then, to me, it’s if you truly value peace, right? You truly value people’s lives. Community, right? You have to treat everyone equally, the same, right? We start treating people differently, you create division, that’s how you divide us. California isn’t supposed to be a state that is full of division, it’s supposed to be, the value is that we’re all together, right? We’re from all walks of life, and a melting pot, right?
Of cultural and diversity, and that’s what makes it so amazing and beautiful, and you can find anything here in California from any part of the world. Like we made California an amazing place, right? So then, like, when you see about the anti Asian hate, like, all the movement about solidarity, then you turn around and say, okay we’re going to treat these people differently and just deport them because they committed a crime, but then we’re going to say, like, all these other people, they redeemed themselves, too, but we’re going to give them another chance, to me, that would make no sense, right? You’re creating division, we’re people, we should treat everybody the same. And we all have, it’s not like we didn’t earn it, we’re not talKeng about giving people a chance to give a chance we’re giving people a chance to earn a chance.
And then we have proven ourselves. And I think that’s a testament, like I’m going to keep living my life the way I live my life. I’m going to keep pushing and helping people because that’s what I’m meant to do. And I don’t think that’s going to change me no matter what people think of me, but I think if people really put money where their mouth is, then they should really more solidarity, like watching people differently when we’re trying to bring people together. I don’t know. That’s, maybe that’s too simple, but to me, it’s no brainer, if you want to pull us all dirty, then do it.
Stop talKeng about it,
Cheryl: maria, did you have anything you wanted to add?
Maria: I second everything that Bun, Ke, and Peejay mentioned, second chance is, to me, it’s, we weren’t born here, right? But, our community is we’re helping our community become safe. We’re helping our community thrive, and I’ll look at that.
Cheryl: I
Maria: got distracted, but they would someone that never had a conviction, what are you doing to help your community thrive? So the only difference between me, but he and Peejay is that we had a conviction. But we’re here to serve our community, and yet at any given day, he can just pick us up and deport us.
And then what happens, who’s going to continue to work, because like I said, our jobs not eight to five, and it doesn’t last a six month program. It’s a lifetime. No. So who’s willing to pick up that responsibility, because we are. So I hope that, in the near future, like the policies and the immigration see past the conviction.
And see us that we matter, took us a long time to regain that work to believe in our own worth, because we’re now we know what our value is, and we fight for our freedom to stay here to not get sent back to a country we’ve never been in, because now we know what our value is. We know our community values us, our family holds us dear.
And without our work in the community, who’s going to save the children, the youth, who’s going to help the elders, who’s going to bridge that gap, because there are more and more people that’s going to be in and out of the system. And who’s going to help them. And that’s, that’s my hope that, one day they see us as equals, and not just.
immigrants who are not born here.
Cheryl: I hope that by this, after hearing all of these incredible stories of APSC4, you all know how important and integral that Boone, Peejay, Maria, Ke are to our community. I know just from my own experience that They are core members of my own community, and I don’t know where our community would be without them.
Learn more about PartinAPSC4 in the show notes. I want to thank all of you so much for coming on our show tonight. Thank you all so much for being here, for sharing your stories, and for continuing this really incredible work that y’all are doing. Yeah, we’ll see you on the next show. Thanks, everyone!
Thank you, have a good night!
Ke: Alright, bye!
And that’s the end of our show. Learn more about the incredible work being done by Apsu for, by checking out the show notes. Don’t forget that the APC for action toolkit is also available at the link bit dot Lee slash APC. that’s the number for all capital letters. And it’s also available in our show notes as well.
And also don’t forget to check out the new anthology published by Asian prisoner support committee. APC called arrival freedom, writings of Asian and Pacific Islanders. This anthology was several years in the making.
And offer us an intimate insight into the lived experiences of AAPI communities, entangled within the criminal legal system and immigration. From tales of resilience, amiss adversity to profound reflections on identity and belonging, arrival explores themes of war, memory, prison, transformation, healing, and the pursuit of home.
This is available for purchase at Eastwind books of Berkeley. www.asia book, center.com.
Cheryl Truong: Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
The post APEX Express – July 11, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – July 4, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Tonight on APEX Express, Host Miko Lee speaks with artivists from the upcoming exhibition at Edge on the Square opening this Saturday June 29 and running through February 2025!
TRANSCRIPT Walking Stories: Artivists POV
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Miko Lee: [00:00:34] Good evening this is Miko Lee and welcome to Apex Express. We are so happy to have you with us. We are going to be talking about something really personal to me tonight. We are talking about the new interactive exhibition at Edge on the Square in San Francisco, Chinatown. The whole exhibition is called Walking Stories and it is stories from our Asian American community. And we invite you to join us. It opens June 29th and runs all the way through December. Opening night, June 29th is going to be interactive performances and amazing little goodies so we really invite you to join us for opening, but if you can make it that night, we’re running all the way through the end of December. Okay, so a little bit of background. Some of you might know that I have been a host on Apex Express for the past seven and a half years, and it has truly been a delight and a joy. As part of that time, I learned that Apex Express is part of a network of Asian American progressive groups. That’s called AACRE, which is short for Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality. And about two and a half years ago, I joined the staff of AACRE, which has been such a joy to be around colleagues that share the same values and passions and beliefs in supporting and uplifting our community. For the past year, we have been working on a narrative strategy, really trying to reframe how Asian Americans are portrayed in the media, how we’re perceived within our own community. We were initially going to do this with the Pacific Islander community as well. But in talking to our sister colleagues, they are going through their own process of a PI narrative strategy and I totally respect that. At some point we will merge and join those voices together. So right now we’re focusing on Asian American stories. Through the past year through wonderful funding from San Francisco foundation’s Bay Area Creative Corps we were actually able to fund approximately 37 different artists and embed them in different AACRE groups to be able to create narratives that resonate with their own communities. So that in this exhibit Walking Stories, we’re going to hear stories about Hmong folks and formerly incarcerated folks, folks that are queer and trans and folks that have stories to share, because we all have important stories to share. Our exhibit is inviting folks to think about how they can get involved, how they can share their own stories, how they can join us in this collective movement for rewriting our history of the kind of silent, quiet model minority that sits in the background that’s used as the wedge issue for larger things like reparations and affirmative action and really reframes that and brings back our Asian American activist past because we know that is who we are. That is our history going back from the first time that we came into this country. We invite folks in the community to join us to see more about who these stories are, to find out, to get involved to see what resonates with them and even what doesn’t resonate with them. But really join us in this conversation. So tonight I’m really pleased to be talking with just a few of the artists that are in Walking Stories. So that you can get some insight into their process and how they made the piece that they’re going to be sharing.
The exhibit itself will be at Edge on the Square in San Francisco Chinatown. When you walk in, you are going to see this timeline of lanterns hanging from the ceiling. That’s about an Asian American activist history. You’re going to see a really cool, nourishing power piece, which we’re going to talk to the artists about, that is about how potlucks were used as a tool for queer and trans organizing. You are going to learn more about Hmong dance. And what does that look like, and what does it feel like in your own body? You’re going to learn about ancestors, the power of our ancestors and how we can bring that to help us in our healing and moving forward. You’re going to see in the exhibit about a Hmong story cloth reimagined with a modern perspective, you’re going to see stories of south Asians activists and what they represent. And what does it mean to be a south Asian Muslim in America today? You’re going to hear some of these stories. You’re going to see them. We hope that you’ll experience them. Then we hope that you’ll learn more and find out about what we’re doing and how you can get involved. So join me on this little journey through some of the artivists—that’s artists that are also activists—that are part of our exhibit called Walking Stories. Come board. Join us.
Welcome Hà Trần to Apex Express. We’re so happy to have you with us.
Trần Châu Hà: [00:05:40] Thank you for having me.
Miko Lee: [00:05:41] So you are amazing artist, but I want to start and go back and for you to tell us who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:05:52] Ooh, oh my god, that’s such like a big question. I guess my people are the people at Asian Prisoner Support Committee. I come from like a lineage of like Vietnamese refugees, and I think about like the ways that our communities have been impacted by the legacy of imperialism, which includes like incarceration, deportation, and things of that nature. I would say my community are folks who are impacted by, those kinds of pipelines and violences, Southeast Asian folks broadly.
Miko Lee: [00:06:14] And what legacy do you carry with you from them?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:06:18] I think the easy answer is like resilience clearly. To exist and survive under so many different violences and still move forth and create such beautiful communities.
Miko Lee: [00:06:25] Hà how did you get started working with Asian Prisoner Support Committee?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:06:29] It actually started from an interpersonal relationship. My best friend who also works at the organization now. They actually explained to me that a APSC was doing all this work in regards to like stopping the prison to deportation pipeline, how like so many of our Southeast Asian American community members were impacted by this kind of incarceration and things of that nature. At that point, it just became my political home after many, many years.
Miko Lee: [00:06:50] Thanks for sharing that. Then tell us about the work that you have in the new exhibit that is opening up called Walking Stories. Can you tell us the title of your piece and then describe it for us?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:07:01] The piece I’m making is a comic called We Was Girls Together. It’s a quote from Sula by Toni Morrison. The comic is about my friend Maria Legarda. She’s a re-entry coordinator at the Asian Prisoner Support Committee. She’s also a Filipino immigrant who’s facing deportation to the Philippines now after she was incarcerated in CCWF for 14 years. We met each other through APSC I know her as a very generous and kind person who loves crocheting. She’s always been like an extreme light every time I come to the office and interact with her. But I also know that Maria is like someone who frankly, knows all these like incarcerated women or like formerly and currently incarcerated women. She really shows me what it looks like to be, like, an abolitionist feminist despite the kind of struggles and difficulties that she’s moving through as someone who’s literally currently still facing deportation because of her quote unquote, deportable offense. My comic is about Maria Legarda. It starts with like her story, her migration story from the Philippines. She was born under the Marcos regime, which basically socioeconomically destabilized the Philippines. She came to the US for economic opportunity. But clearly she had a really hard time adjusting, and then eventually she made some choices that led her to a federal offense that led to her decades of incarceration. When she was in prison, she met all these, wonderful women of color who also were survivors of sexual and gendered violence, so I just follow her story through her healing. Despite the fact that she’s healed so deeply and she’s shown so much care to other people and she has these communities she still is deportable to a country that she hasn’t been to in 30 or so years, and doesn’t consider home anymore.
Miko Lee: [00:08:27] Share with me a little bit about how zines are your choice of art medium?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:08:32] I love the nature of how like accessible they are. I think I kind of started out as an illustrator and an essayist separately. But then I realized as I was like writing essays I couldn’t necessarily share those things immediately with my mom. She’s not super fluent in English, right? But like when I combined the medium of illustration and writing into creating a comic in a zine, I could show that to my mom and even if she can’t fully understand all the writing she could still access, like the actual medium. And then the form of the zine is something that is meant to be taken away. It’s meant to be shared with other people. I started going to a lot of zine fests last year and it just made me realize like, oh yeah, I want all my stuff to be accessible, right? Like I don’t want it necessarily to be underneath a pay wall or things of that nature. I think there’s something like, you know, for lack of a better word, very like, democratic about zine making, and as well as, comics generally.
Miko Lee: [00:09:20] I love how you do the mom test.
Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:22] Yes. It’s funny, I wrote, an essay about my grandmother, actually, in the Asian American Writers Workshop like 2021, and I had to literally translate the entire thing for her to read it to make sure all the details were right, and I was like, wait, I could have just made this easier by like illustrating some of it to make it accessible across language barriers and things of that nature.
Miko Lee: [00:09:40] And has Maria read through the scene?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:42] Yes, she has.
Miko Lee: [00:09:44] What has been her take on it?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:46] She actually sent me a very long signal which like made me cry because I was like, oh my god, I can’t believe she actually thought this about the work. She was talking about how it helped her reflect on everything she’s gone through but also like these relationships that have really sustained her. Namely like, I mentioned this person named Granny in the comic who I’ve met who’s essentially like the person who adopted Maria when she just became incarcerated and was dealing with the fallout and trauma of sexual violence and things of that nature. The comic reminds Maria of just her growth essentially over all these years, but also all these rich relationships that still continue to sustain her like across carceral walls and things of that nature.
Miko Lee: [00:10:17] And what do you hope people that come and see your work and take one of your zines, what do you hope that they walk away with?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:10:25] The obvious answer to the question is, like, how cruel the prison to deportation pipeline is. For someone to build such wonderful communities in the United States and for borders being so arbitrary and things of that nature that they can be stolen away from these communities at any point, and how cruel and unnecessary that all feels for immigrants and refugees who have been criminalized to experience this kind of double punishment. I think the other element of it is the ways that women, specifically currently and formerly incarcerated women create these networks of care amongst each other that, in light of the state not supporting them and their healing, whether they’ve experienced gendered or sexual violence, these people will find each other, these women will find each other and they’ll be able to support each other and help each other through these processes of healing and also like fighting sexual violence in the carceral system. Yeah, just like highlighting those kinds of like organic networks and that relationship building that we don’t necessarily get to see in like, for example, like mainstream media or like policy making or things of that nature.
Miko Lee: [00:11:18] What will people see when they walk into the Rdge on the Square exhibit space?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:11:23] Yes, you will see 15 comic pages in acrylic frames and then underneath that will be a table with actually takeaways. So feel free to take the comic away in like a booklet form as well, but you can also read it out on the wall when you walk in.
Miko Lee: [00:11:35] Thank you so much for sharing with us about your artistry and your vision and your story about Maria and your connection with Asian Prisoner Support Committee. We look forward to seeing your work.
Trần Châu Hà: [00:11:45] Thank you, Miko. Pleasure speaking with you.
Miko Lee: [00:11:48] Next up, listen to “Staygo” from DARKHEART, A Concert Narrative by singer and songwriter Golda Sargento.
MUSIC
That was the voice of Golda Sargento from the new Filipinx futurism punk rock sci-fi DARKHEART. Katie Quan, artist, activist, ethnic studies teacher. I’m so happy to have you on Apex Express. And the first question I want to ask you is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Katie Quan: [00:16:51] I would say that my people, I really strongly identify with Asian American movement artists, makers, and shakers from like the 60s and 70s. It was my first introduction to really seeing Chinese Americans be out there and be really vocal, be excited, and be loud and angry about all these different topics. And so I’ve really gravitated towards just all that excitement, all that energy over the past decade just after learning more about them. I really just enjoyed seeing what that looks like and how we can continue that energy, especially for East Asian Americans here in the States, as we move into a new generation of game makers.
Miko Lee: [00:17:38] Tell us about how you carry that legacy of feisty activism into your work as an artist.
Katie Quan: [00:17:44] I like to consider myself a legacy of the Asian American movement. My grandparents came here in the 30s and 40s. I also have great grandparents and great great grandparents who traveled between the US and China, back and forth, back and forth and so I find myself really attached to their stories as well as how they’ve overcome a lot of those obstacles that Chinese Americans had to face during that time frame. My parents are both second generation Chinese American. They met at Self-Help for the Elderly, which was a organization that came from the Asian American movement in terms of making sure that our elderly are actually taken care of and have culturally relevant care. My parents were very much interested in enrolling us into bilingual education. Bilingual education was not a popular educational pedagogy at that point, partly because people thought that if you learned another language that was not English, that you would lose your Americanness in a lot of ways. And so one of the things that I really like to bring into my art is making sure that legacy and that history is always challenged and always, it feels relevant to where we are now, but also can meet other people where they’re at. I do understand that not everyone gets to have a lot of those kinds of privileges where they see themselves, in their role models or that they didn’t grow up around the history, I understand that that’s the case. And so making sure that the work that I always produce meets people where they need to be at, is something of interest and something that I carry with me in all my work.
Miko Lee: [00:19:32] Thank you, Katie. Can you talk about the work that you have been doing with Chinese for Affirmative Action and tell us about the reparations zine that you’ve been developing?
Katie Quan: [00:19:43] Me and a team of other artists, academics and activists have been working to make a reparations zine alongside Chinese for Affirmative Action. Here in San Francisco reparations is still a very contentious issue. So one of the things that we’re trying to really bring about and inform, especially the Chinese American demographics, is what reparations are and how we can support the work that black communities need and what they’re doing at the moment. Within the zine, we are really covering what reparations are, how African Americans in San Francisco have contributed to the making of the city and also the Bay Area, how their community has been bulldozed in many, many ways, whether it’s through health, environmental justice, redlining, all of these different issues. What’s happened in the past 50, 60 years reparations is that first step in terms of saying sorry and, how can we begin to mend this wound that the United States has created consistently over time with this particular population.
Miko Lee: [00:20:54] What has surprised you about this process?
Katie Quan: [00:20:58] It’s hard. [Laughs] And not that I didn’t think it wasn’t going to be hard. But I think the team that we’ve been working with, we’ve been really fortunate because we have some, second, third and fourth generation activists and artists, but we also have a team of other people who are new immigrants, and we’ve been really fortunate to learn from their perspective. And so rather than approaching it in a lens that talks about anti-blackness, sometimes it’s talking about what it means to be American. And how do we participate in democracy? It’s bringing a very positive spin, or just kind of a different spin to topics that we already know, and then that we talk about all the time, but making sure that it’s accessible to everybody.
Miko Lee: [00:21:46] So this zine is going to be available for free in the Edge on the Square exhibition. Can you talk about what people will see when they walk into the exhibition and see your work? What are they going to see? What are they going to experience?
Katie Quan: [00:21:59] Yeah, we are hoping to make sure that our exhibition is big and it’s bold, but at the same time it feels simple in its messaging. Asking people a little bit about what they know about reparations, being able to challenge their own thinking of what they know about black communities here in San Francisco, what they’ve done. Also talking about how we ourselves get information, how do we learn the things that we know and how can we challenge that? Or how can we push that forward? And so we will have an interactive element, but we will also have the zine there available, which will be created both in English and in Chinese for anybody who needs it. We will also have additional resources via QR code so that if anybody has any other questions or want to learn more about it, want to act on their excitement for this particular issue that they can also do so.
Miko Lee: [00:22:58] And what do you hope that people will walk away from your after taking away your zine after seeing the exhibit? What are you hoping that they will learn or or do after seeing your work?
Katie Quan: [00:23:10] One of the things that we kind of came across when creating the zine is that people had very strong opinions about reparations. They didn’t always have all the information, but they had very strong opinions and they had very particular beliefs that come from their own life experiences. Our goal for this is not necessarily to persuade one way or the other, but it’s to make sure that they’re informed and just making sure that they have all the facts so that they can make a decision that best suits their own life experiences. We’re also hoping that people walk away feeling like they know a little bit more and that they can share that with their own communities in a way that makes sense for them.
Miko Lee: [00:23:51] Katie Quan, thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express.
Katie Quan: [00:23:54]Yes, thank you so much.
Miko Lee: [00:23:55] Next up, take a listen to “Live It Up” by Bay Area’s Power Struggle.
MUSIC
That was “Live It Up”by Bay Area’s Power Struggle. Welcome Tsim Nuj to Apex Express.
Tsim Nuj: [00:27:32] Hi, Miko. Thank you so much for having me today.
Miko Lee: [00:27:37] Can I start with just by asking you, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Tsim Nuj: [00:27:46] Who are my people and what legacy do I carry with me? My people are Hmong. My ancestors were living in northern Laos, in the mountains and in the jungles and farming. That’s where my lineage and then my ancestors had to flee their homes because of the Vietnam War and the secret war in Laos to find refuge in Thailand and then now we’re here in the US. specifically in Merced, California in the Central Valley on indigenous Yokut land. So yeah, that’s my, those are my people. I think that my community here in Merced that I organize with, who are also queer and trans folks of color are also my people. And I think that the legacy that I carry is this legacy of, I carry this legacy of love. I think that in moments of having to find home and having to survive, I think that love really grounded my people and my people’s families. And so I think that I’m really holding onto this act of loving. That I think really grounds me and really affirms who I am and the journey as I honor my ancestors. And I really, as I think about the descendants, right, my descendants, the young people who are a emerging and, you know, the future generations that are coming. And so I think that there’s this really special moment where I feel like I’m really longing to connect with my ancestors, especially those who were queer and trans, my queer and trans Hmong ancestors. And I’ve been also connecting with my descendants. And then I think that there’s also this present moment, right, where I’m also connected deeply with my community, who consists of being children of immigrant refugees, you know, queer and trans folks, and folks that are really reimagining and really fighting for a world where we can all be liberated and be our full, authentic, genuine, loving selves.
Miko Lee: [00:29:58] Thank you for sharing. Your art form is as a dancer, as a movement person, and you’ve created a video for the Walking Stories exhibition. Can you tell us the name of that video and what inspired you to create that?
Tsim Nuj: [00:30:14] I feel really honored to be a part of the Walking Stories exhibit, and this is actually my first exhibit that I get to be a part of and share my work in and so it feels very exciting and it feels very, like such an honor that I get to be a part of this project that’s a collection of works who the artists and yeah, the folks that are a part of this are just such like incredible, brilliant beings, sharing our stories. And so my dance video The title of it is Our Queer Hmong Love Dance. What really inspired this piece was this idea of being home, right? And this idea of belonging. There’s, there’s so much ideas that came up for me. And I think that these ideas were coming up because of a recent transition. Last year, around this time, actually, I graduated from UC San Diego, and I was coming home, right, after five years. And so I think that this piece is really about connecting with my roots and finding home specifically in Merced and in the Central Valley. And really trying to think about who I am as a Hmong person. But it was also about who I was as a Hmong and queer person, right? A queer and Hmong person. And so I started to think about these rituals or these sounds and these movements that I really needed to explore. And so a lot of that exploration and that work. I got to practice and be in process and I think it’s really what I needed in this moment. And so I’m really grateful I’m really grateful that I get to share it with my community and I’m really grateful that I get to share with my community and the folks that come and see our exhibit and I really I’m really hopeful that folks will resonate with it and really get to just witness me.
Miko Lee: [00:32:14] And so folks will come to the exhibit, they’ll see all these different works, they’ll see a booth that will have your film playing in it. Is there something that you want to have your audience lingering with or thinking about after they watch your work?
Tsim Nuj: [00:32:30] Yes. I really want my audience, the folks that come to the exhibit, feel invited to witness my piece, my video in the booth. I want them to allow themselves to really feel, right, whatever they’re feeling, whatever is coming up for them. Whether it’s the sounds that are guiding them, whether it’s the visuals, right. Whether it’s, you know, there might be some words or some images that come up, and I really want the audience to just really be with their bodies. Be with their minds, their spirits, right? And I, I hope that they allow themselves to just feel it. And I, I remember having a conversation with you Miko about this like meditative presence. And so I’m hoping that my audience or the folks that come and witness the entire exhibit, right? I hope that they are curious, and that they really allow themselves to just be with the work, whatever that means for them. I don’t want to tell people how to watch my work, right? But I do want them to just really, be with it, right? And, and if you can, I hope that you’ll be able to watch it for its entirety. I think that there’s something really beautiful happening, with how I have put this video together and so I hope that you can be with it. Take the deep breaths. Take those breaths, right, pay attention to the sensations that you experience in your body.
What I want the audience to take away from after seeing my piece, I hope that they get to receive it and that they breathe it in and they’re with it, right. And that they really see me and see the people that are in this video. And I hope that they see parts of themselves in it, and parts of their stories and their journeys. And I also really want them to think about these questions that I propose and that I ask, right? That I’m also asking myself. This piece is a dedication, right? I think that I’m creating this piece for my ancestors. I’m dancing for my descendants, and I think I’m also asking them, I’m in conversation with them, right? About where is home? Especially for folks who have been displaced, because of very violent histories of war and persecution and having to flee our homes, right, and survive all that, like, thinking about our indigenous relatives here on Turtle Island and thinking about Palestinians in Gaza. I think that, there’s in this moment, this piece, I do ask, and I am trying to find this home, this idea of going home. And also how do we dance there, right? Like, how do we dance towards home? And so what is dance for us? I’m just really inspired by, black queer and trans feminists, specifically Prentiss Hemphill, and just the conversations that Prentiss has shared on their Spotify podcast, go and check it out. I think that this piece is also about remembering and honoring the folks who have come before me and the folks that will arrive after me.
Miko Lee: [00:35:32] Tsi Nuj, thank you so much for sharing your story. And we look forward to seeing your dance piece in Walking Stories.
Tsim Nuj: [00:35:41] Thank you so much, Miko, for your time and for creating the space for me. Yeah, I like, I think there’s a lot of excitement that I feel in my body. And so like, I want to talk about the work, but please, please, please, for whoever is listening, come and be with us. Come and experience our work and be in conversation with us. I think it’s really important in this moment for us to uplift one another’s voices and really affirm each other’s stories. When we think about collective liberation, it really is doing this work, right? Of thinking about what is collective care and collective love look like, how do we lean into our creativity, our ancestral technologies and practices to really make meaning of how we show up in this world, right? And to really empower us, right? To, you know, continue showing up for one another and because we know that this work is lifelong. Healing and, you know, really creating this world where we are all free. I hope that the folks that are listening to this and the folks that come to the exhibit and everybody, right, I really hope that we can feel how important it is for each one of us and all of us to be in this movement towards the liberation of everybody, right? Because our liberations are, are so deeply intertwined and connected. So thank you.
Miko Lee: [00:37:04] Thank you so much. That was great. Let’s take a listen to one of Byron Au Young’s compositions called “Know Your Rights.” This is part of the trilogy of the activists songbook. This multi-lingual rap gives steps to know what to do when ICE officers come to your door.
MUSIC
That was “Know Your Rights” performed by Jason Chu with lyrics by Aaron Jafferis and composed by Byron Au Young. Welcome Visibility Project and Related Tactics to Apex Express. I’m so happy to have you all with me this evening, and I would love to just ask you all the question I love asking for people, which is what is your story? What’s your background? And what legacy do you carry with you? And let’s start with Weston.
Weston Teruya: [00:40:12] I am a Japanese American and Okinawa American from Hawaii. I identify as an Asian American and person of color, and I draw on the histories of cross-racial solidarity between communities as a strategic alliance and community building effort for justice.
Miko Lee: [00:40:34] Thanks, Weston. And Michelle, how about you? Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Michelle K Carlson: [00:40:41] Hi, thanks, Miko. I’m Korean American. I grew up in Seattle, Washington and spent most of my time on the West Coast. I, similar to Weston, operate in a realm of cross racial solidarity, linking myself often to histories of racial solidarity justice movements. Weston and I are representing Related Tactics, which is an artist collective that also anchors itself within these histories of cross racial solidarity. We make all sorts of artistic works at the intersection of race and culture.
Miko Lee: [00:41:18] Thanks, Michelle. And finally, Mia Nakano, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Mia Nakano: [00:41:24] Thank you so much for having me here. I’m Mia Nakano she/her pronouns and I’m the executive director of the Visibility Project. I am a queer fourth generation Japanese American woman. I am the daughter of a single mother and the sibling of a deaf adult. And I think that all of those relationships and intersectional identities bring forth all of the work that I do. And so I think about queer ancestors, I think about accessibility in the deaf community, I think about all of the really powerful women that have been incredibly present in my life to shape who I am today.
Miko Lee: [00:42:10] Thank you, Mia. And you are two different groups of artists. One is Visibility Project. The other is Related Tactics. Can you share with us a little bit about how this collaboration came about?
Mia Nakano: [00:42:22] I was invited to participate as a contributing artist in one of Related Tactics’ very first shows back in, I believe, in 2016, and have been following their work as a growing artistic practice and a collective for quite some time. I’ve always been thinking about how could the Visibility Project as a queer led, you know queer, LGBTQ, archiving and organizing artistic practice collaborate with this cross racial, very intersectional, collective in Related Tactics. One of the ideas that has sort of been percolating for me over a long period of time was that so many queer Asian American organizations and so many queer spaces have all come out of the idea and like the gathering around potluck spaces, right?
So potlucks being safe spaces for queer folks, for folks of color, for marginalized communities who didn’t have safe spaces to gather. And many queer Asian organizations started off with potlucks that then turned into social and political groups, which then shifted into political advocacy and culture change, and then ultimately like legislative change. And I saw such deep connections in terms of how I see related tactics and experience related tactics. It’s building roots and planting seeds for multiple relationships and collaborations through the different intersecting ways that our communities have been able to come together over the past few years.
Miko Lee: [00:44:18] So how did this collaboration begin working on this concept around potlucks?
Michelle K Carlson: [00:44:24] This is Michelle from Related Tactics. The three of us have known each other for a long time and Mia and I have worked together in a lot of different capacities over the years. I think Related Tactics, at the core of what we do is coming together with this kind of shared belief and shared value system around collectivity as this really productive material and tool and method for creative action in the world. I think at the core of that is understanding that we don’t have all the information and we don’t like to be the only voice in the room and we are not the ones that necessarily should be telling the stories for everyone. Related Tactics, when we often get an opportunity, one of our common strategies is just to figure out a way to share that out and to bring more voices into the room to be in concert with our own. When we understood that the Visibility Project was also going to be a part of this project, we’re like we should join forces and bring our communities together. And I think we’ve been looking for a way to do that over the years.
Miko Lee: [00:45:35] Talk to me about the title, Nourishing Power. Where does that come from? What is that about?
Mia Nakano: [00:45:41] I think because of the individual artistic practices, And the people who comprise Related Tactics, and myself at the Visibility Project, we are all so incredibly busy, that all of our contributions to our various communities, whether it’s at universities, in social justice movements, in artistic organizations, we’re all about cultivating the power of other people while putting artists into artistic practices and people first, right? Like you have to, put on your oxygen mask first before you’re able to really step out and fully do the work that you want to be doing. And to do that, you have to nourish yourself, you have to nourish your power. And I think that there’s also the idea of the collectivity and framework that Related Tactics brings where we can all also do that for one another, right? When one person is at 10 percent capacity, the other two people can step forth and we can all move and lift each other up together rather than doing it as individuals.
Miko Lee: [00:46:52] Thank you. And Weston, what can people expect when they walk into Edge on the Square, the corner of Grant and Clay? What will they see that will show them your work?
Weston Teruya: [00:47:04] So the center point of our installation is going to be these carts with an array of takeaways that people are free to engage with in different ways, and they are essentially prompt for various potlucks that, we’ve contributed as a themes and as collaborators and then have also invited a group of additional artists to contribute as well. One of the modes that Related Tactics works in is in the form of the takeaway and part of the impetus behind that is that we want to provide the seed for people to create their own sort of spaces and gatherings and encounters with people beyond the gallery walls. We don’t want art to just be this thing that only exists in these defined spaces. We’ve had different projects that use that mode, and this is one of them. We invite people to engage with it, take these ideas, plant the seeds for their own potlucks beyond the walls of the gallery and hopefully have these opportunities to build community, in their own spaces, in their own worlds, amongst their own networks of people.
Miko Lee: [00:48:12] I love the accessible takeaway. I still have a divest yourself matchbox from one of your shows. [Laughs] I love that. Michelle, what’s a concrete example of a takeaway from Nourishing Power?
Michelle K Carlson: [00:48:27] One of the examples I would talk about is, one of the artists we’ve invited, Joy Enriquez, has created like hundreds of tiny ceramic spoons. They’re thinking a lot about how does one articulate when they need support. They talk about it as if one only has so many spoons to use in a day, but you have way more things you need to do with those spoons. How do you survive that? How do you ask for support? How do you allocate those spoons to this kind of overwhelming existence? They have all these really beautiful prompts that will be printed on a card to take away, but then also you can take away a ceramic spoon that they’ve been spending many hours in a ceramic studio, making and firing. I think there’s this idea too, that there’s many, many ways one can use that spoon that can exist to support your day to day that you might not think about. So they have some things that are about how one might hold or touch the spoon or things you might do with it that isn’t just about eating. That also really embodies the spirit of this project, that it’s also not just about potlucks in the sense of like, bring food to a table, but that it’s about this kind of space to share knowledge, to share resources, to exchange things when you don’t feel like you have the thing you’re supposed to bring, or you can’t meet the expectation, the greater expectations of what is supposed to occur in that moment. But that the potluck is a space for us to share and support each other in ways that we maybe have not been able to imagine yet.
Miko Lee: [00:50:06] Ooh, I love that. And Mia, how many different artists are there? How many, and how did you go about selecting all these different artists that are participating?
Mia Nakano: [00:50:15] There’s over a dozen artists who are participating, and we collectively just started brainstorming and extending out invitations to our various communities and folks that we’ve worked with in the past, folks who, have participated in Related Tactic shows or know, you know, through other pathways and connections. And then I just reached out to a few Visibility Project participants, even folks going back that I interviewed over 15 years ago to ask if they would be willing to participate. Each person was invited to create one prompt, one initial prompt of what the potluck would be, like if they were to have a potluck, right? So we have somebody who put forth a potluck for screaming, a potluck for nourishing. So different artists are putting forth their own individual potlucks, and one prompt connected to that, and then folks will be able to use that as a seed to create their own gathering spaces in the future.
Miko Lee: [00:51:15] If there’s an action word that you would want people to walk away with, what’s that action word after they go to see your exhibit? What is the verb that you want them to do?
Weston Teruya: [00:51:27] I think it might be gather. That’s sort of the crux of what we’re hoping to seed.
Miko Lee: [00:51:33] What about an emotion? Is there an emotion you want folks to walk away with?
Mia Nakano: [00:51:38] I like the idea of gathering, in that also kind of to be able to connect, right? Like we’re not just coming together, like we’re building something that we want to connect and maintain.
Michelle K Carlson: [00:51:50] Yeah. And I think also like exchanging, right? It’s like something really active is happening, there’s an exchange, everybody’s kind of, there’s like a reciprocity too. That you know, that nobody is hosting, like everybody’s coming and sharing and exchanging and giving and receiving and maybe nourish is actually the right, I don’t know if nourish is an emotion, but I think in the social justice world it is. [Laughs] So it feels like nourish actually is probably a useful emotion. I think reciprocity is also like a feeling that should happen, that when you are giving you’re not doing so to the point of extraction because you are also receiving. And that’s I think one of the core things about this project wasn’t just about Related Tactics and or Visibility Project offering ideas. It was like, we have created a prompt for a potluck and in many ways audience members will come into the show and see our potluck because it will have all these contributions from all these other artists. And so you get to kind of leave with like a goodie bag, doggie bag that is like the kind of residue of our potluck. We hope that folks go home and do that for themselves within their communities, either using our prompts or using our prompts as a platform to create their own space.
Miko Lee: [00:53:18] Is there a perfect amount of people to attend a potluck? Like how many dishes do you want at your potluck?
Michelle K Carlson: [00:53:26] I feel like we’re in like a seven to ten vibe. Like 15 tops, then it’s too many. You know, it’s like, because not too many, but it, there’s a different thing that’s happening when you get over 15 people in a room. But like, I feel like 10 is the zone where you can still have kind of like close intimate, you know, conversations where you can like build trust, you can spend some time, get around to see everyone, get a little bit of everybody’s, you know, contribution, and then, but it’s not like so small that it’s like you and one other person and you’re on a very awkward blind date or something.
Miko Lee: [00:54:09] And are you all down for the themed potlucks or do you like them to be just open ended, bring whatever you want?
Mia Nakano: [00:54:17] I love a themed potluck. I love just like some sort of container where you’re going in and you’re acknowledging I’ve got dessert, or we’re gonna go over to Southeast Asia, rather than everybody showing up with ten pots of rice and they’re just eating rice all night.
Michelle K Carlson: [00:54:35] Or tortilla chips, or like Trader Joe’s brownie bites, like five containers of those. No shame on brownie bites.
Miko Lee: [00:54:44] Okay, how can folks find out more about your work?
Mia Nakano: [00:54:48] So folks want to check out what the Visibility Project is doing, you can go to visibilityproject.org and learn about all the participants and hear their stories and even go on an LGBTQ digital history tour of the Asian American community in the Bay Area.
Michelle K Carlson: [00:55:04] If you want to find out more about Related Tactics, you can go to relatedtactics.com or find us on Instagram and our handle is just at Related Tactics.
Miko Lee: [00:55:15] Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing your work in the show and feeling nourished and planning my next potluck. Thank you so much. So that was a chance to listen to just a few of the artivists that are part of Walking Stories. You got a little insight into where they’re coming from and how they created their pieces. And there’s so many more artivists that you didn’t get to hear from. So I hope you’ll come to our exhibit that runs June 29th through the end of December. We’ll be at Edge on the Square in San Francisco Chinatown. We’ll put a link in the show notes at our website kpfa.org backslash programs, backslash apex express. We hope that you’ll join us and share your story too, because all of us have important stories to tell. Thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Hien Nguyen, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Nate Tan, Paige Chung, Preti Mangala-Shekar, and Swati Rayasam. Tonight’s show was produced by Miko Lee and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – June 20, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Tonight on APEX Express, Host Miko Lee speaks with artivists from the upcoming exhibition at Edge on the Square.
TRANSCRIPT Walking Stories: Artivists POV
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Miko Lee: [00:00:34] Good evening this is Miko Lee and welcome to Apex Express. We are so happy to have you with us. We are going to be talking about something really personal to me tonight. We are talking about the new interactive exhibition at Edge on the Square in San Francisco, Chinatown. The whole exhibition is called Walking Stories and it is stories from our Asian American community. And we invite you to join us. It opens June 29th and runs all the way through December. Opening night, June 29th is going to be interactive performances and amazing little goodies so we really invite you to join us for opening, but if you can make it that night, we’re running all the way through the end of December. Okay, so a little bit of background. Some of you might know that I have been a host on Apex Express for the past seven and a half years, and it has truly been a delight and a joy. As part of that time, I learned that Apex Express is part of a network of Asian American progressive groups. That’s called AACRE, which is short for Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality. And about two and a half years ago, I joined the staff of AACRE, which has been such a joy to be around colleagues that share the same values and passions and beliefs in supporting and uplifting our community. For the past year, we have been working on a narrative strategy, really trying to reframe how Asian Americans are portrayed in the media, how we’re perceived within our own community. We were initially going to do this with the Pacific Islander community as well. But in talking to our sister colleagues, they are going through their own process of a PI narrative strategy and I totally respect that. At some point we will merge and join those voices together. So right now we’re focusing on Asian American stories. Through the past year through wonderful funding from San Francisco foundation’s Bay Area Creative Corps we were actually able to fund approximately 37 different artists and embed them in different AACRE groups to be able to create narratives that resonate with their own communities. So that in this exhibit Walking Stories, we’re going to hear stories about Hmong folks and formerly incarcerated folks, folks that are queer and trans and folks that have stories to share, because we all have important stories to share. Our exhibit is inviting folks to think about how they can get involved, how they can share their own stories, how they can join us in this collective movement for rewriting our history of the kind of silent, quiet model minority that sits in the background that’s used as the wedge issue for larger things like reparations and affirmative action and really reframes that and brings back our Asian American activist past because we know that is who we are. That is our history going back from the first time that we came into this country. We invite folks in the community to join us to see more about who these stories are, to find out, to get involved to see what resonates with them and even what doesn’t resonate with them. But really join us in this conversation. So tonight I’m really pleased to be talking with just a few of the artists that are in Walking Stories. So that you can get some insight into their process and how they made the piece that they’re going to be sharing.
The exhibit itself will be at Edge on the Square in San Francisco Chinatown. When you walk in, you are going to see this timeline of lanterns hanging from the ceiling. That’s about an Asian American activist history. You’re going to see a really cool, nourishing power piece, which we’re going to talk to the artists about, that is about how potlucks were used as a tool for queer and trans organizing. You are going to learn more about Hmong dance. And what does that look like, and what does it feel like in your own body? You’re going to learn about ancestors, the power of our ancestors and how we can bring that to help us in our healing and moving forward. You’re going to see in the exhibit about a Hmong story cloth reimagined with a modern perspective, you’re going to see stories of south Asians activists and what they represent. And what does it mean to be a south Asian Muslim in America today? You’re going to hear some of these stories. You’re going to see them. We hope that you’ll experience them. Then we hope that you’ll learn more and find out about what we’re doing and how you can get involved. So join me on this little journey through some of the artivists—that’s artists that are also activists—that are part of our exhibit called Walking Stories. Come board. Join us.
Welcome Hà Trần to Apex Express. We’re so happy to have you with us.
Trần Châu Hà: [00:05:40] Thank you for having me.
Miko Lee: [00:05:41] So you are amazing artist, but I want to start and go back and for you to tell us who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:05:52] Ooh, oh my god, that’s such like a big question. I guess my people are the people at Asian Prisoner Support Committee. I come from like a lineage of like Vietnamese refugees, and I think about like the ways that our communities have been impacted by the legacy of imperialism, which includes like incarceration, deportation, and things of that nature. I would say my community are folks who are impacted by, those kinds of pipelines and violences, Southeast Asian folks broadly.
Miko Lee: [00:06:14] And what legacy do you carry with you from them?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:06:18] I think the easy answer is like resilience clearly. To exist and survive under so many different violences and still move forth and create such beautiful communities.
Miko Lee: [00:06:25] Hà how did you get started working with Asian Prisoner Support Committee?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:06:29] It actually started from an interpersonal relationship. My best friend who also works at the organization now. They actually explained to me that a APSC was doing all this work in regards to like stopping the prison to deportation pipeline, how like so many of our Southeast Asian American community members were impacted by this kind of incarceration and things of that nature. At that point, it just became my political home after many, many years.
Miko Lee: [00:06:50] Thanks for sharing that. Then tell us about the work that you have in the new exhibit that is opening up called Walking Stories. Can you tell us the title of your piece and then describe it for us?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:07:01] The piece I’m making is a comic called We Was Girls Together. It’s a quote from Sula by Toni Morrison. The comic is about my friend Maria Legarda. She’s a re-entry coordinator at the Asian Prisoner Support Committee. She’s also a Filipino immigrant who’s facing deportation to the Philippines now after she was incarcerated in CCWF for 14 years. We met each other through APSC I know her as a very generous and kind person who loves crocheting. She’s always been like an extreme light every time I come to the office and interact with her. But I also know that Maria is like someone who frankly, knows all these like incarcerated women or like formerly and currently incarcerated women. She really shows me what it looks like to be, like, an abolitionist feminist despite the kind of struggles and difficulties that she’s moving through as someone who’s literally currently still facing deportation because of her quote unquote, deportable offense. My comic is about Maria Legarda. It starts with like her story, her migration story from the Philippines. She was born under the Marcos regime, which basically socioeconomically destabilized the Philippines. She came to the US for economic opportunity. But clearly she had a really hard time adjusting, and then eventually she made some choices that led her to a federal offense that led to her decades of incarceration. When she was in prison, she met all these, wonderful women of color who also were survivors of sexual and gendered violence, so I just follow her story through her healing. Despite the fact that she’s healed so deeply and she’s shown so much care to other people and she has these communities she still is deportable to a country that she hasn’t been to in 30 or so years, and doesn’t consider home anymore.
Miko Lee: [00:08:27] Share with me a little bit about how zines are your choice of art medium?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:08:32] I love the nature of how like accessible they are. I think I kind of started out as an illustrator and an essayist separately. But then I realized as I was like writing essays I couldn’t necessarily share those things immediately with my mom. She’s not super fluent in English, right? But like when I combined the medium of illustration and writing into creating a comic in a zine, I could show that to my mom and even if she can’t fully understand all the writing she could still access, like the actual medium. And then the form of the zine is something that is meant to be taken away. It’s meant to be shared with other people. I started going to a lot of zine fests last year and it just made me realize like, oh yeah, I want all my stuff to be accessible, right? Like I don’t want it necessarily to be underneath a pay wall or things of that nature. I think there’s something like, you know, for lack of a better word, very like, democratic about zine making, and as well as, comics generally.
Miko Lee: [00:09:20] I love how you do the mom test.
Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:22] Yes. It’s funny, I wrote, an essay about my grandmother, actually, in the Asian American Writers Workshop like 2021, and I had to literally translate the entire thing for her to read it to make sure all the details were right, and I was like, wait, I could have just made this easier by like illustrating some of it to make it accessible across language barriers and things of that nature.
Miko Lee: [00:09:40] And has Maria read through the scene?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:42] Yes, she has.
Miko Lee: [00:09:44] What has been her take on it?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:09:46] She actually sent me a very long signal which like made me cry because I was like, oh my god, I can’t believe she actually thought this about the work. She was talking about how it helped her reflect on everything she’s gone through but also like these relationships that have really sustained her. Namely like, I mentioned this person named Granny in the comic who I’ve met who’s essentially like the person who adopted Maria when she just became incarcerated and was dealing with the fallout and trauma of sexual violence and things of that nature. The comic reminds Maria of just her growth essentially over all these years, but also all these rich relationships that still continue to sustain her like across carceral walls and things of that nature.
Miko Lee: [00:10:17] And what do you hope people that come and see your work and take one of your zines, what do you hope that they walk away with?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:10:25] The obvious answer to the question is, like, how cruel the prison to deportation pipeline is. For someone to build such wonderful communities in the United States and for borders being so arbitrary and things of that nature that they can be stolen away from these communities at any point, and how cruel and unnecessary that all feels for immigrants and refugees who have been criminalized to experience this kind of double punishment. I think the other element of it is the ways that women, specifically currently and formerly incarcerated women create these networks of care amongst each other that, in light of the state not supporting them and their healing, whether they’ve experienced gendered or sexual violence, these people will find each other, these women will find each other and they’ll be able to support each other and help each other through these processes of healing and also like fighting sexual violence in the carceral system. Yeah, just like highlighting those kinds of like organic networks and that relationship building that we don’t necessarily get to see in like, for example, like mainstream media or like policy making or things of that nature.
Miko Lee: [00:11:18] What will people see when they walk into the Rdge on the Square exhibit space?
Trần Châu Hà: [00:11:23] Yes, you will see 15 comic pages in acrylic frames and then underneath that will be a table with actually takeaways. So feel free to take the comic away in like a booklet form as well, but you can also read it out on the wall when you walk in.
Miko Lee: [00:11:35] Thank you so much for sharing with us about your artistry and your vision and your story about Maria and your connection with Asian Prisoner Support Committee. We look forward to seeing your work.
Trần Châu Hà: [00:11:45] Thank you, Miko. Pleasure speaking with you.
Miko Lee: [00:11:48] Next up, listen to “Staygo” from DARKHEART, A Concert Narrative by singer and songwriter Golda Sargento.
MUSIC
That was the voice of Golda Sargento from the new Filipinx futurism punk rock sci-fi DARKHEART. Katie Quan, artist, activist, ethnic studies teacher. I’m so happy to have you on Apex Express. And the first question I want to ask you is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Katie Quan: [00:16:51] I would say that my people, I really strongly identify with Asian American movement artists, makers, and shakers from like the 60s and 70s. It was my first introduction to really seeing Chinese Americans be out there and be really vocal, be excited, and be loud and angry about all these different topics. And so I’ve really gravitated towards just all that excitement, all that energy over the past decade just after learning more about them. I really just enjoyed seeing what that looks like and how we can continue that energy, especially for East Asian Americans here in the States, as we move into a new generation of game makers.
Miko Lee: [00:17:38] Tell us about how you carry that legacy of feisty activism into your work as an artist.
Katie Quan: [00:17:44] I like to consider myself a legacy of the Asian American movement. My grandparents came here in the 30s and 40s. I also have great grandparents and great great grandparents who traveled between the US and China, back and forth, back and forth and so I find myself really attached to their stories as well as how they’ve overcome a lot of those obstacles that Chinese Americans had to face during that time frame. My parents are both second generation Chinese American. They met at Self-Help for the Elderly, which was a organization that came from the Asian American movement in terms of making sure that our elderly are actually taken care of and have culturally relevant care. My parents were very much interested in enrolling us into bilingual education. Bilingual education was not a popular educational pedagogy at that point, partly because people thought that if you learned another language that was not English, that you would lose your Americanness in a lot of ways. And so one of the things that I really like to bring into my art is making sure that legacy and that history is always challenged and always, it feels relevant to where we are now, but also can meet other people where they’re at. I do understand that not everyone gets to have a lot of those kinds of privileges where they see themselves, in their role models or that they didn’t grow up around the history, I understand that that’s the case. And so making sure that the work that I always produce meets people where they need to be at, is something of interest and something that I carry with me in all my work.
Miko Lee: [00:19:32] Thank you, Katie. Can you talk about the work that you have been doing with Chinese for Affirmative Action and tell us about the reparations zine that you’ve been developing?
Katie Quan: [00:19:43] Me and a team of other artists, academics and activists have been working to make a reparations zine alongside Chinese for Affirmative Action. Here in San Francisco reparations is still a very contentious issue. So one of the things that we’re trying to really bring about and inform, especially the Chinese American demographics, is what reparations are and how we can support the work that black communities need and what they’re doing at the moment. Within the zine, we are really covering what reparations are, how African Americans in San Francisco have contributed to the making of the city and also the Bay Area, how their community has been bulldozed in many, many ways, whether it’s through health, environmental justice, redlining, all of these different issues. What’s happened in the past 50, 60 years reparations is that first step in terms of saying sorry and, how can we begin to mend this wound that the United States has created consistently over time with this particular population.
Miko Lee: [00:20:54] What has surprised you about this process?
Katie Quan: [00:20:58] It’s hard. [Laughs] And not that I didn’t think it wasn’t going to be hard. But I think the team that we’ve been working with, we’ve been really fortunate because we have some, second, third and fourth generation activists and artists, but we also have a team of other people who are new immigrants, and we’ve been really fortunate to learn from their perspective. And so rather than approaching it in a lens that talks about anti-blackness, sometimes it’s talking about what it means to be American. And how do we participate in democracy? It’s bringing a very positive spin, or just kind of a different spin to topics that we already know, and then that we talk about all the time, but making sure that it’s accessible to everybody.
Miko Lee: [00:21:46] So this zine is going to be available for free in the Edge on the Square exhibition. Can you talk about what people will see when they walk into the exhibition and see your work? What are they going to see? What are they going to experience?
Katie Quan: [00:21:59] Yeah, we are hoping to make sure that our exhibition is big and it’s bold, but at the same time it feels simple in its messaging. Asking people a little bit about what they know about reparations, being able to challenge their own thinking of what they know about black communities here in San Francisco, what they’ve done. Also talking about how we ourselves get information, how do we learn the things that we know and how can we challenge that? Or how can we push that forward? And so we will have an interactive element, but we will also have the zine there available, which will be created both in English and in Chinese for anybody who needs it. We will also have additional resources via QR code so that if anybody has any other questions or want to learn more about it, want to act on their excitement for this particular issue that they can also do so.
Miko Lee: [00:22:58] And what do you hope that people will walk away from your after taking away your zine after seeing the exhibit? What are you hoping that they will learn or or do after seeing your work?
Katie Quan: [00:23:10] One of the things that we kind of came across when creating the zine is that people had very strong opinions about reparations. They didn’t always have all the information, but they had very strong opinions and they had very particular beliefs that come from their own life experiences. Our goal for this is not necessarily to persuade one way or the other, but it’s to make sure that they’re informed and just making sure that they have all the facts so that they can make a decision that best suits their own life experiences. We’re also hoping that people walk away feeling like they know a little bit more and that they can share that with their own communities in a way that makes sense for them.
Miko Lee: [00:23:51] Katie Quan, thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express.
Katie Quan: [00:23:54]Yes, thank you so much.
Miko Lee: [00:23:55] Next up, take a listen to “Live It Up” by Bay Area’s Power Struggle.
MUSIC
That was “Live It Up”by Bay Area’s Power Struggle. Welcome Tsim Nuj to Apex Express.
Tsim Nuj: [00:27:32] Hi, Miko. Thank you so much for having me today.
Miko Lee: [00:27:37] Can I start with just by asking you, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Tsim Nuj: [00:27:46] Who are my people and what legacy do I carry with me? My people are Hmong. My ancestors were living in northern Laos, in the mountains and in the jungles and farming. That’s where my lineage and then my ancestors had to flee their homes because of the Vietnam War and the secret war in Laos to find refuge in Thailand and then now we’re here in the US. specifically in Merced, California in the Central Valley on indigenous Yokut land. So yeah, that’s my, those are my people. I think that my community here in Merced that I organize with, who are also queer and trans folks of color are also my people. And I think that the legacy that I carry is this legacy of, I carry this legacy of love. I think that in moments of having to find home and having to survive, I think that love really grounded my people and my people’s families. And so I think that I’m really holding onto this act of loving. That I think really grounds me and really affirms who I am and the journey as I honor my ancestors. And I really, as I think about the descendants, right, my descendants, the young people who are a emerging and, you know, the future generations that are coming. And so I think that there’s this really special moment where I feel like I’m really longing to connect with my ancestors, especially those who were queer and trans, my queer and trans Hmong ancestors. And I’ve been also connecting with my descendants. And then I think that there’s also this present moment, right, where I’m also connected deeply with my community, who consists of being children of immigrant refugees, you know, queer and trans folks, and folks that are really reimagining and really fighting for a world where we can all be liberated and be our full, authentic, genuine, loving selves.
Miko Lee: [00:29:58] Thank you for sharing. Your art form is as a dancer, as a movement person, and you’ve created a video for the Walking Stories exhibition. Can you tell us the name of that video and what inspired you to create that?
Tsim Nuj: [00:30:14] I feel really honored to be a part of the Walking Stories exhibit, and this is actually my first exhibit that I get to be a part of and share my work in and so it feels very exciting and it feels very, like such an honor that I get to be a part of this project that’s a collection of works who the artists and yeah, the folks that are a part of this are just such like incredible, brilliant beings, sharing our stories. And so my dance video The title of it is Our Queer Hmong Love Dance. What really inspired this piece was this idea of being home, right? And this idea of belonging. There’s, there’s so much ideas that came up for me. And I think that these ideas were coming up because of a recent transition. Last year, around this time, actually, I graduated from UC San Diego, and I was coming home, right, after five years. And so I think that this piece is really about connecting with my roots and finding home specifically in Merced and in the Central Valley. And really trying to think about who I am as a Hmong person. But it was also about who I was as a Hmong and queer person, right? A queer and Hmong person. And so I started to think about these rituals or these sounds and these movements that I really needed to explore. And so a lot of that exploration and that work. I got to practice and be in process and I think it’s really what I needed in this moment. And so I’m really grateful I’m really grateful that I get to share it with my community and I’m really grateful that I get to share with my community and the folks that come and see our exhibit and I really I’m really hopeful that folks will resonate with it and really get to just witness me.
Miko Lee: [00:32:14] And so folks will come to the exhibit, they’ll see all these different works, they’ll see a booth that will have your film playing in it. Is there something that you want to have your audience lingering with or thinking about after they watch your work?
Tsim Nuj: [00:32:30] Yes. I really want my audience, the folks that come to the exhibit, feel invited to witness my piece, my video in the booth. I want them to allow themselves to really feel, right, whatever they’re feeling, whatever is coming up for them. Whether it’s the sounds that are guiding them, whether it’s the visuals, right. Whether it’s, you know, there might be some words or some images that come up, and I really want the audience to just really be with their bodies. Be with their minds, their spirits, right? And I, I hope that they allow themselves to just feel it. And I, I remember having a conversation with you Miko about this like meditative presence. And so I’m hoping that my audience or the folks that come and witness the entire exhibit, right? I hope that they are curious, and that they really allow themselves to just be with the work, whatever that means for them. I don’t want to tell people how to watch my work, right? But I do want them to just really, be with it, right? And, and if you can, I hope that you’ll be able to watch it for its entirety. I think that there’s something really beautiful happening, with how I have put this video together and so I hope that you can be with it. Take the deep breaths. Take those breaths, right, pay attention to the sensations that you experience in your body.
What I want the audience to take away from after seeing my piece, I hope that they get to receive it and that they breathe it in and they’re with it, right. And that they really see me and see the people that are in this video. And I hope that they see parts of themselves in it, and parts of their stories and their journeys. And I also really want them to think about these questions that I propose and that I ask, right? That I’m also asking myself. This piece is a dedication, right? I think that I’m creating this piece for my ancestors. I’m dancing for my descendants, and I think I’m also asking them, I’m in conversation with them, right? About where is home? Especially for folks who have been displaced, because of very violent histories of war and persecution and having to flee our homes, right, and survive all that, like, thinking about our indigenous relatives here on Turtle Island and thinking about Palestinians in Gaza. I think that, there’s in this moment, this piece, I do ask, and I am trying to find this home, this idea of going home. And also how do we dance there, right? Like, how do we dance towards home? And so what is dance for us? I’m just really inspired by, black queer and trans feminists, specifically Prentiss Hemphill, and just the conversations that Prentiss has shared on their Spotify podcast, go and check it out. I think that this piece is also about remembering and honoring the folks who have come before me and the folks that will arrive after me.
Miko Lee: [00:35:32] Tsi Nuj, thank you so much for sharing your story. And we look forward to seeing your dance piece in Walking Stories.
Tsim Nuj: [00:35:41] Thank you so much, Miko, for your time and for creating the space for me. Yeah, I like, I think there’s a lot of excitement that I feel in my body. And so like, I want to talk about the work, but please, please, please, for whoever is listening, come and be with us. Come and experience our work and be in conversation with us. I think it’s really important in this moment for us to uplift one another’s voices and really affirm each other’s stories. When we think about collective liberation, it really is doing this work, right? Of thinking about what is collective care and collective love look like, how do we lean into our creativity, our ancestral technologies and practices to really make meaning of how we show up in this world, right? And to really empower us, right? To, you know, continue showing up for one another and because we know that this work is lifelong. Healing and, you know, really creating this world where we are all free. I hope that the folks that are listening to this and the folks that come to the exhibit and everybody, right, I really hope that we can feel how important it is for each one of us and all of us to be in this movement towards the liberation of everybody, right? Because our liberations are, are so deeply intertwined and connected. So thank you.
Miko Lee: [00:37:04] Thank you so much. That was great. Let’s take a listen to one of Byron Au Young’s compositions called “Know Your Rights.” This is part of the trilogy of the activists songbook. This multi-lingual rap gives steps to know what to do when ICE officers come to your door.
MUSIC
That was “Know Your Rights” performed by Jason Chu with lyrics by Aaron Jafferis and composed by Byron Au Young. Welcome Visibility Project and Related Tactics to Apex Express. I’m so happy to have you all with me this evening, and I would love to just ask you all the question I love asking for people, which is what is your story? What’s your background? And what legacy do you carry with you? And let’s start with Weston.
Weston Teruya: [00:40:12] I am a Japanese American and Okinawa American from Hawaii. I identify as an Asian American and person of color, and I draw on the histories of cross-racial solidarity between communities as a strategic alliance and community building effort for justice.
Miko Lee: [00:40:34] Thanks, Weston. And Michelle, how about you? Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Michelle K Carlson: [00:40:41] Hi, thanks, Miko. I’m Korean American. I grew up in Seattle, Washington and spent most of my time on the West Coast. I, similar to Weston, operate in a realm of cross racial solidarity, linking myself often to histories of racial solidarity justice movements. Weston and I are representing Related Tactics, which is an artist collective that also anchors itself within these histories of cross racial solidarity. We make all sorts of artistic works at the intersection of race and culture.
Miko Lee: [00:41:18] Thanks, Michelle. And finally, Mia Nakano, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
Mia Nakano: [00:41:24] Thank you so much for having me here. I’m Mia Nakano she/her pronouns and I’m the executive director of the Visibility Project. I am a queer fourth generation Japanese American woman. I am the daughter of a single mother and the sibling of a deaf adult. And I think that all of those relationships and intersectional identities bring forth all of the work that I do. And so I think about queer ancestors, I think about accessibility in the deaf community, I think about all of the really powerful women that have been incredibly present in my life to shape who I am today.
Miko Lee: [00:42:10] Thank you, Mia. And you are two different groups of artists. One is Visibility Project. The other is Related Tactics. Can you share with us a little bit about how this collaboration came about?
Mia Nakano: [00:42:22] I was invited to participate as a contributing artist in one of Related Tactics’ very first shows back in, I believe, in 2016, and have been following their work as a growing artistic practice and a collective for quite some time. I’ve always been thinking about how could the Visibility Project as a queer led, you know queer, LGBTQ, archiving and organizing artistic practice collaborate with this cross racial, very intersectional, collective in Related Tactics. One of the ideas that has sort of been percolating for me over a long period of time was that so many queer Asian American organizations and so many queer spaces have all come out of the idea and like the gathering around potluck spaces, right?
So potlucks being safe spaces for queer folks, for folks of color, for marginalized communities who didn’t have safe spaces to gather. And many queer Asian organizations started off with potlucks that then turned into social and political groups, which then shifted into political advocacy and culture change, and then ultimately like legislative change. And I saw such deep connections in terms of how I see related tactics and experience related tactics. It’s building roots and planting seeds for multiple relationships and collaborations through the different intersecting ways that our communities have been able to come together over the past few years.
Miko Lee: [00:44:18] So how did this collaboration begin working on this concept around potlucks?
Michelle K Carlson: [00:44:24] This is Michelle from Related Tactics. The three of us have known each other for a long time and Mia and I have worked together in a lot of different capacities over the years. I think Related Tactics, at the core of what we do is coming together with this kind of shared belief and shared value system around collectivity as this really productive material and tool and method for creative action in the world. I think at the core of that is understanding that we don’t have all the information and we don’t like to be the only voice in the room and we are not the ones that necessarily should be telling the stories for everyone. Related Tactics, when we often get an opportunity, one of our common strategies is just to figure out a way to share that out and to bring more voices into the room to be in concert with our own. When we understood that the Visibility Project was also going to be a part of this project, we’re like we should join forces and bring our communities together. And I think we’ve been looking for a way to do that over the years.
Miko Lee: [00:45:35] Talk to me about the title, Nourishing Power. Where does that come from? What is that about?
Mia Nakano: [00:45:41] I think because of the individual artistic practices, And the people who comprise Related Tactics, and myself at the Visibility Project, we are all so incredibly busy, that all of our contributions to our various communities, whether it’s at universities, in social justice movements, in artistic organizations, we’re all about cultivating the power of other people while putting artists into artistic practices and people first, right? Like you have to, put on your oxygen mask first before you’re able to really step out and fully do the work that you want to be doing. And to do that, you have to nourish yourself, you have to nourish your power. And I think that there’s also the idea of the collectivity and framework that Related Tactics brings where we can all also do that for one another, right? When one person is at 10 percent capacity, the other two people can step forth and we can all move and lift each other up together rather than doing it as individuals.
Miko Lee: [00:46:52] Thank you. And Weston, what can people expect when they walk into Edge on the Square, the corner of Grant and Clay? What will they see that will show them your work?
Weston Teruya: [00:47:04] So the center point of our installation is going to be these carts with an array of takeaways that people are free to engage with in different ways, and they are essentially prompt for various potlucks that, we’ve contributed as a themes and as collaborators and then have also invited a group of additional artists to contribute as well. One of the modes that Related Tactics works in is in the form of the takeaway and part of the impetus behind that is that we want to provide the seed for people to create their own sort of spaces and gatherings and encounters with people beyond the gallery walls. We don’t want art to just be this thing that only exists in these defined spaces. We’ve had different projects that use that mode, and this is one of them. We invite people to engage with it, take these ideas, plant the seeds for their own potlucks beyond the walls of the gallery and hopefully have these opportunities to build community, in their own spaces, in their own worlds, amongst their own networks of people.
Miko Lee: [00:48:12] I love the accessible takeaway. I still have a divest yourself matchbox from one of your shows. [Laughs] I love that. Michelle, what’s a concrete example of a takeaway from Nourishing Power?
Michelle K Carlson: [00:48:27] One of the examples I would talk about is, one of the artists we’ve invited, Joy Enriquez, has created like hundreds of tiny ceramic spoons. They’re thinking a lot about how does one articulate when they need support. They talk about it as if one only has so many spoons to use in a day, but you have way more things you need to do with those spoons. How do you survive that? How do you ask for support? How do you allocate those spoons to this kind of overwhelming existence? They have all these really beautiful prompts that will be printed on a card to take away, but then also you can take away a ceramic spoon that they’ve been spending many hours in a ceramic studio, making and firing. I think there’s this idea too, that there’s many, many ways one can use that spoon that can exist to support your day to day that you might not think about. So they have some things that are about how one might hold or touch the spoon or things you might do with it that isn’t just about eating. That also really embodies the spirit of this project, that it’s also not just about potlucks in the sense of like, bring food to a table, but that it’s about this kind of space to share knowledge, to share resources, to exchange things when you don’t feel like you have the thing you’re supposed to bring, or you can’t meet the expectation, the greater expectations of what is supposed to occur in that moment. But that the potluck is a space for us to share and support each other in ways that we maybe have not been able to imagine yet.
Miko Lee: [00:50:06] Ooh, I love that. And Mia, how many different artists are there? How many, and how did you go about selecting all these different artists that are participating?
Mia Nakano: [00:50:15] There’s over a dozen artists who are participating, and we collectively just started brainstorming and extending out invitations to our various communities and folks that we’ve worked with in the past, folks who, have participated in Related Tactic shows or know, you know, through other pathways and connections. And then I just reached out to a few Visibility Project participants, even folks going back that I interviewed over 15 years ago to ask if they would be willing to participate. Each person was invited to create one prompt, one initial prompt of what the potluck would be, like if they were to have a potluck, right? So we have somebody who put forth a potluck for screaming, a potluck for nourishing. So different artists are putting forth their own individual potlucks, and one prompt connected to that, and then folks will be able to use that as a seed to create their own gathering spaces in the future.
Miko Lee: [00:51:15] If there’s an action word that you would want people to walk away with, what’s that action word after they go to see your exhibit? What is the verb that you want them to do?
Weston Teruya: [00:51:27] I think it might be gather. That’s sort of the crux of what we’re hoping to seed.
Miko Lee: [00:51:33] What about an emotion? Is there an emotion you want folks to walk away with?
Mia Nakano: [00:51:38] I like the idea of gathering, in that also kind of to be able to connect, right? Like we’re not just coming together, like we’re building something that we want to connect and maintain.
Michelle K Carlson: [00:51:50] Yeah. And I think also like exchanging, right? It’s like something really active is happening, there’s an exchange, everybody’s kind of, there’s like a reciprocity too. That you know, that nobody is hosting, like everybody’s coming and sharing and exchanging and giving and receiving and maybe nourish is actually the right, I don’t know if nourish is an emotion, but I think in the social justice world it is. [Laughs] So it feels like nourish actually is probably a useful emotion. I think reciprocity is also like a feeling that should happen, that when you are giving you’re not doing so to the point of extraction because you are also receiving. And that’s I think one of the core things about this project wasn’t just about Related Tactics and or Visibility Project offering ideas. It was like, we have created a prompt for a potluck and in many ways audience members will come into the show and see our potluck because it will have all these contributions from all these other artists. And so you get to kind of leave with like a goodie bag, doggie bag that is like the kind of residue of our potluck. We hope that folks go home and do that for themselves within their communities, either using our prompts or using our prompts as a platform to create their own space.
Miko Lee: [00:53:18] Is there a perfect amount of people to attend a potluck? Like how many dishes do you want at your potluck?
Michelle K Carlson: [00:53:26] I feel like we’re in like a seven to ten vibe. Like 15 tops, then it’s too many. You know, it’s like, because not too many, but it, there’s a different thing that’s happening when you get over 15 people in a room. But like, I feel like 10 is the zone where you can still have kind of like close intimate, you know, conversations where you can like build trust, you can spend some time, get around to see everyone, get a little bit of everybody’s, you know, contribution, and then, but it’s not like so small that it’s like you and one other person and you’re on a very awkward blind date or something.
Miko Lee: [00:54:09] And are you all down for the themed potlucks or do you like them to be just open ended, bring whatever you want?
Mia Nakano: [00:54:17] I love a themed potluck. I love just like some sort of container where you’re going in and you’re acknowledging I’ve got dessert, or we’re gonna go over to Southeast Asia, rather than everybody showing up with ten pots of rice and they’re just eating rice all night.
Michelle K Carlson: [00:54:35] Or tortilla chips, or like Trader Joe’s brownie bites, like five containers of those. No shame on brownie bites.
Miko Lee: [00:54:44] Okay, how can folks find out more about your work?
Mia Nakano: [00:54:48] So folks want to check out what the Visibility Project is doing, you can go to visibilityproject.org and learn about all the participants and hear their stories and even go on an LGBTQ digital history tour of the Asian American community in the Bay Area.
Michelle K Carlson: [00:55:04] If you want to find out more about Related Tactics, you can go to relatedtactics.com or find us on Instagram and our handle is just at Related Tactics.
Miko Lee: [00:55:15] Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing your work in the show and feeling nourished and planning my next potluck. Thank you so much. So that was a chance to listen to just a few of the artivists that are part of Walking Stories. You got a little insight into where they’re coming from and how they created their pieces. And there’s so many more artivists that you didn’t get to hear from. So I hope you’ll come to our exhibit that runs June 29th through the end of December. We’ll be at Edge on the Square in San Francisco Chinatown. We’ll put a link in the show notes at our website kpfa.org backslash programs, backslash apex express. We hope that you’ll join us and share your story too, because all of us have important stories to tell. Thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Hien Nguyen, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Nate Tan, Paige Chung, Preti Mangala-Shekar, and Swati Rayasam. Tonight’s show was produced by Miko Lee and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.
The post APEX Express – June 13, 2024- Walking Stories appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Tonight, we’re going to continue to highlight the podcast Continental Shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owoimaha-Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors.
TRANSCRIPT
Episode 4 with Yan Yii
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression.
Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Swati Rayasam: [00:00:35] Good evening, everyone. You’re listening to Apex Express Thursday nights at 7 PM. My name is Swati Rayasam and I’m the special editor for this episode. Tonight, we’re going to continue to highlight the podcast Continental Shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owoimaha-Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, gabriel and Estella talked about anti-blackness in the PI community. And tonight they’re talking to union leader and educator Yan Yii about creating culturally relevant classrooms, the importance and emotional toll of teachers being a social safety net for marginalized students, and the ever-growing union presence in education. If this is your first touch into the ConShifts podcast, I strongly recommend diving into the apex archives on kpfa.org, backslash programs, backslash apex express. But for now, let’s get to the show.
Yan Yii: [00:01:38] But what about the other 179 days? We can’t just celebrate them for one day a year. Or one month a year. We can’t just say, okay, Black History Month and we’re done. We have to celebrate our students all year long. Because, and we need to change the curriculum. You know, we talked about decolonizing curriculum. I am purposeful in the books that I choose to use in my classroom because, yes, I can teach “Number the Stars” for the 600th time, or maybe I can decide to use a book that reflects my students.
Gabriel: [00:02:10] How do we attract API educators into the workforce and support them throughout their professional journey? In this episode, we rap with Yan Yii on increasing the number of API educators that are coming through our teacher pipeline and emerging as union leaders.
Estella: [00:02:26] What up, what up? Tālofa lava, o lo’u igoa o Estella. My pronouns are she/her/hers, sis, and uso.
Gabriel: [00:02:32] What’s good, family? This is Gabriel. Kumusta? Pronouns, he/him.
Estella: [00:02:36] I have the pleasure of introducing our guest today, Yan Yii. Yan is a fifth grade teacher in Canton, Massachusetts, local board president of the Canton Teachers Association. NEA Board of Director for Massachusetts and serves as the Northeast Regional Director for the NEA Asian and Pacific Islanders Caucus. We want to be intentional, though, about not centering our professions above who we are. So Yan, could you please share with us who you are, how do you identify, and who are your people?
Yan Yii: [00:03:05] Hi, as you said, I’m a fifth grade teacher. I’m in my 14th year of teaching. In Massachusetts public schools and I am one of six or seven Asian Pacific Islander NEA board of directors. And I think that number has doubled since last year, which is pretty exciting. I would say that I am a proud daughter of two immigrant Chinese parents. My dad grew up in Malaysia and my mom grew up in Hong Kong and you know being Chinese has always been a huge part of who I am, but it’s also been an interesting divide growing up in America because, I’ve always been split between speaking English and speaking Chinese, you know, even an elementary level, my life was so split in two having my Chinese school on Sundays while all my friends went to church and then going to American school during the week. And that was a huge part of my life separating out, you know, who I was at school and who I was at home, what I spoke at school and what I spoke at home. And, you know, it’s funny being bilingual. My friends have always asked like, “When did you learn how to speak English?” And I’m like, “I don’t remember.” I know I went to school speaking English. I know that my brothers have always only spoken to me in English, but my parents only speak Cantonese to me. You know, Boston is a huge Cantonese community or it used to be anyways, it’s a little more mixed now in our Chinatown, but it’s an interesting divide because I remember being in college and having friends who made fun of the way I talked my English was spoken weirdly from my American friends and my Chinese was off for my Chinese friends. It was this difficulty finding a place where you really belong but I would say a huge part of why I became an educator was because of learning about my identity and being that kid who always loved school. I mean, I’m the kind of kid who didn’t mind homework because I loved school so much. I was going home and playing school with my little brother and I remember, you know being 10 or 11 and my brother convincing me there was school in the middle of a snowstorm and I walked all the way to school because I wanted to be there and then I promplty went home because there was no school but it, you know, it’s, it’s some of those interesting things. Like growing up, aside from going to Chinese school, I really didn’t see a teacher who looked like me. Now, I’ve loved each and every single teacher I ever had. I loved making that connection with them, but I think it was really disappointing to not see anybody who looked like me, except when I went to Chinese school where everybody looked like me. So it was this place where I never really felt like I belonged. I grew up in Somerville, Massachusetts, which is pretty diverse. And in eighth grade, we moved to Stoneham, which is 98 percent white and all of a sudden it felt like I had even less of an identity. Like I didn’t know who I was supposed to be. And there was no one really who looks like me. And the few that did look like me were either adopted or didn’t speak the language or they didn’t share the same culture as me. I think that’s the reason why when I went to college, I went to Simmons University, and the minute I got in there I signed up for Chinese classes. I became an East Asian studies major, even though I am not a history person at all. Because I felt like I needed to find my identity and I joined the Asian Students Association like, it was literally grasping at anything that could help me feel like I had some sort of identity.
Gabriel: [00:06:40] That’s such a powerful point in thinking about how much seeing your culture and identity reflected throughout your educational experience would matter. Even though it was absent, it causes us to want to explore and like you said, grasp for spaces where we can connect with people who share that identity and share that culture. So, part of our conversation here today is really to unpack the landscape of public education and thinking about how API educators aren’t largely represented, depending on what state or local or part of the country you’re from. But, Yan, I wanted to ask you, from your perspective as an API educator and a union leader with perspective across the state, but also nationally, why do you think there are so few API educators in the workforce?
Yan Yii: [00:07:35] Well, I think part of that, especially in the East Asian culture, is built into our culture, right? It’s this idea of is being a teacher a good enough job? I mean, I know when I came home from college and said i’m going into education that was my junior year of college I had already said that I was going to be a psychologist and all of a sudden I came home and I said I’m gonna be a teacher. And no one was upset that I wanted to be a teacher, but they were like, “Are you sure that’s the journey for you? Are you sure that’s where you want to be? Do you know how much a teacher makes? Is that a good enough job for you?” But like I said, I’ve always loved education. I think it’s the perfect job for me. I think these, it’s one of those professions that you’re kind of born into. But I don’t think it’s celebrated among many cultures. Particularly like my Chinese parents, they didn’t deter me from being a teacher, but they did say, “Is this the right path for you? Because we don’t want to have to worry about you.” But I think also when you don’t see yourself reflected in the field when you don’t see other AAPI teachers or people working in education, that it makes you feel like there’s not a place for you. And it’s always about that sense of belonging. Even when I’ve seen other educators come into the field, if they don’t feel like they have someone they can connect with, or, you know. You’re facing microaggressions every single day and believe me, I have seen microaggressions in my community where I work, and I have been there for 14 years. And they’re never, I would like to believe they’re not, they don’t come from malintent, but it feels that way sometimes. And I think that when you feel like an island, it becomes very difficult for people to stay in the profession.
Gabriel: [00:09:15] Can definitely relate to that portion. Just again, that whole idea that we need to have representation in part so we can see ourselves in those roles. And the question that you ask, is being a teacher a quote, good enough job? And that narrative playing out in perhaps immigrant family experiences with the whole idea of migrating to the United States is to try to climb this ladder of socioeconomic elevation in some way. I wanted to also ask Estella, since you know, our co host here is a classroom educator out in California. Do you feel like there’s a strong representation of API educators throughout the West Coast in California? Or how is the perception of API representation out there in your spaces?
Estella: [00:10:10] In my observations I would say definitely not enough, especially as a PI educator, as a Samoan educator, definitely not enough. Part of the reason why I chose to become an educator, and I feel like there’s a list of reasons why I chose education as my profession, and I agree with Yan it is definitely like a calling, right? Like folks who choose this, this is a lifestyle. And it’s far more than just a job or a career and so there are so many reasons why I chose to be a teacher. But one reason why I chose specifically to make sure that I came back home to teach aside from my great aunt saying to me right before she passed away, I was the first in my family to go to college. First to finish and my aunt before she passed, she said, “You know, all of that will do no good if you stay in your ivory tower.” After hearing her say that and then losing her, I was very much committed to making sure that I came back home to teach. Early on in my career when I was younger or still in school, I was always feeling like, you know, I want to, I want to travel and teach. I’m going to go, I want to go to Japan. I want to go to Switzerland. I want to go to all these places and teach. And after my aunt said that, I was like, why? Why would I, why would I do that? I need to go home and teach. I need to go back to South Central to South LA and teach and so I ended up coming back to the South Bay to teach because I had assumed that this was going to be a place where I could teach Black and Samoan kids just like me. Because I had never had a Samoan teacher. I had never had a PI teacher ever in my life and I did have Black teachers and that’s only because my parents were very deliberate in sending me to a Black school in South LA, for elementary school. But the experience changed in public high school and so I was committed to coming back home to be in a space where I knew I would see Tongan kids, Samoan kids, Fijian kids and then when I got here, my second year teaching and I was like, where, where are my peoples? Where is everybody? Like, I know that when I was a kid, this was because my mom went to Gardena High School. I just knew like growing up, I saw Samoans all over the place and suddenly there were none at the school that I was teaching at. And in my years teaching in the South Bay, I taught in the South Bay for six, nearly seven years. It was a continuous decline of enrollment of PI students. There’s a whole host of reasons. One reason, right off the bat, and it goes to everything that Yan has already said, there was no sense of belonging. Or cultural understanding of any of those students in addition, or similarly, there’s a continual decline of Black families in our schools in this area. And I’m not saying that the decline has anything to do with, like, the influx or rise of other populations. I think it needs to be pinned squarely on the fact that PI Students are not receiving the support, academic supports they need, or the social emotional supports they need. There is research to show that there is a push out of PI girls and Black girls. They are more likely to be suspended or expelled and pushed out of our schools. In addition, if the boys are not playing football, there’s not a lot of support or welcoming or belonging created for those students and definitely no teachers who can connect to them on, on a cultural level or literally speak the language and there’s probably a great deal of linguistic needs that aren’t being met. They might speak English, but if their first language was Samoan they probably need a lot more EL supports that we don’t have programs built for. And so students are leaving, parents are opting for private education or other places where they should go. So I think, I don’t know how to name it, but there has to be a correlation with the student population and the number of educators that are also in the space. I’m here to teach students who, you know, I assume or imagine probably going through very similar things I went through as a kid, and there’s no one here for me to teach. You know what I mean? Like, like what I set out to accomplish, I don’t know that I will be able to.
Gabriel: [00:14:47] Stella, there were two things from what you just shared that are resonating for me. First, the push out of PI and Black students in schools. I think it’s important to note that when we think about API: Asian and Pacific Islanders that we perceive this group of people or group of students as a monolith. And when you disaggregate the data, Even though the perception is that API as an aggregate is more highly educated, has higher socioeconomic status, et cetera, et cetera, that when you disaggregate the data, it’s important to understand what the impact is on the various communities that exist within that umbrella of API. The other thing you said Estella, about coming back and it being a calling to connect with students that you reflect and reflect you and your cultural identity. That resonated with me when I was teaching in the classroom in Bergenfield, New Jersey. It was one of the largest Filipino populations in New Jersey. Jersey City, I think is the highest Filipino population, but part of my experience there and being able to connect with Filipino students and families. It made that passion grow even more. So part of what I wanted to ask Yan and Estella both is. If we have listeners listening to this podcast right now, say young API folks that are thinking about their calling and exploring their direction in their future, what about teaching inspires passion for you that would make it attractive for API folks listening to this podcast, be inspired to consider choosing this as a direction in their life’s path.
Yan Yii: [00:16:40] I think one of the things that really resonates with me as an educator and the reason why I love it so much, you know, I’ve been back and forth with my involvement in my local union and the fact that it takes me away from my classroom, it’s the connections that I make with my students. That, I think that’s the most important thing to me, like, how I connect with my students, how I can support them, whether it’s through, you know, a few years ago I started a fifth grade, like, show choir. Might have been a little bit Glee inspired, but, you know, it’s the fact that my students were willing to give up their recess once a week to come sing with me and dance with me. And, art club after school, they’re willing to give up their time, but it’s that making those connections with the students and then having those students come back and say, you really changed my life. When I first started teaching, I had a student who was probably the most happy go lucky child I’d ever seen. And she wrote to me years later and said, “You saved my life. Like I was in such a hard place,” and this is, I’m talking about a nine year old child, when she was in my class and she said, “I was in such a bad place and my home life was not good. And, and you made me feel loved.” And that’s what we’re supposed to do as educators. We’re supposed to make our students feel loved. And I think especially when I talk about this in terms of Asian Pacific Islander identity, when you don’t feel that connection to your classroom and you don’t feel like your teacher sees that part of you, because you know, I hear educators say a lot, “Oh, I, I don’t see color.” And I’m always like, but when you don’t see color, it’s the danger of a single story, right? You’re only seeing one part of your student, you’re seeing the academics of that student. But, you know, I remember a few years ago, one of the big things I’ve always done in my classroom is celebrate Lunar New Year, because it’s a huge celebration for my family. I wanted to share that with my students, and you know, two boys in one of my coworker’s class had said, they were so excited to share about their culture and what they do at home. And she’s like, well, then that was great. And I said, yes, it was. But what about the other 179 days? We can’t just celebrate them for one day a year, or one month a year. We can’t just say, okay, Black History Month and we’re done. We have to celebrate our students all year long. And we need to change the curriculum. You know, we talk about decolonizing curriculum. I am purposeful in the books that I choose to use in my classroom because yes, I can teach Number the Stars for the 600th time, or maybe I can decide to use a book that reflects my students. And, you know, that’s why I started my year off with Seedfolk, because I wanted to talk about what cultures coming together looked like, and you know, one of my students immediately said, he’s like, “Wow, I could see myself in that book.” And that’s what I want to hear from my students. I can see myself in that book. And it’s not the same whitewashed characters over and over and over again, because my students are gaining nothing from that. And it’s, it’s trying to make that relevant throughout the entire school and not just my classroom. But making that connection with my students I would say is what makes my job worth getting up for every single day.
Estella: [00:19:37] It is not lost on me that this is what episode four and nearly every guest we have had on this show, every single one of us have said that an important part of our journey was cultural or ethnic studies. At some point in our life, probably undergrad, graduate school, we made a very conscious choice to seek it out and go after it. And it was crucial to our becoming who we are, right? We’ve had professors, educators, social workers on the show, and every single person has stated that cultural studies was somewhere in their journey. So that’s not lost on me that you said earlier that, you know, that was an important part also of your journey. Even though you’re not, you’re like history [blows a raspberry], but [laughs] it was still an important part of becoming who you are as an educator and a leader. And I wanted to just call that out. You also mentioned how important it was to find a place of belonging, and I guess I struggle with actually encouraging young people to become educators, in part because I don’t know that the profession itself serves us the way it should. Right? Like, as a union leader, as a educator, as a Black woman, as a PI woman, I don’t know that our field has figured out how to take care of us the way it should and I don’t, I feel guilty, I guess, pushing young people to move into education. And that bothers me, right? Because the other, the flip side of that is we’re having this conversation: How do we get more educators in classrooms? And I’m struggling because I know we need more API representation in the field. But then I’m like, do I want to do that to people I care about? Because this profession does not lend itself to self care. We are not taught in our training programs how to create collectives or community you know, to survive our field. We don’t have open and honest conversations through that credentialing program about how we survive in this field you know. How do we deal with a lot of us are empaths, right? Like we are in this and we lead with our hearts. And when you’re dealing with your trauma and then a whole host of secondhand trauma. I didn’t take a class on that. You know [laughs] how to deal with your own emotions and carrying the weight of everything your kids are going through and you’re trying to, you know, help them as best as you can, while also dealing with your own. There was nothing to prepare me for that part of this, this industry. And I think that those of us who this is our calling we just put our heads down and we fight through and we push as hard as we can to show up, to continue to show up for our kids. But oftentimes it is absolutely at our detriment. We are self sacrificing martyrs more times than I think we should be. I’m just being honest, I’m not saying I plan on walking away from my classroom anytime soon, but I just wanted to, to state that. I definitely agree that the biggest thing that keeps me inspired or in the classroom is the relationships with students. The amount of times they, I mean, I teach high school, I’m secondary, so I’ve got ninth through twelfth graders, and every single grade level is its own special brand of hilarious. And I just love, I love those moments in between the lesson. I love the moment where they absolutely take charge of the lesson. I love moments where students are, you know, correcting and calling me out because I know learning is happening. I know that they, something has been ignited and lit and they’re questioning and they’re being curious and they’re pushing back and they’re thinking critically. So I welcome all of those moments and those are the best moments that keep me in the classroom and similar stories when kids come back or write me messages like miss, you know, I just, you know, thank you or I can’t wait for my younger sibling to be in your class or, you know, whatever the case may be, those are definitely the things that keep you in the classroom or keep you willing to keep coming back. Even though the profession does not look out for us or protect us or take care of us. Virtual teaching, if nothing else, has pointed out how bad these silos have gotten. Because during this virtual teaching, and I don’t know about other folks, but my experience has been I feel absolutely disconnected from colleagues. I could go a whole week without ever talking to another colleague. And it’s just me and students logging into Zoom and logging out. And so this has sort of made those silos even worse in some cases. But what I was thinking about when you were talking is there’s an added layer of culture. Like, if we’re having conversations about intersectionality that I think teachers of color deal with, that API teachers deal with, that other teachers may not fully understand and those microaggressions that you talk about, sometimes I don’t even like using the word microaggression because I, like you said, I feel like nah that was just aggressive, bro like you, you didn’t have to say what you said, the way you said it. It wasn’t, there was nothing micro about that. That was just straight up aggression. Cause like you, just unnecessary. And so there’s this added layer of like cultural and I guess this and I feel like I’m talking to circles now, but this goes back to feeling like the profession doesn’t take care of us. And there’s an added layer to that for Black teachers for Latinx teachers for API teachers. And so not only do we then burden the responsibility or we shoulder the burden of having to show up for every single kid who looks like us and sharing those experiences as first generation Americans and immigrant students, but we also then have the extra task of showing up for all the educators across the field who also share in, you know, why I had to go all the way to college just to figure out who I am and what my calling is and find a place where I could be and exist and belong.
Yan Yii: [00:26:17] I just wanted to say, you know, I think that the demand of educators because I’m mentoring a brand new teacher this year. She’s literally a one year teacher And she was made for this, right? Like, she was made to be an educator, but there are times where I’m like, you probably shouldn’t do this. Like, if there’s still time for you to get out, I’ve already put too many years into this. You know, I think back, you know, when the Boston Marathon bombing happened, and then the next day when my students came to school, they said, “What are you going to do to protect me?” So, so all of a sudden, and my fifth graders are 10 years old. All of a sudden, I’m not just your teacher now. Now I’m your protector. That is my job to sacrifice myself, and I would willingly do it for any of my students. To protect them. And then on top of it, now we’re in a pandemic and we’re learning in person. So, you know, I’m, I’m going to be 100 percent honest. I was exposed at school and I’m under isolation right now. Thankfully tested negative, but this is another layer that students have to deal with. And as students that now they’re worried that they’re going to one get us sick. And if we get sick, you know, there’s another layer of trauma and I feel like everywhere I turn, there’s more trauma and more administrators telling us, you should take care of yourself, but also I’m going to give you new curriculum. I’m going to give you this, this and this to do, but I’m not gonna take anything off your plate, but also take care of yourself. And I want to be able to tell new teachers it will change because let’s be honest, public education has been a pendulum. It goes to the extreme, and then it comes back because someone goes, Whoa, what are we doing? But I think there’s a lot of pressure on educators constantly to do the right thing and then to always put their students first. And you’re right, we end up sacrificing ourselves and our, our mental health and our well being for our students. How many teachers, you know, who probably have taken home like a student who doesn’t have a home or is spending their own money to buy students lunches or, or buy students clothes or whatever else they need to do, whatever else they need to do for their students. And we give and we give and we give, especially, you know, anytime we can, and I don’t ever want to not do that. But when you think about a brand new educator coming in, you go, you still have time, like, and it’s a terrible, terrible way to feel. But, one of the things that, you know, we started an Asian mentorship program this, last year, and honestly, it’s been a breath of fresh air to not be alone and we went from 12 people last year to 40 people this year. And it’s been like, wow, there are other people who are going through the same thing I’m going through and there are other people seeing what I’m seeing and on top of it being an educator of color, you have people, especially in your first three years of education that will doubt your abilities in the job because you probably got it because of the color of your skin, at least in their opinion. Right? And you’re fighting, like, if I didn’t have a super ethnic sounding name, if I could, if I could have hidden that, I would have, because I wanted people to know that I did it on my merit and not because of the color of my skin. That I didn’t get this job because I’m Asian, but I got this job because I’m a good educator and I got to keep this job because I’m a good educator, not because of affirmative action. And there are so many different layers that we have to deal with as educators of color on top of everything else we’re already dealing with.
Estella: [00:29:45] After the shooting in Florida at…
Yan Yii: [00:29:48] Stoneman Douglas.
Estella: [00:29:50] Yes. Yeah, there you go. Stoneman Douglas. Thank you. After that shooting, I remember at our school, it was my 10th graders were doing, you know, school shooter drills or having conversations about what to do if there’s a school shooter on campus. And my students, I remember their response was very similar. Like, what do we do, miss? And them being very vocal about like, I don’t trust teachers, miss. Like who’s going to take a bullet for me, miss? And when I thought about it, I was like, hold up. There’s not one teacher on campus. And then students stopped and thought, and they’re like, well, I mean, I guess I’m coming to this room and we can figure it out together. And I had to have an conversation with students about like, now that I’m a mother and a wife. My perspective has changed, right? Like my first year of teaching, maybe it would have been, you know, and I can’t say what I would do in a terrible moment like that, but you know, I know that my first year teaching my attitude was probably more like I will do whatever to protect my students. I took an oath, right? I’m going to protect my students. And after having my daughter, I had a conversation with another educator, you know, we’re talking about. What do we do in, in events like a school shooting? And she said to me, “I know that you are willing to take care of your students. We, we know that no one is questioning that you are a good educator, but your responsibility now is different because you have a child to make it home to.” And that cut real deep and hit different. And I, [long pause, tearing up] I questioned whether or not I could stay in the profession and how much longer I could stay in the profession. If what we had to deal with was going to continue to bombings, shootings, pandemics, I have a child to make it home to and a husband to take care of. And I don’t know how much more, you know, folks expect. For us to be willing to sacrifice and watching the conversations online about open up schools, go back to schools. Teachers are whining. Teachers are this, that, and the other. When just nine months ago, it was, “Oh my God, I never knew how much you guys do in the classroom every day.” And then to suddenly like this quick shift to just go back to the classroom. It doesn’t instill me with a whole lot of faith. And I honestly don’t know where I was going. I was just thinking about what you said about, you know, the bombing and having that conversation with kids. And while I know that students need to feel and know that we’re going to take care of them, I definitely had a conversation with students. An honest conversation. And I said, I don’t, I don’t know. I know that I’m, I will do everything that I can. And if this is the room that you feel safe coming to, this is the room you need to be at. And I’ve practiced with students, like, you know, we’ve had large fights where the school gets shut down and we go under lockdown and I’ve gone outside and just yanked kids into my room as quickly as I can. As soon as that lockdown sound goes on. And we’ve practiced, like we’ve had conversations like, “Miss, we gon bust that window out. We’ll make a rope ladder,” like whatever it is, like we’ve had those conversations and I just hate that we have to have those conversations. Like, I really hate that that’s normal now.
Gabriel: [00:33:49] The amount of pressure that educators are feeling, especially in this moment, being the nurturers, caregivers, and now being asked to be the protectors. The overwhelming workload, the self sacrifice physically, mentally, emotionally, and as Yan mentioned, in some cases, financially, even dealing with the Eurocentric curriculum, in some ways is a form of emotional violence. That we as educators are expected to perpetuate onto our students and that it takes its own toll. In addition to the quote, microaggressions that are really aggressions, there’s a lot and what I also heard from you both is that it’s really the relationships with the students, with some colleagues, with creating communities of affinity spaces, where you can share some experiences, cultural identity, and as Yan was describing that mentorship program, building those relationships internally. Those are the things that keep the weight on this scale as even as it can be to keep you connected and committed, at least in this moment.
Swati Rayasam: [00:35:14] You’re tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1. KFCF in Fresno and online at kpfa.org. Coming up is the song “Depressure” by Nu Nasa, off of the Khamsa music project.
MUSIC
That was the song “Depressure” by Nu Nasa, off of the Khamsa music project. And now back to the ConShifts podcast.
Gabriel: [00:38:52] So, Yan, just a question I had for you, being involved in union leadership in your local, state, and national level, specifically in the spaces that lean into cultural affinity. And address racial inequity within the union spaces, having that space, platform, experience network in what ways, what drew you to that for what reason do you now serve in leadership roles in that way? And, what would you say to folks that are currently API educators, but not as involved in their union at the current moment? What would you say to those folks?
Yan Yii: [00:39:32] So I took a class a few years ago, maybe like two years ago on how to not burn out. And I was like, wouldn’t there be irony if I burned out while taking this class on how to not burn out. But it’s things that you’re passionate about will never burn you out. They’ll, they’ll energize you to do more work. Right. You know, I have a painting here and I think it’s a Gabriel Tanglao quote. We rise by lifting others. I painted it a few years ago. And it’s always, I’m always searching because basically how I got involved was somebody said, “Hey, you’d be really good as a building rep.” And then a few years later, they were like, “You should step into the role of secretary.” And then it was, “You should consider running for union president.” And I became the NEAA pick because you Gabe you told me “You should try this out.” And I said, well, okay, I’ll give it a shot, right? Because part of union work is about identifying other leaders and we rise by lifting others, right? It’s not about the power grab. It’s not about staying in power. You know, one of the big things I pushed in my local is we need term limits because a healthy union has turnover. There’s a reason why we only have eight years allowed for a president, right? You can, you can serve a total of two terms because if someone has more than two terms, they tend to go, you know, like, what is it? Absolute power corrupts. And, you know, we want to avoid that and, I’m less concerned about, um, corruption in teacher unions than I am about complacency. If the same person is in charge for 20 years, great, because then they will always do the work. But guess what? That person is going to retire at some point. You know, I’ve been union president for four years now, and I’m stepping down at the end of this year, because I think it’s time for someone else to step up. And I think that, you know, this is not a top down, it’s a bottom up. Like, we have to all work together. And we are all part of the union. So it drives me absolutely insane when someone says, “But what is the union doing for me?” And I turn around and say, “You’re the union. We are all the union.” Like it can’t, you can’t just look at me and think that I’m going to do things for you because I am your spokesperson as your president, not your dictator. It’s not my job to make these decisions. In fact, I try to step back as much as possible to allow decisions to be made by the membership versus made by me. And I think, you know, I remember being in Dallas, I want to say four or five years ago, and we were in a very, very large room for a very small group of people. I want to say there were maybe four people and one of them was a friend who was not Asian that I dragged into the room with me so that she could also be there. And then my first RA at the, for NEA, we had a small room of people. And when we were in Minnesota. And even when we were in Houston, we didn’t have enough chairs. It was the most exciting thing in the world to me. Our group has gotten so large. They put us in a small room and we didn’t have enough chairs. And you feel comfortable. Like, I love the term we use in APIC, Ohana, like family. We’re family together. Like it is our APIC family. Like we’re small, but, but we’re mighty, right? Like we want to have that voice and we want to fight for what’s right for not just us, but for, for everyone. And I think, you know, I’ve, I’ve managed to do that in my role serving 6 years on EMAC and it was, you know, like most recently we had conversations about how to decolonize curriculum throughout Massachusetts and, you know, like the idea that I’m one person what can I do? I can change what I’m choosing to teach in my classroom with a little teacher autonomy. I can choose to not only read whitewashed curriculum. I can find a paired text of this is what happened during this time in history. I can focus my readings during Black history month on different people instead of just Martin Luther King. Not that that’s not important, but why are we only getting one perspective? There are so many historical Black figures. And if we’re not pushing that, are we waiting for our students to push for it? Because they might not know too, because they’ve never been exposed to it. And I do think we live in a time where kids are pushing more and more and more against whitewashed curriculum, but we as educators have to do our job too. And it’s making that connection with each other and not feeling so alone in that journey.
Gabriel: [00:43:57] Yeah, nah, we definitely started the conversation around how union leadership creates spaces. And part of what you kind of illustrated through that is it’s an opportunity to lift up more people, more educators, specifically more API educators into spaces to learn with each other and grow with each other. Specifically with the decolonizing curriculum conversation, I remember that you and I had a chance to collaborate in some spaces around decolonizing curriculum, and it was through the union space that we connected even Estella and I connected through the union spaces. So that’s a place to find the community of folks. That you know, are doing that critical work. So I loved your response. I wanted to also just talk more broadly about the educator pipeline for API folks. Do you have any thoughts on ways that we can expand this API educator pipeline? And if you wanted to integrate some of the work that you’re doing with your mentorship program into that conversation. So part one, how do we attract more educators into the profession and workforce? Part two, how do we continue to support those educators throughout their professional journey?
Yan Yii: [00:45:18] So I’m going to start with part two, because I feel like part two has to happen in order for part one to happen, right? I think we need to work on retaining educators, particularly AAPI educators, because coming into the profession, and then we don’t feel supported and people will leave. And I think part of this is helping people to not feel like an island, but also making people feel like there’s a sense of belonging in the field. Because if everyone is constantly looking at you like you don’t belong, then you’re not going to stay. Unless you have a lot of fight in you, which many of us do [laughs] but when everything is working against you and there’s so much pressure on you already. Not having a sense of belonging is really going to drive you from the profession. Now, once we build up that, you know, like, and what I love about this mentorship program, and I know you’re using the word pipeline, and we started with that term, and we pulled away from it because we feel like it tends to have a negative connotation. When I hear the word pipeline, I think school to prison pipeline. Right? So we had changed it to a mentorship program because really, you know, especially this year we’ve talked about it. It’s not just the veterans mentoring newer teachers or even aspiring educators. It’s that we all have so much to learn from each other, regardless of where we are. My mentee at my school, she and I talk every single day, and she’s constantly showing me new things, and I’ve been an educator for 14 more years than she has. And it’s this idea that it’s a group of, like, this is a learning experience for everybody, not just the person who is brand new, and it’s not just me as a veteran who has something to offer. Now, in terms of getting more people to come into the profession, particularly more AAPI educators, one, it’s seeing us in the field. Seeing themselves reflected in the field. Two, I think it’s changing the narrative about the respect this job deserves. You know, Estella said it before we live in a time where 6 months ago you said everybody loves teachers. Right? And then all of a sudden we became enemy number one. And that was really hard for me to stomach as a union leader and as an educator. I know, you know, I was personally attacked on my personal Facebook because of some of the union work I was doing and trying to advocate for the safety of my educators. And someone has said, it sounds like you don’t really want to be in the classroom. Maybe you should consider a change of profession. And I was like, first of all, this is my personal Facebook. Second of all, I had your child in fifth grade, so I know you know what a good educator I am. And if you remembered what a good educator I was, you would know that I care more about these students than I do about my own safety sometimes. So maybe we should take a step back and think about what we’re saying before we start attacking educators. But it’s having that connection and being able to support them and changing that narrative. But I also think it’s not, it’s not like, you know, right now we were like, okay, we’re going to find AAPI students in college who are already in education. Well, guess what? There aren’t very many of them. Like, we need to get to you before that. We need to get to them in high school. We need to get to them in middle school and elementary school, we need to dig as deep as we can. And part of that digging is going to be reflecting ourselves in the education field. I think if you don’t see yourself there and you don’t see that as a possibility and if people are constantly telling you, don’t be a teacher, it’s not worth it, or you won’t make enough money or those who can do, and those who can’t teach. Like all of those feelings, that’s what prevents people from being, becoming educators. And I will say this as, as much as my Chinese mom complained about me becoming a teacher when she talks to my aunties she’s always like, “And my daughter is doing this in her classroom and you should see the pictures of her classroom. And then she’s always saying to my nieces and nephews, you should listen to your auntie, she’s a teacher. She knows what she’s doing.” Right. So like that always makes me feel a little bit better because for years I was like, did I choose the right profession? I think when I turned 30, I was like, okay, this is it. Am I going to stay here? Because I’m investing in my retirement now. Or am I going to consider changing my career and honestly, I can’t see myself doing anything else.
Estella: [00:49:40] I had the same thought at 30. [Laughs] Am I in it or, or am I going somewhere else? And my dad was the same way with, you know, “Are you sure? Teaching?” Also, I was a double major in theater. It was Black studies and theater. And I knew I was going into education and I don’t know what it is about Nigerian parents, but it’s “Theater? You’re going to be a clown for the rest of your life?” Like that’s, that was the thought process. Like excuse m?. But, I wonder how much of that, because it’s come up in previous episodes and, and Gabe, you mentioned too about, you know, the need of immigrant children to push and push and push and do great in school and speak, you know, in Nigerian family “speak the King’s English” is what we say. And I wonder how much of that. is just a product of assimilation or trying to align with whiteness. And so, I mean, I hate it. Kind of makes my skin crawl. And you know, and then of course that imposter syndrome, it just looms. It just like nags and looms. And I don’t know what to do with those, those feelings or thoughts because I know first gen kids are gonna deal with that I don’t, like, I don’t know how to help kids move past that, honestly, because it’s not something I’ve ever learned to fully cope with, move past, or deal with. Every time I think I’m in my stride and I’ve dealt with those emotions, again, I’m still feeling like, did I do enough? Is this good enough? But then, like you said, then I hear my dad go, “Oh, well, my daughter, blah, blah, blah.” And I’m like, really dad? Cause when I told you I switched my major, you, you show that that is not what you said. But anyway, you mentioned like our API spaces is like Ohana. And one thought that I’m having. You know, and thinking about how we make sure that we’ve got safe affinity spaces for API educators and our union is definitely one of those spaces with our ethnic caucuses at the state level and the national level. There definitely is still some area for growth within our affinity spaces along the lines of generational issues, but also in the ways in which anti- blackness or racism creeps in, right? Like I think that there is, and I don’t know how to define it, segment it, weed it out, but there’s definitely a generational difference between, I’d say, you know, teachers who are currently within their, like, first 10 years to our educators who, you know, they’re 20 plus year veterans. We don’t necessarily see eye to eye when it comes to cultural ethnic issues. And part of that might be because our education, once we found those cultural spaces of belonging in college, I imagine probably looked very different for some of our elders in the profession. And so I think our level of race or critical race consciousness is not in the same place and so I think there needs to be a level of some just personal reflective work on the individual level, but also as a collective, like as an Ohana, like we need to have some of these really hard conversations together and continuously, so that we can move forward towards solidifying some sort of collective identity. I think that there’s probably far more API educators out there in the field that may not yet identify as API because they may be in a different place in their cultural identity work. They might be in a very different place. Because whoever named us API, right, like they fit a whole bunch of nationalities and cultures into one category. Whole different groups of people, islands, like nation states, bunched up into this API term. And so there might be a whole bunch of folks out there that’s like “API. What’s an API?” when that’s probably technically where they would belong if they knew what box to click on, you know what I mean? And so I think part of our work is defining who we are and then like [laughs] doing the marketing work to make sure educators in the field know. Hey, this is your affinity space over here. We’ve got your back. Your Ohana is right here. If you, you know, come on over, join us, take a seat. And, and then we can continue to do that reflective work, transformation work.
Gabriel: [00:54:24] As we close today, I’d love to ask you, what is one thing that gives you hope in this moment where hope may be hard to find?
Yan Yii: [00:54:34] I think one of the things that makes me hopeful is that at my very last class of 2020, it was December 22nd, I asked my students, what is one thing you are thankful for, from this past year? And they were like, “The fact that I can come to your class,” like come to school. Like I had kids who wanted to be in school, whatever capacity we were going to do this, they wanted to be there. And that meant the world to me, the connections we’ve made. And you know, one of the things, even, even being in hybrid, You know, I worry every day about the impact of that. But I see how close my cohort A is to themselves, like, and I see how close my cohort B is, and I do a lot of work where, you know, the students, like, I teach synchronously all day long, so the student, they, they are constantly working with each other and the bond that they have as a class. I think that’s what makes me really hopeful. And, you know, in terms of being a API educator, the thing that makes me the most hopeful is that we tripled in size in our mentorship program that we’re out there. And we just have to find, like you, you have to dig a lot, because especially in Massachusetts, many of our AAPI educators are actually not, in the same union. They’re part of the AFT and not the NEA because they’re part of Boston Public, which is the largest local we have. And some of us are literally islands alone in Western, in a small, small rural town in Western Massachusetts, but the fact that they found us and they said, this is, this is, this is where I feel like I’m connecting. Like it’s the connections that we’re making that I think allow me to be hopeful.
Estella: [00:56:11] Fa’afetai Tleilava. Thank you for listening.
Gabriel: [00:56:13] Salamat. Thank you for listening.
Estella: [00:56:14] We want to thank our special guest, Yan one more time for rapping with us tonight. We appreciate you.
Gabriel: [00:56:19] Continental Shifts Podcast can be found on Pod Beam, apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.
Estella: [00:56:26] Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube for archived footage and grab some merch on our site
Gabriel: [00:56:31] and join our mailing list for updates at conshiftspodcast.com. That’s C-O-N-S-H-I-F-T S podcast. com and follow us at con underscore shifts on all social media platforms.
Estella: [00:56:49] Dope educators wayfinding the past, present, and future.
Gabriel: [00:56:53] Keep rocking with us fam. We’re going to make continental shifts through dialogue, with love, all together.
Estella: [00:56:58] Fa’afetai Thanks again. Tōfā, deuces.
Gabriel: [00:57:02] Peace. One love.
Swati Rayasam: [00:57:08] Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program backslash apex express. To find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida, Kiki Rivera, Nate Tan, Hien Ngyuen, Cheryl Truong, and me Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support and have a great night.
The post APEX Express – 6.6.24 Continental Shift-API Educator Pipeline appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
A teach-in by Queer Crescent in collaboration with Palestinian Feminist Collective – Palestine is a Queer Issue: Resisting Pinkwashing Now and Until Liberation. Featuring guest speakers Rabab Abdulhadi from Palestinian Feminist Collective, Ghadir Shafie of ASWAT, Shivani Chanillo from Lavender Phoenix, poetry by Mx Yaffa from Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD). Moderator by Shenaaz Janmohamed of Queer Crescent.
Important Links and Resources:1. Sign on to Queer Crescent’s Ceasefire Campaign for LGBTQI+ organizations and leaders 2. Queer Crescent’s Pinkwashing Resources 3. Queer Crescent Website 4. Palestinian Feminist Collective Website 5. ASWAT Instagram (@aswatfreedoms) 6. Lavender Phoenix Website 7. Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD) Website 8. Purchase Blood Orange by Mx. Yaffa
TranscriptShenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you all so much for being here today. Welcome to the “Resisting Pinkwashing Now Until Liberation” teach-in. Queer Crescent is honored to host this teach in in partnership with the Palestinian Feminist Collective, Lavender Phoenix, The Muslim Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity or MASGD, Teaching Palestine, and Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies
Thank you all so much for joining us and for tuning in. My name is Shenaaz Janmohamed. I use she and they pronouns. I’m the executive director of Queer Crescent.
Queer Crescent is really thrilled to offer this Teach-in and to be in learning with you all for the next hour and a half on Pinkwashing in particular, as we hold grief and rage and mourn towards healing, towards resistance, towards a free Palestine. Joining the resounding people all across the world who have been calling for a permanent ceasefire. To not let the violence and the destruction of Gaza go without our clear and determined voice to say that this is not okay, that we, our tax dollars should not be paying for this, that we do not consent to genocide. And as queer people, as trans people, it is very much a queer issue to be in solidarity with Palestine. For the next hour and a half we will take time to learn from Palestinian organizers.
in Palestine, in the U. S., around the ways in which this moment can be used to understand our relationship to pinkwashing in particular and to Palestinian solidarity in general. And so thank you again for being with us today.
We’re going to start our Teach in with poetry, because we deeply believe as a queer Muslim organization in the power of cultural work, cultural change, and imparting our shine as queer people into the culture. That is the way that our people have survived. That is the way that people share their histories their survivalship is through culture.
And so, before I bring up Yaffa, who’s a dear friend and comrade, and also the executive director of MASGD, the Muslim Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity, let me introduce Yaffa. Yaffa is a trans Muslim and displaced indigenous Palestinian. She is sharing poetry from her new book, Blood Orange, shout it out, please get a copy if you haven’t already, which is an emotional, important, and timely poetry collection.
Their writings probe the yearning for home, belonging, mental health, queerness, transness, and other dimensions of marginalization while nurturing dreams of utopia against the background of ongoing displacement and genocide of Indigenous people. Join me in giving some shine, energetic shine to Yaffa, and I’ll pass to you.
Mx Yaffa: Hi everyone. It’s so nice to be here with you all. So excited to share space with all of you, with all the incredible panelists, with the entire Queer Crescent team, y’all are just incredible. Right before this, me and one of the other panelists realized we could potentially be related. So that’s the beauty of having spaces like this, where you connect with people that you’ve kind of been missing your entire life, but you didn’t even know that they were missing. I’m excited to recite some poetry for you all from my new collection. Just a little bit about the collection before I recite some poetry.
This collection was written for the most part, on the weekend of October 13th to the 15th. Some of y’all might remember that there was an eclipse during that weekend. And I really wanted to find something that would really center queer and trans Palestinian experience in particular, and also would just support me in navigating my own processing of everything that’s going on.
I have family both in Gaza and the West Bank still. I’m originally from Jaffa and Jenin, but I’ve kind of lived in nine different countries. So when I say I’m displaced, it’s displacement from various different wars, various genocides, various everything. And the result of that was Blood Orange.
I tried to get it out as quickly as possible and here we are. The first poem that I’ll read is called “Healthy”. And I’ll talk a little bit about each of these poems after I read them. It’s called “Healthy”. We are not meant to be okay, when genocide is our neighbor that is funded by our labor.
We are meant to be a mess, our sleep tearing into reality, anxiety brewing, wondering what is hope. We are meant to tear at the seams of reality, realizing a reality built on oppression is bullshit. We are meant to realize and demand all we are worth. Self actualization, wholeness. Things systems built off of genocide can never.
Our response labeled by western capitalism as wrong is healthy. We move to wholeness always, they move to pain attempting to drag us with them. So this was actually the very first poem that I wrote for this collection and it was in that first week of the genocide immediately following October 7th when so many people were really struggling with what do we do with all of this, right? We’re witnessing an entire genocide right before our eyes. And what do we do? There was a lot of hopelessness going around and a lot of narratives, at least in what’s known as the United States and the global north that’s always told us that all of that is wrong. That we’re not supposed to be overwhelmed by things. But for me, with all the practices that I have, it’s actually healthy to be overwhelmed right now. We’re not supposed to know how to let genocide live in our bodies with ease. We still show up, we still do the things, and yet at the same time, we honor it.
That it is a large experience. This is not normal. This is not something that should be happening all the time or ever. And so really wanted to honor that of the world that we live in is not what we deserve. For us to be overwhelmed right now is actually healthy, is where we should be. So the second poem I will read kind of goes into the conversation of today around pinkwashing.
This one’s called “At Odds”.
My transness and a colonized perception of Palestine are at odds. They think it’s because of lack of modernity. I say I have only received death threats targeting my transness from white people, Zionists, and other various political affiliations. I say only white people around me have ever disowned their own.
Yet I do not talk to sisters who choose to buy into imperialist transphobia, claiming it as their own. My parents do not understand how some of their children could hate anything any of their children could be, why anyone would hate what they do not know. I won’t talk much about pinkwashing because I know we’ll get to that today. But in particular, most queer and trans Palestinians over these last eight weeks have been receiving such immense violence from the broader LGBTQ community telling us that our people are the ones who are going to kill us. I’ve been receiving death threats my entire life in particular as an organizer since I was 19, and I have literally never received a death threat from anyone from our region from any Muslim person. It has always been white people who have sent me death threats specifically for my queerness and my transness.
Let alone everything else. And so that, that poem just kind of honors that experience.
I’ll read one more, and I’ll say just a few words before I read this last one. For me, the arts are so important. Not just as a tool for resistance, but also as a tool for world building. Often we think of the world is what creates art, rather than art is what creates the world. If you look at literature, even with Zionism, Zionism was in literature 100 years before it was ever named. I think about that of what is the world that we are building, what is the world of tomorrow that we get to write about and paint about and do all different kinds of art forms about today.
And so this last poem kind of brings a little bit of that into it. The collection goes into the topic of utopia as we’re exploring all of these other things. and as we’re experiencing this genocide. So this last poem is called “Land Back”. I do not know names wiped from time in Gaza Like I do not remember the names Of great uncles and aunts Who have been reclaimed by our land To say they were murdered Is to claim loss that our land will never feel For we are made of her And regardless of how many layers of phosphor fill the air We return to her in our deaths They may exacerbate the process of our return, but return we shall.
Standing thousands of miles away, I know even here she will take me back for distance is a creation that is buried with bodies that were never ours. We are not the ones who take land back, it is land that takes us. There will come a day when the sun sets on a world and rises in another, when indigenous sovereignty is honored.
Where queerness no longer exists, where transness is no longer an identity, where humanity means something genuine.
So I wanted to end with that, on a note of everything that we’re doing right now, all of the resistance is world building. We’re building the world that we have always deserved. So I’ll leave you all with just one final thing about the book, like I mentioned, the reason I wrote this book in the first place and published it is to raise awareness about queer and trans Palestinians in particular and our experiences, and also to fundraise for queer and trans Palestinians both on the grounds in Gaza and in the diaspora. So 100 percent of all the proceeds from Blood Orange go directly towards that.
As we’re getting deeper and deeper into this, the needs of the queer and trans Palestinian community is getting so immense, both on the ground in the region and in the diaspora.
Over just the last few days, I’ve received over $20,000 worth of requests from individuals because people are being doxed, people are receiving death threats, people are losing their jobs. In one case, people are losing their children. There’s a lot happening. And so just wanted to leave with that. I want to invite you all to pay attention to those needs and honor them, especially as we go into next year and into the elections.
Thank you again for having me. It was such a pleasure to be here. And I’m so excited for the rest of this.
Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you so much, Yaffa. It’s so wonderful to have you here. And it feels so important to start our teaching with the ways in which poetry, culture, moves and inspires us. It opens our hearts in ways that feel both healing and necessary as part and parcel to our organizing and our deep learning. As my comrade and partner Saba says, to growing our empathy to be able to show up with more depth, more commitment, and more resolve towards these issues because we are deeply interconnected. So thank you again, Yaffa..
Before I turn to introduce our other panelists, I wanted to just ground us for a moment in why Queer Crescent, along with the many partners that I named at the beginning felt it was important to host this teach in.
Back on November 3rd, Queer Crescent in collaboration with the Palestinian Feminist Collective drafted and released a letter calling upon LGBTQI organizations, leaders, and influencers to join Queer Crescent and Palestinians in calling for an immediate ceasefire. And in particularly to take up understanding and resisting pinkwashing as a queer issue.
The frame ” Palestine is a queer issue” is very much an homage of Palestinian Feminist Collective who tirelessly make the links around gender justice, bodily autonomy, self determination, sovereignty to the project of Palestinian liberation. Seeing them as part and parcel of the same project of liberation, and we very much are inspired and in deep gratitude to PFC and all the tireless folks who make those links so clear and apparent to us.
We are also in deep gratitude to organizations like Al-Qaws, based in Palestine, who have been telling us about pink- washing for a long, long time, and we are finally doing our part to answer the call as an organization as Queer Crescent. Since we shared this letter, over 350 individuals have signed on, over 65 organizations have joined us in a commitment to calling for permanent ceasefire.
This teach in is part of our commitment to moving those who have signed, ourselves included, and the many others who have joined us today. To deepen our shared resolve to a free Palestine through learning about pink watching as a propaganda tool of Israel and settler colonial state violence, and to allow this moment to transform us so that the grief is not in vain, towards a more fierce committed and clear stance of solidarity with Palestinian liberation movement. As queer and trans people and within LGBTQI organizations, we have a distinct role to play to organize to undermine pinkwashing. Because pinkwashing works and functions on the backs of racist tropes of Palestinians, Arabs, SWANA, and Muslims more broadly.
We cannot let our vulnerabilities as trans and queer people be exploited in the pursuit of colonial violence and the genocide against Palestinians and all indigenous people. It was not surprising that some of the first folks who signed on to our letter were trans led organizations like the Transgender Law Center, like El/La, and indigenous organizations.
It’s not surprising because I think for folks who are leading trans led organizations, Trans and indigenous organizations, the relationship of self determination of bodily autonomy and to state violence and colonization is clear, right? Because ultimately colonization uses gender injustice and creating these wedges within our communities as a way to dampen our resistance and to keep us apart.
So, I don’t want to say more because our amazing speakers will speak and illuminate so much more of these issues. But I wanted to just state why it was important for Queer Crescent to support advancing these conversations. So, our first speaker today is Ghadir Shafie ( she and her). She is a Palestinian queer activist and the co founder of ASWAT, Palestinian Feminist Queer Center for Sexual and Gender Freedoms.
A passionate advocate for the intersectionality of the struggle of Palestinian queer women, fighting multiple forms of oppression as Palestinians in the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, military occupation, and settler colonialism, as women in a militaristic and imperialistic male dominated society, and as queers in the context of pinkwashing and homophobia.
Ghadir promotes active solidarity for Palestine through global feminism and with queers. Thank you, Ghadir. Pass it to you.
Ghadir Shafie: Thank you so much. Hello from Palestine. Thank you so much for organizing this teach-in on pinkwashing. I am grateful for your presence here with me, witnessing in this horrible, horrible time.
I will speak today for about 15 minutes, and I want you to bear in mind that since October 7th, Israel has killed over 18, 000 Palestinians. That is one Palestinian every 15 minutes. Imagine how many queer people are being killed daily by Israel. The scenes from Gaza are beyond description. They defy comparison, even for Palestinians, jaded by decades of occupation and settler colonial violence.
Devastated landscape filled with craters and the blackened ruins of what were once people’s homes, dead bodies or pieces of them. Orphaned children screaming in terror and incomprehension. Desperate survivors crying for food and water. Doctors despairing at the ever growing influx of wounded people they know they cannot treat.
As a queer Palestinian watching these images of horror, one stood out as particularly revolting in a rather different way. It shows an Israeli soldier in the middle of the rubble of one of the many residential neighborhoods in Gaza, flattened by the Israeli indiscriminate military strikes. In the distance, smoke from Israel’s carpet bombings hang in the air. The soldier is surrounded by Israeli tanks and demolish everything in their way. It is a scene of death and destruction The soldier stands holding a bright new rainbow flag. and Described it as a message of hope.
What hope can there be for 2.3 million Palestinians trapped over 16 years in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Gaza has become a graveyard for Palestinians. They have no water. No food and no electricity as Israel has cut off what little it allowed in through its already suffocating siege.
They seek shelter from Israeli bombings in hospital, UN schools, mosques, and churches, only to find these sites targeted by Israeli strikes. Those who can flee their homes along Israeli designated safe corridors only to have their vehicles shelved by the Israeli IDF soldiers. It seems incomprehensible that an Israeli soldier would pose a photo with a rainbow flag while participating in his army’s mass slaughter of Palestinians and destruction of half of Gaza’s homes. The truth is more sinister yet. This stunt, which was shared online by the Israeli state official social media accounts, is a textbook. example of obscene colonial pinkwashing. More than that, it is a pinkwashing on steroids. For years, Palestinian queers have denounced Israel’s pinkwashing, a cynical strategy designed to use self proclaimed support for LGBTQIA plus rights as a pink smokescreen to conceal its 75 years regime of apartheid, which oppresses all Palestinians, no matter of our gender.
or sexual orientation. All the while singling out queer Palestinians for persecution and blackmail. It is an attempt to falsely depict Israel as modern and a liberal country while diverting attention from its alignment with far right homophobic regimes and groups around the world and its current fundamentalist, racist, and homophobic government. In addition, Israel’s pinkwashing agenda is a colonial tool that has the racist aim to misrepresent Palestinians as backwards, homophobic, and thus not deserving of human rights. It also tries to convince us, as queer and trans people, that we are somehow foreign in our society, and tries to turn us against our Palestinians brothers and sisters.
I think there couldn’t be any better example of Israeli pink washing than the photo that the Israeli soldier with the rainbow flag in the rubble. Israeli pink washing has always been dishonest and dangerous. It has always been racist and colonial. It has allowed Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing, besiege, imprisonment, and murder of Palestinians, queer and non queer alike, for decades.
Now it’s being used to cover up for genocide.
In these dark times, Palestinians in besieged Gaza are bearing the brunt of Israel’s full blown genocidal war and ethnic cleansing. Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories of West Bank, meanwhile, are also facing escalating waves of killing, torture by both Israeli military and illegal sectors.
Apartheid, for Palestinians like myself inside Israel, is reaching new peaks as Israeli forces are targeting and suppressing any expression of sympathy with the oppressed. As hard as it is, we still maintain hope. We have no other choice. That hope comes from the grassroots mobilization that are forcing complicit governments and institutions to finally call for the bare minimum that is nevertheless the absolute priority: a ceasefire that will put a stop to Israel’s carpet bombing and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Queer groups have been extremely instrumental in our struggle for liberation. Queer groups have been an important part of the mobilizations. Nearly 40 LGBT, QA plus groups across Southwest Asia and North Africa called for the immediate ceasefire stating ” we stand with justice, equality, progress, and liberty.”
Throughout my life as a queer activist, I have proudly held the rainbow flag high as a symbol of queer inclusion, queer struggle, queer liberation, queer equality, and queer joy. The Israeli soldier participating in Israel’s genocidal war on my people in Gaza has desecrated the flag, has disgraced the flag, and made it a mockery for all it stands for.
Queer and trans people and groups are increasingly seeing through the pink smokescreen and rejecting Israel’s pinkwashing and its war crimes and crimes against humanity. We will not stand by as our flag and our identities are co opted and used to justify a genocide. I call upon queer allies around the globe to remember none of us is free until we are all free.
What can we do right now in these terrible times? Since 2005, Palestinians have proposed to you, our friends around the world, an entirely nonviolent method of ending Israel’s power over our lives. An academic and cultural boycott of Israel. This strategy is known as BDS, Boycott, Digestment and Sanctions.
BDS means boycotting all Israeli state sponsored institutions. This is not aimed at individuals, but at institutions financed by the state and that serve as extensions of the government that occupies us and keeps us under siege. We ask academics, staff and students not to speak at Israeli state funding organizations, including universities.
We ask artists and cultural workers not to perform in apartheid Israel. Make sure that your universities are divested from Israeli money. Do not take israeli money for your conferences or film festivals. Do not accept deceptively free propaganda trips to Israel. End complicity with the government of Israel by among other things, cancelling all joint projects activities that are complicit with Israeli universities.
Right now, the main demand is to stop the genocide. Stop the genocide and ask for ceasefire now.
So how can queer groups and queer people support queer liberation in Palestine?. One effort that is happening right now around the world is Queer Cinema for Palestine. Queer cinema for Palestine is a vibrant event that happens globally, established in 2021 to support queer art and queer cinema around the world.
Today, there are more than 270 filmmakers and artists who signed our pledge to boycott Israeli film festival, to boycott Israeli institutions, and support queer liberation in Palestine. Queer Cinema for Palestine is happening online in more than 15 locations around the world from the 2nd until the 10th of December.
Under the title, There’s No Pride in Genocide, we gather together as artists to support, Queer Cinema for Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. There’s not much to say. I think you’ve seen the image from Gaza. You’ve seen what is happening right now. This is not a regular panel on pinkwashing. It’s happening during a genocide, where pinkwashing is also used to promote genocide. So, may I ask you as a Palestinian and as a queer Palestinian, please keep talking about Palestine. Palestine is a queer issue. Gaza is a queer issue, and there’s no queer justice until we are all free. Thank you so much for organizing this and thank you so much for your work and activism on Palestine. You are saving lives right now. Thank you.
Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you so much, Ghadir. Thank you so much for your passion, your commitment, reminding us that hope is an active choice that you’re engaging in every day, despite all the odds, because that is the story of survival. Thank you for reminding and being so clear in the link to BDS boycott, divestment and sanction movement as tangible ways that we could be in solidarity with Palestine and to chip at the far reaching power of the Israeli state and settler colonial project.
Thank you for showing the ways in which queer folks and queer organizations. use culture and art to tell different stories of survival with the Queer Cinema for Palestine. And thank you for showing up and being here with us. Thank you for all the ways that you hold communities, your fullness, and time to share and to lead us today.
Wishing so much protection and safety to you and yours. Next we have Rabab Abdulhadi. Rabab Abdulhadi (she/her) is an internationally known scholar and distinguished professor and researcher. Her scholarship, pedagogy, and public activism focus on Palestine, Arab, and Muslim communities and their diasporas, transnational feminisms, and gender and sexuality studies. She is the Director and Senior Scholar in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies, and a Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, Race and Resistance Studies at the Historic College of Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University. She is also a treasure, a beloved teacher, organizer here in the Bay.
I feel really grateful that you’re here with us today for all the work, all the times that you’ve taught me. It’s really such an honor to be able to host you and invite you in, Rabab.
Rabab Abdulhadi: Thank you so much Shenaaz, and I begin by acknowledging that my own university, San Francisco State University, sits on stolen indigenous Ohlone people’s land, and I’m now on the east coast of the United States, where I am also present on the Lenape people’s land that has been stolen and people have been displaced, just like it is in Palestine.
I also want to thank Queer Crescent for organizing this with the Palestinian Feminist Collective and actually joining with Palestinian Voices. I’m very happy that my colleague, my sister, my sibling, Ghadir, was able to join us and has actually taken a lot of the things that I was going to focus on, and thank you, Yaffa, for especially naming even the poetry, Blood Oranges, because we know what oranges mean and how they have been used.
And many Palestinians can’t even eat oranges because it reminds them of the orchards that they’ve lost back home. So I start, if you don’t mind, just Putting the first slide on. Yeah. And this is a slide if people can see it.
This is actually was done in 2013 and it was organized by a group of underground artists, called themselves cultural jammers, to remake all the campaign that was at the time by Pamela Geller and other Zionist groups doing all this smearing and buying sides on the buses and so on.
And the reason I mentioned because there is a connection between the cultural jammers and also the whole naming of pink washing because pink washing, some people say, emerged in Palestine. Some people say it emerged in the U. S. Some people talk about the whole question of washing and then the question of pink and so on.
And I think for me as a researcher, a scholar, it’s very, very interesting because there are so many origins of every single way that we are having the struggles. And so the colonial boundaries and borders that the colonialists and settler colonists try to impose upon us don’t really work because we cross these borders at least maybe imaginary, maybe in our networks and so on.
But why is it that pinkwashing persists? Ghadir spoke a lot about it. I’m just going to just emphasize a couple of things. It is necessary, very important for Israel public relations. Public relations is a very important project for it. This is why Israel consistently demands of the Palestinians and the Arab countries and the world, not only to recognize Israel’s right to exist, but to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, which in itself a very racist notion.
And this is very much connected with the genocide that we’re seeing now in Gaza, that also we have seen for 75 years of Nakba and for over 100 years of colonization of Palestine, because , the slogan by the Zionist movement was “a land without people, for a people without the land.” We can talk about “for people without the land” a little bit later, but let’s talk about “a land without people”.
In order to accomplish that and legitimize it, you have to arrest the people. You have to erase them. You have to erase their presence. You have to also discredit their discourse, their work, their culture, their interaction, their social relations, in order for you to present yourself as Israel does. And as Ghadir mentioned, as a modern state that is making the desert blue, which we know is not true, and by contrast, is the best friend of women and queer people, as a gay haven, as opposed to quote unquote the backward, savage. excessively homophobic, excessively misogynist, Arab world, Arab and Muslim world, and in which Arab men and Arab and Muslim and Palestinian men are presented as irrational, bloodthirsty, misogynist, haters of women and Queer people, and as women as being docile, as being only oppressed constantly, and need to be rescued by the colonists who will come in and basically realize what Gayatri Spivak spoke about I don’t know, 30 years ago, the colonist project of trying to save brown people from brown communities and queer people from their own queer communities. And so in order for this to work, it has to be presented in all of these things that it is necessary.
And it’s very important for Israel to focus on its public relations. And this is something that has been actually very part and parcel of since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, a task that was assigned to the military, to the security of interior affairs to the Mossad, which is the CIA, outside intelligence, Shambit, the internal intelligence to everybody.
And now we see more and more the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and other is, and the whole question of quote unquote branding, which I put it in parentheses because branding also refers to the ways in which people engage in slavery actually used to quote brand people whose lives they owned.
So I put it in parentheses. I question it. But Israel is very big on that to brand Israel as a gay haven. Israel as a best liberator of women and so on.
This is also what we see today in the sense of Israel actually making a very public relation campaign and a very, very intensive campaign to claim that Palestinians have chopped off the head of children, which was even reiterated by the president of the United States without even thinking about it because he was quoting Israeli Officials who we know are not really known for telling the truth and then they had to retract it the second day but yesterday he repeated the same thing again and said there is the rape of women and so on which we do not have any evidence until now.
We know that a lot of Israeli groups and Zionist groups like this group Bonat Alternativa and others are alleging, but we haven’t seen any evidence of that. If there is any evidence of that, we will not stand for it. We condemn any kind of violations of gender and sexual, justice because we believe that gender and sexual justice is part and parcel with indivisibility of justice.
So this is not something we are trying to cover, but this is very much part and parcel of the Israeli propaganda and it’s churning machine, the Hasbara machine is everywhere and they keep changing their stories. And if we have time we can actually go over how each story has developed and moved from one place to the other.
I’m also talking about the ways in which colonial feminisms or colonial quote unquote feminism, because feminism is supposed to be about the liberation of women as part of liberation of everybody, have been very much engaged in. But within that, there is also notion of blaming the victim.
It is a very important aspect of it. So in order for the Israeli and the Zionist narrative to work, you have to blame people. And one of the very well known cases, for example, was the case of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the young Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped from in front of his house on July 2nd, 2014, right around the big, big 2014 war on Gaza we talked about, and kidnapped by Israeli settlers who took him to a forest in Jerusalem that was built on the ruins of the village of Deir Yassin, where the massacre on April 8th, 1948 happened in order to facilitate the creation of the Israeli state. And they made him drink kerosene and set him on fire and burned him alive, which was a clear case of lynching.
Now, what Israeli police tried to do was to actually say that Mohammed Abu Khdeir was killed by his own family to quote unquote salvage family honor. And they killed him because he was queer. And now if it wasn’t for his father who had videotapes of the security cameras outside of the house and showed it– the Israeli police tried to confiscate it and basically destroy it– showed that these people came and kidnapped him.
The relative would still be among colonists, among racists, among white supremacists, Zionists, that Palestinians are killing Palestinians and they are doing this all the time. So it’s not only blaming the victim, but it also instilling and reinforcing the narrative of people, not only Palestinians, this happens with all indigenous and all colonized communities and all communities of color from time immemorial.
You look at the history of the United States, this is something, this is a trope that keeps getting repeated again and again and again. And it’s not an easy trope because It is not something that’s only being said. It’s not only a discursive issue. It’s not a discursive issue that we need to deconstruct in the classroom because we know the history, including that.
But recently, many people started learning more about the case of Emmett Till, the young Boy who was killed and the woman who actually accused him came out and said that she lied, but he was killed and he was lynched. And then his mom insisted on having open casket so everybody could see the crime.
And there’s so many more examples that we don’t have time to get into all of them now, but this is part of the colonial narrative, the colonial strategy in order to discredit the people who are colonized and discredit their struggle.
And this is definitely a part in Gaza and it is, but the other thing is that it depends on the narrative of saying that our communities in particular as exceptionally sensitive and exceptionally traditional. And this is something that we saw in Abu Ghraib for example.
When they were talking about, we’re not going to show the images of iraqi men are particularly insensitive. But we were raising the question, which men are okay with it, which women, which anybody, which non gender binary person, who would be okay with being subjected to sexual and gender violence; to being displaced like this and so on.
Nobody will be. But the imaginary that it is trying to instill that’s built on Orientalist, Islamophobic, anti Arab, anti Palestinian, anti Muslim racism as part and parcel of all kinds of racism basically makes it possible to do a little dog whistle in order for you to enforce all of this.
We saw this also at the US Social Forum when Zionist groups stand with us, which now everybody knows what it is, tried to do a workshop around queer communities in the Middle East, and many of us objected to it. And the reason that it got through because the organizers thought that this would be something that would be actually really wonderful, bringing everybody together. They did not really investigate who this group was and what it was doing and did not coordinate with the many organizations that were at the U. S. Social Forum in 2010 in Detroit from our own community to see what is happening, what’s going on, are you part of this unparceled hat? Even though the Palestinian queer organizations have existed for a very long time, and I think it was by then, if I’m not mistaken, Ghadir you can correct me that we organize a national tour and for all calls throughout the U S in order for people to speak and you all came and spoke in my own classroom. This is part of the stuff that keeps going back. And this is also the same thing that we hear around this group that I’ve mentioned now, and this propaganda that’s happening, and also in terms of the ways when we passed the resolution on BDS in the National Women’s Studies Association 2015, many Zionist groups came out and basically came with the whole question is there a place for Zionism and feminism? Many of the feminist groups have been targeted, including the International Women’s Strike and so on. This is a continuous, systemic, persistent thing. This is not something that is out of random or accidental. And so what do we do about this? In addition to what Ghadir said, I think it’s really, really important for us to say, how do we fight back?
We fight back with multiple ways. One of the ways we do for example, organizing this in the classroom. So one of the things that we do in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicity and Diaspora Studies program ever since we were founded in 2007 is every single year we were partnering with the Pride Month at San Francisco State to organize sessions on the whole question of queer justice, and this is one of them. Even after San Francisco State stopped funding pride month, we continue doing it again and again. We believe that it’s really important to connect the knowledge within the classroom with the knowledge outside and with the activism and advocacy.
We do not separate what happens in the classroom, what happens in the academy from outside. So the academy is not producing knowledge that is divorced from reality. The people who are organizing are part and parcel of that. And so we’ve been doing this again and again. The other thing that is really, really important to think about is how do we work here, and I’m talking here in the diaspora, with groups on the ground, Palestinian queer groups who are working? So one of the examples that I would like to cite from our own experiences is when Al-Qaws was attacked by Palestinian police in Nablus trying to hold an event. My hometown Nablus. We were going to rush and say something, but we waited and we coordinated with Al Qaws and we asked, what should we do?
And we did not do anything until Al Qaws came out because we were objecting to the whole question of saving queer people from queer communities, saving brown people from brown communities, the whole question of the colonial notion. And we were also taking leadership from the people on the ground who are day in and day out struggling. Once Al-Qaws came out with it, what we did is we published in one of the newspapers in the Bay Area, along with Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, which is a group that has been doing a lot of work for a very long time, and whose founder actually was chosen to be the Grand Marshall at Gay Pride Parade at San Francisco.
And she turned down this honor and said, because I am here in Palestine struggling with the International Solidarity Movement at the time to oppose the apartheid world to oppose the repression by Israel and so on. So we organized together. And that’s when we said we endorse. We support. This is really important sometimes to think about how do we take a back road and when is it we go public with things. At this point, we really need to go public and we need to defy all this propaganda that is happening.
This is part of what the solidarity mean. But this is not free. When we do something like this, there is punishment. And these are some of the flyers I’m showing from the Queer Liberation March that took place in 2019. This was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall, Uprising. The Queer Liberation March at that time actually decided to refuse any corporate funding, to refuse to allow the police to go march in their own uniforms and so on, rejected the policing, rejected the state apparatus that represses people, rejected the corporate money and so on. As a result, there was space for us to be there.
So we were organizing, we organized a big contingent under the banner of QAIA, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, and also Queers A gainst Islamophobia.
So we participated and I took this banner and I put it on my Facebook page. This led to the another Zionist attack, which is trying to silence Palestine and were trying to criminalize Palestine in the curriculum, and especially targeting us and our program in particular. And they took it and didn’t say what was on the banner. They just said that I’m spreading hate, and thus I should be– they had 86 organizations, some of them fake organizations– sign it, send it to the university, to the chancellor of California State University to the president of San Francisco State, saying that I’m spreading hate. This for them is hate.
Palestine is a queer issue. BDS Zionism is racism. Silence means death. For them, this was something that was very problematic, and it was something that is undermining the Zionist propaganda, and Zionist project of colonizing Palestine and eliminating the Palestinian people like the genocide that we are seeing here, and trying to continue pushing the pink washing without having it exposed.
As a result, our program has been attacked again and again. The Lawfare Project executive director got on the TV, on Fox and friends, and made a lying statement. They sued me. And they sued San Francisco State and they sued California State University. But we defeated them. It was thrown out of court. It was dismissed with prejudice. But she lied about that. And she said that I’m spreading hate; that I’m one of the leading anti Semitic– Horowitz every single year pushes out a formula about the top anti-Semitic scholars, and they always give me number one. And I think they do it in May because this is the fundraising season for them. As a result, I started receiving death threats. However, and including to my own university and the threat voicemails on my office mail that said Muslims will die, which is the same phrase that the guy who killed Wadiah Al-Fayyumi in Chicago, stabbing him 26 times.
He said Muslims will die. The university does not believe that this is actually a viable threat. And so they protect the right wing speech, which is white supremacist and Zionist is a protected speech protected that they can do whatever they want, put up hateful posters, do whatever they want against us, but we are not allowed to say so.
And the university is not investigating death threat letters that actually came to me through the University President’s office to my own office. However we refuse to be silenced. We refuse to lie down. And so we continued organizing. And one of the main events that we organize, and we do it every year, is this panel Queer Open Classroom that everybody can attend and come in. Queer justice against pink washing, exposing it, bringing scholars and activists, Ghadir was one of the people who spoke at that, in order for us to support liberation for Palestine as part of liberation of all, and to support gender and sexual justice as part and parcel of the indivisibility of justice.
Thank you.
Shenaaz Janmohamed: Oh, Rabab. I hope that you can feel all the tremendous. gratitude and love that you’re getting in the chat. I think that there is such a clear longing to be hearing stories from elders, folks who have been in this fight for so long. Thank you for bringing in the long arc of queer Palestinian organizing.
Thank you for bringing the long arc and history of queers being in solidarity for Palestine. It’s so important that we understand that while this moment is so important for us to study, learn and act. It rests upon such a long arc and such a long history of organizing in solidarity with Palestine. Thank you for also speaking to Mohammed Abu Khdeir, thank you for speaking him into the space.
Thank you for both of you reminding us to follow the lead of queer Palestinians. What we’re trying to do with you all today with this teach-in is to really pull us together, circle around and invite us all to be following the lead of queer Palestinians so that we can take on this work as inextricably linked to our own liberation; to advance the work of undermining pinkwashing and Zionism as part and parcel to our queer liberation.
So thank you so much, Rabab. Our last speaker, Shivani Chanillo with Lavender Phoenix. Shivani (they/them) is a trans non- binary second generation Indian American organizer. Shout out to the baddy Indian organizers out here, myself included. Their experience of active solidarity with Palestinian folks came in 2017 through exchanges they facilitated between their high school students in Baltimore, and students at Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank.
These powerful exchanges stoked Shivani’s passion for developing young people as critical thinkers grounded in revolutionary values and politics. As a leadership development coordinator at Lavender Phoenix, an organization that Queer Crescent deeply loves and feels deeply supported by and in deep siblingship with.
Shivani continues this work by facilitating opportunities for trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders to practice values based organizing and contribute to intersectional movements. In particular, I just want to really say that we were so excited to invite Shivani and Lavender Phoenix in to our teach in as the final speaker, because Lavender Phoenix is one organization that really models, going back to the initial motivation of this teach in with our letter calling for a permanent ceasefire, calling on LGBTQ organizations and leaders to sign on to understanding pink washing and to support Palestinian liberation.
Lavender Phoenix is one such organization that has really demonstrated such values align solidarity with Palestinian liberation. And so I’m really excited to bring you in Shivani to close us out to talk about how queer people, queer organizations can really double down on our solidarity.
Shivani Chanillo: Thank you so much Shenaaz for that introduction and to Queer Crescent for organizing this event. I just want to take a moment and just, I feel so deeply moved by the sharing from Rabab and Ghadir in this workshop and just sitting with the lineage within all of us as we take up Palestine as a queer issue. We have generations of lessons and decades of work and such powerful leaders here in this space, but all across the world to follow, and I feel so grateful and so excited to be joining in on this work and sharing a little bit about what Lavender Phoenix is doing in this moment.
If you haven’t heard of Lavender Phoenix, we build trans non binary and queer Asian and Pacific Islander power here in the Bay Area. We are a base building organization training grassroots leaders to build intersectional movements. As we witness an escalation of the ongoing genocide in Palestine I can say that our base is firmly grounded in the understanding that Palestinian liberation is part of our struggle and our responsibility as trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islander people.
And so I want to start by sharing a little bit about what we’re doing in this moment, before sharing about how our members arrived to this point. Since October 7th we have shifted our work accordingly. We have dedicated time to mobilize our members and our broader communities to action. We have educated each other to stay politically grounded.
We have and will continue to support each other to process the grief of this moment and to remember hope, optimism, and commitment. In so many facets of our work, we are stepping into deeper leadership and responsibility to support our Palestinian comrades to win. And more tangibly across our six member led committees, this looks like offering healing support, coordinating our members who are trained in protest and digital security to support our comrades, coordinating contingents at in person and online actions, moving financial resources and funder attention to our Palestinian partners, and uplifting pro Palestinian messaging and calls to actions using our social media reach.
Responding to Palestine and challenging pinkwashing is not a shift in our priorities, but it’s actually a sharpening of our focus as an organization. We’ve organized our base over the years to recognize our interconnected struggles, and across our membership, we so deeply understand that the Palestinian struggle is our struggle.
And Palestinian futures are our futures. All of the actions we are taking right now to support Palestine, to challenge pinkwashing are the result of so many tests, experiments, and trials that have helped us deepen our political purpose and grow our power. Many of these experiments and trials that we’ve conducted over the years really informed our current theory of change. And this is really critical to how we’re organizing in this moment. Our emergent responses to sharpen contradictions in our world like we are witnessing with Palestine, are only possible because we organize within a consistent theory of change.
A key part of our theory of change and a key part of my role as Leadership Development coordinator, is that we are committed to developing leaders who are rooted in our values, in our history, in emotional intelligence, and compassion, because we know that is how our movement will be sustained and will be effective.
So we’re not just developing members and masses who care about single issues, we’re developing holistic, critical thinkers who care about solidarity with all oppressed people so that in moments like this, solidarity with Palestine is a natural choice in our larger fight for liberation. One of the really important ways we do this, and this workshop is a critical example, is we educate our base, our trans and queer API base, on our history.
We dig into how systems of white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism, racial capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy impact all of us across our identities in the past and in the present. Right now, the tools and tactics being wielded by fascist leaders to criminalize and punish trans people here in the U. S. are rooted in the same white supremacist, colonial, and imperialist ideologies used to justify the dehumanization and murder of Palestinians, particularly trans and queer Palestinians. As part of our theory of change, we’ve also spent intentional time educating our base about revolutionary politics like abolition and healing justice, and developing our skills for safety, for healing and resource mobilization that are applicable in moments all across our movement.
We spent so much time since we implemented this theory of change in 2021 to build our base and grow our power so we can show up for our partners who are organizing for Palestinian liberation in this moment. We have spent so much time cultivating our skills and knowledges so we can support our movements beyond just trans liberation.
I want to end just by sharing a little bit of a story. A few weeks ago, our members participated in a direct action that asked many of them to step into higher risk than they had before. Prior to the action, we met to get grounded together. Folks shared their fears, but they also countered those fears with a really rooted sense of purpose.
So many of our members talked about how they wanted to look back on this moment and know that they and we as an organization did everything in our power to support Palestinian liberation. And they spoke about the sacred responsibility and duty we have in this moment to show up in solidarity. I feel so moved, even now, just thinking back to that moment and feel so much gratitude to our members for taking new risks, to the generations of leaders in our organization and our movement who have led us to this point, and I feel immense admiration and gratitude to the long lineage of Palestinian queer and trans resistance, and current day organizers who are guiding us right now.
For Lavender Phoenix, this moment is really helping us clarify our power, and for many of our members, this moment is helping them clarify their political purpose. The things all of our Palestinian siblings are fighting for, self determination, safety, healing, community, decolonization, these are the things that we as trans and queer API people here in the Bay Area so desire for ourselves as well.
We refuse to let our transness and our queerness be co opted for violence and displacement and genocide, and we know that our struggles and our futures are united, and we’re committed to fighting alongside our Palestinian comrades until we are all free. Thank you so much for letting me share. I’ll pass it back to Shenaaz.
Shenaaz Janmohamed: Shivani, thank you so much for bringing all of it. Lavender Phoenix, I just can’t swoon on y’all enough. You model that clarity of purpose and power and grace. There’s also such deep humility and grace to be in constant learning. As an emerging organization, an emerging queer organization, I just have to say Queer Crescent feels so deeply held by y’all and really inspired with the path that you are leading and inviting us all towards.
This piece around letting this moment sharpen the focus. It’s not a pivot. I think I’ve even said, we’re pivoting, we’re in rapid response. Part of our political principles as an organization is understanding anti Zionism as part and parcel of the white supremacist project.
And so this is not a pivot, it’s not a rapid response, but to your point, it’s a sharpening and it’s a double down of our commitments, principles and priorities. So thank you for naming that.
Cheryl Truong: And that’s the end of our show. Tonight’s show was a broadcast of the Resisting Pinkwashing teach-in co-led by Queer Crescent and the Palestinian Feminist Collective. It was moderated by Shenaaz Janmohamed, executive director of Queer Crescent and featured poetry by Mx. Yaffa of MASGD, and guest speakers, Rabab Abdulhadie from the Palestinian feminist collective, Ghadir Shafie of ASWAT, and and Shivani Chanillo from AACRE Group Lavender Phoenix. Learn more about the incredible work of these incredible organizations and sign on to Queer Crescent’s cease fire campaign through the links in our show notes.
Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
The post APEX Express – 05.30.24 – Resisting Pinkwashing appeared first on KPFA.
Today’s APEX Express is preempted by special fund drive programming.
The post Special Spring Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.
Today’s APEX Express is preempted by special fund drive programming.
The post Special Spring Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – May 9, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Join Powerleegirl hosts Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee and Ayame Keane-Lee, a mother daughters team. They are celebrating Asian American Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander Heritage month.They talk with artists and activists who are telling their stories in so many different ways. Artists from the annual United States of Asian America festival, including artistic director, Melanie Elvena, storyteller Nancy Wang, and musician, Scott Oshiro. Jalena learns about the POC Food and Wine festival from Director Gina Mariko Rosalis and talks with Thuy Tran about CAAMfest, Asian American film festival. Miko speaks with Cyn Choi from Stop AAPI Hate.
Events Covered in this APEX Episode
May 2-5, 2024 POC Food & Wine Festival @cielcreativespace, Berkeley & @fouroneninesf, San Francisco, CA
April 25-June 23, 2024 United States of Asian American Festival various locations throughout SF. Including performers such as Eth-Noh-Tec and Scott Oshiro
May 9-19, 2024 CAAMfest various locations throughout the Bay Area.
May 10-12th, 2024 After The War Blues Z Space
May 16-June 1, 2024, DARKHEART – A Concert Narrative by Golda Sargento at Bindlestiff Studio
Stop AAPI Hate campaign Spread AAPI Love
Additional Events:
May 10-12, 2024 After The War Blues at Z Space
May 31, 2024, from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Sacramento AAPI NIGHT MARKET
SHOW Transcripts
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express. Asian Pacific Expression Community and cultural coverage. Music and calendar. New visions and voices. Coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Miko Lee: [00:00:34] Good evening. You’re tuned into apex express. We’re bringing you an Asian American Pacific Islander view from the Bay and around the world. We are your hosts, Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-Lee, the PowerLeeGirls, a mother-daughter team. Tonight we are talking about Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month and all of the amazing events that you can experience. We meet with artists and activists who are telling their stories in so many different ways. We hear from the artists from the annual United States of Asian America festival, including artistic director, Melanie Elvena storyteller, Nancy Wang, and musician Scott Oshiro. Jalena learns about the POC food and wine festival from director Gina Mariko Rosales and talks with Thúy Trần about CAAMFest an Asian American film festival. And I hear from Cinci from StopAAPIHate. First up, we’re going to hear about all the amazing artists behind the 27th annual United States of Asian America festival.
Hello, Artistic Director Melanie Elvena from Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center. We’re so glad to have you on Apex Express.
Melanie Elvena: [00:01:44] Hello, everyone. Thank you so much, Miko, for having me here today and letting me talk about our festival.
Miko Lee: [00:01:49] This is the 27th year of the United States of Asian America Festival, which is stunning to me, already 27 years. Tell us about the theme this year, Be(long)ing Here.
Melanie Elvena: [00:02:02] Yeah, it’s crazy to believe that it’s 27 years. It’s also my 10th year with APIC. And our theme this year is Be(long)ing Here which asks us what it means to be, Here, what it means to belong here, but also what are we longing here? Actually, I created this theme with our previous festival coordinator who unfortunately passed away in October, but he came here from San Diego and was just blown away by the richness of the AAPI arts community and our culture and our history. We just wanted together to reflect on where we have been, where we are now, And just what our collective future holds while acknowledging our backgrounds as immigrants, as refugees, mixed race descendants, and just really wanting to dive into what it means to belong. I think a lot of us as AAPI community members are folks who immigrated here, we’re always looking for our home and our place where we can feel safe and belong, especially with everything going on right now in the world politically, the war in Gaza, a lot of us have even just in our own AAPI community, have lost a lot of community members. We’re going through this moment of grief and reflecting upon our time in the pandemic, where we also just lost a lot of there was just so much death, right? What does that mean now in this current moment? Every year we try to come up with a theme that, you know, reflects upon us. What we’re experiencing as Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders. And also what do we see for ourselves in the future?
Miko Lee: [00:03:21] Thank you for sharing Melanie. I’m so sorry to hear about your colleague. That’s heartbreaking and you’re right. We are living in such a time of immense grief. It is powerful how we can use arts and cultural events to enrich us and bring our spirits back to ourselves. Can you talk about the breadth of the festival and what people can expect?
Melanie Elvena: [00:03:40] Of course. So every year we have multiple events. , this year I believe we have 22 different events. It showcases all disciplines, theater, music, dance, film, literature, visual arts, many, many more. There’s even culinary events and we have artists of all different disciplines, AAPI backgrounds, represented and, it goes from May through June. There’s a little bit of something for everyone but I just want to talk a little bit about our featured events. Our first event is a kickoff celebration for the festival, but it’s also an opening reception for our annual arts exhibition. This year, I worked with Independent curator Delaney Chieyen Holton, and they curated this exhibition called Where is Your Body and for them they are exploring how the body is the lowest common denominator for solidarity and thinking about the body and our vulnerabilities. What does it mean to have a body, especially as someone who identifies as AAPI, a person of color, queer, for us, we’re always negotiating what the body means, for ourselves out in the world. There’s a handful of artists and that’s going to open on April 25th. Then the exhibition will run through May 24th at SOMArts cultural center. So we would love for everyone to come and see the show. Another event that we’re highlighting. We have two featured. the first one is Megan Lowe Dances from May 31st through June 9 at The Joe Goode Annex called Just a Shadow. Megan is bringing together seven artists to make six different duets. It’s about pretty much celebrating life, but also acknowledging grief and the memory of loved ones and resilience. For Megan, who personally has experienced a lot of loss in the last handful of years, she’s using this piece to reflect upon everyone’s collective grief that we’ve all been experiencing. Our next featured artist is Ramon Abad, who’s doing an immersive theater experience for children and families at Bindlestiff Studios called Duck Soup. He has shows from June 8th through June 15th. I really love about Ramon’s work is, he works with puppets and brings in children and youth to tell their own stories. There’s going to be multiple stories with different youth, and they’re going to be able to tell them to an audience and to have families involved, especially in San Francisco, where there’s not as many programming for children. We wanted to highlight Ramon and be like, San Francisco is a place where families can thrive and have a space and with his art with his theater his puppetry. It brings to life, the humor, the joy, but also some of the hard things that we have to go through, especially through the perspective of youth and of children.
Miko Lee: [00:05:58] What is a collaborative event that you’re doing this year that you’re excited about?
Melanie Elvena: [00:06:02] Yeah, so We’re collaborating with Sunday Streets Tenderloin to do an outdoor showcase from 1 to 4pm on June 23rd It’s a street fair, two blocks on Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin between Jones and Hyde Streets. We’re so excited to have this partnership again with Sunday Streets and Livable City. We’re going to have a whole afternoon of performances from both artists, as well as Tenderloin artists and local artists. Our Artists we’re featuring is dNaga Dance Co., Johnny Huy Nguyễn & Tim Kim, Sun Park, as well as Swetha Prabakaran Productions with Nirmathi. We’re just so excited for this day because last year we had such a good time. We brought the stage to this street fair and people from all walks of life came to enjoy as well as a lot of families and youth. It was just like a beautiful day where folks could just come and enjoy as well as take advantage of the free services that they had. The street fair offered, especially when we talk about the tenderloin and all the issues and problems you think of homelessness substance abuse and all those things. But, for one day, there was just like this beautiful time where everybody was just enjoying and being each other’s company. That’s the real San Francisco. I think that’s the real beauty that we have here. The real richness and what it means to experience art together. It really brings people together and it brings some healing. I’m super excited to have this again and can’t wait to be out there.
Miko Lee: [00:07:20] Thank you so much APICC, for continuing to show up and provide us with a varied experience of what it means to be Asian American for curating such an amazing event. We really appreciate your work. People can have access to all of these amazing adventures with APICC and a greater understanding of belonging here by looking at the website, which we will link to on our apex express site at KPFA. Next up, listen to elements of freedom from Scott Oshiro Part of Afro Asian futures playing Saturday, May 18th. As part of the United States of Asian America Festival.
MUSIC
That was Scott Oshiro from Afro Asian Futures playing the song Elements of Freedom. This will also be part of the United States of Asian America Festival.
Welcome Nancy Wang from Eth-Noh-Tec to Apex Express.
Nancy Wang: [00:10:18] Thank you. Thank you, Miko.
Miko Lee: [00:10:20] We are so happy to have you, and I understand that Ethnotech is going to be part of APICC United States of Asian America Festival. Can you tell me about what work you’re going to be presenting in APICC Festival?
Nancy Wang: [00:10:34] Yes, my piece is called Shadows & Secrets, and it’s about my grandfather’s death in 1924. We had all been brought up to think it was an accident, although my grandmother accused her own brother of murdering him, so no one took her really seriously, but I began to notice inconsistencies around what was going on at the time of his death. And so I’ve been doing a lot of research and I’ve come up with too many suspicious circumstances around his death. I agree with her. I think it was murder. And so my piece is about trying to find in this cold case, uh, Who could have been the murder. There are four suspects I have found, and maybe they all did it together, or maybe they all wanted to do it, but this is what this piece is about and it’s multidisciplinary. So there’s going to be media behind it with different photos of this restaurant. He was a very famous restaurateur in Chicago. I have six other actors who are going to do the parts. It’s going to be a stage radio play genre. So it’s kind of exciting with all the Foley sounds. It’s going to be at the Mission Cultural Center on May 4th and 5th. May 4th at 6:30pm. and May 5th at 2pm. In addition to that, we’re doing an art exhibit at 447 Minna, because there’s an artist in New York, Chee Wang Ng, who has been collecting various memorabilia of Chinese restaurants in that era of the early 1900s. It is going to be really interesting to see the lavishness of the restaurants at that time, east of the Mississippi river, because both. non Chinese and Chinese were very, very much in love with Chau Sui. If they could afford it, they went to these lavish restaurants.
Miko Lee: [00:12:20] And how is the exhibit connected to your work?
Nancy Wang:[00:12:24] Because my grandfather had one of those lavish restaurants in Chicago. He was known as the, Prince of Merchandom or the wealthiest Chinaman in the Midwest. Because of his fame and his ability to draw in like the upper crust of the lo fan or the European Americans who came to his restaurant and were loyal to him. He had more than one restaurant and they were all very lavish. You’d have opera singers and violinists from Russia. And he had a 10, 000 organ in his restaurant and he had, uh, organ player every night besides bringing in special guests. So it was really very lavish, but very suspect as to what else was going on. Everyone’s dead. So I can say what I need to say. [Laughs].
Miko Lee: [00:13:14] This feels like a new genre for Eth-Noh-Tec in terms of doing a radio play and an art gallery. How, what does it feel like to expand into a new kind of medium?
Nancy Wang: [00:13:24] We saw the Ross Valley players put on a stage radio play and it was so interesting. I just love the idea of it. And it also saves the actors from having to memorize because they get to use their scripts since it’s supposed to be a radio show. They all get to play different characters, so they have to find different stances and different voices, so it’s a challenge for them. so it really simplifies and at the same time is really interesting and exciting.
Miko Lee: [00:13:50] I’m excited to see it because mostly your work is movement oriented. Many different forms of Asian, traditional dance forms that are moved in this storytelling style, so it will be very fun to see a new kind of work. Can you talk a little bit about how your show fits into the festival’s theme of belonging here?
Nancy Wang: [00:14:09] I think, everything that happens whether they’re part of the Tong Wars or they’re part of, just trying to make a living, survive, it’s all about trying to belong here. Even if the Tongs are at war, it’s about territory. It’s about saying, no, this is where I live. This is my territory. I belong here. So it’s always about trying to make sure that your own way of life is going to be grounded in some kind of permanency, trying to make sure that you get to stay in this country. So, whether you have to, you end up doing it illegally, It’s still about trying to stake out where you belong. That’s how I see it.
Miko Lee: [00:14:51] And lastly, Nancy, talk to me about what Asian American Pacific Islander Native Hawaiian Heritage Month means to you.
Nancy Wang: [00:14:59] Well, you know, it should be our heritage all year round, but in this time that the federal government has put aside for us, , it’s a way to really hone in on here we are. This is who we are. This is what we’re capable of doing. This is how we think. This is how we express ourselves. We belong. Please understand. We’re not foreigners forever. We have been here for seven to eight generations already. So how can you say we don’t belong? This is our world. This is our country too. It’s really important for us to use this time to celebrate who we are. And hopefully that the rest of the country, who are not Asian, Get to understand that and somehow create the bridge that will connect us all in some way so that diversity is celebrated rather than something to fear.
Miko Lee: [00:15:52] Nancy Wang, thank you so much. Looking forward to seeing your show as part of APICCFestival. Thank you.
Nancy Wang: [00:15:58] Thank you, Miko, for having me on your show.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:16:00] I am here with Gina Mariko Rosales and so excited to talk about the POC Food and Wine Festival. Thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express.
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:16:10] Yeah, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:16:14] Can you tell us a little bit about the festival and what listeners can expect if they are to attend?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:16:20] Been a long time event planner, producer. We’ve been doing a ton of work in the Filipino community in San Francisco for over seven years. So one of our biggest festivals has been Undiscovered SF, this Filipino night market. And it’s been so beautiful for us to be producing that event. But I’ve really had this desire to build with more multicultural communities. And so that’s how this idea of POC Food and Wine was born, was really wanting to bring together multicultural communities in food, beverage, art, music and how do we bring all these folks together to build something that’s bigger than any one of us? How do we share knowledge resources across our communities? So POC Food and Wine Festival is launching. It’s a four day festival and we’re featuring all kinds of different events, but our main event is happening on saturday May 4th. So it’s the main dish where we’re featuring pairings so like tastings from amazing award winning chefs. It’s paired with POC winemakers, spirits, non alcoholic drinks, and beverage brands. And then of course, Make it Mariko, we always do music really big in everything we do. So of course there’s going to be tons of amazing DJs and live music performers. But there’s really something for everyone. You want that festival vibe, you want our after party vibe, you can come to that or we have these really amazing family meals where it’s like more of the traditional sit down, coursed out, dinner service.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:17:45] So exciting. And for people who don’t know, why is it particularly important to highlight POC winemakers and food creators? What is it about those fields that makes it difficult for people to rake into?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:17:57] In the mainstream spaces and all of those industries so many of these festivals, a lot of the smaller batch winemakers or just folks who don’t maybe have PR agencies, they don’t really get access to a lot of these festivals. And even when POC folks do get access. A lot of the time it costs a ton of money for these chefs to come and present at some of these festivals. And so that’s not accessible to a lot of people who may be really amazing chefs but don’t have the budget for that. So our whole goal with our festival was to create a space that was highlighting folks who don’t necessarily typically get access to these big festival spaces and how do we do it accessibly for them so they can really come and be a part of it.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:18:41] And speaking of accessibility, I feel like wine sometimes can be something that it feels like, you know, there’s a lot of clout around it or maybe some studying or something that’s needed. Can you talk a little bit about the space around wine and inclusion in that field?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:18:57] Totally. I mean, so I’m a wine lover. I love drinking wine. I love going to wine bars. I just got back from Calistoga last week. , but sometimes the reality is a lot of these wine spaces for people of color may not feel accessible or safe or welcoming. A lot of them are, but I’ve definitely been to a lot of spaces where I’ve kind of been ignored. Or maybe I’m the only person of color in the room. Maybe you’ve even had the experience of feeling, getting shushed at a winery or a wine event. And that just, to me, doesn’t feel comfortable. It doesn’t feel like home. So we really wanted to create a wine studio. space that feels more comfortable and accessible. Even just playing music that we like, little things like that make people feel comfortable in a space like I can come as my authentic self.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:19:42] That’s so true. I think a lot of times the culture around wine can feel a bit stuffy and exclusionary. For someone who’s not sure about wine, what would you say to them about reduced barriers to entry to be a connoisseur or an appreciator of wine?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:19:58] This festival is a perfect way to get introduced to that culture and start to feel comfortable there people who love drinking wine But maybe don’t they don’t consider themselves like a wine person because they don’t have knowledge about it Because we’re creating these pairings for you So we’re gonna be telling you like here’s this bite this amazing tasting from this chef and we paired it with this drink for these Reasons, so why don’t you try it out and see how you feel how you like it and if you don’t then that’s fine like at least you’re learning something and you’re getting your, foot in the door and, learning how to even do a wine tasting. So we’ll be sharing some tips like that for people before they go to the festival like, all right, here’s some things that you might want to know about and here’s how you can taste at a wine festival. Here’s how you can spit at a wine festival. Here’s what these buckets are for. So we’re going to help try to introduce people to that culture and make it, you know, less scary.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:20:51] How did you first connect with wine and what was that experience like?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:20:56] My dad loves drinking wine and he would always drink like the darkest, richest red wines. And so when I would taste it, I was like, I do not like this. This is gross. I started drinking my first foray into wine was like really sweet wines, like Gewürztraminer and the more I got into it, my palate started developing and I was like, okay, I’m starting to like this now and now I like this. And it changed. So I actually took a sabbatical from my company after like a really bad burnout after COVID and I got a received a wine scholarship to this program that gave me an introduction to wine that I could actually now learn and study it and that gave me so much inspiration to be like, Oh, this is something that I can do. This is accessible to me and now I’m just educating myself. And there’s so many of these kinds of scholarships available for people who are. excited or curious about wine and just want to get into it and make it more of a passion. So we really want to introduce those to folks too.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:21:57] Wow. That’s so incredible. When you’re talking about who you want to come to the event, can you talk a little bit more about that of who would be the ideal audience for this event and who, or what are you hoping that they bring with them?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:22:11] Yeah, that’s a great question. Of course, we really want those like wine lovers, wine connoisseurs, folks who are, even studying wine, going up for the WCET, or, even like high class sommeliers who are really lovers of wine and understand it really deeply because some of the winemakers we are featuring are just wine Amazing, amazing winemakers with very delicious wine. So the wine pro is welcome here and we’ll have an amazing time, especially with the pairings. But The like, entry, I’m just curious about wine, and really I just like, love music and festivals in general, like you are absolutely welcome here, because who doesn’t love food, first of all? People all love really delicious food and drinks, so that’s gonna be there for you. Some of the other people that we’d love to come or even people who just love music. I love music. I love culture. I love dancing. That is going to be on display throughout the week. So we have some of the best DJs, not even just in the Bay Area, but in the world that are going to be showcasing and spinning at the events. There’ll be line dancing galore. So even if that’s more of your jam, you’re going to have an amazing time too. Another group that might be really excited about coming and that we really want to come to the festival are industry people. So if you are a person who’s actively working in the food, beverage, hospitality events or entertainment industry, like we want you to come. Friday night we’re hosting a special event. special sip and scratch industry night reception just for the people who are working in the industry. And we’re going to be hosting like a really amazing industry roundtable discussion where we want to like get people’s thoughts and ideas. How do we help improve diversity in these industries? Who’s out there doing it really well? What are some ideas of what we could do better? And how can we come together as the industry? Fellow folks in the industries and, you know, work together to improve that. So that’s something that I’m really excited about too. We really just want to have a community conversation.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:24:12] That’s great. And you know, this is a mother-daughter radio show. And you know, my mom thought that this was more my lane, but I’m curious what you think about the parents and older generations coming through too.
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:24:23] Oh my gosh, absolutely. Mother’s Day is coming up. And we really love the idea of people buying tickets for their moms or chosen moms or aunties or dads or whoever, and bring your family to this event. It’s really going to be a super family friendly. Festival where you can come, bring your parents, do all the tastings together, dance a little. I invited my parents to the after party last year Brown is Beautiful and they had an amazing time and we’re just like dancing up a storm. So I definitely encourage people like make this a family friendly day and invite them.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:24:57] I love that. And I’m so glad that you’re bringing this event to the Bay and that, you know, all of these world renowned people are going to be here in our hometown. And of course, there’s so much wine production that happens nearby us as well. What is special about the Bay Area informing the idea of the event and your own worldview?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:25:17] I mean, I am a Bay girl born and raised. So I was born in Pacifica and raised in Daly City, San Francisco, Berkeley, you know, so I’ve been around the Bay and I probably will be for the rest of my life. So I just. Love it here so much. I love the creativity of people, the diversity of people and diversity of thought out here. So of course, like the festival is really highlighting the best of the Bay and we’re really focusing on What are some of the amazing diverse creatives that are building here currently? What is it that makes the Bay the amazing place that it is? And highlighting some of those key businesses throughout. So they’re going to come and give you tastings at the festival, but some of them have beautiful brick and mortars that really do need support outside of that. So that’s one of our big goals too, is like, how do we just introduce people to new spaces that they never knew of before? Because we all know that we get stuck in our little pockets of places, even me, sometimes it’s hard to get even out of like Excelsior and Soma in San Francisco, but how do we challenge ourselves to find new spaces outside of our comfort zones and then become part of a bigger community and expand our community.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:26:28] Yeah, I’m so glad, and that definitely happens to me too. I’ll get this idea that nothing happens here, and then I’m like, girl, you’re the one that’s been inside, like, all this time.
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:26:38] The thing, too, is like ever since COVID, the pandemic, we got so comfortable in these little niche spaces. And that’s okay. You know, we went through trauma together, but now it’s time for us to really explore and expand. And I think that doing this multicultural festival really challenges us to meet new people, meet new restaurants, meet new small businesses that we can support, and connecting people is one of the biggest goals of our festival.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:27:02] Yeah, and what have been some of the unique challenges that you have faced and overcome when it comes to making a multicultural festival in this place and time?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:27:11] Oh, man, it’s definitely, it’s definitely been a journey, but one I’m really, honored to be on. First off, we’re long time festival producers, but new to the wine industry. And so that was really a big hump and I had to kind of get over was figuring out my way. Who’s the who’s who of the industry? Who’s already doing diversity work? Who are some of the big players? And who can I also reach out to for help? You know, so that’s been definitely a challenge. But one I’m really have been excited about because I’ve been meeting all these amazing new people. Secondly, we’re self funding this festival. We do have some sponsors, which I’m really excited about, but the majority of the festival is self funded by our agency and we are really small startup women of color owned agency. So that alone is a lot of investment, but we feel so passionate about the space that we’re trying to build and highlighting the people that we are. So we’re very excited about that and really excited for the community to turn out and show their support for something like this.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:28:10] That’s so great. Can you talk a little bit more about your agency and being a woman run business? And I know that, some of the events are at CL Space, which is also a woman owned, great studio in Berkeley. So yeah, how does that impact the festival?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:28:23] One of the hardest things I was like, daughters, sons of immigrants, you know, I’m a second generation. My parents came from Japan and the Philippines and immigrated here. We often deal with so much scarcity mentality, like we’re just trying our best to make it. Maybe we have imposter syndrome. Maybe we’re the only woman or person of color in a room. So there’s a lot of challenges already from us just taking up space. So that alone has been a real mental challenge for me to even just Say like, Hey, we deserve to be in this space. The space is necessary and we want you to hear us loud and proud. You know, we say it so confidently, but there’s a lot of mental work that comes behind just getting to that place of confidence to say that out loud.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:29:08] Absolutely. And it feels to me like the festival is really an example too of, staking a claim in the fact that we deserve joy too, and we deserve rest and play and luxury, and that as important as it is, of course, to come together across, you know, lines of difference when it comes to like urgent actions and organizing. It’s also so important to be able to have that kind of space in our joy and in our leisure too.
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:29:34] Yes. Oh my gosh. I’m so glad that you did have that takeaway because we try so hard to really just constantly put this message of, Hey folks, we know you’re tired. We’re tired too. And we’ve been doing a lot. We’ve been pushing a lot. We all have. And yes, we deserve nice things. We deserve joyful experiences. We deserve spaces where it’s centered on us being taken care of. And that’s really the kind of environment that we want to create here at this festival, a place of. You know, wellness and healing and joy, because food is healing. Food is also connection, food is culture. So by creating this space, also like, you know, we have, we’re featuring a CBD wine sound bath. You know, there’s all kinds of other activities. So come be fed in your, in your belly, but also of your heart and your mind, you know, take care of that too. So it’s this holistic approach to joy and healing.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:30:30] I love that. And how does your own cultural background impact, why you wanted to create this event and how you organize?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:30:37] Oh, yes. So I’m Filipino Japanese, and there’s not many Filipino Japanese people around my age, mainly because of, like, that was like World War II time, that our grandparents were kind of coming together. So, I take a lot from both of my cultural backgrounds that kind of helped me determine like, what I do and how I curate, you know, Japanese people are so beautiful at creation and curation and really just like honing a craft and becoming well at it. I take a lot of inspiration from that and try to really do that for myself. But when it comes time to party time, Filipinos. know what is up. And so a lot of my curation of how I plan parties and festivals comes from my Filipino upbringing and what a Filipino family party looked like. You know, tons of food, karaoke, singing, drinking, you know, laughing. Like that is my background and what I want to bring to every festival we produce.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:31:40] I love that. And you know, as someone born and raised in the Bay Area who did a lot of theater growing up, I have been to many a Filipino party. They’re always amazing. Great, great food, great, uh, singing. Although some content is a bit competitive, but [Laughs].
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:32:00] Absolutely. You might even see my mom there and then, you know, it’s like a big party. She’ll just be welcoming everyone at the front.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:32:06] That’s so sweet. Um, what are three of your like highlights of the festival? Like things that you’re really, really looking forward to?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:32:17] First is basically our Main Dish Palate Pass Experience. That’s what we’re calling it. And that’s basically the 14 to 15 chef pairings with beverage that you’re going to get to experience at the main dish. We’re really excited because we’ve paired these amazing chefs. With the multicultural beverage providers creating these collaborations that never existed before. I’m really excited about our opening family meal that is going to be, hosted by Chef Reem Assil of Reem’s California. So we’re really highlighting the Palestinian family meal experience, which is going to be served family style. So I’m really excited because Chef Reem is just, just a joy that cooks straight from her soul onto the plate. So I’m excited to experience that intimate dinner. And I’m really excited about our Brown is Beautiful after party. So that’s the one that’s sponsored by like Bacardi and Doucet and Case Tea. So this whole mix of like spirits and also non alcoholic Asian tea and putting together this fashion forward after party experience where people just get to come and enjoy and get down.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:33:26] That sounds great. We’ve talked about the wine and the food and a little bit about the music too and how important that is. I know that there’s also a marketplace. What can people look forward to from the marketplace?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:33:38] Yeah, we’re so excited about featuring about 15 retail vendors who are going to be selling some amazing array of goods. So like jewelry, cookbooks, we’re even going to have a vendor doing like massages and chiropractic services. So there’s going to be this huge mix of vendors. selling their goods as well, selling some art, selling pastries too. If you can’t get enough from the tastings, you can buy extras on the side. So there’ll be so much stuff for you to explore in this 40, 000 square foot space at CL.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:34:12] Beautiful. Is there anything else that you’d like to share?
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:34:15] I think the last thing is I just really want people to come as themselves in whatever capacity that is and really just to be ready and open to meet whoever comes along. I know it sometimes can be hard for folks to get out nowadays, can feel really introverted, and we really just want people to feel like they’re coming to a giant family party where we’re all welcome.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:34:38] Amazing. And yeah, I’m sure it is going to feel just like that and so much joy and how important it is in this time to have a space that is centered on joy and, building up our resilience and resistance through just things that are fun and pleasurable and full of culture.
Gina Mariko Rosales: [00:34:57] Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And centering our cultures and our stories center stage.
Miko Lee: [00:35:03] Next up listen to StayGo from DARKHEART, A Concert Narrative by singer, & songwriter Golda Sargento playing at Bindlestiff through May
MUSIC
That was the voice of Golda Sargento from the new Filipina|x|o Futurism Punk Rock Sci-Fi DARKHEART at Bindlestiff thru May.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:39:04] Hi, everyone. I’m so happy to be joined by Thuy Trần, the Festival and Exhibitions Director of CAAM, or Center for Asian American Media. Thanks so much for joining me, Thúy.
Thúy Trần: [00:39:15] Thank you for having me. I’m so excited.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:39:18] We’re so excited too. We’re such big fans of CAAM and, you know, long time participants and audience members, what do we have in store for CAAM 2024 this year?
Thúy Trần: [00:39:29] Yes. So CAAMFest is May 9th through the 19th is the leading showcase for Asian American talent and film, food, and music. And we’re probably the only festival where you can see this large concentration of Asian American media. So the last few years we’ve expanded to having multidisciplinary programs with food and music. And what’s really important for us is, you know, curating, A holistic and experiential experience for a guest, whether you’re a filmmaker, artist or audience member. and so I guess a couple of things that, I feel really excited about this coming year. Of course, we have our opening night this is going to be at a brand new venue, new to Camp Fest, we’ll be at the Palace of Fine Arts up in the Presidio and our opening night film is Admissions Granted, by Hao Wu and Miao Wang. and it follows the events leading up to the overturning of affirmative action and all the players that are involved. And, afterwards, there will be the opening night gala at the Asian art museum. We have some amazing chefs. And food vendors confirmed there, including Audrey Tang of Batik and Baker, their Malaysian pastry pop up, Sita’s Kamai Kitchen. We also have Patty Liu from Gear of the Snake, another Asian American pop up in Berkeley, and Melissa Chu, who’s the pastry chef of Grand Opening. And she used to work at Mr. Ju’s. and of course you have music by DJ Dree Lee, who’s the resident DJ and organizer of Honey’s and Hot Sauce, and you’ll frequently see them DJing at Jolene’s and, you know, other venues across the Bay Area.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:40:59] Incredible. Well, that sounds really exciting. what are some upcoming dates that people need to keep in mind? Are the tickets available already, or what’s kind of upcoming?
Thúy Trần: [00:41:07] Dates are available. You can get them online at camfest.Com. and, the dates are May 9th through the 19th, with most of our programming concentrated during the two weekends.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:41:17] Perfect. And what’s an event or a screening that you personally are really looking forward to?
Thúy Trần: [00:41:22] I’m looking forward to a lot. I mean, of course, our centerpieces are pretty amazing. You know, we have our centerpiece documentary called Q by Jude Chehab. and that one is on May 11th at the SFMOMA, Jude made this film to save her mother, who’s been deeply indoctrinated into a mysterious religious order that has has woven through three generations of their matriarchal lineage. Another film that I’m really looking forward to is, Ashima by Kenji Tsukamoto and this is about 13-year-old rock climbing prodigy Ashima. It follows her trying to solve a, I think it was like a grade 14 boulder problem, something really advanced. and she does this with her coach, who’s an eccentric retired avant garde dancer who has zero professional climbing experience and also happens to be her father. So it’s a really touching, tender documentary. and of course we also have our food programs as well. One of the programs this year highlights, Chef Tracy Koh from Damansara, as well Chef Emily Lim from Davao, Singapore. So they are coming together for a really specially curated menu, celebrating Malaysian and Singaporean cuisine and this will take place on May 14th at Damansara. We also have our Directions in Sound, music concert that’s a collaboration with the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and we are highlighting Tao formerly of Tao in the Get Down, Stay Down, she’s a local, Bay Area musician, and she had a CAAM funded documentary called Nobody Dies back in 2017. So we’re all really excited about these programs.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:42:53] Beautiful. So many fun and exciting things coming up. So many things to do in the Bay. And we’ll link to the tickets and all the other information in our show notes, too, for anyone listening who wants to figure out how to get tickets. When you were kind of building up the program for this year and going over all of the submissions, were there any themes or anything that stood out that’s kind of maybe unique to this year?
Thúy Trần: [00:43:15] Definitely. This is, in election year. We want folks to go out and vote and also thinking about the social issues that are important to us. So we do have a couple of films that talk a lot about, just empowerment through community building. And so many of our stories come from their personal stories from our chefs. And we’re also looking at CAAMFest as, we’re shining a light on truth tellers. and thinking how we’re lifting the truth of our stories, how these stories are brave and beautiful, bizarre, and they’re all true of something, right? They’re ours, and they’re generous expressions of what impacts us, what matters, and what we long for and imagine. So those two themes were really resonant for us throughout this entire curatorial process.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:44:02] That makes so much sense. And I love the films that you highlighted. Jude is one of my really close friends and I can’t wait to see her screening here in that year. You’re bringing her to the Bay Area. I’m so excited for that. And I saw Ashima in the fall and I love that one too.
Thúy Trần: [00:44:15] Oh, that’s so amazing. I know we’re flying Jude in from out of the country. So it’s going to be really special. We’re actually, you know what, her mom is going to be with us as well. I know. So it’s going to be really special. Jude was saying that her mom, I think she was only able to make it out for their world premiere at Tribeca. Right. And so we’re, yeah, it’s going to be, it’s going to be really incredible to have both of them on stage.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:44:41] Wow, that’s gonna be, that is an event that you cannot miss, everyone listening. It’s gonna be so phenomenal, and Q is truly breathtaking, as is Ashima, and I’m sure all of the other films that were programmed, and it’s just so beautiful to see how diverse and unique and, you know, everything you’re talking about our community is, and so much breadth and depth, so thank you so much for hosting this event and bringing us all together.
Thúy Trần: [00:45:06] Awesome. And thank you, Jalena, for again, having me and of course, like all the wonderful work and art that you create.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:45:13] Thank you. Is there anything else that you’d like to share before we wrap up?
Thúy Trần: [00:45:16] I just want to say that, you know, everyone is, of course, invited, and I just want folks to know that, yes, lifts Asian American storytellers, but ultimately it’s for everyone, it’s for the community as a whole, and we really encourage you to bring all of your friends, your family, tell everyone. We really rely on our community bringing folks in. It’s a really special time to get folks together too. This is a great way to celebrate Asian American Heritage Month.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:45:44] Exactly. And you know, you don’t have to be Asian American to celebrate the month and learning about Asian American stories from Asian American storytellers is a great way to do that.
Thúy Trần: [00:45:56] Yes, a hundred percent.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:45:58] All right. Thank you so much. Hope you have a great rest of your day.
Thúy Trần: [00:46:01] Thank you.
Miko Lee: [00:46:02] Welcome Cyn Choi to Apex express. We are so happy to have one of the co-founders of Stop AAPI Hate on Apex express.
Cyn Choi: [00:46:12] Thank you so much, Miko, for having me.
Miko Lee: [00:46:14] Can you tell us where Stop AAPI Hate comes from?
Cyn Choi: [00:46:19] Stop AAPI Hate was born out of a crisis moment for our community nearly four years ago when COVID was being racialized we decided to create a reporting center. So we can have everyday people share with us what was happening to them. With that data and those stories, we have been able to establish number one, that this was a pervasive issue that we needed to have a robust response to the different forms of hate and discrimination and harassment that our communities were experiencing. We’ve used that to advocate for meaningful change and we’ve done that in a myriad of ways at the grassroots level, policy, local, state, and national level.
Miko Lee: [00:47:04] And you have grown with your collaborators Stop AAPI Hate from a conversation around a table about what was going on in the world into a national movement. What does that feel like for you to be a founder of this?
Cyn Choi: [00:47:17] It’s really humbling, and I think what’s really important to note is that, of course we have experienced racism, discrimination, ,and violence throughout our history, and it defines our experience in many ways, and that our movement Is robust and diverse, and it’s both about we are shaping this country the ideals of a multiracial democracy. And obviously, we have contributed in ways that I think are really important to lift up and to celebrate. And unfortunately, that’s not really taught within our public education system. It’s not what we talk about within our families. And that is something that I think is really important to note, especially in light of AAPI Heritage Month.
Miko Lee: [00:48:13] Can you tell me a little bit about what AAPINH Heritage Month means to you personally?
Cyn Choi: [00:48:19] I think Heritage Month becomes a time where we get to focus on our history which includes our history of resilience, resistance and solidarity, where we get to in our own words and share with our own stories what that means. It allows. others to have exposure. And so we think that focusing on our heritage and what that all means within the month of May is really just our opportunity to share what that means for us.
Miko Lee: [00:48:49] Thank you for sharing that. I wanna step back and ask a question about you, and I am wondering who you are, who your people are, and what is the legacy that you carry with you from your people?
Cyn Choi: [00:49:03] First and foremost I have to name that I am a daughter of immigrants. My parents came to the United States, to California specifically in the early sixties. And they benefited from the lifting up of really severe restrictions. quotas that allowed my family and so many others so I think that’s incredibly important and the legacy of the civil rights movement that really pushed for and advocated for these kinds of changes. It continues to define who I am in terms of how I see the world. And it really does inspire me in terms of my advocacy work. It makes sense that I have been concerned about removing barriers and opening up opportunities for immigrants, for refugees, for women and girls and people who have been traditionally locked out. And so I know that my inspiration and my grounding comes from that. My people, that’s an interesting one for me to answer because I’m a part of so many different communities, a community of activists, a community of mothers who wants to raise their children so that they are compassionate I am a part of a community of organizational leaders that is really trying to make sure that whatever we do, we are Thinking seven generations ahead, what are we trying to build? What are we trying to nurture? And for me, that’s not just a privilege, but it certainly is a feeling of responsibility. So I’m a part of a lot of communities that make me feel grounded and accountable to.
Miko Lee: [00:50:42] Thank you, Cyn. Can you share with us this new campaign that Stop AAPI Hate is showcasing during our Heritage Month?
Cyn Choi: [00:50:50] We have been working on a new campaign called Spread AAPI Love. It’s a project of Stop AAPI Hate, and it’s specifically for AAPI Heritage Month. It’s a storytelling campaign that amplifies the voices of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. It’s about stories of resilience, it’s celebration, solidarity, resistance. It’s from everyday people, it’s from community members. We want to hear from our communities. It’s also about highlighting those in our community who represent many of the values that we uphold around solidarity, around unity around justice. and equality and it’s about harnessing our joy and power and our cultural pride.
Miko Lee: [00:51:35] What inspired this campaign?
Cyn Choi: [00:51:37] After four years of emphasizing and highlighting the rise of hate and structural racism against our communities, we really wanted to center more affirmative narratives. Of who we are and the power that we have to create change. We are not victims of hate. We are more than a series of tragic headlines. We are a richly diverse group of people. And again that is about joy. It’s about our power. It’s about our collective power and a celebration of our diversity and with that it is pride and the sense that we have come from somewhere. That we have journeyed, we are still on this journey of establishing belonging, in a sense that we have collective fate and shared fate, not just amongst and within our AAPI communities, but with other communities as well.
Miko Lee: [00:52:31] And what do you hope that the community will understand or walk away with after hearing some of these stories?
Cyn Choi: [00:52:37] One of the things that we’re really trying to uplift is, that we have to focus beyond acts of hate, that it is about, as I said, our power and joy, but also that We need to tend to healing from this trauma. We need to be able to sustain ourselves because this work is long term and we also need to uplift the fact that. It’s not just visibility. But it’s about what do we do in these moments. So it’s about mobilizing community members to take action. There’s aspects of it where it’s about representation. We want to amplify the voices, the many voices and perspectives and experiences. So that our community members feel seen. and heard and represented. Again, it’s about healing. So we want to really promote this idea that we can heal, that we can overcome moving from a place of anger to really be anchored in love. from a place of love. And that needs to be our driving motivation. It’s about the narrative change. What are the stories that we’re able to tell? From our own voice. It’s about being affirmative about the richness and diversity of our communities and that we have never been a monolith and that it’s important that we also uplift those that tend to be underrepresented within our communities.
Miko Lee: [00:53:59] And how can people get involved in this campaign?
Cyn Choi: [00:54:02] One of the fundamental ways that we’re hoping to engage with people is we’re going to invite people to share their stories. And so we have a campaign microsite. It’s spreadaapilove.org. This is where we’re going to feature stories. People can submit stories, video, audio, art, photography. We’re going to highlight some amazing people who have turned. A tragedy or an experience of racism into something positive. We also want to just hear everyday stories about what makes you feel proud. What makes you, what do you want to lift up about your experience, your family’s history? And it could be something as simple as cooking together. It could be as simple as understanding your family’s contribution, whether it’s in your local community or in the schools, in your neighborhoods.
Miko Lee: [00:54:53] Cyn, I understand that there has been some research that’s been recently released around some of the work of Stop AAPI Hate. Can you share with us about that research and what it says?
Cyn Choi: [00:55:02] Another aspect of our research and data collection is we also do nationally representative surveys. And one of the things that we wanted to learn more about is what really motivates people when it comes to taking action against racial injustice, and our research shows that APS are actually more motivated By positive factors like hope acts of solidarity and cultural pride and some of the statistics that I want to share with you, which was really enlightening to me is when we asked them about if this is motivating 81 percent said that hope for a better future for younger generations was really motivating. It was one of the top 72 percent said that seeing the collective efforts of AAPIs to combat racism, that was number two. And then 69 percent said that feeling strongly connected to their ethnic and racial identity. And so that could take many different forms. And then finally what was a motivating factor? To get involved to take action was, of course, their own direct experiences with hate, and that was roughly a little over 60 percent. And so what that really tells us is that we need to share more affirmative stories about how everyday people are choosing to be grounded in love, to take affirmative steps, to do acts of care, of solidarity to feel that they are doing this as part of a larger movement. And that is really driving in large part our spread API love campaign and the work that we’re doing every day.
Miko Lee: [00:56:40] Thank you. It’s so important to hear positive stories and hear about the work that’s going on in the community. Thank you so much for joining us today. We will put a link to the campaign on our website so people can access this and share their own stories. Thank you so much, Cyn, for joining us today.
Cyn Choi: [00:56:57] Thank you, Miko.
Miko Lee: [00:56:59] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more . We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Hien Nguyen, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Nate Tan, Paige Chung, Preti Mangala-Shekar, and Swati Rayasam. Tonight’s show was produced by Miko Lee and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.
The post APEX Express – 5.2.24 – Celebrating AAPINH Month! appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
For this week’s episode of APEX Express, we are joined by Yi Thoj and Belle Vang from Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) and Pana Lee and Jennifer Xiong from California Hmong Advocates Network – Building Our Futures (CHAN-BOF) who will go into depth about these very tough but very real and needed conversations about abusive relationships, especially within the Hmong community, where 70% of Hmong Americans are under 24 years old.
Important Resources:
- Hmong Innovating Politics website
- California Hmong Advocates Network – Building Our Futures website
- Healthy vs. Unhealthy Relationships infographic
- How to Spot Abusive Relationships infographic
- Do you know someone in an abusive relationship? infographic
- Are you in an abusive relationship? infographic
- What does consent look like? infographic
Transcript
Cheryl: Good evening, everyone! You are tuned in to APEX Express. I’m your host, Cheryl and tonight is an What is AACRE?, you might ask. Well comprised of 11 grassroots, social justice groups, the Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality (AACRE) network, leverages the power of its network to focus on long-term movement, building and support for Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders committed to social justice. Speaking of AACRE groups, APEX express is proud to be a part of the AACRE network.
For tonight’s episode, we will be spotlighting the work of AACRE group Hmong Innovating Politics, also known as HIP. Belle Vang and Yi Thoj from HIP will be in conversation with Pana Lee and Jennifer Xiong from the California Hmong Advocates Network Building Our Futures, also known as CHAN-BOF.
They’ll be in discussion on the importance of teen dating violence awareness, especially in the Hmong community as they are among the youngest of all ethnic groups in the United States with about 70% of Hmong Americans being under 24 years old.
I know somebody, you might want to learn more about HIP and CHAN-BOF so I’ll let our speakers introduce themselves. And don’t forget. All of their socials and websites will be linked in the show notes.
Belle: Hi, everyone, thank you so much for making time in your night to join us. We really appreciate it. Today we’re going to be having a panel discussion in recognition of Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. I really want to thank CHAN-BOF for collaborating with Hmong Innovating Politics. We’re very excited to do this collab together. We’re going to do a brief introduction. So, hi, everyone. My name is Bella Gaonoucci Vang. I’m with Hmong Innovating Politics as a Communication and Narrative Manager. If you’re not one of our followers, make sure to follow us.
Hmong Innovating Politics is a grassroots organization focused on strengthening political power within Hmong communities through civic engagement. And with that being said, I’ll go ahead and pull in one of our HIP members, Yi.
Yi Thoj: Hi everyone, my name is Yi and I use she, her pronouns, and I been a HIP young adult for around three to four years. I’m also working on the Bright Spots project.
Belle: And then if we can have Pana join the conversation.
Pana: Hi, everyone. I am Pana with CHAN-BOF champion stands for California Hmong Advocates Network Building Our Future. We were two grassroots organizations
in community and outreach and this past year we have been able to provide mobile direct services to our Hmong survivors of domestic violence across the Central Valley– so from Sacramento to Fresno.
Jennifer Xiong: All right. And that leaves me. Hi, everyone. My name is Jennifer Xiong. I use she/her pronouns and I work as a program specialist with CHAN-BOF and Banak, who actually serves as my supervisor. I’m really excited and happy to be here and really grateful for HIP for giving us a space time and platform to have this conversation
Belle: Thank you again CHAN-BOF for collaborating with us here at HIP. We really appreciate all the work y’all do in the community. I know y’all individually are really great folks. I’m really excited to dive into today’s conversation. In your experience, I’m just asking everyone in the panel, where are some cultural norms or expectations within the Hmong community regarding relationships and dating, and that could be anything that you’d like to share from your own personal experiences.
Pana: I think I can go. So I think growing up in the eighties, cultural expectations for women, Hmong women, We were expected to just cook, clean, and take care of our younger siblings and our parents. Right? So if you were dating, your relatives would just look down on us.
Dating was frowned upon. I remember it was expected that if a guy is interested in you, they would have to come by your parent’s house and your parents would have to approve. I remember guys come in and during our teenage years, my mom would have to be present.
Right. My parents are really strict. Their limit was they could only stay two hours. And so my mom would ask fast questions. If they don’t qualify, they don’t meet expectations, they better be out ASAP. My parents are really, really strict.
So those were our expectations back in the 80s. We weren’t really allowed to date during my younger days that’s what we had to go through.
Yi Thoj: I feel like a lot of the gender expectations of my generation is still very much by heteronormative and patriarchal norms and construct.
I’m the youngest of 7 girls, so all of my, 6 older sisters– they’re fierce and they’re also wonderful, powerful women who have helped me navigate through a lot of the contentions that I held before, interacting with romantic encounters and engagements. And so I think having that model definitely helped me navigate through my experiences as well. I feel like our parents are like, oh, if you want to engage in romantic encounters at a young age, that’s welcome. But thankfully, they also didn’t pressure us to do so.
Jennifer Xiong: It’s got me thinking about my own experiences, very little experiences, I might add. I think about some of the things my mom has said to me, which still stick around, it’s kind of like embedded in my mind where she says Oh, ([Jennifer speaks in Hmong) meaning when your partner is visiting or at our home, you guys shouldn’t be in your bedrooms. You should be out in the living rooms because that’s really disrespectful. It, it invites negative perceptions about the person and about the relationship and it is a form of disrespect toward the, the parents and the home. I’ve also felt and seen from my older cousins or distant relatives who’ve gotten married– I think it’s centered a lot around saving face. I remember hearing stories about my cousins. If they had gone out and they came home late, for example, and the parents were extremely displeased or unhappy, and they’re like, no, you dishonored me and my daughter. You have to marry my daughter now because you took her home late, even if they didn’t do anything salacious, so to speak. I’d hear those a lot. And, for me, those are always scary. Like, Oh my gosh, they would just do that! And you’re a kid and you’re growing up hearing these and actually, I think I heard it more commonly than I expected– people marrying young because of the whole consequence of arriving home late from a date or a hangout. So those are some of my experiences or what I’ve, I heard and witnessed. Yeah.
Belle: Thank y’all for sharing. I love hearing about your experiences. I It’s really interesting how we all have different experiences, but it’s still in the same realm of a very similar community, right? Very tight knit community.
I echo both Jennifer and Yee’s experience where my parents are a little bit more lax, but at the same time, it’s like, make sure you marry someone who’s a quality person. Right? I think that’s really telling of how we see dating in the Hmong community. We don’t date to date, right? We date to commit forever. And especially, I know all of us on this panel are women identifying and that can be a very dangerous tool, right? To just date to only marry– you’re willing to put up with a lot, even if it’s not really what you want for yourself, because the way the culture shapes us is if you are dating, you’re only dating seriously. It’s not to explore, not to be curious about yourself. And so I really appreciate the way that y’all frame it and the way that you share your experiences too. And I know we touched a little bit on this as well, but kind of gauging what it looks like to be in a healthy relationship. How would you say a healthy relationship is defined within the Hmong community? And what are qualities that you consider important? For a positive and respectful relationship within the community?
Pana: So you all heard the word [Pana speaks in Hmong], right [Pana speaks in Hmong] right? [Pana speaks in Hmong] We We hear this over and over. I think even with my age, I’ve heard that. I’m pretty sure some of y’all have heard that to even my parents or friends or family, right? To me, what’s considered positive in a relationship is really compromising and allowing you to have your own space, really meeting each other in the middle, trusting each other, having boundaries, appreciating each other, respecting, having that respect, right? Effective communication, being able to communicate with each other and having empathy. Also consent. Really having the permission of something to happen or agreement. Be able to agree with something and being committed to your relationship.
Jennifer Xiong: Yeah, I wanted to add, and also share that I think a lot of the times traditional expectations around what a healthy relationship looks like in the Hmong community generally entails being constricted and confined to your pre established roles that have been gone for generations.
But I think that how we can further redefine that nowadays is to really think about how everything that Pana has already listed and shared. Right. I think it’s important that those things like healthy boundaries and having balance within a relationship, I feel a lot of those things should be contextualized to the relationship.
That’s one, but also, I think it should be formed organically, which is difficult, and there will always be ongoing conversations about what a romantic commitment looks like, and what does that mean for the exact couple, but I think it’s important to have an ongoing conversation about it, and then also it’s important to understand these layers, that , If the couple is both Hmong, it’s important to put that in context, and then it’s also, what if it’s a multiracial or multiethnic relationship? I think that’s also very important. Understanding the values, and how these things can be formed organically as well. There are certain learned behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, that we pick up as we grow up and what the kind of relationships and dynamics we witnessed as we’re growing up and then getting or getting involved in our own romantic relationships with people, and the things we witness and see can also really shape the way we go into relationships and the way we show up as partners.
I really don’t know how to define it within the Hmong community, but I will say that I have seen when relationships and dynamics of dating are built on a foundation of patriarchy, it can, relating back to what Yi and Pana says, it can build really toxic and concerning, unhealthy relationship dynamics of power and control, and not knowing how to allow your partner to have autonomy to themselves, or knowing that it’s two different people coming in together to a relationship. Power and control, when it gets mixed into this relationship, it can become really unhealthy and toxic.
So I think it’s also about unlearning those and realizing that certain attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs don’t serve in creating a healthy relationship between a partnership or a romantic relationship. Within the Hmong community, a lot of us I’ve seen unlearning those behaviors and attitudes that we may have witnessed and maybe even internalized growing up.
To answer the second part of the question what qualities are considered important for a positive respectful Relationship. I think it’s really all that you you both named. Those are important like compromise and y’all named so many other great stuff, but then I was also just cranking up the things in my mind, but I just want to echo back what Yi and Pana said, and I’ll leave it at that.
Yi Thoj: What Jennifer just shared, about what we witnessed growing up sparked something in my mind as well about the media that we consumed growing up too. I watched a ton of Tyler Crohn’s and Southeast Asian media growing up, and so much of the representations of love in there. It’s so romanticized that abuse is okay. Non consensual engagements is okay. The media and real life relationships that are reflected and also modeled throughout our lives hold such a big factor into how we view love growing into a young adult and further. I know it definitely impacted me because I was always like, Oh, I think that’s what love is, right? That’s what it’s showing on TV and things like that. Yeah, definitely holds weight.
Belle: Yeah, I love that you mentioned that Yi. I didn’t really seriously start dating until I was in college and a lot of our generation grew up watching kdramas. Like, oh so romantic, super rich Boy is in love with super poor girl and he dictates her life and buys her everything like so romantic. And I tell my partner now that i’m married, if you ever do anything like in kdramas we are not messing around. That is not cool I don’t want you to decide anything for me. I don’t want you to pretend like you’re in the hospital just as a prank You know boys over flowers. It’s really interesting how love is framed growing up and how, just like you said, it’s super romanticized. And like, you know how K dramas, you feel that excitement, like that, it’s not necessarily love, right? That’s just the thrill of being in something new, experiencing something different, but not necessarily love itself. And I really resonate with what you said earlier, Yi, about how it’s really important to form those healthy boundaries and organically. And I really closely ties to Pana’s comment about being able to create a consensual relationship and, Just like Jennifer said to like dismantling that patriarchy and foundation that we were built on.
We;re
Belle: Learning those things are really hard to because initially I thought that drama was what love was supposed to be, but love is supposed to be safe and supposed to protect you, make you feel like you belong. Right? Because we like do grow up in a society that perpetuates love in honestly a violent way, I also just kind of want to know like y’all’s thoughts on do you think there’s enough awareness about dating violence within our communities, particularly the Hmong community? And how do you feel like it’s generally perceived or even discussed amongst one another?
Pana: I actually think there’s not much awareness happening in the Hmong community. We really need to continue and bring more awareness. And it’s awareness. Prevention. Intervention. We need to continue to do that. Some parents don’t talk much to their youths about teen dating violence, what’s healthy and what’s not healthy, or actually like what to look for in a relationship.
In my household, I have only boys. And so we talk about safe sex, healthy boundaries, healthy relationship. What would they like to see in a relationship. I do this because, I’ve had experience working in the domestic violence field, sexual assault field for a long time.
And plus, that’s something that I never got from my parents. So my goal was, from now on, when I have my kids, these are stuff that I’m going to teach them. And so I kept my goals, you know, that was something that I told myself that I promised myself that I would do this, to continue to teach my kids healthy boundary, healthy relationship and dating violence., Most parents were taught when they were young you’re going to get married and just have a good life, have a good family.
Yi Thoj: All points that are so valid and so true. There are generational gaps, between the elders and ourselves and myself. My parents are around mid 60s. As much as I think I try to bridge that gap sometimes, I think youth just don’t have the language as well to fully explain to them.
There’s even the conversation about like mental health and how romantic relationships are embedded in mental health and even that in itself is a difficult conversation to start. More tangible resources to learn more about communication in terms of learning the Hmong language and whatnot would definitely help with outreach and building awareness in the community.
But I think a lot of recent events as well have also shown to me about where The reflection of culture and the communities as well Which I would also like to provide some sort of affirmation for any youth who’s watching this that these contentions and frictions within the community– it’s never a reflection of you. You know, it’s always a reflection of the larger culture and what is happening. And something that we all need to advocate for and invest into to change.
Jennifer Xiong: yeah. I agree that Bottom line, there isn’t enough awareness about dating violence within the Hmong community on many different fronts, like Pana mentioned, the prevention piece and the intervention piece. How does someone recognize or learn to recognize signs of I might be in a toxic, unhealthy relationship that is or can eventually lead into something that’s violent? Or maybe I am in a current relationship where there is violence, but I don’t know how to pick up on the signs and actually realize that, hey, I’m not in a safe place in this relationship, or in a safe relationship.
And then if your loved ones or family members or friends are recognizing it from an outside perspective, like, we lack a lot of resources and information out there for our community to engage with to learn how to intervene or also recognize it among our loved ones and the people we care about if they may be in those types of dynamics and relationships.
And then when we do recognize it, how do we step in and help? What do we do? How can we help? And yeah, so bottom line, there isn’t enough resources out there.
I think it’s still really on the, I guess the loose term, up and up. I really have a lot of faith and hope and I’ve seen, the work continue to expand and grow and obviously CHAN-BOF is a part of that, along with so many other organizations, statewide organizations that are trying to build more resources and information and push it out there into our communities, so that they know this information, they have access to it and can tap into it with our youth and young adults , and maybe even with our older folks or generations, cause I know you mentioned brought up a really great point too,in that , there’s different gaps or different ways of understanding how to talk about dating violence within the Hmong community.
Pana: Yeah, I remember my parents would tell me, [Pana speaks in Hmong] [Pana speaks in Hmong] [Pana speaks in Hmong] and I’m like I never understood that. And so growing up, getting older, I kind of understood it. And again, they said the same thing. We were talking, me and my kids were sitting in the table and we’re talking about healthy relationship and stuff. What do you look for? How would the relationship look like? What’s healthy? And then again, my dad says, yeah [Pana speaks in Hmong]
And my son was like, I don’t understand that mom. It was just very generalized, and I had to like recorrect that. This is what he means. My definition of what my dad said was Look for a healthy relationship. Get to know the person Date them
Belle: I love that example Pana because growing up everyone always told me that, and I took it at face value. You know when we speak in moments like poetry, right? but growing up I took that at face value saying like when you grow up make sure you marry someone who has Power, who has good reputation in the community, and then As I got older, my mom’s like, that’s never what I was telling you.
Jennifer Xiong: I was just telling you, marry someone who makes you happy. And I was like, Oh, how come you didn’t just say it that way? Then like you put it in a way that I was like, Oh man, I have to make sure I marry someone who’s brings honor to my family, right? Like what a Mulan way of thinking. But I feel like that’s always how I really perceive dating. And tying how Hmong is very much like poetry in our communities, I really like what Yi’s comment earlier about how there’s not really a lot of terminology in our community for even awareness about the mental health in our community. It’s very much how medical terms have only really come to fruition in our community within the past like 50 years. We don’t have anything regarding terms that we can use for mental health or dating violence, like the only thing we can use is sick, like that’s pretty much how you say when you talk about mental health.
You just say basically, you have a sickness in your head, but there’s not actual terms. When we talk about diabetes, like, [Jennifer speaks in Hmong] which literally translates to sweet blood or blood. Well, that is sweet. I hope to see, the next, I don’t want to wait 50 years. I hope in the next 20 years there is verbiage that can help the community decipher and break down and bring more awareness to the violence that’s being perpetrated in our communities as well.
Belle: I love this conversation. I really love that. You showed examples of your son, and it really feels like how intergenerationally we think. We all think so differently, even though we have good intentions it doesn’t get translated across the board.
I kind of want to elaborate a little bit more when we talked about how it’s really important to have consent when it comes to dating, how you really teach your sons that. Would you mind elaborating a little bit more about what consent looks like when it comes to dating, your perspective and how you see it within our communities as well.
Pana: Have y’all seen the little video about drinking tea ? Sometimes you can drink the tea and you’re like, I don’t want to drink it no more. You know, and so you can change at any moment, right? And being able to understand okay, I This person might not want to, so I need to be able to give that respect and step away, right?
And so, getting them to understand that. So if you all watched that video, the tea consent video. It’s really cute, and It’s really good for the youth, even for the kids. They understand it real quick.
In a relationship, you should be able to give them that space and say, Okay, I get it. I’m gonna be able to understand if someone says no, then no means no. And then their body gestures are like they’re pushing back, that means no. If my face is looking like, i’m shaking my head or you can see in my eyes like I don’t like you stay away Right? And so being able to understand that
Jennifer Xiong: I think one thing I want to add to that which is great. Like the tea consent video is super amazing at just Easily explaining under the understanding of consent, but also when someone can’t consent like when they can’t answer yes or no. For example, they’re at a party and they’ve passed out drunk. They’re just not conscious and awake and they can’t answer yes or no, decline or accept. That also is not an invitation or permission. That is not a consent, basically. So I’m going back and forth.
When a person can’t answer, it’s definitively no, because they’re not consciously aware and awake enough to give that response. So I think that is also something I wanted to add.
Yi Thoj: Yeah, I don’t have much to add to this question. I’ve never seen the tea consent video, but putting that into perspective, that is such a great analogy and wonderful example and easy way to explain things can change right in the middle of an interaction.
Also just wanting to provide admiration to Pana as well to opening up the conversations with your sons because I think that’s so important. A lot of the times younger Men or Hmong youth who are male identified. A lot of the times their influences are from other male figures in their lives who may not be the best role model. And so I’m totally leaning in towards the Hmong woman leaders in people’s lives, especially Hmong youth, and just really loving that.
Belle: I love that affirmation. we are right now a room of powerful women in our community itself. So I really, I want to like, double up on that echo Yi’s statement as well.
Cheryl: You are currently tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA and 88.1 on KFCF. You have so far been listening to Belle Vang and Yi Thoj from Hmong Innovating Politics, also known as HIP, and Pana Lee and Jennifer Xiong from California Hmong Advocates Network Building Our Future (CHAN-BOF). We are going to take a quick music break, but don’t go anywhere. More on breaking the silence about teen dating violence awareness in the Hmong community after our break.
Welcome back. You were tuned into apex express on 94.1, KPFA 88.1. KFCF in Fresno. And online at KPFA. Dot org.
You were just listening to your track off of the Anakbayan LB May Day mix tape called “Letter to Mom” by shining sons. Anakbayan LB is a Filipino youth and student organization based in long beach, California, working to arouse, organize and mobilize the community to address issues that impact Filipinos in the U S and in the Philippines.
Now, back to the show. We are here, with belle Vang and Yi Thoj from Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) and Pana Lee and Jennifer Xiong. From California Hmong Advocates Network Building Our Futures (CHAN-BOF). We’re talking about teen dating violence awareness and its impacts and implications in the Hmong community.
Belle: Jennifer, you talk about patriarchy and shared about how, you really tried to shape your son because you also work in this field you are definitely more eloquent work in addressing these issues. I want to dive more into what that looks like within our community and in our culture. Do you feel like there are specific cultural or community barriers that may prevent individuals, particularly Hmong individuals, from seeking help or disclosing incidents of dating violence? And what does that look like? Especially since I know CHAN-BOF does a lot of that direct work with clients.
Pana: I think because we’re so closely knitted, that’s a barrier too, being afraid of, okay, this person might know me. One example is while growing up, I was taught men were more valuable than women. I think in our family, my parents really wanted a son and they kept on trying and trying until after they got 7 daughters, they finally got their son, right? And so we were told, you have to be patient because boys, [Jennifer speaks Hmong] and as a teenager, I was like, I guess I held no value. And so, and also keeping in mind for a long time, a lot of our culturally specific organizations were mainly ran by Hmong men. Hmong men are the main person who makes the decisions
Jennifer Xiong: Some of those barriers are they don’t seek help or support. The other barrier that I experienced in high school is I had a friend who was dating someone who was really abusive and verbally abusive, physically abusive. He sexually assaulted her. When she came to me. I was like, Oh, no, you need to go to your parents. The minute she told her parents, she was forced to marry him to save face. And so, after watching what had happened to my friend made me feel like if that happened to me and I went and told my parents. But these are back in my days, though, right? I would be forced to get married, like, and that time I didn’t know that that was not okay. If someone raped you and forced you, that is not okay, but I wasn’t aware of that. She wasn’t aware of that. And so, again, we said, you know, back, awareness needs to happen. Awareness and education. That was something I remember for a long time and I felt guilty and I, I felt bad because I didn’t know who to send to go for help. I referred it back to her parents and said, yeah, your parents would help you go for it and go for it. And that’s, that’s what happened. That’s one of the other barriers. Some of our parents are not very educated in this topic, and it’s a topic that we don’t talk about.
I do want to add, there’s still strong sentiments of, victim blaming, shaming, disempowering. I’ve heard statements, or I will say, I was doing my research paper on DV in the Hmong community. My sources were like YouTube videos. And so, I found these videos of these women speaking out about their experiences of DV. In this particular example, she’s married she was pregnant and her husband was abusing her. So much so that he was dragging her down the stairs of their apartment building. And so she mentioned her stomach was basically getting shaped. She was somehow able to escape his grasp and run to a neighbor and ask them to call law enforcement. And so law enforcement came and took away the husband because they visibly could see what, what had gone on. Her mother in law had said to her, Oh. [Jennifer speaks Hmong], meaning, oh, daughter in law, why did you call law enforcement and have them take away my son? It dawned on me how we perceived some of these dynamics and abuses when it happens in relationships. And again, the whole, why did you do that instead of are you okay? What happened to you? Why did they do that to you? Or really focusing on the wellness and safety of the person being in a violent relationship, violent abusive relationship. And to add to that, the terminology and the way we frame some of the resources out there, I remember a lot of the [Jennifer speaks in Hmong] the elders, would call DV shelters [Jennifer speaks in Hmong] right. The term, the explanation of it is like the place for runaway women or wives or mothers. But in fact, these shelters meant to house and keep individuals, women, children, who were experiencing abuse and violence in their relationship safe. But then we use negative connotations and terminology to label them because it brings a lot of shame and hesitation to seek out help.
The fact that the resources that are available mainstream wise for those who are seeking help and resources because they may be in an abusive violent relationship is that there’s also a lack of culturally responsive resources and services to aid and assist our specific community members when they’re out trying to get the help that they need. I’ve witnessed and heard that a lot from the clients that I directly support and assist. Like, oh, we’ve gone here and then they mentioned not having a great experience, or being misunderstood, or I’m not feeling even safe or comfortable enough to talk about their experiences and get the resources and help that they need because some of the agencies really lacked the cultural understanding awareness or the intersection of that when it comes to dating violence or domestic violence in our own community.
Yi Thoj: Yeah, all of this is like really great examples. Also, unfortunate. I think that from my own experience with dealing with victims around me who have undergone a lot of these violences, what I’ve seen is that a lot of it is them recognizing that the harm that is being done to them is wrong. Very much so. But they’ve also internalized and conditioned themselves to accept it as something that is normal and okay, even if a lot of the times there’s this back and forth resistance of wanting to debate themselves from the situation, but then at the same time, them like always going back and this is the cycle of abuse, right, and how it works.
But one note that I would also like to make is that what I’ve also seen is that it’s really, really important that male perpetrators, especially Hmong men, it’s important that there are other Hmong men who are holding them accountable, is what I found to be true. Because as much as Hmong women who are victims and other Hmong women bystanders who are wanting to advocate for these victims try to stand up for them, These perpetrators and also the culture inherently does not change if people who are in power and have that privilege don’t actively help dismantle it, too. So, I think that it’s important to note. There’s so much power that goes into having woman led spaces and woman voices because that’s so important, but I also think there should be so much more work done from the cisgendered male counterparts in our lives and in the community
Belle: Thank y’all for that. Your sentiment is so powerful, yi and it’s Very valid. A lot of times the folks that were leading this work are often the women in our communities Like that’s just straight up facts, right? I attended a Boys and men of color conference, and one of the panels said the one time that men have these spaces together is also when women created. Right? As women, we build a lot of community for our community and at the same time, don’t get the recognition of the work that is being done. So, it’s really important that those who do have power, make sure that they implement it correctly and support communities that minorities within their communities that need that extra support.
The examples provided to I felt were very powerful, but also very traumatizing. When I was listening to your story, when you were talking about how you advise your friend to go to their family and they were forced into marriage. I know that we are different generations, but I feel like I definitely have met folks who are my age who were still forced to the situation. Those culture practices are so very normal and not unheard of. Like it’s not completely cultural shift within one generation. And I’m sure When you witnessed that, that it was very traumatizing for you too, even though you were not the one immediately affected by it, but it also shifted the way you saw community, the way you viewed culture itself. And you even expressed you felt a lot of guilt and responsibility for that. It’s really interesting that when there are those traumatizing, abusive relationships happening to those folks, and even at the third per person party that you feel that trauma in other ways as well. You mentioned how the patriarchy does affect our communities in that way. What is being done? What is being said to help heal our communities and work past these issues that are obviously very much rooted in our communities. I know we talked a little bit about the way cultural identity influences our communities.
I know we specifically talked about the Hmong community too as well. I know we only have about 10 minutes left and so I kind of just want to dive into, not necessarily solutions, but what are things that we can take, what are steps that we can take to make progressive action and change in our community? So in your opinion, what role can the Hmong community play in addressing and preventing this deep imbalance? And Are there any community led solutions that you feel could be effective within our community?
Yi Thoj: Yeah, I think as we’ve mentioned throughout the conversation, it’s important to emphasize and highlight prevention work that can be done. And that is teaching the young boys and men and ongoing older Hmong men in our lives to. Because that is community, right?
Folks who are directly within our circles, as well as people who we interact with. I think it’s important to teach them very simple things that should already be fundamental, but unfortunately are not. Such as informed consent, and then also just normal consent. I think to echo back on what I just shared as well, having more male mentors who are very much progressive and radical in their work, and also centered in the actual tangible dismantling of the culture and harmful aspects of the system, I think is, A really big part of it.
The reason why I think I’m bringing this up is because my experience with younger men who still hold a lot of these traditionalist and violent behaviors and mentalities receive a lot of their mentorship from other male mentors in their lives, and also just media consumption such as Andrew Tate and whatnot. A lot of folks in my own young adult experience very much religiously follow Andrew Tate and I had believed that we were at a point in our progressive history to where we have gone past that, but it’s still very rampant in the community and it’s affecting The youth, and it’s affecting how they interact with and also date other Hmong women as well, assuming that this is a binary relationship.
Pana: It’s time to talk about it, supporting each other, talking about what health relationship really is. And It doesn’t have to just come from the school. For a long time, a lot of our parents, we depend on the school. Oh, they’ll figure that out, right? it needs to come from everyone, every one of us. Even as a friend, as an individual, we all need to support in that piece like supportive organizations such as CHAN-BOF and HIP, right?
Continuously talking about this, bringing the awareness. If you’re feeling uncomfortable, if we’re really uncomfortable talking about a certain topic, we do need to talk about that and really addressing that. Getting to understand what’s healthy and what’s not healthy.
What are the signs of an abusive relationship? I think if we really want change, change needs to happen especially as parents and it comes from the youth too. We want a better future for our youth so I think really continue to really address this and doing a lot of prevention work because we tend to deal with a crisis and we’re forgetting about the prevention part. How do we prevent this stuff. One great example that I always use is we’re constantly supporting and trying to jump in and support people who are drowning, but we keep forgetting about, what’s happening on the other side of that river. Something’s happening and it’s the prevention education piece that we need to start doing and continue to do.
Cheryl: We’re going to take a quick music break, but don’t go anywhere. Next up,. You’re going to be listening to “cultural worker” by power struggle. More on the ways we can work towards. Teen dating violence awareness in the Hmong Comunity when we return.
Cheryl: And we’re back!. You are tuned in to KPFA on 94.1, KPFA 88.1 KFCF F in Fresno and online at kpfa.org. You were just listening to “cultural worker” by power struggle, a Filipino beat rock music artist based in the bay. We’re currently here with Belle and Yi from Hmong innovating politics, hip. And Jennifer and Pana from California Hmong advocates network, building our futures, cHAN-BOF as we discuss the ways we can address teen dating violence in the Hmong community.
Jennifer Xiong: I’m gonna echo, I mean, both of you brought up the same points, but in really distinctive examples of your own, and I really appreciate that. It is about really bolstering, our community up to be proactive and engaged and informed about this, and really equipping and building them up to be a part of this, that it’s not oh, you know, I think it’s great that obviously we do this work as current active advocates who’ve had previous quote, unquote, professional experience dealing with , crisis like this, or dealing with and supporting directly individuals who have gone or are going through this and that, like, everyone is more than capable of being equipped with the knowledge and being enforced with the knowledge and the ability To learn and understand this and be proactive about it in our community. It does lead a lot back to the whole prevention and intervention work and building up our youth and young adults. Cause you know, okay. So a side note is, so we did a lot of outreach and engagement work this past year, really putting it out in front of our community, in the Hmong community. And let me tell you, I was scared to do this because I was like, oh my gosh, people are going to be bringing their pitchforks and torches and, and they’re going to come around and be like, who’s this girl going on TV, talking about DV and providing resources and services for our community. Interestingly enough, I got like so much of the opposite reaction and responses. And I think to me, that’s really heartwarming. And it gives me a lot of hope because I got so much positive affirmation and reinforcement and feedback from even our older generations in our community and young folks too, saying this is so needed. This is critical, important. I’m so glad you’re out here. Or how can we get involved? Even being like, ,
I’m so happy that you guys are doing this work. And we really have a lot of faith because so much of our younger folks, younger generations are stepping up to do this sort of work. So I think it’s really the community, a large portion of the community, from what I’ve experienced, really recognize how important and needed this work is to implement this and incorporate this into our community so they know and understand like, Hey, violence is not okay. Dating violence is not okay. Domestic violence is not okay. But what can we do? , what do we do about it? And I think we’re at that place where people are really curious and desiring to really step up and do something about it. And again, I think what Pana and Yi mentioned.
Belle: Thank you. I love those ideas on how the Hmong community can take action to change the violence that happens in our communities, right? I love dismantling the patriarchy and empowering our youth. I think that also really comes with, I know we didn’t really touch on this, but, the 18 class system. How there really needs to be more, you mentioned, women leadership. We have a lot of women leadership in our communities, but not within our 18 class system. And why is that right? And how do we convince them that we need women in those leadership roles within our communities to represent our communities. That also ties into the same thing with Jennifer, how we really want to empower youth. We should also have youth leadership because then the folks who are in those important seats are 60 plus and so disconnected with the reality that we’re living in today.
So, you know, I just really appreciate everything y’all brought to the table today. I know we only have a few minutes left. , I know we talked a lot about youth empowerment, how there’s a lot of women leadership. Since we’re focusing on teen dating violence today, what is a tip or advice that you would have liked to receive as a teenager, now being a little bit more experienced with your relationships. And if you could say it really quick. Any of the teenagers listening out here, perk your ears up– there’s a lot of great advice in here, so make sure that you absorb it like a sponge. And I’ll just go ahead and leave it at that.
Pana: I think with me– it’s okay to not be okay, right?
It’s okay to not be okay, and it’s really okay to talk to someone. And really reach out for help and, you know, really understand that it’s okay to say no, and we are all equal.
Jennifer Xiong: For me, Oh gosh, this is hard. First things first is like, I think my teen self would have loved to know dating during your teen years. It’s not a big deal. Like, it’s okay. Don’t feel like you’re missing out or that there’s something wrong with you if you aren’t in a relationship while you’re in your teen years. Really spend that time cherishing and valuing the time you have with yourself and getting to know yourself first, so that when you do get into a relationship, you know what you want, you know, the values that you want in a relationship, the values you want to bring into a relationship, you know yourself. And also don’t forget that you are you’re worthy. You matter, you’re important. And that, anyone who disrespects you or does not value your work in a relationship more than likely aren’t worth your time and aren’t worth your tears. And so I think that’s what I would have wanted to know.
Yi Thoj: for mine, it’s very specific. How I came to be with my current partner. It was through an intersection of events with a lot of things that we’ve already discussed today as well. And so I think what I would have wanted to know is that It’s very difficult to try to empower and change the hearts and minds of people on the ground level. Even if you’re going in head strong. please treat yourself with grace in all of that.
And then lean in on your partner to help you navigate that. It’s so important. I think a lot of Hmong women and Hmong girls are taught to be hyper individualistic and independent, and it’s needing to teach that sometimes you can lean into your femininity. Sometimes you can lean in on support from other people. And also from your partner, it’s really important.
C: Thank you. I love all the self love in the room and just really great advice on being gentle with yourself and recognize that you are deserving of all the good things in life. I hope that everyone really takes that to heart and it’s just friendly reminder to continue loving yourself in the process of loving others. Love is abundant. It’s not scarcity mindset. We are here to share our love and that love should be shared with ourselves as well. We’re going to wrap today up and I just want to say thank you so much to Yi, Pana, Jennifer for joining us and thank you so much CHAN-BOF for collaborating with HIP for dating violence awareness month. We really appreciate all your effort and all the work you do in our communities as well. If you haven’t already in the audience, please make sure to follow and like HIP and CHAN-BOF so you can continue following the work that we do and support our endeavors as community members, because you are part of the change in our communities as well. Well, all so much and have a good rest of your night. Thanks everyone.
Cheryl: And that’s the end of our show. Learn more about the incredible work being done by Hmong innovating politics and CHAN-BOF by checking out our show notes.
Also HIP and CHAN-BOF ask work together to create these really helpful infographics on themes of teen dating violence awareness, such as what is consent? How do you know you’re in an abusive relationship. How can you help someone who’s in it? I found them to be really helpful. So I will also make sure to link those in the show notes as well.
Cheryl Truong: Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
The post APEX Express – 04.25.24 – Hmong Teen Dating Violence Awareness appeared first on KPFA.
As April is both Dalit History Month and Poetry Month, we bring you a fantastic spotlight of a brand new exhibition that just opened up right here in Oakland called Dalit Dreamlands.
We speak to curator Manu Kaur and artist-activist-future doctor Anika Nawar Ullah, of Bangladeshi Adivasi ancestry. We also get talk to Vamsi Matta, a Dalit artist from India whose work “Come Eat With Me,” an interactive theater show highlights how food and vegetarianism is at the heart of casteist discrimination.
As part of our tribute to Poetry Month that is April we also bring you a poignant discussion with Tanzila or Taz Ahmed, a prolific Bangladeshi-American artist and poet from LA talk about her new compilation of poetry, Grasping At This Planet Just To Believe, that she has written over the years, during the holy month of Ramadan.
The post APEX Express – April 18, 2024 – Dalit Dreamlands and Taz Ahmed Poetry appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Host editor Swati Rayasam continues to highlight the podcast Continental Shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owemma Church. They embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, Gabriel and Estella gave a quick introduction and talked about wayfinding in the context of their work. Tonight on the podcast they’re talking about anti-blackness in the PI community with Courtney Savali Andrews and Jason Fennel. Just a quick note that both Courtney and Jason’s audio quality isn’t the best on this podcast. So it might get a little bumpy. Enjoy the show.
Episode Transcripts – Anti-blackness in the PI Community with Courtney-Savali Andrews and Jason Finau
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Swati Rayasam: [00:00:35] Good evening everyone. You’re listening to APEX express Thursday nights at 7:00 PM. My name is Swati Rayasam and I’m the special editor for this episode. Tonight, we’re going to continue to highlight the podcast continental shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owemma Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, Gabriel and Estella gave a quick introduction and talked about wayfinding in the context of their work. Tonight on the podcast they’re talking about anti-blackness in the PI community with Courtney Savali Andrews and Jason Fennel. Just a quick note that both Courtney and Jason’s audio quality isn’t the best on this podcast. So it might get a little bumpy. Enjoy the show.
Courtney-Savali Andrews & intro music: [00:01:32] These issues are fluid, these questions are fluid. So I mean, I had to go and try get a PHD just to expand conversation with my family .
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:01:51] How do we uproot anti-blackness in API spaces? On today’s episode, we explore this critical question with two incredible guests. Courtney and Jason share their stories, experiences, and reflections on ways our API communities can be more affirming of black identity and black humanity.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:13] What up, what up? Tālofa lava, o lo’u igoa o Estella. My pronouns are she/her/hers, sis, and uso.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:02:23] What’s good, family? This is Gabriel, kumusta? Pronouns he/him.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:29] I have the great pleasure tonight of introducing our guest today, Jason Finau and Courtney-Savali Andrews. Jason is a social worker with a focus on mental health and substance abuse based in San Francisco. Courtney is an assistant professor of musicology at Oberlin College in Ohio. But I also want to be very intentional about not centering professions above who we are and who we come from. So I’m going to go to Jason first. Jason, please share with us who you are, how you identify and who are your people.
Jason Finau: [00:02:58] Hi everyone. Estella, Gabriel, again, thank you so much for hosting us in this space. My name is Jason. I identify as black and Samoan. My father is a black American from Mississippi and my mother is from American Samoa, specifically in the village of Nua and Sektonga. As a military, brat kind of grew up back and forth between Hawaii and Southern California. So I have a very strong love for the ocean and where my peoples come from. So, very excited to be on your podcast.
Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:03:27] [Speaking Samoan] Tālofa lava I am Courtney-Savali Andrews from Seattle, Washington. I identify as an African American Samoan. My father is from Seattle, born and raised in Seattle, from Opelika, Alabama. That’s where his roots are, and my mother is from American Samoa from the villages of Nwoma Sitsona and Aminawe. And Jason and I are maternal cousins.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:03:59] I did not know that. [Laughs] Good to know. Actually, just for some context, Jason and Courtney, you were one of my blessings in 2020. I received an email message about a space called Black + Blue in the Pacific, and it was a flier for a Zoom gathering with other black Pacifica peoples and I jumped on the call, not knowing what to expect, but it was only one of two times I can remember in my entire life feeling truly seen as black Samoan, and not having to separate those two or shrink any part of myself or who I am. So Jason, can you please share what the space is about and how it came to be?
Jason Finau: [00:04:42] Sure. That warms my heart that that was your reaction to participating in that space. So this was kind of born out of all of the protests against racial injustices across the country, especially with George Floyd and the other countless, unfortunately, countless deaths of black men and women at the hands of police brutality. And EPIC, which is the Empowering Pacific Island Communities, a nonprofit organization out in Long Beach reached out to me to kind of talk about how we can address anti-blackness within the Pacific Island communities in speaking with Tavae Samuelu, who is the executive director of EPIC and Teresa Siagatonu who is an amazing creative poet, artist, everything. We got together, started talking about like, well what was the real purpose for this group? Why are they reaching out to me specifically in the work that I do? And I think that part of that came from the fact that I am a licensed clinical social worker and that I do have a background in mental health and working in trauma, generational trauma and looking at how we as human beings look to take care of ourselves in a community that we as black human beings look to take care of ourselves in a community that doesn’t value who we are and what that looks like for those of us who belongs to two different communities, one being the black and then the other being the Pacific Island community. And then even, you know, bringing that down even further to the, within the Pacific Island community, being in the Polynesian community and then being specifically in the Samoan community.
So in talking with that, the first person I thought about when they asked me to facilitate a group where we can gather other individuals who identified as being black and Pacific Islander, the first person I thought about co-facilitating this group with was my cousin Courtney-Savali Andrews. Just given the fact that she has done so much in research and education and understanding about PI cultures, with the work that she’s done here in the States, as well as out in the Pacific, out in New Zealand and Samoa, and I’ll let her talk more about that, but this is another part of the reasons why I thought about her instantly, and also because she and I have had these conversations about what it means to be black and Samoan, and to identify as both, and to sometimes have to navigate being one over the other in spaces, and even in spaces where It’s a white space and having to figure out like which one are we like code switching between. So in thinking about this group and in thinking about this space, you know, one of the larger conversations that came out of those who engage in this group, that we have every second Tuesday of the month is that representation of seeing other folks who are also black and Pacific Islander who aren’t related to us. And so these are the conversations that Courtney and I have had. I’ve had the same conversations with other first cousins who also happened to be black and Samoan, but I’ve never actually have met like one hand I can count on how many times I’ve met another person who identified as black and Pacific Islander. And so being able to host this space and to focus it, to start off that focus on anti-blackness and to talk about how we’re all working to deal with what it means to say Black Lives Matter when someone who visually presents as Samoan or someone who visually presents as Tongan or any other of the Pacific Islands. Like, what does it mean for them to say Black Lives Matter, when those of us who identify as both black and Pacific Islanders aren’t really feeling how that message is as substantial as they may be trying to, to come across.
Being able to gather in a space where we see other folks who look like us, who shared experiences that were so similar to what we have shared and what we have gone but also very different. And looking at how, you know, some folks grew up identifying primarily with the Samoan culture, whereas other folks grew up primarily identifying with the black culture and not being able to reconcile either one. So seeing that spectrum of experiences was able to provide us with an opportunity to grow for each other, to support each other, and to learn from each other. I was very thankful and grateful for having, for EPIC being able to step in and seeing that as an organization that does focus on empowering Pacific Island communities that they understood that when we look at the micro communities within that larger macro level of a PI community, looking at that individual black and PI cohort and understanding that that experience is different than the general experience. And so they wanted to make sure that we’re facilitating those conversations, that we’re holding safe spaces for those conversations, and that we’re encouraging those conversations. So I really do appreciate them so much for that, and not taking it upon themselves to tell us how we should be engaging in these conversations, how we should be feeling, and asking us what we should be doing to get PIs to understand the impact of anti-blackness, within the, in the PI community for us personally.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:09:29] And as you were talking, I was laughing at myself thinking, yeah, I can count on one hand too, aside from my brothers, the other black Samoans or Polys I know, and I had an experience in college as a freshman, Cal State Northridge, in my EOP cohort. I met another Leilani, Leilani is my middle name, I met another Leilani who happened to be half black, half Samoan, also from South LA. And we saw each other and ran to each other like we were long lost siblings or something [laughs] and we just knew, and it was the first time I had seen someone who looked like me that was not The Rock. [Jason laughs] Like, the only person to look to, that was yeah. I don’t know, it wasn’t enough to have, you know, The Rock as my only representation. I appreciate him, but definitely wasn’t enough. And shout out to EPIC and Tavae, because I think I mentioned earlier, being in Black + Blue was, it was like the second time in my life. I can say that I felt seen and one of the first times I felt seen as Samoan was at 30. I happen to be in a workshop led by Tavae on organizing PI communities. That was the first time I met her, but I left her session like in tears because I felt a whole part of whatever was happening in the conversation, the festivities, I could be like my full self.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:11:00] And those spaces are so important for us, right? To have that community, to be able to connect. So Jason, I appreciate you sharing that origin story of Black + Blue. And my question for Courtney actually, to bring in some of your experience into the space. Why was it important to create or forge a space such as this one with Black + Blue?
Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:11:22] Well, I will say that I’ve had the privilege of a different experience having met several African American and African Pacific Islanders in Seattle through my experience in the US. And I mean, this goes all the way back to my childhood. I went to a predominantly, and this is going to sound pretty interesting, but in the 70s, I went to a predominantly Filipino-Italian parish that was budding a Samoan congregation and that particular congregation was connected to the Samoan congregational church that my mother was affiliated with. So, of course, this is family based, right? But growing up in that particular setting, I was affiliated with many cultural dance groups, particularly Polynesian dance troupes and such, and through those various communities I would run into many particularly Samoan and African American children. So that was something that was pretty normalized in my upbringing. On the other side of that, my father’s family was very instrumental in various liberation movements, affiliations with the Black Panthers. And so I also grew up in a very black nationalist leaning family. So, I mean, I couldn’t run away from just anything that had to do with considering identity politics and what it meant to be “both and” so the wrestle started really early with me. I also want to say that because I was indoctrinated in so many questions of what it meant to be whatever it is that I was at the time. Cause you know these issues are fluid and the questions are fluid. So that extended all the way throughout even my educational journey having pursued not just a musical degree, but also degrees in cultural studies. It was the only place that I could really wrestle and engage with literature that I was already introduced to as a child, but to, you know, have opportunities to deep dive into that literature, highlighting certain figures, engaging with the writers of these literature. So by the time I got to college, it was piano performance and Africana studies for me. In the arts, through my music through musical theater performance, my Polynesian dance background, it all just kind of jumbled up into this journey of always seeking spaces that allow for that type of inquiry.
So, after undergrad, this turns into a Fullbright study and then eventually a PHD in Music and Pacific and Samoan studies. In that journey, I did not think that the outcome would be as rich as it became. I did seek out one of my supervisors, who was Teresia Teaiwa. A very prominent poet, spoken word artist and scholar, and she was the founder of the Pacific Studies program at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. So I went to study underneath her. She actually is African American Banaban so from the Kiribati islands and amongst her like astounding output of work, she reached out to me and four other African American Pacific women historian artists, like we all share the same general identities to start an organization, or at least an affinity conversationalist group, called Black Atlantic, Blue Pacific. This was back in 2014 when she started the conversation with us again, I had an opportunity to now, across the world, connect with other African American Pacific peoples that were rooted in other spaces. So I was the one who was, you know, born and raised in the US But then we had Joy Enomoto an African American Hawaiian who’s based in Hawaii. Ojeya Cruz, African American [?] and LV McKay, who is African American Maori based in Aotearoa. So we got together and started having very specific conversations around our responses to Black Lives Matter as it was gaining much momentum in 2015. And it was my supervisor Teresia, that said, “You have to open up about how you feel,” and particularly because I was so far away from what home was for me, she offered up a space for me to not only explore further what my response to the movement was, but also just my identity in tandem with the rest of them. So we actually began to create performance pieces along with scholarly writing about that particular moment and went to this festival of Pacific arts in 2016 which was in Guam and pretty much had a very ritualistic talk. It wasn’tinteractive, it was our space to share what our experience and stories were with an audience who did not have a chance to engage with us on it. It was us just claiming our space to say that we exist in the first place. And that was a very powerful moment for me and for the others. So to connect this back to four years later, when Jason reaches out about Black + Blue in the Pacific, the name of this group actually came from the publication that we put together for that 2016 FESPAC presentation. It really was a moment that I actually didn’t think would extend out in the ways that it has, but it also felt like a duty to extend that conversation and Teresia Teaiwa has since passed, but it felt like, you know, this is what, this is the work that, that I’ve given you to do. So it just felt very natural to join with my cousin in this work and realize what this conversation could be across the water again, back home in the US.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:18:09] Listening to you I was I don’t want to say envious, but I didn’t have that same experience growing up. And, you know, oftentimes I wonder where I would be in my identity crisis, which seems like it has lasted for so long, if I had shared in similar experience as a child. I grew up in predominantly black communities and all black apostolic school and I just, I didn’t have other, I mean I ran up to the one girl I saw as a college freshman and squeezed her. So that tells you a lot, but I shared similar experiences as an undergrad or in college in majoring in black studies, majoring in theater, musical theater and that being the space where I got to at least express some of who I am or who I want it to be, but definitely trying to create what you experienced or had for my daughter now, trying to make sure that she gets to be as pro black and black and proud as she wants to be rocking her Angela Davis fro while also wearing her Puletasi, trying really hard to make sure that she has all of that. Growing up, I never felt like I was welcomed in Samoan or Poly spaces or fully in black spaces either. I felt like folks had to make a point to other me or erase part of my identity for their convenience. And it’s only now that I am learning who my Samoan relatives are, what are our namesake or the villages that my family comes from and reconnecting with aunts and uncles and my grandparents through the powers of Facebook. But over the years, it’s been a long like push and pull. And it’s because our last names are, our names are very distinctive. And so when you put that name in there suddenly like, “Oh, I found all these relatives.” Like I didn’t have to do the ancestry thing because you put the name in on Facebook and all of a sudden you find all your cousins and you’re seeing childhood pictures where like your own kid can’t tell who’s who so I know we’re related. You know what I mean? But anyway, like over the years it’s been this like back and forth of me deleting relatives and then, you know, letting them come back because I don’t know how to broach the conversation about their anti-blackness. I don’t know what to tell them when they post something that is very racist and absolutely not okay. And I don’t know what to do other than, you know, I’m just going to delete you and then maybe 2 years from now, I’ll, as you as a friend, again, we could try this one more time. And I have one aunt in particular, a great aunt who there was just a misunderstanding. I didn’t respond to a message right away after not seeing her since I was maybe 5 or 6. I can’t remember. But in my 20s, I’m getting married, she’s sending me messages and I didn’t respond right away. And the response I got included her calling me the N word. And so then I’m like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, trying to open up and let you all back into my life. And here we are again. So I’m done. And so I spent a lot of time, like picking and choosing who I was going to let in or not and so I’ve started this journey at 30. I want to learn my language. I want to figure out who is in my family tree. Who are my people? Where do I come from? And be selective about who I choose to actually grow relationships with. Like I can still know who they are, where they come from, where I come from, what my roots are, and also make choices about who gets to be in my life. And I’m only just now realizing that at 32, as I try to learn my language and reclaim what is mine, what belongs to me. All of that aside, can you relate to any of that? And if so, is there an experience that you feel comfortable sharing?
Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:22:00] I absolutely relate to that, to the extent, I mean, I had to go and try to get a PhD just to expand conversation with my family and I had to do it across the water. I got to a point where, just asking questions, about, you know, cultural matters, or even trying to navigate my way through a family event, while I’ve had many wonderful experiences, just trying to, again dig deep to understand why are we who we are, why are our family issues what they are those kinds of things, I would always hit a particular wall that was met with either like, “Why do you even care?” Or “Oh, that’s not important.” But it was, this is not important for you. And I, you know, took that with a lot of like, “Well, what’s that mean? I can learn anything.” And then again, that, that comes from this, like I said, black nationalist attitude of I am wholly wonderful, just in my skin as I am. Therefore, I’m smart. I’m, you know, all of those kinds of things. So it became a learning quest for me to say, not only am I going to go after learning as much as I can. I’m going to get the highest degree you could possibly get in it only to now reach a point. I mean, I’m 10 years into this program and it’s been the one-two punch all the way through. And now I’m on the other side of this journey, realizing that even in that quest, this really doesn’t change many of my conversations if I go back into my family, nor is it really looked upon as a notable achievement, which is to be questioned because it’s like, I’ve done everything that I possibly can. But at the same time, it really does feel like this is the black experience as it connects to respectability politics. On another side of thing I suppose, try to aspire to be a race woman for the Pacific and specifically the Samoan identity. And that’s just a really, really tall order. Right. All that to say, yes, I absolutely identify and realize that my conversation can only be had with those who are open to have it. I think that right now in this particular moment, we have more Pacific peoples and more people in our families that are willing to at least sit at the table and have conversation because they have new language around what they are wanting to know and what they would like to see for their own community. So that’s really, really refreshing and inspiring.
Jason Finau: [00:24:46] I agree. I definitely [have] a lot of experience and feeling in feeling othered and feeling that my black identity was conveniently left out in a lot of conversations and a lot of learning lessons, I think, growing up. In contrast to Courtney’s upbringing, I was born and raised on the Samoan side. It was everything Samoan related. My first language was Samoan. My mom stopped speaking Samoan to me at home because she recognized that I was struggling in school early on like in pre- k, kindergarten, first grade, because I couldn’t keep up with the other students and they didn’t have ESL for Samoan speaking kids. So, I think as a protective factor, my mother just started to distance me from the Samoan language in order to excel in school. And I think that a lot of having been able to grow up in a very large Samoan family and engaging in a lot of the traditional activities and cultural practices and doing the dances and going to a local [?] church. Having that has always been great but I think that seeing the way or listening to the way that other Samoans would refer to their own family members who were black and Pacific Islander or black and Samoan in those families, a lot of the times the language is just so derogatory, but they, that language never used to, or was never directed at me. And I think that part of that was because that people knew who my mother was and they knew who my grandparents were and I think I was insulated from a lot of that negative talk, negative behaviors against those who identified as black and then like the children that were products of those Samoan and black relationships. I reflect on that quite often because I think that when listening to a lot of the stories that I’ve been able to bear witness to in our black and PI group. You know, like I mentioned before that we are seeing like two different, two different upbringings, two different ways that people experience their lives as being black and Samoan. And for me, it was like, because I was wrapped in that Samoan culture, that black identity of mine was never really addressed or talked about. That then it made me feel like I just, I’m a Samoan boy. I don’t identify as someone who was black. I didn’t identify as someone who was black or was comfortable with identifying as someone who was black until my 20s. Late 20s, early 30s, you know when I introduced myself, it was always Samoan first black second, everything that I did, instead of joining the Black Student Union group, I joined all the Asian and Pacific Island groups at any school that I went to again, as I said, being a military brat, I went to a lot of schools growing up before college. And then in college a lot of different universities. And when I went to those programs, like in high school and junior high, I’d always be, I would always join the Asian Pacific Island groups because I didn’t feel comfortable being a part of the black, any of the Black Student Unions or any black affinity groups, because again like I said my for me internally, I was Samoan and that’s where I wanted to be. I didn’t recognize for myself because I could see it in the mirror that I presented as someone like a black male and I think that part of the reason why I also steered more towards Asian and Pacific Island groups was because I wanted people to see me as this black guy walking into your Asian and Pacific Island group, who also is Samoan but you don’t know that until I tell you. And that was for me to share and for me to just sit there for them to stare at me until I made that truth known. And that was my way of addressing that issue within the PI community. But it was also a way for me to run away from that black identity to hide from that black identity because I wasn’t, I didn’t want to be identified that way when I was in the API group. It’s because I wanted to be identified as Samoan and not black, even though I presented. So in thinking about how a lot of those conversations went, I think one situation in particular really stuck out for me. And that’s when I did a study abroad in New Zealand during undergrad and, you know, there’s this whole thing about the term mea uli in Samoan to describe someone who is black and Samoan and that was the term that I remember using and being told. As a kid, growing up, my mom used it, didn’t seem like there was an issue. All family members, everyone in the community is using it. So I just assumed that is exactly how it was. I never had the wherewithal to think about how to break down that word, mea uli, and think of it as like a black thing. So I was in New Zealand studying abroad and I met some students, some Samoan students in one of my classes. They invited me to their church, the local [?] church. I was like, oh great, I’ll go to church while I’m here. Satisfy my mom. She’s back home in Oceanside, California, telling me that I need to go to church, that I need to focus on my studies. So I do this. I go with them. And as they’re introducing me to folks at their church, when I describe myself as mea uli I mean, you can hear a pin drop. It was like, these people were I don’t know, embarrassed for me, embarrassed for themselves to hear me use that word to describe myself. It was just, I was, I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed about my identity than I was in that one moment, because then my friend had to pull me off to the side, just like “Oh, we don’t use that word here.” Like she’s like, schooling me on how derogatory that term was for those Samoans in New Zealand who identify as black and Samoan. And mind you, the friends that I was with, they were, they’re both sides of the family are Samoan, and so this is a conversation that they’re having with me as people who aren’t, who don’t identify as black and Samoan. And so then when I, I brought that back to my mom and I was just like, “Did you know this? Like, how could you let me go through life thinking this, saying this, using this word, only to come to this point in my adult life where now I’m being told that it’s something derogatory.” That was a conversation that my mom and I had that we were forced to have. And I think for her, very apologetic on her end, I think she understood where I was coming from as far as like the embarrassment piece. But from her, from her perspective and her side of it, she didn’t speak English when she first got to the United States either. She graduated from nursing school in American Samoa, had been in American Samoa that whole time, born and raised, came to the United States, California, didn’t speak a lick of English, and was just trying to figure out her way through the whole navigating a prominently white society and trying to figure out English. And so I think language was one of the least of her worries, as far as that might have been because it’s just like coupled on with a bunch of things. I mean, this is a Samoan woman who doesn’t speak very much English, who is now in the military, in the Navy. So, in an occupation that is predominantly male, predominantly white and predominantly English speaking. And so, for her, there was a lot of things going on for herself that she had to protect herself from. And I think she tried to use some of those same tactics to protect me. But not understanding that there is now this added piece of blackness, this black identity that her child has to navigate along with that Samoan identity. And so, we’ve had some really great conversations around the choices that she had to make that she felt like in the moment were the right choices to keep me safe, to get me what I needed in order to graduate high school on time unlike a lot of our other family members, to go to college, you know, again, being the first one to have a bachelor’s degree and the first one to have a master’s degree, within our family tree. And so, a lot of the successes that I’ve had in life to be able to get to this point and have these conversations and to facilitate a group like black and PI, Black + Blue in the Pacific and to be on a podcast with all of you, were the sacrifices and choices that my mom had to make back.
I say all that because those, the choices that she had to make, she wasn’t able to make them in an informed way that would have promoted my black identity along with my Samoan identity. And so having to navigate that on my own. I didn’t grow up with my dad, so I don’t have any connection. I didn’t have any connection to the black side of my family. And so I didn’t have, and then growing up in Hawaii and in Southern California, primary like San Diego, in the education piece, like the majority of my teachers were white, or in San Diego, a lot of them were Latin, Latinx, and then in Hawaii, a lot of them, they were either white or they were some type of Asian background like a lot of Chinese, a lot of Japanese teachers, but I didn’t have any, I never had a Polynesian teacher, Pacific Islander teacher, and I never had a black teacher until I got to college, and then seeing that representation also had an impact on me. I think one of my most favorite sociology professors at California State University in San Marcos. Dr. Sharon Elise was just this most phenomenal, eye opening, unapologetically black woman. And it was just like the first time I was ever able to like be in the company of that type of presence and it was glorious. And I think it was part of the reason why I switched from pre med to social work. In thinking about, and going back to your original question about an experience of being othered or feeling like your black identity is erased in that company. Like I said, I walk confidently amongst and within Samoan communities, but not nearly as confidently as I do in black spaces. And even when I’m in those Samoan spaces, I’ll walk into it, but then the first thing I’ll do is share my last name. And then the moment I say my last name, then it’s like, okay, now we can all breathe. I’ve been accepted. They know who I am because of who my family is based on the name that I provide. When I go into a black space, I don’t have that. I don’t have that convenience. I don’t have that luxury. And so I think that’s another reason why I was okay with allowing that black identity, my black identity to be ignored, to be silenced, to be othered because it was just easier. I think I had a lot more luxuries being on the Samoan side, than being on the black side. And now where I am today, both personally and professionally, a much, much more confident conversation can be had for myself, with myself about my identity. And then having those same conversations with my family and with my friends and in thinking about hard conversations with family members around anti-blackness, around the use of derogatory language, or around just the fact like, because we are half Samoan that we could never fully appreciate the Samoan culture and tradition. But I look at my cousins who are full Samoan, who barely speak the language, who barely graduated from high school or like are in situations where they aren’t able to fully utilize an identity that can bring them the fullness or richness of their background. I’m like, all right, well, if you want to have conversations about someone who was half versus full, and then looking at those folks who are back on the island and what their perception of full Samoans are on the continental US and all of those things, like, there’s so many layers between the thought processes of those who consider themselves Samoan or even just Pacific Islander, and what does that mean to them based on where they’re from. And then you add that biological piece, then it’s like, okay, well those who are on the continental US or outside of American Samoa or the independent nation of Samoa, what does that mean for them to be Samoan [unintelligible].
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:35:15] One of the things that you said that really resonated with me was when you were sharing the story of how your mother had, as you said, tactics to protect you as she navigated in these predominantly white spaces. That reminds me of a quote by Dr. Cornel West, who talked about having our cultural armor on. And when Courtney was sharing her story, I was thinking about how there’s also educational armor and linguistic armor, and we put on layers of armor to protect ourselves in these white supremacist institutions and spaces. So both of you sharing your story and journey really was powerful for me, and also grounding it in the formative years of your educational journey and your race consciousness journey. One of the pivotal factors in my evolution and my race consciousness was being a part of the Black Student Union in my undergraduate school. And I’m Filipino, my mother’s from Manila, my father’s from Pampanga province. And it was actually the black community that embraced and raised my consciousness around my own liberation as an Asian person, as a Filipino person. So I’m a student in many ways, and my intellectual and spiritual evolution was really informed by the black liberation movement.
Swati Rayasam: [00:36:43] You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online at kpfa.org. Coming up is “March 4 Education” on the Anakbayan Long Beach May Day mixtape.
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Swati Rayasam: [00:37:03] That was “Find my Way” by Rocky Rivera on her Nom de Guerre album. And before that was “March 4 Education” on the Anakbayan Long Beach May Day mixtape. And now back to the ConShifts podcast.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:44:12] So this is all very powerful and grounds us back in the topic that we’re trying to unpack. So I have a question for both of you on how do we begin to interrogate anti-blackness in Asian and Pacific Island communities, specifically among Polynesians, Asians, Micronesians. How might we uproot anti-blackness in the spaces that we find ourselves?
Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:44:36] I think we need to start with identifying what blackness is in these conversations before we get to the anti part. Are we talking about skin? Are we talking about, you know, cultural expression? Are we talking about communities, black communities within our own respective nations? So one of the things that in thinking through this, today’s conversation, you know, I was thinking that, you know, starting with identifying our indigenous black communities at home, you know, in pre-colonial times. And even as we have the development of the nation state, just seeing where people are in their understandings of those communities would be a wonderful place to start before we even get to the drama that is white supremacy in the US and how that monster manifests here and then spreads like a rash to the the rest of the colonial world. I would really start with like, what are we talking about in terms of black and blackness before we go into how people are responding in a way to be against it.
Jason Finau: [00:45:52] Yeah, that was solid Court. Definitely providing that definition of what blackness is in order to figure out exactly what anti-blackness is. Kind of adding to that is looking around at the various organizations that are out there. When we go back to the earlier examples of being in API spaces, but primarily seeing more Asian faces or Asian presenting faces, thinking about, and I’m just thinking about like our Black + Blue group, like, there are so many of us who identify as black and Pacific Islander or black and Asian. And yet the representation of those folks in spaces where nonprofit organizations, community organizations are trying to do more to advance the API agenda items to make sure that we get more access to resources for our specific communities, whether that’s education, healthcare, employment resources, all of that. When we look at those organizations who are pushing that for our community, you just see such a lack of black and brown faces who are part of those conversations. And I would have to say that for those organizations and for the people who will participate in any of those activities that they promote. To look around and not see one person who presents as black and may identify as black and PI seems kind of problematic to me because, you know, I used to think that growing up in the 80s and 90s that outside of my cousins, there were no other black and PI people. I’m learning now as I get older and again with our Black + Blue group, that there are so many of us, I mean, there are folks who are older than I am. There are a number of people around the same age. And then there’s so many young kids. And so for none of those folks to feel, and that is another, that was a common theme, from our group was that a lot of the folks just didn’t feel comfortable in PI spaces to be if they were black in and Hawaiians might be comfortable in the Hawaiian space to speak up and say anything or in whatever Pacific Island space that they also belong to is that they just didn’t feel comfortable or seen enough to be a part of those. I think you know, once we identify what blackness is within our within the broader API community, we can also look at well, you know, why aren’t there more people like us, those of us who do identify as black and PI, why aren’t more of us involved in these conversations, being asked to be a part of these conversations, and helping to drive a lot of the messages and a lot of the agendas around garnering resources for our community.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:48:18] One of the pieces that’s really present for me, when you started asking the question on how we define blackness before we begin the conversation around anti-blackness reminded me of Steve Biko learning about the black consciousness movement in South Africa and the anti apartheid movement. I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa for global learning fellowship and started to learn more about the anti apartheid movement. But when Steve Biko discussed black consciousness as an attitude of mind and a way of life, it got me thinking in one direction while at the same time in this conversation that we’re having here, when we talk about colorism with post colonial society, the Philippines being one of them, how does colorism show up? I’m wrestling that. So I just appreciate you bringing that question into the space.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:49:05] So Black + Blue, it’s an affinity space for black Polys and I need to just say thank you for providing the space. It has been therapeutic and healing and again, everything I knew I needed and had no idea where to find. So I appreciate it so much. So I’m wondering, I guess, how do we create similar spaces for other folks? Or is there a need to like, does Black + Blue just exist for us? And is that enough? Or do we need to start thinking about doing more to create similar spaces for other folks? And I’ll leave that to whoever wants to respond before my final question.
Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:49:45] I’ll just jump in and say that I think that, you know, any opportunity for folks to gather to create and wrestle through dialogue is absolutely necessary at this particular point in time with social media and a fairly new cancel culture that exists. It’s really a detriment to having people understand how to connect and even connect through disagreement. So I think that there should always be space made for people to have tough conversations, along with the celebratory ones. So I’m always all for it.
Jason Finau: [00:50:23] Yeah, I would agree. I think if I’ve learned anything out of being able to facilitate the Black + Blue group that there is just such a desire for it and unknown and even an unknown desire. I think people, you know, didn’t realize they needed it until they had it. And I think it feels unique now it being a black and Blue space, Black + Blue Pacific space. But I can see that need kind of going outside of us. How do we take the conversations that we’re having with each other, the learning and the unlearning, the unpacking of experiences, the unpacking of feelings and emotions and thoughts about what we’ve all been through to share that with the broader Pacific Island community in a way that can steer some people away from some of the negative, behaviors that we find that can be associated in speaking of people who identify as black or African American? But I can see that as not just for those who identify as black and Pacific Islander, but also for parents of children who are black and Pacific Islander, and for the youth. So like right now our Black + Blue group is geared towards the adult population of those who identify as black and PI. But then also thinking about like the younger generation, those who are in high school or in middle school or junior high school, who are also maybe going through the same things that we all went through at that point and needing a safe space to have those conversations and kind of process those things. Because they may have a parent who may not understand, you know, if they only have their Pacific Island parent, or they’re primarily identifying with their black side because they don’t feel comfortable with the Pacific Island side, whatever their journey is being able to provide that for them, but then also providing a space for parents to understand where their kids may be coming from, to hear from experiences and learn and potentially provide their kids with the resources to navigate very complex ideas. One’s identity journey is not simple. It is not easy. It is not quick. And so it’s hard. And that is not something, I mean, and I don’t expect every parent, regardless of what their children’s ethnic background is, to understand what that means like for their kids. But to be able to have a space where they can talk it out with other parents. But I also see that for our Latinx and PI community. I see that for our Asian and PI community, those who identify as both being Asian and Pacific Islander. For me, that just comes from a personal experience because my mom is one of nine. And I think out of the nine, three of the kids had children with other Samoan partners, and the rest had either a black partner, has a Mexican partner, has a partner who identifies as Chinese and Japanese, and has another partner who is white. But I have cousins who are in this space, and so we can all share in the fact that, although we may not all physically identify or people may not be able to physically recognize us as Samoans, that is what we all share in common. So having that for them as well. And then, you know, right now we’re in COVID. So it’s been a blessing and a curse to be in this pandemic, but I think the blessing part was that we were able to connect with so many people in our group who are from across the states and even across the waters. Once we’re able to move past this pandemic and go back to congregating in person, being able to have groups within your respective cities to be able to go and talk in person, whether it’s in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, you know, folks out in Hawaii and like in Aotearoa. Who wants to continue engaging with other folks that they feel comfortable identifying or who they also identify with. Do I think that there is a need? Absolutely. And I can see it just across the board whether people know it or not, I think once we put it in front of them, that is where they’ll see like, “Yeah, we need that.”
Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:53:57] I just wanted to also highlight, you know, a point of significance for me with this group and hopefully one that would serve as a model for other organizations and groups that may develop after this, is modeled off of cultural studies, which is the process of actually remembering and relearning things that we’ve things and peoples that we’ve forgotten and with Black + Blue in the Pacific, it’s really important to me to also include, and keep the Melanesian, the black Pacific voice in that conversation to model for other peoples of color to reach out to black peoples at home, or regionally to understand and again, remember those particular cultural networks that existed in pre colonial times and even sometimes well into colonial times, as current as you know, the 1970s black liberation movements to highlight Asian and Pacific and, and, and, and other peoples that were non black, but very instrumental in that fight for liberation as a whole, but starting with black liberation first. So, I think this is a really good time in an effort towards uprooting anti-blackness to highlight just how old our relationships with black peoples and black peoples in relationship with Asians and Pacific peoples, South Asians, Southeast Asians, it just goes on and on, to say that we’ve been in community positively before, so we can do it again.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:55:52] That is the most perfect way to wrap up the episode in reminding us to remember, and reminding us that all of our liberation is definitely tied to black liberation that they’re inextricably linked together. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Jason. Fa’a fatai te le lava thank you for listening.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:13] Salamat thank you for listening.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:14] We want to thank our special guests, Jason and Courtney, one more time for rapping with us tonight. We appreciate you both for being here and really helping us continue to build the groundwork for Continental Shifts Podcast.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:24] Continental Shift Podcast can be found on Podbean, Apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:30] Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube for archive footage and grab some merch on our website.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:36] Join our mailing list for updates at conshiftspodcast.com. That’s C-O-N-S-H-I-F-T-S podcast dot com and follow us at con underscore shifts on all social media platforms.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:52] Dope educators wayfinding the past, present, and future.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:56] Keep rocking with us fam, we’re gonna make continental shifts through dialogue, with love, all together.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:57:02] Fa’fetai, thanks again. Tōfā, deuces.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:57:04] Peace, one love.
Swati Rayasam: [00:57:07] Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program backslash apex express. To find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex Axpress is produced by Miko Lee, along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida, Kiki Rivera, Nate Tan, Hien Ngyuen, Cheryl Truong, and me Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support and have a great night.
The post APEX Express – 4.11.24 – ConShifts Anti-blackness in the PI Community appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
This week we introduce our sister podcast Continental Shifts. Check out episode 1 and 2 created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owoimaha-Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture, and the ancestors. You’ll hear the first two episodes of their podcast and hopefully walk away with a bit more information about them, and about wayfinding as an important mental, physical, and spiritual practice.
ConShifts Podcast – Episode 1 – Introduction TRANSCRIPTS
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Swati Rayasam: [00:00:35] Good evening, everyone. You’re listening to APEX Express Thursday nights at 7:00 PM. My name is Swati Rayasam, and I’m the special editor for this episode. Tonight, we’re highlighting a podcast called Continental Shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owoimaha-Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture, and the ancestors. You’ll hear the first two episodes of their podcast and hopefully walk away with a bit more information about them, and about wayfinding as an important mental, physical, and spiritual practice.
Estella Owoimaha-Church & intro music: [00:01:07] The more I continue to do a deep dive in my identity, who I am, who I aim to be, the stronger of an educator I am, but also, the more equipped I am to provide brave, co-op spaces for students where they also get to explore and craft their identity. O a’u o Estella, o [?].
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:01:37] And this is Gabriel. What’s good, family? Kumusta? So fam, we’re finally here. Continental Shifts Podcast. I’m excited to have this conversation with you to kick off our first episode. And just a quick run of introductions. Estella, if you wanted to introduce yourself to the people, please let the people know who you are.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:01] For sure for sure. Hey, y’all. I am Estella Owoimaha-Church and I’m a teacher in Los Angeles. I teach high school theater and I’m heavily involved as a labor union leader-organizer in our community. And, I also run a small non profit here in LA called Education Ensemble.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:02:28] All right, that’s what’s up, Estella. I’m Gabriel Tanglao, former educator, high school teacher up in Bergenfield, New Jersey. One of the second largest Filipino populations in New Jersey, fun fact. And now I’m working full time with the New Jersey Education Association in the Professional Development Division. So doing some labor organizing work full time, fully focused, supporting educators across New Jersey, specifically with racial justice, racial equity, racial literacy work. I’m excited to be here for this conversation, Estella. So, we met I think over a year now. So I’m trying to recall what the origin story is of how we connected. Estella, do you remember the origin story of how we connected?
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:03:14] I am pretty sure we were in Denver at NEA leadership summit and yeah, mutual teacher friend connected us. And the conversation there was everything [laughs].
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:03:28] I feel like you and I have been connected for a while now, even though it’s been short in terms of years. But the NEA Leadership Conference in Denver, for people who aren’t familiar, NEA, the National Education Association, represents millions of educators across the country. And this was one of their largest conferences, the National Leadership Summit. So, when you and I had a chance to connect there, I think it was Stephanie Téllez who is one of the dope educator, labor activists that I connected through the NEA Minority Women in Leadership Training Conference. But, we had a chance to connect on some of our shared roots as an Asian and Pacific Island family. I remember the conversations at dinner, at lunch, when we were breaking bread. We really had a chance to connect on the strength of that. So, that actually is really the genesis that planted the seeds of the relationship that grew for us to be at this part.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:04:29] Right. I think, I feel like not soon, very shortly after we met, we mentioned that yo, we got to have some sort of project or something where those conversations we had get to live, but also get to grow, get to evolve, and we can sort of continue to dig into who we are as educators, as labor unionists, as PI folk and, sort of continue walking that identity journey that so many of us, are on or have gone on, together as siblings.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:05:07] Like, at one of the dinners we were talking about sharing some of our story, I was reflecting on being Filipino and just kind of unpacking what that meant in terms of Asian identity in the context of, you know, the Philippine islands being a Spanish colony for over 300 years and then that experience of being a first generation Filipino American out here in the States, in New Jersey, which doesn’t have a large Filipino population, it’s concentrated in a few areas. And then listening to your story of your background, do you mind if I just ask and give our audience a sense of what is your background and how are you coming to the space?
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:05:48] Word. So I am Samoan Nigerian, born and raised in South Central LA. My father is from Calabar, Nigeria. My mother is originally from Samoa—Savai, Samoa—and I am first generation born in the States. And while there was a large population of Samoan or Tongan folk in my area growing up, I grew up predominantly in black spaces, black American spaces. So even as a Nigerian American, never really having, I guess, authentically African experiences is what I can wrap that up in. And so I didn’t begin really searching for my Samoan roots until, I was much older, undergrad had started, but really, I really really dug deep, took a deep dive, my late twenties and now my early thirties. I’ve been taking classes and trying to learn the language and reading every book I can get my hands on. Not a lot has been written on Samoa, but everything I can learn about Oceania and Pacifica trying to be as connected as I can possibly be to my indigenous roots, both in Samoa and in Nigeria.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:07:11] Word, word. And I remember part of that story as you shared it when we first met was inspiring some exploration for me to just dig deeper into my roots and start that journey. So for us to have stayed connected, for you and I to be comrades and fam and just begin to build that relationship, it inspired me to continue exploring. And that’s, again, why we’re here, Continental Shifts Podcast. Part of our journey here is to be sharing it with the people and lift up some voices of some dope API educators. And that last part is a transition because we mentioned and proudly named that we are educators, right? And, for folks that are listening, I would love for Estella to share if you could share what was the reason or what was the drive that brought you to education in the first place?
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:08:08] So much of my identity is also wrapped up in what I do. Alright like, those who I am and what I do are really closely linked and really feed off of the other. And I am just recently coming to the realization that the better I know myself, like the more I continue to do a deep dive in my identity, who I am, who I aim to be, the stronger of an educator I am, but also more equipped. The more equipped I am to provide brave co-op spaces with students where they also get to explore and craft their identities. And so I feel like it is definitely part of my service, like part of what I am called to do this work internally so that I can help young people also do that same lift. And it’s a heavy lift that takes a really long time. Like, I mean, it wasn’t until thirty-one, thirty, twenty-nine, thirty, I learned a sentence in Samoan you know [laughs] so, doing my best to remain vulnerable with students and folks listening to our show, about where I am in that process. I think not only is authentic of me to do, but keeps me honest and focused on trying to do better. And so I came to education to do my best to serve. That’s really what that’s about. I didn’t always have the best experience in my K-12 education. And there were a handful of teachers who, I mean, we, we all have those stories, right? Those above and beyond the teachers you’re still close with, the teachers you’ll never forget their names. And so it just felt like no way in hell I can repay them back, other than to try to pick up where they left off and continue to build onto their legacies. So like through me, even after the day they retire, so long as I’m making them proud, then their legacy lives on.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:10:23] Love that. It’s like you’re paying it forward in spending your life committed to the next generation. And, also the way that you name that you came to explore your cultural roots a little more in depth later on in life, that resonated with me because I was thinking about my own journey of how I came into teaching in the first place. And, part of the role of, first generation, often the oldest in the family that I am, there’s an expectation and a pressure to assimilate to the dominant culture. In part because with my parents being immigrants from the Philippines and coming to the United States, I was almost like a bridge in terms of how do we connect to this new society, this new community in which we live. And that’s something that really carried on through most of my childhood. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood, middle class, good public schools in northern New Jersey. And it was a largely white population, a mixed Irish, Italian, German, but largely white population. And I was one of the few Filipino kids growing up. Fortunately I had camaraderie with a lot of folks, but part of that was just trying to make my cultural dopeness and shine and roots, right? Like I tried to shrink myself in that way because the role that I saw was to fit in. And that was through my formative years from K-12 for the most part, I think it was later on in high school that I started to you know, just start to see like, oh, okay I got a little more flavor because I’m Filipino and what is that about? Right. But just only scratching the surface of it. And the way that you named the educators that influenced you, I have to shout out the professor that changed the entire trajectory of my entire future. And, it wasn’t until college at Pace University in lower Manhattan. I actually went to Pace University, Estella, I became a business major. I actually had aspirations in that American dream mythology of like, I’ll do good in school, I’ll become a businessman, CEO, make money, and live the American dream. Whatever that looked like in my adolescent mind, right?
But it wasn’t until my sophomore year of college where I had a course that was the literature of African peoples and Professor Oseye was my professor and she was this sister that would come into the room, right? And in Manhattan, you can imagine how small the classrooms are. The buildings are all boxed in because, the value of property out there is you know, a premium. So tiny classroom, but Professor Oseye would come into the room dressed in this beautiful kente cloth and just stand in front of the classroom and just start to lecture us in a way that was so compelling and inspiring. I don’t want to take up too much space but I had to shout out Professor Oseye because she introduced me to a Narrative [of] the Life of Frederick Douglass, [The] Autobiography of Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois, all of the black intellectuals, revolutionaries that actually planted the seed in my mind on liberation, and it was actually the black liberation struggle through college that allowed me to become aware and conscious of my own journey and the society in which we live, which put me on a path to become a political science major, became very active in student organizations, specifically the Black Student Union. And again, it was the black liberation struggle and the Black Student Union that embraced me and all of the energy and cultural awareness that I brought from a different lens, and that put me on track to fall in love with education in a way that carried me into teaching. And to close the loop on the story, I ended up teaching at Bergenfield High School, which was right next to the town that I grew up in but Bergenfield was a larger Filipino population. So, full circle, coming back to the community, but specifically rooted in my own cultural community. That’s kind of the story that took me into teaching and a lot of what you shared in your story
.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:15:03] The exact same thing happened to me too. Undergrad, I went to Cal State Northridge and was, I mentioned I’m a theater teacher, absolute theater nerd, was definitely a theater major, but picked up Africana Studies, Pan African studies as a second major.
And it was my professors in that department, specifically my mentor, Dr. Karin Stanford, who, yeah, put me on black liberation [laughs]. And it opened up a whole, and it wasn’t even just that It was also digging deep into hip hop studies, hip hop ed, which just busted open a whole new world of insight. And again, being super involved with those organizations on campus. We did have a Poly[nesian] group, but, and I think this is something or leads us into why this show now, very often growing up if ever I got the privilege or the chance to be in an API specific space, it was not always a space where I felt safe, right? It was not always a space I felt fully welcome. And I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until being an Africana Studies major, like then I could process and really think that through and recognize this is your anti-blackness showing and it’s not a reflection of me or who I am.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:16:35] I think when we first connected was talking about how we in the API community need to do the work of attacking anti-blackness within that space, right? How do we unpack that? What is it that puts us into the position around the model minority myth of being a racial wedge between white supremacy, anti-blackness, right? Like, how is it that we need to engage our Asian and Pacific Island brothers and sisters within our communities? To be able to attack that anti-black sentiment that is resonant in American culture, right? That’s part of it, right? It’s an ingratiating yourself to the dominant power structure, right? That said, when I connected with you and when I connected with some of the dope people across the country, specifically within the labor movement, specifically organizing within the community spaces, it’s very clear that’s a stereotype that’s imposed on us. And part of our conversation today and for the continental shifts is to challenge that narrative and lean into the ways utilizing our educator voice, utilizing our organizing experience, talking about black liberation struggle and how it intellectually and spiritually infused in us our own awareness around our own liberation as API people and how do we carry that forward? How do we pay that forward in the work that we do?
I think that takes us to another part of our conversation, which is where we are right now. And in our professional space right now, in this moment. And in this moment, we have to name that we are in an environment where it’s just unprecedented due to the global pandemic, white nationalism has taken over the federal government for the past, well, I mean, the history teacher in me is, kind of framing this a little differently for the people. One could argue that white nationalism has actually been the norm throughout, the very beginnings of colonization on through the present moment. So, maybe there’s a continuity of white nationalism. But, for folks, there’s a heightened awareness of how openly racist, that the narratives and rhetoric has been, how violent it has been. But, I digress. My point is we are in a moment, right? We’re in a moment. So, I have to ask Estella, why this show and why right now? And the show is named again for the people, Continental Shifts Podcast.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:19:12] Absolutely. I think everyone has a heightened sense of awareness at this particular moment and as educators and organizers that we are, it is crucial that in our service to our loved ones, to our people, to our comrades, that we use this time, this space, this passion project to elevate all of that and to move forward conversations that we’ve had in API spaces, for example, our caucuses within our unions, and really move forward as opposed to continuing to have conversations around things like, what do we call ourselves? Without framing that differently, right? I feel like we get stuck in this loop. API, AAPI, Asian American, split up the p—and this is just one example of why now, why this show. But did we pause and recognize or acknowledge that all of those names, none of those names we gave ourselves. Right. So as we do this work to uplift young people, to educate, to uplift ourselves and each other, we really have to figure out how we move away from language and tools and names that our oppressors gave us to begin with. Right. And really, really, really, really make massive continental shifts. And that’s what our show is about. So digging into, as you guys continue to rock with us, follow us, we’ll have special guests on each episode to dig into really heavy topics. Really moving forward our work, this work, in a space that is accessible to folks, a space that is laid back, free flowing, and a space that is all ours, that we get to name and it is nothing but love and respect between and with all of the folks who will grace us with their time and their presence on every episode here on out.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:21:31] The people that we have in our networks, in our relationships, in our community, some of the dopest educators, some of the dopest activists, some of the dopest organizers out there. And if the podcast, the Continental Shifts Podcast in particular, is a way for us to lift up voices of other APIs, as you said. Lift up our own voices, start to critically analyze the society that’s around us so that we can become more sophisticated in our approach to organizing to shift not just the state, not just in the community, the entire world. We’re talking about continents. We’re talking about changing the world here, thinking about the ancestors that survived and were resilient and went through all of the journey to get us to the places that we are. Like our existence, our lives are due to the ancestors’ survival and the gifts that they passed down to us, the wealth, the knowledge, the wisdom, the tradition, the culture, the language, as Estella mentioned earlier. And that’s something that I struggle with now is that I’m stuck in the box of English only in my own language development. So the fact that you are looking into developing an awareness and a consciousness and a skill set to be able to get in touch with your indigenous language roots is just beautiful. And, I’m just saying, continental shifts happens on so many levels. And one of the unique things, if this is a seed that we pass down, the ways that our ancestors passed down to us, the seeds of wisdom, we’re hoping that this passes on some seeds of wisdom to the generations that are currently organizing right now and for generations to come, because this is a turning point. It has to be. It has to be. We can’t continue the world as we are seeing it today. So, just hope y’all are ready for that.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:23:22] So, and I’ll say this too, there’s a saying in Samoan, and I don’t have it in Samoan right now, but it translates to: even every good fisherman sometimes makes a mistake. As you were talking, one thing came to mind and it’s a quote from Audre Lorde she says, “There is no such thing as a single-issue [struggle] because we do not live single-issue lives,” and so I thought about wayfinding. And I think one of our conversations we had when we first met was about this generational divide that adds a different layer of complication and issues around positionality, oppression, anti-blackness, when we start to think about API folk in our communities, and there really is a generational like layer to it all, right? You and I being from the same generation growing up very similar, you know, I’m going to be a business major because I’m a child of immigrants and the American way and I need to do better and make sure everything my parents sacrificed was not for nothing. That’s definitely a first gen thing, like that’s a thing, and so you and I have a space to work our way backwards forwards and live in the present, right? So we have an opportunity to continue our identity journeys together, keep reaching as far back as we can and dig. We also get to do that while living in the moment and dealing with these challenges with what education looks like in a global pandemic. But we also get to dismantle as much of it as possible so that there is a new future, right? There’s a new, we’re going to do this differently. There is no back to normal because don’t nobody want to go back to normal, right? Like the shit wasn’t working then [laughs], it’s not going to work after a global pandemic. So you got in front of you guys today, two dope bi-coastal educators, wayfinding their way from the past to the present and to the future.
So we got a whole lot to talk about and unpack just in season one. Today was really about Gabriel and I introducing ourselves, introducing the show and what Continental Shifts and what it’s about. As we move forward, we’re going to continue to dig into wayfinding, we’ll be digging into anti-blackness within API spaces and really dialoguing on how we work to uproot that within our community so that we can really move our work forward. Then we’re going to dig into an API educator pipeline. We are educators and everything we do, education is always a part of what we do. Well teaching is always a part of what we do. So we want to figure out in what ways can we ensure that API students all across the country have educators who look like them in their classrooms? We’re going to dig into organizing and figure out what are the best practices, best ways to really organize API spaces. Maybe that means looking at Asian communities, differently than we organize in PI spaces. I don’t know, but join us for that conversation. And then we’ll wrap up the season with really talking about giving space to preserving our language and our culture. And in Samoa, they say that the way you carry yourself is a part of your identity. And without our language and culture, we lose a part of who we are. So join this dialogue, be a part of this dialogue with us.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:26:58] Let’s do it. Let’s do it.
Swati Rayasam: [00:26:59] You’re tuned into APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3. KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online at kpfa.org. We just heard the first episode of the ConShifts podcast and now let’s get into the second episode on wayfinding.
Kai Burley & intro music: [00:27:18] And he’s asking a lot of those questions like, “Mom, I’m white.” And I said, you know what? You have a responsibility. You have a kuleana. Mana’o of Hawaiian, mana’o, you have a kuleana. Oh, my ancestors did that, it’s not my responsibility. Uh no, you’re Hawaiian therefore, you are connected. Like in the, like the ocean, like we’re talking about wayfinding and navigating. Wayfinding is exactly the concepts that you use in wayfinding you use in everyday life.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:27:45] What does it mean to be a wayfinder? In this episode, Gabriel and I chat with Sam and Kai to navigate how we might apply our ancestral knowledge to our daily practices. What up, what up? Tālofa lava, o lo’u igoa o Estella. My pronouns are she/her/hers, sis, and uso.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:28:12] What’s good family? This is Gabriel Anthony Tanglao. Kumusta, pronouns, he/him. Welcome to the Continental Shifts Podcast. Today we have two incredible guests joining us from the beautiful Hawaiian Islands, Mr. Sam Kapoi, a Hōkūle’a sailor and world traveler, serial entrepreneur, and community organizer. And also, my teaching sister, Ms. Kai Burley, a fearless educator, brilliant facilitator, and a new mother recently bringing a beautiful baby girl into this world. Kai, please introduce yourself to our listeners.
Kai Burley: [00:28:49] Aloha, how’s it? My name is Kai. It’s short for Ka’ehukai which means mist of the ocean. My name was given to me by my grandparents. And it’s to offset my twin sister, who is Kaiaulu. She’s the wind of Wai’anae, the area from which I’m from. And so then I’m with the ocean, so wind and ocean, that balance. Yeah, I want to mahalo you guys for inviting me onto your guys podcast. A little bit of background about myself and how I got invited. So, right, like Gabe said, we’re definitely Ohana. I met Gabe what, three, four, three years ago at a decolonizing, not decolonizing, it was a NEA, leadership summit and I kind of went, put myself at him and my other good friends table and I really wanna to say I wasn’t invited, but [laughs] I saw that they were doing a decolonizing issue and I was like, hey, this topic is way better for me so I’m going to sit down at this table. And hopefully I proved myself to be a part of their group or hui, but from then Gabe and those other people that I met at the table have been my rock through my education career. And yeah, so I’m an educator, native Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, teacher, and I started my teaching path in my hometown, Wai’anae. And Wai’anae [phone ding] has the most native Hawaiians in the universe and I’m very proud of that fact. I’m an alumni of that area and of that high school. And it was just a great joy to be able to start my teaching there. Currently I moved, I just became a brand new mom to a first beautiful Hawaiian Filipino-Portuguese girl, to my third child and my first baby. And I have two older boys. Estella too I met her wonderful Samoan, beautiful self again at the NEA conference. And she really helped me to push forward some API things, especially when it, what was it? It was like a new business item. Her and another good brother from Hawaii, Kaleo, got to talking with her and just so like minded and again, very much ohana. Yeah, my background, I’m a Hawaiian Studies major for my undergrad and then a US military is my graduate degree. Yeah, and I just fell into teaching from my other teachers.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:31:00] Kai, I love that background. You refreshed my memory on how we connected a few years ago. It was the NEA Equity Leaders Summit. And at that summit, we were all coming together, able to choose and create some of our own topics. I think we decided to create our own table around decolonizing curriculum and you jumped right into that conversation and from there we went on to hosting some decolonizing curriculum retreats with our crew. We also are joined here by Sam, who you connected me with Kai when my friend Ike and I were starting to host some Freestyle Friday podcasts in the midst of the pandemic and I remember Sam came through and shared some of his wisdom and kicked some of his knowledge with us. So Sam, if you would like to please introduce yourself to our guests and our listeners.
Sam Kapoi: [00:31:53] Aloha mai kakou. O ba’o Samuel Kili’inui Kapoi. Kupa’aina o Wai’anae. My name is Sam Kapoi. My name was given to me by my two great grandfathers on my mother’s side. Samuel being on her mother’s father’s side. And Kili’inui was my mother’s dad. And Kili’inui referencing to the great chief. That name stems deep in our family genealogy. And so it feels like I had to live up to the name growing up. But yeah, I grew up same area as Kai, in Wai’anae on the Island of O’ahu in Hawaii, on the West side, born and raised. I’m a father to three children.
I have three sons and a couple of step kids. And so, a daughter and a son. I’m a serial entrepreneur, out here in Hawaii. Run multiple businesses, and I was invited by Kai to jump on that Freestyle Fridays speaking about wayfinding and navigation, and talking about my life’s journey with sailing Hōkūle’a. It was our canoe, traditional navigation canoe that was born in the 70s during the time of the renaissance and so that canoe literally changed my life in many ways. So yeah, just honored to be here on this podcast. Mahalo.
Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:33:36] Thank you, Sam. And one of the things you said around living up to our names is something that I definitely resonate with. Thinking about my name is Gabriel Anthony Tanglao. It’s actually a tradition in my family where the eldest son is named after his father. But my name is not a junior. I’m Gabriel Anthony so I have my own identity, my own destiny, and that’s something that I do honor. So you naming that definitely refreshed my memory on how important that is for us. And that’s really connected to the theme around wayfinding that we’re exploring. So you did mention the Hōkūle’a sailing. I just wanted to ask a follow up question around that for folks who may be hearing that for the first time. I know that this is tied to an ancient tradition of sailing and I was wondering how you first got into that tradition and also what you’re doing with that knowledge now. If you could speak to that, we would love to hear more about it.
Sam Kapoi: [00:34:37] My introduction to the life of voyaging was back in high school. 2000, 2001 is when I was introduced to a canoe called Eala. That’s the canoe, our traditional canoe in Wai’anae that was built by our people out here for navigation. And so, naturally, I would flow to the mother of all canoes, which is Hōkūle’a. And so being introduced to Eala, and actually, Eala means the awakening, right? It was a canoe built by our people to really wake our people up out on this side because Hawai’i struggled like any other indigenous culture out there, Westerners coming over destroying everything, cutting out culture, language, art, and in the 70s, our kupuna or our elders were kind of fed up and wanted to start this renaissance and so Hōkūle’a was a huge part in revitalizing our traditional arts and culture and everything that fell in between those lines. It’s all volunteer based, you know. Most recently, our big voyage called the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage. You can check it out on hokulea.com H O K U L E A dot com and see the voyage. My role on that voyage was like the younger generation leadership. It’s going around the planet, spreading the good works of Mālama Honua, which means to take care of the earth. It’s not like we was going around to tell people how to take care of the earth. We were going around to see how people are dealing with caring for the earth. Because we’re only an island out here and with the obvious changes of climate change and sea level rising, a lot of our shorelines for all little islands is diminishing rapidly. And so, some islands is literally gone because of this climate change. By going around the world, Hōkūle’a was that beacon to bring hope that you know, people is trying to do the right thing to make change in this world. And so that was a three year long voyage, actually four years. Right now we’re planning to go around the entire Pacific Rim starting from Alaska and ending up in Russia and so that’s a kind of crazy one right now.
Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:36:56] Fam, what I love about the way that you broke that down is we’re talking about wayfinding as a concept culturally and exploring our own identities and you’re literally talking about wayfinding across the globe on the sailing you know, voyages. So really love that connection. Kai, in your experience as an educator, given your background, your life experience, your cultural roots, in what ways would you say the traditions, your ancestry, your familial background have influenced your thinking as an educator?
Kai Burley: [00:37:33] I’m very fortunate to be one of those Hawaiians that was raised Hawaiian. I didn’t, even though I have a degree in Hawaiian studies, a lot of people, and that’s why I hate to lead with my degree. I hate, not, I shouldn’t say hate, I don’t really enjoy, not enjoy, I don’t really like to lead with, oh, I’m a native Hawaiian, and then my degree is in Hawaiian studies, because then a lot of people will assume, and not just the foreigners, my own people as well, will assume that, oh, this girl, she just learned how to be Hawaiian by going to school. Because unfortunately for Native Hawaiians, that’s how a lot of us have to learn. A lot of Hawaiians have to learn how to be Hawaiian. But for me, I was very fortunate to grow up in a Hawaiian home. I was raised by my mom’s parents. My grandfather is Native Hawaiian Chinese, and then my grandmother, who is Native Hawaiian Portuguese. I was very fortunate to, from day one, I don’t remember what it is to not be Hawaiian. I’ve been a hula dancer since, I can’t even remember my first hula lesson I want to say from the age of two, my grandparents tell me I started dancing at two. Reading books, we never sat down to read like Mother Goose stories. I remember sitting down and I don’t know, Sam, if you remember that book that Herb Kāne was the illustrator about Pele, Pele is our goddess of the volcano, like that was my first childhood book I can remember. I remember listening and reading about Hawaiian mythology and Hawaiian legends, my grandparents put Hawaiian food on the table. It wasn’t something like I hear from other friends and other Ohana members and things that like eating poi, which is our main staple. I was taught to be grateful for those things and I was taught that it was important to know who I am and where I come from and that I’m Hawaiian.
It’s funny, a funny story. When I was fourth grade I was picked up early from school because I got into a little bit of a fight. Somebody called me a haole, which is a white person or a foreigner. And my grandfather picked me up and I remember this conversation so vividly and he was like, “What happened?” And I was like, this guy called me freaking haole, I’m Hawaiian, I’m pure Hawaiian. And it was at like age ten that my grandfather had to tell me. “You know, babe, you’re not pure Hawaiian.” And I was devastated. I was so devastated. I mean, it was my world, you know what I mean? It was like, I never met my white dad. But yeah, all of those things, language, hula, kupuna, aina[?], kalo. Those things were always with me. They weren’t taught to me in elementary school, they weren’t taught to me in high school, in college. And as an educator I think it became a real obstacle for me because of the advantages that I had being raised in my Hawaiian culture, it made me look at my students at first—and I always get down on myself about this—one of the teachers that I student taught behind, Keala Watson, a great brother from Nanakuli, had to tell me like, “Aye Kai, you cannot expect these students to know what you know, and you don’t get disappointed when they don’t know what a’ole means, which means no. Don’t get upset that they don’t know what the word kuleana means, which means responsibility, because Native Hawaiians in today’s world are worried about surviving. They don’t have the same advantages that some of us had to live within our culture.” And I’m getting goosebumps because it was a real big awakening for me. So I think as an educator, for me, I try to, I bring my whole culture to my classroom. I don’t dumb it down. I don’t dilute it. Even if somebody tells me that I need to dilute it, if somebody tells me that there’s other students that aren’t Native Hawaiian in my classroom, I don’t care. This is Hawaii. I’m a Hawaiian. The majority of the students and the people in the public school education are Hawaiian. I’m going to bring it so that it becomes normal. The same way that I was very fortunate to have had that normal Hawaiian setting.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:41:28] Thank you. Thank you, sis. Something that you said that really resonated with me or stood out was the story that you shared and being told, hey, guess what, you’re not. And having to, like, deal with that, I can definitely relate to that being multi-ethnic, multiracial. Always feeling like there’s no space for you to, I don’t know, maybe fully belong or feeling like you at some points have to fight to belong or prove that no, no, no, this is, this is me this is my lineage, I have a right to this, and that definitely resonates and I can relate so much to that. I had been called growing up a few times, palagi, which in Samoan that’s, yeah, you’re white and I’m like, no, but wait, I’m actually not. And then finding out years later no, actually there’s some German in our family line and I go, oh, okay. So that I felt that and then again, you said, I’m going to bring my whole self, my whole culture to the classroom and I’m with it. And I, it is something that I’m striving to do every single day that I teach. My question to you right now, Kai, is first of all, you recently had a baby, so congratulations. As we look backward and forward to future generations, where do you feel or might you feel that our roles as mothers, and I have a little one now and I’m working really hard to make sure that she is fully aware of who she is as a Samoan, a Nigerian, and Black American, but where do our roles as mothers intersect with our roles as wayfinders?
Kai Burley: [00:43:04] That’s so cool that you asked that question because I think when I was writing my notes on what to bring to the table, I think that’s the role that I was writing from. And I wrote notes, a lot of notes on, not just my kids in the classroom, but like my kids. For my kids as Native Hawaiians, and their dad is white from Florida, I explained to them about being Hawaiian after realizing the privilege that I’ve had. And I will recognize that a lot of the privilege I have with learning my culture, having it in my household, has a lot to do with the other ethnic, backgrounds that I come from. Definitely my Portuguese or white background has definitely set me up for some type of success or privilege if you want to say. We’ll say privilege. But as far as wayfinding for indigenous people, and definitely for Native Hawaiians, I think wayfinding has a lot to do with that, with knowing where you come from. We say mo’okū’auhau, that’s one piece of it. And I try to teach my kids, where you come from, where your dad come from, where do I come from? Where is grandma from? Where is tutu kane from? And then the other side of it, so you have mo’okū’auhau, and then the other side of it is kuleana or responsibility or duty. I rarely say privilege. I only say privilege when I talk about my haole side. When we think in terms of Native Hawaiian mana’o or thought or indigenous thought, there is no sense of privilege; it’s all kuleana. It’s duty. So knowing where you come from and having that cultural understanding of kuleana, not a foreign understanding, right? It’s a cultural understanding. And for Hawaiians, the basis of your kuleana is your kupuna, where you come from. Right. And who you are now and what you’re leaving to your mamo or your descendants in the future. And you, in that thought process, you don’t just, it’s not compartmentalized. I don’t tell my kids, oh, you only think in this way as you’re Hawaiian. No, because you’re taught to be this way, because you’re taught to be Hawaiian, this mana’o goes for every single inlet that you have in your body.
So, this mana’o of kuleana and mo’okū’auhau goes to your haole genealogy. It goes towards your Chinese ancestry. It goes towards your Portuguese ancestry. And just around the same age, my son is 10 and he’s going through that same kind of identity, I want to say forthcoming, and he’s asking a lot of those questions like, “Mom, I’m white.” And I said, you know what? You have a responsibility. You have a kuleana. Mana’o of Hawaiian, mana’o, you have a kuleana. Because you’re white, we’re going to use that and to fulfill everything else that you need to fulfill to help your people, to help your ohana, to help your kaiaulu, to help your community. Because he’s getting this other side from his dad who is white, like, they have that, they have, we’re having that conversation that, “Oh, my ancestors did that it’s not my responsibility.” Uh no, you’re Hawaiian therefore, you are connected. Like in the, like the ocean, like we’re talking about wayfinding and navigating, right? It’s so cool how, like the mana’o, the kind of lessons that Sam and people like Sam, they bring into this conversation of culture. Like wayfinding is exactly the concepts that you use in wayfinding you use in everyday life. Right. You use in the classroom and you have this mana’o that we are all connected. There’s no stop from past, present, and future. There’s no stop from ancestor, self, and descendants, right? We’re all connected. You’re connected to your past, present, future, to your ancestors, and your descendants, and to every area around this place. For my kids, it’s easier for them to understand when you put it in a Hawaiian mana’o. It’s just when you try to bring in all these different other kind of thoughts, like these foreign thoughts of, no, you’re only responsible for yourself or, you know, like the nuclear family, you know, but definitely as a mom, I want my sons and now my daughter to be Hawaiian, like I said, bring their full self and their full self is Hawaiian, no matter if they are part Haole or Chinese, their Hawaiian is what overflows into all of those different compartments.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:47:02] Thank you, Kai. That was, that was beautiful. I was like taking notes, like with not calling it privilege and even being mindful about that because I feel like I do refer to it as privilege anytime I get a piece of information and then listening to you share, I feel like I’m, I don’t want to say owed, but my ancestral knowledge, like that’s mine to own, right? That’s mine to fully to make a part of all of me and my daughters as well. You said that wayfinding has a lot to do with knowing where you come from. There’s a responsibility and a duty. We’re all connected, right? There’s no stop between the past, present, and future, which takes me straight to this question that I have for you, Sam. Why is the concept of wayfinding so relevant for this moment, for today, for our students who are probably in our classrooms right now?
Sam Kapoi: [00:47:51] That’s a great question. I grew up in a home that my grandmother, she was literally born in that generation or raised in the generation that it wasn’t right to be Hawaiian. She was literally told by her mother, my great grandmother, that children is to be heard and not seen, which is like mind blowing nowadays, right? Because we couldn’t speak the language, couldn’t dance. There were rebels obviously that did it. because they didn’t care. But because of this whole western world thing at that time, the new coming, they were trying to adapt to that culture, you know, instead of their own. And so, for me growing up, I wasn’t raised by my mother or my father. I was raised by my grandparents. And, I was raised, in a hard working sense as a Hawaiian, as a kanaka here but on the culture and language side, totally wasn’t. The only thing that was real relevant in culture was providing, like my grandpa he would teach me a lot about the ocean and fishing and all types of different fishing, throwing net, offshore fishing, and diving, and I guess that was my kind of link to the ocean in the beginning with that kind of wayfinding, right? You know, if you’re not going to go to the ocean to provide, then what’s the sense of going, and so, for him, you know, instilling those kind of values and ike, right? The knowledge in me at such a young age. I think about it all the time, you know nowadays, the challenge is real.
Like Kai was mentioning earlier about just trying to survive out here, especially in Hawai’i. Statistically, it’s like the most expensive place to live on this planet, especially in the US. And so, a lot of our people stray away from that cultural connection. Because, for me, I chose to learn. It actually started around ten or nine that I realized that one of my cousins was going to a Hawaiian immersion school, right, fully immersed school for our language and culture. When I asked my grandma and my mom, like, how come I’m not going to that school? You know, like, why do I have to go to our elementary school that’s local here and why not go to the other one? And they were so like, just negative about it. I think that is what kind of elevated or pushed me to learn more and become that again because spiritually that was just pulling me in that path to learn, because if I don’t, then who will? Like one of my kupuna told me before, she told me, ‘o wai ‘oe, right? And basically that means, who are you? And that’s a pretty heavy question. And I ask myself all the time, who am I? Cause it’s just like Kai said, I thought I was just a Hawaiian, you know? 100%. And then, because I never knew my dad until later years, probably around 10 or 11 years old, and found out he was Samoan, German, at first I thought it was just pure Hawaiian Samoan. Then you start digging into the layers of genealogy, mo’okū’auhau, knowing who you are. And finding out you’re German, part Korean, and all this other stuff. And kuleana, the responsibility of those lineages, like what is that to you, and so for me by returning to the core, because I’m here in Hawaii, we call it ho’i i ka piko, right? Return to the center. Immersing myself just finding out who I am as a Hawaiian and how I can make other people realize how, I don’t want to use the word, but privileged we are, you know what I mean? It’s just like, cause that’s true, you know, we, that’s a privilege to be us, our people, that’s what I believe. And, at the same time, like Kai said, it is kuleana, our duty, our responsibility to uphold the highest. Because our kupuna wasn’t idiots they’re, to me, pretty badass, like they survived all this time to become one of the most self-sufficient peoples on this planet, in the middle of the Pacific. And so nowadays with all this distractions, we do veer off the ala, we call it, right? Off our course and trying to find that goal, like that want, that need, that whatever it is that we’re gunning for and just in this course of this year, last year and this year, and so with, with that, I had to ho’i i ka piko again, realize who I am and where I come from. And so, getting back on course to hold the line, to hold that course so that I can be that example, I guess that role model, right, for the next generation to look up to.
Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:52:17] Sam, I feel like I related to much of what you were sharing in terms of my own upbringing regarding assimilating to dominant culture as a first generation Filipino American and in my adult life, I’ve now started that journey to return back to that self discovery of my cultural roots. And I feel like what you share just definitely resonated with me and is inspiring me to think even more deeply about who I am. That’s something that’s going to stick with me.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:52:49] So before we wrap or as we wrap, to wrap, are there any other thoughts, feelings, notes that maybe you wanted to make sure that you shared on this episode with us today?
Kai Burley: [00:52:59] Well I just want to mahalo you guys for having me on there. And I want to mahalo my brother, Sam, a true wayfinder in all sense of the word, like literal wayfinding, mana’o wayfinding and just, he brings so much to our culture and to our keiki. He didn’t really mention this because, you know, he’s all ha’aha’a and humble, but what him and his people do it gives an alternate way of learning. It really brings them back to their culture and it should really be the true way of learning. Like Sam mentioned the Eala and all of these people like Sam that are not in the classroom, but it’s a very indigenous mana’o that the profession of educator doesn’t mean that you’re the only educators in this world, right? We learn from our ohana, right? And our ohana is extended to outside of the classroom, to into the community, to outside of our community, to across continents, and on the US our ohana extends to all of these points, right? There’s no disconnect. Right? In wayfinding and navigation and traversing is fluid once you know who you are and where you come from. Right? but yeah, just mahalo to you guys and mahalo to Brother Sam, Sam Kapoi.
Sam Kapoi: [00:54:11] Mahalo Kai. In my genealogy, my eighth generation grandfather, his name was Poi Nui, Harry George Poi was his name. And so he was known for his kalo, which is basically our older brother, right? And in our genealogy, mythology, in Hawai’i his name was Haloa. And so kalo is the taro root, right? And he was known for his Wai’anae lehua kalo. He was the, one of the first, I think, or the first Hawaiian owned business man out here. People from all over Hawai’i would come down here to get his kalo and his poi. Poi is cooked mashed up kalo. That is pounded and mixed with water to make poi, which is our staple, of life. As disconnected as I was, language and art and all that stuff, I was more connected with food. All my life was food. And more recently, earlier this year, I started a business called Kalo Bombs. We make fresh pa’i’ai every single day to serve it to our people.
Kai Burley: [00:55:08] And it’s the bomb. It’s the bomb.
Sam Kapoi: [00:55:11] One of the first things that you learn in navigation is always to know where you come from. Literally, when you take off from that point from your home to remember where you come from, because just in case anything happens on that voyage, you know exactly where to go. However you want to take that metaphor and apply it to your life, like super critical, helped me a lot through my life with just knowing where home is, physical, spiritual, mental, all that stuff. And so there’s a ōlelo no’eau or a Hawaiian proverb that our kupuna use was that, not all knowledge is learned in one school. That proverb alone is basically to be open, be open and go out there and learn as much as you can, because the mind is the most powerful weapon and by seeking other mentors, throughout the world.
Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:56:00] Yeah, just thank y’all both so much. This has been incredible. I can’t wait to even run it back and re-listen and tune into some of the wisdom y’all dropped.
Estella Owoimaha-Church & outro music: [00:56:10] We want to thank our special guests Sam and Kai one more time for rapping with us tonight. We appreciate you both for being here and really helping us continue to build the groundwork for the Continental Shifts podcast and setting a really strong foundation with contextualizing this concept of wayfinding for us and for our listeners.
Sam Kapoi: [00:56:26] Oh yeah, mahalo nui, you guys.
Kai Burley: [00:56:28] Mahalo nui.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:29] Faafetai tele lava. Thank you for listening.
Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:56:32] Salamat. Thank you for listening. Continental Shifts Podcast can be found on Podbean, Apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:41] Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube for archived footage and grab some merch on our site.
Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:56:45] Join our mailing list updates at conshiftspodcast.com. That’s C-O-N-S-H-I-F-T-S podcast dot com and follow us at con underscore shifts on all social media platforms.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:57:02] Dope educators wayfinding the past, present, and future.
Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:57:06] Keep rocking with us fam. We’re going to make continental shifts through dialogue, with love, and all together.
Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:57:12] Fa’afeti, thanks again. Tōfā, deuces.
Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:57:06] Peace. One love.
Miko Lee: [00:57:19] Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important.
Apex express is produced by me Miko Lee along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen and Cheryl Truong. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support. Have a great night.
The post APEX Express – 4.4.24 Intro Continental Shifts appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
This year, more than 24,000 Chinese migrants have made the dangerous 60-mile trek through the Darien Gap to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
For this episode of AACRE Thursday, host Cheryl is joined by Annette Wong, Kelly Wong, and Kennis Chen, members of Chinese for Affirmative Action’s Immigrant Rights and Chinese Digital Engagement teams who flew down to the San Diego Migrant Welcome Center early March to meet the influx of Chinese migrants who would have otherwise had to rely on Google Translate for support.
In the three days the team was in San Diego, they had met people from all over the world. There were Vietnamese speakers, Arabic; Gujarati, Portuguese, in addition to Chinese, Spanish, and English. But according to CAA’s Managing Director of Programs, Annette Wong, “what folks were coming and looking for– it’s very much the same story. Economic opportunity. And family reunification.”
Important Resources:* Chinese for Affirmative Action website * Chinese for Affirmative Action Instagram * Justice Patch article * Kelly and Kennis’ Podcast: 第二十一集 | 美墨邊境走線者的故事: 追逐夢想與更美好生活 | EP21 | Chasing Dreams & A Better Life: Chinese Migrants at the Southern Border
TranscriptCheryl Truong: Good evening, everyone. You were currently tuned in to APEX express on 94.1 KPFA. We are bringing you an Asian-American and Pacific Islander point of view from the bay and around the world. I’m your host, Cheryl Truong. And tonight is an AACRE night, a series on APEX express, where I highlight groups from within the AACRE network, AACRE being short for Asian Americans for civil rights and equality. APEX express is proud to be part of the acre network.
I am so excited to introduce you all to the guests on tonight’s show. They are from Chinese for Affirmative Action, You’ll hear it referred to as CAA all throughout tonight’s episode. They are people whose work I really admire and I feel so lucky to work closely with them through the AACRE Network.
A little bit of history. CAA was founded in 1969 and has for five decades now been a progressive voice in an on behalf of the broader API community. The advocate for systemic change that protects immigrant rights, promotes language diversity, and remedies racial and social injustice.
Early this March members from the Immigrant Rights and Chinese Digital Engagement Teams from CAA flew down to the San Diego Migrant Welcome Center to meet the influx of Chinese migrants who are crossing the Southern border. This year. More than 24,000 Chinese migrants have made the dangerous 60 mile Trek. Through the Darien gap to cross the U S Mexico border. The San Diego Migrant Center is only the first stop for thousands of migrants entering the United States, and is for many only the beginning of an even longer and greater journey.
Annette Wong: Earlier 2023, the immigrant rights team at CAA started to receive more and more calls from Chinese community members that were seeking asylum.
And so this kind of raised a flag for us to inquire a little bit more about why is this happening? Where is this coming from? Are other organizations that are similarly situated seeing the same trend? So we have been working with a couple partners that also do similarly kind of immigrant legal services in the Chinese community, and we also asked them, “Are you seeing the same uptick?” And the same kind of issue arising for them as well, where they’re getting this increase in calls of Chinese asylum seekers who are sharing a very similar story of coming in through the southern border.
And so, as a result, we started to pay more attention to what the news was reporting out about that phenomenon and paying attention more to what we’re also seeing in terms of the local impact in San Francisco.
Cheryl Truong: Speaking currently is Annette Wong. The managing director of programs at CAA.
Annette Wong: in the fall of 2023 a group called the Haitian Bridge Alliance reached out. At the time they were working out of the San Diego Migrant Welcome Center And provide services to migrants that are arriving from the southern border in San Diego. There were many groups that were staffing the center, but none of the groups were Chinese speaking, so they were having a lot of difficulty communicating with Chinese community members that were coming through. And yeah, that was how we got plugged in.
In December of 2023. We went down for our first trip.
Kennis Chen: when IR team first go down to San Diego last December, I was like so excited.
I was like, Oh, let me hear more about the stories. And this March, we have budget for one of the CDE advocate could go down there with IR team and see what is going on. And luckily, that person is me.
Definitely this time is more chaotic than last time. And I will say for me is. It’s both physically and mentally a challenge because I have many cultural and well language connection with those migrants, so I feel a lot for them. It’s an issue, but it also gives me some hope when seeing them.
Cheryl Truong: Speaking now is Kennis Chen, who is one of three members of the CDE team at CAA. CDE which stands for Chinese digital engagement. The CDE team does a lot of incredible work debunking right-wing misinformation and lifting up progressive viewpoints in Chinese language spaces, such as WeChat and Weibo which is a Chinese micro-blogging site whose name I, just Googled how to pronounce, and am probably saying wrong anyway.
Kennis who is absolutely my inspiration for being powerfully multilingual actually wrote about CAA’s experiences in San Diego in an article on JusticePatch.org, which is one of CAA’s Chinese language websites that has become a trusted source of in-language information for thousands of viewers. Because Justice Patch is not subject to the political censorship that occurs on platforms like WeChat, readers actually have access to a wider selection of content. Including more progressive commentary, fact checks, and news alerts. I’ll have Kennis’s article linked in the show notes and I’ll also have information on the ways you can stay engaged with CAA’s Chinese Digital Engagement work. For those interested in reading the article, but are like me and can’t read Chinese, the article actually has cool pictures in it. And if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll actually see a list of English articles that were cited and used as resources when writing the article.
Speaking next is my dear colleague Kelly Wong, who is. part of CA’s immigrant rights team. the IR team as you’ll hear it referred to throughout the show.
Kelly Wong: When the Immigrant Rights team went last December, San Diego still funded a Migrant Welcome Center that’s allowed a migrants that were released from Customs and Border Protection, so, short for CBP. When they released the migrants last December, we have the center where the migrants can go there take some rest, and try to figure out what the next move would be. But this time, it’s a lot harder. In March the county government decided to pull out funding for the migrant center. As a result, the migrants actually didn’t get to drop off at the center anymore. They would just be released on the street and that make the whole situation a lot harder.
I didn’t join the group last time, so for me it is also my first time going to San Diego. I heard so much from my teammates as to what had happened before. And obviously from the news as well. So part of me is a little anxious, not gonna lie, just to not knowing what to do on the spot.
And I already foresee that it’s going to be a lot of challenges with languages because it’s not just Chinese migrants that’s going to be there, right? It’s going to be people from around the world that cross the border. So I think part of me is really anxious. But at the same time, I also really want to talk to migrants directly because, many things were said on the news, narratives, but these are actual human beings and people, right?
So I wanted to know what motivated them to come here, their journey, and literally just how are they doing? So part of me is curious, but at the same time, also nervous for them. And kind of trying to prepare myself for the worst. Just like what Kennis was saying, I am naturally a empathetic person, especially as an immigrant myself. So mixed feelings of anticipating the work, not knowing, preparing for the emotionally taxing work that we’re about to do.
Kennis Chen: Our plan was kind of changed last minute because we didn’t know when we planned the trip there will no longer be a Welcome Center. Our team has to be split to separate our work in different transit centers.
So I didn’t expect that will be that many unexpected situation coming up.
My work on a daily basis for Chinese Digital Engagement team, is mostly on social media or monitoring the digital space. Especially because this year is election year, people are using their immigration topic as a political driven tool to get anti immigrant sentiment from people. On social media space we can see a lot of inhuman narrative flowing around. Like, Oh, these people are just number– they are not human. There are like 100 millions people coming to the border. So called border crisis. But when we go down there, I feel like these people could be my parents, you know. Some folks, they’re similar age as my parents and suffer a lot to come here. We need to show more empathy to them.
If we look at the broader picture, people migrant for a place to another place. We’re all looking for the good stuff. No one want to came to the state to do bad things, you know. Everyone wants came here for maybe a better future for the next generation, maybe a more stable financial situation for their family. Many of them just scared of the thing happening in their home country, and they don’t feel safe, or they don’t feel financially secure or politically secure; that they feel like I have to leave this place. Immigration or migration is not an easy choice for an individual. Those migrants, they have to Separate from their family for who knows how long.
When they made that decision they need to have the mentality that they probably need to suffer a lot, and they suffer for the good. We really need to see them as human. Human want to live in a safer place, live in a more financially stable place.
That’s why they want to come to another country. American is a place that people think is the best country in the world. It’s illustrated by the mainstream media or illustrated by people’s imagination. True or not, but people think it that way, for example, me as a Chinese, growing up, we think American people so free and people has money to eat and everything.
We need to understand more of their reason to come to the state, other than, oh, people come here want to do crime, which is not true at all.
Kelly Wong: Lots of them, that being said, we are restricted to talking to people that speak Chinese, have struggles back home economically and coming here to make a better living and to create a better future for their families.
I met a young Chinese immigrants woman between 25 to 35 years old. I met her at, one of the transit center that she got dropped off at. Her whole journey took roughly 20 days from China to a Western country to Panama. And then from there Basically going through different Latin American countries by vehicles.
The whole journey was really rough for her as a single woman. She was staying in refugee camps and really shady motels. Eventually she landed in Mexico, walking, hiking for two to three hours before crossing the border to San Diego.
She is a single mom and her family suffer from bondage issues back home. She doesn’t clarify what it is exactly. And she wants to earn some money on the East coast through a friend’s connection, to take care of her nine year old child in China.
Her husband, her child’s father is not in the picture anymore. So she’s the sole provider for the family. And she actually does not plan to stay in the U. S. permanently because eventually she wants to reunite with her child back in China. She also mentioned that the economy’s got worse during COVID in China, and that’s why the financial situation back home is more dire. And that’s kind of prompt her to think outside the box to try to make this journey.
Her experiences during the journey was really rough because she didn’t get enough money to fly directly to Mexico, like lots of migrants do. If you have more money, you flew directly to Mexico and then rest there for a little bit and then walk for two to three hours or maybe a day to cross the border and that is actually relatively safe and not as rough. But for her because she doesn’t have enough money, she have to go through the whole journey from Panama all the way to Mexico before crossing.
She encountered a lots of robberies, and cops in those country asking for money to cross certain areas and constantly staying on the street, refugee camps.
And those places are open areas. Anything could have happened hto er or her peers. That was the kind of insecurity that she has been experiencing. Her belongings were all stolen at one point, including her passport, which is actually relatively common in these kind of journey.
My interaction with her is actually pretty memorable for me. She was very confused. She didn’t even know that she was in California. She thought she was somewhere in the on the east coast. But despite feeling confused and scared, she’s relatively calm and just really grateful for us being there able to speak Chinese with her, explaining where she’s at, directing her to the airport to her destination and all of that. And even though she was really confused and lost during that journey, she managed to take care of other people too.
She talk about coming across with a 65 years old grandmother during detention. That grandmother was also Chinese and was separated from the rest of her family– two children, a daughter-in-Law, and her son. They actually went through the whole journey through the jungle to get to San Diego.
The grandmother was left alone at the detention center because She had troubles doing fingerprinting. The rest of the family were before the grandmother. The Young Chinese immigrants woman was the only one that were able to communicate in Chinese, So she was there for the grandmother, guide her through different things, calm her down when she was feeling emotional thinking she will never see her family again.
I think that really shows their resilience, how strong they are. Even though they are suffering a lot and going through a lot, they still were able to take care of one another, care for other people.
Me and this person, we sat down for two hours. We talked just like a human beings. She actually speak Cantonese too, since she from the Guangdong region and remind me of my friends because she’s not too old, you know, like she’s really young, just like our age. So I just really can’t imagine What she has been through as a young woman myself as well.
The entire time I was by her side, guiding her. Eventually she took a shuttle to the airport and we actually both felt a little bit emotional when we parted ways, because we just connected. She gave me the warmest hug and told me that she’s grateful for seeing us there and hoping that we can keep the work going to help other people.
And, of course that really left a mark in my heart; that brief encounter with her. That was something that I still think about sometimes and make me emotional. Hopefully can humanize these people more than what was reported on the news.
Kennis Chen: There was a young girl, maybe 20 something. Young girl. We were talking just chitchatting. And then she asked, how long have you been in the U S and I say, probably almost 10 years. And then that girl was saying, if I came here when I was in middle school, then I probably will be here for 10 years as well.
Her response really inspired me to think if I didn’t have the privilege to come to study for college, will I be her? Will I be in a situation that I probably also need to cross the border, go through her journey to came to this day.
And sometimes, people’s life is sometimes only is about luck. It’s not how hard I work. My background or my family already determined something for me. They could provide me for college. I don’t need to work myself for college. I don’t need to pay for student loan and those kind of stuff.
If I was that girl, I probably would be in the same situation. Or if I was that uncle, I probably will did the same choice as well. I think sometimes when we think about immigration and migration, we think about so called American born, maybe they’re just lucky to be born as American. It’s nothing about they’re better than other people, it’s just they have the luck to be born in the state, and they’re born with voting rights. They’re born with democracy. It’s not like other people don’t deserve this good stuff. If they choose to believe in a better life, they should have the choice to do so.
Kelly Wong: I think as an immigrant, like what Kennis just talked about, we both came here as a student and with the support from our parents and financial security that we get a job eventually here, and settle in the U. S.
It’s really easy to fall into the mainstream narrative of differentiating good migrants from the bad ones. From the quote unquote illegal ones, right? And not gonna lie, before entering this kind of work, that’s how I feel, too I don’t really know why people make those choices to go undocumented across the border.
But then, came to work for Chinese for Affirmative Action, CAA. My line of work is serving migrants from different backgrounds, and that’s when I realized the privilege that Kennis was talking about. I never have to make those choices of should I go through those journey to come here, should I overstay so I can make a living here or getting separated from my loved ones. That would never happen in my life because of my privilege.
And I think lots of migrants or immigrants that were able to make it here in a more regular ways often think that, because we went through so much ourselves to get here, we deserve those spaces versus those who crossed the border irregularly, or, those who goes undocumented, that they do not deserve the same thing that we both we all desire, right?
So when I speak to the migrants that I serve here in San Francisco, and then at the border, both regular or irregular, it’s the same story. Same as the story that me and Kennis have. We come here because we want a better future for ourselves. And as much as America also too has a broken system, there’s some really beautiful, beautiful things about the U. S. too. Not everything is true from what we learned since a kid about America, but this is true that it’s a land of opportunities; a land of democracy, maybe not the perfect ones, but they do have democracy here. And something that lots of people don’t get to enjoy back home.
So these migrants that cross the border, they very much know these things and decide to pursue and have that for our children. So I think My lived experiences and my line of work really informed how I see them right now at the border.
Instead of thinking that we are better than them because we are quote unquote legal, I actually think that we’re all the same essentially. And as, immigrants communities, especially Chinese migrants communities, we should help each other out instead of putting each other down or, categorizing people using certain stereotypes.
Annette Wong: I think the one thing that We encounter that is difficult for people to understand is that the reasons that people are coming here today are very similar to the reasons that people have come for generations, centuries, even. Really what they’re seeking is more economic opportunity and potentially more freedoms.
And that has not changed over time. The current lens through which people are absorbing this news is really through mainstream media. And the way that it’s painted isn’t looking at people in a very human way. This is a very bad analogy, but, like ants crawling through a log or something.
It’s like, just look at all these hordes of people is what we hear all the time. But, really it’s not different than what it has been in the past. It’s really about how it’s been sensationalized and because of the upcoming November election, how it’s being used and leveraged to push a certain political agenda on many fronts. At the end of the day, people are coming for every human reasons they’re coming because they want to survive, they want to have a better life.
For many of us who may be first, second, third generation Asian American, where our ancestors at some point had migrated, I think that that’s something that we can connect with– this idea that people want to come for a better life for their families. that’s something that often gets lost in all of the political football around the issue in particular.
Kennis Chen: When we go out to live our life, We actually maybe already met so many undocumented friends or foes. When we met people, we did not say, Hey, could you show me your immigration document?
We’re just seeing them as human beings. So we just know them as, how they work, and how we communicate, and we maybe speak each other’s language so we will see them as human beings. We will not say, oh, you are undocumented, so you are less than me. Undocumented folks, they all work very hard. And just like us, they all pay taxes, but sometimes they do not get the benefits like we have. Kelly, for Kelly’s work, for example, sometimes the Immigration Rights team will help people to renew their green card. For me, when I was a student, there are some restrictions for me to have to stay in my legal status.
For example, if I skip a semester, then I probably could not have my student visa. Then, right now, I’m having my working visa. If I, for example, move to another state, I probably could not maintain my legal status. So even though I have a so called legal status, I already see that many restrictions. So I can imagine for people who do not have a legal status, the life might be even harder for them.
I also see my privilege that holding a legal status. For example, I don’t need to worry about on the street, I.C.E. (ICE) will chase after me.
So they need to work, or they need to live. in a really careful way, then at the same time they sacrifice a lot of freedom to, for example, move to other places or do certain job or staying with their families. I feel we should learn from our privilege and also learn from our experience and to understand others.
Annette Wong: Over the course of my years doing immigrant rights work I would say that what was different for me in coming to do this type of work in particular is actually seeing a lot of the diversity of the folks that are coming through. In that diversity, though, there is a community. And I thought that that was really beautiful and something that I did not expect. I think technology and, the World Wide Web essentially has made the world a lot smaller place.
Once the buses emptied, there was a line that formed for people to go through intake. There was clearly like a food station, a restroom station, a water station. you know, but There were also places where people could charge their phones and access internet.
People that wouldn’t typically be able to communicate with one another have the technology and tools to do so. And they have just come out of this very arduous journey where they have probably a lot of shared trauma around what they saw along the way. And so there was a level of bonding between the folks that were coming through the center that I had not anticipated, but it was very beautiful to see. People that were complete strangers before, but in the process of the journey had become friends and actually built quite a bit of trust with one another. So much so that even once they arrived in the U. S., they’re discussing next steps together and making decisions together about who to trust, who not to trust, et cetera.
I remember there was this one gentleman and he came up to us and he was like, well, I’m trying to get to Los Angeles and I, I don’t really know how to get there. What are some of my options? Another woman who was standing nearby, also a Chinese migrant, we had been helping her try to get to the airport, overheard this conversation and she comes over and she’s like, Oh, actually, I know a group of folks , over on that side of the migrant center and they’re also going to LA maybe you all can catch a ride together.
People just seem so relieved to be in the United States. There was a sense of hope. Even though they were telling us we saw people that we had to leave behind in the Darien Gap. But despite seeing so much tragedy, their spirits were hopeful about what was to come here in the States.
Kelly Wong: Migrants themselves, they experience a lot of language barriers among themselves. So it’s a little hard to help each other, even if they want to, just because of the existing challenges of languages.
A lot of Hispanic migrants we’re actually waiting at the transit center for their loved ones. Many of them, for example, husband or wife got released before the other ones. So they didn’t really know how to reunite with other peoples. They end up just sitting at the transit center with other people, trying to wait for the loved ones to be released, hopefully on the same day. A couple of people, they were there for almost the entire day, maybe the day before as well, waiting for the loved ones to be released. And Instead of just waiting there doing nothing, they were actively helping each other out. I don’t speak any Spanish, but people will come to me because I had information of directions, but we don’t have enough Spanish speaking volunteers.
Spanish speaking migrants actually came to me, I can interpret for you. I remember one of them. She’s a young woman herself. She actually took the lead. Because at one point we do not have any Spanish speaking volunteers, she took the lead, copying what we told people earlier, about what’s happening.
You see solidarity; a mutual understanding of how everyone is going through, and we have to help each other out. There’s only so many volunteers there speaking limited languages. So migrants are stepping up for one another and passing those correct information to one another. And at that point I don’t see language barriers as much– just a mutual understanding that girl just came to me– don’t worry, I’m going to help.
you.. She speak more English so she can do the interpretation for me. I think that’s something that I did not anticipate. The resilience that we all have to function and to help each other out with limited resources.
Cheryl Truong: While I was listening to Kelly tell this story I felt tears coming on. Her very comment of I didn’t see language barriers as much just mutual understanding really inspires me. I am finding from these stories, from these courageous migrants. I’m going to say something really cheesy. But hear me out anyway. I am being reminded from these stories of the essence of our humanity. That when we come to one another with the deep intent to understand each other, we do, or we can, when we summoned the courage to do so.
I had a weird, but brilliant professor back in college and he. I remember he said, something like. Hopes dwelling place. Must be at the most visceral and emotional part of our being. This feels to me like a pretty promising kind of hope Doesn’t it.
More stories from the Southern border after a music break, so don’t go anywhere.
Cheryl: Welcome back. You are tuned into apex express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.. We were just listening to “Acceptance” by Gavin grant from The Khamsa Project.
Annette Wong: When you’re coming through the border and you get processed by CBP, men and women are separated and they’re processed separately. So when the buses arrive at the transit center, It’s a bus full of men and then a bus full of women, bus full of men, bus full of women. So people are essentially being separated from their family members if you’re traveling with opposite sex people.
There was one bus that got off that was predominantly women. And we saw this one Chinese woman. So we approached her, and we noticed that she was using Google translate to communicate with a Georgian family. The Georgian family, was a male and there were two females. The male looked at me and he started pointing at his ring on his ring finger.
And you know, I kind of gathered, okay, he’s looking for his wife. He can’t find his wife. And so he, he expressed that it’s actually his wife and his kid. They were talking to the Chinese woman because they were asking if the Chinese woman had seen the wife and the child in the interview process, because the husband wasn’t privy to what happened to the women.
The Chinese woman was saying yes because they started showing a photo of the wife and the child. she was like yes, I saw her. We were processed at the same time, but I don’t know what happened to her. So the Georgian family was asking, did she get on the bus with you?
And the Chinese woman said no. And the Georgian family was like, why, what happened to her? And the Chinese woman was like, I don’t know. It was really a heartbreaking kind of moment to see the desperation in people’s eyes. I was watching the Georgian family. They were approaching all the women that were waiting on the sidewalk and they were just showing this photo on the camera phone. Have you seen her? Did you see her? Just going person to person. And eventually we figured out because there was a child in the picture, those people went straight to a shelter.
The husband was relieved to find that out, took off and went to go to the shelter to try to meet them. But it was just one of those things; a very surreal and sad scene watching the family show the photo to anybody that would listen, even though they couldn’t communicate in any kind of shared language, but everybody knew what they were looking for to because other families were experiencing the same thing; separation from their family members. It’s ridiculous that people have to go through that level of anxiety, and for them I did hear that they were able to reunite within the same day. Which doesn’t always happen.
Another woman was also waiting for her husband. She had been waiting days.
Typically, at The transit center, one of the organizations would have staff who would be coordinating for the day. That staff person would be making announcements every time the buses came, handing out flyers to people, they would be directing the flow of volunteers, you do this you cover that. But at times, there were limitations on the number of staff, people were really operating on a very shoestring kind of operation where sometimes there’s only one staff person, and there’s more volunteers than there are staff.
One of the days we were at the site, it was nearing four o’clock or so and the staff person said to us I’ve been here since 7am. I have to go. There’s supposed to be another lead volunteer but they haven’t arrived yet. Can you guys just watch the situation, receive more buses, do the orientation spiel for the newly arrived folks. We had only been there for a couple days, but the fact that they were just going to leave this in our hands because they really just had no other support was not shocking necessarily, but sad how little infrastructure was in place. And it’s not the fault of the organizations. It’s really just a lack of support from the local city and county to provide infrastructure for these kinds of releases.
Annette Wong: So we’re like, yeah, sure, we’ll take care of it. They pointed me to this lady who was Sitting near all of the staff materials. I had seen her around the first day that we had been there and then of course the second day. I recognized her but I hadn’t really talked to her because she only spoke Spanish. The staff person before she left was like. This woman is actually waiting for her husband, and she’s been waiting for six days, and every day she just comes back and waits at the bus station.
And so she has come to know the process that people go through when they arrive, so she’s willing to help. So if you can utilize her support, utilize her support because she’s a Spanish speaker and none of us spoke fluent Spanish. I was grateful to have her support, but also very sad for her situation.
The fact that she had waited so long that she has no idea when her husband’s going to come, if he’s going to come. But then the fact that she wanted to help people was just also very beautiful and amazing. She and I started to coordinate because she was the only one who could communicate with the Spanish speakers that also knew how this operation runs.
So we worked very closely with her. To try to help Spanish speaking migrants arrive and be able to get to where they needed to go, whether it was the airport or the Greyhound or wherever they were headed.
There’s a lot of these, like, I wish that we didn’t have to always look for that silver lining to give us hope. Because we really shouldn’t have to deal with these kinds of situations to begin with. But it’s the reality of what’s happening now because there’s no infrastructure, there’s no process, there’s no federal immigration reform, there’s no local infrastructure to support people that are coming through. It really is just the dedication and hard work of the advocates at the organizations that are based out of San Diego that are doing this work.
Kennis Chen: I remember when I first come to the state for school and my luggage was delayed and I couldn’t find my luggage. I was so nervous because it’s completely new environment for me.
And I spoke relatively fluent English and staff couldn’t understand the English I spoke, so they couldn’t help me . You’re seeing how people are being treated when they don’t speak English, and how less information they could gather when they don’t speak the dominated language in the U. S. And the service they get is also very limited. How can we expect people to live a same life as U. S. Born folk when they do not get the same amount of information they could get her just like the example that Kelly provided. Even if you want to gather some government provided documents where you want to get public resources. The information you got just maybe 20 percent or 30 percent the same as the amount that if you could read English. It’s unfair for folks. Language and also community are super segregated in the U. S. For example, folks in Chinatown, they could only live in Chinatown because They probably don’t speak so called perfect English because it’s very hard for them to live in other area in their city. The way that we are limiting the resources for the people who in need is just so insane to me.
Kelly Wong: After going to one of the transit centers and noticing that a lot of Chinese migrants gravitate towards unlicensed drivers who are Chinese migrants themselves, because they’re the only one that are Chinese speaking.
And when they look at us, they’re confused who we are. Even though we speak Chinese, there’s still differences, right? Those drivers went through the same thing that they went through. So automatically there might be some trust over there. And we also noticed that there might be some gender dynamics there. Everyone except for one colleague, are, immigrant woman. And many of us are young woman, who back home Oftentimes not seen as authority figure, right? They just think that we’re kids, right? Some people when they see us, they might not associate us with authority or people that actually have knowledge to share
On the first date. Kennis make this suggestions of maybe we should make a big sign saying that we are volunteers and we’re here to provide some immigration services or basic information if they need it. And we have a free buses to the airport, you don’t have to pay those drivers to get to your destination.
Kennis Chen: Not saying those unlicensed drivers are bad people or something like that, but because they were the only one, they sometimes might be seen as authority because they were the only one who were there giving Chinese information.
So whatever they say might be seen as truth to those Chinese migrants. As volunteers, we definitely want Chinese migrants to get accurate and reliable resources that we can provide. So we’re there making sign and say, Hey, please talk to us. We have free shuttle bus to the airport.
Please don’t get to the unlicensed driver first, because definitely those people are making money. They’re doing business, which I respect, but I don’t want them to be the only reliable sources there.
I really see the potential threat that this driver could cause. Because again, if people want to make a living out of their challenging situation, I could not imagine what they would do. And given that because they are also migrants, they probably do not have the work permit right away so they probably need to do certain stuff to make a living. So if they would be the only resources there, then they literally could do anything. Because there’s no certain thing to prevent them to do so. Maybe a little bit extreme example could be human trafficking or stuff like that. That could also happen, so we try to hand it out. resources for anti human trafficking hotline and stuff like that to the migrants. I told them, don’t trust anything you hear. And be careful about stuff. Like for example, people try to hire you or people try to say, Oh, I could give you a job right away and stuff like that.
Maybe try to be more cautious about that.
Kelly Wong: So that’s kind of how we try to navigate that dynamics. That being said, like what Kennis was saying, we also respect those drivers are trying to make a living. At the same time, we also want to make sure those new migrants that were just released knows what’s going on and they’re actually entitled to just get on the free buses to the airport instead of paying God knows how many money they have to pay for a trip to airport or other places.
Kennis Chen: I want to compliment the mentality of those migrants. They are very strong. I could not imagine that if I go through the whole journey and then be captured in the CBP border for a couple days, how would I look? I probably would be very upset and very worried and probably anxious.
But those migrant, Every one of them, they’re so sweet and they’re so optimistic and they express so many gratitude to us. Even though they don’t speak the same language, they were like gracias. And thank you, sister. . I feel really like inspiring. even though people at their lowest, they still could share so many appreciation and gratitude to others. So I really just hope them all the best.
Kelly Wong: one point, I was helping a Muslim Arabic speaking family. I met this young girl. And she looks so confused. She was crying when she got off from the bus. So I approached her. We were able to communicate through Google Translate.
She told me, she didn’t know where her husband is. Her husband doesn’t have phones, all the phones were with her. And she doesn’t have even one dime of money, nothing. It was a desperate situation. You don’t know where your husband is. You don’t have any money. She was really panicking. I told her to, you know, stay calm. Don’t worry. Hopefully your husband will come in soon. Even though we don’t really speak the same language, she actually kept following me the entire time. She told me she wanted to stay beside me, which I was like, yeah, don’t worry.
If you feel safer, you can stay beside me. And then luckily her husband was there for the next bus. Actually, not too long and not too far away. It was, I think maybe within 30 minutes, her husband came down and I saw them reunited. I was really moved just to see them hugging.
And her husband also have some friends that also crossed the border together. So they were all reunited one big family. She came to me and just telling me sister. That’s when they start calling me and the other folks sister. Thank you so much for being there for me.
And then she told her husband what had happened. So her husband then call me sister to. And then she just gave me the warmest hug. She told me thank you so much. When I was panicking, you were there for me.
And the husband, they were so cute. They were young couples. The husband speak English and told me that they have never been apart from each other for more than one day. So the fact that they were separated for two days was very scary for both of them. And then, he tell me that she is the love of his life. Before they went onto the bus, they turn around and call me– goodbye, sister, and God bless you. To this day, it’s really moving and keep me going.
Annette Wong: I think that this idea of like family reunification is definitely one that rings true for my family as well. Not in the micro sense of , getting off of buses and looking for your family, but a lot of my family’s migration history is one of seeking family reunification.
My mom actually came to the United States to reunite with her dad, my grandfather in 1968 after the immigration act. What happened was my grandfather had come to the United States first to find a job, make some money, get the home ready to bring over my grandmother, his wife, and then their two daughters.
When my grandmother came, unfortunately my grandfather had actually. done his own thing and found himself another family. But the initial desire to come was for that a family reunification. My grandmother wanted to be with her husband. She wanted my mom and my aunt to be with their dad.
The grandmother that I just mentioned, her mother, ended up coming to the United States to reunite with my grandma and my grand uncle, her son. Within the same family, multiple points and multiple generations of family reunification being end goal and the end desire of all of this.
For these different generations, my mom was in her twenties when she came, my grandmother was in her forties. My great grandmother was older at the time.
When I think about the journeys that people took at those points in their lives, where they probably had established themselves to some extent , but, to leave all that behind, to reunite with family is something that came up during the trip as . This, constant reminder that people want to be with those that they care about. People want to be united with their family. They don’t necessarily want to have to go through all this struggle in order to do so, but that’s what love is, right? Like that’s what love is about.
Kennis Chen: I want to appreciate the volunteer there. Because though our colleague were there for like three days, we were literally so exhausted. I couldn’t feel my leg every day. Those volunteer there are from 7 a. m. to 7 p. m. every single day. when you talk to people and when you need to help people, you need to open yourself as well. So you’re being vulnerable and sometimes it’s just physically, mentally exhausted.
Many volunteer, they are women of color and they’re so strong. , I could not imagine life or the world will continue without them. They’re just like so strong, so resilient. Part of me was worried because they are all volunteer groups that doing this at their own capacity without the budget they need. And the other part of me think, whatever the challenge would be, they will find a way to get through because they are just like so strong and so human. They’re just like beautiful human. I just appreciate the opportunity to see them and work with them.
Kelly Wong: We were only there days. We were tired. I slept through the whole weekend. These people are continuously perservering every single day.
the beginning of our interview, we talked about how things just changes within a few days. We do not have migrant center anymore.
Within a few days. I don’t know how they do it. Within a few days they were able to produce info sheets from multiple languages. I stopped counting. I think at least 8 to 10 languages that I saw of how to get to airport, where you’re at, if you have questions, try to do this and that. They ran all the of shelters that host children and their parents. They managed to arrange buses from another nonprofit to transport Migrants from one transit center another one and eventually to the airport so people won’t be stuck at one place and creates issue for the local residents too .They have to react on the spot and figure out how to do all of that.
So to see how resilient, quick they are to respond to all this ongoing changes, and frankly problems one after another is, just so inspiring to me as a fellow person to also do direct services.
Annette Wong: The patchwork of immigration laws that we have holding our immigration system together has not been updated for over 20 years. It desperately needs an overhaul. When we’re talking about lack of federal action, what does that actually mean?
We’re talking about comprehensive immigration reform. The world has changed so much in the last 25, 30 years. Globalization. The economy. geopolitical relationships with other countries. Everything has changed so much yet our immigration system has not been updated to reflect it.
Ever changing needs of our world. I think that is one of the things that would help address the situation. And not in a way that is. all about punishment and punitive measures. What we’re hearing now is immigration is going to be one of the top issues for the upcoming November election, and what everybody’s talking about is cracking down on border enforcement. Nobody’s talking about where is the pathway for the 11 million? Where is the, humanitarian aid and humanitarian relief for folks that are seeking that. We’re not really hearing about that side of things.
And I think that’s where we hope to see more emphasis is on a more inclusive policy package rather than what we’re seeing now, which is just exclusion and punishment, . So, I think that’s one level of infrastructure. I think the other level of infrastructure is how do people manage, how do cities and counties manage the influxes. And then also for the receiving city– people going to places like New York, like LA, like San Francisco. Making sure that there’s infrastructure there in those cities as well, whether it is temporary shelters, whether it is immigration legal services that are free and low cost or accessing jobs while people are navigating their immigration paperwork.
There’s a lot of things that localities have been planning for, some are doing very well. Some are needing more local support in order to enact around providing support to migrants. But this kind of thing will help because when migrants can land on their feet and integrate into the local neighborhood, the local economy, et cetera, it will help make things better for everybody.
It will be a better life for the migrant. It will also be something that can help a neighborhood thrive. And so I think that’s really what we’re hoping to see in terms of investments and support for migrants that are coming into the country.
Cheryl Truong: and that’s the end of our show! Learn more about the incredible work of Chinese for affirmative action in the show notes.. Speakers and readers of Chinese will also be able to find Kennis’ justice patch article written in Chinese, as well as the podcast that Kennis and Kelly made about this very trip.
Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
The post APEX Express – 03.28.24 – Stories from the Southern Border appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Host Miko Lee speaks with Asian American creatives and Pulitzer prize finalists performance artist Kristina Wong and playwright Lloyd Suh. They reflect on how the covid lock down impacted their work and ruminated on how built communities can arise in times of hardship. One is creating work that explores the times we live in and the other is delving into the past. Each share their creative process and why art matters to them.
Show Note Links
Kristina Wong’s Website
Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater (1127 Market St., San Francisco) March 30 – May 5, 2024.
Kristina’s Radical Cram School
Lloyd Suh’s bio
The Far Country BY LLOYD SUH at Berkeley Rep. March 8 – April 14, 2024
Show Transcript
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Miko Lee: [00:00:28] Good evening and welcome to Apex Express. I’m your host, Miko Lee and tonight we get to hear from two Asian American creatives. Both are Pulitzer prize finalists who have had their work presented around the country. They reflect on how the COVID lockdown impacted their work and they ruminate on how built communities can arise in times of hardship. One is creating work that explores the times we live in and the other is delving into the past to lift up stories that might be missing in history. Each share their creative process and why art matters to them. Tonight, join me as I talk story with performance artist Kristina Wong, whose show Sweatshop Overlord opens at ACT’s Strand Theater on March 30th and with playwright Lloyd Suh whose show The Far Country runs at Berkeley Rep until April 14th. First up is my chat with Kristina Wong.
Welcome Kristina Wong to Apex Express.
Kristina Wong: [00:01:24] I’m so happy to be here. Thank you.
Miko Lee: [00:01:27] We are so happy to have you as the performance artist, writer, creator of Kristina Wong’s Sweatshop Overlord, which will run at ACT from March 30th through May 5th. Yay!
Kristina Wong: [00:01:36] Yes, that’s eight shows a week, one body. Just me, everybody. Just me.
Miko Lee: [00:01:43] One woman show. Excellent.
Kristina Wong: [00:01:44] No understudy. I’ve been looking for an understudy. But apparently the theater doesn’t think it works as well if someone else goes around saying they’re Kristina Wong. So, I gotta stay healthy. For you!
Miko Lee: [00:01:54] That would be interesting, though. I would actually love to see a multi-people Kristina Wong version. That’d be really interesting.
Kristina Wong: [00:02:02] Yeah. There are enough Kristina Wongs on this planet to do that, but can they do what I do? I don’t know.
Miko Lee: [00:02:07] I don’t think many people can do what you do. [Kristina laughs] Okay, so I want to start with the question I ask many many people, and this is a big one: who are your people and where do you come from?
Kristina Wong: [00:02:21] My people, so many questions. Well, the people that I was born into, I’m third generation Chinese American, Toisan on my father’s side and Cantonese on my mother’s side. And we were a San Francisco family. Both my parents were born in San Francisco, went to San Francisco high schools. I went to San Francisco. Now I live in Koreatown, Los Angeles, my alternate Asian universe. I will say that those are the people I was born into. When I was growing up in middle school and high school I was somewhere between a theater kid who also liked making prank calls and was constantly trying to figure out who my people were and what my clique was cause I don’t even know if I would totally fit in with the theater kids. And then when I got to college, I discovered radical solo performance work and activism and finally could put, like, words around things that I had been told, “We don’t talk about it. You just get really good grades and then just become successful and that’s how you deal with that,” you know? But was introduced to interdisciplinary art and naked performers and people putting all their trauma out there in beautiful theater ways. Now as an adult, as I tie it back into the show, Kristina Wong Sweatshop Overlord, my people are the aunties. This community of aunties that I found myself leading for 504 days during the pandemic. I somehow found myself, as many artists did, non essential and running a mask sewing group and needing people to help me sew masks. And a lot of those happened to be aunties, a lot of them were Asian women who had mothers and grandmothers who were garment workers. And we had learned how to sew as survival skills that were passed down to us. And those of late have become my people. And that’s the story of the show.
Miko Lee: [00:04:16] Kristina, can you step back for a moment and just tell how that got started? How did Auntie Sewing Squad in the very, very beginning, how did it get started?
Kristina Wong: [00:04:24] March 12th, I was doing what I thought was my last show on earth. For some reason, there was a community college in Sacramento, American River Community College that had not canceled its classes, that had not taken its classes online and I had one last show on the books at 12 in the afternoon. I was doing a show called Kristina Wong for Public Office. I actually ran and served in local office in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where I live and was doing a big campaign rally show about what it meant to run for local office. And the idea was the show was going to tour all of 2020 as we led up to the November 2020 elections. And I sew my set pieces and my props. So you imagine all this American flag bunting made out of felt that I’ve sewn on a Hello Kitty sewing machine. And so this really ridiculous, like an American flag threw up on the set. Like that was my set. And the show is not going well, the students are very distracted. As it turns out, they are receiving a text in the middle of my show saying we’re going online until further notice. So I suddenly have no income. No tour. I’m back in LA. I’m hiding inside my apartment as we all are. Going, “Why did I choose to do this with my life? Why was I so compelled to become an artist? What is my purpose in all this? Why, why did I choose this unessential work?” But then I couldn’t feel sorry for myself because there were people who are risking their lives to deliver mail, to work at the grocery store, to go to work every single day at the hospital. And I see this article that I’m tagged in on Facebook saying that hospitals have no masks and are looking for home sewn masks. And the whole culture of mask wearing was so, you know, unheard of at this point and I looked at my Hello Kitty sewing machine and I was like, well I’ve never sewn medical equipment before. I’ve sewn my sets. I’ve sewn a giant vagina costume. I think I can make medical equipment. And I was just sort of called like Joan of Arc to sew. And I made this very naive offer to the internet where I said, if you’re immunocompromised or don’t have access to masks, I’ll get you a mask. I didn’t have the materials to do this, but I just offered this because it felt like that’s what you were supposed to do in this moment. We were all connected and as strong as our weakest link.
March 20th is when I sewed my first mask. March 24th, I was like, okay, I need help because there’s no way. One day when I was sewing nonstop all night, I made about 30 masks. That’s not enough to fulfill the list that was exponentially building in my inbox. So I thought, okay, I’ll make a Facebook group, and sort of offload some of this work to other people who might be sewing who could help me. And I make the group in a rush. I call it Auntie Sewing Squad. I don’t realize our acronym is ASS. I start to add my mother into the group, her friends into the group, all sorts of folks are in the Facebook group. And as it turns out, you can’t just start a Facebook group and expect people to just sew, so I, [laughs] so I find myself having to figure out how do we get the materials? How do we teach people how to sew these masks that none of us have sewn before? How do we teach people how their sewing machines work? Because some of them haven’t touched their sewing machines in decades. And how do we vet these requests for masks, because a lot of people are panicking in our inbox, and we kind of have to create a system where just because someone’s going, “Please send as many as you can,” as many as you can might mean 10 masks, it might mean 300. And are they just panicking right now and they think they need that many masks, or, you know, like, so we just had to make a lot of decisions and it felt like in those first days we were playing God, trying to figure out well, If we’ve only made a finite number of 15 masks today, who gets them, right? And obviously you’re going to look at who’s at most risk. So, so this was supposed to just be a two week thing, right? This was supposed to be a thing until the government got the masks off those cargo ships and got them to everybody. This was before masks became a bipartisan thing and a politically polarizing thing. And the group just kept going because we found beyond hospitals there were a lot of very vulnerable communities that could not even afford the cheap masks that were showing up on the market. And we’re talking about farm workers, folks seeking asylum at the border, indigenous reservations. We sent a lot to the Navajo Nation and to the Lakota tribe in North and South Dakota. So this ended up going on for over 500 days. It became a community of over 800 volunteer aunties, all sewing remotely, all working remotely. We developed this whole system in which we could respond to the high COVID rates that we were witnessing and to communities that were being adversely impacted, either because they had no access to healthcare or no access to clean water.
Miko Lee: [00:09:03] That’s an important one.
Kristina Wong: [00:09:05] Yeah.
Miko Lee: [00:09:06] How many masks did you end up creating?
Kristina Wong: [00:09:08] We ended up sewing in total, what we recorded was 350,000 masks were sewn and distributed. We also rerouted hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment to a lot of those places. The thing is, like, in a crisis, and I have to remind us, even though it was four years ago, because we forget so many of the details, if you saw an article that farm workers were getting hit by COVID, you don’t, you’re not going to just send a bunch of masks to some address you find online, right? Because not everyone’s checking their mail, not everyone might be at that office address, you’re not clear who might distribute those masks once they arrive. So we had to do a lot of work in terms of calling and working with other mutual aid organizers and these communities and figuring out like, well, what is the actual impact? How are you getting these masks around and how many can we send you at least to hold you over for a week or two, right? Like, yes, there are you know, hundreds of thousands of farm workers, but we’re not sitting on a ton of masks that we just, you know, that come out of our butt and that we just have like we actually like sit down at our sewing machines and cut and sew these things. So—
Miko Lee: [00:10:13] And you had to research and make the connections—
Kristina Wong: [00:10:16] Make the connections. Yeah. And some of those requests shifted into full on other kinds of aid. So the Navajo reservation had volunteer sewing groups, but they didn’t have access to sewing supplies. I’m in Los Angeles where we have a garment district and we were looking at a map going, well, in theory, someone could drive round trip across a very long day, you know, to, to lessen the risk of exposure. And so our first truck over wasn’t, you know, just a van filled with masks, but a van filled with the supplies that they could use to sew masks. And then we learned that only 30 percent of that reservation has running water. That when multigenerational families were getting COVID, there was nowhere to quarantine, so they requested things like tents to quarantine and buckets to make homemade hand washing stations. First it was sewing supplies, but we did about eight runs back and forth to the reservation during the pandemic to get supplies to those mutual aid organizers who could get it to people. I helped secure like a big soap donation from Dr. Bronner’s. It was like, we just thought it was just the masks, but we basically stepped in all of structural racism and systemic you know poverty and all the ways the system was broken and it had already left behind a lot of indigenous communities and people of color who are getting hit like super hard by this pandemic. So ASS, our unintentional acronym, Anti Sewing Squad, that’s sort of what we fell into was going from, okay, we’re going to make a few masks to full on shadow FEMA.
Miko Lee: [00:11:51] Yeah, not even just sewing squad, but sort of a superhero squad. Let us come in where the government has failed and help where we can. It’s incredibly powerful. Thank you for doing that.
Kristina Wong: [00:12:02] Yeah, I don’t know if I would have done it again, honestly, even though out of it came this incredible show, but if you told me at the top of this, this is actually going to go on for 500 days, I don’t know that I would have done it. Like, it was so exhausting, and that’s also sort of a joke in the show, is people kept going, “Oh, you aunties, you’re heroes, you’re heroes!” and I’m like, oh my god, like, heroes are what you call the people who do the work no one wants to pay for apparently, because [laughs] this is, this is, this is, this sucks. This sucks. Like, we don’t want to be heroes. We want our systems that, like, we, we just saw how everything failed us in this moment. Capitalism failed us. The medical system failed us. Just all these things that we’re supposed to step in, in these moments of crisis didn’t work. What I witnessed and why I made a show about this, is I’ve witnessed how community steps up and I witnessed how these aunties showed me this generosity I’ve never witnessed in my life. Like most of the friendships I have in Los Angeles are because someone does something for a living and that, serves me and my job in a certain way, right? They’re very transactional relationships. And I witnessed people who I had no idea who they were before this moment, willing to come to my house, brave this very unknown pandemic, to pick up a roll of elastic, to sew for a total stranger, risk their life going to the post office to mail these things, right?
And so to me, that’s, what’s worth celebrating is this opportunity that I think that we all had as humanity to witness that this was our moment to all come together, I would say we lost that opportunity and we’ve just become resentful and whatever, but I, I feel like Auntie Sewing Squad showed me a glimmer of the generosity that was possible. And for me, that’s worth celebrating. And the only reason why I feel like it’s worth reliving the pandemic. In a 90 minute show.
Miko Lee: [00:13:54] Every night for multiple nights.
Kristina Wong: [00:13:56] Yes, eight nights a week. What am I doing? The show is so, you know, people are like 90 minutes. So long. It’s like, it’s because the pandemic was so long. I would have loved to cap this at 45 minutes, but this kept going. It kept going.
Miko Lee: [00:14:09] How many members are there in the Auntie Sewing Squad?
Kristina Wong: [00:14:12] I would say. We had and they were all involved in different capacities. I mean, like some of them may have been involved for all of a week before, they got pulled away by their families or job obligations. But we had about 800 different aunties coming in and out of the group. Not all of them were sewing, some of them were organizing spreadsheets, making phone calls, some of them were driving aunties. We had a huge system of care aunties, led by our Auntie Gail and basically, people who couldn’t sew who felt really guilty would [be] like, “Can I send you all a pizza?” Which was really necessary because a lot of these aunties were operating on survivor’s guilt, right? Of feeling like, well I have this privilege of being able to stay at home while my mailman risks his life to get, you know, get me the mail. Because it’s really hard to go to sleep when you know that you at your sewing machine an hour longer could possibly save someone’s life. But we also needed to encourage these aunties to stop and rest. You can’t just tell people, okay, sew a bunch of masks and expect them to stay motivated to do it. We had aunties who lost family members to COVID. We had aunties who are falling into their own depression and getting isolated. So much of this group wasn’t just about like, while we joke it’s a sweatshop, a lot of it was this entire community that supported each other, cared for each other. We’d have zoom stitch n bitches where we’d, you know, the aunties would, I was working out this show on Zoom, never thinking that it was going to premiere off Broadway, to basically just entertain the aunties while they were at their sewing machines. Like we were this whole system this became this weird ad hoc family that supported each other through this very strange time. And that was sort of the staying power of why people stayed involved is because they’d never experienced community like this either, which was just all pure generosity. I feel like I’m describing a cult, and I sort of am, but whatever. It’s a cult called ASS, so it’s fine.
Miko Lee: [00:15:59] Well, a unique community that came together to address the harm that was happening. It’s beautiful. Can you go back in time, roll us back in time, to how you first got politicized? I heard you say that about college, but is there a moment that happened for you?
Kristina Wong: [00:16:16] I think I was always a little politicized. I just never really had the language and education around it. When I was 12 years old in our middle school, there was a science lesson plan contest and we basically prepared a science lesson plan and taught it to another class. And my partner and I, we did something about saving the planet and just doing a deep dive. This is the nineties, right? Like how much we were screwing with our planet. And I think I still don’t know that we all know the lesson, but I was like a little Greta Thunberg, you know. I just didn’t know how to be an activist. It was like, do I collect cans that are thrown on the street? Like, how do I, how do I do this? Like, how does this equate to actual change? And I think that’s, I think we have some more of those tools and we’re also cognizant about how frustrating those tools are to implement and see happen. But that’s, I think the first time I realized I was an activist and it wasn’t until I got to college and was introduced to, I didn’t know what Asian American Studies was I was like, what? Why would you study that? Like, what is that? I had no idea that Asian Americans have had a whole political history that has worked alongside the civil rights movement and, I had no idea I could put words to the microaggressions I’d expressed my whole life and that I could actually challenge them as not being okay. I went to UCLA. I feel like that’s where a lot of people figure out that they’re Asian American. That’s also where I began to understand the political power of art. What I had understood of activism before that point was marching in rallies, screaming at people, berating people to recycle. But, you know, it’s not sustainable. It’s exhausting. It makes people want to avoid you. And it’s an emotionally depleting. And so being introduced to artists, just sort of sharing their lives and their lives as having political power to put forward and to put meaning to was really incredible to experience like performers. I think some of the first performers I saw just like put themselves forward and all their flawed ways was actually kind of profound and incredible. That’s where I was drawn to making art as my sort of form of protest and activism.
Miko Lee: [00:18:26] Is this where the roots of the Radical Cram School came about?
Kristina Wong: [00:18:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Radical Cram School is my web series for children. You can find it on YouTube. And where that started was one of our producers, Teddy Chow, his daughter Liberty had come home and they, at that point they were living in Ohio where they were one of the few Chinese families there. And the daughter said, “I wish I wasn’t Chinese.” And Teddy was like, “Can you go talk to her and her friends and make her proud?” And I was like, “You know what? I said that too when I was a kid.” And so somehow this blew up into us like, well, let’s create a web series for kids, specifically for Asian kids, because I feel like Asian Americans and kids don’t really. We just sort of, the tools we are offered politically don’t really have our face in them. Like, we don’t really understand where we fit in a political movement, and how to be an ally to black and brown movements. And I was like, let’s do a web series where we gather Asian American kids and it to me was a little tongue in cheek. And I feel like a lot of me being in a bubble of other progressives in Los Angeles feels like I can lovingly poke at this idea of a cram school where we’re trying to quickly teach Asian kids about the entire world of what’s overwhelming and oppression in the setting. And so that became Radical Cram School which went on for two seasons and was completely decried by right wingers like Alex Jones. So I would say that’s a success.
Miko Lee: [00:19:53] I think it is so delightful and funny. It’s a little mix of like drunk history with Sesame Street.
Kristina Wong: [00:20:00] Yes. Yes. That’s exactly what we were going for and I feel like I’m very lucky at some point in my lifetime. Yes, it didn’t happen until college and like post college was introduced to all these incredible Asian American activists, many of us who are still with us right now. And this history and I feel like it’s worth sharing.
Miko Lee: [00:20:21] The child that inspired the whole series. Was she actually in it?
Kristina Wong: [00:20:26] Liberty. Yes, she was in it. She’s in it. She’s both in the first and second season.
Miko Lee: [00:20:29] Was it mission accomplished in terms of having a sense of pride of being Asian American?
Kristina Wong: [00:20:35] I think so. It’s always ongoing, right? Like I think pride, you don’t, you don’t get it once and it stays forever. It’s something that we like, as we constantly learn to like love ourselves and appreciate what we have. And we’re also part of growing a community too, right? Like, it’s not just like, Oh, I’m proud. I found my pride at 13 and it stayed. Like, we always feel like kicked to the curb constantly and challenged. And I think, like for me, this pandemic was a really challenging time for Asian Americans. As we witnessed like the backlash, the hate, like how backwards it was that people would equate. Do you remember early on when people were like, can you get COVID from Chinese food? Like, it was just so like, what happened?
Miko Lee: [00:21:13] I mean, the whole Kung flu virus.
Kristina Wong: [00:21:15] The Kung flu, China virus, like all these these just sort of racist associations with it are like, are constantly challenging to our sense of pride. So hopefully having that web series out there will be these touchstones to remind Asian American kids that we exist. We’re here. There’s a basis. We’re not building this from scratch and we may be recording it from scratch or constantly trying to remember this history into existence. But, to me it’s a verb, right? The verb of finding pride is always active.
Miko Lee: [00:21:44] I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about how you, you often in your work play with gender expectations around Asian women from, you know, like you mentioned before sewing on your Hello Kitty sewing machine, which I have a Hello Kitty sewing machine too.
Kristina Wong: [00:21:59] Yes. It’s a good machine. I don’t know if it’s a Janome.
Miko Lee: [00:22:02] It’s actually incredibly practical. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles, but it works. Yeah but I remember your big vagina MC for Mr. Hyphen America. I can’t believe you sewed that on one of those tiny machines. And then, you have this web series about taking down how white men can date Asian women. And then the other thing is your fake porn site. Can you tell us about that?
Kristina Wong: [00:22:23] Oh, that’s like That’s 20 years of projects you’ve just named. Well, my very first project out of college, year 2000, still had dial up internet, my friends, was called BigBadChineseMama.com. You can still look it up. And this is before there were search engines, SEOs. And if you look for Mail Order Bride on Yahoo, because Yahoo was the search engine of choice at the time, it showed up in the top 10 search results for Mail Order Bride. Now, you know, if you look for porn, clearly outnumbered, yeah. So that was like my first project. And a lot of that came out of like me being kind of a depressed college kid and trying to use this thing called the internet to research stuff for my Asian American women class. And all I was finding was pornography and was like, Oh my God, [laughs] we have to like intercept this somehow. And like always feeling like I was not good at being a girl, right? Like the standards for being a good Asian girl, were the extremes. It was like Miss Chinatown, Connie Chung, and then these porn stars that would show up, you know, on these Google, on these searches and that was, that’s it, right? So a lot of my projects have been about like being awkward out loud and being uncomfortable out loud and leaning into publicly embarrassing myself, but saying that it’s my work.
Miko Lee: [00:23:45] And how has your family responded to your work? You grew up in San Francisco.
Kristina Wong: [00:23:49] Yeah. Oh, they didn’t like it at first, but they love it now because I’m a Pulitzer Prize finalist, my friends.
Miko Lee: [00:23:54] Oh, how did that feel to get?
Kristina Wong: [00:23:56] So crazy! You know, I entered, anyone can become a Pulitzer Prize contender. Like you just need 75 dollars and then you mail your entry in and the committee reads it. And so six years before I was a Pulitzer finalist, my friend Brian Feldman and I, we entered our respective plays. Mine was The Wong Street Journal, his was a very experimental piece called Dishwasher. His entry was like two pages long and we were up against Hamilton, which ended up winning. And my mother was so excited because she’d only seen my play, you know, like that was the only play she’d ever seen that year. And she was like, “You’re going to win. You’re totally going to win.” Which was great that I had her confidence, but I was like, probably going to go to Hamilton. And I actually got a press pass, and I went to Columbia College, where they announced the winner just for press in person, and I happened to just be in New York at that time, and I had prepared three speeches. One, if I won, a speech if I was a finalist, and then the speech if I lost. And I read all three speeches outside after Hamilton was declared the winner of the Pulitzer. So that day when they were announcing it, my, that same friend Brian was like, “Good luck today.” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” And he’s like, “They’re announcing the Pulitzers.” And then they were announcing it online because you know, it’s 2022. And I was like, they’re not going to give it to me. I do solo work. I’m an Asian woman. They’ve never given an Asian woman anything in the drama category and my phone just started exploding at lunch when I was in Chinatown having lunch with some friends and I couldn’t believe it. I was just like freaking out and it just feels so dignified, right? And I’m not exactly a dignified person. So I’m like, [laughs] you know, I was like, “Oh my God, this is going to look so good on Tinder. Holy crap, this is crazy.” So it’s, I’m still shocked when I look at that by my name. I’m like, this is so weird. But it’s just funny because yeah, I entered as a joke six years before, and then I was on the committee the following year reading the applicants. So crazy things happen, folks. Crazy things can happen.
Miko Lee: [00:26:06] I have one more question, which is, you started ASS, Auntie Sewing Squad, in the very beginning when you were making this piece about running for public office. Even though that was created in 2020, you know, we’re basically having the same election again.
Kristina Wong: [00:26:19] Yeah, I know. It’s a sequel. Why are we in the sequel? I hate sequels.
Miko Lee: [00:26:24] So are you reviving that piece as well?
Kristina Wong: [00:26:27] I did, I have done it a little earlier this year. There have been some requests to maybe do it before November. We will always have elections, so it’s a little bit evergreen. I actually had a reality television pilot that didn’t get picked up by Trutv. And it was a very self satirizing version of myself that I was going to be playing in this pilot, which was basically satirizing myself as an activist. And it did not make sense once Trump took office to satirize myself, because as it turns out, most of the world have very two dimensional visions of what an Asian American is like and would think that that’s who I really was and not get that it was a loving poke at myself. And I think looking at Radical Cram School and how I play myself there can give you a sense of, this won’t make sense to everybody. Right. And so I was an out of work reality TV star, and what do you do when you’re an out of work reality TV star? You run for public office. So there’s a lot of that humor around that era. Just, I think we’ve just gotten so exhausted with, right? [Laughs]. Like, why, why are these two people still here? Oh my god. This is the best we could do? But there’s still a lot of public offices to run for. It doesn’t start and end with the presidency or the Senate. The story of the show is like what can happen locally? There are so many local offices that would surprise you. You could literally just go to the meeting and go take the vacated seat and go around saying you’re an elected official. For better or for worse, whatever that means. So, but yeah, it did get recorded for Center Theatre Group, but it’s not available for streaming anymore. So they did stream it right before the election during the pandemic. And maybe it will have a few more runs right before the election this year, but I’m not sure.
Miko Lee: [00:28:07] Okay, well, keep us posted so that we know. Is there anything else you’d like our audience to know about your upcoming play at ACT, Kristina Wong’s Sweatshop Overlord?
Kristina Wong: [00:28:19] I just want to say it’s such a special show and I feel very lucky I feel like there’s not a lot of this. There’s literally pushback in the publishing world and the network TV world where they’re like, we do not want you to pitch anything about the pandemic. We are sick of the pandemic. So I feel like this record of this time came under the wire. I’m told it is not annoying as many things about the pandemic are [laughs]. And to me, it’s really I find a lot of humor, not at the expense of like how tragic that time was, but in that a group of aunties came together and formed this ad hoc sewing army to protect the country. And, and so this really plays out like a war movie on stage and I think really kind of gives us something to reflect on and appreciate of each other in that moment. And so that’s really what I hope brings people out is this need to feel that there’s something sort of comforting that we can take from this moment, because I don’t know that we got that. I think we just sort of ran from that so fast that we never really reflected. I hope to see everybody at ACT, The Strand Theater on Market, March 30th to May 5th, I believe is when I close. I do shows eight days a week. I do them on weekdays. I do them on weekends.
I am living in that theater, folks, and I am living there for you. So please come out. I’ll see you. It’s Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord. Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
Miko Lee: [00:29:44] Kristina Wong, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. And we look forward to seeing the show and learning more about the Auntie Sewing Squad. Thank you so much.
Kristina Wong: [00:29:54] Thanks Miko.
Miko Lee: [00:29:54] This is Apex Express and you are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org. Next up, listen to the Radical Cram School where kids learn about the story of Detroit activist and American revolutionary Grace Lee Boggs. This is the project that Kristina Wong was talking about creating to help young Asian Americans have a sense of pride and an understanding of their history. Take a listen to the Radical Cram School.
Radical Cram School: [00:30:43]
Miko Lee: [00:35:24] That was Kristina Wong’s Radical Cram School. You can check out more of that on YouTube, which is linked in our show notes. Next up, take a listen to my interview with playwright, Lloyd Suh. Welcome award winning playwright Lloyd Suh to Apex Express.
Lloyd Suh: [00:35:41] Hello.
Miko Lee: [00:35:43] Your new show, The Far Country, is premiering at Berkeley Rep through April 14th and we’re so happy to have you here.
Lloyd Suh: [00:35:52] Thanks for having me.
Miko Lee: [00:35:53] Okay I’m going to start with a big question, which is who are your people and where do you come from?
Lloyd Suh: [00:35:58] My family immigrated to the United States, from South Korea in the early 1970s. I was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up mostly in the South suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana but I’ve lived in the New York City area for the past like 25 years.
Miko Lee: [00:36:17] Thank you so much for that. I noticed that many of your plays are based around the Chinese American experience and less on your Korean American background. Can you talk a little bit more about what has inspired your artistic play choices?
Lloyd Suh: [00:36:30] Yeah. In the past, like, almost decade, really, I’ve been writing about these kind of forgotten or underexplored moments in Asian American history. It’s kind of very accidental and almost involuntary. I was doing research on one play and it would lead me down a rabbit hole into reading about a story that I just couldn’t shake, that I needed to, you know, get in a room with peers and explore. And so one play would just kind of lead to the next, I was writing a play under commission for the National Asian American Theater Company in New York called Charles Francis Chan Jr. That play kind of accidentally became about the history of the stereotypes that kind of permeate around Asian America to this day, and where those stereotypes came from. And in researching that history, there’s just so much more scholarship around now, around Asian American history than there was when I was in school. There was just so much to read, and so much that was new to me. And in the process of researching that play, I came across the story of Afong Moy, regarded as the first Chinese woman to set foot in the United States. And there was something about her story that just haunted me, that I just couldn’t shake and I knew I needed to get in a room with peers and like really wrestle with it. So in the process of that play, I was researching the exclusion era and it’s unavoidable, right? The way in which the Chinese Exclusion Act and the experience of people on Angel Island really serves as kind of a fulcrum for so much of what Asian America is now, right? It created geographical restrictions, legislative, economic, not to mention cultural and stereotypical. Like, it’s just the foundation for so much of what we’ve had to navigate as this obviously, socially constructed, very important sort of attempt at solidarity that we call Asian America. What that led to was just feeling like I’m just following, you know, I’m just following this impulse. I was doing it kind of subconsciously at first, but once I became aware that I was writing this history, it became really clear that what I was looking for, in total was trying to place myself on this continuum, trying to understand, where have we come from and where are we going and where are we now. The Far Country and another one of my history plays, The Heart Sellers, which is kind of a bookend to The Far Country in a lot of ways. were written largely during the pandemic.
Miko Lee: [00:38:57] Oh, that’s so interesting. And so you’ve sort of been on this pathway, a timeline through Asian American history.
Lloyd Suh: [00:39:05] Yeah. It felt different during the pandemic, like, right. Like, before it was kind of impulsive and it felt very organic and I wasn’t always very self aware of that, about how one play connected to the other. But once you know, we were in this moment of deep self reflection just based on what was going on in the world at that time too—a pretty intense reckoning in this country over American history, over, you know, who we build monuments to, over our accounting of what it is to be an American
and a contemplation about like who we’ve forgotten. And so it became just more purposeful in that way. It became just clearer, especially as I started to think about the ways in which, you know, I have aging parents and I have growing children and wanting to understand how do I talk about one to the other? How do I place myself and my parents and my children on this continuum of this long arc of history? That doesn’t just go backwards, but, you know, it goes forward as well. That in each of these plays, there’s a gesture towards the future, and then thinking about the future and when, you know, when characters talk about the future in these plays, I like to think that for actors who are, who are playing those roles, that they can feel really palpably and recognize that when these characters are talking about the future, they’re talking about them. And then when audiences hear them talk about the future, they also could feel the ways in which they mean them.
Miko Lee: [00:40:24] So you’re both, as Helen Zia says, lifting up these missing in history moments, trying to tell these stories that haven’t been told. Also, I hear you’re reflecting a lot during that time of COVID during the lockdown time on how do we rise up our stories? I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the pandemic time and the impact on you as an artist and if the rise in anti-asian hate that really started happening around that time impacted your storytelling.
Lloyd Suh: [00:40:53] Absolutely. Yeah, I mean that whole period was, it was such a bizarre time to be a playwright. I mean, it was a bizarre time to be anything, right? But the idea of writing a play was pretty absurd because there were no theaters, right? And it’s like, there’s no sense of, hey, when will there be theater again? Right? It just seemed—
Miko Lee: [00:41:15] An unknown, an unknown field, right?
Lloyd Suh: [00:41:17] Yeah, so it was a little silly, right? You’re like, oh, your play is due. And you’re like, no, it’s not [laughs] nobody’s going to do anything. Like, why am I writing plays, right? And I think everybody in that time was thinking about, like, why do I do the things that I do? Why do I spend the time on the things that I spend time on? And, you know, our relationship with time was just very different. So very early in the pandemic, I was like, yeah, why am I, why would I write a play? There’s no, it just doesn’t make any sense right now. But then as I sat with the things that I knew I needed to wrestle with, and just knowing the way I wrestle with things is to write about them, that it felt like, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do this anyway, even though there’s no sense that theater will come back anytime soon. I’m going to do this anyway. And it became an aspirational thing. Like to write a play became aspirational in the sense that it’s like, I believe that theater will come back, that we’re not all gonna die, that civilization will continue, and that this will matter, right? That what I’m exploring right now, will be meaningful to myself, to my peers and to strangers, in whatever the world looks like then. And so to write aspirationally is pretty, pretty cool. It’s different, you know. To be able to write with that aspiration was really valuable. And I think it’s part of why and how these plays came to be the kind of plays they are.
Miko Lee: [00:42:40] I appreciate the hopeful side that you are infusing into your plays, given the time that we were in was when many people felt so hopeless. I’m wondering if because you’re writing about the immigration station and Angel Island and also the Exclusion Act were, what was happening in the country around, you know, Trump saying Kung flu virus and all the stories about the elders that were getting beat up in Chinatown and, all over the country, the slurs that people were getting. Did that impact or help to inform how you’re writing about the Exclusion Act?
Lloyd Suh: [00:43:14] Yeah. I think that reading the news during that time, it’s very similar to reading the history, right? You can see where that comes from. I remember during that time, in a lot of news media, tended to make it seem or insinuate that this was new, that this was surprising somehow. Having been immersed in this history, it was frustrating to see the ways in which people, sometimes very smart people [laughs] not recognizing, hey, this is not new. This is ancient. This was there from the beginning. Yeah, of course, that absolutely informs everything. It feels like, yes, I’m writing history, but I’m trying to write out of time. One of the things about writing aspirationally at a time when there is no theater, is you also can’t write to a specific time, you know, in the pandemic moment, writing in the pandemic moment you cannot write to the pandemic moment, right? Because you know, oh, this will not be, this is not when these plays will be seen. So you’re writing for a kind of a future, right? You’re writing for a time that you hope is different, in good ways, but you also acknowledge may be different in, in unpleasant ways.
Miko Lee: [00:44:15] Right.
Lloyd Suh: [00:44:16] But it’s also like all of this is out of time, you know, the phenomenon of violence against Asian Americans or against anybody or against a culture is so pervasive throughout history. Right. So, it’s not hard to make that or to let that exist out of time. Right.
Miko Lee: [00:44:35] I mean, the violence against the culture is deeply American.
Lloyd Suh: [00:44:38] Yeah. And feeling like it’s not something you have to force. It’s just something that you have to acknowledge and reckon with on its own terms, which is to say, it’s not about 2020. It’s not about a particular moment. It’s about a long arc of history where these things come from, how they’ve brewed, how they’ve festered, how they’ve lingered, how they’ve been ignored and forgotten and buried over, and how they might be transformed. How they might be diagnosed, you know, like I think of them as wounds. In a few of these plays, characters refer to, like a sense of historical trauma as a wound, a wound that you can’t recognize if you don’t know where it comes from. You can’t diagnose it and you can’t heal it if you can’t diagnose it. So part of it is like saying, “Hey, there is a wound.” When I think for a very long time a lot of cultural tradition has been to say, “Push it away, push it away. Move on.”
Miko Lee: [00:45:31] “Keep working. Don’t, don’t think about it. Just keep working.”
Lloyd Suh: [00:45:33] Yes. Yes. Bury it. And even generation to generation, you don’t want to hear those stories.
Miko Lee: [00:45:38] That’s right.
Lloyd Suh: [00:45:39] If I have a thesis in any of this, [laughs] it’s that, no, we need, you need to know. You know, I think that these characters, this is too early for them to have a name for the concept of epigenetics, but I see it. I see it in tradition, this idea that it does pass down.
Miko Lee: [00:45:54] The trauma through the bloodline.
Lloyd Suh: [00:45:56] Yeah. And so like, if you’re going to feel the pain, you got to know where it comes from. If you know where it comes from and if you can deal with it with people, right, with a community on a deep level, then it can be healed. And if you don’t, then it never will be.
Miko Lee: [00:46:10] So do you look at most of your plays as a healing modality? Is that what you want from your audiences?
Lloyd Suh: [00:46:15] That’s a great question. I mean, I think about that for myself, I would say on a certain level. I mean, I think about it as many things, but that is part of it. Yeah. Like I think about it as I need to understand this. Like, you know, like just thinking about the exclusion era. I felt like, okay, I know I need to write about this because I know we need to make sense of it for myself. I need to understand how it manifests in my life, how it manifests in what is possible for my children, how it manifests in America. So that’s part of it for sure for me and for my peers, the people in the room. For audiences, I would say, especially as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to redefine my relationship with audiences in that, like, I had a playwriting teacher once talk about how a playwright’s job is to unify an audience. That no matter where an audience comes from, like whatever happened to them that day, they’re all coming from different places when they gather in the theater. But through the course of the play, a playwright wants them to become one organism and have the same discoveries in the same moment.
Miko Lee: [00:47:13] Oh, that’s interesting. Do you agree with that?
Lloyd Suh: [00:47:16] For a long time I did, but then I had this moment when I was writing a play for young audiences, when I found this really useful tension between like the adults who, you know, thought that the fart jokes were juvenile [laughs] and the young people who would just not understand these references that are there for the adults. And it was kind of cool because you’d feel pockets, different people reacting in different ways. And especially as I was doing some of these early history plays, I found this useful tension between people based on socio location. That Asian American audiences were just naturally responding to different things in a way that was kind of interesting. And so what I realized is if I manipulate an audience so that they’re operating as one organism, they’re not responding as themselves. They’re not responding in as deeply personal of a way, right? So what I want is for people to bring something of themselves to it.
Like, no matter what happened to them that day, no matter what happened in the news, no matter what happened in their personal life, that through the experience of watching a play, they can relate something of themselves to what they’re watching, and they can bring that into the theater with them.
and so, like very purposefully in these plays, I try not to unify an audience, right? Which is to say, I’m not trying to divide them, but I’m also trying to make them respond as individuals.
Miko Lee: [00:48:37] Right, because the first one actually feels like you’re trying to get a cult together. Everybody should think the same way and feel the same way, as opposed to individually responding about where each of us are at and how we take in that information of the play.
Lloyd Suh: [00:48:52] Yeah, yeah. And I just find that so much more satisfying because I like to leave a lot of room in my plays, for actors, for directors and designers to personalize.
Miko Lee: [00:49:02] All the other creatives to be able to have their input to put it into their voice.
Lloyd Suh: [00:49:07] Yeah, and just even to make choices like there are moments where you could go many directions like if somebody were to ask me, “Hey, what does this line mean?” I would say, “Well, you know, like, what does it mean to you?” Right? Like it’s make it yours. Every character can have secrets that I don’t need to know.
Miko Lee: [00:49:22] Oh, you’re doing therapy speak with the actors [laughs]. What do you think it means?
Lloyd Suh: [00:49:26] Yeah, I mean, I think it is. It’s like making choices, making big choices that allow for any production to be an amalgamation of many people’s real personality, their history. Like if I were to go into a rehearsal room and just spend it making everybody do what I already know, I want them to do. Then watching the play is just watching something where I already know what’s going to happen.
Miko Lee: [00:49:47] Right. What’s the fun in that? [Laughs]. Um, so let’s come back and talk about The Far Country, which is at Berkeley Rep right now. Tell us about this play. I heard you saying that each of your plays, the rabbit hole of the journey that one discovered the other, but can you tell us very specifically about The Far Country?
Lloyd Suh: [00:50:07] Yeah, The Far Country is a play that takes place during the exclusion era, about a very unlikely family that spans across a couple of decades navigating the paper son system, and the experience of a young man on Angel Island Detention Center. The journey leading up to that and the journey leading away from it as this very unlikely family tries to build something lasting in America, despite the extraordinary legislative restrictions that were in place at the time.
Miko Lee: [00:50:36] Lloyd, can you speak a little bit more for audience members that may not know what the Exclusion Act was?
Lloyd Suh: [00:50:42] Yes, totally. The Chinese Exclusion Act was legislation passed in 1882, that restricted all Chinese laborers from entering the United States. And this was a period of time when China was, specifically Toisan was ravaged by natural disaster, war, economic disenfranchisement, horribly one sided trade agreements with the West. There was an extraordinary wave of Chinese laborers who were immigrating to the United States in the years preceding. Partially through the gold rush, partially through the opportunity to work on the transcontinental railroad. In the United States, it was a period of such xenophobia and such anger and hatred towards these incoming Chinese laborers that these extraordinarily restrictive laws were passed, the Page Act, prior to the Chinese Exclusion Act. But what also happened is the great earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco destroyed all the government records pertaining to birth records and who was there. So it created this really odd opportunity for Chinese currently residing in the United States to claim birthright citizenship, to claim to have been born in the United States because there was no documentation to prove otherwise. And if somebody was able to obtain birthright US citizenship through that process, they could then bring their children to the United States. And so what it did was it created this system whereby people who had obtained birthright US citizenship could then pretend to have a son or a daughter that they would sell that slot to so that somebody could enter the United States. And so it created these really kind of patchwork unlikely families of people connected only by paper, only by false documentation. And the navigation of that system, ultimately created this very weird community.
Miko Lee: [00:52:32] Expand on that. What do you mean by weird community?
Lloyd Suh: [00:52:36] People who were not able to be themselves, who changed their names, who at least on paper were pretending to be somebody else. Families that were not connected by blood, but pretending to be connected by blood. A community that was almost entirely male, a community that was in the United States, but not really permitted to travel outside of a particular geographical area. This was a community that was constructed in reaction to legislation, in reaction to imprisonment on Angel Island. And in reaction to the horrible conditions of that time. What’s remarkable to me is the ways in which they built a community anyway, they built families anyway, they built opportunity anyway, and the resilience of that, the bravery of that, the sacrifice of that, is something that I am simultaneously in awe of, but also feel a responsibility and an obligation to build on to honor, to try and illuminate in some way to try to share with others. But also just to recognize the incredible pain of it, that they gave up everything, like really everything. They gave up their name, they gave up their family, they gave up their identity, in order to pretend to be somebody who belongs. That’s the only way to build any kind of future. These were pioneers who did things that it’s hard for me to imagine. But I know that they did it for us. Not just us, but for the future, for future generations, for you know, those who come after, and that is very powerful to me.
Miko Lee: [00:54:03] I appreciate that as a fifth generation Chinese American, whose family comes from Toisan, whose grandmother was on angel island under a different name because her husband, my grandfather had bought papers from her great grandfather so that they could not actually be married because on paper they would be brother and sister. So even though she had a legal right to actually be in the U. S., she had to take a whole new name and a different identity on Angel Island. So we all have these complicated stories that are part of our history. Thank you for rising that up and bringing that to the world. I’m wondering what you want the walk away message for folks coming to see The Far Country.
Lloyd Suh: [00:54:49] Yeah. I mean, that’s a great question. The only way I can answer it is to go back to what I said before about wanting people to respond personally. Like I think everybody has a history, everybody has a family history, and everybody’s is different, but I hope that anybody who watches this play has moments where they can think about their ancestry.
About the things they know and the things that they don’t know and just change their relationship to that somehow, just really reflect on it and reflect on not just their personal history, but how it relates to their definition of what it is to be an America. To add this really huge, but underexplored moment in American history and add it to their accounting of what it is to be a citizen, what it is to be an American. Cause one of the things about this history, as I’m describing the paper son process, depending on a person’s particular relationship with the concept of immigration and depending on a person’s political leanings, you know, some might hear my description of that and say, “Well, these are criminals. These are people who abused the system.” And I think that is a part of this history. One of the reasons it’s buried. One of the reasons it’s not talked about is because there is a sense of shame, societal shame, cultural shame, that these things were necessary, right? Shame is part of it. I don’t want to pretend it’s not, but I also want to acknowledge that in addition to whatever that sense of shame is, is a sense of pride. A sense of bravery, a sense of dignity, a sense of aspiration, what people were willing to do in order to build something for the future, for us, for their families. So a part of that is like just knowing that many of those stories still are untold, and wanting to uplift and honor, and, acknowledge, the beauty in these pockets that have historically felt painful.
Miko Lee: [00:56:48] Thank you Lloyd Suh for joining us on Apex Express.
Lloyd Suh: [00:56:51] Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
Miko Lee: [00:56:52] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. APEX Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tangloao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Living Legacies: LARRY THE MUSICAL x MISTER REY TRIBUTE
Host Aisa Villarosa covers “Larry the Musical” a new theatrical production based on the book “Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong” written by Gayle Romasanta and the late Dr. Dawn Mabalon.
Nomi aka Power Struggle and Aisa also honor an anchor and leader of the Bay Area Filipinx and civil rights community – Mister REY.
Links to Episode Features:Larry The Musical website: https://www.larrythemusical.com/Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: https://www.instagram.com/pinayism/?hl=enBilly Bustamante: https://www.billybustamante.com/Mister REY
- Memorial GoFundMe
- https://misterrey.bandcamp.com/album/wonders-mysticisms-beat-tape
Power Struggle
- https://soundcloud.com/mario-de-mira Show Transcripts
Living Legacies: Larry the Musical x Mister REY tribute
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community And cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board The Apex Express
Aisa Villarosa: [00:00:28] You’re listening to Apex Express on 94.1 KPFA Berkeley, 89.3 KPFB Berkeley, 88.1 KFC at Fresno and online at KPFA. org. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I am your host, Aisa Villarosa. I’m an artist, attorney, ethnic studies advocate, general rabble rouser, and lifetime fan of the Apex Express crew. Shout out to my homie Miko.
Get comfy, get cozy. We have a wonderful show for you tonight. It’s a show about a show, that is Larry The Musical, which is based on the book Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong, written by Gayle Romasanta, and the wondrous late great Dr. Dawn Mabolon. The story and songs are influenced by and honor our ancestors, and the musical debuts at San Francisco’s very own Brava Theater running March 16th through April 14th, 2024. That means, seats are limited. So, in addition to checking out the show we have for you tonight, visit www.larrythemusical.com to get your tickets today, learn about this cast and crew.
Now for our show. First up we’ll hear about Larry Itliong’s legacy of organizing, resistance, and community power building from Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales. Next, Larry The Musical director Billy Bustamante, previews the heart, soul, and talent behind this production. And, because we’re pretty big of a deal here [laughs] we’ll also hear a sneak peek of two songs from Larry The Musical. Finally, the artist Power Struggle will help me wrap up this episode by honoring an anchor and leader of the Bay Area Filipinx and civil rights community and our friend, Mister REY. Rest in power. All right, that’s the show. Let’s dig in.
I’m here with Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, one of the country’s leading Ethnic Studies and Filipinx studies scholars and professors, co-founder and director of Community Responsive Education, and the educational consultant for Larry The Musical. Allyson, it’s so wonderful to have you here.
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:02:34] My gosh, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate this show and all the work that you’ve been doing for many years. Thank you so much.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:02:41] For our dedicated Apex Express listeners who may not be familiar with the wonderful Larry Itliong. Can you talk a little bit about who he is and who he is to this particular Civil Rights Movement?
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:02:57] Larry Itliong. He was born in the Philippines, in San Nicolas Pangasinan. He came here at 15 years old. Imagine coming here at 15 years old. He only had a sixth grade education. And he came here, actually in order to pursue his studies and he moved to the United States in 1929. As you probably know, because of the Great Depression, it was difficult to find jobs. He was forced to work in the railroads and then eventually became a migrant farm worker. And he traveled all the way from like Montana, South Dakota, Washington, and finally landed here in California.
So during that time, Larry Itliong learned of the plight suffered by Filipinos and other immigrants working in the fields. Larry Itliong was a prominent leader in one of the most important social justice movements in the US, and we call that the Farm Worker Movement. A lot of Filipinos involved along with Mexicanos. He organized a group of 1500 Filipinos to strike against the grape growers in Delano, California. Some people call that the great Delano Grape strike of 1965. Basically they were trying to fight for workers’ rights. They had this strike for eight days. And there was tons of violence by the growers, hired hands, and even the sheriff department, and they were thrown out of the labor camp.
Larry Itliong. He was strong and he remained tenacious and resilient. And he called upon someone very famous that many of us know Cesar Chavez, and Cesar Chavez’ community, to join forces with the Filipinos and they striked again. Because of Larry Itliong, the two groups combined and they ended up becoming the United Farm Workers. And a lot of us know the United Farm Workers and a lot of it is attributed to Cesar Chavez, but really Larry Itliong really pushed that ability to create a coalition. To create a connection to really fight for collective liberation.
So this unification between the farmworkers of all different ethnicities, not just Filipino and Mexicano was really unprecedented. And really set an example for many of us—many of us meaning workers and organizers—many of us learned from that movement, how to really create alignment, how to really create a coalition, how to really fight alongside each other. And that movement was very successful. You may or may not know this, but Larry Itliong also was the president of the Filipino American Political Association, the first national political Filipino American organization. And it was very crucial, between Filipino professionals and laborers, that grew out of the Delano Grape strike. Larry Itliong was instrumental in founding lots of things including the Pablo Agbayani Village, a Retirement Home built by volunteers for retired Filipino Manos, who no longer had families and needed a place to call home. I recently visited Agbayani Village with my family. Even in my own family, my husband, his father was one of the farm workers, and it means a great deal to actually be there at Agbayani Village, quite literally, you feel the spirits. And having, having brought my daughter there and she got to, you know, see, where our ancestors lived. Larry Itliong, he passed away in 1977 at the age of sixty-three, very young. He left behind his wife and seven children. But his accomplishments and his legacy, continues to live and we really reap the benefits from all the work that he did.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:06:41] I got shivers at several points when you shared Allyson. Thank you. And I am told that as part of your work as educational consultant for Larry The Musical, that one of your unique roles is helping the cast see history in this moment and see what Larry’s struggle and Larry’s story is to them and their families. So I love that sort of full circle practice. It also means that for a musical to take on you know you’ve named some, some pretty heavy things, right? You’re naming organizing struggle, you’re naming the struggle against white supremacy. Can you talk a little bit about what makes this musical special and, and even to be able to do right by Larry and his story, how did you all bring this to life?
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:07:33] Whoa. That’s a really important set of questions and I really appreciate the connections between what’s happening on the stage and what’s happening in our classrooms and, you know, what’s really happening in our communities. It is a really important show. I think a lot of shows have said, “Oh, we’re a hundred percent this, we’re a hundred percent that.” But when I go into working with the cast, I really see a hundred percent Filipino, Filipina, Filipinx Americans who are really telling a story that is important. Larry’s story is not glamorous, [laughs] you know, and I say that because I’ve seen a lot of Broadway shows. You know, I have a child who’s a performer and I spend a lot of time in New York, and I really do love watching musicals.
And so this genre is like happy times for me, right? I go in and I get, I mean, they start singing and I, I just want to cry right away [laughs]. But there’s something so powerful, yes, about a hundred percent Filipino cast, but also telling a story about struggle, and about labor, about someone who’s working class, who really has changed our lives. I think sometimes when I go to musicals, I try to find myself, you know, like on stage I’m like, which character am I? You know? And in this musical I really feel like I’m all the characters. And you will see this, you know, because there’s Larry, of course, this, it’s a story about Larry Itliong, but you will see characters, and the creative team has wonderfully weaved characters from different parts of that era, and then also maybe even parts of their own lives and their own families, and they land on stage. They are telling this story alongside Larry, and it’s beautiful and I’m really, really excited for people to see it. I’m not going to, I’m not gonna give too much away.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:09:39] [Laughs] People gotta buy tickets. Yes.
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:09:41] Buy your tickets and bring your tissue [laughs]. Because I really feel like people are going to not only see Larry on stage, but they’re gonna see themselves, their families, their parents, their community, their ancestors, all of them there. I will say that, I had the fortune of working with the cast, specifically on a project called Tatlong Bagsak Talambuhay and what I said to the cast was, this work has to be different. This work cannot just be about telling one man’s story. And so it’s really important for them to understand their own story, their own family’s legacy, and why they’re doing this work. And so at the beginning of each of the rehearsals, there’s one cast member who tells their story. Talambuhay, you know, telling their life story. So that every person is allowed to share their story on the stage, quite literally. And also to be able to make the connections to why they’re there on that stage. I had one cast member come up to me last week and say, “I’ve never been part of a [laughs] a show like this. You know, like where I was seen.” And that’s the power of Larry The Musical. It, it’s definitely about Larry and how he has inspired us, but it is so much more. And so I’m really excited for people to be able to experience that.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:11:18] I was lucky enough to attend the community preview y’all had put on in the fall. It was smashing and I could feel Dawn Mabalon’s love and spirit in the room because so much of what you’re saying is how are we creating a living archive, right? And there’s so many stories that make up history that ultimately is intentionally not told or kept away from people. So it sounds like this is hopefully one of many opportunities for folks to either learn that history for the first time, or to learn it in a really freeing way.
I want to talk a little bit about women. If we look at various movements across labor, thinking about the figures of labor, you know, you have Larry, you have Philip Vera Cruz. I am sure there are some strong, strong women in Larry. And as a Filipina we also see that the value of care work, of women really it’s often invisibilized by history. Talk to us a little bit about, you know, what can we expect to see from the women in Larry? Are there any toxic narratives that are reversed or addressed by the musical?
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:12:32] I feel like you saw the script. [Laughs].
Aisa Villarosa: [00:12:34] I didn’t. I did not. [Laughs].
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:12:36] Oh, okay. Okay. I can’t give up too much. It’d be really unfair, but I’ll say that this begins with the strong women who did the research and who wrote the play, the musical, the book, the script. And I’ll start with, a lot of the work is rooted in Dr. Dawn Bohulano’s research. I mean, she really was going to tell Larry Itliong’s story in an academic book. And before she passed, she was able to write Journey for Justice with Gayle Romasanta. It was, it quite literally went to press the day that she passed. Dr. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon had a dream to really tell Larry’s story, but I know deep inside it wasn’t just about Larry’s story, it was a story about her family. It was a story about her ancestors, including the women. And so I think how beautiful it is to have quite literally the voice and research of Dr. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon in the script that Gayle Romasanta really was able to bring forth. So we have writers like Gayle Romasanta, Kevin Camia, and then writing the music we have Brian Pangilinan, and then you’ll hear the sounds of course of Sean Kana.
But when we talk and think about the women, the voices quite literally, the singing voices of the women are so powerful. I think sometimes people imagine women during that movement as being behind the men. In this show, that’s not the case. I think of the work of Stacey Salinas, Dr. Stacey Salinas, who writes about Filipina farmworkers in the movement. She has some beautiful archives of Filipina women during that time. And you literally see them on the stage and you see them challenging men and you see them saying yes, we are part of this struggle. And so, although it’s called Larry The Musical, Larry definitely isn’t the main character by himself.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:14:40] I love that. And what you shared also reminds me of thinking about the people power movement and the phrase makibaka huwag matakot, where there is power in struggle, right? If, if we can come together collectively. Turning to the musical, it’s going to premiere soon. We hope that folks visit the Apex Express website [kpfa.org] where y’all can buy tickets. Please support this incredible work. What is your greatest hope for this musical?
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:15:11] Ooh, that’s a good question. It caught me off guard. I secretly hope that this musical goes beyond the Bay Area, potentially travels, potentially goes to Broadway, maybe the Philippines. You know, I want people to know how wonderful our story is, our story. And you will really see our story in this. So yeah, I hope it makes it big. [Laughs] I, I really do. We deserve it.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:15:41] Well, it’s not a secret anymore. You, you manifested it, so now it’s gotta happen, right? [Laughs].
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:15:47] Yeah, I really do. I mean, I hope, I hope for all of that. And to be honest, I don’t think the Pinnacle is Broadway in my mind. It might’ve been when we first started the project, but really, I, I feel like most importantly is for people to know the stories of our people. And Larry The Musical can really bring that out. And I hope people can see themselves on stage. I mean, that is a big goal for them to be able to see themselves on stage.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:16:13] Allyson, it’s been so wonderful talking with you. Before we head out, is there anything else you’d like to share with the listeners?
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:16:21] There’s so many struggles going on right now in the world, whether that be, like the manifestation of colonialism and imperialism everywhere, to what’s happening in our classrooms. I feel like really key that Larry The Musical is ethnic studies. I think [it’s] important that people know that the goal of ethnic studies is collective liberation and we do that by centering the voices of people of color in the first person, ultimately to eliminate and eradicate racism and white supremacy. I mean, like it’s all of that.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:16:50] Yeah.
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:16:51] But I want people to know that Larry is that, and I think sometimes we get stuck on wanting representation, like, oh, I wanna see a Filipino on stage. And so we vote for people on those shows and we get so excited.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:17:05] Or that becomes the ceiling, right?
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:17:08] Exactly. It becomes the ceiling. We have made it because we’ve seen ourselves on TV or we’ve seen ourselves on a stage on Broadway, but I think it’s not enough. Because those stories oftentimes are not the stories of our own people. We often play characters who are not ourselves, and we oftentimes have to compromise our integrity to actually become famous. And so for me, when I think about Larry The Musical, it does not compromise. It does not compromise. And it really is about our stories and us telling our stories in the first person. I’ll leave it at that.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:17:44] I love that. It’s such a great way to send us off. And as someone who used to work in the arts and has been shushed at primarily white events, I love the decolonization of the arts as well. It’s arts and ethnic studies. So many folks in our work do this work because of a really important moment in ethnic studies that came to them. Unfortunately, because of the forces that are out there trying to stop ethnic studies, for many that revelation comes kind of late in life or sometimes doesn’t come at all. So, please let us have more Larry, more stories like Larry and more ways for folks to access this sort of awakening. Thank you so much, Allyson. It has been a pleasure.
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales: [00:18:31] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all the work that you do.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:18:34] As Allyson shared, Larry The Musical is a lesson in living civil rights history, a chronicle of the racial violence faced by Filipinx organizers and how they mobilize to overcome it. This plays out in the musical’s track, “Watsonville,” which we’re about to preview. In the 1930s, violence against Filipinos was a daily occurrence. It was not out of the ordinary for Filipinos to get shot at, be beaten, or have their campos bombed. Two major events happened in January 1930, the Watsonville Riots and the bombing of the Filipino Federation of American Building in Stockton California. The Watsonville riots saw hundreds of Filipinos beaten and Fermin Tobera killed over four days of mob violence. White mobs beat and shot Filipinos, and in the end, no one was arrested. “Watsonville” follows our characters as these historic events unfold. It was written by Gayle Romasanta and Kevin Camia, music composed by Bryan Pangilinan and Sean Kana. Let’s take a listen.
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Aisa Villarosa: [00:19:39] You’re listening to Apex Express on KPFA Radio with me, Aisa Villarosa. That was a special preview of “Watsonville” from Larry The Musical. I’m here with acclaimed New York City-based theater artist, director, performer teacher, and community-driven artivist Billy Bustamante, director of Larry The Musical. We are so honored to have you join us, Billy.
Billy Bustamante: [00:21:02] Hi there. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so thrilled to be here.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:21:06] Awesome. Well, we are going to dive into Larry The Musical. And a few months ago I had the honor of catching the community preview at the Brava Theater in San Francisco and it blew my socks off as a mentee of the great ate Dawn Mabalon, a hero and mentor gone too soon, it was beautiful to see her archiving come alive in song. For those who are new to Larry The Musical, can you tell us a little bit about what audiences can expect?
Billy Bustamante: [00:21:38] Sure. When you come to the Brava Theater this spring, you will see a story about our shared Filipino American history, but even greater our shared American history brought to life on stage. You will see a story that centers Filipino Americans in the telling of that history. It is a musical that will make you laugh, will make you cry, will make you dance in your seat, and will hopefully make you step back out into the world as you leave the theater with a little more power in your hands.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:22:06] Those all sound so incredible. Billy, can you share more, as someone who has been in the arts world for so long, why is this project near and dear to your heart?
Billy Bustamante: [00:22:18] Larry means so much to me for so many reasons. I’ve been making theater now for a little over 20 years professionally. And throughout that time I have kind of had to hold two sides of myself in various capacities, right? I have my American-ness, and I have my Filipino-ness. As a born and raised Filipino American here in the States, I have always had to examine unconsciously how much of myself I can bring into an artistic space just because those spaces have predominantly been white led. Now that we are in a space that is created for by and about Filipino people telling a story that is for by and about Filipino people that really centers not just Filipino story, but the Filipino identity, not just in the product but in the process, that is a feeling I have literally never had before in my 42 years on this planet. And every time I step into this space, I am amazed at how much more myself I feel, and I can see that sensation flashing in every single person in the room. And it’s on one side beautiful. It’s like a beautiful thing to witness us all kind of come alive a bit more, expand into the space, be more of ourselves. And it’s also a bit infuriating to know that it’s taken me 42 years to get to this moment. This feeling of true belonging is something that I have grown more and more addicted to and that I continue to chase in any other experience that I have.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:23:46] Wow. I’m getting a little goosebumps over here. I am hearing that it’s, it’s almost like coming home to yourself, that often, and I too have a Filipino family, grew up here I’m second generation, and often the dominant culture’s understanding of Filipinos is limited to very simplistic notions, whether that’s our food, even if food is very political.
Billy Bustamante: [00:24:11] Yes.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:24:11] There’s often sort of a niceness, and the arts and culture world is no exception. So thank you for sharing. And in thinking about the cast of the musical, can you share what makes this cast special and unique?
Billy Bustamante: [00:24:29] I am a firm believer that theater artists of any background are some of the most exhilarating people in the world [laughs]. As a theater artist, specifically as a musical theater artist, there is so much skill you must be able to access in order to do your job. It’s not just one thing at a time, it is all things at a time. So we are making a show that sings, acts and dances all the time [laughs], and within that there’s that triple threat of skill while also incorporating this fourth ingredient of identity and shared history. So each of the actors that we have brought into this cast has really shown up with not just those first three skills in brilliant capacity, but also a hunger and an enthusiasm to be generous about how they bring this fourth ingredient into the process. Again, another thing none of us have been able to do in an artistic space before. For so many of us, it’s our first time bringing ourselves to the work in this way. Because none of us have had a chance to do it. So many of us have never played Filipino on stage before, let alone Filipino Americans specifically. I know I’ve been lucky to have played Filipinos on stage and have been telling Filipino stories, but none of those have been led by Filipinos or written by Filipinos. So there’s a level of not just authenticity, but integrity to the work and the story we’re telling that allows each of these cast members to be greater like artistic citizens and contributors to the work.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:25:58] I love that. There’s in Filipino culture, the word kapwa, right? Which is collective identity. And I was reading a quote from you and you said, “My favorite thing about Filipinx culture is creating community. If you’ve shared a meal with a Filipinx family, you’re family.” And it sounds like here you’re talking about a meal but this theater experience and all the prep that y’all did, there’s a family feeling to that, and can you share some of the behind the scenes love and care and intentionality that went into creating Larry?
Billy Bustamante: [00:26:33] Yes. Yes. I, I love that you found that quote. I can’t remember when I said it, but I know I say it a lot. [Laughs].
Aisa Villarosa: [00:26:39] I was creeping on the internet. [Laughs].
Billy Bustamante: [00:26:40] I love it. I, and I do firmly believe, like that’s one of my favorite things about Filipino culture. Yeah. If you sit at my table, you leave as a family member, right? And I do think that’s the environment we wanna create for the audience as well. This piece of art that we are creating is what I hope will be a fully nourishing seven course meal of artistry that again, audience members come into the theater as guests and they leave as family. That is my hope. How we get there is, has been a thrilling experiment, again, as a theater maker for like 20 plus years, the pandemic, this pandemic pause that was forced upon us as artists, really forced me to examine, but I think forced the greater industry to examine the dysfunction in how we do what we do. And now that we have started creating theater again, I’ve personally been on this, you know, mission to honor the science experiment that we’re all on in terms of a, how to be in a room together and then how to create art together and hopefully a healthier more empowering way across the board.
So knowing that’s been a mission I’ve been on with any theater project I take on, for this one specifically there is so much more importance laid onto that particular ingredient, right? How do we make a healthier room? How do we make a more restorative healing process for everyone? Recognizing that the story we are telling impacts the actors and their bodies in a way that no other story does, right? There is an additional toll and cost to reckoning with your own history on stage. And it’s, it’s a privilege to get to do that, but that does mean we need to reexamine what supportive systems and structures we are creating in the room. Again, this is all an experiment [laughs] and it’s going well so far, but some steps we have taken or to gather our company. Our company, on the first full day of rehearsal when we got all the actors together. One thing I was excited about our first day of rehearsal was that we took a good amount of time to sit in a circle and create what we called community commitments. Like a set of shared agreements that we all were participatory in creating that gave us all a guideline of how we treat each other in this space. So now it’s thrilling, it’s freeing to have this social contract in place that we have all agreed to, that not just allows for the pursuit of an ideal space, but also a way to kind of move through conflict as we pursue that space. So to me that feels really helpful.
Another thing we just did in rehearsal yesterday, was we brought Allyson in to lead a facilitation of how we bring our personal individual stories to this greater story that we are telling. We are telling a history and we are living history in this moment. So it was amazing to hear Allyson give us a technique for how we share our individual stories as humans to the rest of the company, which is a practice we will start incorporating at the beginning of every rehearsal. And I can only wait to see how much that impacts the art that we make on stage, knowing that everyone will know more and be more invested with each other as humans.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:29:32] And you’re talking about living history, right? And as you were sharing, I wrote down safety to create. It’s rare that we as folks of color as Filipinos can be in these safe liberatory spaces. Taking it a little personal, has your family seen Larry yet?
Billy Bustamante: [00:29:50] Well, I mean, no one really has, [laughs] you know, our world premiere in March will be a world premiere. No one will, even if people have seen every workshop, this is a version of the musical in its fullest form that no one will have ever seen before. So in that way, I’m very excited. With that said, my parents have been keeping up with all the filmed workshops and the interviews, and that’s all been amazing. Both of my parents are on the east coast. They’re in the DC area, which is where I’m from. So they’re keeping up with it virtually. But I am so excited for them to fly out here, to catch opening weekend. I’m getting a little emotional talking about it right now, but my parents are incredibly supportive as is the rest of my family. And they do a great job at coming to see and support whatever I do. And this one, having them in the room to watch this one, I think will be a really special experience.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:30:43] I, I can feel love and as a huge fan, a mentee of folks like Dr. Allyson and Dawn Mabalon there’s a moment where a lot of Filipinos, Filipino organizations are trying to archive the struggle, the triumphs of the past, and it’s incredible that through theater y’all are doing that in a way that will be fresh for new generations. And speaking of theater, you are always creating, you wear so many hats. Tell us what is coming down the road for you in addition to Larry, would love to hear more.
Billy Bustamante: [00:31:26] Yeah. I’m gonna put this into the ether here. I, my hope is that this world premiere of Larry will be the first of many steps for this musical. So what I hope is that the next few years includes more productions of Larry at a bigger and wider scale. With that said, there are a few other projects that I’m really excited about. I am a theater leader, but also an educator. So I’m on teaching faculty at Circle in the Square Theater School, which is the only theater training ground attached to a Broadway theater. So, in that way I feel really excited about the work I get to do with young artists there. We are developing a new musical called The Rosetta Project, which I hope everyone checks out. It’s gonna be amazing. I’ll be directing that.
From there I have a couple of, you know, other pots on the stove. I’ll be directing, choreographing a new off-Broadway show called Straight Forward in spring of 2025, which I’m very excited about. There are a couple of other things that I cannot release at this moment, but if you want to keep up with the [laughs] shenanigans I am up to, please check out billybustamante.com because I’ll be sure to be shouting from the rooftops with excitement once I can.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:32:36] Beautiful. And we will include links to your website, Billy, as well as links for folks to get tickets for Larry at the Brava Theatre. And folks can check that out on the Apex Express website [kpfa.org]. And Billy, before we go, is there anything else you want to share?
Billy Bustamante: [00:32:55] I think there is one thing. I’m usually not a person who really is enthusiastic about promoting my projects [laughs]. I’ve always kind of felt some sense of ickiness around that. Some sense of like transactionality around that [laughs]. But Larry is so special to me and there’s a spirit that we are creating in this piece that I think everyone needs to experience and be a part of. And I also recognize that, you know, where audience members choose to spend their money is a big investment and a big decision and I hope that everyone who is excited by anything I’ve said today or anything we’ve talked about today finds a way to grab a ticket and join us at the theater. This time will be fleeting and it’s gonna be over before we know it, and I really hope everyone gets to be a part of it because I think it’s gonna be really special so get those tickets if you can.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:33:49] Adding a plus one to that. And Billy, you earlier mentioned the impact of these covid pandemic years and yeah, that was the longest period of theater closures, right? Since World War II. As someone who used to work in the arts I also recall that often there’s sort of an elite nature to the arts and one of my favorite things when I go to the Larry website is there are so many people who gave all sorts of amounts to make this happen, right? There’s folks who gave like 50 bucks. It’s such a welcoming site, so I too hope that this is only the beginning.
Billy Bustamante: [00:34:28] Awesome. Thank you so much and thanks to everyone who supported us so far. I’m so grateful.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:34:32] Our final track from Larry The Musical is called “Train,” which is about Filipinos jumping trains throughout the western United States, traveling from town to town in search of work in the 1920s and 1930s. Train was written by Gayle Romasanta and Kevin Camia, music composed by Brian Pangilinan and Sean Kana. They wanted to create a broad picture of how the thousands of Filipinos must have met each other, built friendships, planned labor meetings, and all while traveling. Here is the exclusive preview.
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Aisa Villarosa: [00:35:03] You’re listening to Apex Express on KPFA Radio, and I’m your host, Aisa Villarosa. That was a preview of “Train” from Larry The Musical. You just heard Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales and Billy Bustamante talk about what makes the world premiere of Larry The Musical so special. Larry debuts at the Brava Theatre in San Francisco March 16th through April 14th, 2024. Seats are limited, so visit www.larrythemusical.com to buy tickets today.
Finally, tonight’s episode of Apex Express is dedicated to the life and legacy of Reynaldo Timosa Novicio Jr. a father, son, friend, and prolific sound producer, artist and guiding light of the Filipinx American and Bay Area Music and Civil Rights community. Rey passed away on February 2nd, 2024. I’m joined right now by a friend, a colleague, an incredible artist, activist dad, and a martial arts practitioner, Nomi, AKA Power Struggle. Nomi, it’s so great to have you on the show today.
Nomi (Power Struggle): [00:37:12] Hey Aisa, thank you for having me. Thank you to the KPFA and the Apex Express listeners. What’s up Bay Area?
Aisa Villarosa: [00:37:19] Nomi, you rep the Bay Area hard. I think a good way to start our conversation is given all the hats you wear, all the ways that you’re making change: What does it mean to be Filipinx American in the Bay Area right now?
Nomi (Power Struggle): [00:37:34] I think right now it is a really important moment to, there’s been so much happening in this particular moment around the liberation of Palestine and the end of the genocide in Gaza, and I think that a lot of folks in our community have been really seeing this moment as a way to express their solidarity and mobilize and take action against what’s happening to the Palestinians. And I think that is just reflective of the bigger, historical context that a lot of Filipino, Filipinx, Americans, immigrants, have experienced and live under, right? So I believe like a lot of folks are just seeing those connections between colonization, the colonization of the Philippines from various different occupation nations and armies, to what’s happening in Palestine. And they make those connections and they even are not that far removed, maybe like two generations removed from the experiences of their grandparents that went through the Japanese occupation during World War II and lived through some of those horrors and they remember that stuff and the stories that they were told and I think that informs a large amount of our community to, to mobilize and take action. I’m not saying that, we don’t have more conservative folks in our broad community across the Bay Area, but I believe for a lot of young folks, a lot of folks that have taken time to be part of other movements, whether it be the movement for Black Lives, or Indigenous movements, or even for liberation movements in the Philippines, they kind of understand all these connections, and are building bridges and building solidarity with folks.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:39:16] Yeah, it’s the young and it’s the young at heart, right? I think folks who can be ever curious, and, you know, we have made some headway in ethnic studies where folks are connecting the dots, right, between those shared histories, those living histories of struggle. Tonight’s episode started off with a tour of Larry Itliong, the new musical coming out. And it’s quite clear that to be Filipino in so many ways means to resist. And as it relates to Larry The Musical, resistance through music is such a powerful form of political organizing. Nomi, you’re here today because this episode is also a tribute to our friend who passed away, the wonderful Mister Rey, who you have collaborated with, you have made music with. Can you start by just sharing a little bit about who Rey was to you and maybe talk a little bit about what made your musical collaboration so special?
Nomi (Power Struggle): [00:40:27] I’m really thankful for this opportunity to just share the story of Mister REY with the entire Bay Area with the country. Mister REY, Reynaldo Novicio, and I worked on one of our first records together. It was called Remittances. And I met Rey back in around 2009. I can’t remember specifically where we met. It just happens in life, especially in the art community, you start talking with people and collaborating, and he would invite me to a spot in Daly City, where he was living at the time with his family, and every Saturday morning we would session. I would go over there with Dennis and Kane, Drew, Vi, and we would just, he would just play beats that he had made, and we would write. And after a few months of that, we slowly started to create this body of work that was starting to be more cohesive that would be like the material for the album, Remittances.
A couple months after that, we decided to move in, him and his partner, and their family were moving into a spot in the Excelsior District and they had an extra room. I think I was going through a displacement. I think I was going through an eviction in the mission. And so it all kind of worked out and I ended up moving in with them. And that really was just a great opportunity to live together and continue this process of working on this album, which is to me my favorite piece of work. It’s so meaningful. The title Remittances. You know, is a remittance obviously, when you send money to your family back home or abroad, was just such a symbol of the immigrant experience, especially for our community and the Filipino community. And so the title was like an offering of culture and love, for our community through music. And that’s why we chose that title Remittances and that offering and love transcends beyond just this neighborhood, but also across the seas to our homelands and throughout our diaspora. That project was just really important. For all the artists out there, when you go through a creative process you’re partnering with someone and you live with them it’s just like a deeper level of connection and struggle [laughs] as well, right? Because, you live together so and Rey has two twin daughters he has one more now. But at the time, and so, you know, you’re just really immersed with the family. And for me, it was also such a beautiful experience because Mister REY was a bridge builder. He really was a tulay. He immigrated from the Philippines at a pretty young age, I think late elementary school or middle school, still very much had the identity of the migrant community you know, Tagalog was his first language a lot of his folks, his homies were a lot of recent immigrant hip hop heads and folks from that community. But he was also able to just because there, there is this kind of conception that there’s a divide often between immigrant communities and first or second generation Filipino Americans.
And it is true to an extent. I’ve seen it manifest in high schools and on the streets and things like that. But Rey was really able to bridge these differences and connect folks. And so for me, especially someone that grew up in the Midwest, that didn’t really grow up around Filipinos, getting to experience living with Mister Rey and his family and living in the Excelsior District, which has the highest concentration of Filipinos in San Francisco, was just such an immersive and beautiful thing and a reconnection to our culture, on so many levels, and I’m already in my, late 20s at the time, and so to go through this experience was really powerful and eye opening.
I think it also related to just like what we’re fighting for in San Francisco. You know what I mean in the sense of upholding this identity of being a city of multiple languages, a city of multiple classes and incomes. And, and this is what, like, that experience really upheld. At the time I was also doing a lot of work with the Filipino Community Center as a worker’s advocate. I was doing some organizing with Migrante, which is a migrant workers organization. And, for all of these kind of different things, from like the organizing work, to my day job, to living with Mister Rey, and being with the Filipino community in the Excelsior, coming together was like one of my favorite periods of my life where I was really understanding more about our culture, our history, our positionality in society and on a local level, on a national level, and on a global level to really understand how politics and history have brought us to America and to really experience it, right? All of these things were super impactful, and I feel like they helped inform and mold what that album, Remittances, was about. And Mister REY was such a huge part of that, right? He was, you know, he wasn’t like this crazy political scientist but through his lived experience and his own way of analyzing his life and things he had been through was very sharp and also informing the kind of political influences of this record. So yeah, it was just such a really important time. I don’t think I can ever come close to doing something like that again.
I just thank him for that year or two that we lived together, embracing me and letting me come into their family life and just being in community with them. His work in terms of, if you visit his catalog of albums, which I highly recommend folks to check out his bandcamp. And it’s just Mister REY, M-I-S-T-E-R R-E-Y, check that out and you can hear all of his work. So much like high level art, beat production wise is really sophisticated. He still embraces most of all of his writing and his rapping is in Tagalog. He sprinkles a lot of English in it too but it’s just a really beautiful body of work where people in our diaspora can really identify with and just get a lot of nourishment from. So I really suggest folks go check out his catalog. It’s really accessible on Bandcamp.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:46:40] Nomi, thank you for opening your heart and sharing about what sounded like a really intimate process, right? To make music with someone. And I know the last time I was at Rey’s place, he loves his kitchen so I feel like y’all also broke bread, right? Not just making the beats. I was also struck by Rey was such a multi-dimensional advocate, right? Whether it was mental health, whether it was youth issues, right? All of the sort of organizing he did to challenge juvenile curfew laws, for example. You’ve today brought a track that you worked on with Rey. It’s titled “ArtOfficial Freedom” and I’d love for you to cue up the track and just share a little bit about the music.
Nomi (Power Struggle): [00:47:31] This was a signature single on the album. It was produced by Mister REY and it also features Mister REY singing the chorus, where he just does a pretty basic refrain where he says, “round and round.” This was like, I feel like for me at least, or many hip hop artists, I think they have that one single on every album that represents the whole album, and I think this is the one. Like I mentioned earlier, around like all the different things that I was doing at the time in terms of community organizing and workers organizing and all the stuff that he was doing, at that time, he was really focusing on mentoring a lot of Tagalog hip hop rappers in the community. And so all these young cats would be at the apartment all the time [laughs], recording in the kitchen. And it was really a lesson for me in Tagalog where I had to like try to learn as much as possible. For all these things to come together, I think are reflected in the song.
This song, “ArtOfficial Freedom” is just a great representation of the album. And the title itself is just like a play on words. It spelled art official freedom, to mean that like through art, we can try to aim towards some sense of freedom, some, you know, towards the goal of freedom using art, but then a play of words of artificial freedom that what we are currently existing in and under is an artificial form of freedom. Through this, capitalistic, imperialistic, racist society [laughs]. So that’s kind of the play on words, artificial freedom. That was a long time ago. That was like 10 years, no, 14 years ago that we dropped that album. It’s great to, I’m glad you’re bringing it back on the airwaves. And I just want to give a shout out to also Fatgums, who was the number three part of this record. Lives in LA and is also the CEO of Beatrock Music and Beatrock Art Collective but he was just also a big part of this record. So shout out to Fatgums.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:49:25] Here is ArtOfficial Freedom from Mister REY and Power Struggle
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Aisa Villarosa: [00:53:29] Nomi before we go, is there anything else you’d like to share with the listeners tonight?
Nomi (Power Struggle): [00:53:34] When our people leave us in the physical world, there’s so many ways that we can continue for them to live on and their legacy to live on, especially through art, and especially through the technologies that exist now. Like I said before, please, check out Mister REY’s catalog on Bandcamp, it’s just Mister REY, M-I-S-T-E-R R-E-Y and look up his music. He also has a project with MrRey and Aristyles called America is in the Dark. That’s a beautiful EP. Please check those things out and promote and propagate them, share them with your friends, download them. It’s great music.
If I could also please plug, to support his family, Mister Rey leaves behind two twin girls and a young son of the age of nine and their mother. And so if you could please donate to the GoFundMe, if you just look up Reynaldo Novicio, his name will pop up, and any donation is greatly appreciated.
Lastly, on March 15th Fifth Elements and Hummingbird Farm is going to be organizing a life celebration, for Mister REY, his creative life and his legacy. It’s going to be at Hummingbird Farm, which is in the Excelsior District right by Crocker Park, behind the soccer fields. Check that out on March 15th, 4 to 8 pm. The program is still being crafted, but I guarantee it’s going to be a really special time. I think there’s going to be some films, there’s going to be performances, music, and the space in general, Hummingbird Farm, is a really dope community space that is really people power driven. So please check those things out. And again, just really appreciate this time to share about Mister REY and our work together.
Aisa Villarosa: [00:55:14] Thank you, Nomi. And Rey would talk about how the Guitar Center in SoMa was a hub for him early on, and he would just meet people, and you have called Rey a bridge builder. So thank you for being with us here tonight and paying it forward with love.
Please check out our website kpfa.org to find out more about Larry The Musical, Mister REY, Power Struggle, and the guests we spoke to. We thank you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Aisa Villarosa, Anuj Vaidya, Ayame Keane-Lee, Cheryl Truong, Hien Nguyen, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Nate Tan, Preti Mangala-Shekar, and Swati Rayasam. Tonight’s show was produced by Aisa Villarosa and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night. Mga kababayan. Makibaka, huwag matakot.
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Today’s episode is preempted by special KPFA Winter Fund Drive programming.
The post Special KPFA Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.
Today’s episode is preempted by special KPFA Winter Fund Drive programming.
The post Special KPFA Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.
Today’s episode is preempted by special KPFA Winter Fund Drive programming.
The post Special KPFA Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Tonight’s show Powerleegirls hosts Miko Lee & Jalena Keane-Lee highlight the annual Day of Remembrance. They speak with Chair Jeff Matsuoka and youth leader KC Mukai.
APEX Express is a proud member of Asian Americans for Civil Rights & Equality – AACRE.
APEX EXPRESS TRANSCRIPT 2/15/24 SHOW
Day of Remembrance 2024: Carrying the Light for Justice – Finding Our Way Home
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:00:34] Good evening. You’re tuned in to Apex Express. We are bringing you an Asian and Asian American perspective from the Bay and around the world we’re your hosts, Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-Lee, the PowerLeeGirls, a mother daughter team. Tonight we’re focused on the annual Day of Remembrance. February 19th is a significant date for the Japanese American community. On this day in 1942, president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, which gave the United States army the authority to remove civilians from their homes during World War 2. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans and 3,000 Japanese Latin Americans were forced into concentration camps scattered in desolate, remote regions of the country. No Japanese Americans or Latin Americans wherever charged of espionage or sabotage against the United States. Yet they were targeted, rounded up and imprisoned for years. Every February, the Japanese American community commemorates Executive Order 9066 as a reminder of the impact the incarceration experience has had on our families, our community and our country. During this present time of genocide in Palestine, it is critical to educate others on the fragility of civil liberties in times of crisis and the importance of remaining vigilant in protecting the rights and freedoms of all. Never again, means never again for anyone.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:01:59] Next up, listen to “Kenji” by Fort minor, the band created by Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda. This is a song about Mike’s father and his family that was incarcerated at Manzanar.
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Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:05:42] That was Mike Shinoda’s “Kenji” based upon his family story at Manzanar.
Miko Lee: [00:05:47] Welcome Jeff Matsuoka, chair of the San Francisco Bay Area Organizing Committee of the Day of Remembrance. Welcome to Apex Express.
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:05:56] Thank you very much, Miko. It’s great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Miko Lee: [00:05:59] For people that don’t know, can you give an overview about what the Day of Remembrance is all about?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:06:07] Sure. Yes. The Day of Remembrance is an annual event that we’ve been holding actually now for 45 years. This would be our 45th Day of Remembrance event and really what it’s commemorating is the signing of EO9066. This is an executive order signed by President Franklin Dela Roosevelt on February 19th, 1942.
And essentially what this did was it essentially empowered the military authorities, the US Army authorities, to essentially evict all Japanese Americans living in what’s called the West Coast Evacuation Zones. So once again, this is right after Pearl Harbor, and what what was happening was the government feared basically Japanese Americans as collaborators with, of course, the Japanese and of course, there’s no evidence as it turns out that was true, but nonetheless what happened was all citizens are all really inhabitants of Japanese ancestry, whether they were citizens or not, were evicted from their homes on the West Coast and sent to concentration camps deep in the Midwest or certainly very far away from the coast. And they said it was for our own safety, but of course there are a lot of factors there that were probably beyond safety that caused all this to happen. Of course, there’s a lot of racism and a lot of also discrimination against Japanese Americans.
And the bombing of Pearl Harbor and, of course, the signing of Executive Order 9066 resulted in the evacuation of our community, and it served many different purposes. One of, one being that, of course, it created, it served economic purpose for the people who did not want to see Japanese workers, Japanese American workers, for instance, competing for jobs. So there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of factors behind that, but the end result was that the civil rights of Japanese Americans were trampled on and they were evicted from their homes and they essentially spent the rest of the war sitting in these concentration camps far away from home. And of course, is this injustice that we want to remember every year for the Day of Remembrance.
Of course, the other factor of the story as well is that, of course, we also celebrate redress. Of course redress didn’t happen until, the 70s and 80s, but eventually Japanese Americans gained redress through the signing of the Civil Liberties Act of [1988], and by that, time, of course, many of the evacuees had passed away, but nonetheless, for those who were still alive at the time, they were entitled to a, to monetary compensation and a apology, actually, from the government for their unjust incarceration during the war. So we also want to lift that up as well, in that it was a celebration, it’s a commemoration of the fact that we were in fact compensated by the government for that injustice.
Miko Lee: [00:08:46] Jeff, can you share a little bit about your personal connection with the incarceration?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:08:52] My mother’s family actually were Japanese Peruvians. They actually lived in Lima, Peru, which of course is the capital of Peru. And a little known, part of the whole sort of Japanese evacuation. I also reached down to South America and my mother’s family, I predict my grandfather was actually taken by by the FBI from Peru, and they, were interned in a, separate system of camps called the Department of Justice camps, and they ended up in Crystal City, Texas, which was a maximum security concentration camp run by The Immigration Naturalization service. So my connection is a little bit different from those whose ancestors were born or who lived here in the United States itself. Since my family actually were, From peru. And they only spoke Spanish and Japanese. They didn’t really speak English when they came here.
Miko Lee: [00:09:39] Jeff, thank you so much for sharing a piece of the story of Japanese Latin Americans that were incarcerated. I talked about that at the beginning of the episode, over 3,000 Japanese Latin Americans, and we actually have a whole episode and a curriculum that’s based on that in our series, Never Again. So I’ll put a link to that in the show notes. Jeff, can you also talk about your experience growing up with the Day of Remembrance? What was the first one you attended? Now you’re the chair and you’ve been the chair for a bit, but what was your first Day of Remembrance and how does that stick in with your family history?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:10:17] I actually attended what’s called the Peru Kai Reunions. These were reunions of many of the Peruvian Japanese who were kidnapped from their countries, and they had reunions, interestingly enough. But my first really day of remembrance didn’t really come until maybe around, 2010, our San Francisco Bay Area Day of Remembrance, the, one of the, one of the groups that are always represented is the Japanese Latin Americans, that’s how I got involved with learning more about the Bay Area Day of Remembrance. I got involved somewhat late but nonetheless, after I understood about what’s going on, what happened basically in the United States itself that really piqued my interest to see whether, we could tell the story, to the American public, because I think this is a really, very important, story that Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans can tell to the American experience here.
Miko Lee: [00:11:06] Every year there’s a different theme, and in every area there’s a different theme. This year we’re focused on the Bay Area with you, and the theme for this year is Carrying the Light for Justice – Finding Our Way Home. Can you share a little bit about where that theme came from, and what does it mean to you?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:11:23] Yes. We want to actually talk about the injustices that were wrought on Japanese Americans, as well as, the redress which was a, which tried to correct those injustices. I think another part of DOR is, our experience as Japanese Americans having been, incarcerated unjustly and having also won redress from the government for those injustices gives us kind of a unique platform from which we can, also illuminate some of the struggles of our sisters and brothers, who have also suffered similar injustices in the United States. When October 7th happened, and the war in the Mideast between Israel and the Palestinian people flared up again, the committee members realized that this was something that our community had to come to grips with. So our sub theme this year, Finding Our Way Home you know, has to do with the fact that we need to try to understand a little bit more I feel about the plight of the Palestinian people who, in fact, had their homes essentially taken from them. There is a parallel there, obviously, with the Japanese American experience here, where many people lost their homes or had their properties expropriated taken over by the government or by other people. We feel that we need to have a better understanding, basically, and we need to also stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, because, and we also need to educate our, audience, which are mainly Japanese Americans, as to the, as to the parallels, between the plight of the Palestinian people that are, that they are undergoing right now, and plight of our people who, you know, who were definitely very much discriminated against and, had their human rights trampled on during the war. So this is another Aspect of DOR I believe that we need to also emphasize.
DOR is many things, but I think what it really is, it really is a commemorative and educational event, certainly, but also, it does have an advocacy function as well. The theme kind of embraces that idea of home. We all want to go home and that’s what certainly the people in the concentration camps felt during World War II and I’m sure that’s what the Palestinian people are feeling as well.
Miko Lee: [00:13:23] And how will this support and understanding of what’s going on in Palestine show up at the event this year?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:13:32] We’re very fortunate to have as our keynote speaker, Reverend Michael Yoshi. He’s a retired minister of the Buena Vista United Methodist Church. Michael, for many years he’s had a ministry with a village in the West Bank Wadi Fukin, and actually in past DORs, he has reported about his experiences there, and he’s also invited members of the villagers of Wadi Fukin to come and visit the United States. He, I believe, is uniquely positioned to speak about these parallels that I’m talking about between the JAA incarceration and what’s going on in Palestine, in Gaza and the West Bank today. And also he’s uniquely, I think, respected in our community, and he has, he’s worked very diligently, he’s very highly respected in our JAA community, and I believe that he will be a really great speaker to help us educate to fulfill our educational function of, trying to try to tell us what’s going on really there in Palestine.
We have, I think, in the United States, a very kind of blinkered view of what’s going on, and I think, I believe we need to rectify that view. And I believe, as I say, Reverend Yoshi, who has had, he’s been there, he has talked to people there. I believe he is really the best speaker that we could have imagined for our theme this year. So we’re really happy to have Reverend Michael Yoshi to be our keynote speaker.
Miko Lee: [00:14:53] That sounds great. One of the things I’ve been really Noticing is how young folks in our community are really vocal about their support for the Palestinians. I’m wondering if you’ve noticed a difference In the young people that are part of the movement and how they organize and how they utilize their activism versus folks of our generations.
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:15:15] Yeah, so of course it’s very interesting, of course, the younger generation, they certainly have a proficiency with technology, in particular, social media. And that’s something that I think our generation lacks, or we’re not as proficient at, using those tools, they’re actually able to amplify their message in a way that our generation really at least don’t think we really can do. Their reach is much more widespread, I believe, as a result. What really impresses me about the young people, though, is, how as you mentioned, how fervent their advocacy is. Thing is, they’re, some of them are really much more ardent, in my opinion, on this cause than people of my generation have shown. So I believe we can learn something from them and I’m really happy that we have some young people on our committee who are really helping us try to try as oldsters to try to understand how best we can bring out this message to the American community and to our community for that matter.
Miko Lee: [00:16:11] That’s great. And we’ll hear more about that later in the episode with KC Mukai, who actually developed a youth organizing committee that’s part of the work of JACL and DOR, I believe. So I’m excited to hear more about that. Can you tell us about this Year’s Clifford I. Uyeda Peace and Humanitarian Awardee?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:16:32] Yes, our awardee this year is Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, and, she is actually a professor at San Francisco State University, and, she has for many years actually been very supportive of our JA Advocacy. She’s been a candle lighter at our, at our, at previous, of Remembrance events. She is the Director of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State And she has won many awards. One thing that we really want to emphasize for this year’s award is the fact that, we are talking about, the situation in Palestine. The committee felt that it was appropriate to have Dr. Albdulhadi be the awardee given all the work that she’s been doing basically to promote Palestinian understanding, both in the educational aspects as well as in advocacy as well. So we feel that she’s very well deserving of the Clifford I. Uyeda. Peace and Humanitarian award. And we’re very happy that I understand that she will be there in person to accept the award. So we’re very, we’re looking forward to seeing her at our event.
Miko Lee: [00:17:37] Can you give us a little background about the award and what it represents?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:17:44] Yes, the Clifford I. Uyeda award is named after Dr. Clifford I. Uyeda, actually. He was a San Francisco pediatrician, he was also an activist, a lifelong really activist in the Japanese American community. He was active in the JACL. He was very instrumental in starting the, one of the, one of the founders of the redress movement when he was president, actually, the national JACL. Also Dr. Clifford was a man who, you know really was a person of tremendous, I think, courage in the sense that he was man of principle. He took positions, which I think, could have alienated him from even other Japanese or Japanese Americans.
For instance, he was very much an advocate for recognizing the Japanese government’s involvement or complicity in the rape of Nanking, for instance. And he was very, yes, he was definitely very courageous in taking positions that other people in our community really felt uncomfortable actually taking positions on. When he passed away in 2004, the Day of Remembrance Committee decided to create the Clifford I. Uyeda Award to honor his memory as well as to commemorate or to honor individuals who are activists in the same vein as Dr. Uyeda was. Courageous path breakers basically in our community and also outside of community for social justice and inclusion and yeah, we’re very happy that Dr. Albdulhadi is this year’s Clifford I. Uyeda award winner.
Miko Lee: [00:19:12] I hear what you’re saying about how important it is for our community, for Japanese Americans to understand this history and to recognize it and connect it with things that are happening today. Why is it important for non-Japanese Americans to understand about the Day of Remembrance?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:19:29] First of all, I’m sorry to say this, most non-Japanese don’t even know about EO966 or the internment of Japanese Americans. As time goes on the American public sort of forgets things, and this is one of those things that really can’t be forgotten because obviously what happens when you forget history is you repeat history, and that’s what’s happening.
I think, for the non Japanese community, the lessons that were learned from the incarceration of Japanese Americans, in the sense that, it was an unjust incarceration that civil rights were, in fact, trampled on, and that, in fact, the government apologized for those injustices and they actually compensated, our community. These are things that I think the American public needs to know because if they forget, and unfortunately I believe they are forgetting, then those same injustices will be perpetrated again among other, to other communities and the cycle will continue.
So this is a very valuable lesson and particularly now given the political atmosphere here in this country. This is a very important lesson that needs to be taught and understood as to what the implications of government actions like this have basically on people, if our, of our certainly has affected our community but we can look at other examples of other communities that have been similarly impacted. And I believe those lessons have been lost or forgotten in those cases. The Day of Remembrance is really more important than it ever has been.
Miko Lee: [00:20:56] Thank you so much Jeff Matsuoka for joining us. We will put a link in our website to the Day of Remembrance events that are happening all over the country. But Jeff, can you give us more details about the Bay Area Day of Remembrance that’s happening February 17th from 2 to 4? Where is it and what will people experience when they go to it?
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:21:14] Yes, thanks, Miko. Yes, the San Francisco Bay Area Day of Remembrance will take place as you mentioned on Saturday, February 17th from 2 to 4PM. It’s going to be at the AMC Kabuki 8 theaters. That’s 1881 Post Street in San Francisco’s Japantown.
And we’ll have, of course, the keynote speaker, Reverend Yoshi, but, another important part, a very commemorative part of our, Day of Remembrance is the candle lighting ceremony, where we actually honor the internees of the ten War Relocation Authority camps, as well as the DOJ Department of Justice camp, with a candle lighting ceremony, and that’s always the highlight of the event. A very you know, commemorative and contemplative and very actually emotional, event where we commemorate the all the internees who were unjustly incarcerated and, following the event we’re actually going to have a procession through Japantown, going from the theater to a reception, which should be held at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California and that’s on Center street. So we hope you can join us. It should be should be a really, meaningful and important event
Miko Lee: [00:22:18] And that candlelight procession is quite beautiful. It is wheelchair accessible so people can leave the Kabuki theater and basically walk around the corner. And it’s a lovely commemoration and recognition of a horrible event that happened in these United States. But we’re working to remember them so that we can make sure that they don’t happen again. Thank you so much, Jeff, for joining us on Apex Express.
Jeff Matsuoka: [00:22:42] Thank you very much for having me.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:22:46] Next up listen to Nobuko Miyamoto’s “Gaman.”
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Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:29:07] That was “Gaman” from Nobuko Miyamoto’s Smithsonian Folkways album, 120,000 Stories. Nobuko was one of the many women’s stories that haven’t been highlighted until now.
Miko Lee: [00:29:19] You are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:29:48] All right. Welcome KC Mukai to Apex Express. I think this is the first time that we’ve had the reigning Cherry Blossom Queen on our show, so it’s so great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.
KC Mukai: [00:30:02] Oh my gosh, yes, thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:30:07] So can you tell us a little bit about being the Cherry Blossom Queen, like what did it feel like to win that honor, and how did you find out about the pageant?
KC Mukai: [00:30:16] Well, I’ve always been involved in the Japanese American community growing up, going to Buddhist temples and participating in Girl Scouts. But when I came to the Bay for college, I was really searching for community. So I got involved with an internship program called Nikkei Community Internship in Japantown, and then that put me in contact with the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival. And from there, I decided to apply for the Queen Program, because it really valued female leadership, especially within the community. And it’s been an amazing, amazing year so far, and I’m actually almost rounding out the end of it for the next court to come in in April. But, yeah, it’s truly been such an amazing and beautiful journey with the court.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:31:02] That’s so wonderful. What are some of the highlights of your year with the court so far?
KC Mukai: [00:31:09] Yeah, I would definitely say some of the highlights have been me participating in, you know, events that I grew up with, such as Obon getting to go to San Jose Obon and also Concord. Really being a part of the community there. I would also say a highlight has been just going to different community organization fundraisers the JCCCNC and Japantown as well as Kamochi and other organizations that, you know, are really critical for keeping Japantown thriving. It’s been an honor to meet leaders from there and be able to see, you know, the blood, sweat and tears that really goes behind producing and helping the community thrive.
And then I think, of course, getting to meet just such wonderful, wonderful and amazing women in this community not only from my current core, but also Hawaii and Nisei Week have similar festivals and programs. And so getting to meet and bond with them and just really seeing that, you know, women are the cultural keepers of our community the Japanese American community and it’s really important to keep those ties close and really, really help them to grow.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:32:26] Oh, I love that. What are some of the things that sparked your interest in Japanese American community organizing and culture bearing?
KC Mukai: [00:32:39] Some of the things that inspired me, particularly in my organizing sense is definitely having, being part of the Japanese American community and I have grandparents and great grandparents and family that were among the 125,000 people of Japanese descent that were incarcerated during World War II because they were deemed a national security threat.
And so because of that tie to incarceration and injustice and the fact that, you know, my great grandparents lost their livelihood and my grandparents lost their youth and kind of that community sense lost a grasp of their identity and security I ground my organizing work in kind of a lot of making sure that that injustice doesn’t happen to other communities today or at least advocating for that.
And I think being a cultural keeper it’s growing up and being part of temples and community spaces. I got a chance to see how the women of my community and like the Obachans or the grandmas would come out and dedicate so much of their lives to keeping our temples and organizations afloat in terms of, you know, coming out early and bringing food staying till late hours cleaning up, leading the organizations on the board and stepping up for leadership positions. And it’s because of those role models and that ancestral history that I continue to feel today, like, it’s important to get involved in my community and also speak up for injustice.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:34:18] Thank you so much for sharing that. Tonight’s show is focused on the Day of Remembrance. Can you share a little bit about how the Day of Remembrance has been recognized in your family?
KC Mukai: [00:34:30] Yeah, so in my family I’m half Japanese and half Chinese, and my Japanese side, my family has always. recognized Day of Remembrance as an important holiday within our community, specifically because of its importance to recognizing incarceration and what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. I grew up in the Central Valley in Fresno area and the surrounding towns and being able to recognize the Day of Remembrance and kind of tie it back to my own, personal tie with this, and then also connecting it to what is happening in the world today, that’s always been kind of an important keynote of, of the time. So my family, in particular, my Japanese side was incarcerated at Poston and Gila River and then they resettled back in the bay, but then my pod moved out to central California to live on a cherry farm. We always understood that despite this being kind of a historic event, the themes of injustice and exclusion, and human rights are still very much applicable to what we see happening in the world today.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:35:55] Can you talk with us about the theme of this year’s Bay Area event for Day of Remembrance, Carrying the Light for Justice – Finding Our Way Home?
KC Mukai: [00:36:04] Yeah, so the theme for this year’s Day of Remembrance has to do with Palestine and what we see happening in the Middle East. We chose Palestine to be your theme because we think that it’s an important moment to not only share and educate what is happening with our community, but also to bring our community in and raise consciousness.
We chose this topic because of course it’s very urgent and very timely as, as we speak, there is still not a ceasefire in Palestine and we wanted to do all we could to really highlight the issue and center the Palestinian community and really be an ally. Japanese Americans, we know from our own history, the importance of protecting human rights and civil rights and civil liberties, since these were, of course, stripped away from us during America’s World War II incarceration camps.
And so, seeing then the destruction of, you know, Palestinian communities really speaks to us as Japanese Americans because we also faced the destruction of our own communities, you know, in our homes and our businesses and our farms are taken away. And also we were denied our education, our health care, our cultural rights and of course, other infringements of civil rights and basic human rights. We very much see this, and recognize the same things happening in Palestine. However, with that being said, I think our DOR committee also recognizes that not all of our community is in the same place in terms of education and understanding of this work and we want to be cognizant of that.
So part of our programming is we’re inviting Reverend Michael Yoshi, who’s a very respected pastor within the United Methodist Church who has been doing work alongside an allyship with Palestine for a while. And we’re inviting him as a respected member of our community to come and speak and share a bit about why he sees the Japanese American experience aligning with the Palestinian experience.
On top of having Reverend Michael Yoshi, we’re also inviting a few of our Nikkei organizations in the community to come and table and just be there to help educate. There’s a growing collective called Nikkei for Palestine that has recently formed that has been trying to push our community to be more active and organized. So Nikkei for Palestine, alongside Tsuru for Solidarity is hoping to show up and also just help bring our community into the work.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:38:46] That’s so great. Thank you so much for doing that. And I feel like it really brings the phrase of never again into the present and also emphasizing that never again doesn’t just mean for our own community, but it means for anyone and everyone in the world. So thank you so much for making those intersectional connections. And I know you mentioned Nikkei for Palestine and Tsuru for Solidarity. And so I was just curious if you could talk a little bit about the different kind of community organizing groups that you’re a part of.
KC Mukai: [00:39:21] Yeah, sure I’d love to share. So I think importantly is probably Nikkei for Palestine collective that I have been doing work in and we are a growing collective that formed out of a kind of initial meeting held by Nikkei resistors in the Bay Area that sought to kind of gather others who were really seeing the destruction and loss of life happening in Palestine and really wanting to organize around that.And so Nikkei for Palestine has been doing several things, including trying to push the JACL or the Japanese American Citizens League to speak up. We’ve also been holding weekly power hours for our Nikkei community to call on our Japanese American representatives to speak up. We’ve also been doing educational work, and putting together packets and toolkits and so that’s Nikkei for Palestine. Other than Nikkei for Palestine, I’m of course involved as the Queen of the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival and on top of that, I also do work with Tsuru for Solidarity as their current fundraiser chair. And alongside doing my fundraising role in Tsuru, I’m also on the Police, Prisons, and Detention Working Group, and currently in Tsuru for Solidarity is actually planning for a big action in Tacoma, Washington. We’re organizing, to shut down the Northwest Detention Center, which, is a detention center, holding individuals that have been facing very bleak, human rights violations, in terms of not getting adequate food, having, water pipes burst in the detention center and they’ve actually been going on hunger strike, the individuals within this detention center have been trying to strike in their own way, and so we’re hoping to do a big protest upcoming on our Day of Remembrance, actually, for February 16th. And then past that, we’re also doing a big action at the end of April, in the last weekend of April. Yeah, those are some of the groups that I organize with today.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:41:32] That’s great. Thank you so much for sharing. And when it comes to, you know, growing up and becoming a woman in the world today and just everything that we’re faced with when it comes to genocide and mass incarceration, both in the present and in the past, I’m curious, what are some of the things that that bring you hope and that remind you that You know, there is so much to fight for and to work for.
KC Mukai: [00:42:03] I think some things that give me hope are intergenerational conversations. I think oftentimes within organizing work and can get. We tend to pigeonhole ourselves within like this one moment without realizing that we’re part of a larger landscape and in a larger history of people that have been doing this work for a long time. So it makes me very hopeful and grateful to see elders that have been in this work for a long time getting involved and sharing their knowledge as well as younger folk and children also sharing and being part of the movement today. Recently I went to a ceasefire banner drop at the Buddhist Church of Oakland and there they had some of their Dharma school students actually speak up and share why ceasefire is important to them and they were leading the chants. And, as you know, going out to protest today, we often see young children out there right there with us. And I think that is so inspiring that despite all of the violence and that we see in the world today, that we’re still able to have these moments of true community and true passing down of knowledge and being able to see that there is a future.
I think something else that also gives me hope is cultivating spaces like some of the community groups I’ve been a part of, I think, especially like Tsuru and Nikkei for Palestine. Being able to have honest conversations with each other — I think it can be hard to organize especially when you’re organizing against something that seems so insurmountable and then conflict often comes to that, but it’s been hopeful to see the ways in which my community is able to push past, I guess, the ties of what bounds us to punitive and carceral measures in terms of like, if I don’t agree with you, I’m going to shun you.
And it’s been encouraging to see spaces where this is rethought and how can we creatively work in and organize together in a space without and recognize that we may have differences, but that we’re all in this work together and push forward from that. And so I think those have definitely kept me going in these moments.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:44:34] And yes, we love intergenerational connections and organizing and activism, and I was wondering if you see any differences in organizing amongst our generation and our parents and our grandparents generations.
KC Mukai: [00:44:48] Wow, that’s a great question. Yeah, I would say something, like, I would definitely say something that I’ve noticed is different is that kind of abolitionist look at relationships in terms of, I feel like, in my parents and grandparents generation, there’s often, and especially within the community, there’s often this need to, like, disagreement is never completely dealt with, or it’s definitely like more shamed upon or kind of the ways that we treat each other are, you know, not as like creative as we want it to be. And so what I see in this future generation is this. It’s kind of, you know, hope to be more intentional with each other, especially under an understanding, like the work needs to be done and how can we get past this small moment of conflict and be able to see the larger picture. I would also say like in terms of organizing itself I think it’s been cool to see how, I guess social media plays a role in our organizing spaces. Especially I was just on a call with an elder last night and she was sharing about her work getting involved in the Vietnam War and how from their perspective, they weren’t able to get like the real time information about the atrocities happening during war like we are during this time, and being able to see, you know, the amount of destruction happening in Palestine. So I think that, you know, the social media part of it and how fast media can move is playing to our benefit, but also, you know, also our demise in some way. And so, yeah, I think those two things are definitely some differences I see in our generations.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:46:45] Thank you. If there’s someone out there listening who’s not sure how to get involved in community and community organizing, and maybe not sure that their voice matters or could make any sort of impact, what would you say to them?
KC Mukai: [00:47:04] Yeah, if there’s someone, I think if there’s someone out there listening that, you know, is maybe struggling with, seeing how their voice and their position in this matters, I would say to them that it’s important to think about yourself, not just as an individual, but as part of a whole. I lean on the practice of interdependence, which is a teaching in Buddhism, which teaches us that we are all connected to each other and what I say and what I do has an impact upon others around me. And I think it’s important to understand that movements get started because of a person and another person and another person joining and thinking about the, I guess, vastness of organizing work. It’s important to really, while as complicated as it is, it’s important to sometimes simplify it for yourselves and just say that, hey, like, I can start my own movement in my own way.
I recently heard or was reminded of the way that, redress or redress for the Japanese American community kind of got steam within our community and eventually got passed in Congress. And it started with, you know, one person just keeping standing up at these JACL meetings. And for 10 years, he came to JACL National Convention and he kept arguing that we as Japanese Americans need to bring redress into Congress and because of his work, it eventually passed as a national resolution in JACL and that’s when JACL got involved and really helped to push it with Congress, and that’s how we got redress and that was such a long timeline and I think it’s important to remember stories like that and stories of how movements are started to encourage us.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:49:15] Absolutely. And speaking of JACL, could you talk with us about your development of a district youth board for JACL?
KC Mukai: [00:49:26] Yeah, so I started the district youth board of the NCWNP district youth board, two years ago because I became the NCWNP, which is the Northern California, Western Nevada Pacific District, youth rep.And because of that position, my governor asked if I could, you know, really get a hold on this, this youth leadership. And so with her guidance, and my, I guess, ambition and drive, I brought together 6 of us, to form the 1st District Youth Board in the JACL, and we were able to build out programming and youth events and intergenerational events and get a grant to help send people to national convention as well as other projects all within our first year. And so it was very, very, very great especially for building the leadership pipeline within JACL we were able to help some of our youth members get on to leadership positions within our district council and also as chapter presidents and because of that, it helps to diversify, I guess, the outlook of of JACL in terms of what JACL is passionate about what it’s able to speak on.
And so I’m very, very proud of that district youth board. But since then, I have stepped off as one of the founders and so my co-founders Bruce Arao and Halle Sousa have been really, really doing such a great job with district youth board. And taking it to places I never thought I would go. So I think it’s all been great getting to watch them do that.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:51:27] That’s wonderful. Thank you. Is there anything else that you’d like to add about the Day of Remembrance or about anything else that you have going on?
KC Mukai: [00:51:38] Yeah. So I’d like to add, I’m also involved in a growing organization that we just founded called JAYA, which is the Japanese American Youth Alliance. And our goal is to connect all of the Nikkei youth organizations within the Bay and NorCal and Northern California together to help do like youth programming and also kind of serve as a bridge between collegiate organizations and then young adult organizations. And so because of that work with JAYA, we’re actually holding our own Day of Remembrance event, and it’s in conjunction with the Bay Area DOR. But it will be happening right before Bay Area DOR’s, which will be in the morning around 11 AM, and we’re holding it at the JCYC in San Francisco, Japantown, this event will, be more of an opportunity for youth to come together to talk about why Day of Remembrance is important. We’ll also be talking about Palestine and solidarity with Palestine and so if there’s any youth listening who are interested in coming, we definitely would like to see you there. And then afterwards, after our youth one, we’ll be joining the Bay Area DOR one at Kabuki Theater.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:52:26] That’s great. Thank you so much for sharing. And we will link to more information on that in our show notes too.
KC Mukai: [00:53:02] Okay. Wonderful.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:53:06] Is there anything else that you’d like to add or share?
KC Mukai: [00:53:08] Just thank you so much for having me. And this was such a great opportunity to share a little bit about my work, but also the larger work of the Japan town and Japanese American community. So thank you so much.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:53:19] Thank you so much. It was so lovely getting to talk with you and it’s really inspiring all the different work that you’re doing and, uh, Nikkei for Palestine sounds really awesome too.
KC Mukai: [00:53:29] Thank you, thank you.
Miko Lee: [00:53:31] There are events happening this weekend for Day of Remembrance, all over the country. So for the community calendar, I’m going to give you a little bit of an update. To find out more about what’s happening for Day of Remembrance in your community check out the Japanese American Citizen League’s website to look at the regional events at JACL.org.
In the Bay Area where many of us are located. This Friday night from 6 to 9:00 PM there’s going to be a day of remembrance student celebration at UC Berkeley’s Stephen’s Lounge. And then the next day on February 17th in the Bay Area will be the Bay Area Day of Remembrance that we talked to both of our guests tonight about. It’s called Carrying the Light for Justice – Finding Our Way Home to commemorate the Executive Order 9066.
It will be at AMC Kabuki 8 theater on 1881 Post St, and then a beautiful candlelight procession through the streets of Japantown to a reception at the Japanese Cultural [and Community Center] on 1840 Sutter. Everyone is welcome and it’s wheelchair accessible.
Also February 17th from 2 to 4, if you are in Los Angeles, the Day of Remembrance is called Rooted in Resistance: Fighting for Justice during World War II, reinforces the importance of standing up for justice in times of great moral crisis. From the draft resisters and the No-No Boys to those who protested through quiet hunger strikes or chanting crowds, resistance has taken many forms since World War II and we will hear truth and testimony from those who remember and honor these stories. Some of the speakers include Diana Tsuchida, Kyoko Oda, Tak Hoshizaki, and Soji Kashiwagi.
On Monday, February 19th from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM is the Day of Remembrance in San Jose. And then the following weekend, Saturday and Sunday, February 24 and 25, there will be films all about the Day of Remembrance at the Kabuki and San Francisco. And then in San Jose at the Betsuin Buddhist church. Again, to find out more what’s happening in your community check out JACL.org. And remember so that we don’t repeat the harms of the past. Thank you very much.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:55:54] Next up we hear “Summer of ’42” by Kishi Bashi from the album Omoiyari. Even though Kishi and his family immigrated to the US post-World War II, he created this album to address the current political climate. He felt that the talk of walls and bans on immigrants recalls the same sort of fears that sparked the internment camps after Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:56:18] That was “Summer of ’42” by Kishi Bashi.
Miko Lee: [00:59:14] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about the Day of Remembrance and the guests that we spoke to. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important.
Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Hien Nguyen, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Nate Tan, Paige Chung, Preti Mangala-Shekar, and Swati Rayasam. Tonight’s show was produced by Miko Lee and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.
The post APEX Express – 2.15.24 – Carrying the Light for Justice appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
For this week’s episode of APEX Express, host Cheryl is joined by Cẩm Trần, Thao Le from VietUnity, and Victoria Huynh from Asian Prisoners Support Committee (APSC) as they tell the story of how Cẩm came to be the first Vietnamese deportee to return home to the United States.
Cẩm Trần is a Vietnamese mother who was deported and separated from her two young children in 2019. This January 2024, Cẩm will be the first Vietnamese deportee to return home to the United States.
Like many survivors of domestic violence, Cẩm was criminalized for her attempts at self-defense. After arriving in the United States in 2009, Cẩm faced physical and emotional abuse at the hands of multiple partners. As a new immigrant, Cẩm’s social isolation and lack of English proficiency made her especially vulnerable to this cycle of abuse. In 2016, in a domestic violence dispute with her second husband, Cẩm called 911 for help, but was arrested and charged with an aggravated felony. Cẩm’s attorney advised her to plead guilty, but failed to advise her on the immigration consequences of this conviction or the legal recourses available to her. Given language barriers and her unfamiliarity with the U.S. legal system, Cẩm was unable to fully advocate for herself. She took her attorney’s advice, not knowing it would lead to her deportation. After spending 6 months at the California Institution for Women, Cẩm was detained by ICE at the Adelanto Detention Facility for 2 years before being deported to Vietnam in 2019.
Since 2019, Cẩm has worked relentlessly to reunite with her children. With legal advocacy and community support from ViệtUnity and the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, Cẩm pursued a motion to vacate her deportable charges. As of 2023, Cẩm’s deportable charges have been dropped, and she is now able to return to the United States to her loved ones.
Cẩm now needs our support to rebuild her life upon return, including funds for secure housing, employment, and transportation. Cẩm also hopes to take community college courses and pursue her degree, and to give back to the communities who helped bring her home.
Important Links and Resources:1. Cam’s GoFundMe 2. Cam’s Re-entry Toolkit
TranscriptCheryl Truong: This is the story of Cam Tran who through resilience, Self-advocacy and community support became the first Vietnamese deportee to return home to the United States.
Thao Le: Yeah so VietUnity, right now it’s VietUnity Bay Area. VietUnity East Bay used to be its own thing and then VietUnity South Bay. Then during the pandemic we combined.
VietUnity South Bay formed in 2016, and one of the reasons we formed at the time, you know, there was just a lot of progressive leftist Viets in the South Bay that wanted to bring our community together and take a proactive stance on the Black Lives Matter movement. And so we designed this, summer youth program.
For those who know, there’s this school for organizing called Hai Bà Trưng School, which is named after two anti imperialist, anti colonial resistors in Ancient Vietnam against Chinese colonizers. And we designed the Bà Triệu school focused on youth in the South Bay for Vietnamese youth to learn about their history, learn how they can get involved in local politics and activism.
And so that’s when South Bay was formed. Viet Unity South Bay was very active in a lot of anti deportation work, including trying to keep Đức home and Phuc home, which are two folks in our community. Viet Unity South Bay was able to stop their deportations.
Cheryl Truong: Viet Unity, AKA VU, as you’ll hear it referred to throughout the episode, was one of the two crucial organizations involved in bringing Cam home. The other being Asian Prisoners Support Committee APSC. Currently speaking is Thao a Vietnamese Hakka American based on unceded, Tamien Ohlone land also known as San Jose, California. They are a member of Viet unity and also a dear friend of mine. so
Thao Le: When I came back into San Jose around 2019, I was talking to one of our members, Thuyen and I was letting him know, hey, I’m going to go to Vietnam at the end of the year. And he said that there is a deportee who, has already been deported to Vietnam. Her name is Cam and she’s looking for community and she’s looking for support.
When I went to Vietnam, my brother and I went to visit her.
Before meeting Cam, I didn’t have much experience in, anti deportation actions, like I knew the content because of APSC Asian Prisoner Support Committee and a lot of the work that was being done around that time, but Cam was the first deportee that I had really worked with. And I think it’s a different case because She was somebody who was already deported. She was deported that year that I met her– 2019.
When my brother and I met her, we were very moved by her story and how much she herself is a really strong advocate for herself, you know, she reached out once she was deported and even before then she had reached out to a lot of different Southeast Asian organizations that were working on deportation to get any form of help.
And so I really felt like I wanted to commit to helping her and to, to witness this journey with her.
Cheryl Truong: You mentioned that she reached out to many other organizations for support back in 2019. But Viet unity and APSC ended up being her core organizations that supported her throughout this.
I’m curious to know what drew Cam towards Viet Unity..
Thao Le: Yeah, there were a lot of different groups that did try to help her out. She had a lawyer through Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
She had also reached out to SEACC. I think one of the reasons why she stuck with Viet Unity is because we really wanted to stick with her. Her situation’s a bit different in that, unlike a lot of the other deportees that we usually hear about, she came to the U.S.
long after, and also, she was deported after an act of self defense. So the usual school to prison to deportation pipeline didn’t apply to her. But of course the laws are still affecting everybody, right? And I know Victoria can speak more on that as well.
I think something that I really felt, kept our relationship going was there was a lot of emotional support that we did for Cam, you know. There were multiple, multiple times where it seemed like there’s nothing we can do to bring her home. She had gone lots of different routes from trying to get a pardon, to trying to get the vAWA which is Violence Against Women Act, and none of those went through. There was this ongoing sense of hopelessness, and I think the other organizations also recognized that, oh, this is, might not work out. But by that time, Cam was like a friend to me. And so even if I can’t do anything the legal route, let me see if I could just check in with her and see how she’s doing.
Eventually APSC was able to find a lawyer who analyzed her case and suggested we go through the motion to vacate route. And that’s kind of where it started. Things started to piece together. Because Cam is the first Vietnamese deportee to return to the U. S., and it took several years. It’s kind of abnormal in a sense. We went through a route that I guess hasn’t been done as much and it was for someone who was already deported. And you know, when I talked to Cam, she wouldn’t be trying so hard if her two kids weren’t out here in the U. S. She would have been fine staying in Vietnam and not pursuing any route of coming home, but the reason she never gave up was because her kids were out here.
So I think her coming home helps set this precedent because she is the first to come back and also, the first to come back through the motion to vacate process.
Cheryl Truong: You mentioned that this was your first time ever working on an anti deportation case. And yet you ended up shouldering a lot of the work for this. Not just in terms of advocacy work, but also in terms of Becoming one of. Cam’s closest friends here.
What was that like for you finding the words, the language to support this process?
Thao Le: I think what this process has highlighted to me is how there is so much invisiblize labor that takes place when it comes to supporting folks, and how care is something that we need to center in our movements more. There were multiple times where I was like, dang, I’m the only one still checking in with Cam. Others, people in VietUnity and around were like you’re carrying this case and it must be a lot for you.
And so there were times where I’m like, wow, why do I feel like I’m the only one who cares? And it’s, and that’s not totally true, but sometimes it felt that way, right? because emotional labor is very heavy and it’s not glamorous either. You don’t get to like post about it.
This really showed me how important is the long game.
And here’s the thing about Cam, too, and she’ll speak to this– she wants to support other deportees now that she’s back. She does have a lot to do in terms of re entry and getting her life together and being able to see her kids. But she wants to return that labor by helping other deportees. The first night that she came back, she stayed at my house and she told me she stayed up all night because a lot of her friends both here in the US and also some in Vietnam who are deportees were calling her and they’re like, hey, you got back. I want to get back to like, how did you do it? Right?
And this is also very similar to what APSC does where a lot of the folks who are working at APSC and in reentry support, etc, even the co executive director, Ny– these are all folks who are system impacted. It is so important to have that really strong sense of community and bringing folks in and taking care of one another. Because, you know, even though I supported Cam in a lot of ways, she was my friend, you know. I would listen to her, but she would also ask me how are you doing? And she would listen to what I was going through. My Vietnamese has vastly improved since talking to her all the time. So It’s definitely like a relationship, you know, one that continues to grow. There are also times where Cam and I would sort of come into conflict too, because I would get really busy and then I wouldn’t pick up her calls as easily and she’d be like, hey, what happened? Are you abandoning me? What’s going on? I’m just, you know, negotiating and talking about where we’re at and being transparent and communicative about our capacity. So I’ve definitely learned a lot in being involved in this, journey. Yeah.
You know, I think it’s really important that more, Asian American folks. Vietnamese American, et cetera, get involved in organizations like APSC, Asian Prisoner Support Committee. I can’t be like, hey, get involved in Viet Unity because we’re figuring some stuff out about what our next steps are because we’re really small and we’re volunteer based.
But I definitely think more folks should get involved in groups like APSC and learn the history of the ways in which how APSC was founded, the intersections between, you know. We’re talking about tapping into a larger movement of decarceration. There are so many ways in which our histories are connected, both in the past and the present. It’s really important to learn about what it means to abolish prisons, not just the ones that are that our folks are going through, but also think about what that means in an internal sense, you know, what are the ways in which we embody carceral values amongst our communities?
How do we learn how to embody transformative justice? How do we learn how to move through conflict together? And these are all really challenging because of harm and conflict. Conflict is something that happens all the time and learning the skills of how to navigate conflict , is part of this whole bigger picture of abolishing prisons and abolishing the police. So I think that’s really important to keep in mind.
Cheryl Truong: You are so absolutely right. It is just, as you said, Cam’s return to America from what I’m hearing makes for a great case study in the ways our carceral system. Is failing our people and how community support through healing justice. Transformative justice and the abolitionist frameworks can be life-changing and groundbreaking. Thank you so much for weighing in and for coming on the show Thao.
And now for our next guest.
Victoria Huynh: APSC stands for Asian Prisoner Support Committee. It started in the early 2000s, and it started for a number of reasons, right? With a lot of really prominent local activists in the Bay Area, including people like Yuri Kochiyama, realizing that there is a pretty major population of Asian and Pacific Islanders in the prison system, the California prison system, but their needs are not explicitly addressed, or even recognized.
Cheryl Truong: This is Victoria Huynh from Asian prisoner support committee. She has been a volunteer at APSC. The last three years doing translation interpretation and the anti deportation work. She also teaches ethnic studies through APSC’s restoring Our Original True Selves (ROOTS) program at San Quentin state prison. And outside of her advocacy work, she is a student at UC Berkeley.
Victoria Huynh: ROOTS is the ethnic studies program that started in San Quentin after a huge amount of protests from San Quentin 3, including one of APSC’s founders, Eddy Zheng. I teach in ROOTS as an ethnic studies educator to help connect a lot of our incarcerated API community members not just to liberatory education, but also upon reentry. For example, some people have deportation orders or other challenges on their release so that is a really great space for us to figure out. Because we work with folks inside, we get to sort of interrupt the pipeline of prison to deportation and continue our advocacy for people throughout
Cheryl Truong: for all of our listeners out there who are encountering stories like Cam’s for the first time, do you mind talking a little bit about what is the school to prison to deportation pipeline? What is crimmigration?? And how do these systems impact Southeast Asian communities?
Victoria Huynh: For a bit of context, our communities of Southeast Asian refugees, people who immigrate to the U. S. from mostly Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia mostly under conditions of war, genocide that leads to their migration. A lot of them resettle as refugees in the 80s and 90s and this is also a time in which the U. S. is passing a lot of major federal policies that are increasing essentially the policing and prison arms of the state. Huge amounts of money are funded into building new prisons, into expanding police forces, into basically hyper criminalizing multiple communities of color, adding increased punishments, harsh sentencing, etc.
So in this case, right, a lot of young people Southeast Asians who come to the U. S., struggle a lot with war trauma, poverty, conditions of resettlement, join gangs, et cetera, and then enter the prison system. And due to this era, of policies which not only criminalize individuals, but specifically criminalize migrants and make the conditions for ones deportation, so that’s how the pipeline comes into shape. It’s a convergence of multiple kinds of federal and local policies.
A lot of APSC, and our other folks who do immigration work broadly think about is after people serve their sentences after being incarcerated. And again, the conditions of that are so complicated. If they’re able to get out of the prison system, they should go home to their families and communities and not continue to be punished again through continual displacement and continual separation. So that’s part of the work that we do.
So I had been working with APSC for some time. I had heard from one of our other staff Hien that there were folks like Cam who were deportees in Vietnam who needed things, including like language support and community support to take on a campaign that would take a lot of effort and time and translation.
In 2019, around when the Cam was first deported, APSC folks saw that there’s a possibility for Cam to pursue a motion to vacate, given, frankly, how the courts mishandled and failed many parts of her case . But that would require legal funds, a lot of time, right, a lot of support– essentially all the things that Cam should have had in the first case when she was first sentenced.
So they put the recommendation to pursue this motion to vacate. It will involve these things, but we’re not sure if we have capacity. So flash forward a few years later, I think I joined APSC around like 2020, 2021. I was going to Vietnam for a different program in 2022 in the summer.
And Hien was like, you should meet with our deportees actually. And you should see if you can support some of their process. So I met Cam in the summer of 2022.
I remember I tried to choose a restaurant close to her workplace, so a chicken restaurant in District 8 somewhere. And then I went on my other trip, and then I came back, and then, we got more time to get to know each other and , to sit down and figure out what is Cam’s case and figure out how to do.
And so by the end of that trip, when I got home, I was really committed to doing this. I drove down to to San Jose to meet Thao to talk about what kind of work have you been doing over the last few years? And what can I sort of bring in. VU is a really important community network for Cam, but what APSC does that’s very particular is that sort of crimmigration and defense lens, and how can we figure out how to bring these things together.
I remember sitting in some restaurant in San Jose, I think it was Nha Trang with Thao, and then asking, how have things been so far, right? And I remember Thao saying it’s been hard work to do it by themselves for this long, and it’s good to have more people because now there’s more hope in making this happen. So I’m lucky, right? It’s like I joined 2022 and then Cam is Free as of now and that I think honors a lot of the years of work that made all of this possible, not just my involvement.
I want to step back a little bit if it’s okay and talk about why I think Cam’s instance is so significant.
I think there’s a a slightly dominant narrative of Southeast Asians impacted by deportation, where a lot of them were actually like young men who were involved in gangs and as a result were criminalized. Right? But I think that in meeting more people impacted by the system, a lot of the Vietnamese population who are impacted by prison and deportation, many are actually monolingual, many are very in- age, they don’t necessarily come, tend to be U. S. ‘s youth because of the multiple migration waves of Vietnamese refugees. I think specifically their , lack of English proficiency makes them even more vulnerable to criminalization. I’ve worked with a couple other community members who are elderly, for example, who just had no idea how to navigate the system and therefore had deportation orders.
I think something else significant about Cam’s story is also the gender violence aspect. I think movement work more generally– we don’t know always how to talk about intersecting forms of oppression and how gender violence is something that is constant at every part of the prison deportation pipeline.
It’s not something that the pipeline quite accurately captures. For Cam in particular, I remember looking at her case file from one of our attorneys. And realizing that her original attorney had applied, like, there’s many avenues of relief. They had thought about, seeing if she could get relief under the Violence Against Women Act which is part of Bill Clinton’s Violence Crime Control Act of the 1990s. Essentially, it creates a carceral response to domestic violence at the time. And I realized, oh, she does not qualify under this because she has a criminal conviction. And I think that, for me, was a moment where I was like these policies that are supposed to protect people from these forms of violence, have so clearly failed this person, in addition to all the other things too
While Cam’s story is a little bit different from those things, I think it is very significant and also brings in a really important conversation about criminalized survivors and carceral feminism and that sort of thing.
Cheryl Truong: you are tuned in to apex express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3, KPF B in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org.
That song you just heard was a Burmese song called “Thai Rhymes with Sound” by Ma Ei Moe. The singer is singing about the colors and smells of each flower. How in the summer, after the long monsoon season flowers are in bloom.
Once again that was “Thai Rhymes with Sound” by Ma Ei Moe.
Welcome back to the show. We are here with Cam Tran, the first Vietnamese deportee to return back to the United States, who will now be sharing her story with us. Providing translations will be Victoria Huynh from APSC
Victoria Huynh: Cam is now applying and waiting for her papers, for her social security number, her ID. She has part time work at a nail salon, so those things would allow her to apply eventually for her driver’s license for transport, nail license, the ability to go back to school and study, and then also work toto get visiting rights for her children as well.
So when Cam first arrived to the United States in 2009, she was a victim of domestic violence in her marriage. So at that time, she was living with her husband and his family, and she had also had her first son.
So, She experienced controller management by the husband’s family. and when she went to work she would have to give money to them.
So she wasn’t able to, at that time get her driver’s license or have her own means of transport. If not the bus, then her husband would pick her up and drop her off. And that also meant that she couldn’t go to places– couldn’t go to the mall, couldn’t go shopping or places she wanted to go.
In experiencing this with her first husband, she realized that she needed to get out of the situation for her child. Around this time is when she met the person who’d become her second husband, who sort of promised an escape from this.
But, it turned out to use the same tactics of control as the first..
So, I’m sorry. So, yeah, so over time, she was over time. She was hoping that, like, waiting for the person to change. Right. And she also, like, had had another child with them. So that maybe they would change. So, yeah, I think so
Over time, she realized that the second husband did not provide her with love and eventually became physically abusive as well. That husband also became to control of Cam’s finances, so the money that she would bring home from work as well.
Um, yeah, her husband, second husband became increasingly more abusive. She wasn’t sure what to do. Then, Cam’s dad passed. She wanted to go see him, but the husband wouldn’t let her.
A month after Cam’s father passed, she was finally allowed to return to Vietnam. Her second husband came with her, but in the process, she was visiting her family. she found out that her second husband, found another girlfriend as well.
Hmm. When they returned home from Vietnam, the second husband packed his things and But during that time, their child that they have together, Kim’s second child was about 10 months. The husband, despite being away, would still constantly call Cam, show up to her place and bother her, and would get divorce papers to try to force her to sign them as well.
And to coerce her, he would say that if you sign these papers, I will pay for you to continue living here, for example.
Mm-Hmm. So, that second husband had also exerted financial control over Cam, had access to her bank account as well, so was able to use that money. Over time, Cam had been working in nails and also foster work as well.
She had also wanted a car and knew that she could take steps to apply for her license. She had asked her husband at the time to use their shared money to help her purchase a car. But instead of getting her a newer, good quality car that she wanted, he bought her an old car that actually had broken I’m on the road, forcing Cam to not be able to work, no longer having transit, and then having to stay home, figuring out how to provide for her two kids..
Around this time, Cam learned that her green card was set to expire and would need to be renewed, but her husband did not allow her or help her to pursue applying for citizenship. He was just like, let it expire, you could be sent back anytime, pretty much.
At this time, too while she was home, she would often, bring her son over to her neighbors because their neighbor also had a child their age, and it was easier, to take care of them both, especially when she was sick. And so that led to the circumstances leading to her conviction and deportation.
There was a domestic violence altercation between her second husband and her. The neighbors around heard about it, the police were called, but that is what led to Kim’s conviction ultimately.
mm mm Yeah. . Mm-Hmm,
When she was originally arrested by the police after that altercation, she was assigned a public defender to defend her on her case. That public defender encouraged her to take a plea deal, which means to accept her criminal convictions. But she didn’t understand that it would mean they would take her green card away and then that she would be, incarcerated; she’d be sent to prison after that, and then transferred immediately to detention. So she, after serving her sentence, she was sent to go on to detention center.
When Kim was at Adelanto detention center, she was alone. There was no one there to help her. She had to appear to court before her eventual deportation. They explained that because of her conviction, she would be deported. At this time, she also was able to meet, pro bono lawyer who started to piece together the parts of her case as well. But she was still deported to Vietnam at this time. It was 2019.
the Pro Bono lawyer that she met, they had done a little bit of work, but then transferred her to someone else . It was unclear. Kim was eventually deported. She remembers the first three months being particularly hard because she was really sick as well in that time. And had , no thoughts or hopes of returning to the U. S.
so in this time, Cam started to reach out to a ton of people just to see what she could do. On Facebook, she’d send tons of messages to lots of people. One of those people, sort of by accident was Eddy Zheng, who is the founder of APSC. And so Eddy, to kind of add a bit more context to it, Eddie reached out to Hien, the person I work with, and was like, there’s a Vietnamese deportee, what do you think about this case ?
And that was how Cam was able to be connected through APSC to Viet Unity and met Thao who took the bulk of a lot of this advocacy work for the last 4 or 5 years. Over time, VU raised funds for Cam to access, a criminal justice attorney, right, the people who are working with the Sacramento D. A. to clear her deportable charges and then, through our advocacy, was also able to work with an immigration attorney, Becca Kulos through Zachary Nightingale’s firm, who is Eddy’s original lawyer, who would be able to help her navigate the process of now that if you are non deportable, what do you need to do go from that to having a return to the U. S.? And so we met in this process as well. And this is sort of how Cam started to meet the team, the advocates would become her community support.
Cheryl Truong:We’ll be right back with more about the story at the first Vietnamese deportee to return to the United States Cam Tran after this music break. Folks interested in learning more in the meantime can check out the welcome cam home tool kit. At bit.ly/WelcomeCamHome . Link in the show notes.
We’re going to be listening to a track by the Khamsa Project. Khamsa, the Arabic word for five, is a multimedia art project, showcasing black, Muslim, immigrant, and refugee visual artists and musicians traversing the five stages of grief. They’ve launched art exhibits, music performances, dance shows, community events, podcasts, but this track in particular, Is from their self-titled hip hop album. Khamsa: the album. This is “something” by one of their collaborative artists Spote Breeze.
Welcome back. You are tuned in to apex express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 K PFB in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org. That was something called “Something” by Spote Breeze from the Khamsa Project.
We are back with Cam Tran, the first Vietnamese deportee to return home to the United States and and Victoria Huynh from APSC, who will be providing translations for this final half.
Once again, that was “Something” by Spote Breeze from the Khamsa Project..
Victoria Huynh: If people want to support Cam’s Re-entry home to me, it’s a historic win for so many different reasons. But also, I think is such a testament to her strength and love for her family.
You can go to bit.ly/WelcomeCamHome but those are like, welcome. W has a capital. Cam has a capital home has a capital. And you can donate to her GoFundMe as well. Currently, we’ve raised a good amount of community support for Cam, but re entry and the process of rebuilding your life is really difficult for anyone. So we would appreciate any support that people could provide. So there’s that,
Something else I was just thinking about that in the process of a lot of, I think the work we ended up doing, there’s the immediate stuff, right?
Of like fundraising and building camps, networking stuff. But a lot of it was working with these attorneys, who we had hired or who’d hopped on pro bono to navigate the really weird, knotted difficult things about Cam’s case and to try to navigate the system so that she could find a way through. I remember through the process of both the criminal attorney and the immigration attorney, right, me and Thao and others being interpreters was thinking, like, this is so difficult. It’s so difficult to do this by yourself. You know, a big part of why Cam’s deportable charges were dropped were also because she had an interpreter originally, but the communication broke down. She was not able to articulate the things that she needed or understand the possibilities of deportation in her original sentencing. In the process of going back and doing a motion to vacate, I was like, wow. What if Cam and people like her had had the support all along? Right? So cultural and language support, but also having a community or loved ones to guide you through such an isolating experience with the trust that you can make it through.
I am so struck still by how many points of intervention there were in her original sentencing and deportation that could have been stopped if she’d had the resources that I think a lot of survivors, Cam and people like this deserve. If she’d had more social support, could she have more easily navigated abusive situations? Could she have understood the context of a plea deal and a deportation order, all these things. I’m very happy that retroactively we were able to provide that for her, but it makes me hope more people can have this sort of resources that Cam deserves.
Cheryl Truong: Cam Victoria. And I ended up taking a break shortly after this. Telling one’s story, reliving trauma, and putting indescribable experiences into words. It’s a very taxing thing to do. But there was a question that kept lingering in my brain, which I’m sure all of you listening after hearing Cam’s story have the same question too. Which is what kept you going? And how did you find the strength to keep fighting such an unjust system?
To which Cam answered very simply. Her kids. And also her desire to help others. Victoria later shared. A story from a conversation they had around the workshops and programs they wanted to do to help other deportees now that Cam has finally returned to the United States. And what Cam said really stayed with me.
How truly, no one should have to go through this. It doesn’t matter the context of their cases, their charges, their characters. The Crimmigration system. The separation of families. The systemic lack of resources and support.
It’s something that should not be experienced by anyone. And that everyone deserves to be supported. And that everyone deserves to be free.
Cheryl Truong: apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – February 1, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
A teach-in by Queer Crescent in collaboration with Palestinian Feminist Collective – Palestine is a Queer Issue: Resisting Pinkwashing Now and Until Liberation. Featuring guest speakers Rabab Abdulhadi from Palestinian Feminist Collective, Ghadir Shafie of ASWAT, Shivani Chanillo from Lavender Phoenix, poetry by Mx Yaffa from Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD). Moderator by Shenaaz Janmohamed of Queer Crescent.
Important Links and Resources:1. Sign on to Queer Crescent’s Ceasefire Campaign for LGBTQI+ organizations and leaders 2. Queer Crescent’s Pinkwashing Resources 3. Queer Crescent Website 4. Palestinian Feminist Collective Website 5. ASWAT Instagram (@aswatfreedoms) 6. Lavender Phoenix Website 7. Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD) Website 8. Purchase Blood Orange by Mx. Yaffa
TranscriptShenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you all so much for being here today. Welcome to the “Resisting Pinkwashing Now Until Liberation” teach-in. Queer Crescent is honored to host this teach in in partnership with the Palestinian Feminist Collective, Lavender Phoenix, The Muslim Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity or MASGD, Teaching Palestine, and Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies
Thank you all so much for joining us and for tuning in. My name is Shenaaz Janmohamed. I use she and they pronouns. I’m the executive director of Queer Crescent.
Queer Crescent is really thrilled to offer this Teach-in and to be in learning with you all for the next hour and a half on Pinkwashing in particular, as we hold grief and rage and mourn towards healing, towards resistance, towards a free Palestine. Joining the resounding people all across the world who have been calling for a permanent ceasefire. To not let the violence and the destruction of Gaza go without our clear and determined voice to say that this is not okay, that we, our tax dollars should not be paying for this, that we do not consent to genocide. And as queer people, as trans people, it is very much a queer issue to be in solidarity with Palestine. For the next hour and a half we will take time to learn from Palestinian organizers.
in Palestine, in the U. S., around the ways in which this moment can be used to understand our relationship to pinkwashing in particular and to Palestinian solidarity in general. And so thank you again for being with us today.
We’re going to start our Teach in with poetry, because we deeply believe as a queer Muslim organization in the power of cultural work, cultural change, and imparting our shine as queer people into the culture. That is the way that our people have survived. That is the way that people share their histories their survivalship is through culture.
And so, before I bring up Yaffa, who’s a dear friend and comrade, and also the executive director of MASGD, the Muslim Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity, let me introduce Yaffa. Yaffa is a trans Muslim and displaced indigenous Palestinian. She is sharing poetry from her new book, Blood Orange, shout it out, please get a copy if you haven’t already, which is an emotional, important, and timely poetry collection.
Their writings probe the yearning for home, belonging, mental health, queerness, transness, and other dimensions of marginalization while nurturing dreams of utopia against the background of ongoing displacement and genocide of Indigenous people. Join me in giving some shine, energetic shine to Yaffa, and I’ll pass to you.
Mx Yaffa: Hi everyone. It’s so nice to be here with you all. So excited to share space with all of you, with all the incredible panelists, with the entire Queer Crescent team, y’all are just incredible. Right before this, me and one of the other panelists realized we could potentially be related. So that’s the beauty of having spaces like this, where you connect with people that you’ve kind of been missing your entire life, but you didn’t even know that they were missing. I’m excited to recite some poetry for you all from my new collection. Just a little bit about the collection before I recite some poetry.
This collection was written for the most part, on the weekend of October 13th to the 15th. Some of y’all might remember that there was an eclipse during that weekend. And I really wanted to find something that would really center queer and trans Palestinian experience in particular, and also would just support me in navigating my own processing of everything that’s going on.
I have family both in Gaza and the West Bank still. I’m originally from Jaffa and Jenin, but I’ve kind of lived in nine different countries. So when I say I’m displaced, it’s displacement from various different wars, various genocides, various everything. And the result of that was Blood Orange.
I tried to get it out as quickly as possible and here we are. The first poem that I’ll read is called “Healthy”. And I’ll talk a little bit about each of these poems after I read them. It’s called “Healthy”. We are not meant to be okay, when genocide is our neighbor that is funded by our labor.
We are meant to be a mess, our sleep tearing into reality, anxiety brewing, wondering what is hope. We are meant to tear at the seams of reality, realizing a reality built on oppression is bullshit. We are meant to realize and demand all we are worth. Self actualization, wholeness. Things systems built off of genocide can never.
Our response labeled by western capitalism as wrong is healthy. We move to wholeness always, they move to pain attempting to drag us with them. So this was actually the very first poem that I wrote for this collection and it was in that first week of the genocide immediately following October 7th when so many people were really struggling with what do we do with all of this, right? We’re witnessing an entire genocide right before our eyes. And what do we do? There was a lot of hopelessness going around and a lot of narratives, at least in what’s known as the United States and the global north that’s always told us that all of that is wrong. That we’re not supposed to be overwhelmed by things. But for me, with all the practices that I have, it’s actually healthy to be overwhelmed right now. We’re not supposed to know how to let genocide live in our bodies with ease. We still show up, we still do the things, and yet at the same time, we honor it.
That it is a large experience. This is not normal. This is not something that should be happening all the time or ever. And so really wanted to honor that of the world that we live in is not what we deserve. For us to be overwhelmed right now is actually healthy, is where we should be. So the second poem I will read kind of goes into the conversation of today around pinkwashing.
This one’s called “At Odds”.
My transness and a colonized perception of Palestine are at odds. They think it’s because of lack of modernity. I say I have only received death threats targeting my transness from white people, Zionists, and other various political affiliations. I say only white people around me have ever disowned their own.
Yet I do not talk to sisters who choose to buy into imperialist transphobia, claiming it as their own. My parents do not understand how some of their children could hate anything any of their children could be, why anyone would hate what they do not know. I won’t talk much about pinkwashing because I know we’ll get to that today. But in particular, most queer and trans Palestinians over these last eight weeks have been receiving such immense violence from the broader LGBTQ community telling us that our people are the ones who are going to kill us. I’ve been receiving death threats my entire life in particular as an organizer since I was 19, and I have literally never received a death threat from anyone from our region from any Muslim person. It has always been white people who have sent me death threats specifically for my queerness and my transness.
Let alone everything else. And so that, that poem just kind of honors that experience.
I’ll read one more, and I’ll say just a few words before I read this last one. For me, the arts are so important. Not just as a tool for resistance, but also as a tool for world building. Often we think of the world is what creates art, rather than art is what creates the world. If you look at literature, even with Zionism, Zionism was in literature 100 years before it was ever named. I think about that of what is the world that we are building, what is the world of tomorrow that we get to write about and paint about and do all different kinds of art forms about today.
And so this last poem kind of brings a little bit of that into it. The collection goes into the topic of utopia as we’re exploring all of these other things. and as we’re experiencing this genocide. So this last poem is called “Land Back”. I do not know names wiped from time in Gaza Like I do not remember the names Of great uncles and aunts Who have been reclaimed by our land To say they were murdered Is to claim loss that our land will never feel For we are made of her And regardless of how many layers of phosphor fill the air We return to her in our deaths They may exacerbate the process of our return, but return we shall.
Standing thousands of miles away, I know even here she will take me back for distance is a creation that is buried with bodies that were never ours. We are not the ones who take land back, it is land that takes us. There will come a day when the sun sets on a world and rises in another, when indigenous sovereignty is honored.
Where queerness no longer exists, where transness is no longer an identity, where humanity means something genuine.
So I wanted to end with that, on a note of everything that we’re doing right now, all of the resistance is world building. We’re building the world that we have always deserved. So I’ll leave you all with just one final thing about the book, like I mentioned, the reason I wrote this book in the first place and published it is to raise awareness about queer and trans Palestinians in particular and our experiences, and also to fundraise for queer and trans Palestinians both on the grounds in Gaza and in the diaspora. So 100 percent of all the proceeds from Blood Orange go directly towards that.
As we’re getting deeper and deeper into this, the needs of the queer and trans Palestinian community is getting so immense, both on the ground in the region and in the diaspora.
Over just the last few days, I’ve received over $20,000 worth of requests from individuals because people are being doxed, people are receiving death threats, people are losing their jobs. In one case, people are losing their children. There’s a lot happening. And so just wanted to leave with that. I want to invite you all to pay attention to those needs and honor them, especially as we go into next year and into the elections.
Thank you again for having me. It was such a pleasure to be here. And I’m so excited for the rest of this.
Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you so much, Yaffa. It’s so wonderful to have you here. And it feels so important to start our teaching with the ways in which poetry, culture, moves and inspires us. It opens our hearts in ways that feel both healing and necessary as part and parcel to our organizing and our deep learning. As my comrade and partner Saba says, to growing our empathy to be able to show up with more depth, more commitment, and more resolve towards these issues because we are deeply interconnected. So thank you again, Yaffa..
Before I turn to introduce our other panelists, I wanted to just ground us for a moment in why Queer Crescent, along with the many partners that I named at the beginning felt it was important to host this teach in.
Back on November 3rd, Queer Crescent in collaboration with the Palestinian Feminist Collective drafted and released a letter calling upon LGBTQI organizations, leaders, and influencers to join Queer Crescent and Palestinians in calling for an immediate ceasefire. And in particularly to take up understanding and resisting pinkwashing as a queer issue.
The frame ” Palestine is a queer issue” is very much an homage of Palestinian Feminist Collective who tirelessly make the links around gender justice, bodily autonomy, self determination, sovereignty to the project of Palestinian liberation. Seeing them as part and parcel of the same project of liberation, and we very much are inspired and in deep gratitude to PFC and all the tireless folks who make those links so clear and apparent to us.
We are also in deep gratitude to organizations like Al-Qaws, based in Palestine, who have been telling us about pink- washing for a long, long time, and we are finally doing our part to answer the call as an organization as Queer Crescent. Since we shared this letter, over 350 individuals have signed on, over 65 organizations have joined us in a commitment to calling for permanent ceasefire.
This teach in is part of our commitment to moving those who have signed, ourselves included, and the many others who have joined us today. To deepen our shared resolve to a free Palestine through learning about pink watching as a propaganda tool of Israel and settler colonial state violence, and to allow this moment to transform us so that the grief is not in vain, towards a more fierce committed and clear stance of solidarity with Palestinian liberation movement. As queer and trans people and within LGBTQI organizations, we have a distinct role to play to organize to undermine pinkwashing. Because pinkwashing works and functions on the backs of racist tropes of Palestinians, Arabs, SWANA, and Muslims more broadly.
We cannot let our vulnerabilities as trans and queer people be exploited in the pursuit of colonial violence and the genocide against Palestinians and all indigenous people. It was not surprising that some of the first folks who signed on to our letter were trans led organizations like the Transgender Law Center, like El/La, and indigenous organizations.
It’s not surprising because I think for folks who are leading trans led organizations, Trans and indigenous organizations, the relationship of self determination of bodily autonomy and to state violence and colonization is clear, right? Because ultimately colonization uses gender injustice and creating these wedges within our communities as a way to dampen our resistance and to keep us apart.
So, I don’t want to say more because our amazing speakers will speak and illuminate so much more of these issues. But I wanted to just state why it was important for Queer Crescent to support advancing these conversations. So, our first speaker today is Ghadir Shafie ( she and her). She is a Palestinian queer activist and the co founder of ASWAT, Palestinian Feminist Queer Center for Sexual and Gender Freedoms.
A passionate advocate for the intersectionality of the struggle of Palestinian queer women, fighting multiple forms of oppression as Palestinians in the context of Israel’s system of apartheid, military occupation, and settler colonialism, as women in a militaristic and imperialistic male dominated society, and as queers in the context of pinkwashing and homophobia.
Ghadir promotes active solidarity for Palestine through global feminism and with queers. Thank you, Ghadir. Pass it to you.
Ghadir Shafie: Thank you so much. Hello from Palestine. Thank you so much for organizing this teach-in on pinkwashing. I am grateful for your presence here with me, witnessing in this horrible, horrible time.
I will speak today for about 15 minutes, and I want you to bear in mind that since October 7th, Israel has killed over 18, 000 Palestinians. That is one Palestinian every 15 minutes. Imagine how many queer people are being killed daily by Israel. The scenes from Gaza are beyond description. They defy comparison, even for Palestinians, jaded by decades of occupation and settler colonial violence.
Devastated landscape filled with craters and the blackened ruins of what were once people’s homes, dead bodies or pieces of them. Orphaned children screaming in terror and incomprehension. Desperate survivors crying for food and water. Doctors despairing at the ever growing influx of wounded people they know they cannot treat.
As a queer Palestinian watching these images of horror, one stood out as particularly revolting in a rather different way. It shows an Israeli soldier in the middle of the rubble of one of the many residential neighborhoods in Gaza, flattened by the Israeli indiscriminate military strikes. In the distance, smoke from Israel’s carpet bombings hang in the air. The soldier is surrounded by Israeli tanks and demolish everything in their way. It is a scene of death and destruction The soldier stands holding a bright new rainbow flag. and Described it as a message of hope.
What hope can there be for 2.3 million Palestinians trapped over 16 years in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Gaza has become a graveyard for Palestinians. They have no water. No food and no electricity as Israel has cut off what little it allowed in through its already suffocating siege.
They seek shelter from Israeli bombings in hospital, UN schools, mosques, and churches, only to find these sites targeted by Israeli strikes. Those who can flee their homes along Israeli designated safe corridors only to have their vehicles shelved by the Israeli IDF soldiers. It seems incomprehensible that an Israeli soldier would pose a photo with a rainbow flag while participating in his army’s mass slaughter of Palestinians and destruction of half of Gaza’s homes. The truth is more sinister yet. This stunt, which was shared online by the Israeli state official social media accounts, is a textbook. example of obscene colonial pinkwashing. More than that, it is a pinkwashing on steroids. For years, Palestinian queers have denounced Israel’s pinkwashing, a cynical strategy designed to use self proclaimed support for LGBTQIA plus rights as a pink smokescreen to conceal its 75 years regime of apartheid, which oppresses all Palestinians, no matter of our gender.
or sexual orientation. All the while singling out queer Palestinians for persecution and blackmail. It is an attempt to falsely depict Israel as modern and a liberal country while diverting attention from its alignment with far right homophobic regimes and groups around the world and its current fundamentalist, racist, and homophobic government. In addition, Israel’s pinkwashing agenda is a colonial tool that has the racist aim to misrepresent Palestinians as backwards, homophobic, and thus not deserving of human rights. It also tries to convince us, as queer and trans people, that we are somehow foreign in our society, and tries to turn us against our Palestinians brothers and sisters.
I think there couldn’t be any better example of Israeli pink washing than the photo that the Israeli soldier with the rainbow flag in the rubble. Israeli pink washing has always been dishonest and dangerous. It has always been racist and colonial. It has allowed Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing, besiege, imprisonment, and murder of Palestinians, queer and non queer alike, for decades.
Now it’s being used to cover up for genocide.
In these dark times, Palestinians in besieged Gaza are bearing the brunt of Israel’s full blown genocidal war and ethnic cleansing. Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories of West Bank, meanwhile, are also facing escalating waves of killing, torture by both Israeli military and illegal sectors.
Apartheid, for Palestinians like myself inside Israel, is reaching new peaks as Israeli forces are targeting and suppressing any expression of sympathy with the oppressed. As hard as it is, we still maintain hope. We have no other choice. That hope comes from the grassroots mobilization that are forcing complicit governments and institutions to finally call for the bare minimum that is nevertheless the absolute priority: a ceasefire that will put a stop to Israel’s carpet bombing and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Queer groups have been extremely instrumental in our struggle for liberation. Queer groups have been an important part of the mobilizations. Nearly 40 LGBT, QA plus groups across Southwest Asia and North Africa called for the immediate ceasefire stating ” we stand with justice, equality, progress, and liberty.”
Throughout my life as a queer activist, I have proudly held the rainbow flag high as a symbol of queer inclusion, queer struggle, queer liberation, queer equality, and queer joy. The Israeli soldier participating in Israel’s genocidal war on my people in Gaza has desecrated the flag, has disgraced the flag, and made it a mockery for all it stands for.
Queer and trans people and groups are increasingly seeing through the pink smokescreen and rejecting Israel’s pinkwashing and its war crimes and crimes against humanity. We will not stand by as our flag and our identities are co opted and used to justify a genocide. I call upon queer allies around the globe to remember none of us is free until we are all free.
What can we do right now in these terrible times? Since 2005, Palestinians have proposed to you, our friends around the world, an entirely nonviolent method of ending Israel’s power over our lives. An academic and cultural boycott of Israel. This strategy is known as BDS, Boycott, Digestment and Sanctions.
BDS means boycotting all Israeli state sponsored institutions. This is not aimed at individuals, but at institutions financed by the state and that serve as extensions of the government that occupies us and keeps us under siege. We ask academics, staff and students not to speak at Israeli state funding organizations, including universities.
We ask artists and cultural workers not to perform in apartheid Israel. Make sure that your universities are divested from Israeli money. Do not take israeli money for your conferences or film festivals. Do not accept deceptively free propaganda trips to Israel. End complicity with the government of Israel by among other things, cancelling all joint projects activities that are complicit with Israeli universities.
Right now, the main demand is to stop the genocide. Stop the genocide and ask for ceasefire now.
So how can queer groups and queer people support queer liberation in Palestine?. One effort that is happening right now around the world is Queer Cinema for Palestine. Queer cinema for Palestine is a vibrant event that happens globally, established in 2021 to support queer art and queer cinema around the world.
Today, there are more than 270 filmmakers and artists who signed our pledge to boycott Israeli film festival, to boycott Israeli institutions, and support queer liberation in Palestine. Queer Cinema for Palestine is happening online in more than 15 locations around the world from the 2nd until the 10th of December.
Under the title, There’s No Pride in Genocide, we gather together as artists to support, Queer Cinema for Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. There’s not much to say. I think you’ve seen the image from Gaza. You’ve seen what is happening right now. This is not a regular panel on pinkwashing. It’s happening during a genocide, where pinkwashing is also used to promote genocide. So, may I ask you as a Palestinian and as a queer Palestinian, please keep talking about Palestine. Palestine is a queer issue. Gaza is a queer issue, and there’s no queer justice until we are all free. Thank you so much for organizing this and thank you so much for your work and activism on Palestine. You are saving lives right now. Thank you.
Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you so much, Ghadir. Thank you so much for your passion, your commitment, reminding us that hope is an active choice that you’re engaging in every day, despite all the odds, because that is the story of survival. Thank you for reminding and being so clear in the link to BDS boycott, divestment and sanction movement as tangible ways that we could be in solidarity with Palestine and to chip at the far reaching power of the Israeli state and settler colonial project.
Thank you for showing the ways in which queer folks and queer organizations. use culture and art to tell different stories of survival with the Queer Cinema for Palestine. And thank you for showing up and being here with us. Thank you for all the ways that you hold communities, your fullness, and time to share and to lead us today.
Wishing so much protection and safety to you and yours. Next we have Rabab Abdulhadi. Rabab Abdulhadi (she/her) is an internationally known scholar and distinguished professor and researcher. Her scholarship, pedagogy, and public activism focus on Palestine, Arab, and Muslim communities and their diasporas, transnational feminisms, and gender and sexuality studies. She is the Director and Senior Scholar in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies, and a Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, Race and Resistance Studies at the Historic College of Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University. She is also a treasure, a beloved teacher, organizer here in the Bay.
I feel really grateful that you’re here with us today for all the work, all the times that you’ve taught me. It’s really such an honor to be able to host you and invite you in, Rabab.
Rabab Abdulhadi: Thank you so much Shenaaz, and I begin by acknowledging that my own university, San Francisco State University, sits on stolen indigenous Ohlone people’s land, and I’m now on the east coast of the United States, where I am also present on the Lenape people’s land that has been stolen and people have been displaced, just like it is in Palestine.
I also want to thank Queer Crescent for organizing this with the Palestinian Feminist Collective and actually joining with Palestinian Voices. I’m very happy that my colleague, my sister, my sibling, Ghadir, was able to join us and has actually taken a lot of the things that I was going to focus on, and thank you, Yaffa, for especially naming even the poetry, Blood Oranges, because we know what oranges mean and how they have been used.
And many Palestinians can’t even eat oranges because it reminds them of the orchards that they’ve lost back home. So I start, if you don’t mind, just Putting the first slide on. Yeah. And this is a slide if people can see it.
This is actually was done in 2013 and it was organized by a group of underground artists, called themselves cultural jammers, to remake all the campaign that was at the time by Pamela Geller and other Zionist groups doing all this smearing and buying sides on the buses and so on.
And the reason I mentioned because there is a connection between the cultural jammers and also the whole naming of pink washing because pink washing, some people say, emerged in Palestine. Some people say it emerged in the U. S. Some people talk about the whole question of washing and then the question of pink and so on.
And I think for me as a researcher, a scholar, it’s very, very interesting because there are so many origins of every single way that we are having the struggles. And so the colonial boundaries and borders that the colonialists and settler colonists try to impose upon us don’t really work because we cross these borders at least maybe imaginary, maybe in our networks and so on.
But why is it that pinkwashing persists? Ghadir spoke a lot about it. I’m just going to just emphasize a couple of things. It is necessary, very important for Israel public relations. Public relations is a very important project for it. This is why Israel consistently demands of the Palestinians and the Arab countries and the world, not only to recognize Israel’s right to exist, but to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, which in itself a very racist notion.
And this is very much connected with the genocide that we’re seeing now in Gaza, that also we have seen for 75 years of Nakba and for over 100 years of colonization of Palestine, because , the slogan by the Zionist movement was “a land without people, for a people without the land.” We can talk about “for people without the land” a little bit later, but let’s talk about “a land without people”.
In order to accomplish that and legitimize it, you have to arrest the people. You have to erase them. You have to erase their presence. You have to also discredit their discourse, their work, their culture, their interaction, their social relations, in order for you to present yourself as Israel does. And as Ghadir mentioned, as a modern state that is making the desert blue, which we know is not true, and by contrast, is the best friend of women and queer people, as a gay haven, as opposed to quote unquote the backward, savage. excessively homophobic, excessively misogynist, Arab world, Arab and Muslim world, and in which Arab men and Arab and Muslim and Palestinian men are presented as irrational, bloodthirsty, misogynist, haters of women and Queer people, and as women as being docile, as being only oppressed constantly, and need to be rescued by the colonists who will come in and basically realize what Gayatri Spivak spoke about I don’t know, 30 years ago, the colonist project of trying to save brown people from brown communities and queer people from their own queer communities. And so in order for this to work, it has to be presented in all of these things that it is necessary.
And it’s very important for Israel to focus on its public relations. And this is something that has been actually very part and parcel of since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, a task that was assigned to the military, to the security of interior affairs to the Mossad, which is the CIA, outside intelligence, Shambit, the internal intelligence to everybody.
And now we see more and more the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and other is, and the whole question of quote unquote branding, which I put it in parentheses because branding also refers to the ways in which people engage in slavery actually used to quote brand people whose lives they owned.
So I put it in parentheses. I question it. But Israel is very big on that to brand Israel as a gay haven. Israel as a best liberator of women and so on.
This is also what we see today in the sense of Israel actually making a very public relation campaign and a very, very intensive campaign to claim that Palestinians have chopped off the head of children, which was even reiterated by the president of the United States without even thinking about it because he was quoting Israeli Officials who we know are not really known for telling the truth and then they had to retract it the second day but yesterday he repeated the same thing again and said there is the rape of women and so on which we do not have any evidence until now.
We know that a lot of Israeli groups and Zionist groups like this group Bonat Alternativa and others are alleging, but we haven’t seen any evidence of that. If there is any evidence of that, we will not stand for it. We condemn any kind of violations of gender and sexual, justice because we believe that gender and sexual justice is part and parcel with indivisibility of justice.
So this is not something we are trying to cover, but this is very much part and parcel of the Israeli propaganda and it’s churning machine, the Hasbara machine is everywhere and they keep changing their stories. And if we have time we can actually go over how each story has developed and moved from one place to the other.
I’m also talking about the ways in which colonial feminisms or colonial quote unquote feminism, because feminism is supposed to be about the liberation of women as part of liberation of everybody, have been very much engaged in. But within that, there is also notion of blaming the victim.
It is a very important aspect of it. So in order for the Israeli and the Zionist narrative to work, you have to blame people. And one of the very well known cases, for example, was the case of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the young Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped from in front of his house on July 2nd, 2014, right around the big, big 2014 war on Gaza we talked about, and kidnapped by Israeli settlers who took him to a forest in Jerusalem that was built on the ruins of the village of Deir Yassin, where the massacre on April 8th, 1948 happened in order to facilitate the creation of the Israeli state. And they made him drink kerosene and set him on fire and burned him alive, which was a clear case of lynching.
Now, what Israeli police tried to do was to actually say that Mohammed Abu Khdeir was killed by his own family to quote unquote salvage family honor. And they killed him because he was queer. And now if it wasn’t for his father who had videotapes of the security cameras outside of the house and showed it– the Israeli police tried to confiscate it and basically destroy it– showed that these people came and kidnapped him.
The relative would still be among colonists, among racists, among white supremacists, Zionists, that Palestinians are killing Palestinians and they are doing this all the time. So it’s not only blaming the victim, but it also instilling and reinforcing the narrative of people, not only Palestinians, this happens with all indigenous and all colonized communities and all communities of color from time immemorial.
You look at the history of the United States, this is something, this is a trope that keeps getting repeated again and again and again. And it’s not an easy trope because It is not something that’s only being said. It’s not only a discursive issue. It’s not a discursive issue that we need to deconstruct in the classroom because we know the history, including that.
But recently, many people started learning more about the case of Emmett Till, the young Boy who was killed and the woman who actually accused him came out and said that she lied, but he was killed and he was lynched. And then his mom insisted on having open casket so everybody could see the crime.
And there’s so many more examples that we don’t have time to get into all of them now, but this is part of the colonial narrative, the colonial strategy in order to discredit the people who are colonized and discredit their struggle.
And this is definitely a part in Gaza and it is, but the other thing is that it depends on the narrative of saying that our communities in particular as exceptionally sensitive and exceptionally traditional. And this is something that we saw in Abu Ghraib for example.
When they were talking about, we’re not going to show the images of iraqi men are particularly insensitive. But we were raising the question, which men are okay with it, which women, which anybody, which non gender binary person, who would be okay with being subjected to sexual and gender violence; to being displaced like this and so on.
Nobody will be. But the imaginary that it is trying to instill that’s built on Orientalist, Islamophobic, anti Arab, anti Palestinian, anti Muslim racism as part and parcel of all kinds of racism basically makes it possible to do a little dog whistle in order for you to enforce all of this.
We saw this also at the US Social Forum when Zionist groups stand with us, which now everybody knows what it is, tried to do a workshop around queer communities in the Middle East, and many of us objected to it. And the reason that it got through because the organizers thought that this would be something that would be actually really wonderful, bringing everybody together. They did not really investigate who this group was and what it was doing and did not coordinate with the many organizations that were at the U. S. Social Forum in 2010 in Detroit from our own community to see what is happening, what’s going on, are you part of this unparceled hat? Even though the Palestinian queer organizations have existed for a very long time, and I think it was by then, if I’m not mistaken, Ghadir you can correct me that we organize a national tour and for all calls throughout the U S in order for people to speak and you all came and spoke in my own classroom. This is part of the stuff that keeps going back. And this is also the same thing that we hear around this group that I’ve mentioned now, and this propaganda that’s happening, and also in terms of the ways when we passed the resolution on BDS in the National Women’s Studies Association 2015, many Zionist groups came out and basically came with the whole question is there a place for Zionism and feminism? Many of the feminist groups have been targeted, including the International Women’s Strike and so on. This is a continuous, systemic, persistent thing. This is not something that is out of random or accidental. And so what do we do about this? In addition to what Ghadir said, I think it’s really, really important for us to say, how do we fight back?
We fight back with multiple ways. One of the ways we do for example, organizing this in the classroom. So one of the things that we do in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicity and Diaspora Studies program ever since we were founded in 2007 is every single year we were partnering with the Pride Month at San Francisco State to organize sessions on the whole question of queer justice, and this is one of them. Even after San Francisco State stopped funding pride month, we continue doing it again and again. We believe that it’s really important to connect the knowledge within the classroom with the knowledge outside and with the activism and advocacy.
We do not separate what happens in the classroom, what happens in the academy from outside. So the academy is not producing knowledge that is divorced from reality. The people who are organizing are part and parcel of that. And so we’ve been doing this again and again. The other thing that is really, really important to think about is how do we work here, and I’m talking here in the diaspora, with groups on the ground, Palestinian queer groups who are working? So one of the examples that I would like to cite from our own experiences is when Al-Qaws was attacked by Palestinian police in Nablus trying to hold an event. My hometown Nablus. We were going to rush and say something, but we waited and we coordinated with Al Qaws and we asked, what should we do?
And we did not do anything until Al Qaws came out because we were objecting to the whole question of saving queer people from queer communities, saving brown people from brown communities, the whole question of the colonial notion. And we were also taking leadership from the people on the ground who are day in and day out struggling. Once Al-Qaws came out with it, what we did is we published in one of the newspapers in the Bay Area, along with Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, which is a group that has been doing a lot of work for a very long time, and whose founder actually was chosen to be the Grand Marshall at Gay Pride Parade at San Francisco.
And she turned down this honor and said, because I am here in Palestine struggling with the International Solidarity Movement at the time to oppose the apartheid world to oppose the repression by Israel and so on. So we organized together. And that’s when we said we endorse. We support. This is really important sometimes to think about how do we take a back road and when is it we go public with things. At this point, we really need to go public and we need to defy all this propaganda that is happening.
This is part of what the solidarity mean. But this is not free. When we do something like this, there is punishment. And these are some of the flyers I’m showing from the Queer Liberation March that took place in 2019. This was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall, Uprising. The Queer Liberation March at that time actually decided to refuse any corporate funding, to refuse to allow the police to go march in their own uniforms and so on, rejected the policing, rejected the state apparatus that represses people, rejected the corporate money and so on. As a result, there was space for us to be there.
So we were organizing, we organized a big contingent under the banner of QAIA, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, and also Queers A gainst Islamophobia.
So we participated and I took this banner and I put it on my Facebook page. This led to the another Zionist attack, which is trying to silence Palestine and were trying to criminalize Palestine in the curriculum, and especially targeting us and our program in particular. And they took it and didn’t say what was on the banner. They just said that I’m spreading hate, and thus I should be– they had 86 organizations, some of them fake organizations– sign it, send it to the university, to the chancellor of California State University to the president of San Francisco State, saying that I’m spreading hate. This for them is hate.
Palestine is a queer issue. BDS Zionism is racism. Silence means death. For them, this was something that was very problematic, and it was something that is undermining the Zionist propaganda, and Zionist project of colonizing Palestine and eliminating the Palestinian people like the genocide that we are seeing here, and trying to continue pushing the pink washing without having it exposed.
As a result, our program has been attacked again and again. The Lawfare Project executive director got on the TV, on Fox and friends, and made a lying statement. They sued me. And they sued San Francisco State and they sued California State University. But we defeated them. It was thrown out of court. It was dismissed with prejudice. But she lied about that. And she said that I’m spreading hate; that I’m one of the leading anti Semitic– Horowitz every single year pushes out a formula about the top anti-Semitic scholars, and they always give me number one. And I think they do it in May because this is the fundraising season for them. As a result, I started receiving death threats. However, and including to my own university and the threat voicemails on my office mail that said Muslims will die, which is the same phrase that the guy who killed Wadiah Al-Fayyumi in Chicago, stabbing him 26 times.
He said Muslims will die. The university does not believe that this is actually a viable threat. And so they protect the right wing speech, which is white supremacist and Zionist is a protected speech protected that they can do whatever they want, put up hateful posters, do whatever they want against us, but we are not allowed to say so.
And the university is not investigating death threat letters that actually came to me through the University President’s office to my own office. However we refuse to be silenced. We refuse to lie down. And so we continued organizing. And one of the main events that we organize, and we do it every year, is this panel Queer Open Classroom that everybody can attend and come in. Queer justice against pink washing, exposing it, bringing scholars and activists, Ghadir was one of the people who spoke at that, in order for us to support liberation for Palestine as part of liberation of all, and to support gender and sexual justice as part and parcel of the indivisibility of justice.
Thank you.
Shenaaz Janmohamed: Oh, Rabab. I hope that you can feel all the tremendous. gratitude and love that you’re getting in the chat. I think that there is such a clear longing to be hearing stories from elders, folks who have been in this fight for so long. Thank you for bringing in the long arc of queer Palestinian organizing.
Thank you for bringing the long arc and history of queers being in solidarity for Palestine. It’s so important that we understand that while this moment is so important for us to study, learn and act. It rests upon such a long arc and such a long history of organizing in solidarity with Palestine. Thank you for also speaking to Mohammed Abu Khdeir, thank you for speaking him into the space.
Thank you for both of you reminding us to follow the lead of queer Palestinians. What we’re trying to do with you all today with this teach-in is to really pull us together, circle around and invite us all to be following the lead of queer Palestinians so that we can take on this work as inextricably linked to our own liberation; to advance the work of undermining pinkwashing and Zionism as part and parcel to our queer liberation.
So thank you so much, Rabab. Our last speaker, Shivani Chanillo with Lavender Phoenix. Shivani (they/them) is a trans non- binary second generation Indian American organizer. Shout out to the baddy Indian organizers out here, myself included. Their experience of active solidarity with Palestinian folks came in 2017 through exchanges they facilitated between their high school students in Baltimore, and students at Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank.
These powerful exchanges stoked Shivani’s passion for developing young people as critical thinkers grounded in revolutionary values and politics. As a leadership development coordinator at Lavender Phoenix, an organization that Queer Crescent deeply loves and feels deeply supported by and in deep siblingship with.
Shivani continues this work by facilitating opportunities for trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders to practice values based organizing and contribute to intersectional movements. In particular, I just want to really say that we were so excited to invite Shivani and Lavender Phoenix in to our teach in as the final speaker, because Lavender Phoenix is one organization that really models, going back to the initial motivation of this teach in with our letter calling for a permanent ceasefire, calling on LGBTQ organizations and leaders to sign on to understanding pink washing and to support Palestinian liberation.
Lavender Phoenix is one such organization that has really demonstrated such values align solidarity with Palestinian liberation. And so I’m really excited to bring you in Shivani to close us out to talk about how queer people, queer organizations can really double down on our solidarity.
Shivani Chanillo: Thank you so much Shenaaz for that introduction and to Queer Crescent for organizing this event. I just want to take a moment and just, I feel so deeply moved by the sharing from Rabab and Ghadir in this workshop and just sitting with the lineage within all of us as we take up Palestine as a queer issue. We have generations of lessons and decades of work and such powerful leaders here in this space, but all across the world to follow, and I feel so grateful and so excited to be joining in on this work and sharing a little bit about what Lavender Phoenix is doing in this moment.
If you haven’t heard of Lavender Phoenix, we build trans non binary and queer Asian and Pacific Islander power here in the Bay Area. We are a base building organization training grassroots leaders to build intersectional movements. As we witness an escalation of the ongoing genocide in Palestine I can say that our base is firmly grounded in the understanding that Palestinian liberation is part of our struggle and our responsibility as trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islander people.
And so I want to start by sharing a little bit about what we’re doing in this moment, before sharing about how our members arrived to this point. Since October 7th we have shifted our work accordingly. We have dedicated time to mobilize our members and our broader communities to action. We have educated each other to stay politically grounded.
We have and will continue to support each other to process the grief of this moment and to remember hope, optimism, and commitment. In so many facets of our work, we are stepping into deeper leadership and responsibility to support our Palestinian comrades to win. And more tangibly across our six member led committees, this looks like offering healing support, coordinating our members who are trained in protest and digital security to support our comrades, coordinating contingents at in person and online actions, moving financial resources and funder attention to our Palestinian partners, and uplifting pro Palestinian messaging and calls to actions using our social media reach.
Responding to Palestine and challenging pinkwashing is not a shift in our priorities, but it’s actually a sharpening of our focus as an organization. We’ve organized our base over the years to recognize our interconnected struggles, and across our membership, we so deeply understand that the Palestinian struggle is our struggle.
And Palestinian futures are our futures. All of the actions we are taking right now to support Palestine, to challenge pinkwashing are the result of so many tests, experiments, and trials that have helped us deepen our political purpose and grow our power. Many of these experiments and trials that we’ve conducted over the years really informed our current theory of change. And this is really critical to how we’re organizing in this moment. Our emergent responses to sharpen contradictions in our world like we are witnessing with Palestine, are only possible because we organize within a consistent theory of change.
A key part of our theory of change and a key part of my role as Leadership Development coordinator, is that we are committed to developing leaders who are rooted in our values, in our history, in emotional intelligence, and compassion, because we know that is how our movement will be sustained and will be effective.
So we’re not just developing members and masses who care about single issues, we’re developing holistic, critical thinkers who care about solidarity with all oppressed people so that in moments like this, solidarity with Palestine is a natural choice in our larger fight for liberation. One of the really important ways we do this, and this workshop is a critical example, is we educate our base, our trans and queer API base, on our history.
We dig into how systems of white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism, racial capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy impact all of us across our identities in the past and in the present. Right now, the tools and tactics being wielded by fascist leaders to criminalize and punish trans people here in the U. S. are rooted in the same white supremacist, colonial, and imperialist ideologies used to justify the dehumanization and murder of Palestinians, particularly trans and queer Palestinians. As part of our theory of change, we’ve also spent intentional time educating our base about revolutionary politics like abolition and healing justice, and developing our skills for safety, for healing and resource mobilization that are applicable in moments all across our movement.
We spent so much time since we implemented this theory of change in 2021 to build our base and grow our power so we can show up for our partners who are organizing for Palestinian liberation in this moment. We have spent so much time cultivating our skills and knowledges so we can support our movements beyond just trans liberation.
I want to end just by sharing a little bit of a story. A few weeks ago, our members participated in a direct action that asked many of them to step into higher risk than they had before. Prior to the action, we met to get grounded together. Folks shared their fears, but they also countered those fears with a really rooted sense of purpose.
So many of our members talked about how they wanted to look back on this moment and know that they and we as an organization did everything in our power to support Palestinian liberation. And they spoke about the sacred responsibility and duty we have in this moment to show up in solidarity. I feel so moved, even now, just thinking back to that moment and feel so much gratitude to our members for taking new risks, to the generations of leaders in our organization and our movement who have led us to this point, and I feel immense admiration and gratitude to the long lineage of Palestinian queer and trans resistance, and current day organizers who are guiding us right now.
For Lavender Phoenix, this moment is really helping us clarify our power, and for many of our members, this moment is helping them clarify their political purpose. The things all of our Palestinian siblings are fighting for, self determination, safety, healing, community, decolonization, these are the things that we as trans and queer API people here in the Bay Area so desire for ourselves as well.
We refuse to let our transness and our queerness be co opted for violence and displacement and genocide, and we know that our struggles and our futures are united, and we’re committed to fighting alongside our Palestinian comrades until we are all free. Thank you so much for letting me share. I’ll pass it back to Shenaaz.
Shenaaz Janmohamed: Shivani, thank you so much for bringing all of it. Lavender Phoenix, I just can’t swoon on y’all enough. You model that clarity of purpose and power and grace. There’s also such deep humility and grace to be in constant learning. As an emerging organization, an emerging queer organization, I just have to say Queer Crescent feels so deeply held by y’all and really inspired with the path that you are leading and inviting us all towards.
This piece around letting this moment sharpen the focus. It’s not a pivot. I think I’ve even said, we’re pivoting, we’re in rapid response. Part of our political principles as an organization is understanding anti Zionism as part and parcel of the white supremacist project.
And so this is not a pivot, it’s not a rapid response, but to your point, it’s a sharpening and it’s a double down of our commitments, principles and priorities. So thank you for naming that.
Cheryl Truong: And that’s the end of our show. Tonight’s show was a broadcast of the Resisting Pinkwashing teach-in co-led by Queer Crescent and the Palestinian Feminist Collective. It was moderated by Shenaaz Janmohamed, executive director of Queer Crescent and featured poetry by Mx. Yaffa of MASGD, and guest speakers, Rabab Abdulhadie from the Palestinian feminist collective, Ghadir Shafie of ASWAT, and and Shivani Chanillo from AACRE Group Lavender Phoenix. Learn more about the incredible work of these incredible organizations and sign on to Queer Crescent’s cease fire campaign through the links in our show notes.
Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – January 18, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – January 11, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – January 4, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – December 28, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #14
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.
Episode #14
This month’s episode is features a guest DJ JING JING. DJ Jing Jing is a mother and world traveler. She was born and raised in LA and has lived in the south of France, Paris, and Barcelona. The collection of music DJ Jing Jing presents in this episode spans the sounds reminiscent of her travels with artists and skateboarders over the past two decades.
Instagram: @maryjanesanb
Lisa Lowe’s Book:
In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press
About the Producer IS4C:
Paige Chung is a writer and DJ. Her last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and her current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Listen to Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents on KPFA 94.1 and Sun Salutations on Twitch TV. Based in Los Angeles but she rolls everywhere. She currently trains at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound and studies Performing and Media Arts as a PhD student at Cornell University.
Lastly, special shoutout to my QT Việt Crew, deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.
Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU
- Website
- Twitch
- Mixcloud
- SoundCloud
PLAY LIST:
OASIS – SMOKE CIRCLE
STEPPING RAZOR – PETER TOSH
ERNIE – FAT FREDDY’S DROP
THE CHOCOLATE CONQUISTADORS – BADBADNOTGOOD, MF DOOM
TENDME – IBRAHIM HESNAWI
FUJI – SWUM
LYING TOGETHER (INTERLUDE) – FKJ
SKY RESTAURANT – HI-FI SET
SPACE – GALT MACDERMOT
LOS INDIOS – MONGO SANTAMARIA
DUST A SOUND BOY – SUPER BEAGLE
BABA HOOKER – ZAP MAMA
LAXMIKANT-PYARELAL – YEH GALIYAN YEH CHAUBARA (JHANKAR BEATS)
ME GUSTAS TU – MANU CHAO
APPROACH WITH CAUTION FEATURING SAMPA THE GREAT – QUAKERS
THE HEALER – ERYKAH BADU
SOLDIER OF LOVE – SADE
TONTON DU BLED – 113
HNA DJINA ZIYAR EL BOUASRIA – ZAHOUANIA
AUDITORIUM FEATURING SLICK RICK – MOS DEF
PART TWO: NIGHTMARE LUST – RAVI SHANKAR
GENERALENS EIENDOM – KARPE
AMAZON – M.I.A.
SHIKI NO UTA (TRIBUTE TO SAMURAI CHAMPLOO) – MINMI
CANTO DE OSSANHA – JURASSIC 5
HOOLIGAN FEATURING NIA ANDREWS – MARK DE CLIVE-LOWE
DARKEST LIGHT – LAFAYETTE AFRO ROCK BAND
BOY WHO CRIED WOLF – KMD
The post APEX Express -12.21.23 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #14 DJ MIU, DJ JING JING appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – 12.14.23 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
DESCRIPTION:Shenaaz and Saba of Queer Crescent and Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A of Lavender Phoenix join Cheryl for this week’s episode of APEX Express!
This first half of the episode dives into the insincerity of pinkwashing and the ways it has been utilized by the Israeli government to exploit LGBTQIA+ rights to distract from their oppressive policies towards Palestinians, both queer and non-queer. Shenaaz and Saba brilliantly expose the ways pinkwashing perpetuates Islamophobia and racist tropes about Palestinians, along with Arab, Muslim, and SWANA communities and shed light on the long history of trans and queer organizing within Palestine, uplifting work of Al Qaws, an organization at the forefront of Palestinian cultural and social change that builds LGBTQ communities and promotes new ideas about the role of gender and sexual diversity in political activism, civil society institutions, media, and everyday life. Queer Crescent urges queer organizations and leaders to speak up, take action, and demand a ceasefire, writing that “As trans, queer and non-binary people we understand too well what is at stake when our self-determination and sovereignty are removed. Palestine is a queer issue, and it is our duty to listen and learn from queer Palestinians who are living under Israeli occupation, and in the imposed Diaspora”. You can sign on to Queer Crescent’s ceasefire campaign at bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue.
In the second half of the show we are joined by Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A of Lavender Phoenix who emphasize the importance of care within the Palestine Liberation movement, urging our listeners to not fall into feelings of inaction. They highlight the importance of grief routines and using grief and rage as tools for momentum, and ask the provoking difficult question: What could it look like for people to feel as safe at a protest as they feel at home? We also gain intimate insight into the ways Lavender Phoenix has been organizing, as Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A emphasize the interconnectedness of all of our struggles and the interconnectedness of all of our freedoms.
IMPORTANT LINKS + RESOURCES:1. Queer Crescent’s website 2. Queer Crescent’s Call for Ceasefire Sign-On 3. Queer Crescent’s Pinkwashing Resources 4. Al Qaws’s website 5. Lavender Phoenix’s website
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:Cheryl: Good evening. You are tuned into apex express. We are bringing you an Asian American and Pacific Islander point of view from the bay and around the world. I’m your host, Cheryl and tonight is an acre night, which is short for Asian Americans for civil rights and equality. Apex express is proud to be one of the 11 API social justice groups within the acre network, working to advance positive social change. Tonight, we have two very spectacular guests here with us, Shenaaz and Saba from Queer Crescent. It is such an honor to have you both here with us today. Do you mind introducing yourselves? Who are you and who are your people?
Saba: Hi, I’m Saba Taj. I am the communications coordinator for Queer Crescent. And, who are my people? Oh gosh, this is a beautiful question, and I think one that, changes at different moments. In large part, I really feel like I am on the side of humanity and Global dignity. As a queer Muslim from the South that struggle for our collective dignity often centers folks whom I share identities with and just more broadly, really thinking about individuals who are marginalized on multiple fronts. And so, yeah, that’s a really kind of vague answer. There’s a lot of different folks that are included, but, I hope that answers it for you.
Shenaaz: Yeah, thanks Cheryl for inviting Saba and I on the show. Hi folks, I’m Shenaaz Janmohamed. I’m the founder and executive director of Queer Crescent. I’ve been asked this question ” who are my people” at different times and in the past would have this litany of folks that come to mind: parents, queers, misfits, etc.
And I think what I’m feeling now and what I’ve noticed is that litany of folks can sometimes make the world feel smaller. What I’m pushing and striving towards is feeling a sense of home with more and more folks where there’s political alignment. There’s values alignment. We’re struggling together. So this notion of who are my people feels like it’s more of a question than it’s an answer. And it keeps me hungry for finding more and more.
Cheryl: Wow. Thank you both so much for your thoughtful answers and for setting the tone of our conversation in such a provocative and intentional way.. Do you mind telling us about Queer Crescent, the work that you do, and also about your current cease fire campaign?
Shenaaz: Sure, yeah, I can kick us off and then Saba feel free to weigh in. So Queer Crescent, started really as a response to the ways in which many of us, I say queer Muslim and I really mean the range of LGBTQIA plus experiences, trans folks, non binary folks, intersex folks, et cetera. So Queer Crescent really started as a drop-in support group when the Muslim and African travel ban was imposed in 2017. At the time I was working as a mental health worker largely with high schoolers and I also had a private practice. As a queer Muslim recent parent at the time was really feeling like a sense of placelessness and lack of political home where all parts of me would be held whole. And so I put together a support group and it was an overwhelming response in the community. Over 30 people would show up every two weeks. I’ve lived in the bay for about eight nine years at the time and I was meeting so many different people. Really the seedling of that support group led to this more national organization stretching towards base building and power building with marginal Muslims, queer Muslims. It really was like trying to create a space where we could be held and seen and move from that place of the complexity and the entireties of our identities.
In terms of the ceasefire campaign, I’ll kind of foreground it and then kick it to Saba, over the last several years that Queer Crescent has grown we’ve been able to build really solid relationships with other movement partners and other queer organizations.
And linking to Palestine solidarity around bodily autonomy has always been something that has been top of mind. The assaults on Gaza are consistent and they have been for many years so when October 7th happened and the assault on Gaza and this genocide has been so intense, it required all hands on deck. Many folks who are committed to the liberation of Palestine have been calling for ceasefire. And so I asked myself, what can Queer Crescent do to play a role in calling for ceasefire and what are the links that are possible to make.
Pinkwashing was a natural connect because it is very much a queer issue. Queer organizations like Al Qaws in Palestine and so many others have been talking to us about pinkwashing and making those links. It felt like a good opportunity to call for ceasefire while also doing some political education around the importance of queer people understanding and interrupting and taking on pinkwashing as part of queer liberation.
Saba: Shenaaz, I feel like you covered the grounding. That was, I think, perfect. But Cheryl, there’s additional questions about the campaign.
Cheryl: Yes! I have many questions. For starters, what is pink washing and Saba I’m taking this line directly from Queer Crescent’s ceasefire campaign description, which you wrote. How is pinkwashing used as a strategy to advance Zionist colonial violence?
Saba: Yeah. So pinkwashing is a form of propaganda that’s used by Israel. The aim of it is ultimately to dehumanize the Palestinian people and use this racist trope that Arabs and Muslims and Middle Eastern SWANA people are anti queer and trans and are ultimately homophobic and backwards.
It’s part of a larger narrative of these groups of people not being with the times and trying to create some sort of image. Not trying to, but very actively pushing a story that Israel is the place of progress, of freedom, when in fact they are using these stories of Palestinians, Muslims, et cetera, being homophobic as an excuse to dehumanize them as cover for their own violent actions. So it’s a distraction from their racist and violent policies, projecting an image of freedom and safety for queer people in Israel that is not in fact true. You can’t be for queer liberation while also bombing these people and oppressing this entire group.
There’s no way for those things to happen at the same time, and I think it’s part of a larger strategy that we see also play out in terms of feminism. That story is very familiar, where after 9 11, we have to go save Muslim women from these evil, savage Muslim men, and to do so, we’re going to bomb all of these communities.
It’s a strategy you utilize to justify violence. It splits our communities in ways like a divide and conquer sort of tactic; this larger story of you can’t be queer and Muslim at the same time, or you can’t be a feminist and be Muslim at the same time. And that ultimately serves to split our movements and reinforce a racist stereotype that makes the larger public feel that it is justified to behave in violent and oppressive ways towards an entire people through some excuse that they actually don’t care about one another. Shenaaz, if you want to jump in.
Shenaaz: I appreciate the links you’re making and ultimately I think pinkwashing strategies or the splitting that you’re talking about requires a betrayal of the self. Only if you betray some part of yourself can you feel a sense of belonging. And as queer people in our queer bodies, we know that is just not the case.
When your experience is being exploited, it’s very evident. The work ahead is both combating the colonial violence, making the violence stop, demanding ceasefire now, and the continuous work of continuing to show up in our full selves as queer people, and affirm our sense of belonging within our communities despite both the state violence and the ways in which our belonging is interrupted, both from external forces and internal.
Cheryl: Thank you both so much. I think that imagery of splitting. And the ways pink washing shows up, especially for queer Muslim people is really powerful, especially that line Shenaaz, pink washing requires a betrayal of the self. Could either of you talk a little bit more on the impact of this splitting internally within SWANA communities.
Shenaaz: Well, I don’t think that Saba and I could speak to experiences of SWANA folk because neither Saba and I are SWANA, we’re both South Asian. I think the ways in which we come into this conversation, as folks who are Muslim who grew up in Muslim community and that adjacent experience, where Queer Crescent’s central project is to blow breath into what it means to be a Muslim.
And so Muslim multiplicity, nuance, contradictions, self determination around what your relationship to Muslim is, and a self determined Muslim identity. One of the many functions of Islamophobia and anti Muslim racism as an outgrowth of white supremacy is to dehumanize people.
In the case of what Saba was saying earlier, it limits what can be possible of a people. There’s this assertion that Muslim communities are inherently homophobic, inherently patriarchal. There were queer Muslim folks prior to colonization. It was the advent of colonization with it’s imposed Christian, dogmatic, very strict notions of gender that actually interrupted what was otherwise a much more fluid sense of gender. So part of it is understanding those lineages and that history. And then it’s also confronting the realities that are present today.
Saba: Yeah. I think it also really obscures a lot of reality as well.
One that there are queer Palestinians who are organizing and doing this work within their own communities, Al Qaws being folks that we really look to and want to amplify and follow their leadership. But even in the U. S., you can really see clearly this story of we are in the United States, the harbingers of progress, and yet anti trans laws and the oppression, the silencing of queer people and trans people in this country– we haven’t solved these things. . It’s a story that is used for a particular purpose and that purpose is just to justify war. That is the actual priority. It’s not about queer liberation. It feels incredibly obvious that is not actually the priority of the United States or of Israel, especially when if they were actually to be for progress, for queer and trans liberation, by design, that means you would not be moving in these ways.
Cheryl: That was perfectly said.
There is the strange dissonance going on with pink washing that, just as you said Saba, has nothing to do with trans and queer liberation at all. I know queer Crescent has compiled a thorough pink washing resource list. How can our listeners access that?
Saba: We put out a call to queer orgs to sign on to a letter that outlines that Palestine is a queer issue and is naming pinkwashing in particular as a framework that we need to be very familiar with because it’s a copy paste situation. This pinkwashing strategy is used really clearly and blatantly by Israel but also more broadly applied in other circumstances as well. So really calling on queer folks to understand that we have stakes in this and as Organizations as individuals who are committed to that liberation. We must recognize and move in a way that centers Palestine also as a queer issue, connect to it in that way.
It is our responsibility. So the letter is online. It’s bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue. It can also be found via our Instagram. It’s one of the links in our bio as well as the pinkwashing resources, which can be further accessed via that letter. That’s a great way to get connected with us.
We are also planning some pinkwashing teach ins, so that we can help further this political education and make those connections so folks feel empowered to speak on this issue and bring more folks into calling for a ceasefire, understanding that this is in our broad interest as a community of LGBTQI plus organizations and individuals.
Shenaaz: Yeah. The only piece that I would add is this is a really horrific. moment of witnessing genocide and the fight for a free Palestine is a long fight. And so this is also a moment to shore up deeper solidarity. And part of solidarity is supporting people with learning the ways in which they, our struggles are connected.
And again really helping queer people understand pink washing, both as such a well oiled used tool of Israel and its settler colonial project and occupation of Palestine, but also the ways in which Israel is this. Model for other colonial powers to learn from through military, through cops and also pinkwashing.
We see, for example, India adopting pinkwashing strategies as well to again blur its power and its own project of ethnic cleansing of Muslims, Dalits, Christians, and anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the Hindu fascist notion Modi and his government is trying to push. And so it’s also really important for queer people to understand this strategy of pinkwashing, to interrupt the Israeli propaganda, but also to notice and be on alert for other colonial and state forces that also use pinkwashing to further other political gains that are in direct opposition to us having safety and bodily autonomy and freedoms.
Cheryl: All of these amazing resources will also be linked within our show notes. For maybe one of the final questions do you mind expanding more about this interconnectedness between all of our movements, how to quote from the ceasefire campaign “as a queer Muslim org we recognize that there is no queer trans non binary and femme Muslim liberation without Palestine. Could you expand on this a little bit more?
Saba: Yeah. the interconnectedness of our struggles is just such a critical piece, that shows up in this moment and so many others. And I can track that and name as a queer Muslim person, the Black Lives Matter movement was also integral. When we think about our freedom, we must always be looking towards how we can disrupt, dismantle systems of oppression, of policing, of dehumanization that are perpetuated across so many different lines. And that connection I think is really critical because it becomes so easy to think about safety on an individual level. How can I personally be comfortable? How can I personally be safe? But oftentimes what that requires within a capitalist framework is somebody else not being safe.
As long as our systems of safety are contingent on the oppression of one or many groups, none of us are actually safe. If you look deep into policy, just to further articulate this, the Patriot Act not only impacted Muslims in the U. S. and more broadly, but immigrants. We’re not only Muslim, you see that police violence in the U. S. is not disconnected. Anti blackness that is so obvious and rife in our policing in the United States is also in relationship with Israel. Much of the police across the nation is trained by Israeli IDF. And if we’re not actually seeing those connections, then ultimately we are not dismantling those larger systems that serve to direct their violence, their silencing towards different groups at different times, but ultimately all serve to uphold white supremacy.
I think it can be very tempting when it feels like the target is not specifically on our own back to feel like maybe we can find some safety by being close have some proximity to whiteness in different moments. And we really need to resist that urge. Even when they’re not looking directly at us, if there is a group of people who are being named as enemy, who are being actively dehumanized whether that is subtle or blatant, that is all of our business, and those are strategies that will be certainly used against us at a different time when it’s in the interest of consolidating white supremacy.
These strategies can be used to target so many of us. Also this notion that we are separate groups is also often not the case. There is overlap so we must, at all turns, be on the side of liberation, on the side of pushing for community care, as opposed to our money going towards violence, which is the root of so much of this. The interests of the
- S. and Israel is power at the expense of people, not actually about how to care for their own people.
Shenaaz: Yeah, if I could just build on that as well. I think that’s such an important point that you’re making when there is one community that is facing assault in this case, Palestine and Palestinian liberation movement organizers.
It also becomes a moment where harmful policies and decisions are made in rapid fire to your point around the Patriot Act. For example, right now there is the potential of a reauthorization of section 702, which is a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and Queer Crescent is a part of many other Muslim progressive organizations that are trying to resist this.
But this moment of increased violence against Palestinians that is being met by mass mobilization in the form of protest, of shutting things down, deep solidarity is being met from the elected official side and the state side with more more strategies for repression. We’re seeing much more police force at protest. And then we’re seeing things like the reauthorization and the expansion of the surveillance apparatus and the surveillance state. And so while that is Popping up in response to the swell of solidarity with Palestine, everyone will suffer under more expansion of surveillance, not just Palestinians, not just Muslims, right. So it is then both our responsibility to be in solidarity as people who are committed to liberation for a free Palestine, but is also tactically and strategic for us to be stronger together. And those that are the most vulnerable under increased suppression and surveillance are those that the most on the margins, be it poor working class, disabled, queer, trans, sex workers, incarcerated, et cetera. There’s always so many things happening simultaneously and we need each other, you know, in short.
Cheryl: We do need each other. Well, Shenaaz, Saba, thank you both so, so much for being on tonight’s show. For all of our listeners out there, to stay in contact and to keep up with Queer Crescent’s work, Shenaaz, do you mind reminding us one last time how our listeners can keep up with Queer Crescent?
Shenaaz: Yeah you can follow us, our website is queercrescent.org. Thanks to Saba, we have a pretty active social media presence through Instagram, so it’s @queercrescent. And then the amazing, resources and call for ceasefire, is at bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue
Thank you so much for having us on, Cheryl, and I think it’s really important before we end to give a strong solidarity and love to Al Qaws, the Palestinian queer organization in Palestine, who have been talking to many of us about pinkwashing, about resisting colonialism, and about really centering liberation and queerness as two things that are not mutually exclusive, but part of the same liberation project. They’ve got great resources, really encourage folks to support them, learn from them and follow their lead in the ways that we are trying to do with this campaign.
Cheryl: Thank you so much Shenaaz for ending us on such a great note, the link to Al Qaws’ website and socials will be also linked in our show notes. Now before I introduced our next guests, we’re going to do a quick music break. This song is “Anger (DPT)” by the Khamsa Music Project. Hope you enjoy.
PT2: LAVENDER PHOENIX
Welcome back to the show, everyone. You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.. You were just listening to “Anger (H.T.P.)” by the Khamsa Music Project. We’ve reached the final half of our show where we’re joined by Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A– three incredible organizers and members of Lavender Phoenix. Lavender Phoenix along with APEX Express are two of the eleven AAPI social justice groups within the AACRE network working to advance social change. It is such a great pleasure and honor to have the three of you here with us on the show. Do you mind introducing yourself for our listeners here tonight? Who are you and who are your people?
Cynthia: Of course, thanks Cheryl for having us. I’ll get us started. My name is Cynthia. I use they/them pronouns. I am the lead organizer at Lavender Phoenix. I’ll pass it to Kaiyah.
Kaiyah: Hello. Hello. I’m Kaiyah.
I use they and he pronouns. I’ve been a Community Safety Committee member for a couple years and a volunteer for much longer. I’ll pass it to A.
A: Hi hi, my name is A. I use she/her pronouns, and I’ve been a Community Safety Committee member since 2021 and also a volunteer slash person who hung around before then.
Cheryl: Thanks for indulging me in that quick Round Robin. Can you tell our listeners who is Lavender Phoenix, and what is the role that LavNix plays within the movement for Palestinian liberation?
Cynthia: Yeah, of course. Here at Lavender Phoenix, we organize with trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders here in the Bay Area. We build power through our organizing, inspire and train grassroots leaders, transform our values from scarcity to abundance, and we also build vibrant intersectional movements. We work with our youth, but we also have a community of elders and our history has been a lot of intergenerational work and oral histories. And as trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders, I think it’s important for us to know how deep in our legacy our relationship with state violence is. We have lessons from the AIDS epidemic, and we also need to stand on the lessons that we experience from our homelands.
From all of this, we know that organizing in solidarity right now with Palestinians is actually the best way to make that argument for true healing and safety. All the money that’s going into this war, violence, and the prison industrial complex, those are resources that could actually go towards healing our earth, feeding our people, housing people.
They actually call Palestine an open air prison, and we know that we have better ways to spend our money, better things to do with our time, than to incarcerate and murder people. We want to mourn for our dead, and we fight like hell for the living. And we know that right now, it is not just an actual war, but there’s a war in ideology.
Are we going to go for weapons and corporate greed, or are we going to fight for a new world?
Kaiyah: Yeah, I was gonna kind of go off what Cynthia said about how our struggles are connected. The money that is going to weapons, going to fuel the military, to take people’s lives in Palestine. That money could be used instead to uplift life all around the world and also here in the US where people are houseless. People don’t have enough food. People don’t have their basic needs met. Safety could be realized in a very practical way instead of using it to take people’s lives. And for me, I was thinking about how to become more human is to be aware that we’re all connected.
And this isn’t just like a pretty thing to say, cause literally we’re seeing money being sent over there could be used differently. A lot of different cultures and different organizations I’ve been a part of really hold this value that we’re all connected. You hear people say things about Ubuntu and Kapwa– that I am because of who we are and I guess I’ve developed this sense of connectedness to other people across the world and people in Palestine– many of whom I’ve never met. I was thinking about why I felt so connected to it. I definitely had this sense that like. I’m seeing my siblings across the world suffering and in pain. What else can I do but try to stop that pain? I see my siblings across the world in Israel are harming others and causing pain. What can I do except to ask them and demand of them to do differently to stop hurting others. We wrote in our organization’s plan that to support Palestine is to support our own liberation as well.
Palestinian struggle is our struggle and Palestinian futures are our futures. So that’s kind of how I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know if you want to add anything, A?
A: That’s so beautiful Kaiyah.
Yeah, and absolutely resonate with all of that. I guess the last thing I’ll add is that I think we also have a really unique opportunity as Asian Americans, as people living in the heart of empire. This is happening overseas, but it’s very much a result of our government.
The United States is ultimately the most culpable here. So I think as people living here, as people who are voting our representatives into office, who give that legitimacy to our government, I think we both have a responsibility, but also a unique power that most people in the world don’t have.
That is such a unique opportunity that we have as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Yeah, we’re a marginalized group here, but we’re still, relatively speaking, have so much strength in both our position and privilege and also in the ways that we connect to each other.
Cheryl: Thank you all so much for speaking to that. From Cynthia and Kaiyah, we’re hearing the interconnectedness of all of our struggles to Palestine, and also from A, the positionality and as a result responsibility we have as people within the global north who are complicit within this genocide.
Before we continue this incredible conversation. We’re going to take a short music break. Go ahead, grab some water and maybe a snack. And we’ll be right back after we listened to “Power Struggle” by Kultural Worker
And we’re back. You were tuned into apex express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.. I’m here in conversation with Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A from Lavender Phoenix, a grassroots organization, building trans and queer API power in the bay area. You were just listening to “Power Struggle” by Kultural Worker. Now let’s get back to the show.
The next question I have for you all revolves around how a lot of Asian Americans, by way of class privilege or otherwise, are decidedly apolitical even though our existences themselves, as you all have been saying, are extremely political and are extremely interconnected within the Palestinian struggle for liberation. How do we get our communities thinking and taking action on this?
A: I can take a first pass, because this is something I truly think about all the time, you know, how do we collect our people? I feel like it really goes back to what Kaiyah was just saying about our humanity is all connected, and to care about other people is to also care about ourselves. It’s really hard to do, but this key piece of how do you get people to see that systems of oppression, even if they ostensibly benefit you and guarantee you real material privilege, they also detract from your humanity, and they also make your lives actively materially worse in a lot of ways, or spiritually worse in a lot of ways.
I really struggle with how to implement that. It’s a hard thing to convey. In movement spaces, over time I, finally, like, you know, got it. But I think that is really what the work is, right? Even if you are not at the bottom of a hierarchy, even if you’re at the top of a hierarchy, a system of oppression dehumanizes the oppressor too.
Kaiyah: I really feel that. I, I really feel like in this time, there’s been a lot of spiritual growth as people are seeing just what is truly important in life. I’ve been hearing so many people talk about how what’s important has become crystal clear as they see people across the world having their lives taken and being like, wow, we really have to do something about this.
I’m going to kind of take it a different direction. In general, I think something I often see is that people who care about what’s happening to other people who are being oppressed become really overwhelmed with grief and the feelings that come with witnessing something terrible and either become stuck in that and become stuck in inaction because they’re overwhelmed, or detach from it because they’re not sure what else they can do. Maybe they attempt to take some action, but then it feels futile.
Is this actually making an impact? I guess what I’m trying to talk about right now is what can give people hope so that they feel like mobilizing is worth it and mobilizing can be effective. How do we get to that and that? Those things I named around inaction definitely apply to me. In the past I would attempt to organize. I would be like, is this really working? How do I even know it’s working? God. Or just feeling like I can’t engage with this. I’m I’m going to cry my eyeballs out if I think about this for more than five seconds.
So I want to share about two main things that have helped move me from hopelessness and overwhelm into action and to stay there. So the first one is a practice of welcoming and making space for grief in my life, grief and rage. Grief and rage is often trying to remind me of what I yearn for, what I’m missing, what I care for, and what I deeply love.
People say grief is love with no place to go, right? So I try to spend time with this grief to give it a place to go and do things to help it flow through me. Not to distract from it, not to get rid of it, but to let it move; to let it be. So I might like scream in my car. I might say to myself okay I’m really feeling this grief and rage today, what do I want to do? Okay, maybe i’m gonna scream my car. I’m going to listen to loud music. I’m going to go by a walk by the water. I’ve also been making a lot of altars and just giving thanks in nature to feel connected to what’s in the world and feel like nature’s helping me hold all these feelings. I might go to the gym to run out my feelings or talk to a friend.
And all these things help me feel the grief and rage and let it move through me instead of sitting there and overwhelming me and demobilizing me. So instead that grief and rage can take the form of love and the care that it’s trying to express. It’s like I’m able to take all this pain I feel for my siblings in Gaza so that it fuels me to act instead of preventing me from acting through that overwhelm. The second thing I want to share that kind of moves me from hopelessness into action is to hone my understanding of strategy. I feel like nothing feeds hopelessness for me like pointless action, or action where the outcome and purpose is so unclear or if I’m not sure how its impact is going to play out.
So for my actions to feel purposeful, I need to know, one, what is the outcome of my action? And two, how does that outcome fit into a larger plan or strategy? How does it feed into an overall goal of Palestinian liberation, per se? For example, I might tell myself, okay, I know that some protests are meant to be a part of many protests internationally that together are meant to draw more media attention or put more pressure on representatives.
Other protests might happen even when the goal seems futile because to stay silent and let it happen without a fight would be even more damaging to our spirits. Maybe it serves some other purposes. Some other protests might be to directly intervene on organizations that are sending weapons and supplies and resourcing oppressive systems across the globe.
Some protests are meant to directly slow that down or grind that industry to a halt. There’s much more, but those are just some examples of things I think about when I go to a protest to make it really clear to myself what the function is of each action I’m a part of so I’m clear about how my little bit adds to a much larger goal, and it doesn’t feel futile. And I know what the risks are, what the outcomes could be and what I’m fighting for in really certain terms, so I can have faith in my own impact. So I just want to share that long chunk as a hope that it might give other people some insight of how they might want to move out of hopelessness and let that grief and rage take another form.
Cheryl: Thank you so much, Kaiyah. I was giving myself a hug just listening to you speak. It’s important that we feel more rather than just feel better. We can hold all of these nuances without looking away. Cynthia, is there anything you wanted to add to that?
Cynthia: I think today we’re recording the Trans Day of Remembrance, and I know that this week, there is a holiday. I would encourage us to actually be celebrating the Indigenous Peoples Day. This theme of grief, rage, what we do with it, how we not let it immobilize us. I think is so sharp. This question about strategy too, because it has been 75 years of occupation, I’m actually really grateful for the leadership of Palestinians in this moment. This question of what do we do with this energy and how I’ve seen them move hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people all across this world to stand in solidarity. That is because of that strategy. And really, let’s just get sharp. It’s not just the politicians, but the weapons; manufacturing; the tech. It’s all connected. How do we put our pressure where power is and contest for that? .
Cheryl: As I’m listening to all of you speak, I’m hearing so much about the importance of taking care of our spirits as important and integral part of our strategy. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the importance of care and collectiveness within the Lavender Phoenix’s organization and structure, and how it aligns itself with Palestinian liberation?
A: I think something that I noticed that was really interesting when this latest slate of intensified violence started is people in LavNix started with, I’m going to this protest, who’s coming? Then, people were pulling together Signal chats, and we were all coming together, but it was, like everyone had this urge to do something, and LavNix provided that home to do that and resources to do that. I know if I go to a protest I will have a group of people to meet up with there, and be safe with there. LavNix provides this base that allows us to take strategic, powerful action, and that’s only possible because of all of the building that we have been doing before this point, like the work of our Community Safety Committee training folks on de-escalation practice, and now that folks are trained, they can go volunteer as protest marshals and do community safety work in that way. Or our healing justice committee providing peer counseling support for folks and helping folks be emotionally grounded so then in a moment of really intense violence, there’s like a higher baseline of stability that allows us to do more.
I think it’s especially helpful in this moment. because it creates an organized resource group of people that can then go take action that is risky and difficult sometimes.
Kaiyah: Yeah, I have been really appreciating how I have an organization to organize with. I have a group of people to organize with in this moment that is Lavender Phoenix, because I see so many people asking right now, Oh, I want to do something. How do I help? And while I believe that everyone can get involved and everyone can mobilize themselves if they would like to, it also is really helpful that we’ve already had that sense of trust built. We know each other so we can ask each other to join up on higher risk actions because we know how to work together already , whereas we wouldn’t be able to ask that to a completely new stranger. Something else I was thinking about in terms of caring for each other at protests was actually a conversation I was having with another Lavender Phoenix member the other day, so I’m stealing this from them.
They were asking, “What could it look like for people to feel as safe as a protest as they feel at home?” Not that we were thinking that we’re ever going to get there per se, but it was just something we want to think about because I want people who join protests and actions to take really informed risks and be trained in what to expect and how they can maybe react in those situations, especially in escalated situations if that happens.
On a personal level, the way I feel healing and care is showing up is again, it’s similar to those grief routines. I’ll often set aside time to just be really silent after a protest and be by myself, make sure I have a meal prepped at home. Maybe take some time to listen to sad music, really do my thing to move through those feelings because I can often feel really disoriented and kind of discombobulated from all the adrenaline after a protest, or maybe even more sad because it’s got me thinking about everything happening to my Palestinian siblings, so that’s how healing and care is showing up. Did you want to add anything, Cynthia?
Cynthia: I would say it has been special to see how our membership has kind of snowballed into this collective action Started with a few of us. And then there were maybe 10 of us, 20 of us, and then at one point there were 50 of us, and it was I think a testament to trans and queer APIs just feeling that connection, feeling that love, wanting to put that love into action and do that with our community, because we know we keep us safe and we have something to contribute to the broader movement around us. Like we know we can bring that and where we organize, we contribute a lot. And so it’s something to be really grateful for.
Kaiyah: Yes, I feel so grateful as well.
Cheryl: I’m feeling so grateful for this conversation and I’m so grateful that organizations like Lavender Phoenix exist and can cultivate these strong senses of communities. And really y’all do such a great job. Cynthia, do you mind letting us know what are ways that people can follow and stay in touch with Lavender Phoenix and what y’all are up to?
Cynthia: Yeah, of course. We are celebrating a new graduating class of Rise Up members. Our organization, we’re doing things externally, but also building internally.
You can find us on Instagram @lavphoenix. You Google us, you’ll find our website as well. Keep in touch. We’d love to see you around.
Kaiyah: Trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islander people, come find us. .
Cheryl: And that’s the end of our show. Please check out our website, kpfa.org to learn more about Queer Crescent and Lavender Phoenix.
We’d We’d like to thank all of our listeners out there. Keep dreaming folks. A better world is possible.
Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
The post APEX Express – 12.07.2023: Re-Air of Queers for a FREE PALESTINE appeared first on KPFA.
Gaza has been in the news for nearly two months now. Tonight’s South Asia edition of APEX Express is about uplifting South Asian solidarity with Palestine. Our multiple screens have been a tumultuous barrage of stories from West Asia the last few weeks, of Palestinian struggle and Israeli occupation, and a genocide unfolding on our collective clock of inhumanity.
In the first half of tonight’s show, co-producer Anuj Larvaidya talks to Sunaina Maira and Gabi Kirk to help make sense of this moment. They discuss the historical context and complexities, about the ecological impacts of the war on the region, about how we can plug into the growing Boycott-Divest-Sanctions or the BDS movement, and about faith-washing – how matters of land and settler colonialism are spun as matters of religious rights and persecution.
In the second half of the episode Preeti Gamzeh speaks with journalist Azad Essa about the relationship between India and Israel. How post-independence, India tried to be in solidarity with Palestine – but really was not; and how and where Hindu fundamentalism or Hindutva and Zionism intersect.
LEARN MORE AND PARTICIPATE:
Learn more about the BDS movement here: https://bdsmovement.net/ and https://www.whoprofits.org/
Join the BDS movement by organizing a No Appetite for Apartheid campaign in your localality or region: dsapalestine.link/NA4AInterestForm
ABOUT OUR GUESTS:
Sunaina Maira is a professor of Asian American studies at UC Davis. Her research and teaching focus on Asian, Arab, and Muslim American youth culture, migrant rights and refugee organizing, and transnational movements challenging militarization, imperialism, and settler colonialism. She is the author of the book Boycott! The Academy and Justice for Palestine. You can learn more about her work at: https://culturalstudies.ucdavis.edu/people/sunaina-maira
Gabi Kirk is a graduate student in the Geography department at UC Davis. Working between political ecology, feminist geographies, and geographies of colonialism, her dissertation project examines how Palestinian farmers and sustainable development institutions in the northern West Bank use agro-ecological practices in order to challenge normative notions of sovereignty.You can learn more about her research at: https://www.gabikirk.com/research.html
Azad Essa is an award-winning journalist and author based between Johannesburg, South Africa and New York City. He is currently a senior reporter for Middle East Eye covering American foreign policy, Islamophobia and race in the US. He has written for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and the Guardian, and his newest book is the highly timely, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance between India and Israel. You can learn more about his work at: https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/azad-essa
The post APEX Express – 11.30.2023: South Asian Solidarity with Palestine appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
DESCRIPTION:Shenaaz and Saba of Queer Crescent and Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A of Lavender Phoenix join Cheryl for this week’s episode of APEX Express!
This first half of the episode dives into the insincerity of pinkwashing and the ways it has been utilized by the Israeli government to exploit LGBTQIA+ rights to distract from their oppressive policies towards Palestinians, both queer and non-queer. Shenaaz and Saba brilliantly expose the ways pinkwashing perpetuates Islamophobia and racist tropes about Palestinians, along with Arab, Muslim, and SWANA communities and shed light on the long history of trans and queer organizing within Palestine, uplifting work of Al Qaws, an organization at the forefront of Palestinian cultural and social change that builds LGBTQ communities and promotes new ideas about the role of gender and sexual diversity in political activism, civil society institutions, media, and everyday life. Queer Crescent urges queer organizations and leaders to speak up, take action, and demand a ceasefire, writing that “As trans, queer and non-binary people we understand too well what is at stake when our self-determination and sovereignty are removed. Palestine is a queer issue, and it is our duty to listen and learn from queer Palestinians who are living under Israeli occupation, and in the imposed Diaspora”. You can sign on to Queer Crescent’s ceasefire campaign at bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue.
In the second half of the show we are joined by Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A of Lavender Phoenix who emphasize the importance of care within the Palestine Liberation movement, urging our listeners to not fall into feelings of inaction. They highlight the importance of grief routines and using grief and rage as tools for momentum, and ask the provoking difficult question: What could it look like for people to feel as safe at a protest as they feel at home? We also gain intimate insight into the ways Lavender Phoenix has been organizing, as Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A emphasize the interconnectedness of all of our struggles and the interconnectedness of all of our freedoms.
IMPORTANT LINKS + RESOURCES:1. Queer Crescent’s website 2. Queer Crescent’s Call for Ceasefire Sign-On 3. Queer Crescent’s Pinkwashing Resources 4. Al Qaws’s website 5. Lavender Phoenix’s website
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:Cheryl: Good evening. You are tuned into apex express. We are bringing you an Asian American and Pacific Islander point of view from the bay and around the world. I’m your host, Cheryl and tonight is an acre night, which is short for Asian Americans for civil rights and equality. Apex express is proud to be one of the 11 API social justice groups within the acre network, working to advance positive social change. Tonight, we have two very spectacular guests here with us, Shenaaz and Saba from Queer Crescent. It is such an honor to have you both here with us today. Do you mind introducing yourselves? Who are you and who are your people?
Saba: Hi, I’m Saba Taj. I am the communications coordinator for Queer Crescent. And, who are my people? Oh gosh, this is a beautiful question, and I think one that, changes at different moments. In large part, I really feel like I am on the side of humanity and Global dignity. As a queer Muslim from the South that struggle for our collective dignity often centers folks whom I share identities with and just more broadly, really thinking about individuals who are marginalized on multiple fronts. And so, yeah, that’s a really kind of vague answer. There’s a lot of different folks that are included, but, I hope that answers it for you.
Shenaaz: Yeah, thanks Cheryl for inviting Saba and I on the show. Hi folks, I’m Shenaaz Janmohamed. I’m the founder and executive director of Queer Crescent. I’ve been asked this question ” who are my people” at different times and in the past would have this litany of folks that come to mind: parents, queers, misfits, etc.
And I think what I’m feeling now and what I’ve noticed is that litany of folks can sometimes make the world feel smaller. What I’m pushing and striving towards is feeling a sense of home with more and more folks where there’s political alignment. There’s values alignment. We’re struggling together. So this notion of who are my people feels like it’s more of a question than it’s an answer. And it keeps me hungry for finding more and more.
Cheryl: Wow. Thank you both so much for your thoughtful answers and for setting the tone of our conversation in such a provocative and intentional way.. Do you mind telling us about Queer Crescent, the work that you do, and also about your current cease fire campaign?
Shenaaz: Sure, yeah, I can kick us off and then Saba feel free to weigh in. So Queer Crescent, started really as a response to the ways in which many of us, I say queer Muslim and I really mean the range of LGBTQIA plus experiences, trans folks, non binary folks, intersex folks, et cetera. So Queer Crescent really started as a drop-in support group when the Muslim and African travel ban was imposed in 2017. At the time I was working as a mental health worker largely with high schoolers and I also had a private practice. As a queer Muslim recent parent at the time was really feeling like a sense of placelessness and lack of political home where all parts of me would be held whole. And so I put together a support group and it was an overwhelming response in the community. Over 30 people would show up every two weeks. I’ve lived in the bay for about eight nine years at the time and I was meeting so many different people. Really the seedling of that support group led to this more national organization stretching towards base building and power building with marginal Muslims, queer Muslims. It really was like trying to create a space where we could be held and seen and move from that place of the complexity and the entireties of our identities.
In terms of the ceasefire campaign, I’ll kind of foreground it and then kick it to Saba, over the last several years that Queer Crescent has grown we’ve been able to build really solid relationships with other movement partners and other queer organizations.
And linking to Palestine solidarity around bodily autonomy has always been something that has been top of mind. The assaults on Gaza are consistent and they have been for many years so when October 7th happened and the assault on Gaza and this genocide has been so intense, it required all hands on deck. Many folks who are committed to the liberation of Palestine have been calling for ceasefire. And so I asked myself, what can Queer Crescent do to play a role in calling for ceasefire and what are the links that are possible to make.
Pinkwashing was a natural connect because it is very much a queer issue. Queer organizations like Al Qaws in Palestine and so many others have been talking to us about pinkwashing and making those links. It felt like a good opportunity to call for ceasefire while also doing some political education around the importance of queer people understanding and interrupting and taking on pinkwashing as part of queer liberation.
Saba: Shenaaz, I feel like you covered the grounding. That was, I think, perfect. But Cheryl, there’s additional questions about the campaign.
Cheryl: Yes! I have many questions. For starters, what is pink washing and Saba I’m taking this line directly from Queer Crescent’s ceasefire campaign description, which you wrote. How is pinkwashing used as a strategy to advance Zionist colonial violence?
Saba: Yeah. So pinkwashing is a form of propaganda that’s used by Israel. The aim of it is ultimately to dehumanize the Palestinian people and use this racist trope that Arabs and Muslims and Middle Eastern SWANA people are anti queer and trans and are ultimately homophobic and backwards.
It’s part of a larger narrative of these groups of people not being with the times and trying to create some sort of image. Not trying to, but very actively pushing a story that Israel is the place of progress, of freedom, when in fact they are using these stories of Palestinians, Muslims, et cetera, being homophobic as an excuse to dehumanize them as cover for their own violent actions. So it’s a distraction from their racist and violent policies, projecting an image of freedom and safety for queer people in Israel that is not in fact true. You can’t be for queer liberation while also bombing these people and oppressing this entire group.
There’s no way for those things to happen at the same time, and I think it’s part of a larger strategy that we see also play out in terms of feminism. That story is very familiar, where after 9 11, we have to go save Muslim women from these evil, savage Muslim men, and to do so, we’re going to bomb all of these communities.
It’s a strategy you utilize to justify violence. It splits our communities in ways like a divide and conquer sort of tactic; this larger story of you can’t be queer and Muslim at the same time, or you can’t be a feminist and be Muslim at the same time. And that ultimately serves to split our movements and reinforce a racist stereotype that makes the larger public feel that it is justified to behave in violent and oppressive ways towards an entire people through some excuse that they actually don’t care about one another. Shenaaz, if you want to jump in.
Shenaaz: I appreciate the links you’re making and ultimately I think pinkwashing strategies or the splitting that you’re talking about requires a betrayal of the self. Only if you betray some part of yourself can you feel a sense of belonging. And as queer people in our queer bodies, we know that is just not the case.
When your experience is being exploited, it’s very evident. The work ahead is both combating the colonial violence, making the violence stop, demanding ceasefire now, and the continuous work of continuing to show up in our full selves as queer people, and affirm our sense of belonging within our communities despite both the state violence and the ways in which our belonging is interrupted, both from external forces and internal.
Cheryl: Thank you both so much. I think that imagery of splitting. And the ways pink washing shows up, especially for queer Muslim people is really powerful, especially that line Shenaaz, pink washing requires a betrayal of the self. Could either of you talk a little bit more on the impact of this splitting internally within SWANA communities.
Shenaaz: Well, I don’t think that Saba and I could speak to experiences of SWANA folk because neither Saba and I are SWANA, we’re both South Asian. I think the ways in which we come into this conversation, as folks who are Muslim who grew up in Muslim community and that adjacent experience, where Queer Crescent’s central project is to blow breath into what it means to be a Muslim.
And so Muslim multiplicity, nuance, contradictions, self determination around what your relationship to Muslim is, and a self determined Muslim identity. One of the many functions of Islamophobia and anti Muslim racism as an outgrowth of white supremacy is to dehumanize people.
In the case of what Saba was saying earlier, it limits what can be possible of a people. There’s this assertion that Muslim communities are inherently homophobic, inherently patriarchal. There were queer Muslim folks prior to colonization. It was the advent of colonization with it’s imposed Christian, dogmatic, very strict notions of gender that actually interrupted what was otherwise a much more fluid sense of gender. So part of it is understanding those lineages and that history. And then it’s also confronting the realities that are present today.
Saba: Yeah. I think it also really obscures a lot of reality as well.
One that there are queer Palestinians who are organizing and doing this work within their own communities, Al Qaws being folks that we really look to and want to amplify and follow their leadership. But even in the U. S., you can really see clearly this story of we are in the United States, the harbingers of progress, and yet anti trans laws and the oppression, the silencing of queer people and trans people in this country– we haven’t solved these things. . It’s a story that is used for a particular purpose and that purpose is just to justify war. That is the actual priority. It’s not about queer liberation. It feels incredibly obvious that is not actually the priority of the United States or of Israel, especially when if they were actually to be for progress, for queer and trans liberation, by design, that means you would not be moving in these ways.
Cheryl: That was perfectly said.
There is the strange dissonance going on with pink washing that, just as you said Saba, has nothing to do with trans and queer liberation at all. I know queer Crescent has compiled a thorough pink washing resource list. How can our listeners access that?
Saba: We put out a call to queer orgs to sign on to a letter that outlines that Palestine is a queer issue and is naming pinkwashing in particular as a framework that we need to be very familiar with because it’s a copy paste situation. This pinkwashing strategy is used really clearly and blatantly by Israel but also more broadly applied in other circumstances as well. So really calling on queer folks to understand that we have stakes in this and as Organizations as individuals who are committed to that liberation. We must recognize and move in a way that centers Palestine also as a queer issue, connect to it in that way.
It is our responsibility. So the letter is online. It’s bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue. It can also be found via our Instagram. It’s one of the links in our bio as well as the pinkwashing resources, which can be further accessed via that letter. That’s a great way to get connected with us.
We are also planning some pinkwashing teach ins, so that we can help further this political education and make those connections so folks feel empowered to speak on this issue and bring more folks into calling for a ceasefire, understanding that this is in our broad interest as a community of LGBTQI plus organizations and individuals.
Shenaaz: Yeah. The only piece that I would add is this is a really horrific. moment of witnessing genocide and the fight for a free Palestine is a long fight. And so this is also a moment to shore up deeper solidarity. And part of solidarity is supporting people with learning the ways in which they, our struggles are connected.
And again really helping queer people understand pink washing, both as such a well oiled used tool of Israel and its settler colonial project and occupation of Palestine, but also the ways in which Israel is this. Model for other colonial powers to learn from through military, through cops and also pinkwashing.
We see, for example, India adopting pinkwashing strategies as well to again blur its power and its own project of ethnic cleansing of Muslims, Dalits, Christians, and anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the Hindu fascist notion Modi and his government is trying to push. And so it’s also really important for queer people to understand this strategy of pinkwashing, to interrupt the Israeli propaganda, but also to notice and be on alert for other colonial and state forces that also use pinkwashing to further other political gains that are in direct opposition to us having safety and bodily autonomy and freedoms.
Cheryl: All of these amazing resources will also be linked within our show notes. For maybe one of the final questions do you mind expanding more about this interconnectedness between all of our movements, how to quote from the ceasefire campaign “as a queer Muslim org we recognize that there is no queer trans non binary and femme Muslim liberation without Palestine. Could you expand on this a little bit more?
Saba: Yeah. the interconnectedness of our struggles is just such a critical piece, that shows up in this moment and so many others. And I can track that and name as a queer Muslim person, the Black Lives Matter movement was also integral. When we think about our freedom, we must always be looking towards how we can disrupt, dismantle systems of oppression, of policing, of dehumanization that are perpetuated across so many different lines. And that connection I think is really critical because it becomes so easy to think about safety on an individual level. How can I personally be comfortable? How can I personally be safe? But oftentimes what that requires within a capitalist framework is somebody else not being safe.
As long as our systems of safety are contingent on the oppression of one or many groups, none of us are actually safe. If you look deep into policy, just to further articulate this, the Patriot Act not only impacted Muslims in the U. S. and more broadly, but immigrants. We’re not only Muslim, you see that police violence in the U. S. is not disconnected. Anti blackness that is so obvious and rife in our policing in the United States is also in relationship with Israel. Much of the police across the nation is trained by Israeli IDF. And if we’re not actually seeing those connections, then ultimately we are not dismantling those larger systems that serve to direct their violence, their silencing towards different groups at different times, but ultimately all serve to uphold white supremacy.
I think it can be very tempting when it feels like the target is not specifically on our own back to feel like maybe we can find some safety by being close have some proximity to whiteness in different moments. And we really need to resist that urge. Even when they’re not looking directly at us, if there is a group of people who are being named as enemy, who are being actively dehumanized whether that is subtle or blatant, that is all of our business, and those are strategies that will be certainly used against us at a different time when it’s in the interest of consolidating white supremacy.
These strategies can be used to target so many of us. Also this notion that we are separate groups is also often not the case. There is overlap so we must, at all turns, be on the side of liberation, on the side of pushing for community care, as opposed to our money going towards violence, which is the root of so much of this. The interests of the
- S. and Israel is power at the expense of people, not actually about how to care for their own people.
Shenaaz: Yeah, if I could just build on that as well. I think that’s such an important point that you’re making when there is one community that is facing assault in this case, Palestine and Palestinian liberation movement organizers.
It also becomes a moment where harmful policies and decisions are made in rapid fire to your point around the Patriot Act. For example, right now there is the potential of a reauthorization of section 702, which is a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and Queer Crescent is a part of many other Muslim progressive organizations that are trying to resist this.
But this moment of increased violence against Palestinians that is being met by mass mobilization in the form of protest, of shutting things down, deep solidarity is being met from the elected official side and the state side with more more strategies for repression. We’re seeing much more police force at protest. And then we’re seeing things like the reauthorization and the expansion of the surveillance apparatus and the surveillance state. And so while that is Popping up in response to the swell of solidarity with Palestine, everyone will suffer under more expansion of surveillance, not just Palestinians, not just Muslims, right. So it is then both our responsibility to be in solidarity as people who are committed to liberation for a free Palestine, but is also tactically and strategic for us to be stronger together. And those that are the most vulnerable under increased suppression and surveillance are those that the most on the margins, be it poor working class, disabled, queer, trans, sex workers, incarcerated, et cetera. There’s always so many things happening simultaneously and we need each other, you know, in short.
Cheryl: We do need each other. Well, Shenaaz, Saba, thank you both so, so much for being on tonight’s show. For all of our listeners out there, to stay in contact and to keep up with Queer Crescent’s work, Shenaaz, do you mind reminding us one last time how our listeners can keep up with Queer Crescent?
Shenaaz: Yeah you can follow us, our website is queercrescent.org. Thanks to Saba, we have a pretty active social media presence through Instagram, so it’s @queercrescent. And then the amazing, resources and call for ceasefire, is at bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue
Thank you so much for having us on, Cheryl, and I think it’s really important before we end to give a strong solidarity and love to Al Qaws, the Palestinian queer organization in Palestine, who have been talking to many of us about pinkwashing, about resisting colonialism, and about really centering liberation and queerness as two things that are not mutually exclusive, but part of the same liberation project. They’ve got great resources, really encourage folks to support them, learn from them and follow their lead in the ways that we are trying to do with this campaign.
Cheryl: Thank you so much Shenaaz for ending us on such a great note, the link to Al Qaws’ website and socials will be also linked in our show notes. Now before I introduced our next guests, we’re going to do a quick music break. This song is “Anger (DPT)” by the Khamsa Music Project. Hope you enjoy.
PT2: LAVENDER PHOENIX
Welcome back to the show, everyone. You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.. You were just listening to “Anger (H.T.P.)” by the Khamsa Music Project. We’ve reached the final half of our show where we’re joined by Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A– three incredible organizers and members of Lavender Phoenix. Lavender Phoenix along with APEX Express are two of the eleven AAPI social justice groups within the AACRE network working to advance social change. It is such a great pleasure and honor to have the three of you here with us on the show. Do you mind introducing yourself for our listeners here tonight? Who are you and who are your people?
Cynthia: Of course, thanks Cheryl for having us. I’ll get us started. My name is Cynthia. I use they/them pronouns. I am the lead organizer at Lavender Phoenix. I’ll pass it to Kaiyah.
Kaiyah: Hello. Hello. I’m Kaiyah.
I use they and he pronouns. I’ve been a Community Safety Committee member for a couple years and a volunteer for much longer. I’ll pass it to A.
A: Hi hi, my name is A. I use she/her pronouns, and I’ve been a Community Safety Committee member since 2021 and also a volunteer slash person who hung around before then.
Cheryl: Thanks for indulging me in that quick Round Robin. Can you tell our listeners who is Lavender Phoenix, and what is the role that LavNix plays within the movement for Palestinian liberation?
Cynthia: Yeah, of course. Here at Lavender Phoenix, we organize with trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders here in the Bay Area. We build power through our organizing, inspire and train grassroots leaders, transform our values from scarcity to abundance, and we also build vibrant intersectional movements. We work with our youth, but we also have a community of elders and our history has been a lot of intergenerational work and oral histories. And as trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders, I think it’s important for us to know how deep in our legacy our relationship with state violence is. We have lessons from the AIDS epidemic, and we also need to stand on the lessons that we experience from our homelands.
From all of this, we know that organizing in solidarity right now with Palestinians is actually the best way to make that argument for true healing and safety. All the money that’s going into this war, violence, and the prison industrial complex, those are resources that could actually go towards healing our earth, feeding our people, housing people.
They actually call Palestine an open air prison, and we know that we have better ways to spend our money, better things to do with our time, than to incarcerate and murder people. We want to mourn for our dead, and we fight like hell for the living. And we know that right now, it is not just an actual war, but there’s a war in ideology.
Are we going to go for weapons and corporate greed, or are we going to fight for a new world?
Kaiyah: Yeah, I was gonna kind of go off what Cynthia said about how our struggles are connected. The money that is going to weapons, going to fuel the military, to take people’s lives in Palestine. That money could be used instead to uplift life all around the world and also here in the US where people are houseless. People don’t have enough food. People don’t have their basic needs met. Safety could be realized in a very practical way instead of using it to take people’s lives. And for me, I was thinking about how to become more human is to be aware that we’re all connected.
And this isn’t just like a pretty thing to say, cause literally we’re seeing money being sent over there could be used differently. A lot of different cultures and different organizations I’ve been a part of really hold this value that we’re all connected. You hear people say things about Ubuntu and Kapwa– that I am because of who we are and I guess I’ve developed this sense of connectedness to other people across the world and people in Palestine– many of whom I’ve never met. I was thinking about why I felt so connected to it. I definitely had this sense that like. I’m seeing my siblings across the world suffering and in pain. What else can I do but try to stop that pain? I see my siblings across the world in Israel are harming others and causing pain. What can I do except to ask them and demand of them to do differently to stop hurting others. We wrote in our organization’s plan that to support Palestine is to support our own liberation as well.
Palestinian struggle is our struggle and Palestinian futures are our futures. So that’s kind of how I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know if you want to add anything, A?
A: That’s so beautiful Kaiyah.
Yeah, and absolutely resonate with all of that. I guess the last thing I’ll add is that I think we also have a really unique opportunity as Asian Americans, as people living in the heart of empire. This is happening overseas, but it’s very much a result of our government.
The United States is ultimately the most culpable here. So I think as people living here, as people who are voting our representatives into office, who give that legitimacy to our government, I think we both have a responsibility, but also a unique power that most people in the world don’t have.
That is such a unique opportunity that we have as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Yeah, we’re a marginalized group here, but we’re still, relatively speaking, have so much strength in both our position and privilege and also in the ways that we connect to each other.
Cheryl: Thank you all so much for speaking to that. From Cynthia and Kaiyah, we’re hearing the interconnectedness of all of our struggles to Palestine, and also from A, the positionality and as a result responsibility we have as people within the global north who are complicit within this genocide.
Before we continue this incredible conversation. We’re going to take a short music break. Go ahead, grab some water and maybe a snack. And we’ll be right back after we listened to “Power Struggle” by Kultural Worker
And we’re back. You were tuned into apex express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.. I’m here in conversation with Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A from Lavender Phoenix, a grassroots organization, building trans and queer API power in the bay area. You were just listening to “Power Struggle” by Kultural Worker. Now let’s get back to the show.
The next question I have for you all revolves around how a lot of Asian Americans, by way of class privilege or otherwise, are decidedly apolitical even though our existences themselves, as you all have been saying, are extremely political and are extremely interconnected within the Palestinian struggle for liberation. How do we get our communities thinking and taking action on this?
A: I can take a first pass, because this is something I truly think about all the time, you know, how do we collect our people? I feel like it really goes back to what Kaiyah was just saying about our humanity is all connected, and to care about other people is to also care about ourselves. It’s really hard to do, but this key piece of how do you get people to see that systems of oppression, even if they ostensibly benefit you and guarantee you real material privilege, they also detract from your humanity, and they also make your lives actively materially worse in a lot of ways, or spiritually worse in a lot of ways.
I really struggle with how to implement that. It’s a hard thing to convey. In movement spaces, over time I, finally, like, you know, got it. But I think that is really what the work is, right? Even if you are not at the bottom of a hierarchy, even if you’re at the top of a hierarchy, a system of oppression dehumanizes the oppressor too.
Kaiyah: I really feel that. I, I really feel like in this time, there’s been a lot of spiritual growth as people are seeing just what is truly important in life. I’ve been hearing so many people talk about how what’s important has become crystal clear as they see people across the world having their lives taken and being like, wow, we really have to do something about this.
I’m going to kind of take it a different direction. In general, I think something I often see is that people who care about what’s happening to other people who are being oppressed become really overwhelmed with grief and the feelings that come with witnessing something terrible and either become stuck in that and become stuck in inaction because they’re overwhelmed, or detach from it because they’re not sure what else they can do. Maybe they attempt to take some action, but then it feels futile.
Is this actually making an impact? I guess what I’m trying to talk about right now is what can give people hope so that they feel like mobilizing is worth it and mobilizing can be effective. How do we get to that and that? Those things I named around inaction definitely apply to me. In the past I would attempt to organize. I would be like, is this really working? How do I even know it’s working? God. Or just feeling like I can’t engage with this. I’m I’m going to cry my eyeballs out if I think about this for more than five seconds.
So I want to share about two main things that have helped move me from hopelessness and overwhelm into action and to stay there. So the first one is a practice of welcoming and making space for grief in my life, grief and rage. Grief and rage is often trying to remind me of what I yearn for, what I’m missing, what I care for, and what I deeply love.
People say grief is love with no place to go, right? So I try to spend time with this grief to give it a place to go and do things to help it flow through me. Not to distract from it, not to get rid of it, but to let it move; to let it be. So I might like scream in my car. I might say to myself okay I’m really feeling this grief and rage today, what do I want to do? Okay, maybe i’m gonna scream my car. I’m going to listen to loud music. I’m going to go by a walk by the water. I’ve also been making a lot of altars and just giving thanks in nature to feel connected to what’s in the world and feel like nature’s helping me hold all these feelings. I might go to the gym to run out my feelings or talk to a friend.
And all these things help me feel the grief and rage and let it move through me instead of sitting there and overwhelming me and demobilizing me. So instead that grief and rage can take the form of love and the care that it’s trying to express. It’s like I’m able to take all this pain I feel for my siblings in Gaza so that it fuels me to act instead of preventing me from acting through that overwhelm. The second thing I want to share that kind of moves me from hopelessness into action is to hone my understanding of strategy. I feel like nothing feeds hopelessness for me like pointless action, or action where the outcome and purpose is so unclear or if I’m not sure how its impact is going to play out.
So for my actions to feel purposeful, I need to know, one, what is the outcome of my action? And two, how does that outcome fit into a larger plan or strategy? How does it feed into an overall goal of Palestinian liberation, per se? For example, I might tell myself, okay, I know that some protests are meant to be a part of many protests internationally that together are meant to draw more media attention or put more pressure on representatives.
Other protests might happen even when the goal seems futile because to stay silent and let it happen without a fight would be even more damaging to our spirits. Maybe it serves some other purposes. Some other protests might be to directly intervene on organizations that are sending weapons and supplies and resourcing oppressive systems across the globe.
Some protests are meant to directly slow that down or grind that industry to a halt. There’s much more, but those are just some examples of things I think about when I go to a protest to make it really clear to myself what the function is of each action I’m a part of so I’m clear about how my little bit adds to a much larger goal, and it doesn’t feel futile. And I know what the risks are, what the outcomes could be and what I’m fighting for in really certain terms, so I can have faith in my own impact. So I just want to share that long chunk as a hope that it might give other people some insight of how they might want to move out of hopelessness and let that grief and rage take another form.
Cheryl: Thank you so much, Kaiyah. I was giving myself a hug just listening to you speak. It’s important that we feel more rather than just feel better. We can hold all of these nuances without looking away. Cynthia, is there anything you wanted to add to that?
Cynthia: I think today we’re recording the Trans Day of Remembrance, and I know that this week, there is a holiday. I would encourage us to actually be celebrating the Indigenous Peoples Day. This theme of grief, rage, what we do with it, how we not let it immobilize us. I think is so sharp. This question about strategy too, because it has been 75 years of occupation, I’m actually really grateful for the leadership of Palestinians in this moment. This question of what do we do with this energy and how I’ve seen them move hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people all across this world to stand in solidarity. That is because of that strategy. And really, let’s just get sharp. It’s not just the politicians, but the weapons; manufacturing; the tech. It’s all connected. How do we put our pressure where power is and contest for that? .
Cheryl: As I’m listening to all of you speak, I’m hearing so much about the importance of taking care of our spirits as important and integral part of our strategy. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the importance of care and collectiveness within the Lavender Phoenix’s organization and structure, and how it aligns itself with Palestinian liberation?
A: I think something that I noticed that was really interesting when this latest slate of intensified violence started is people in LavNix started with, I’m going to this protest, who’s coming? Then, people were pulling together Signal chats, and we were all coming together, but it was, like everyone had this urge to do something, and LavNix provided that home to do that and resources to do that. I know if I go to a protest I will have a group of people to meet up with there, and be safe with there. LavNix provides this base that allows us to take strategic, powerful action, and that’s only possible because of all of the building that we have been doing before this point, like the work of our Community Safety Committee training folks on de-escalation practice, and now that folks are trained, they can go volunteer as protest marshals and do community safety work in that way. Or our healing justice committee providing peer counseling support for folks and helping folks be emotionally grounded so then in a moment of really intense violence, there’s like a higher baseline of stability that allows us to do more.
I think it’s especially helpful in this moment. because it creates an organized resource group of people that can then go take action that is risky and difficult sometimes.
Kaiyah: Yeah, I have been really appreciating how I have an organization to organize with. I have a group of people to organize with in this moment that is Lavender Phoenix, because I see so many people asking right now, Oh, I want to do something. How do I help? And while I believe that everyone can get involved and everyone can mobilize themselves if they would like to, it also is really helpful that we’ve already had that sense of trust built. We know each other so we can ask each other to join up on higher risk actions because we know how to work together already , whereas we wouldn’t be able to ask that to a completely new stranger. Something else I was thinking about in terms of caring for each other at protests was actually a conversation I was having with another Lavender Phoenix member the other day, so I’m stealing this from them.
They were asking, “What could it look like for people to feel as safe as a protest as they feel at home?” Not that we were thinking that we’re ever going to get there per se, but it was just something we want to think about because I want people who join protests and actions to take really informed risks and be trained in what to expect and how they can maybe react in those situations, especially in escalated situations if that happens.
On a personal level, the way I feel healing and care is showing up is again, it’s similar to those grief routines. I’ll often set aside time to just be really silent after a protest and be by myself, make sure I have a meal prepped at home. Maybe take some time to listen to sad music, really do my thing to move through those feelings because I can often feel really disoriented and kind of discombobulated from all the adrenaline after a protest, or maybe even more sad because it’s got me thinking about everything happening to my Palestinian siblings, so that’s how healing and care is showing up. Did you want to add anything, Cynthia?
Cynthia: I would say it has been special to see how our membership has kind of snowballed into this collective action Started with a few of us. And then there were maybe 10 of us, 20 of us, and then at one point there were 50 of us, and it was I think a testament to trans and queer APIs just feeling that connection, feeling that love, wanting to put that love into action and do that with our community, because we know we keep us safe and we have something to contribute to the broader movement around us. Like we know we can bring that and where we organize, we contribute a lot. And so it’s something to be really grateful for.
Kaiyah: Yes, I feel so grateful as well.
Cheryl: I’m feeling so grateful for this conversation and I’m so grateful that organizations like Lavender Phoenix exist and can cultivate these strong senses of communities. And really y’all do such a great job. Cynthia, do you mind letting us know what are ways that people can follow and stay in touch with Lavender Phoenix and what y’all are up to?
Cynthia: Yeah, of course. We are celebrating a new graduating class of Rise Up members. Our organization, we’re doing things externally, but also building internally.
You can find us on Instagram @lavphoenix. You Google us, you’ll find our website as well. Keep in touch. We’d love to see you around.
Kaiyah: Trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islander people, come find us. .
Cheryl: And that’s the end of our show. Please check out our website, kpfa.org to learn more about Queer Crescent and Lavender Phoenix.
We’d We’d like to thank all of our listeners out there. Keep dreaming folks. A better world is possible.
Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong
Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
The post APEX Express – 11.23.23 Queers for a FREE PALESTINE appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #13
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.
Episode #13
This month’s episode is features a guest DJ CJ. Based in Brooklyn, she loves music, playing basketball, and spending time with loved ones. Find out more about DJ CJ.
Lisa Lowe’s Book:
In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press
About the Producer IS4C:
Paige Chung is a writer and DJ. Her last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and her current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Listen to Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents on KPFA 94.1 and Sun Salutations on Twitch TV. Based in Los Angeles but she rolls everywhere. She currently trains at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound and studies Performing and Media Arts as a PhD student at Cornell University.
Lastly, special shoutout to my QT Việt Crew, deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.
Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU
- Website
- Twitch
- Mixcloud
- SoundCloud
The post APEX Express – 11.16.23 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents by DJ MIU, DJ CJ appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
This week’s episode is an AACRE night, where we’ll be joined by Michelle MiJung Kim, the award-winning author of The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change. In this thought-provoking book, Michelle guides us through the transformative journey of awakening to our potential for personal and societal change. AACRE is proud to have Michelle on our board!
Delve into Michelle’s profound insights as she and host Cheryl explore the intricacies of her writing process, her holistic approach to tackling social justice and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) matters through an intersectional lens, and the vital significance of being trauma-informed in this crucial work. They tackle the holistic narrative structure The Wake Up takes on, discussing the pivotal importance of understanding the roots and histories of social movements and reflecting on the past to pave the way for a more just and equitable future. Know history, know self!
Tune into the conversation as Michelle shares her wisdom on moving beyond performative allyship, embracing complexity, and nurturing healing. The Wake Up serves as a rallying call, reminding us that the journey towards social justice is dynamic, messy, and imperfect.
Grab a copy of The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change from Eastwind Books of Berkeley
The post APEX Express – 11.9.23 | AACRE Thursday with Michelle Mijung Kim appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Host Miko Lee is joined by Guest Host Aisa Villarosa for another episode focused on Filipinx American History Month. This episode is focused on artist, activist, I Hotel survivor and rebel rouser Jeanette Lazam. We also hear a poem from Emily Lawsin and music from Bay Area’s Power Struggle.
Learn more about and support collective resistance to militarization and genocide in Palestine:
- https://www.instagram.com/ucethnicstudiescouncil/
- https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7SomsNyhrKIuR-FzwTKjPC5bM1lCi3i6GsXJLRXJvKK7JrA/viewform
Jeanette Lazams life and artwork: https://convergencemag.com/articles/coming-home-jeanette-lazam-returns-to-the-i-hotel/ * https://www.instagram.com/lazamjg/ Emily Lawsin*
Power Struggle
https://www.powerstrugglemusic.com/
https://beatrockmusic.com/collections/power–struggle.
No More Moments of Silence Show Transcript 11.2.23
[00:00:00] Aisa Villarosa: In this episode, we’re providing a content warning. Our guest, Jeanette Lazum, discusses personal instances of racist threats, police violence, and utilizes a racial epithet.
[00:00:47] Miko Lee: Good evening and welcome to Apex Express. This is Miko Lee and I am so thrilled to have a guest co host this night, the amazing and talented Aisa Villarosa. Aisa can you please introduce yourselves to our audience? Say who you are, where you come from, and a little bit about yourself.
[00:01:09] Aisa Villarosa: Thank you so much, Miko, and it’s a joy to be with you and the Apex Express family. My name is Aisa, my pronouns are she, her, and I’m a Michigan born gay Filipino artist, activist, attorney with roots in ethnic studies organizing and teaching Filipino studies, in the wonderful Pa’aralang Pilipino of Southfield, Michigan. If you ever find yourself at the intersection of Eight Mile and Greenfield near Detroit, stop on by. And the genesis of our talk today started with a conversation around Filipino American History Month, right?
[00:01:54] Miko Lee: That’s right. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about tonight. so Tonight Aisa and I are going to be talking about Filipino American History Month. We know that it’s the month of October, so Filipino history, that’s something that’s deep and should be all year round, just like all of our histories should be something that we study. Tell us a little bit about who we’re going to be speaking to tonight.
[00:02:17] Aisa Villarosa: We have the honor of speaking with Jeanette Lazam, who is a many decades long living legacy, an artist, an activist. Jeanette has worked in spaces like the capital of California, but has also faced down state violence.
Both at the hands of the U. S. government through the very violent eviction of elders, primarily Filipino and Chinese elders, at the International Hotel or the iHotel in San Francisco, what was then Manila Town and Jeanette also is a survivor of political violence at the hands of the Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines and is a champion of Nonviolent people power and that is only just the tip of the iceberg. Jeanette is also a prolific artist . She is the only surviving Filipino Manang to return to the iHotel After being a young person who stood and locked arms with the seniors to fight the eviction decades and decades ago, and she’ll be sharing some of her story with us.
[00:03:34] Miko Lee: I love this. We get to hear firsthand from experiences of people who were engaged in a fight for equality and still continue to do so. I love elders just taking the reins and keeping on fighting out there. Because we’re talking about issues that are deep and complicated, including Marcos’ dictatorship in the Philippines, and what went down at the iHotel in San Francisco, we’ll have some links in the show notes so that folks can delve deeper and find out more. But Aisa can you back us up a little bit? And for folks that might not know, give us a little quickie about the iHotel. I know we talk about it in the interview, but for folks that don’t know, give a little bit of background about the importance of the iHotel within Asian American movement spaces. Why do people need to know about this?
[00:04:23] Aisa Villarosa: Such a great question and a grounding question Miko. The iHotel is both a physical site, it is in San Francisco, and it is also in many ways A symbol of the struggle for collective liberation, for housing rights, for justice in the city of San Francisco and beyond.
And that is why often in many ethnic studies courses, in many Asian American and Pacific Islander courses, students learn about the iHotel. But as Jeanette will share with us, there is really no text that can describe the violence of an eviction, 3 a. m. in the morning on August 4th, 1977, when Armed police officers on horses essentially rounded up the peacefully protesting tenants and supporters of the International Hotel.
And This was part of a larger movement, a violent movement across the country that was under the guise of urban renewal, but was really about the continued criminalization of Black and brown and Indigenous and AAPI people. And Jeanette was a survivor of that. It is a story that is painful and yet one that we must not forget and that our generations must learn from in order to continue the fight for social justice.
[00:05:55] Miko Lee: Thanks, Aisa, for the little Asian American history lesson. We appreciate it. Folks should find out more if this is the first you’re hearing about this. It is a seminal moment. I also think one of the things we didn’t actually talk to Jeanette about is how Intersectional, the folks that were protesting at the iHotel were. That there were Black Panthers there, that there are folks from the disability movement. , that’s one of those things that really gets hidden under the rug is the different people that were engaged in that fight.
[00:06:23] Aisa Villarosa: Absolutely, Miko. The fight for the survival of the International Hotel was intersectional. It really is a demonstration of what healthy movement building can be. It is never easy. It’s often complicated. And yet, They answered the urgency of the moment and they did so together.
[00:06:46] Miko Lee: There were thousands of people that were involved in that movement. There were hundreds that were there. And tonight you get to hear from one person’s story, a little bit about the iHotel, and mostly just from an amazing activist, artist, and social justice champion. So we get to listen to the brilliant interview with Jeanette.
[00:07:08] Aisa Villarosa: It’s so meaningful to hear from Jeanette and as someone who is living currently in San Francisco’s Chinatown is someone who is revered enough to be on murals in Chinatown and yet popular culture and history often forget that Manila Town and Chinatown Coexist, that these are two powerhouse cultures, identities, people who, in some ways, as Jeanette shared, were forced together due to redlining, due to discriminatory housing practices, and yet the activists in Chinatown today are trying to preserve the stories of elders like Jeanette and also telling new stories through art and through activism and protest.
[00:08:00] Miko Lee: Aisa, please introduce me to your mentor, the amazing Jeanette.
[00:08:05] Aisa Villarosa: Thanks, Miko.
We are so honored to have with us today Jeanette Gandianko Lazam. Jeanette, hi, how are you doing today?
[00:08:14] Jeanette Lazam: I think I’m doing okay, yeah. I like the warmth, so I’m glad we have sunny days here in San Francisco that are not windy nor cold.
[00:08:26] Aisa Villarosa: Are you cuddled up with Samantha? And for the audience Samantha is Jeanette’s adorable cat.
[00:08:33] Jeanette Lazam: Samantha is cuddled up by herself. Oh,
[00:08:37] Aisa Villarosa: that’s all right. She can support us from afar.
[00:08:39] Jeanette Lazam: Yes, she most definitely will.
[00:08:43] Aisa Villarosa: And you know, in these, heavy times, sometimes okay is okay. So we are, we’re so happy to have you with us. I’m happy to be here. Thank you. Um, Miko, do you want to kick us off?
[00:08:57] Miko Lee: So we are here talking about Filipino History Month and the significance of that. Can you tell us what the significance of the History Month is to you, Jeanette?
[00:09:08] Jeanette Lazam: I think it’s a time where, you know, for many Filipino and Filipino American organizations, they come to the fore. And what I mean by that is they come and expose the culture, the languages, not just one language, but the languages and the food, the this, the that.
And it really comes to the surface. And you can see how much pride people have, I was talking with somebody the other day about the colonization of the Philippines. And when you look at the history of the Philippines, you have to take it for what it is. You can’t take something out just because you don’t like it.
So many people have decided that the colonization of the Philippines shouldn’t be… demonstrated during Filipino American History Month. I disagree. And so do a lot of other people. You have to tell that history because that’s over 300 years of history right there in terms of the Filipino community. In a nutshell, culture, language, food, dance, They all come to the fore during this particular month, Filipino American History Month, and I’m really happy about that. That’s what it means to me.
[00:10:46] Aisa Villarosa: Thank you so much, Jeannette. What you’re naming is so important that to be Filipino American is to take stock of the good, the bad, the joyful, the challenging. And you mentioned colonization. So much of what colonization forced upon us was almost an incomplete. identity, right? That we had to ignore the pain, pretend it’s not there.
Or there’s the concept of hiyap, right? Which is shame. And, And you know, this really more than me and Miko, but for the listeners, can you share In terms of Filipino history, and because we are currently seeing a second Marcos regime, you’ve lived through some of the toughest attacks on civil rights, both here in the United States and in the Philippines. Can you just share a couple stories for the listeners about that time?
[00:11:53] Jeanette Lazam: We’re talking, Bongbong Marcos, who is now the president of the Philippines, his father, Ferdinand Marcos was the president of the Philippines for 20 some odd years. He declared martial law in 1971 and it stayed for 20 years in the Philippines.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced direct fascism, up in your face and very personal. Civil liberties that people had. We’re totally stripped the press in the Philippines was shut down and only one press was allowed to function which was the mouthpiece for Marcos. You could not congregate on corners of more than three people, you would get arrested.
Many got arrested because they were journalists, because they were activists, because they were civil libertarians. Thank Anyone and anything that posed a threat to the Marcos regime was either arrested, deported, or killed. And I was there during the imposition of martial law and it was really scary.
I have never experienced that kind of fear in my lifetime. In the United States, I was traveling with a group of friends. When I was about, I don’t know, maybe nine, 10 years old, we stopped in Macon County, Georgia, and it was the 1960s, late 50s, 1960s, and we were very thirsty, so we all jumped out of the car, and I did not notice there were two water fountains, and I went to the first one, and it turned out to be a white people’s water fountain.
And um, about a few seconds later, as I was leaning down and drinking from it, I felt a very cold piece of steel against my neck. And I thought, it’s not a knife, so it’s got to be a gun. And sure enough, it was. And I’m nine or ten years old, and this sheriff is standing over me with this gun pressed against my neck and said to me, you’re not allowed to drink at a white person’s water fountain.
And he said, if I could kill you right now. There’d be one less, and this is exactly what he said to me, one less nigga. And no one would mind. That point on, from that point on, I knew where the color line was. I’m not black, but I’m not white. And I wasn’t allowed to drink at a white person’s water fountain.
scared the living daylights out of me. And I backed up from that water fountain. All of us backed up and we got into the car and we left that example of the incredible racism in the United States. just steered into my brain. I was just like, totally taken. I was so scared.
I’m a kid. I’m nine years old, 10 years old. I’m a kid. And to have a gun pointed straight directly onto your, neck ain’t no laughing matter.
[00:15:50] Miko Lee: That sounds so scary. I’m sorry that you had to go through that. I’m wondering there’s such a vivid memory that you have from being a child.
I’m wondering at what point was a turning point for you in becoming an activist.
[00:16:04] Jeanette Lazam: Oh, was that right then and there I was a kid from New York, so I knew that there were stratas and class levels and where people of color fell in, but it never came that home to me.
I was finally able to take the whole question of low income or working class people of color, and racism. It all intersected on that one day. And I thought to myself, no we can’t go on this way. And it was that moment I decided I have to do something about the situation. Because I am not going to allow people to do this without a fight.
Yeah, it was that day. And it continued all the way when I lived in the Philippines. And martial law was declared. I fought it there and I fought it when I came back to the United States.
[00:17:09] Miko Lee: Is there a difference in being an activist in the Philippines versus being an activist in the United States?
[00:17:15] Jeanette Lazam: Yes. First of all, in the Philippines, you’re dealing with an island nation. And so with an island nation, there are all these islands that you have to You know, deal with dialect, with culture, with this, with that , it’s a very difficult process undertaking to do to bring out democratic notions when people have been so oppressed and repressed for over 300 years because the Americans come in after, the Spaniards.
So we. We never as a nation never really experienced our own homegrown democracy, and it’s very hard to deal with that over here in the United States. It’s much different. You’re not dealing with an island you’re dealing with, yes, many states, but they’re all contiguous and there has been a history of revolutionary. Fervor and revolutionary sentiment throughout the history of the United States, and it exposes itself in the labor movement, the gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer movement, women’s movement. It gets manifested in those movements.
In the Philippines, very difficult to do. So the concentration for revolutionary organizations happens within the larger cities in the Philippines. And the, New People’s Army is more in the rural areas outside of the major cities. you can’t compare it. It’s like apples and oranges. You can’t do it. You have to look at the concrete conditions where people at and work from there. You can’t go into a situation and wish that it could be this way.
It takes hard work and long days,
[00:19:41] Aisa Villarosa: so many long days and Jeanette always appreciate your nuance and the ethos of humility that you are challenging organizers and activists to have right that we in whatever space we’re in cannot come in with assumptions. And yet. At the same time as you were sharing, one could see similarities between the oppression in the Philippines.
In the States, and that oppression is around, how is your home stolen? How is your home and your sense of safety ripped from you? And you just talked to us about your experience as a nine year old, not being safe enough to go to the drinking fountain you wanted, right? And I know that at this moment, you’re talking to us from the Senior Center, the iHotel can you share? about what the iHotel means to you, knowing that you’ve had possibly more history with the iHotel than maybe anyone alive at this moment.
[00:20:55] Jeanette Lazam: The iHotel has to be situated Within the context of a Manila town.
Generally, anytime you get a Chinatown, there’s some sort of other town that kind of is adjacent to it. And you have it in Stockton, you have it in Sacramento, you have it in Seattle, you have it in Portland, you have it here, you have it in Los Angeles. Manila Towns are very is the hub or was the hub of the Filipino community starting from the 1920s on up.
And so the International Hotel, as part of Manila Town, plays a very significant role in how Manila Towns functioned, what they offered. What they did and why they were established. It’s not just because of the proximity to Chinatown, the Chinatowns and Manila towns of the United States get set up mainly because of racism.
We are not allowed to move or to buy outside of those established boundaries. And who established those boundaries, the local governments, the state governments. Which were predominantly white people. It’s like the history of Oregon. Oregon was a state that was supposed to be set up for white people only.
And many people don’t know that. But the iHotel is a very significant place. Historically significant, it welcomes in the first Manong generation. Now these are the people who came before me. The Manong generation, mainly elderly men. Some of them are married and their wives and their children are in the Philippines and some of them are single. And they come to the International Hotel and stay, and then they go away.
Merchant Marines it’s the first generation, the Manong generation, that started this all. It’s the Larry Itliongs and the Philip Veracruz and Joe Dionysus, that all started the activism of the Manong generation. And it’s important for people to understand who and what. And where this Manong generation stood for and where they went in terms of labor and how they stood up, how they stood up against the brutal, the incredibly brutal oppression of the contractors and the large agribusiness of California, Oregon, and Washington, and then the Alaskan canneries. To understand that history is so important because that’s where we begin in many ways.
We begin with that history of understanding the plight. Of the Manong generation who lived in Manila town and who lived and sometimes died at the International Hotel. My father was one of those guys. And when I found that out, I was even more curious, more thirsty to want to know what did they go through and how in the world they withstood the onslaught.
Of worker oppression and racism and still kept on going I look at myself and, that’s my inspiration. That’s what’s kept me going for the last 60 somewhat odd years is looking at that initial generation, the Manong generation, and what they brought to our community.
[00:25:34] Aisa Villarosa: And Jeanette, I love you because you keep it real, and I know we’ve talked about the Manongs both as what you’re describing as revolutionary in so many ways, right? These are labor activists and fathers, and yet they were also human. And flawed. And so I’ve appreciated the stories you’ve talked about where Manila Town, at that time, as you describe it, before the violence and the eviction surrounding the iHotel, it was bustling. It was loud. It sounded noisy. When you talk about it, I picture people like my dad who were walking around and Zoot suits, because Filipino men at the time, I’ve read, were trying to go to tailors and were outfitting themselves in the best suits they could just to really stand up to some of the hostility and the racism they were encountering.
[00:26:38] Jeanette Lazam: That is so very true. it put everybody else to shame.
They were so sharp with their double breasted, sometimes zoot suits, polished shoes. Fedora hats. They were genuine and incredibly good looking. And I’ve seen, I have pictures of my father he’s standing on this little bridge in Central Park with his friends, with his army buddies, and they were all dressed up. And you’d think they were going to a fancy dancy, whatever place. No, they had swag. That’s the only thing I could say.
[00:27:19] Miko Lee: I love that, and I could picture it perfectly, and I like the way that you describe all these people strutting around, and the way you describe it is so visual, and I was saying to you when we first got on how honored I am that I have a piece of your art that’s hanging in my house, from the amazing Aisa and Lauren, and I’m just wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about it about your artistic practice. What inspires you and how do you combine your work as an activist with your work as an artist?
[00:27:51] Jeanette Lazam: I had always wanted to draw, but I never really did because my sister, my oldest sister she was a graphic designer. And so I was always like in her shadow. Years passed, so I’m sitting there doodling, and and in twenty, sixteen or seventeen, I moved to Taos, New Mexico.
And my bedroom window faces Taos Mountain. Taos Mountain is a vortex, and you can feel the incredible energy. That vibrates from that mountain and I would get this every morning and it was telling me draw. This is your time to draw So I did.
So I started drawing the Pueblo. And I started drawing scenes in and around Taos. And Taos is a very artistic community to begin with. So that also provided a lot of inspiration. And as the years went by, I started to draw more and more outside of Taos. When I finally moved I started doing owls. I suddenly realized that there’s a whole level of animals and insects and so forth that are on the endangered list. So I started drawing bees and bumblebees and all sorts of bees. Then I started doing the American bison or the buffalo, how all of these creatures Were on the endangered list or practically at that point where they didn’t exist anymore. And I knew that I had to do something about that in terms of my art. And so I stayed with that for several years. And then I turned myself to culture. I started looking at the Inca, the Maya and the Aztec and how rich and often bloody, but rich.
history they had in building civilizations that somehow disappear from the face of this earth. And I started looking at their colors, their color schemes were incredible. So I did that for a while and I wanted people to get exposed to that. However, In between that, I found myself getting wrapped around Philippine mythology, and when I went to look at our gods, our deities so forth and so on, our supernatural forces, I found very little.
There weren’t pictures so if there was something written, there were no pictures. And so I finally found a book that gave me some sense of what they looked like. And I have to say, fi Philippine mythology, whomever interacted with it, had an incredible creative mind. We had the most blood thirsty, , mythological creatures that I could think of.
Anywhere from the Aswang, which everyone knows about, to this creature called the Pugot, P U G O T, which is mainly from the Ilocos region. And it’s a huge mouth with a body from the mouth that walks on its legs and hands and feeds on children. And when I found, I was like, Oh yeah. I was absolutely mortified.
But you know, that’s what Philippine mythology is. We do have the supreme bakala, who is the supreme god, and all the other deities, his daughters and his sons. But there are also these horrendous and wicked mythological creatures. And the reason why I was trying to bring it out was, I firmly believe, and I found this out, In my research and drawing that you cannot.
Cannot understand the history of the Filipino people unless you take into account their mythology and their religions, whether you disagree with it or not. That’s part of the history of our people. And that part is incredibly rich. So I learned a lot from it.
[00:33:02] Aisa Villarosa: It is rich, and it is a mythology that has been threatened by colonization, when you mentioned that it was difficult to find writings that is all by design due to colonial oppression and the myth that Filipinos We’re always Catholic or always followed Spanish culture and religion is completely false, right? So I always appreciated your deep diving, not only into Filipino mythology and culture, but connecting those dots, especially to other indigenous cultures. Jeanette, for our listeners, can you briefly share for folks who aren’t familiar with the Aswang, and because even for me, I remember watching the Filipino channels as a kid, and they’re usually depicted as cheesy vampires, but we’d love to hear your
[00:34:10] Jeanette Lazam: your take on them. They are.
They are. They are vampires. They are usually women. They have the body up to the stomach of a woman and the rest is a fish tail and then they have bat wings and they fly around at night and your parents tell you about them because they want you to go to sleep and it’s scary enough. They are very, very scary.
[00:34:46] Aisa Villarosa: Yeah, that’s effective. It also reminds me of, there’s a wonderful older book by Dr. Clarissa Estes called Women Who Run With the Wolves, and it unpacks mythology and also often, it was a culture’s way of depicting women’s power and I have to say, as someone who identifies as gay, so much of your art has spoken to me, particularly because there is real homophobia in Filipino culture. Part of that’s due to colonization and religion, but your art really centers deities who go beyond a sexual binary. I suppose somewhat similar to two spirit indigenous depictions, and that’s really special.
[00:35:39] Jeanette Lazam: I’m hoping to do more research on the movement of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer Filipinos here in the United States. As well as in the Philippines, and try to be able to capture that in art. So I think that’s my next real challenge.
[00:36:04] Aisa Villarosa: I would love to see that.
[00:36:06] Miko Lee: You are tuned into apex express, a 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPF. Be in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org Next up, take a listen to Live It Up. By Bay Area’s Power Struggle.
[00:36:21] Aisa Villarosa: You were listening to Live It Up by the artist Power Struggle.
Jeanette, in terms of thinking about the future, talk to us more about that. Talk to us about your hopes and dreams.
[00:40:01] Jeanette Lazam: My hope is that, in particular to the Filipino community here in the United States I hope that they will be open and above board take whatever knowledge my generation can give that generation, that they appropriate the genera that, they appropriate the knowledge and the history that my generation is releasing. It’s important for several reasons. One, it makes our, history of Filipino people alive, very alive in the faces of the ones that are coming up after that generation. It also provides the continuity in our history. If there’s a break in continuity, it’s very hard to kind of climb back because what happens then is that people die. And if my generation dies, and it will, it’s important that your generation and the generation after yours appropriates whatever we’re giving, you don’t have to like it. You don’t have to love it. You just have to take it and then sort it out for yourself and then transfer it to the next generation. So there’s a level of continuity. That’s my hope and in the broader, population.
I want people to understand what it took to build the United States, what it took the level of sacrifice that the working class of this country had to make in order for this country to be built.
California’s agribusiness. Would not be where it’s at today if not for the Filipinos, if not for the Mexicans, and a few other Asians like Japanese. That’s also true for Hawaii. Who built this country? Who built this country? And people have to answer that question with fervor and knowledge.
[00:42:38] Aisa Villarosa: And with honesty.
[00:42:39] Jeanette Lazam: Yes, total honesty.
[00:42:44] Aisa Villarosa: Jeanette, you end… Each of your emails with, when I dream,
I dream of freedom. And what you’re saying to us is that in order for us to realize this freedom, we must do so collectively.
[00:42:59] Jeanette Lazam: Yep. And that’s no easy task. Because at every twist and turn of the struggle for true democracy in the United States, true social justice, You’re going to be making allies and you’re going to be leaving other allies behind because you no longer agree with some of the things they do, but it’s not to mean that they’re enemies.
And you’re going to be meeting new people, and you’re going to get involved with their lives and their struggles. And get to know them. So it’s every step of the way for the larger struggle at mind is a very intense and deep personal struggle. Do you choose to say you’re gay or lesbian or bisexual, transgender or queer? Do you choose to say that openly and above board to let people know? That this is who I am that happened to me when they had the first time they had district elections in San Francisco, I was at a open forum and somebody asked so how is this going to affect at that time the Castro and everybody knew this person was talking about how is the district elections going to affect the Castro.
I didn’t see anybody raising their hands and I just said as a lesbian, it will affect me greatly because we finally will have some level of and form of representation on the board of supervisors. Sometimes it’s a split second decision. Sometimes it’s something that’s well thought out. And that’s also true when you’re walking where you’re working with people. Sometimes it has to be. A split second decision, and other times, it’s longer. When I say I dream,
I dream for freedom. I dream for freedom for all people. Freedom from the shackles of sexism, racism, homophobia. That’s what I dream of. A true, functioning, honest democracy. Where social justice is not a movement, it is, it simply is.
[00:45:46] Aisa Villarosa: It simply is.
Gosh, that brings to mind the image of an ocean and that saying that the ocean is so many tiny drops. And what you’re challenging us to do is, in those moments where there is a sometimes split second decision, that we choose bravery. And we choose truthfulness in those moments. Jeanette, thank you so much for talking with us today. We’ve pictured Filipino deities. We’ve jumped from the Castro to the Philippines. And I am always in awe of your imagination and your artistry and your advocacy. Thank you.
[00:46:33] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing with us, Jeanette. It was an honor to spend a little bit of time just learning from you, hearing about your artistry, your activism, and your vision for the world. We really appreciate you.
[00:46:47] Jeanette Lazam: Oh, I appreciate people like you because it’s through you that we have a voice and that’s important. That’s important. One of the first tasks is always going to be On some type of journalism and media, and we have to protect that we have to protect the progressive and revolutionary sources of media.
[00:47:15] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.
[00:47:18] Jeanette Lazam: Thank you.
[00:47:20] Miko Lee: I really loved talking with your mentor, Jeanette. Tell me what’s your walk away. What did you hear her saying?
[00:47:27] Aisa Villarosa: It was such a rich conversation and. One of the many things I adore about Jeanette is she is a world builder in that she encourages anyone who is in her space to exercise their imagination. And as someone who’s been a bit of a veteran of the nonprofit industrial complex for, almost three decades now, it is shocking how frequently our imaginations are shunned, how we are often sent to work in siloed areas. The solution to so many of our heartaches is intersectional, is creativity.
So my big takeaway is hearing Jeanette talk about the trajectory of her life and how it essentially led her to really lean into becoming an artist. She has shared that she became an artist rather later in life. It’s a great example that You’re never too old or too young to start anything, to lean into your true self, and so many of Jeanette’s art pieces are odes to her identity as a social justice leader. How about you, Miko? What’s your takeaway?
[00:48:42] Miko Lee: She’s just a delight. She’s funny. She’s smart. She has so much wisdom. I really love interviewing OGs because it’s just constant pearls of wisdom. So I appreciate that. But I have another question for you, which is how did she come to be your mentor? When did you first meet?
[00:49:00] Aisa Villarosa: I first interviewed Jeanette during the Earlier parts of the COVID 19 pandemic, at the time, and this is a bit of my personal story, I was struggling with coming out to my family as a gay Filipino, and Jeanette shared with me her identity as someone who is LGBTQ, and it was such a moment of connection, even if we have many decades between us. The story she shares of being an artist, of being a Filipino, a gay person, a civil rights defender. It’s just a reminder that we don’t have to be only one thing. We are so much more alive if we can lean into our multiple identities, and Jeanette is a living example of that.
[00:49:56] Miko Lee: Oh, thanks for that. That is so right. We are all multifaceted. We are all these kaleidoscopes of change given where we are in life and the experiences we have. And it’s a delight to talk with your mentor and somebody I’ve heard about from a long time. So thanks so much for celebrating Filipino History Month by really talking with somebody that you admire so much and I can see why.
[00:50:23] Aisa Villarosa: Last week for our part one of Filipino American History Month, we talked with Pinay scholar, poet, activist, and historian, Emily Lawson, about her poem, No More Moments of Silence. It is Ate Em’s chronicling of the power, complexity, heartache, and love. Behind Filipino American identity, held together by centuries of struggle against colonial oppression and white supremacy, our Makibaka heritage, one shared by Black, Indigenous, and people of color grappling with settler colonialism and government extraction.
Now, to close out Filipino American History Month, I’m honored to share with you an excerpt from No More Moments of Silence, taken from a 2011 Michigan State University performance by Emily Lawson.
No more moments of silence in memory of Joseph Aletto and Chongberry Zhang by Emily Lawson. With respect and apologies to Emmanuel Ortiz and Doria Roberts and thanks to Reverend Edwin Rowe who taught us to pray out loud with our eyes open at Vincent Chin’s grave. This is a scream, not a shout out, at all of those right wing Christian conservatives and wannabe left wing liberals.
Who start all of their speeches with a moment of silence. Crossing themselves, genuflecting, lighting boat of candles and incense for every single damn lost soul on this earth, but their own. This is not an old Simon and Garfunkel song. This is a fighting song for you flag waving, war on terrorism, 9 11 memorial addicts.
Clean out your ears and your skeleton closets, because I cannot take any more moments of silence. You hear me? I cannot take any more moments of silence. For silence is what buried one million of my ancestors in a hundred American wars. Silence is what drove the stakes through the backs of my people, whipped with chains of cane fires as low paid migrant workers burned out of their bunkhouses as they slept and white collar neighbors watched in silence.
See, I cannot take any more moments of silence. Silence for silence is what robbed our Filipino people of our multiple tongues as the noose of colonialism wiped out 7, 000 islands of surnames and languages. Leaving us with a bastardized Hollywood identity of John Wayne Dust Bowl movies with Panoi Indios playing Indians in silence.
I cannot waste any moments of silence because they add up to decades and years like the 10 plus that kept my cousin estranged from her brothers and sisters who refused to acknowledge how they all inherited. The brunt of the beatings brought on by their father, in the bedroom of their mother, even ten years after their deaths.
The wounds still lie wide open in silence. I cannot waste any more moments, for our concept of time has been warped by the violence that pervades our homes and hearts. Like the self righteous, now terminated governor, who stood at the cold stone podium, singing the heroic praises of the North Valley Jewish Community Center’s staff.
While signing a historic anti gun bill into law, looking down and right over the entire family of Joseph Aleto, who had also been shot nine times by a white supremacist a month earlier while he delivered mail. And the bold faced governor, in his corporate suit and tie, looked right past the family and only into the TV news cameras.
As Joseph’s mother, Lillian, hung her head in silence in the front row, ashamed that the governor couldn’t even offer his condolences, didn’t even mention her son’s name, Joseph Aletto, what more, his death or existence. Her surviving children’s fury helped her stand up, and that is why she is not silent.
That is why they are not silent. That is why we cannot be silent anymore. For silence is what allowed the Warren cops to storm in a Hmong American family’s home, barge down the steps to their Michigan basement, shoot 18 year old Chong Berizhong 41 times, killing him with 27 bullets at close range, and say the force was…
Justified? Silence is what prevents our Hmong teenagers from telling their story. Afraid that they will be the next casualty of police brutality. Afraid that they will be deported for being unpatriotic. Sent to a landlocked country they have never seen. Even though they obey all laws, pay taxes, go to poor schools, and work three jobs no other Americans dare want.
See, we cannot waste any more moments of silence. And this ain’t about just taking back the night, I’m talking about taking back the day to day, because I am done with the silence. Our feet can no longer be bound. Our eyes cannot be taped. Yell your prayers as poems. Scream the names of the dead out loud.
For I cannot take any more moments of silence because silence has already taken too much from me.
Emily Lawson. September 11th, 2003. Revised September 17th, 2007. Detroit, Michigan.
Amidst protest for an immediate ceasefire and end to occupation in Gaza, may all who continue to resist against colonization and militarization root in Atta Emily’s call, now and always, no more moments of silence. Visit our Apex Express website to learn more.
[00:57:06] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important.
[00:57:30] Miko Lee: Apex express is produced by me. Miko Lee. Along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida. Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hieu Nguyen and Cheryl Truong tonight’s show is produced by me Miko thank you so much to the team at kpfa for their support have a great night.
The post APEX Express – 11.2.23- No More Moments of Silence: Filipinx Identity & Critical Resistance appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
APEX Express celebrates Filipino American History Month. Host Miko Lee is joined by guest Aisa Villarosa.
They learn about the origin story of Filipino American History Month with Dr. Emily Lawsin and talk about the critical importance of ethnic studies with Dr. Dylan Rodriguez. We also get to hear music from Power Struggle’s Aspirations album.
More information from and about our guests
Emily Lawsin
Filipino American National Historical Society
Dylan Rodriguez and his writing:
- https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/dylan-rodriguez-part-i-abolition-is-our-obligation
- https://millennialsarekillingcapitalism.libsyn.com/white-reconstruction-dylan-rodriguez-on-domestic-war-the-logics-of-genocide-and-abolition
- https://www.blackagendareport.com/cops-colleges-and-counterinsurgency-interview-dylan-rodriguez
Musician Power Struggle and their collection:
https://beatrockmusic.com/collections/power-struggle
APEX Express Episodes featuring subjects discussed in this episode:
- 11.8.18 – Dawn Mabalon is in the Heart – entire show dedicates to Dawn
- 11.18.21 – We Are the Leaders – Labor features Gayle Romasanta on Larry Itliong book co-written by Dawn Mabalon
Show Transcript Filipino American History Month 10.26.23
[00:00:00] Miko Lee: Good evening and welcome to Apex Express. This is Miko Lee and I am so thrilled to have a guest co host this night, the amazing and talented Aisa Villarosa. Aisa can you please introduce yourselves to our audience? Say who you are, where you come from, and a little bit about yourself.
[00:00:44] Aisa Villarosa: Thank you so much, Miko, and it’s a joy to be with you and the Apex Express family. My name is Aisa, my pronouns are she, her, and I’m a Michigan born gay Filipino artist, activist, attorney with roots in ethnic studies organizing and teaching Filipino studies, in the wonderful Pa’aralang Pilipino of Southfield, Michigan. If you ever find yourself at the intersection of Eight Mile and Greenfield near Detroit, stop on by.
[00:01:19] Miko Lee: Aisa, talk to me about this episode and what we’re featuring in honor of the final week of Filipino American History Month.
[00:01:28] Aisa Villarosa: I’d be honored to, Miko. We’ll be doing a deep dive into Filipino American History Month today, including its origins and how the month acknowledges the first Filipinos who reached the shores of Morro Bay, California in 1587. We’re going to be talking about what this month means in the context of today, how Filipinos are honoring the ongoing struggles for civil rights, for human rights, and we’ll be talking to some personal heroes of mine. We’ll also be talking about ethnic studies, which shares with new generations, these events and stories of Filipino Americans.
[00:02:12] Miko Lee: Aisa, talk to me about ethnic studies. What is the background that we need to know? It’s been a big part of our Asian American movement struggle with the fight for ethnic studies. give our audience a definition about what ethnic studies is and why is it important right now.
[00:02:29] Aisa Villarosa: That’s a great question, Miko. And I really love the definition of ethnic studies offered by the Coalition of Liberated Ethnic Studies. And they have said that this is essentially the knowledge, narratives, experiences, and wellness of Black, indigenous and people of color and their communities so that liberation of all peoples and relations are realized. And when we really break that down, this is the study of collective liberation. Part of why ethnic studies is so important is that this is really a root key to unlocking systemic change against hate. If it’s taught in an intersectional approach, it really is a preventative tactic against racism. It’s also rooted in storytelling. It’s rooted in multi generational learning. And the best thing, in my opinion, with ethnic studies is we see the community as a living classroom.
[00:03:32] Miko Lee: And , I know Ethnic Studies is part of your background. You came up as a student of Ethnic Studies. I came up in Women’s Studies and Theater Studies not Ethnic Studies, but I took so many Ethnic Studies classes at San Francisco State that really profoundly shaped how I work and live as an activist and artist. Can you talk about how being a Filipino Studies student impacted you in your present day?
[00:03:57] Aisa Villarosa: Absolutely. And oh, Miko, I feel like we would just be nerding out together in a theater or activism class. So thanks for sharing. Quite simply, I wouldn’t be who I am without Ethnic Studies and the incredible folks behind this movement, including some voices that we’ll be hearing from soon. It is encouraging that even in California, for example, ethnic studies was mandated in high schools in 2021. We are seeing a lot of progress across the nation with more and more school districts, more and more classrooms incorporating ethnic and Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian studies.
And yet we also know that passing a law to teach ethnic studies is but one step and this isn’t very well known, but ethnic studies is actually under attack. It’s under attack from attempts to censor and limit the history and teaching, especially around colonization and militarization experienced by communities. And why this is really problematic is this sort of censorship can keep communities from finding one another, from finding that common ground, from seeing each other in their full humanity.
[00:05:18] Miko Lee: Aisa there’s so much going on in our world right now with what’s happening in Palestine and Israel. And what does this have to do with the work of ethnic studies?
[00:05:29] Aisa Villarosa: It has everything to do with ethnic studies, and right now we’re seeing some targeting of students and activists speaking out for nonviolence, for a ceasefire, and an end to military occupation in Palestine, in Hawaii, across the world. And these activists and young folks are being targeted really, As Palestinian identity and people endure tremendous loss and mass displacement, why this matters is ethnic studies is living history and ethnic studies challenges us to take stock of moments where we can either be silent, or we can take action, including first steps to understand the history and the narratives behind these conflicts to really unpack the global impacts of colonization. It doesn’t matter whether one is Filipino or Asian American or Black or Latinx or Indigenous or from any one of the countless communities living under the impacts of systemic violence and oppression.
[00:06:36] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I feel like we could do a whole series on why ethnic studies is so critical and important. But look forward to hearing from two people that are professors, educators, and activists and tell me who we’re going to be talking with first.
[00:06:51] Aisa Villarosa: We’ll be talking first to Ate Emily Lawsin, a poet and an activist. She’ll be sharing more about the establishment of Filipino American History Month.
And then we’ll be talking with activist and scholar Dylan Rodriguez, about Filipino American history in the context of today’s struggles against white supremacy, military exploitation, and government violence.
[00:07:16] Miko Lee: So let’s take a listen to our interviews.
[00:07:18] Aisa Villarosa: We are here tonight with one of my dearest mentors, heroes, big sister, a. k. a. Ate, Ate Emily Lawson. Emily, you have, over the course of your career, taught and made a difference in thousands of people’s lives, including mine. For folks who are just getting to know you, can you share a little bit about your work and perhaps, you working on right now?
[00:07:49] Emily Lawsin: My name is Emily Lawsin and I’m a second generation Filipino American, or pinay, as we say. I was born and raised in “she-attle” Washington and I’m the National President Emerita of the Filipino American National Historical Society or FANHS. I was on the board of trustees for 30 years no longer on the board, but still do supportive work for the organization. It’s a completely volunteer run organization founded by Dorothy Ligo Cordova, Dr. Dorothy Ligo Cordova in 1982, I used to teach Asian Pacific Islander American studies and women’s studies at different universities across the country in California and other states I was really blessed to be able to teach some of the first Filipino American history courses on different campuses and really utilize our FANHS curriculum in doing that. Now I work for four Culture which is King County’s Cultural Development Authority, and I’m the Historic Preservation program manager there. I’m also a spoken word performance poet and oral historian
[00:08:59] Aisa Villarosa: and for folks who have not had the privilege of watching Emily perform. You are a powerhouse. And a confession, I have inspirational post it notes around my laptop and I have one post it that says no more moments of silence. It’s from a performance you gave, gosh, it was maybe sometime in 2008,
[00:09:22] Emily Lawsin: yeah, that’s awesome. Oh, thank you.
[00:09:25] Aisa Villarosa: Yes. It’s come full circle because I have remained a supporter of ethnic studies and part of why I am talking with you today is because October is Filipino American History Month and even breaking down every single word.
In that phrase, there was a battle and a journey to even get the national recognition that y’all were able to get especially through your advocacy. So if you could tell the listeners maybe a bit about that journey and even for folks who are newer to the month, what is the difference between, say, heritage and history?
[00:10:08] Emily Lawsin: Oh, that’s awesome question. Thank you. Yeah, Filipino American History Month was really started by my Uncle Fred Cordova, Dr. Fred Cordova, who was the founding president of the Filipino American National Historical Society, or FANHS. He came up with the idea in 1991 and really wanted to recognize October as Philippine American History Month because the first documented landing of the first Filipinos in what is now known as the continental United States, specifically Morro Bay, California, happened on October 18th 1587.
When Lizones Indios or Filipinos who were a crew and a slave slaves really on Spanish galleon ships were sent ashore off the coast of Morro Bay as like a landing party to scout out the area. If you actually look at a Instagram reel that our current FANHS President, Dr. Kevin Nadal made he tells you the history of, why October 18th, 1587 is important and it’s not necessarily to celebrate that landing because people did die.
But it’s to commemorate and to remember that history and that memory where a Chumash Indupinos. Indigenous Filipinos Indupinos is what they call themselves too. They actually were instrumental in creating that moral based site as a historic marker for FANHS. That date is significant for Filipinos because of that first landing.
And Then in the 1760s the first communities and families were created in the Bayou of Louisiana. Where these same crew folks or Filipinos jumped ship from those Spanish galleon and were called Manila Men by Marina Espina, who wrote the book Filipinos in Louisiana. Those families that jumped ship, created seven different villages in the bayous of Louisiana and intermarried with the local Creole communities there. Those families are now in their eighth and ninth generations. We wanted to recognize that history as being really the first Asian Americans in what is now known as the continental United States.
Uncle Fred wrote the resolution for the FANHS Board of Trustees and they passed it in 1991 with the first observance nationally in 1992. Our FANHS chapters around the country started commemorating Philippine American History Month activities in October. It just grew from there. Institutions, schools, a lot of universities picked them up libraries city governments, county governments, state governments started picking up the resolution to honor our Filipino American history. We say Filipino American history, not heritage because we are a historical society, number one. But Number two, to recognize the history and the contributions of Filipinos to these United States of America. Not necessarily just Lumpia and dances and food. We are more than Ube. That’s right. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We’re more than that, because Filipino American history is American history as well. And so then in the 2000s as our membership was growing And as our conferences were being more and more attended, a lot of our members in Washington, D. C. wanted to advocate and took up the charge from Uncle Fred, right? Uncle Fred asked them, hey, let’s try to get this through Congress. And it went. For a few years and didn’t necessarily pass as, as a history month until 2009.
So 2009 we had representatives present the bill. We mobilized a lot of our members to call their Congress. People and it went through and then subsequent bills happened in 2011 and other years to officially recognize October as Philippine market history month. Barack Obama was the first White House celebration of Filipino American History Month. That meant a really big deal for us in FANHS that it was being recognized nationwide.
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also issued proclamations resolutions this year. It’s grown as our communities have grown, as our historical society has grown and it has expanded throughout the country and even in the curriculums. So we’re really proud of that.
[00:15:09] Aisa Villarosa: the success would not be possible, but for intergenerational solidarity, right? Almost being hand in hand with generations past and present and food, food is totally political Ate Em. So, so yes, calling, the great Dawn Maboulon, into the space, many Americans, are taught, unfortunately, by sort of the dominant structures that food is not political, but it’s absolutely political, right?
And I appreciate you sharing with the listeners the history behind the history, right? That this is both an accounting of the triumphs, the heartache, the fact that Many Filipinos use the term barkata, and when we look at the genesis of the word barkata, that term, which is almost like a friend that is really family, there’s a spiritual bond there that was born of Spanish enslavement and colonization. So important that we ground the conversation in this.
[00:16:09] Emily Lawsin: Yeah, and I thank you for bringing up my My Kumadre, the late Dr. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon. For the listeners who don’t know, we consider her the queen and really was the foremost Filipino American historian of our generation. She passed away in 2018. Dawn was a incredibly gifted scholar was a very good friend of mine. Dawn was also a food historian, a labor historian a women’s historian but she was also an activist she was a film producer she was a hip hop head she was a baker. the most incredible ube cupcakes you’d ever have. She was multi talented . Every day I think about how blessed we are to have known her, have her research still with us. I think, carries a lot of us who are close to her forward in the work that we do, but it also is continuing to teach younger generations now. You mentioned the intergenerational nature. That’s totally what FANHS is. Dawn and I both came into FANHS as students. I came in as a high school student volunteering in Seattle and Dawn came in to our Los Angeles chapter. She was one of the founding student members of our Los Angeles chapter and then became a trustee and national scholar and was author of several books primarily her book on Little Manila in Stockton. Little Manila is in the heart. Since her death, I think a lot more young folks have mobilized and learned about her great activism to save Little Manila is not only in Stockton, but in other cities and towns all over the country to document Filipino American history through recordings, through music, through art. She’s just inspired a whole, new generation because of the great work that she did.
She wrote the landmark children’s book on Larry Itliong one of the founders of the United Farm Workers Union. It was really the first illustrated children’s book on Filipino American history. Gail Romasanta, our friend from Stockton was her co author and really wanted to thank Gail for Carrying forward Dawn’s vision and publishing that children’s book and her comadre, Dr. Allison Tintanco Cobales from San Francisco State University and Pinay Pinoy Educational Partnerships, created an incredible accompanying curriculum guide. Which a lot of us use at all different levels. The book is supposed to be for like middle school age students, but I assigned it for my college and university students. Because it was such a pathbreaking book. It’s so informative and the accompanying curriculum guide really helps teachers and students, even families, engage with the material more and gives you discussion prompts and ideas as well. It is really an example of a researched children’s book and grassroots effort to spread that knowledge around.
After Dawn died we told Gail the publisher and co author, we’re still going to do the book tour. I had promised Dawn that we would do that. I think it was like 20 cities across the country. It was amazing. It’s really a testament to the intergenerational nature, the grassroots nature of FANHS. We run totally volunteer up until probably next year. Wow. Next year we’ll probably hire our first staff person in 43 years. Because Auntie Dorothy Ligel Cordova has done it as a volunteer executive director.
Oh my gosh.
[00:20:16] Aisa Villarosa: Just a labor of love and also it’s so important to build out the infrastructure so that that is good news.
[00:20:23] Emily Lawsin: Totally labor of love. So if y’all are looking for a really worthy donation place, then that is it. Totally tax deductible.
[00:20:32] Aisa Villarosa: And our listeners. can check out. We’ll have some links related to this episode where folks can support you Ate Em as well as FAHNS. And as you were sharing, I kept thinking, some folks say art is our memory of love. But teaching is also an act of love. As you do as Ate Dawn Allison, so many have done are doing it is an act of love. And yet, Because of the violence of our systems we have book bans, we have attacks on ethnic studies still in 2023. How do you keep yourself nourished?
[00:21:12] Emily Lawsin: Oh, such a good question. We had a penialism. Peniaism is a term that Dr. Allison Tintiaco Cabal has created, wow, 30 years ago now, or maybe less, maybe 25, I’m dating ourselves. She says peniaism equals love and pain and growth. That is so true. I believe in writing as my kind of outlet. Write for two reasons, love and revenge. Because what other reason would you write, right? So that’s like a therapy outlet. To keep myself nourished, I’m really blessed to have a very loving partner and a very loving family. They nourish me. every day, literally feed me when I’m working late. But also with their love and their kindness and their brilliance.
My two daughters are incredibly gifted and brilliant and just really blessed to have them. But also I think when I look at our community. Our Filipino American community specifically and how it’s grown and changed through the years. Auntie Dorothy, when I was in college, was my professor and she used to say that our Filipino American community is built on many different layers.
We have so many different generations that have immigrated over the years. And so every generation builds upon the other, the next generation. It’s all these different layers. And I think that really helped me conceive of What it means to be in community with such a diverse Filipino American population. That education that knowledge has nourished me more than really anything else, because then I could. Always fall back to those teachings that Uncle Fred and Auntie Dorothy gave me. I was very blessed to have grown up on the Filipino Youth Activities Drill Team in Seattle that Uncle Fred and Auntie Dorothy co founded with other families, Filipino American families, as a way to keep Pinoy kids off the streets, right?
It taught us our history and our pride, and gave me confidence in being Filipino, right? Being brown, being different. So that has constantly nourished me. My parents and their memory has nourished me because basically the work that we do, whether it’s paid or not whether it’s art, whether it’s performance, whether it’s history, writing, activism, or working for the man, making the dollar, whatever.
To me, that’s all fueled by the ancestors, and they literally plowed these fields before us, right? My uncles were farm workers. They were migrant farm workers. My mother was one of the first Filipino American women to work in the Alaskan cannery as an alaskera. You hear a lot about the Alaskeros or maybe you don’t, I don’t know.
But she was one of the women and that is really. important to me. It’s important for my children and others to, to know that history. If I remind myself that we’re really doing the work of the ancestors then it’s all worth it. It’s all really worth it.
[00:25:07] Aisa Villarosa: They say we don’t know who all our ancestors are, but they know who we are. What you shared is also similar to Kapua, right? This concept that our identities are shared. So thank you for giving us your time and also just sharing what keeps you running on love in each moment.
[00:25:32] Emily Lawsin: Absolutely. I just wanted to add a big thank you to you. I’m going to play the interviewer because I am the oral historian. I want listeners to know the good work that you’ve done. Since you were a student, a mentor activist yourself, an attorney working with youth and now working in the anti Asian violence movement, it’s really important. In Philippine American History Month, it’s not just about celebration. It is about commemorating the memories of those who’ve been killed. The memories of those who’ve passed I know you know about Joseph Aleto the Filipino American postal worker who was killed by a white supremacist on his work route a mile from my house. I was teaching at California State University, Northridge then, and the students said something incredible when they were organizing around that case.
They said he was not in the wrong place at the wrong time, because people say that, right? When those kind of what they call random acts of violence happen, it wasn’t random at all. He chose to kill Joseph Aletto because he looked like a person of color. He worked for the federal government. So the student at Cal State Northridge said, no, he wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was at his place, at his time, doing his job, just doing his job. The killer, the white supremacist, was the wrong person, at the wrong time. Joseph Aletto did not deserve to be killed like that.
After he was killed, his memory was immediately ignored. And it wasn’t until his family, his mother, Lillian, his brother, Ishmael, and his sister in law, Dina, stood up and said, “We will not have this happen to another family. We will not be ignored. ” they started a movement Join Our Struggle, Educate to Prevent Hate.
And still love equality and tolerance and others, which is an acronym for his, the letters in his name. I totally supported that and love the Alato family for their activism to this day. So I want to thank you. For educating others in the work that you do now, you want to tell that because that’s part of Philippine American history.
[00:28:17] Aisa Villarosa: Thank you. And especially given our hard and painful moments right now thinking of. The pain felt by both Students and teachers of ethnic studies to many miles away the pain felt by Palestinians, right? There is a challenge and a duty that we have to both see the humanity in ourselves, but also bridge the shared struggles to humanize when we can because the stakes are too high. So thank you for reminding us of that. It was so beautiful to talk with you today. I hope listeners check out the links on our page and can learn more about Atta Emily Lawson’s work and the work of FAHNS.
[00:29:12] Emily Lawsin: Thank you, Aisa. I appreciate you. Mahal to everybody and Salama. Thank you.
[00:29:20] Miko Lee: Aisa, I’m so glad that you’re also sharing some music with us tonight. Can you tell us about the musician we’re going to be hearing from?
[00:29:28] Aisa Villarosa: Absolutely. I’m honored to introduce my friend and colleague, Mario, a. k. a. Power Struggle, who has been a behemoth in the Bay Area and global music and activism scene for many years. Power Struggle tells the story of The Filipino community, both in the Philippines, as well as connecting the dots to social justice and economic justice in the Bay Area and beyond.
[00:30:00] Miko Lee: Coming up next is Cultural Worker featuring Equipto by Power Struggle.
Welcome back. You are tuned into apex express, a 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPF. Be in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org
[00:34:45] Aisa Villarosa: You were listening to Cultural Worker featuring Equipto by the Bay Area’s own Power Struggle.
I am here tonight talking to the incredible Dylan Rodriguez. Dylan, it is a pleasure to have you on the show with us.
[00:35:01] Dylan Rodriguez: I’ve never been introduced that way. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. I decline. I decline all of the superlatives, humbled. I’m very humbled to the conversation. I’m grateful for the invitation.
[00:35:12] Aisa Villarosa: Let me, I’ll try that again. Here is Rabble Rouser Scholar extraordinaire Dylan Rodriguez.
[00:35:18] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah, troublemaking, troublemaking’s good. Yeah, I’m down for that.
[00:35:22] Aisa Villarosa: Dylan, I have to say most folks tuning in are based on the west coast, but you are gracing us with your presence from the east coast. So thank you.
Thank you for being on late with us tonight. Can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself? Maybe starting with what do you do?
[00:35:41] Dylan Rodriguez: I’m a professor at the University of California, the Riverside campus. This is now my 23rd year there. Despite multiple efforts, they have not been able to get rid of me yet. And I’m very proud to say that my primary vocation extends significantly beyond my day job. I think perhaps the most important part of What I would say I do biographically is that my life work is adjoined to various forms of collaborative attempts at radical political activity, speculative and experimental forms of organizing and community. I’ve been engaged in abolitionist Forms of practice and teaching and scholarship and organizing since the mid to late 90s.
I’m interested in collaborating with people who are down with Black liberation anti colonialism opposition to anti Black racist colonial state. I’ve been involved so many different organizations and movements that I lose track, but I think that’s, in a nutshell, what I’m about.
[00:36:39] Aisa Villarosa: So you’re in Your 23rd year the Michael Jordan year, and thank you for sharing with us. It sounds like you are a world builder Grace Lee Boggs often says that how can we build the future if we’re not visioning it and working toward it. So thank you for everything you’ve been doing and In terms of in the classroom, can you talk a little bit about what you teach?
[00:37:04] Dylan Rodriguez: I teach a variety of different classes that center the archives, the thoughts, the writing, the poetry, the art of radical revolutionary liberationists and anti colonial organizers, thinkers, and scholars. For example, this right now, for example, right now I’m teaching a graduate class in anti Blackness and racial colonial state violence.
And we’re reading a variety of people. I’m interested in, in the whole spectrum. of thought and praxis that is attacking the racist and anti Black and colonial state. I teach another class on the prison industrial complex and that’s a class I’ve been teaching for more than 20 years and I teach it from in a in an unapologetically experimental abolitionist position.
So I’m interested in stoking and supporting whatever forms of collective and collaborative activity are possible to at bare minimum to undermine The premises of this carceral regime that we all live under and I teach a bunch of other things too, but I think the overall trajectory that I’m interested in is some combination of radical autonomy revolutionary trajectory and also just. As I get older, I become less patient. So I’ll say that I feel like a lot of the way I teach all the content what I teach now, whether it’s in a classroom or somewhere else is increasingly militantly accelerationist I think that there is a place and a necessity for accelerating, militant opposition and confrontation with this unsustainable, genocidal, civilizational project that we all differently inhabit. I feel like it’s an obligation to teach and work within an identification of that context.
[00:38:47] Aisa Villarosa: What I heard you say is. You’re less patient and it sounds like it’s because we are running out of time.
[00:38:53] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah, we are living. I think we’re outta time. I think we’re outta time. I’m unprecedented times. Yes, we’re out of time and mean as we have this conversation and as I’ve been saying to anybody that listen to me, these these last several days. We’re in a moment of an actual unfolding genocide, and I’m not sure, I’m not sure that those who identify themselves as the left, particularly the North American and U. S. left, have an adequate sense of urgency and honesty about what it means to be in this historical moment.
[00:39:26] Aisa Villarosa: I’d love for you to break this down. I wonder if at this moment, there are folks listening who are completely in agreement. There might be some other folks who perhaps are not sure what to think. And some of that, a lot of that is the impacts of colonization itself, right? We are trained to think small culturally, put your head down. You mentioned you teach anti Blackness and as someone who grew up in racially segregated Michigan with a Black and white and Filipino family, people used to joke that we were the United Nations of families. And yet we did not have the words to talk about anti Blackness. We did not. Unpack it in any sort of meaningful way. And we didn’t consider what it meant for our Black family members. So for folks listening who are perhaps new to unpacking anti Blackness, unpacking the genocide in Palestine. Can you connect the dots a little bit?
[00:40:33] Dylan Rodriguez: I can do so in a provisional way. I have no definitive answers for anybody who hears this broadcast or reads this transcript. So let me just start with that. I don’t present myself as having answers really at all. What I have are urgent, ambitious and militant attempts. But let me just say that’s where I’m coming from. I believe in experimentation. I believe in collective, collaborative. militant work that, first of all, identifies the very things you just did. So I want to just, first of all, reflect back to you how important, how courageous it is to just use the terms, right?
To use the terms, to center the terms of anti Blackness, to focus on anti Blackness is so principled and it is also principled it is a principle and it is principled to focus on anti Blackness as a specific way in which to experience and confront and deal with the civilizational project that is so completely foundationally violent.
To name what is happening right now in Palestine by way of the United States and its militarization support of the state of Israel as genocide. That takes some courage on the part of whoever says it, and I think it’s a courage that is emboldened when it’s a collective courage. So what I’ll say about it as a provisional response as a partial response to what you said is that.
I think everything that we do in relation to these dynamics to these forms of violence that are so foundational to the way in which the present historical tense is formed around us, meaning genocide of Palestinians displacement genocide apartheid against Palestinians, and this foundational modern structure of anti Blackness that naming those things, and then identifying how it is that it is not an option to develop it.
It’s principled, political, ideological, spiritual collective relationship, you have to figure out what your relationship is to those dynamics. You have no choice. What I have no patience for are those who would treat these things genocide in Palestine, the global logic of anti Blackness, as if it’s somehow optional.
As if it’s somehow as if it’s somehow elective that it’s a volunteeristic kind of alternative to deal. You have no choice. You have to figure out, articulate, and hopefully you’re doing this in collaboration with other people.
You’ve got to figure out what your position is. And once you do that, things tend to map themselves out because you get pulled in and invited into projects and collective work that actually tends to be really emboldening and beautiful. So I’ll say that like wherever you are, whether it’s northern Southern California, whether it’s I happen to be right now on the East Coast in the state of New Hampshire I live in Southern California. I think identifying those things is the first and most important courageous collective step.
[00:43:18] Aisa Villarosa: And turning a little bit to ethnic studies, which we heard previously from Atta Emily Lawson about the power of ethnic studies and if done right, if taught in a liberatory way, it gives us the answers. It helps us bridge gaps that oppression wrought on us, and some would say that’s dangerous. Can you share what you have experienced as An instructor as a scholar of ethnic studies in your long career,
[00:43:54] Dylan Rodriguez: So first of all, shout out to Dr. Emily Lawson, one of my Thank you. youngest old friends. All respect and all empowerment to everything that she says. So I just I do my best to amplify whatever it is that she’s done and said. So I come out of ethnic studies. I got my Ph. D. In ethnic studies. I’m one of the people who was humbled to be part of, I think, the new kind of the most recent revision and reification the newest chapter of ethnic studies, which people call critical ethnic studies. So I’ve been in, in the ethnic studies project for essentially my whole adult life.
I’m now 49 plus years old, so it’s been for, it’s been a while that I’ve been involved. So ethnic studies, As far as what it does in the world, I’m going to go the opposite direction that some of my colleagues do, and I don’t mean this to contradict them, this to compliment them. I think ethnic studies is productively endangering.
I think it is constructively violent. I think ethnic studies is beautifully displacing. That’s been my experience with it, and what I mean by those things is this. I’m convinced that if one approaches ethnic studies as something more than just an academic curriculum, if one approaches it as a way to reshape how you interpret the world around you, how you understand history, how you understand your relationship, both to history and to other people, that it should shake you to your foundations.
It really should. And the reason I say that is because, for the most part, the ways in which people, especially in North America, are ideologically trained in whatever school systems they experience from the time they enter a language is to assimilate, to accept and to concede to the United States nation building project, which is empire, right?
It’s a continuation of anti Black chattel. It’s all of these things, which we started this conversation with. It’s all those things. So what ethnic studies does is it should shake you to your foundations by way of exposing exactly what it is that you have been. In some ways, literally bred into loyalty to so so when it shakes with your foundations, that’s an endangering feeling.
I’ve had it so many times in the classroom where I can sense it. I can. And sometimes students, the students who are the most, I think audacious will articulate it that way, right? And they will, they’ll sometimes hold it against the teacher, right? Whether it’s me or somebody else. And I’ll say I feel like I’m being attacked, right?
And you know what? I used to be defensive about that, but you know what? In probably the last 15 to 20 years, I tell them, you know what that’s how you should feel. Because what’s happening right now is that you’re experiencing an archive and a history and a way of seeing the world that is it’s forcing you to question Essentially some of the most important assumptions that have shaped your way of identifying who you are on this planet and in the United States and in relation to the United States and the violence of the United States.
You’ve never thought about the United States as a violent genocidal anti Black nation building project. Now that we’re naming that. Yeah, you know you’re feeling a kind of violence through that and ideological violence you feel displaced by that you feel endangered by that.
That’s all right. That’s all right because I’m here with you. You know I’m here with you and we’re all in this. At the same time, and the point is to figure out what’s going to be the right some people will just disavow it and they’ll do their best to fabricate their own return to the point from which they started.
And then a lot of other people will never be able to go back to that same place that is the beauty of what I understand to be the best of ethnic studies is it displaces people from this default loyalty to the United States nation building project it disrupts the kind of default Americanism. That seems to shape the horizon of people’s political, cultural, ideological ambitions, and it says that there’s got to be something on the other side of this that is liberatory, that’s a different way of being in the world.
That’s the best of ethnic studies. And so I do my best to work within that lineage, within that tradition, within that ambition.
[00:48:02] Aisa Villarosa: I am thinking about. Adrienne Marie Brown and folks who say subscribe to the Nap ministry, et cetera. And as we progress generationally, we, in some cases, get a more nuanced vocabulary for times to pause, times to recharge you know, COVID 19 name your thing. Is there room in this struggle knowing that essentially we’re out of time, right? The timer is going off. Can we rest? And how can we find rest in each other?
[00:48:46] Dylan Rodriguez: That’s such a hard one. I’ll be completely vulnerable with the people that are listening, reading, and experiencing my comments right now. I would be a hypocrite to say That I fully ascribe to any regime that is committed to self care, right? I’d be lying. I’d be lying. I feel like I’m mostly committed to trying to engage with whatever forms of possibility radical possibility are available at my best to the point of getting close to exhaustion and then stopping and taking a rest and just asking people to give me a break and people are very just so let me back up the people who I tend to collaborate with nowadays are incredibly generous.
They look out for each other. They give me more of a break than I probably need or deserve. All right, so but I’ll say at the very same time with what is. obsessing me is this kind of humble notion that I want to maximize whatever contribution I can make to advancing some form of a liberation and abolitionist and anti colonial and Black liberation project before I walk off the mortal coil.
That’s it. That’s my contribution. I feel honored to be part of that. I don’t expect to necessarily see the liberation, the revolution, the decolonization in my lifetime, it’s not about that. It’s not that narcissistic. I got over that many years ago. So I’ll say that with all humility with all vulnerability to people here, and I don’t prescribe it.
I’m not saying anybody should be like me. To the contrary. I think the lesson that I’ve learned from a variety of comrades who are much more mature than I am in terms of understanding the limitations of doing work this way and people have exemplified. A version of collective self care that attacks the kind of neoliberal individualized notion of self care that frankly really gets under my skin.
They have taught me what my friends at the what [Big Tree & Martine] and I’ll send you the link so people can check them out. They’re the co founders of Ujima Medics in Chicago. I quote them all the time on this. But they have talked to me more than once about the notion. Of collective and deep responsibility.
So I think I would use the term of deep responsibility, rather than self care I would use the term deep responsibility as a way to understand what it means to be in community with people who will make sure that you take the time that you take the space to recharge and pause that people who will recognize your vulnerability and your exhaustion.
And make sure that you’re able to rest to the point where you will remain a warrior that’s effective in this ongoing struggle. And warrior when I say warrior I mean that all different kind of ways, right? There’s all different kind of warriors. So I think what Martine and Amika talk about is deep responsibility is the one I would really emphasize because I think it’s a notion of collectivity and it means that we’re actually looking out for each other.
And what it means is that we are pushing each other to care. For ourselves and others are caring for us, maybe in a way. That is wiser than we are capable, than what we are capable of doing for ourselves. And I know, and again, with all humility and vulnerability, I feel like that’s what I need from people around me is to be around people who believe in that form of deeper collective responsibility.
I’m probably not capable of it, right? That makes me, I know that makes me a bad abolitionist, everybody, but but others have taught me that’s my limitation. So I feel like that’s where I’m at.
[00:52:10] Aisa Villarosa: You’re winning the. Award for most honest guest star on this show, Dylan.
[00:52:17] Dylan Rodriguez: I have no choice. I have no choice.
[00:52:20] Aisa Villarosa: How can people support
[00:52:21] Dylan Rodriguez: you?
Oh man I don’t need support. I don’t need support from people. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t I feel like there’s so many, there’s so many collective organizations and What I’d rather do is if you wanna get in touch with me, I’m happy to do that. People hit me up.
I’m on social media, like I’m on Instagram and Twitter. Just look me up. Dylan Rodriguez 73 on Instagram. Dylan at Dylan Rodriguez. On Twitter. I guess it’s called X Now. I don’t know, I’m gonna jump off those platforms at some point, but for now I’m still on ’em. Email. You can email me at Dylan Rodriguez, collaborate@gmail.com.
So that’s a cool way to get in touch. So I feel like I’m Profoundly privileged position. Again I get to participate in all different forms of collective work. I have plenty of support. So I don’t want people supporting me. What I want people to do is figure out what kinds of collaborative collective collaborative and collective project around them that are seeking autonomy.
That’s what I want people to do. That’s what I want you to support. I want you to support autonomous projects. For liberation revolutionary struggle. And if it if there’s decolonization there as well autonomous projects that are not dependent on the state that are not dependent on the Democratic Party that are not dependent on nonprofit organizations, non governmental organizations that don’t Rely on public policy reforms.
If there are communities organizations around that are seeking to create autonomous forms of power. That’s what I want people to support. I think that’s what needs to be modeled. That is what is on the other side of this collapsing civilization. Are these forms of autonomy, the sooner that we can begin to participate and experiment and autonomous forms of community that creates autonomous forms of things like justice, freedom, security.
You know what I mean? It’s secure. Health security, food security, education security, recreation security, the security of joy, collective love, all that stuff. The sooner that we can figure out different models to do that there may be an other side to the collapse of the civilization, which could very well happen in the coming days.
I think depending where you are right now, it might be happening now. So that’s what I would ask people to do, would be to support something like that. And if not, instigate and create it.
[00:54:28] Aisa Villarosa: So appreciate that. And earlier… Off the recording, you and I were talking about something doesn’t need to last forever to be successful. There is a molting that is happening now, a shedding, if you will. And so for listeners who are beginning their journey, you’ve made them feel just a little bit less lonely. So thank you for being on the show with us tonight, Dylan. Do you want to close with any final words for the audience?
[00:55:01] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah first of all, thank you for inviting me. I hope we can do this again sometime soon. This is a beautiful few minutes I shared. I do not take for granted that people are listening to this and taking it to heart. So I think the closing words I would offer to anybody who is interested in being engaged with the historical record to which we are speaking.
I would just ask you if you’re not already involved in some form of collective creative work. Whether it’s something you would call a social movement, whether it’s formal organization or whether it’s something else. I will just ask that everybody here that’s listening to this, if you’re not already involved in something that’s collective that is collaborative and ideally that is radically experimental and willing to look beyond.
The horizons that have been presented to you as the farthest possibility. I want people to speculate and to figure out what is beyond the horizons that have been presented to them as the limit. What is beyond that? And I’m talking to artists. I’m talking to poets, scholars, activists, organizers, whoever is here, people who are incarcerated, everybody who’s here, like there are so many different traditions that we can attach ourselves to all those traditions are collaborative and collective.
So please just be part of a collective. Be part of a collective and for whatever it’s worth reach out to somebody who can help you facilitate joining a collective. That’s why I left you on my contact information, because for whatever it’s worth, if I can play a small role in that, I’m down to do it.
You probably don’t need me. You probably got somebody else in your life that can help you do that. But do something that is collective, collaborative, experimental. That’s my that’s what I would leave with people. Yeah, that’s the last words I would leave with people.
[00:56:38] Aisa Villarosa: Borders are meant to be broken. So thank you, Dylan, for expanding folks vision tonight.
Thank you for inviting me.
[00:56:47] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important.
[00:57:11] Miko Lee: Apex express is produced by me. Miko Lee. Along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida. Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hieu Nguyen and Cheryl Truong tonight’s show is produced by me Miko thank you so much to the team at kpfa for their support have a great Night
The post APEX Express – 10.26.23 – Filipino American History Month appeared first on KPFA.
On today’s South Asia edition of APEX Express, on the occasion of domestic violence awareness month of October, producer Preeti Gamzeh sits down in discussion with Amrita Doshi, from SOAR South Asian Rising, a growing and powerful network of South Asian organizations across the United States, working to end gender based violence.
October is also the festive season of Navaratri, but it is also that time of the year when the bay area is host to one of the most popular film festivals, the annual thirdi film festival in San Francisco! Find out about this year’s wonderful line up from Anuj Vaidya who spoke with Nishtha Jain, Rucha Chitnis and Alka Raghuram, three wonderful feminist filmmakers whose films are screening at this year’s festival!
The post APEX Express – 10.19.23 – Amrita Doshi with South Asian SOAR; Thirdi Film Festival appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #10
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.
Episode #10
This month’s episode is a rerun episode from June!
Lisa Lowe’s Book:
In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press
About the DJ
Paige Chung is a writer and DJ. Her last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and her current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Listen to Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents on KPFA 94.1 and Sun Salutations on Twitch TV. Based in Los Angeles but she rolls everywhere. She currently trains at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound and studies Performing and Media Arts as a PhD student at Cornell University.
Lastly, special shoutout to my QT Viet Crew, deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.
Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU
- Website
- Twitch
- Mixcloud
- SoundCloud
The post APEX Express – October 12, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – October 5, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post Special Fund Drive Programming – APEX Express – September 28, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post Special Fund Drive Programming – APEX Express – September 21, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #11
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.
Episode #11
This month’s episode is all about Southeast Asian Rap featuring Triple Edge, Suboi and many other favorites.
Lisa Lowe’s Book:
In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press
About the DJ
Paige Chung is a writer and DJ. Her last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and her current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Listen to Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents on KPFA 94.1 and Sun Salutations on Twitch TV. Based in Los Angeles but she rolls everywhere. She currently trains at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound and studies Performing and Media Arts as a PhD student at Cornell University.
Lastly, special shoutout to my QT Viet Crew, deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.
Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU
- Website
- Twitch
- Mixcloud
- SoundCloud
The post APEX Express – 9.14.23 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents by DJ MIU appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Host Miko Lee speaks with the creatives behind San Francisco Chinatown’s 2nd Annual Contemporary Arts Festival – Under the Same Sun: Reimagining the Edges of Chinatown. This community event is produced by Edge on the Square, the same folx who produced last year’s Neon was Never Brighter. Miko chats with curator Candace Huey and artists Connie Zheng and members of the Macro Waves Collective.
Under the Same Sun Transcripts
[00:00:00] Opening: Asian Pacific expression. Unity and cultural coverage, music and calendar revisions influences Asian Pacific Islander. It’s time to get on board. The Apex Express. Good evening. You’re tuned in to Apex Express.
[00:00:18] Jalena Keane-Lee: We’re bringing you an Asian American Pacific Islander view from the Bay and around the world.
[00:00:22] Miko Lee: I’m your host tonight, this is Miko Lee. And you get the pleasure of hearing about the amazing edge on the square second annual contemporary art festival. I speak with the curator, Candace Huey, along with some of the powerhouse artists that are behind the interactive events that are happening as part of this festival in San Francisco, Chinatown on September 30th. Also, I’m going to be there. From seven 30 to eight 30, Leading a panel discussion all about the intersections between arts and politics and ways that we can think about how to re-imagine the edges of social justice and equity. We hope that you’ll join us and listen tonight to this episode with some artists talking about how we can all be change makers, shake things up, enjoy some art and go out in the Chinatown community in San Francisco so enjoy the episode. Welcome Candice Huey to Apex Express.
[00:01:23] Candace Huey: Thank you, Miko. So excited to be back here with you again.
[00:01:26] Miko Lee: We are here to talk about Edge on the Square’s second annual Contemporary Art Festival. I loved last year’s Neon Was Never Brighter. First, just start by telling us about Edge on the Square.
[00:01:40] Candace Huey: Thank you, Miko. So edge on the square is a new arts and cultural hub located in the heart of San Francisco, Chinatown. It is a project by C Mac, and it is a place based cultural hub that celebrates, explores and supports leading and pioneering creative expressions at the intersection of community, art and multiracial democracy.
[00:02:04] Miko Lee: Ooh, that’s so many things and so many important things in this time of turmoil that we’re living in. Last year’s Neon Was Never Brighter was so fun, so much interactive art. Tell us about the theme for this year and how you came up with it.
[00:02:19] Candace Huey: Thank you. So this year, we’re excited to be back. It’s going to be Saturday, September 30th from 5 p. m. to 10 p. m. We were really excited to gather some amazing local and international API artists. We worked this year with esteemed curators. I’m joined by. PJ. Polly Carpio Arena, Alejo and Sarah Wesson Chang to help inform the vision of the theme, which is under the same sun. Reimagining the edges of Chinatown.
[00:02:54] Miko Lee: Oh, I love that title. I have been talking with some of the artists which we’re going to hear from soon about how they take that theme and what does it mean to them? Can you tell us what it means for you to have this theme of under the same sun? And what are the edges of Chinatown? What does this theme mean?
[00:03:12] Candace Huey: Sure. Happy to share about The theme of the festival under the same sun reimagining the edges of Chinatown for this year’s Contemporary Art Festival, while this year’s festival is really focused on the unity and solidarity of the API communities coming together during this tough time ongoing, we’re still grappling with the after effects of the pandemic and we’re still in the pandemic and we’re still facing a lot of adversity from the ongoing anti Asian rhetoric. And compounded with this past year’s moments of, you know, tragic tragedies in the Supreme Court with overturning of Roe versus Wade affirmative action and other discriminatory policy policies, not only affecting API communities, but other underserved communities of color. we felt that it was still really important to focus on unity on solidarity and coming together, but also thinking about how could we re imagined and redefine, both Boundaries and borders real and imagined that exists not only in Chinatown, but beyond between different communities of color and coming together and commenting on the fact that the critical work for social justice and equity is continuous and ongoing.
[00:04:27] Miko Lee: Okay, so as an audience member, I get myself into Chinatown. I’m on that the square. What do I see?
[00:04:35] Candace Huey: We’re having multimedia, fun, exciting art installations and activations ranging from dance performances to music to nighttime projections to artwork, interactive installations. There’s even a sound bath. That’s going to be located inside 800 Grant Avenue by the artist collective Macro Waves. We’re having a digital work by Indira Allegra, which is a digital tapestry, a collective new take on what is a memorial monument in the community sense, but basically edge on the square and this contemporary festival is thinking about how can we use art to come together And to heal and really think about potent regeneration and thinking about collective power.
[00:05:24] Miko Lee: Ooh, collective power folks join up and come to edge on the square, second annual contemporary art festival, the end of this month, September 30th. And we’re going to hear next from a bunch of different artists, including the macro waves and Connie Zhang. So stay tuned.
[00:05:40] Candace Huey: Under the same sun, reimagining the edges of Chinatown is a free, open to the public, family friendly event, accessible to wheelchairs. We are expecting lots of fun, so come, enjoy yourselves, and be delighted.
[00:05:56] Miko Lee: Candace Huey, thank you so much for joining us. And more than that, thank you so much for putting this artistry out into the community so that we can grow and heal and make changes together.
[00:06:07] Candace Huey: Thank you, Miko. It’s a truly an honor to speak with you and also to work with such talented artists and curators.
[00:06:17] Jalena Keane-Lee: Next up, listen, to find my way by Rocky Rivera.
MUSIC
[00:09:45] Jalena Keane-Lee: That was find my way by Rocky Rivera
[00:09:49] Miko Lee: Thank you, Connie Zheng, for coming on Apex Express.
[00:09:57] Connie Zheng: Thank you, Miko.
[00:09:59] Miko Lee: We are so excited to have you here. You are such a brilliant artist, scholar. You do so many different things. And I just love to hear a little bit more about who are your people and what legacy do you carry from them?
[00:10:15] Connie Zheng: Thank you so much for this question. It’s a really generous and expansive question .When I think about who my people are there’s a broader community of Asian American API progressives, artists, activists intellectuals who I consider part of my community. There’s also people whose legacy I’d love to carry. But who maybe I don’t know personally. When I think about who my people are they’re really people who are dedicated to creating better futures for all of us who are dedicated to collective thriving and liberation and change. There’s a very literal answer to that question, which is my people are other Chinese Americans, but I think it’s really important for me to think of a larger, more expansive community of people who are committed to the same sorts of Politics and goals for collective health and thriving and and freedom.
[00:11:41] Miko Lee: Thank you for that. And speaking of that, you are going to be one of the many artists in Chinatown Media and Arts Collaborative’s second annual arts event. This year it’s called Under the Same Sun, Reimagining Collective Liberation from the Edges of Chinatown. Can you tell me about what that theme title means to you? How do you interpret it?
[00:12:03] Connie Zheng: Yeah. Thank you. So when, yeah, the first time the curators shared the framework of under the same sun for me, I was really excited about this idea of collective thriving and growing. Because we are literally all under the same sun. Maybe it shines differently for different people or we all respond to it differently. This is a cheesy answer, but we are all actually on the same planet and we’re all responsible. That responsibility is distributed somewhat differently because of our how different people, use the resources and steward the land differently, but we are all responsible one way or another for , our collective future. For me, Under the Same Sun speaks to questions of responsibility, it speaks to questions of collective growth, and nourishment, and our ability to feel the same kind of joy or radiance, and the conditions that enable that radiance.
[00:13:12] Miko Lee: What do you think from the edges of Chinatown means?
[00:13:15] Connie Zheng: When I think about edges I think about borders and boundaries and how they’re often very porous, and also how the edge is really where I some of the most visible forms of change happen. It’s not usually from the center , I’m really interested in thresholds, and how no every edge is both the ending and beginning and that sort of space where beings and things and entities cross over to become something else is really fascinating for me, and so the edge of Chinatown there’s the literal boundary on a map of where Chinatown as a neighborhood begins and ends, but also the community in Chinatown , it’s not limited to those 9 or 10 or 11 blocks. It’s much bigger than that. It’s much more expansive and diffused than that. I think that slippage between where the sort of bureaucratic designation of a neighborhood and a community like that tension or flow is really interesting for me.
[00:14:42] Miko Lee: Oh, I like this philosophical every end beginning. That’s lovely. You were raised in China. So when did you first see San Francisco Chinatown? What was your first experience with that?
[00:14:53] Connie Zheng: I think I first visited Chinatown in actually in college. So I was born in China, and I mostly grew up on the East Coast. I spent a lot of time in Boston Chinatown and before that I lived in a very predominantly white working class town in Pennsylvania. There were not very many Asian people. My parents would have to drive two hours every month to the nearest Chinese grocery store. Growing up for me Boston Chinatown was like a revelation and coming to San Francisco for the first time and going to Chinatown was like a shock. It was incredible . Walking through the neighborhoods or walking past the small vendors, The stalls, reminded me of being in Asia and it was really magical. I didn’t know that existed outside of Asia. The more that I learned about San Francisco Chinatown, it’s history why the architecture is the way that it is and how it was really like a safe haven for a lot of people. Specifically during Chinese exclusion. It’s a place that is filled with so much significance and meaning, and it’s really special to have been able to do work there over the past year and to continue doing work there.
[00:16:25] Miko Lee: You’ve done a number of site specific interactive projects, can you tell us about the one that you will be doing as a part of the upcoming Under the Same Sun?
[00:16:33] Connie Zheng: I will be making a modular outdoor garden installation called Nine Suns, and it’s in reference to the Chinese myth of Houyi and the Ten Suns. In this story, there were once ten suns, in the days when gods roamed the earth. The ten suns would usually cross the sky one by one. One day all ten of the sun appeared in the sky at once and started burning the earth. This archer Shot down nine of the suns and left just the one that we have today. I’m really interested in trying to imagine a more gentle transformation of the nine suns who fall from the sky. In the standard myth the archer is like the hero but I’ve read like a number of sort of accounts that reference this myth that nuance the story a little bit by mentioning how like cruel and unkind this archer is. Especially since his wife is Chang’e, the moon goddess, who literally escaped from him I was really interested in reframing this myth and not having the emphasis be on this male archer who shoots down these nine sons, who Maybe we’re just hanging out together and in this garden installation there will be nine circular planter tubs that are mounted on movable circular dollies. That are painted to look like the suns that were shot down by the archer. And
[00:18:10] Miko Lee: so interest. That’s very exciting. Wait, where will it be located?
[00:18:15] Connie Zheng: I believe it will be located outside of CMAQ on Grant. I think the exact location is still being determined right now, but it’ll be a street level installation. Each of the planters will be somewhere around 2 to 3 feet wide. There will be 9 of them and they will be arranged in a sort of wavy horizon line and each of the planters will have like Asian herbs. On the day of the festival, there’ll be wavy line that’s reminiscent of an undulating horizon. After the festival, the planters will be moved to Kaiming Head Start Preschool actually for use. For the school to use in their outdoor education program, which is really exciting.
[00:19:04] Miko Lee: Oh, I love that. So you’re making it, you’re creating it for this one arts festival, but then it will have an ongoing life with young folks.
[00:19:12] Connie Zheng: Exactly. Yeah. And that’s really important. I think that was one of the most exciting things about this project. The planters, because they’ll be installed on these circular platforms that have wheels on them, they’ll be mobile and the idea is for them to be easily configured into different arrangements, depending on the school’s needs. That feature was really exciting to me because it’s inspired by The reality of very tight space in Chinatown and also in the interconnectedness of the community. I was like, really inspired by and struck by how so many residents of Chinatown are really mobile. They’re tracing numerous orbits a day as they go to school, go to work, run errands, see friends and family, and just build these very rich lives with Lots of nodes of connection. The sort of connectivity is really important for me to think about here. I wanted these planters to be mobile, to be easily configured and modular and also to have a life outside of this one day event.
[00:20:21] Miko Lee: So what is the walk away message that you want your audience, after coming to see this event, that’s a reimagining of this folktale that many of us grew up with, what do you want people to know or to think about when they walk away from your exhibit?
[00:20:37] Connie Zheng: It’s really exciting for me when a project that I’m working on opens up different angles of thinking about a story that we’ve inherited. What happens to the fallen sons in this story is something that was really interesting for me and that I hope is interesting for others. The reimagining of these nine fallen suns as gardens is a really lovely thought for me I was really excited about the idea of each of these suns after they’ve been shot down from the sky, going off and nurturing their own earth, after they’ve Fall out of the sky, they like maybe roam through the solar system, and or the nebula, and
[00:21:28] Miko Lee: They’re just out there roaming around the universe.
[00:21:31] Connie Zheng: Yeah, but then they find this maybe like a barren rock and then they nurture it into life. They start their own solar system, and so I think this idea of rejected things, creating new life or being the basis of a new ecosystem is something that’s always been fascinating to me and I hope that the installation might encourage others to think about that as well the idea of, Things that are fallen, or thrown away, or considered useless as these nine sons were, things that were considered useless, actually being like, the source of new life.
[00:22:09] Miko Lee: Rebirth. From the phoenix, they rebirthed.
[00:22:13] Connie Zheng: Yeah, totally. I love that.
[00:22:15] Miko Lee: Fun, fun. You do so many different types of mediums. You do film and drawing and writing, food events, maps, and plants, we were chatting earlier about mooncake design, and filmmaking, all these different mediums that you utilize. Can you talk a little bit about how the different mediums you use? impact the issue that you’re exploring? Are you drawn to film because of this issue or does it just come to you organically?
[00:22:43] Connie Zheng: I do like to come to materials organically. I think there’s like a lot of unconscious intelligence that we have. If I have an idea for something, usually I’ll try to sit on it for a while before I actually make the thing. There’s some projects where the form and the material manifest themselves very quickly and early on. Sometimes it’s just very obvious for example I recently finished a nine foot long map of Asian farmworker history in California, and I started making it while I was an artist in residence at the 41 Ross Space on Ross Alley. When I first started thinking about how to create this archive of Asian farmworker history in California, the map form was very obvious to me. I was like, oh, it definitely has to be a map. That was a project where I knew exactly what it would be once the idea, once the sort of like germ of the idea bloomed in my brain.
[00:23:59] Miko Lee: Oh, I look forward to seeing that work. That’s, is that up still?
[00:24:03] Connie Zheng: Yeah. Yeah. It’s up at the Berkeley Art Center right now, and it will be going To the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for the Bay Area now triennial in September. that show opens in October.
[00:24:16] Miko Lee: Oh, great. So folks can have access to your work in multiple ways.
[00:24:20] Miko Lee: I noticed in a lot of your work is addressing environmental awareness and climate change. Have you always woven your politics into your artistry?
[00:24:29] Connie Zheng: Certainly not. I think figuring out how to weave my politics into my creative work has been an ongoing process with a lot of trial and error. Not all of my work displays my politics so visibly. I feel like a lot of my creative practice is really just like a series of experiments to figure out what my creative languages. My earliest work was very personal, and as I started to have more of an audience for my work, I was trying to, figure out what kind of dialogue I wanted to have with people. My first short film was, very angry like film essay that was focused on how racialized and class, a lot of American mainstream media rhetoric about pollution is. That was very much inspired by my experiences of my childhood in China and also growing up traveling back and forth between China and the U S and seeing how intensely polluted a lot of the places where my family lived were and then learning more about how that came to be a lot of the worst pollution around the world , can really be traced back to multinational corporations that are based out of the U. S. or North America and Europe. A lot of this terrible pollution is outsourced to countries of the global south, developing nations and also like poor communities, often communities of color in the United States. And the more I learned about this, the more sort of furious I got about it. My first film essay was this extremely finger pointing piece, and the reception for it was really interesting for me. I noticed that the people who responded to it most tended to be like other Asian diasporic people or Asian Americans I received a lot of feedback from That it was didactic. At first that made me really angry to hear that it was didactic, mostly from white viewers and then I think that changed, , and then, , Got me thinking about , what kind of conversation do I want to have? How do I want people to respond to a work? I don’t necessarily mean is that going to piss them off or not? I realized that it felt uninviting for people and it felt uninviting for the exact, people I wanted to have that conversation with. I wouldn’t say like I’ve completely changed the way that I work. My writing tends to be much more pointed and my visual work I try to move through a spectrum of Different strategies and ways of weaving my politics into the creative work. Sometimes with certain projects, I want to be more inviting and to plant the seeds of that politics in people, and sometimes it’s more like an open conversation, and sometimes it’s a little more direct. For the last several years, I’ve really been experimenting with different strategies and approaches to bring my politics into the work and also to try to make it depending on the context, as inviting as possible without hiding what my politics are.
[00:28:32] Miko Lee: Thank you for that.
What are you interested in exploring at this Under the Same Sun event? Will you have a chance to walk around and see some of the other artwork, or are you staying with your exhibit?
[00:28:43] Connie Zheng: I hope I’ll be able to walk around and see other artwork.
[00:28:46] Miko Lee: And what is it for yourself? How would you like to walk away from the festival?
[00:28:51] Connie Zheng: I would love to have conversations with people about what the festival means to them and what questions it’s opening for them and how they see, the installation what inspires in them, what questions it opens for them, I’m really humbled when people bring any real presence to my work, and it’s not something I take for granted. I think really just engaging thoughtfully with a creative work that you see is it requires an act of like generosity. Would just be very excited to have conversations with people.
[00:29:38] Miko Lee: Well, Connie Zhang, thank you for spending so much time with me. I appreciate you, look forward to seeing your artwork.
[00:29:44] Connie Zheng: Thank you. Yeah this has been really lovely and thank you for your time and your attention.
[00:29:50] Jalena Keane-Lee: Next up, listen to turn you by Rocky Rivera.
MUSIC
[00:29:53] Jalena Keane-Lee: That was turn you by Rocky Rivera.
[00:32:53] Miko Lee: You’re tuned into APEX express on 94.1 K PFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org. Welcome to Apex Express Macro Waves. I’m so excited to talk with you all. You are a locally based creative collective and you create interactive pieces that are around conceptual art, new media, and design. Welcome Robin Bird David, Dominic Cheng, and Jeffrey Yip to Apex Express.
[00:33:25] Dominic Cheng: Thanks for having us.
[00:33:26] Robin Birdd David: Glad to be here.
[00:33:29] Miko Lee: Can I just start with each of you, because we have three different important voices. Can I start with each of you telling me who you are, who are your people, and what legacy do you carry from them?
[00:33:45] Robin Birdd David: My name is Robin Bird David. I go by she, they, and that’s a big question. I don’t think we’ve ever been asked that question. I think it’s an important one. Specifically there’s five of us technically in the collective. There’s three of us today, who are working on our current project that’s coming up with CMAC and Edge on the Square. The collective also includes Tina Kashiwagi and Anam Awan but they are not here today. Specifically with us three, we’re all born and raised in the Bay Area, Asian American second generation. So I think that holds an important aspect of the communities we serve. We’ve been doing a lot of work around stories of different generations of migration, the diaspora particularly with Filipino American, Chinese American we’ve done work around Japanese American stories, intergenerational stories. So I’ll leave it there and pass it along to Dominic.
[00:34:50] Dominic Cheng: For the most part. We represent our collective, which is mostly Asian American and Pan Asian artists. All of us come from different backgrounds of art practice. we really strive to collaborate and share our skills and our different experiences and really tried to build upon work that isn’t necessarily representative of one single individual. And it’s more centered around our collective experience and so as My collective mate Robin had mentioned we do a lot of work that’s really introspective and looking at our ancestry as Asians in America or Asian Americans in America. We really try to focus a lot on exploring intergenerational experiences and issues, a lot of trauma and healing that we try to integrate with a lot of the work that we’re producing. And that’s what brings us here today to the project that we are creating as part of the Under the Sun Festival.
[00:35:57] Miko Lee: So Jeffrey, who are your people and what legacy do you carry from them?
[00:36:06] Jeffrey Yip: When I think of my people, I think of family. How I identify in general is for my upbringing, for my family and all the arguments I’ve had all the kind of love that was shown to me. I think as you get older, you start to have chosen family, right? Macrowaves we consider ourselves a family and I consider them my chosen family. Our broader community folks, there’s so many people, there’s so much love , in the Bay Area and specific being the creative kind of scene. Our legacy is we all have something to share in this world, right? As a collective, we’ve learned that we all bring something special to the table. We highlight our kind of like strengths. We do what we can to help each other. As a collective, we also do that in the broader kind of communities. It’s like we, we have something to share. We mentioned this before, is like a collaboration and bring people on board and get to know people, build community, and like grassroots kind of way.
[00:37:08] Miko Lee: So thank you for that.
[00:37:12] Robin Birdd David: The reason why Macwaves got together in the first place was because we were really craving a place for people of color. Queer folks to come together to have a safe space to create artwork together. That was really removed from the competitive nature that is often in art spaces, as we know, like art within capitalism and within the society, it builds this structure of you’re competing for grants or for residencies. The people that we want to serve and the people that we build with are other artists, queer people of color artists to really create a space where we can build and share resources and skills to create work together rather than to be competing. So that’s something that we emphasize in our work. I think the Bay Area holds a special place as a place where a lot of revolution has happened, a lot of community building has happened in the Bay Area for people of color, for marginalized communities. I think that is a legacy we hope to carry as we continue to do this collective work.
[00:38:16] Miko Lee: That’s so great. Can you talk a little bit more about how you came to be, how your collective came into fruition?
[00:38:23] Robin Birdd David: Yeah, that’s a good question. Jeffrey and I attended San Francisco State together and we met in a cybernetics new media art class. We were craving a space that wasn’t so white focus and wasn’t so white wall focus. My background is in painting and Jeff was in the program for new media. We felt that there was this divide of either like the fine arts world, which was a very like white wall space. Then there was the art and technology spaces, which also felt white. There was just a specific type of artists and community that came along with both those spaces and us being people of color, Asian, and growing up in the Bay area. I felt like I didn’t necessarily belong in those spaces at the time. We decided why don’t we do our own thing? So we started doing these one day events, art experiences parties where we would do like installations and have like DJs and performers and chefs come and we would do this whole experience where like different senses were activated. That’s how we started and it just formed naturally.
[00:39:35] Miko Lee: So it started out Robin, you, and Jeffrey, and then you’ve grown to add more people?
[00:39:40] Robin Birdd David: Yes, we started in the ideating phases, and then we brought in other folks, like Dominic, to come help and create these one day experiences. Then from there, the folks who were collaborating with us, we naturally formed into a collective.
[00:39:56] Miko Lee: Does each artist play a specific role? How do you interact with each other?
[00:40:01] Dominic Cheng: I think one of the things that we’ve felt really special about being in a collective is that we bring different strengths, but it doesn’t necessarily dictate like what we can and cannot do in the collective. There’s a lot of responsibilities with a lot of the organization, a lot of the finances, but then there’s also the responsibility of developing concepts and like refining what approach we want to take towards making installation or an experience. I think organically we have developed concepts for our projects collectively. Some folks tend to take lead on some ideas and others follow and provide support, which is always I think something that has been really uplifting for us is to not really. Think about it from like an individualized perspective where one singular artist needs to do every single thing on their own. That really opened up a lot of opportunities for us as creatives and artists to think beyond what we individually can create and really honing in on the resources and the creative like experiences and techniques that other folks bring to the table.
[00:41:14] Miko Lee: So macro waves focuses around future ancestry intergenerational experiences and collective healing. How does this relate to the Under the same sun, reimagining collective liberation from the edges of Chinatown, which is the theme of this year’s second annual festival.
[00:41:33] Dominic Cheng: We have been a collective since 2015. A lot of the work that we have been doing has been centered around storytelling and exploring our ancestry through a lot of experiences that we’ve encountered between us and our parents or us and our grandparents or others. Us and folks that are probably not an ancestor quite just yet. We have always been fascinated in utilizing that area as like a point of adventure as a place for us to explore ideas outside of conventional storytelling. We have been creating works specifically looking at how trauma has been passed along through cultures of just brushing things under the rug, or how those types of experiences can really build up a like a hard shell for folks to really break through and to heal. We’ve also been doing work that has been exploring some of the experiences that we all share like today especially through the pandemic
[00:42:38] Miko Lee: How does the theme of Under the Same Sun make you feel and what does it inspire in you all as a collective?
[00:42:46] Robin Birdd David: So MacroWave’s coming together in the first place. Is really reimagining art practice like collective work. In this case collective care, which is what our project focuses on. We’re really interested in including other communities in our work. We did a project called alternate realm in SF Chinatown, where we interviewed shop owners during the pandemic when a lot of the restaurants and businesses were closed down and we’re only doing takeout. And so we saw an area where we could. Utilize our work to help small businesses out.
And so we interviewed these small these business owners about their experiences around alters and specifically Qingming And we asked them how did their rest or their business restaurant shop start and what are your alters that you have at home. Through these interviews, we collaborate with other artists outside of the collective to create augmented reality alters that became a walking tour that communities can experience through their cell phones or iPads.
And so really just like bringing. outside communities that are not necessarily in the art scene to experience what other people are doing in the community and how do we bridge the gap between different generations of people and continue this legacy of storytelling and to learn more about in this particular project, more about like our Asian community and the diaspora and how they were able to start a business in the first place.
[00:44:27] Miko Lee: I really appreciated those short videos about Qingming and just getting to hear from a shopkeeper’s perspective about what the things they’re burning for their ancestors. I think about that a lot when I’m doing Qingming with my family. So I appreciate that there’s this video that’s there on the internet will just last, but then you had this temporary piece with where you would go and scan a QR code. Is that right?
[00:44:53] Dominic Cheng: Yeah, part of this. That project really involved us really capturing the stories of these local businesses who are not just only struggling financially and economically to survive, but they were also like experiencing heightened like violence in their communities and xenophobia. And this was like during a time where we felt that. It was important for us to open up this project as a platform for other creatives, other artists who identify as Asians to create a digital offering, like a digital art altar offering to each business in response to the stories that they were hearing
[00:45:33] Miko Lee: Jeffrey, can you talk about the piece that you’re going to be showing at the exhibit coming up for under the same sun?
[00:45:43] Jeffrey Yip: Yeah it’s a huge project and we’ve been conceptualizing for about two years now. It’s Actually a culmination of the work that we have been doing. In 2000, I think 17 or 16, we started creating like healing spaces. One of which was like Protectural Voyager, which showed at SoMa Arts. It was this geodesic dome and there was like healing feedback sensors attached to it. There was like one that could read your brain. A brain wave reader and what was a heart wave reader. We’re inviting folks to meditate inside this dome and when they we’re at a calmer state, then the visuals will be more meditative and encourage meditation. We’ve created a number of these kind of like healing spaces and exhibitions. Collective futures is the one that we’re going to be showing at this festival this year. Idea is around community care, collective care and also questioning the idea of self care and self care is important and we all need self care and sometimes that can get caught up in Western individualism and I think it is important to have that delineation and emphasize the the collective care because because you can’t do everything by ourselves. We need community. We need family members. We need people to show up for each other.
[00:46:59] Robin Birdd David: Our piece is called collective futures. Our installation is a critique about self care and coming out of shelter in place. We were encouraged to take care of ourselves, but also as a means to be productive and to get back out there and to work. it’s like what Jeff mentioned is really important, but there needs to be a shift to like community care like how do we take care of ourselves. If institutions aren’t are not working if certain systems are not working, how can the community show up for each other and I think that. Under the Same Sun is an example of this collective experience of coming together to reimagine new ways of experiencing art and really integrating and bringing together different communities outside of Chinatown, into Chinatown bringing other migrant, people of color communities who all have similar ways of showing up and caring for each other rather than being segregated Into like different communities by ethnic groups, but like, how do we come together?
[00:48:04] Miko Lee: Jeff. If I walk into Edge on the Square, what do I see?
[00:48:10] Jeffrey Yip: If you walked into Edge on the Square, you would see a mound full of moss. We’re inviting people to come and sit down on and in the middle of that mound, there’s going to be like a bowl of water that will be vibrating and the whole platform is actually vibrant. So we’re inviting participants to come on and feel these vibrations that are being produced by the sound artists that we’re inviting to, to provide sound. On these platforms, there are transducers that essentially work like speakers, but instead of pushing air out of the cone, they vibrate .
And so basically that’s essentially what this project’s about. We’ll be like having a platform building a platform that will be vibrating.
So there’ll be like a, like a sound installation that will vibrate the same frequencies into the platform. And so there’s this idea called a vibroacoustic therapy. And it’s the idea that like. under certain vibrations that can be a healing thing, right?
And so we’re inviting folks to come on this platform and all vibrate on the same wavelength and essentially just have the intention to heal. And I think a lot of times with these healing spaces, we’re not like, Oh yeah, these spaces are going to heal you. It’s more it’s more so like we’re inviting to people with to come in with the intention to heal because I don’t identify as a healer, but I feel like we all can do the work to heal ourselves.
[00:49:31] Miko Lee: Where is your piece going to How can people find it?
[00:49:36] Robin Birdd David: Collective Futures installation can be found in the Edge on the Square gallery space. It is part of the gallery exhibition that will be up, till next year, June. And the location is 800 Grant Avenue in San Francisco, Chinatown. The nature of the installation is really about collaboration. We’re inviting other collaborators to come in to either create sound performances where the sound performance connects to the vibration. On this installation can feel can physically feel the music being played at the same time. We also are inviting other healing practitioners, we’re hoping to invite a Tai Chi instructor to host a class, maybe with different, with elders, with different community members in Chinatown to be able to utilize the platform in different ways.
[00:50:35] Dominic Cheng: We wanted to create a platform as a means of opening up dialogue about other community engagement opportunities. Some of the folks that we have been interested in is cone shaped top, which is arts and culture space based in Oakland that has been doing a lot of work opening up space for a new emerging sound artists to have a space to perform and just to share music and be in community with each other.
[00:51:01] Robin Birdd David: Cone Shaped Top will be collaborating with us for the opening of Under the Same Sun Festival on September 30th. They will be hosting a series of other sound and performance based artists that will perform live for the festival. So we’re really excited about that and to really kick off this installation where throughout the year, the rest of the year and next year, we’ll be able to collaborate with other community folks.
[00:51:28] Miko Lee: That is very exciting. Jeffrey Yip, what do you want audiences to feel?
[00:51:35] Jeffrey Yip: Everybody’s gonna have a different experience, right? I personally want to start with telling somebody how they should experience the work, like I really do feel like everybody’s going to come in with a unique perspective. The way that they’ll experience it will be new to themselves because for me part of the art right is the experience within the individual, and that’s what they’re bringing to the table. It’s a almost a collaboration with the participants as well because they bring their unique experience to it and you know maybe they’ll share some share the experience with somebody else and there might be similarities but they’ll have a unique experience. Ultimately I would say a sense of togetherness and community. That would be ideal.
[00:52:19] Miko Lee: What about you, Robin and Dominic, what do you want the audience to feel when they leave your exhibition?
[00:52:28] Robin Birdd David: The concept behind collective futures really comes from that feeling that we had in the pandemic where we were actually able to take a break. The concept of self care, even though it existed already, was there was a hyper focus on self care, and whatever the care is that people needed, it was obvious that we all needed a break and we needed space from capitalism from the day to day work and hustle and bustle, and so this installation really is a nod to that. It’s wait a minute, how we take a step back and think about like how do we show collective care? How do we show up for each other? How do we care for ourselves? In a way that I don’t know if we really got to the We never really got to the root of the problem since we came back from COVID, even though COVID still exists. We never really figured that part out. Like here we are still continuing to hustle and continue the work which is all important. I’m hoping that people who experience our installation will be reminded of I need to rest and it’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to pause and it’s okay to just lay here and be still and be okay with where they are in their lives, where we are in our lives.
[00:53:47] Dominic Cheng: Building on to that, I really do think that one of the hopes that I have is for folks to come to this leaving with just more interest in exploring collective care. It’s important to not just only continue to do the work of living day to day and trying to survive, but really to take those moments of rest and really to seek out opportunities to provide community collective care. It has to be a constant and it can’t just be, like, a one time thing. That’s what we’re really hoping for folks to do is to really be moved by the collective experience that they share with. Either folks that they bring together with them to the space and to the installation or for folks that they meet and connect with organically just throughout their visit.
[00:54:37] Miko Lee: What are you looking forward to at this whole event that’s happening? Will all of you stay with your piece or will you get to wander around and experience the other events that are happening?
[00:54:49] Robin Birdd David: That’s a good question. I’m hoping we’ll be able to experience the events. That’s also my birthday. So I’m hoping to be able to celebrate, see folks I haven’t seen in a long time in the community, and to learn about other artists work and to be able To also explore Chinatown as the way that the festival is, was designed to be able to support small businesses. And then also to be able to collaborate with Cone Shaped Top is such an honor and something that we’ve wanted to do for so long.
[00:55:19] Dominic Cheng: I’m excited to just support other artists who are activating like different parts of the festival. I had attended last year’s festival the inaugural festival and was really amazed and really moved by the ways in which folks were taking up taking up space in like public areas through art and were sharing different stories in different parts of the entire Chinatown neighborhood. That was really exciting for me to experience the first time and I’m hoping to experience that and something new this time around.
[00:56:01] Miko Lee: What about you, Jeffrey? What are you looking forward to?
[00:56:07] Jeffrey Yip: I echo everything they both said. I think being a spectator and experiencing What these other creatives are showcasing. I know Kim Ip is going to do a performance. I’m excited about that. TNT Tricycle is going to be there. Maybe I’ll sing a song I know there is going to be a lot of great stuff. There’s going to be the canto pop. I’m excited for that as well. So maybe dance a little bit in the street. , I think that would be nice.
it’ll be really good for me and Jeff to brush up on our Cantonese through dancing to canto pop DJ music.
[00:56:43] Miko Lee: Okay, and we will just look forward to seeing you all dancing in the procession, which is going to be lion dance and then Duniya dance all the way around the block. So you can do a little Bollywood, a little lion dance. Thank you so much Macro Waves Collective for joining me on Apex Express. I hope people can get out in the streets and see this amazing artwork going down the end of the month, September 30th. Thank you all for joining me.
[00:57:08] Robin Birdd David: Thank you so much for having us.
[00:57:10] Dominic Cheng: Thank you so much Miko.
[00:57:14] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important.
[00:57:39] Miko Lee: Apex express is a proud member of the AACRE network. Asian-Americans for civil rights and equality. Find out more at aacre.org. Apex express is produced by me. Miko Lee. Along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida. Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hieu Nguyen and Cheryl Truong tonight’s show is produced by me Miko thank you so much to the team at kpfa for their support have a great Night.
The post APEX Express – 9.7.23 – Under the Same Sun appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – August 31, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – August 24, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – August 17, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight’s show features host Kiki Rivera. Storyteller for Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, bringing you an EPIC Talanoa. Kiki features Vernon Kapuaʻala of Hui Kānaka Pōwaewae, Hawaiian Football federation. Show Transcript: 08-10-23 Kiki in the Constellation: Hui Kānaka Pōwaewae [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view, it’s time to get on board the Apex Express.Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Kiki: Good evening. You are tuned into apex express. We are bringing you an Asian American and Pacific Islander view from the bay and around the world. I’m your host Kiki Rivera. Storyteller for empowering Pacific Islander Communities, bringing you in EPIC Talanoa. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view, it’s time to get on board the Apex Express. Kiki: Tonight, we’re talking to Vernon Kapuaʻala of Hui Kānaka Pōwaewae. Uh, Hawaii national football team, improving the resiliency and wellbeing of native Hawaiians through football. Keep it locked on apex [00:04:00] express. Before we bring on Vernon to talk about the Hawaiian national football team. I’ll tell you a little bit about myself, because this is the first time we’re meeting. I was born Kiana Rivera. But now I go is Kiki. I was born and raised on the island of Oahu Hawaii. In the district known as Lualualei. It’s very hot, dry there’s lots of farms and it very visibly present military. My home was overlooking the beautiful valley and two giant Naval radio towers. Which was which when I was little, I was told that the radiation could give me leukemia. Luckily, I didn’t get the leukemia. Um, I was also raised by many native Hawaiians. I, myself am Samoan Filipino, but where, and who I was raised by greatly contributed to my identity. There are lots of different opinions about Hawaiiʻs statehood and to each their own. And I acknowledge [00:05:00] that. I come from a family of settlers that benefit from. From America, from being American. And at the same time, I recognize that I was born on an illegally overthrown kingdom. So there’s part of me that doesn’t feel like an American citizen. However. If you ask my mom, she’ll proudly say that she’s an American. But for myself and many others like me, the story of Hui Kānaka Pōwaewae is a story of hope. To me. It’s a story of liberation. So enough about me, let’s hear from Vernon Kapuaʻala. of Hui Kānaka Pōwaewae. VK: My name is Vernon Kapuaʻala. I am the president and CEO of Hui, Kanaka Powawae, which, translated in English is Hawaiian football, Hawaiian Football Federation. Our primary responsibility is managing,[00:06:00] Hawaiian national teams. Aloha. Well, Vern, you already said Hawaii National Teams. Tell us a little bit about what that means. So we, um, the idea of forming Hawaiian national teams came out of a dream, something that was in, the imagination. And really got, really got pushed, out into what is now the manifestation of that imagination and that idea and that dream. , One from a sense of kuleana, one from, the question of , what can I do? How can I serve our La Hui, , in a greater capacity? , so the concept of of Hawaiian national teams was birth. Some of the problems that that plagued, native Hawaiians, I mean, we could have a whole show about the [00:07:00] problems, but the one that really kind of stuck out, as maybe the common denominator in, you know, the high rates of teen suicide and the high rates of diabetes and all of those lists that, you know, aboriginal Hawaiians are at the top of. And it kind of came back, at least from our perspective to identity. And, you know, for youth identity is already, is already a tough issue, right? But even more so now in, in this day and age . we kind of looked at the history of things , and in learning that history, learning about what the Hawaiian Kingdom was like pre 1893, , and then what it became, , By 1993, right. When, when Clinton had the, believe it was 93, the apology resolution. Right. Apologizing for the illegal overthrow. What was happening in, in the kingdom era? What was happening pre [00:08:00] 1893? , our identity was at its strongest then as Hawaiians, because we as governing our country, we was leading in governing and governance in Oceania. We had trade, we had commerce, we had treaties. We were thriving. You know, the people had universal healthcare for free. . We had, specialty healthcare for, women and babies, , and pregnancies and those things. We were leaders, not to mention the only brown country in the world at the time. And so our identity as Hawaiians, and when I say Hawaiians, I mean Hawaiian citizens, Hawaiian nationals, our degree of patriotism as Hawaiians and for Hawaiian Kingdom was at its highest. And then from there you can see the decline, right? So coming back to , this yearning that will grab ahold of most Kanaka, I imagine [00:09:00] of , what I can do for my La Hui. I find myself in a place of, managing a lot of what we grew up playing as soccer, right? Americans call it soccer and managing leagues and, , various competitions scouting for the US youth national teams. It’s our identity. We are not only struggling with our identity, we’ve lost it there’s no connection for a lot of us to. That period and that heightened sense of who aloha. Right? Of aloha in the sense of not love of the land, but love of country. Right. , and , it came together. I was in this space where , we were serving and affecting a lot of youth and a lot of ohana throughout Hawaii. But we decided, we wanna start shifting our focus to, to kanaka youth. And we wanna impact them. [00:10:00] We wanna change, the recipe that is being used currently by a lot of native Hawaiian organizations who are doing good work. Everybody doing work, all work is contributing, you know, all things work together for the good and. For us, we feel that national identity, patriotism is missing from the recipe, of what we trying to do as, as a la hui to better our lives. Right. And so for me, it just made sense. What better way than using football? Using football to reclaim reinstill or actually instill if they’re youth, This sense of pride of country, of nationality, we felt we needed a symbol. What was gonna be the symbol that we could, as the La Hui get behind and [00:11:00] support, there’s nothing really in Hawaii to support on a in an international platform, in a, in an international space. You get fans of, uh, , they go bows, right? Rainbow warriors, you get fans of, of high schools, which is high school sports in this, in terms of what we speaking on is huge. Right? But nothing about country to country. Mm-hmm. Except, except for those who may identify as Americans. Kiki: So before we go there, what is national football or what Americans know as soccer? What is that looking like right now? VK: In terms of Here in Hawaii or just on a, on a global scale? Kiki: On a global scale. VK: So if you didn’t know. association football is the term that was used when fifa, which is the governing body of the sport [00:12:00] globally. They’re the ones that control the FIFA World Cups, also and futsal, which is the indoor version of football and, uh, beach soccer. Interestingly enough, they called that one soccer. Um, , and, It’s, it’s the largest, the World Cups is the largest sporting event in, in all the world. Ha. It happens every four years at the senior level, um, every two years at the youth levels. what you’re talking about is country versus country, right? You’re talking about, um, in case you didn’t know, , right. Argent. National finally won his first World Cup with Argentina this past, , world Cup. And so we talking about sporting from country to country. And currently , the largest, uh, spectator base, the largest participation base, um, in terms of people playing football in the world, um, is massive, . [00:13:00] Another reason why for me, being that this was my sport and deciding national teams was the best vehicle for all of this is because it’s how every country in the world supports and shows its patriotism is in football. Every country in the world is gonna have a football team, whether they’re recognized by FIFA or not. , they’re gonna have a football team. , and you cannot say the same for every country in terms of other sports and then you start to talk about the Olympic side of things, right? There’s Olympic sports and all of those things. But you know, for sure, um, every country will have a football team. And, uh, if Hawaiian Kingdom was still in effective control of its country, we would have a football team. Um, association football was first played, eh, right in around 1900, 19 0 3, [00:14:00] 0 4. In that, in that those years, um, Duke Kahanamoku played association football, um, found a picture online of him with the, his, Kamehameha School’s teammates. Um, it was a, it was a small league that I believe had. Kamehameha School participated, uh, Honolulu, was it Honolulu College, which eventually became Punahou. I dunno if I got that fact right. And then this group of, of Scottish Scotsmen who kind of formed the league and they had a little, a little three team league going, um, and it was called the Hawaiian Association Football League. And so I used, I kid around with people all the time. I tell , we would’ve been playing football already. Well, what you mean because we were that progressive as a country, right? We were back, back to when we had [00:15:00] electricity before the White House. Right? We were progressive and we were heavily influenced by the British, right? In terms of many aspects of governing, of, , trade and commerce, and it would’ve eventually been, you know, the English accredited with the, with the invention of the sport. So it was just a matter of time and right there shows it, right? Those scotsmen brought it here, started a league and introduced Kanaka to football. And so in terms of that on a global scale, , it’s celebrated. It’s heavily supported, just, it’s heavily participated in, and for us, for, for Hawaiian football and, and having this identity and this pride, to me it doesn’t get any greater than that any greater than representing. ’cause that was, that was what I had in my head. It’s like, oh, imagine walking out on the field. Of course I was on the team, right? So we walk in on [00:16:00] the field and, we did an international walk and we meet in the center and they played the national anthems and we sing in Hawaii and the Hawaiian flag is being raised right? And then whoever, I don’t even know who was playing in that dream, which really doesn’t matter, right? The fact is we was there representing our country, playing on the biggest. Platform ever. . Global football. Right. And so if we look at that from the perspective of building awareness, perhaps. Mm-hmm. For those that may not know what happened after 1893 in Hawaii up until now, why, uh, why Kanaka struggle so much? Not just with identity, but with everything. Why? Why socioeconomically we’re the lowest race or we, we at the bottom, [00:17:00] essentially, we went from being the top to the bottom. Mm-hmm. And it happened to us systematically. Right. And by design. Right, because that, that kind of, that kind of decline that happens that way doesn’t just accidentally happen. So you’re reclaiming the narrative. Mm-hmm. . By building a national. Hawaii national identity on the field. Mm-hmm. You open up the audience even more and you engage a greater audience, say with, with indigenous people, with, , Hawaii nationals like myself, who want to participate in rooting for their country, but don’t, , feel like they can identify with. The U.S. So you’re giving us something to cheer for as well? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That’s beautiful. We’ll be back right after this break. Here’s some new music from the beautiful soul tree. [00:18:00] Keep it locked on 94.1 KPFA. Kiki: Welcome back. You are tuned into apex express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3. KPFB in Berkeley and online at K P F a [00:21:00] dot O R G. You’ve just listened to Funky Thang by Soultree off of their album Gem. You can follow Soultree on Instagram at soul tree music. And you can also follow their music on apple and Spotify and all the different platforms. So during the interview, I learned that my use of the word indigenous was controversial and I was corrected very graciously. But it reminded me that there are multiple realities. We live in balance as humans and as a person who lives at the intersections of being queer trans Pacific Islander, living in the diaspora. I think it’s only fair to keep an open mind and heart for those varying definitions and how it lands or doesn’t land. On our bodies. Anyway, Let’s get back to this conversation with Vernon Kapuaʻala Kiki: can you describe a little bit what’s happening with football in Oceania? VK: In terms of what’s going on in Oceania, Oceania is enjoying, some growth, in the sport. Many of the countries in Oceania didn’t become members of FIFA till , late sixties to the late seventies in that area. So really, really young in terms of. The development of the game, um, the development of the players, and certainly in terms of where they stack up against, the rest of the world. out of the six confederations Oceania is pretty much at the bottom of it all. the, the big boy, if you will, currently in Oceania is New Zealand. which makes sense in many ways being that they’re the largest country in Oceania, well in the confederation and, most developed. In, in, in many other ways, right? So they have the population, they have the economy, they have, um, a lot of things going for them in terms of ability and resources to, to develop sport. whereas once you start [00:23:00] going down, through the rest of the islands, Tonga and Samoa, both Samoa is Western and American. Fiji, you know, economies change, uh, resources start to dwindle. We think it’s expensive going from, from Hawaii to the states or anywhere else for that matter. But it’s just as expensive for those countries to travel just within. Oceania. So if you can imagine their national teams have to spend a lot of money and need a lot of support just to get through to the other countries to get their qualifying matches in and some cases some of the countries in Oceania from what I hear, really struggle and sometimes end up not even being able to participate for whatever reason in a particular set of qualifiers or whatnot. And so certainly with not without its challenges, um, however they all get to field [00:24:00] national teams. They all get to compete for the chance to qualify into a World Cup. Um, and the road for most of them is super tough cuz it always goes through New Zealand. In terms of who, who usually ends up either with a birth into the World Cup, whether it be the U 17 World Cup or the U 20 World Cup. The Men G 20 World Cup, , New Zealand was the number one out of there. And I believe Fiji’s U twenties qualified as well. So there was two Oceania teams in the U 20 men’s World Cup, which, I mean, think about that, right? That’s, that’s a World Cup. That’s the world stage. And they, they got to be there competing, representing their country. And so when it comes to Oceania, um, with regards to Hawaii, We would be in Oceania because that’s where we belong. We’re a [00:25:00] oceanic country, right. Pacific. Sure. But when you break it all down, everybody like looked to the states. Right. Actually, we looking the wrong way. We, we, we belong the other way. Right. So, you know, we’ve had, we’ve, we’ve been able to have some communication over the years with Oceania. It’s leadership and, talking about the idea of, or the dream of also one day becoming full FIFA members. It would be as part of Oceania, we would become what would be the 12th full member of, of Oceania and a lot of the countries and their federation presidents were very, uh, keen as, as they would say on the idea of, of Hawaii being part those. And for them it’s a no-brainer when you talk to [00:26:00] all of those, like we, we have a great relationship with Maori football and when we talk to them, it’s a no-brainer where Hawaii belongs in terms of global football. Do we belong in Oceania? , all that alone, if that could officially one day happen, like official recognition by FIFA in as part of Oceania, wonderful. We gonna go there anyway and compete. We gonna go there. It’s gonna start with Maori football, but eventually we’re gonna get with, um, and hopefully two. You know, um, Tahiti comes to mind right away. Tahiti is, uh, keen on, on competing with us. We are gonna start developing, relationship with them, which is interesting, right? Cuz when you talk about other connecting , our culture’s connecting in terms of Maori, and, Tahiti. We’ve had other hoku, right? Hoku right away should pop into everybody’s minds if they know about, the connections of the cultures. But to do it through football, it’s his story And it’s gonna be historic when we get there and actually do it so football growing, we want to become part of Oceania and official capacity, be capacity, but until then we just gonna, like everything else Hawaiian football is doing now, we just exercising our right to football, so in terms of actually reaching fifa, that’s a tough one because there’s things out of our control. You know, we actually communicated with fifa, in our official capacity, via letter, asking if they would recognize recognize Hawaii as a country. That is under occupation. And, long story short, we got two response. The first time they said no, we went back again and then they said no again. Yeah. Bob, several interesting things about our communications with fifa, number one, US soccer was, was carbon copied on [00:28:00] all the communications, so was Oceania, and so were all the Oceanic members. So everybody knew we were doing this. And so, okay, back to the long story short part, they said no the second time, but it was less a no and more, uh, not at this time. So there was a, there was an open-endedness about it, And essentially it came down to, uh, our argument, the United Nations fifa, none of them can recognize a country like officially recognize a country. , they basically were saying we would need to be recognized country of the United Nations. And our argument came back as the United Nations they know what our ability to recognize a country, countries recognize countries via treaties, which we have lots of them, right? Which is still in full force in effect. And so they said, well, basically a more competent body makes this ruling. The answer for now is gonna be no. So we [00:29:00] took that as we are gonna have to get to some type of world and international court, probably the court of arbitration for sport, which FIFA uses and the International Olympic Committee uses to settle disputes between international organizations and private entities, et cetera. And we had an opportunity to do it. This was back in 2018 to go to court. But after looking into it, number one, you’re going to court with FIFA who has endless resources and we have nothing. And at the time we never, even, at the time, we didn’t even have a program, a team. It was still just an idea. And we was like, yeah, let’s go join fifa. You know, it was this crazy kind of whimsical. Thing and we threw ourselves into it for a few months, what is important is that this manifests so that we can start affecting, coming back to what the mission vision is, [00:30:00] is long-term impact through football. Generational impact, on the Hawaiian community, using football. Eventually they’re gonna see us. And maybe as soon as July in Aotearoa when we go there and compete against Maori football during the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which is hosted this summer by New Zealand and Australia. Coming back to, to Oceania would not only complete things for us, but complete it for the rest of Oceania as well. Not in a way of oh, they need us to to anything, but to me it would just strengthen. It would just further strengthen. Other Oceania countries to see the return of, of Hawaii, I think. Anyway, to there. Also keep in mind when we’re talking about Oceania, we’re talking about the Marshallese and we’re talking about Kirabati Tuvalu and, and on and on and on. Micronesia, federated states, all of that, right?[00:31:00] We can go on and on and on, but , the biggest difference is we are not asking America for permission because we don’t belong to them. They just happened to have effective control of our country. So our return and our membership to FIFA is not, contingent upon the United States permission. So with this framing the only people that’s stopping FIFA is fifa.So here’s the thing, this has to do with the obvious might and power of the United States, or stand up to the United, keep in mind, the US was the one who led the charge to basically go and scoop up all set bladder and all the rest of that corruptness. That was in fifa. That was the FBI driven. The FBI went in there and raided all those guys, cleaned out fifa. And hopefully for the better. I don’t know. Um, but that corruption and scandal, that ran rampant [00:32:00] through FIFA for many years. It was a US who went in and did that. And so I get it when not everybody, you know, in other governments and governing bodies and people of authority think about having to stand up against the United States. I get that. Will FIFA do it? I don’t know. Mm. But you put us in a court, a competent body. We’re gonna win that argument. There’s nothing that can be said. The history has been proven again in the legal realm, in international law, in all of that. It’s undisputable, if FIFA is to do the pono thing, then we we’ll be members./ Kiki: That is Vernon Kapuaʻala, Allah talking about the Hawaiian national football team and their strive for recognition as a sovereign nation. And the struggle. Of qualifying for FIFA. We’re going to take another music break. Here’s one from the bay area, Filipina, rapper, and singer Klassy, featuring The Bar called One Take. Off the album. [00:33:00] Good Seeds produced by a beat rock music. And then you’re going to hear another one from soul tree. Keep it locked in. Kiki: Thanks for joining us on apex express. That was ain’t that serious by the artist’s soul tree. And before that was one take by Klassy, you’re listening to your new friend, Kiki Rivera, bringing you a conversation with Vernon Kapuaʻala of Hui Kānaka Pōwaewae The Hawaiian national football team. That’s unifying the lāhui Hawaiʻi. by reminding us of Hawaii’s complex history. Braddah Vern is going to let you know how you can support their mission from wherever you are. VK: So they start supporting us by simple things like retweeting our, the release of our CREs or, or resharing, our national team, swag fundraiser just simple things like that. Of course we are a nonprofit organization, so support financially, we welcome that. And we have means for you to do so on a small scale and on a large scale. And so we welcome all small, big, and small. Contributions, uh, to the organization. The work is, is great. The work has, you know, tripled and maybe even quadrupled just in the last year when we actually named our inaugural national team rosters until recently when we [00:42:00] traveled our U 16 teams to California to participate against American youth soccer teams. Because for us, anytime we leave the islands, it’s international. And you can see the effect, the powerful effect, the, the team, the. On the field has to everyone who’s watching, including myself now. And I, this is like, I saw this, I saw this in the dream, but it wasn’t like tho that moment when we’re going there and just looking at the team and it took a while like it, and I don’t think I even really felt the full effects of it yet, but , it was palpable, what that meant. And the only sad thing for me about it, it’s not super sad, but we had on small contingency of ohana who didn’t follow, who was watching and getting all into it. Right? Like normal parents at youth sport games, right? [00:43:00] Come on, just yelling. Right? But they were like, let’s go Alapa. Let’s, right. Na Alapa, we, we refer to our national teams as Na Alapa. It’s an ode to, um, the Alapa Regiment, which was the elite warriors, uh, Kalaniopuu, elite warriors. And they , they were known and revered and admired for their superior athleticism. And so using national teams and also, you know, club teams and whatnot, have nicknames. Um, and so we decided we, we wanted to refer to our what is undoubtedly recognizable by anyone who con that’s the athleticism of our, of our Kanaka and Kalaniʻopuʻu’s. You know, basically Navy Seals was referred to as the Alapa regimen, so, so Alapa, um, to hear the parents yelling and cheering on the Alapa. And encouraging in only ways that mothers can encourage their daughters on the field. Um, you know, uh, was was something, and then I think about all those fans that followed Argentina to the final at this past men’s FIFA World Cup. Cause anytime Argentina scored, you just heard the stadium erupt in California. I heard the sidelines erupt both our team and the parents whenever we would score, which on the wi, which on the girls side was pretty often. Um, and then you, you multiply that. Wow. That’s incredible. Right? And that’s, that’s where the support of not just those. In the country, those in the islands, but those in the diaspora, right. That going come in. We, we had one who lives in San [00:45:00] Francisco come up to watch the girls, the girls team, cuz she had a connection there to play. And I’m like, man, imagine if, if the rest of the, the diaspora knew that we were coming to Northern California to play with the Hawaiian national team. Who else might have shown up to support? And certainly right as things go and grow and, and, and with your kokua, Kiki and your, your access to network, we’ll be able to let everybody know where we gonna be playing, when we gonna be playing and when they can come support national teams. So support, you know, financially support by learning the history of the Hawaiian kingdom. And that’s why we calling it national teams and then support by coming and. And wearing the swag, right. Wearing the knowing where we gonna play and, and, and if it’s nearby coming by and watching. So all of those things like would, I would find so [00:46:00] incredible and, and I would be so honored to have that. We we’re starting to gather players now from the diaspora who are finding out and reaching out and asking, how do I try out for the national team? That’s starting it. Starting That was gonna be my next question. Yeah. That, so if you, you want me to segue into that? Yes, please. So our most recent one via social media, maybe Instagram, not sure. Um, who is, uh, kanaka and actually playing with, um, I guess has Filipino nationality and that’s playing with the, um, No, sorry. And I don’t, I don’t know if it’s Guam Nationality Guam or Chamorro. I, I, I know that Chamorro is a people, but anyway, she’s playing with the Guam U 17 national team, which is a na this is the part that really tickles my fancy, [00:47:00] is she’s reaching out to, to try for the Kanaka, for the Hawaiian national team, which is not recognized while already playing for the Guam national team, which is recognized. Right. It’s like, it’s like, I, I, I’m so honored by that. But, so that’s one. We had a boy who, um, Ohana lives in Boston Plays club there recently. Um, verbally committed to Louisville, uh, men’s soccer, which is a, a pretty big D one college on the east coast. Right. Uh, and he got ahold of this and he. Contacted our technical director, Ian Mark, about I, I want to try out for the team, how do I try out for this team? Like he wants to be on this team that’s going to Aotearoa Right, can do I have to fly there? He’s like asking all these questions and sadly we have to tell him, well, this team is, is set [00:48:00] for the most part, but the cycle starts again in August and runs till next July. Um, and so those are just a couple of examples. Um, we currently have, uh, a player, Ryan Merchant who lives in, , Washington, uh, used to live on Maui, we know the Ohana, , for many years now. And he actually was selected for our 18 men’s team, which is going to Aotearoa, so he flies back for our national team camps. And, um, and activities. Uh, I think he’s been back for all but maybe one or two because of school, um, conflicts. But that’s how much this means to him to have been selected. And, and the parents are just trying to make, [00:49:00] go through craziness to make it all happen for him to participate and, and pull his, his end of the load, right. Of being part of this team. So those are some examples about the diaspora. We are, we will be opening our, um, our national team registry. We worked on one. It include. You know, we’ll gather basic information and it will include some questions about your history and references and and whatnot. Um, for players, number one. And then also for, um, we welcome volunteers and, , um, you people with skills. We need help. We need help across the organization. As I mentioned before, the, the workload is growing enormously. And so we, we are finding that we needing people, , volunteers, we needing skilled volunteers like [00:50:00] administratively and, and tech wise , and all kinds of stuff. Not to mention, you know, on the ground. , another thing we are looking at doing this coming cycle, which again, the, when I refer to a cycle, it’s a cycle of programming that runs from August 1st to July 31st is, follows the school year. Cause it, it, it’s, it’s simple. International football follows the calendar year. We didn’t wanna upset things too much with regards to access to our players and whatnot. So we decided to follow the school year like most American sports do. Um, just cuz it was simpler. Um, we didn’t wanna cause too many waves, right? Because we were already causing waves in other ways, with our organizational mission and vision but so when I reference the cycle, that’s what I’m talking about. And we, and, and, and every year essentially younger players come in, we start ’em right around, we start looking at them [00:51:00] around eighth grade, uh, freshman year. Uh, we start forming teams with, um, freshmen, sophomores, and, and then we’re just trying to build those teams into what gonna end up becoming our U twenties or G 20 threes and our full teams and. So one of the things we were able to do this past May in, um, Northern California when we connected with, um, um, Ian, our technical director, his, his, all his boys back there, um, they’re gonna actually start helping us to run scouting events in California. So we’ll be able to at least start scouting in the diaspora, like our staff, our technical staff, Ian and our coaches on the ground in the states looking at players in the flesh right there on the field. So we excited about that piece. It’s something we’ve done throughout the [00:52:00] islands for the last two years, which is what got us to this point with these selections. And we’re realizing, you know, it’s great for players to reach out and let us know. Uh, we also gonna have to get eyes on them and, and. And at the end of the day, determine Right. If it’s worth them coming out to events here in Hawaii, you know what I mean? So, Well, thank you so much for all the things that you folks are doing, for us nationally , it is such a, an honor to know you folks and to be part of this. So, Mahalo, you’re welcome Mahalo Vern. All right. So for native Hawaiians on the continent, I would like to know how you feel about the mission of Hawaiian football. Knowing something like this exists while being so far away from the Homeland. I do feel like it’s part of my [00:53:00] kuleana, my responsibility. To bridge the nation of Hawaii. From the continent, wherever you are to the INR. So what are your thoughts? Email me at K Rivera. That’s krivera@KPFA.org. So for me, I’m not so much into sports. Right. But what I, what really attracted me to Vern and his partner, Trish, is how they frame Hawaiian sovereignty as something that Is already present and has to be remembered and reclaimed and. I agree. If we, and by we, I mean, Hawaiian nationals and or Pacific Islanders in the diaspora. Are going to quote K Trask. By saying we are not American. Then how are we practicing? How are we practicing our own sovereignty? How are we practicing liberation? Not to sound too cheesy, but to see it, we have to believe it right. And I think we can knock a pool. Bye. Bye. Is about being it about practicing. But that also takes so much unlearning and re-evaluating all the creature comforts that come with American citizenship by way of fake statehood. So, what are we willing to give up for true AI? For true sovereignty. Anyway. I leave you with that. For more information about Hui Kānaka Pōwaewae. I visit Hawaiian football.com. Or kanakapowaewae Instagram, where you can find all their latest news, including their trip to Aotearoa to play the Maori team and watch the FIFA women’s world cup. Exciting stuff. Mahalo Vernon, Trish, and the crew of Hui Kānaka Pōwaewae and Mahalo to you, our listeners. For more information about empowering Pacific Islander communities also known as epic. Visit our website at https://www.empoweredpi.org/ And on Instagram as at empowered PI. And on Facebook. As at elevate your voice. It has been a wonderful honor to serve as epic storyteller and bringing you this story of how a football team is finding political recognition. Educating and grounding youth in culture and health through the sport of football. Not soccer. Football. A story like this is a reminder that we are. In fact. Hashtag. Empowered PI. This is Kiki Rivera for Empowering Pacific Islander communities. Keep being the change you want to see. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jelena Keane-Lee. Preeti Mangala shaker, Swati Rayasam, Hien Nguyen, Nicki Chan, Cheryl Truong And myself. Kiki Rivera who produced tonight’s show for the very first time. Thanks to the team at KPFA for their endless support. Have a good night. Aloha. 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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
“We are a small group of people, and if we are annihilated the world won’t even miss us because most of the world doesn’t even know we exist.”
The Kuki-Zomi tribal community of Manipur, a small picturesque state in north-east India, has been witnessing violent ethnic conflict in which over 120 lives have been tragically lost and more than 50,000 individuals displaced from their ancestral homes since May 2023.
Hosts Miko Lee and Cheryl Truong are joined by Niang Hangzo and Sonny Gangte, both members of the impacted Kuki-Zomi and a part of the North American Manipur Tribal Association @namtaus. They unravel the complexities of Manipur’s crisis and the factors perpetuating this atrocious humanitarian violation against the Kuki people.
CONTENT WARNING: Please be advised that the things we’re going to be talking about and what has been happening to the Kuki-Zomi people of Manipur is horrific. Tonight’s show handles sensitive topics, such as violence, genocide, gender based violence and sexual assault. Our show’s transcript will be available to read in our show notes for those who would like to process at their own pace.
Stay updated on the Manipur crisis and the incredible work by the North American Manipur Tribal Association by following their socials: https://twitter.com/NamtaUs https://www.facebook.com/namtaus/ https://www.instagram.com/namtaus/ https://www.youtube.com/@AdminNAMTA
namta.us and namta.us/donate Niang’s article
APEX Express: Manipur’s Humanitarian Crisis Show Transcript Cheryl Truong: Before we begin here is a content warning. Please be advised that the things we’re going to be talking about, and what is happening to the Kuki-Zomi people of Manipur is… Horrific. Tonight’s show handles sensitive topics, such as violence, genocide, gender based violence and sexual assault. Our show’s transcript will be available to read in our show notes for those who would like to process at their own pace. Please do whatever you must to take care of yourself. Miko Lee: Good evening, you’re on APEX Express. This is Miko Lee and Cheryl Truong, and tonight is an AACRE night. AACRE is Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality, and APEX Express is proud to be part of the AACRE network. Cheryl Truong: For tonight’s show, we’re going to be unpacking some of the violence that has been taking place in the Indian state of Manipur. Protests have erupted all over America, including the series of actions that took place Sunday of last week in the bay area led by NAMTA, the North American Manipur Tribal Association, and one of our AACRE groups, ASATA, Alliance of South Asians Taking Action. The Sunday actions were in support of the Kuki-Zomi tribal community of Manipur who have been facing ongoing violence by the ethnic majority, the Meiteis. The Kuki-Zomis, a predominantly Christian indigenous community.., are facing genocide as their villages, churches and communities are being razed by the Meitei community, a largely Hindu ethnic group who account for about 50% of the state’s population. This assault of the Kuki people has been ongoing since May, but is only recently getting traction for reasons we’ll get into later. Here to speak out about what’s been going on are two members of the impacted Kuki tribe and members of NAMTA, Niang Hongzo and Sonny Gangte. Thank you both so much for being here. To start do you mind telling our listeners who are at the Kuki-Zomis and what is going on in Manipur? Niang Hangzo: Thank you for having me here. I’m Niang Hangzo and I am a Kuki-Zomi woman. When I talk to people, I ask them, Where do you think I’m from?” and almost nine times out of ten, they’ll say I’m outside of India, maybe Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, but they never think I’m Indian. Kuki-Zomi people are indigenous to Manipur, to the hills of Manipur, and we are 16% of the population, and we are Christians. But because Manipur is a small state about 8,621 square miles, and it has two distinct geography, the valley, there’s a hill and valley and the valley is also where the capital is. And it is very developed– all the infrastructure, the high seats of learning, any advanced facilities, education center, et cetera– is concentrated hundred percent in the valley. And the valley is where the Meitei live. There are three distinct ethnicities in Manipur: the Meiteis, who are the majority and primarily Hindu, and then there are Nagas, and the Kuki-Zomis. The Naga and Kuki-Zomis primarily live in the hills. We are hill tribes, indigenous to the hills. But because of jobs, et cetera, a lot of us live in Imphal. My family lived in Imphal for 60 years because my parents worked for the government of Manipur. And what’s interesting about me is that my mother is a Meitei and my father is one of the subtribe of the Kuki-Zomis. So when we say Kuki-Zomi, it is a conglomerate of subtribes. So it’s not one tribe, it’s multiple small tribes, 16% of the population. The total population of the state is about 3 million from the last 2011 official census, we are barely above half a million. So we talking about a very small section of people. People that the world does not even know exists most of the time, like I started with how people mistake us for somebody outside of India. We are very small in number– that’s over half a million– about seven to eight tribes all together. Cheryl Truong: That’s so interesting, Niang, that you mentioned that your mother is Meitei, and your father is Kuki-Zomi. I know you wrote an essay for the American Kahani, a very detailed report on your family, what they were going through when all the violence erupted in Manipur on May 3rd. Do you mind sharing a little bit about what your family experienced? Niang Hangzo: Yes. Like I mentioned, my family has lived in Imphal in a locality called PaiteVeng which literally means where Paites live. I mentioned that I belong to a tribe, Paite, which is one of the Kuki-Zomi tribes. My father actually founded that colony with two other Paite men in the 60s. And they’ve been embroiled in the social fabric of Imphal, and we have Meitei relatives, we speak Meitei, we speak our Paite language, and we speak English. We, you know, we’ve lived there, and our neighbors know us. My mother was a nurse. I think 90% of births in Manipur were delivered at home. And as a nurse, she delivered the babies around the Meitei localities that surround PaiteVeng– everyone knows our family, you know, it’s the first house next to the main highway. And on May 3rd, around eight o’clock, there was a sudden rush of people coming to the locality, and then there was a huge noise. In Manipur, among the Metis, when they have trouble or they want people to come out of their houses, they take rods and they hit the electric pole. And that is a cry to the community to come out; that there’s trouble or something important is happening. So that happened. My family knew there had been trouble the Kuki-Zomi area in Churachandpur earlier in the day. They expected some sort of civil unrest, maybe burning of tires, pelting of stones. They just locked the gate. My family lived in a compound with four houses in there with my brothers, they had their own homes. Each family, cowered in, in one room and waited for trouble to die down. They thought it’ll die out, but it didn’t. They could hear the crowd, the roar of people. And one of my nephew went upstairs and he peeped out and he said, the church is burning. Our church is burning. And that’s when they knew this is no ordinary agitation. In Manipur with all the distinct ethnicities, we’ve had troubles with each other among ourselves. But, we’ve never had a church burn or any places of worship attack. So this was different. Absolutely different. We’ve never had our churches burned or attacked. So they knew something was wrong. My sister called my brother and he said he was already sheltering in the neighbor’s house in the neighboring compound. So the neighboring compound there were multiple houses belonging to another family, and they had a big house that was now rented by a Meitei man, and he ran it as a hotel. My brother said, “Come over.” My sister; my mom was 86 years old– they left. My mom was completely shocked and she couldn’t wear her shoes they struggled and got out in the nick of time. They took shelter in the hotel for a bit with the rest of my family. They’re like, I think, 20 of them, because I come from a large family. And there were other people in the hotels our neighborhood. The owner was a Meitei man and he was very kind. He allowed them to come in, but he said the mob had grown. They had started burning our neighbor’s house and our house. So he said, they’re going to come here next. There’s no way I can protect you. He talked to the cops and he negotiated safe passage for us. So of all the people in our neighborhood, our family was the only one that came face to face with the mob. Because of this man, this kind man who negotiated safe passage, we were escorted out by the cops and the mob parted and they let us through. The young men in the mob said, “This is ” Ibok– means grandma. We know her. Do not touch our family. And that’s why our family was saved. I mean, because there were many instances on the fort, for example, where they actually killed Kuki-Zomi people. We are very lucky and the story is very long, but eventually they ended up in army camps. The interesting thing is that my family had my mom, 86 years old, and she had a great grandchild who was just one year old, as well as her grandson who was almost two years old, and another one that was four years old. And my youngest sister has down syndrome so we have all kinds of ages. And it’s very difficult to keep the kids, the babies quiet and so on. So they had a really tough time, but I have another sister in California. We managed to get them out to Delhi and they’re safe. So thank God we are very lucky. We lost everything we own. They burned our houses, our cars, and whatever they didn’t burn, they looted. But we still think we are the luckiest family because they were together. My nephew’s daughter, she’s 11 years old. When they were being herded to safety and finally at the camp, they never felt secure. She told her grandmother, ‘At least we are together. At least we’ll die together” This is from 11 year old. Cheryl Truong: Thank you Niang for sharing that. That must have been really difficult to write. Niang’s essay will be linked in our show notes. A lot of the headlines I’ve been seeing reporting on what’s been going on in Manipur has been framing the violence as an ethnic violence. But Niang mentions that her family was surprised at how a lot of her community churches were being burned down. Of course the Meitei violence against the Kuki-Zomis is an ethnic dispute against tribal communities, but there seems to be another dimension to it. Sonny. Do you think you can talk a little bit about that? Sonny Gangte: Yeah, sure. Thanks, Cheryl. I am also a member of the Kuki-Zomi community. As Niang mentioned, we are a persecuted minority in Manipur. The state is divided into three predominant groups. Majority Meitei group, which comprises more than 50%. And then the Nagas who are also a tribal group, but they are not involved in this ethnic cleansing. And then there’s the Kuki-Zomi community, who is predominantly being targeted. We are 16% of the Manipur state’s population. And the state government has been pre- planning violence against the Kuki-Zomi community and we know this because there have been many instances of the government trying to take over tribal lands by legislative means, you know, they would conduct a bogus survey and declare that this land is a protected forest, and then the tribal indigenous people who have been living there for hundreds of thousands of years, would then be evicted. The Meitei the state government is hand in glove with the Meitei community and the majority Métis radical groups. There are a couple of radical groups, one of them called Arambai Tenggol which is basically a sort of the militant wing of their community. And then there is Meitei Leepun which on paper seems to espouse unity and cultural heritage of the Meiteis but in reality, they are the ones radicalizing the entire Meitei community and trying to malign the Kuki-Zomi community. And as you said, they have been trying to change the narrative, right? The state government under Biren Singh, when he came to power, he’s the chief minister much like the governor of the state. When he came into power he has been trying to spread this propaganda of the Kuki-Zomi people being illegal immigrants from neighboring Myanmar which is absolutely not the case. There are small number of refugees who have been given shelter in Manipur by certain communities, but by no means are the Kuki people illegal immigrants. They are indigenous to the area and they have been there for so long. Niang Hangzo: If I could just jump in there. Sonny mentioned that there’s been land grab attempts and the Meitei can do that because in Manipur. They have 40 seats out of 60 in the state legislature. And this gives them majority to pass any bills. And in 2015 they passed a bill, their first attempt, and there was a huge protest from the tribals so that went nowhere. Then Biren Singh came to power in 2017. He is very different from the previous chief minister. He is the architect of the ethnic cleansing and the genocide that’s going on in Manipur. He’s the one who started using xenophobic tropes to turn the Kuki-Zomi into the other. We’ve been living side by side. We are neighbors with them. So to turn the neighbors against us, they started this propaganda. And the older people know, most sensible people know, but a lot of the people just grabbed onto this and they just ran with it. But these are nothing but xenophobic tropes. There were many serious attempts to land grab. In 2022, for example, they expanded the Indian Forest Act 1927, and just like Sonny mentioned, they’ll just went and turned our villages and claimed that these villages are now protected forests. These villages are wildlife sanctuaries. These villages are reserve forests. And so this is another way to grab lands and they evicted our villages, like there was in, I think, February of 2023, they went and just bulldozed a village. I think this is something that’s not just in Manipur, they’ve used things like environment protection, climate change, protecting the environment, preserving forests, as dog whistles, just to grab tribal land. That’s one thing. And the other thing that they did was they’d say, Oh, that hill. That is a seed of our God. Oh, that place. And these are all tribal lands. Oh, that place over there, like in Behiang, Chivu, they said, Oh, that one, you know what, our king, his footprints are found there. I don’t know what that means, but somehow they use that to grab our land, and they never consulted the tribal people, our leaders. They’ve been doing this land grab progressively over the years, and suddenly from 2022, they’ve just been doing this coming on full force. Miko Lee: Niang, what was the change making factor in 2022 that, that ramped up this whole situation? You said that the land grab has been going on for a long time and the oppression of the tribal folks has been going on, but was there some kind of catalyst that changed things in 2022? Niang Hangzo: I wish we knew. If we had known that I think we would not have been taken by surprise, but we know that since 2022 that’s when the whole population, or even the TV, their media started using the tropes that I mentioned to make us be the other. So something escalated. Only they would know what the plan is, but they started doing things like that and maybe Sonny might know more, but we don’t know what was the tipping point or what caused it, but it escalated and everyone noticed. Sonny Gangte: It’s been simmering. The trouble has been simmering for many years, and it coincides with this current chief minister, Biren Singh, coming to power, and over the last several years, that has been the case. But even before this, the Kuki-Zomi people have been marginalized for years, because we never had the seats in government. They always had 40 seats. And the 10 seats might go to the Nagas and 10 seats to the Kukis. So right now the community has only 10 seats and we can never enact legislation that favors us. For many, many years growing up in, in Manipur it’s always Meitei centric– Meitei being the majority community, right? And that’s the sort of image that the people of Manipur have cultivated. The term ‘Manipuri’ sort of exclusively refers to the Meitei people, not us, even though we are from Manipur. Some of the examples, the hospitals, the airport, the colleges, they’re all Imphal. And then Churachandpur is the second largest town, and that is a stronghold of the Kuki-Zomi community. Churachand was the name of the Meitei king and the people of this town have now renounced it and they prefer to call it Lanka. And so that’s where we’re from, Lanka. Niang Hangzo: I think this is very important that people know that Meitei fought with the British in 1891 and they appointed this puppet king, who was Churachand, a little boy. Before that the place that they called Churachandpur was always ours. The Meitei kings never, ever ruled over the hills. The hills are ruled by tribes. And we don’t have kings, we have chiefs, similarly for the Nagas. But our ancestors would interact with them. They would sometimes even go down to the valley and raid. So we were always fighting with them and we would have an uneasy alliance. The British administered us, but the king of Meitei ruled in that 700 square miles, which is the valley. Historically, we had never been under a Meitei administration until we became a state. The Churachandpur name is only as old as I think it was 1917 or 19 something, after the Kukigal. But, before that, it was Lamka. And the British were still there. I think they were doing something, maybe it was after the First World War or something like that, because a lot of Kuki-Zomi signed up to commemorate that the name of the place was changed to Churachandpur. But before that, it was always the indigenous Lamka. That’s how we call it. And we’ve always called it Lamka. Miko Lee: So part of the actions that have been going on, part of it I’m hearing from you both is a land grab, and the other part , is around religious persecution. Is that right? Can you expand more on that? What is the impetus for this recent surge in violence? Sonny Gangte: Right. The Meiteis follow the majority Hindu religion, and then the Kuki-Zomi are predominantly Christian. It is primarily a ethnic and land grab issue, but then there are religious undertones. There is a religious implication as well. They have destroyed hundreds of churches, places of worship, in Imphal. Imphal used to house a lot of Kuki-Zomi people living together with the Meitei in the city of Imphal, the state capital. But now there is not a single member of the Kuki-Zomi community living there anymore, because if they do go there, they will be killed. It’s as simple as that. We cannot go back there. There were hundreds of churches in Imphal and they were all burned. Niang can elaborate more on this angle, but one of the things that I can say is that Arambai Tenggol and the Meitei Leepun they don’t want the religious conversion of some Meiteis as well. Some Meiteis convert to Christianity and they don’t want that to happen either. So that’s another angle to that. Niang Hangzo: Yeah. When I started this, I said that the first thing they did when they came to my colony was they went and burnt the church. And I said that was unprecedented because they’ve never, we’ve never, we’ve lived together, but nobody has burned or destroyed or vandalized or desecrated places of worship. So this is what tells me that there are outside actors that are looking at what divisions we have and that’s banking on it. So the religious element is absolutely new. And just to quote some figures, because I like figures, the Hindu population is 41.39%. And the Christian population in the projected census is 41. 29%. The official census is 2011. India hasn’t had any census since then. It’s been postponed. So the last official census, I think it was like 37 point something for Christians and, a little higher, maybe over 43 or 45 for the Hindus. So you see, there’s been a demographic shift in religion. That means in between many Meitei have become Christians. So now we are almost neck to neck, right? There are over 357 churches burnt altogether. Out of that, 170 belong to Meitei. That took me back. I was shocked that there were so many Meitei Christian churches. So one of the things that made everything different was first, we have this shift in demographics, in religious demographic, right? They’re 53 percent of the population, but their Hindus is 41. 39 percent and Christians 41. 29 percent. Two organization, Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun, openly said in one of the interviews that we don’t like our people becoming Christians. So that’s one reason. And I have to say that this religious angle I really feel is from outside. The push to cause this division between the two religion because it’s unprecedented. And also, we know that the ruling party, the center, for example, they’re strong Hindu nationalist. So there is that. The lust for land that the Meiteis have for tribal land, uh, I think they took that and used it to divide and also added this religious divide; in this ethnic cleansing. Like Sonny said, we’ve been ethnically cleansed from the valley and the same thing for the Meiteis. We retaliated too. When they started burning, we also burnt the houses in our area. So there are also no Meiteis in the Kuki-Zomi area. The ethnic cleansing is over. What is happening today the genocide of the Kuki-Zomi. We stay in our areas, but they keep coming to the peripheral villages, the area that borders Meiteis and Kuki-Zomis. Those villages are now empty of women and children. And our men, our young men have put their lives on hold, their education on hold, and they have taken up the defense of the villages, of our land, and our people. There’s nothing going on in terms of education, even for young children, because there are over 104 relief camps in the Lamka Churachandpur area. The schools are being used as camps. And the same thing is going on in the Kuki-Zomi area in Kangpokpi. They attack us with the state forces and the two organizations, the militants so young men are fighting to save us. To protect us. Our children are not getting education. Our students, the young people who are studying in medical colleges at Inphal, or there’s one medical college in Lamka, even those schools those universities and colleges are closed. Meanwhile, in the valley, everything is going on a full swing. The students are back, they’re taking exams, etc. The government has not made any provision for the Kuki-Zomi students. If this continues, they will lose an entire year of studies. Sonny Gangte: And to add to that there were a handful of Meitei students studying in the one medical university in Lamka. And they are Meiteis, so they left the town of Lamka as well, right? But the government of Manipur immediately swung into action. And made provisions for these Meitei students to be able to continue their studies in a different university outside the state or within the state. This is clear evidence that the government is simply favoring one group over the other. Niang Hangzo: Yes. So they made sure that their students continue their studies. But our students; our smart young people, are sitting in limbo. They have nothing. Miko Lee: Thank you so much to both of you for sharing this. This is, it’s really hard to hear. We, as you know, are dealing with the rise of fascism and the othering of peoples in the United States and all across the world. I’m, I’m seeing it in the press a little bit, like every once in a while, but it’s really hidden and kind of hard to find. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how people are communicating with each other . How are you hearing stories about What’s really going down as opposed to just the news, the little bits I’m picking up from the guardian or this place or from a newsletter from somebody. Sonny Gangte: Yes. The mainstream media in India refuses to cover this story. And that’s one of the reasons why global media does not automatically pick it up. How do we get our information? There are a number of online media outlets in India, and a bunch of YouTube channels who are vocal about this issue. There are very few honest journalists left in India, because as you well know, India is trending towards fascism as well. Freedom of speech is being suppressed and journalists are being targeted in India. it’s a tough situation out there for everyone. To touch upon how this issue became an international or a national issue. On May 4th, two Kuki Zomi women were paraded naked, and subsequently gang rped by a large mob of Meitei people. The video incident happened on May 4th, but issue came out because the video got leaked to the Internet. There was an Internet ban in Manipur at that time, and then 77 days later the video surfaced online, and it shook India. It went viral in India and it shook the psyche of the people of India. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, had up until now, refused to speak on this issue. People were dying. 120 plus people had died at that time and 50, 000 people displaced. And the Prime Minister of the largest, oldest democracy in the world, well, Modi likes to say, India is the mother of democracy. He came to the U. S. floor of Congress, and proclaimed that India is the mother of democracy, and here, while that was happening, while he was speaking, all of this was happening back home. He is the democratically elected leader, and he refuses to acknowledge the problem up until the video of these two women being paraded naked came online. And at that time the prime minister was under pressure, so he spoke briefly, he spoke for 36 seconds, and he said, Violence against women is bad, and he condemned that issue as an isolated incident, and that was it. He went back. He didn’t address the killings, ethnic violence, and most importantly, he did not call for peace. Niang Hangzo: And I think that was one of the saddest thing for both for the Kuki-Zomi and the Meiteis because a lot of people are suffering. Enough is enough. We want this to end. So for the prime minister of the country to treat that as an isolated incident not related to the ethnic cleansing that’s going on and the genocide that’s in progress. That is absolutely shocking and extremely disappointing. Manipur as I mentioned, is a small state, we are barely 3 million people or maybe 3.5 if we look at projected population, India has a strong army. 60,000 strong. They’re there, but they’re not enabled to douse this fire. So the fire that was set, literally and figuratively from May 3rd is still burning 91 days later. And because of the moratorium on news, the viral video of the gang rpe of those two Kukis, of our sisters, had not come out, we would not be talking about here because nobody paid attention. We shouldn’t have to see something like that to act. It is a humanitarian crisis. And for a people that is so small in number they can easily wipe us out and the world would not know because most people don’t know we exist. And so it’s very important for us to tell the world that we exist. It doesn’t matter if we’re one, two, 500k or a million. We exist and we matter. And they’re doing all this just to get tribal lands because our lands are rich in mineral. And when I think of that, I know that there are powers outside of the state involved, because there’s nobody in Manipur who can mine or do anything. You need industry, you need infrastructure, you need lots of money. If you follow the money, it’ll trace you to something outside. And I believe that at the end, let’s say if the Meiteis managed to annihilate us, which we don’t think will happen. But if they did, I can tell you for sure that they’ll never get benefits or they’ll never get equity from whatever industry will come out of our land. And for tribals, our land, we have a strong affinity for our land. We are mostly laid back most of the time, but if you come for our land, it doesn’t matter. Even if there’s one last man standing or one last woman standing. We will fight. Our people back home will fight to death. We will not give an inch. Cheryl Truong: Thank you so much, Niang, for all of your courage and insight. For those just tuning in, we are here with Niang Hangzo and Sunny Gangte from the North American Manipur Tribal Association, NAMTA, and we’re peeling through the many layers of the Meitei violence against the Kuki in Manipur. There are land grabs, profit motives, ethno religious tensions, in action by the Manipur state government that all perpetuate this atrocious humanitarian violation against the Kuki people. We’ll be right back with more on what’s going down in Manipur after this music break. We’re going to be listening to a track by the Khamsa Project. Khamsa, the Arabic word for five, is a multimedia art project, showcasing black, Muslim, immigrant, and refugee visual artists and musicians traversing the five stages of grief. They’ve launched art exhibits, music performances, dance shows, community events, podcasts, but this track in particular, Is from their self-titled hip hop album. Khamsa: the album. This is “something” by one of their collaborative artists Spote Breeze. Welcome back. You are tuned in to apex express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 K PFB in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org. That was something called “Something” by Spote Breeze from the Khamsa Project. We are back with Niang Hangzo and Sonny Gangte, members of the Kuki tribe and NAMTA, learning more about the genocide waged against the Kuki people and what we can do to help. Once again, that was “Something” by Spote Breeze from the Khamsa Project.. Sonny Gangte: There have been many instances of police brutality in Manipur, because obviously the police are in cahoots with the state government. There was a youth called Hanglalmuan Vaiphei 21 year old college student in Churachandpur. He shared a Facebook post criticizing the chief minister. They’re insane. The post he did wasn’t an original post. He reshared it, and it basically was accusing the chief minister of being hand in glove with the poppy planters or drug dealers. Two days later, the police came knocking at his door and they arrested him and then transported him to Imphal to be booked and processed. The official story is that a mob came and snatched the police convoy and waylaid the police convoy and this young man was lynched to death. So he died. And that is the official story of the police. I don’t know. Niang Hangzo: Yeah, he died because of he forwarded a Facebook post. He died because he forwarded a Facebook post Sonny Gangte: And the police were so quick to act within two days. They acted on this one, but it took them so many days, months to act on so many other police reports, especially of those two women who were paraded naked. Niang Hangzo: So I want to make a correction there. It’s been almost three months. They’ve not acted on anything. The only thing they acted on was the two women who were paraded naked, but they’ve not acted on any other. And they acted on that because the prime minister spoke on it, his outrage, but them? Lots of FIR. There’s a young, uh, I mentioned immolation. This is a horrifying story. I don’t even want to tell it. He’s 70 years old. He was caught, he was in a camp with his family and there was, cross firing between the two groups and they were in the middle in the army camp. He got ricochet or something shot went and hit his head. He was taken in the ambulance with his mother who was Meitei– he was Kuki. The mother had married a Kuki man so they decided to send him to Imphal because that’s a closest and the best facility advanced facility hospital. He was in an ambulance with his mother, and another Meitei woman who was in the Kuki neighborhood. They said they may be married to a Kuki but it should be safe. And so they went. They were on the way to the hospital and they got waylaid by a mob of this Meira Paibis, those so called women vigilante, and they were burnt alive. There are many stories, real horror stories in this war that we don’t want to talk about it, but it’s all there. The way they’ve treated the Kuki-Zomi, the propaganda has succeeded. They don’t see us human beings. And even when I talk about it, this is just one of the things, but a seven year old boy? Where’s the humanity? If there were militants that did it, I could at least grasp that, as horrifying as it is. But to know that it’s done by the Meitei women, mothers, sisters, wives. Who prosper, possibly have grandchildren like at that age, or even children. That is the horror of this war the world doesn’t grasp. And then, to make it worse, their young people started putting on Facebook, and their Twitter, and so on that the seven year old boy was harassing them. That he was burning houses. There are horrible stories like this, there’s beheading, there’s a 77 year old lady praying in a church, Kuki-Zomi praying in a church. She was shot, and then they said she was a sniper. The two women who were paraded and gang rped, they said yes, because they were snipers. So not only did they kill or, or debase and dehumanize people. They try to destroy the character as well and brand them as snipers or something. I mean, and they’re so outrageous. A seven year old boy harassing them? A seven year old minority boy harassing them? Let’s not forget, this war waged by the 53% against the 16%. The 53% have enjoyed 98% of the budget of the state for over 70 years. They have everything today. If somebody has to fly out to Delhi, they cannot go and access the airport. If somebody has a heart attack, they cannot go to Imphal. They will just die there, or they have to go by road. If there’s anything critical medically, they have to be airlifted. The biggest need now is medical, medicine, any sort of medical help, more doctors. Remember to access our areas, they have to come through Mizoram or through Nagaland. They cannot fly in into Imphal. If they’re coming by road, to our area, maybe they’ll be stopped because this vigilante women have stopped everybody including armies. We used to revere them because they were the ones who fought for the women of Manipur originally but they’ve turned completely. They’ve turned completely and they are now the aggressors. They’re hunting. There are videos of women hunting. When my family escaped, I told you they came face to face with the mob. And my 11 year old grand niece said that the women were worse. The men said, protect this family. We know this woman. She’s Meitei, she’s a grandmother. We know her. They call her Ibo. The women said, why should we let them go? They raped and kill our people. But. Nobody was raped or killed in Churachandpur on May 3rd. There was disinformation spread to rile up all the people in Imphal, so they would chase us out of our house, they would kill us, and even the gang rpe. They clearly said that it’s in retaliation of a fake story. The harm that misinformation has caused. The price we had to pay for misinformation is unimaginable. We are a small group of people, and if we are annihilated, the world won’t even miss us because most of the world don’t know we exist. So please. Spread the word. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for both sharing on that. I’m sitting with your words, Niang, and kind of taking them in, absorbing them. And Sonny, I’m thinking about how important video was, because they did capture that horrific gang rpe on camera. And same thing that happens here with African American people that have been killed by the police. It’s when we catch the video of it that it tends to have that impact. The more people have exposure to it. I’m sitting with the fact that video then made it on the internet, and then I read about it in Al Jazeera, July 20th. This is like the time between May and July 20th that it took for it to even hit any kind of national news partially is because one there was a video there that people are seeing it, but also the story is still hidden, even with that .The story of the deeper roots of what’s going on and this whole attempt at annihilating a people’s for profit is kind of going under the radar. How can people in our audience that are listening, get involved in your work so that we can help to build the world that we want to see as opposed to the world we’re living in? Sonny Gangte: So, NAMTA, the North American Manipur Tribals Association, is an organization as old as this crisis itself. It was formed as a response to this persecution of our people. And even today, the crisis is ongoing. And the government, any aid going to Manipur right now is not reaching the Kuki-Zomi people. It might reach Imphal. I don’t know. The people in Kangpokpi and Lamka are in dire need of humanitarian aid. There are hospitals there, small hospitals. Primary health care centers, and they don’t have enough supplies, and we have received a pleas from their people asking for IV fluids and gloves and bare minimum medical necessities, and it’s going to turn into a larger public health crisis. It already is. One of the things that we can use is to spread the word. First of all, we need the world to know that horrific atrocities are being committed in the so called largest democracy. We also welcome any Donations if anyone would like to support our cause when you try and send humanitarian aid. Niang Hangzo: Yeah, yeah. The thing is, because of the inaction and silence of the central government, we can say that they are complicit, right? Silence is complicit because they could have stopped this. They allowed this to happen. So when we ask about aid, for example, if the U. S. aid has to go, it has to go through the center government and they will refuse it. If you remember, Eric Garcetti said, if you ask us, we will help. He said that, the US ambassador. He was told that this is an internal matter, but really, but it is not. We’re not looking at the political part of it. If you look at the human side of it, it is a humanitarian matter.. Our people are not getting anything from the central government because for the central government will send it to the state government. This is state sponsored pogrom.. So they’re not going to send anything to our people. So even asking for international aid. They need permission of the central government, so they’ll not receive it. But we still want people to talk because one of the things we want to do now and what I want the listeners to do is to talk about this, to read about this, go to our site, listen to the personal stories, not political. We have our personal stories there, read about it and talk about it, tweet, put it out in social media. If everyone talks about Manipur and the Genocide of the Kuki-Zomi. We want it so loud, so loud in the digital media that Delhi can hear it. Because I think public opinion can sway government. I think that is very important. I want engagement from listeners to start tweeting about this, to start reading about it and share it on their social media so it gets amplified. That’s one ask. The second ask is that I want you all to write to your senators, to write to your representatives. The European Union brought this Manipur issue and the persecution of Christians on 12th July, and on the next day they passed a resolution condemning the failures of the Modi government. This is the EU, they’ve done it. And Fiona Bruce, who is a Special Envoy of Religious Freedom for the UK Prime Minister, she brought it in Parliament. U. S. is a bastion of freedom, the land of the free. everybody looks up to the United States. As someone who would protect human rights, not U.N. But United States is synonymous with being the big brother, the father that take care of the weak. And yet nobody has spoken. So we want our congressman to bring this to motion. I know there are on a break right now, but we this is a time to hit them with it. We want the U. S. representatives to bring the Manipur issue on the floor and discuss it and maybe censor the government. And of course, our president went as far as saying that we need to sanction. And I know that that will be hard because when Modi came, they signed billion dollars worth of business and there’s economic reasons, but that would be also one of the aspirational goals, but let’s start with raising awareness. Spreading the news to everybody, to your friends, talk to people about it. Like I said, let it ring so loud that Delhi can hear it. Number one, number two, I’m repeating, because it’s important, write to your congressmen, write to your senators about this, and tell them to bring this issue up. Please look at NAMTA’s Facebook page. We also have a YouTube channel. We also have Instagram, and we will announce those and please join us. Miko Lee: . . We will add links to those in the show notes of APEX Express so people can have access and find out more about the amazing work. Thank you. You are a few but mighty that are living here carrying the banner for a lot of people in Manipur and all around the world. And just know that there’s so many of us that are here supporting you and believing in you and supporting the fight for dignity and power for your people. thank you so much for all the work that you’re doing. We’re going to encourage everybody to check out the NAMTA website. to find out more about what’s happening in Manipur and how you all in our community, all of our listeners can make a difference, can make your voices be heard so that these atrocities will not continue to happen. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Cheryl Truong: And that’s the end of our show. Please check our website, kpfa.org to find out more about what’s going on in Manipur, the work that NAMTA has been doing, and the work that ASATA is doing. We’d like to thank all of our listeners out there. Keep dreaming folks. A better world is possible. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong Tonight’s show was produced by Miko Lee and me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – July 27, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – July 20, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – July 13, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this week has struck down on affirmative action in college admissions. What does this mean? What can we do? Where do we go from here? All of these questions will be answered in this week’s episode of AACRE Thursday at APEX Express. Miko Lee and Cheryl Truong are joined by affirmative action experts, Vincent Pan, Co-Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and Sally Chen, Harvard alum and CAA’s Education Equity Policy Manager for a discussion on SCOTUS’s repeal of race-conscious admission policies. Make sure to tune in! CAA and APEX Express are proud to be a part of the Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality (AACRE) network. Petition to Universities in support of Affirmative Action Affirmative Action Resources Let’s Talk Affirmative Action show Transcripts Miko Lee: Good evening, you are on APEX Express. This is Miko Lee and Cheryl Truong. Tonight is an AACRE night, APEX Express is proud to be part of the AACRE Network, which is Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality. Cheryl Truong: Tonight, we’re talking about the Supreme court’s ruling against affirmative action in the repeal of race conscious admission policies just earlier this week week. Joining us today from Chinese for Affirmative Action are co-executive director Vincent Pan and education equity policy manager Sally Chen Miko Lee: Sally and Vin, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Sally, I know that you have had a personal connection to affirmative action. Can you tell us a little bit about your personal connection? And I know you wrote an article that was amazing in the LA Times. Tell us about your experience. Sally Chen: Absolutely. I was born and raised in San Francisco. The daughter of Chinese immigrants who are working class worked in restaurant and service industries all of their time in the United States. And from a young age, I was both a translator and advocate for my parents, whether that was letters from our landlord in the mail, dealing with insurance, calling the bank, and. All of these experiences really shaped my motivations, my aspirations, and ultimately the content of what I wrote about in my college application at the time. I talked really candidly about my background and ultimately matriculated to Harvard in 2015. As a part of my experiences as an organizer, a student organizer on campus involved with various racial justice efforts, including advocating for ethnic studies and for supporting junior faculty of color on campus I came to be involved with student for fair admission versus Harvard in my junior year of college. I ultimately was one of eight students and alumni that testified in support of race conscious policies such as affirmative action for two reasons. One, for how I saw the benefits of race conscious policies reflected in my own admissions experience. I had gotten to look at my admissions file and I saw how much of the reality that I would not have been able to get across all of who I am with my skills, strengths, perspectives, without talking about race and ethnicity, without talking about my background, my upbringing, and second, because of how I saw racial diversity on campus, playing out in really meaningful ways for cross-racial school coalition building or our joint advocacy. And I really think it’s important. It’s important to highlight that in the course of this case. Students for Fair Admissions, Ed Blum’s organization, never brought forward a single student in any of his proceedings to testify, to even show proof that they had been harmed by race conscious policy, and as one of the only eight students who did get to weigh in on this case, on the public record. We all showed really direct support and answered the question that I was disappointed to see that the Supreme Court justices did not answer, did not hear in answering why these policies are important, why racial diversity is important, why racism is still a reality in the society. Miko Lee: Thanks for that Sally. Vin, as the co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action can you talk about the impact of this ruling across the work that you’re doing with CAA? Vincent Pan: Sure. I’m happy to do so. Miko and, and thanks for having us on the program. You know, I think that the ruling is devastating on so many different levels. I think most notably it affects college admissions and who will have access to higher education. It’s already been a very difficult struggle for students of color, for students from backgrounds that, you know, may have been less traditionally college going. And this will make it even harder for students to present the entirety of themselves for consideration at the most select private institutions of, of higher education. But on another level, I think that impact is, is even worse. Because when you really read and understand the ruling that the supreme court conservative, super majority made and understand, you know, how those individuals got onto the court we can also recognize that this ruling is about going backwards on the whole issue of race and racial justice. Because it is trying to convince America again that the way to deal with racism is to either pretend that it doesn’t exist by sticking our head in the sand, or by saying that racism is okay and that we can live with these deep inequities that affect so many of us. So I think for CAA and, and for the communities that we work with and we represent it’s a time to really deepen our resolve and our commitment because the work for racial justice is not going to be easier by this decision, but in many ways becomes even more important. Cheryl Truong: In a similar vein, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And so, Sally, I was wondering just because you were a first-generation student at an Ivy league school. I was wondering what your experience was like just navigating these educational systems Sally Chen: Absolutely. As I mentioned, my parents were working class immigrants. They had not attended college themselves. And in my K 12 educational journey, a lot of. What I was able to navigate was, for the most part on my own. My parents were not able to help me with my homework starting in around third or fourth grade, and I nonetheless, I still felt that a lot of the values and the lessons that they taught me were of value. That people who do not often have their voices uplifted should nonetheless be heard. That people who are directly impacted by issues are experts on issues. And when I was writing my college application, my personal statement, I talked a lot about wanting to do work that would be relevant to the communities that I’m from to Asian American communities of the Bay Area that I called home. And I remember when I wrote my personal statement, I actually had advice from my counselor at the time who himself was Asian American. And he said something along the lines of, don’t tell an Asian immigrant story. It’s not compelling, it’s not of interest. And. I remember at the time as a young person feeling utterly crushed honestly, by that advice. And in the end, I didn’t listen. One because I had already written my statement and I was not going to rewrite it, being a tired student myself, but second, because I really felt that I wanted to be going to an institution that would. Value the perspectives that I would bring that would see the value of my presence there. And are still able to and are empowered to. Speak directly about the issues that affect our lives, about what shapes our perspectives, and that no student should feel they have to hide who they are or what their needs are, or what their goals and ambitions are either. Miko Lee: Well, number one, thank you young Sally for standing up for yourself, not listening to that counselor and just saying, I’m gonna speak my truth. Yay. Thank you for doing that. This brings up this question that I’m hearing Edward Blum and all these conservatives bring up around a holistic idea of admissions. And having colorblindness. Can both of you talk a little bit about that holistic admissions process? Because Sally, like you’re saying, part of your upbringing is being an immigrant, you know, having to translate for your parents. So now with this new ruling, this whole idea of colorblindness, how do you separate those two out? Vin, can you speak a little bit about that process and what does that mean and, how are they gonna go forward? How are people supposed to go forward with this idea of a holistic admission process, but also being colorblind? Doesn’t one contradict the other? Vincent Pan: They, they absolutely contradict. And so what makes sense is to have a holistic process that takes into account, not just academic performance, but also extracurriculars, also adversity, also race and ethnicity, gender, immigration status. Like all the things that make us human beings. , as a result of being these full human beings, being able to participate in learning processes with beloved students and classmates and to share those perspectives. And so, why this court ruling makes no sense is because it somehow suggests that we consider everything else but race when we know that race is actually one of the driving and determinant factors of how we experience life. Maybe there’s a time or a place where that wouldn’t be the case but in the United States, it has probably been one of the most important factors in terms of how people experience life. Not only historically but today. So in some ways colorblindness is just a mask. There’s, there’s really no such thing as colorblindness in the way, you know, America navigates either it’s public policy or it’s social and cultural life. Colorblindness becomes a way of, of just saying, we’re going to make invisible people of color. And, you know, Blum and, and his allies and the super majority of conservatives on the court, that’s really what this has always been about. And it really has been an effort to turn back much of the progress that began with the civil rights era and the in the sixties, to try and reckon with race by more directly confronting and addressing it. Sally Chen: Right. And. Totally agree with everything Vin is bringing up here, and I can speak to a little bit just how holistic admissions works. Naming first that holistic admissions at generally elite institutions include often hundreds of factors including gender, sexuality, religion, geographic diversity. Socioeconomic status includes a large range of factors, and this calling out specifically of race as being problematic is just as ridiculous as Vin has discussed. And if anything, the decision from the court really throws a confusing challenge to colleges and universities around how they can navigate these limitations and move forward. We really see the role of advocates in this space to both show support for and call for accountability from colleges and universities to still hold racial diversity and equity as part of their goal, part of their mission, and that. They need to invest more and double down on the alternatives available to them, and even to implement policy changes that were available to them even before this decision that can open access for more students in particular students of color that I’ll plug here on CAA’s website. We have an open letter to colleges and universities outlining some of these changes, including eliminating legacy preferences, removing racially biased SAT or ACT tests as evaluation for admissions or merit scholarships, and really looking at racial diversity, after admissions to continue tracking data around who is being admitted and encourage diverse student matriculation to support financial aid or mentorship programs for first generation college students, and to really double down and invest more in these practices that we know work and that are more important than ever. Cheryl Truong: Thanks Sally, for that plug. If folks are interested in signing that open petition that Sally mentioned, we will have it linked in our show notes. We’re going to take a quick music break and listen to a Burmese track. “Thai Rhymes with Sound” by Ma Ei Moe. This is a recording by Columbia records from back in around 1932 and features the saung-gauk, an arched harp that is considered the national instrument of Burma. And a little fun fact for all of our listeners out there, the saung gauk is said to be the only surviving harp in Asia. Cheryl Truong: you are tuned in to apex express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3, KPF B in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org. That song you just heard was a Burmese song called “Thai Rhymes with Sound” by Ma Ei Moe. The singer is singing about the colors and smells of each flower. How in the summer, after the long monsoon season flowers are in bloom. Once again that was “Thai Rhymes with Sound” by Ma Ei Moe. Now, back to the show. Where we will be diving in a little bit on asian american history and Asian Americans, long history of supporting affirmative action. Cheryl Truong: Vin, you mentioned something really important earlier, and I just it’s so important that I want to say it again. Asian Americans have had a long history of supporting affirmative action since the 1960s. And yet Blum is perpetuating this harmful narrative about affirmative action attacking, targeting Asians. And weaponizing this fear against other communities of color. I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about this. Vincent Pan: Yeah. Well, you know, the, the narrative it is very problematic. It’s very dangerous. And for me personally, I, I find it sickening. ,the reality is that almost all the gains made by Asian Americans, in this country have been in part, due to leadership by African Americans. Uh, in the 1960s on civil rights. It really opened the door for, immigration to be expanded from Asian countries. It opened the door in education and employment. In public contracting, media representation, political representation. So, this idea that somehow Asian Americans could ever afford to be against affirmative action because of some false belief that select school admissions at the smallest, most elite institutions are working against them and to blame that on other people of color, you know, it’s, it’s quite frankly, it’s horrifying and it’s also not true. Right. We know through the research and through the evidence that there is discrimination, of course against Asian Americans in all sectors of society, but it very, very rarely, and I would say almost never has anything to do with how affirmative action is practiced. It has to do with anti-Asian racism. So again, the cause of fighting anti-Asian discrimination can be solved with things at college admissions, like better training, more oversight, really making sure that there are not biases that creep into the process. But to suggest somehow that one of the more powerful tools for rectifying systemic discrimination is a cause, it’s not just cynical. it’s also, I think, reflective of just the lengths that the far right is willing to go. And to really use basic tenants of the Constitution and equal protection and flip them upside down in their head. I’m very, very discouraged when I see Asian Americans who put a fall for these lies. It behooves the rest of us. Asian Americans had to really speak out, you know, speak out in solidarity with other communities that are marginalized and oppressed to speak out in support of, of race conscious programs, whether that’s in college, admissions or in the workplace, or in culture and, and media. I think Asian Americans, you know, we, we have our work cut out for us, both in terms of rooting out anti-blackness in our, our own communities in terms of really getting educated on how public policy and complicated areas work. But also, to take this as a challenge to do even more to lead the way to push for policies that makes society work for everyone. Miko Lee: Vin can you back up and speak a little bit more about Asian-Americans history of support for affirmative action? I know there was a 2020 Asian-American voter survey that said that 70% of Asian-Americans actually support affirmative action, even though the narrative has been shifted a lot. But can you go back in time with us a little bit about how AAs have had this history of supporting affirmative action? Vincent Pan: Sure, I’m happy to, you know, so Chinese affirmative action was found in 1969 and it’s important to know at the time, affirmative action did not have the same sort of political controversy around it because it was understand as a broad approach and a deal. Simply stated that we have to be proactive to try and fix these problems that we’ve inherited, that lead to unfairness and discrimination towards women, towards people of color, towards folks who are trans and queer. It’s not a hard idea to grasp that you can’t take a society that is so unfair and just automatically expect that by doing nothing, things will get better. No. And so for more than five decades in, in all areas of society, CAA and other Asian American groups with other Asian Americans have fought for affirmative action. And they continue to fight for affirmative action. But I think, in some ways they’ve come to misunderstand just how much affirmative action has benefited us. And so when, you know, I have community members tell me how much they like, say Everything everywhere, All At Once, pushing for Asian Americans, the media is affirmative action. When folks say that they really want to see more Asian American judges or senators or maybe someday the president. That’s a form of affirmative action. So it’s not surprising that many of the polls do show when people understand what affirmative action is, Asian Americans overwhelmingly support. Now I think what we’re seeing though, in terms of this very loud vocal minority is frustration around select school admissions. Or to be quite blunt, maybe their kid didn’t get in. Right. That frustration is, is, is driven by a whole number of things, including unhealthy of what higher education in the United States could be, um, but other things as well. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to explain in the future know, like the constructive ways to push against anti-Asian discrimination and to create productive outlets for some of these frustrations. For example, just expanding the pie and making sure that there are more good school and college slots for everyone as opposed to like buying into this idea that a good education or somehow needs to be this very, very scarce commodity by design. Right. But, you know, I think that it’s also very true that Asian Americans, and it’s really primarily East Asians and South Asians, who I think have got caught up in this. That’s also part of this challenge of a growing right wing within our communities that also needs to be confronted. Miko Lee: Thank you for that. , you know, this whole idea around the colorblindness and holistic admissions and really talking about how many students can be allowed into these elite schools. One of the things that the justices didn’t address was the bulk of folks that get into these school sites, which is, you know, 43% of Harvard admissions fall into the legacy, donors ,and children’s of staff. Those are the folks that are getting this special admissions. Sally, can you talk a little bit about that? Who is getting access into these select schools and why that aspect hasn’t been addressed? Sally Chen: Absolutely. Part of what VIN had talked about was the idea that we already knew, which was that college admissions as it stands is not fair, and that there’s so much work to be done to make sure that there is meaningful, real access for all students. And one of the first points on our open letter to colleges and universities in calling on them to reassess all the different levers that they have to address inequity in college admissions in this moment is to reexamine exactly what you named this Athletic Legacy Dean’s List, children of. Faculty, A L B C category under which, as you named at Elite institutions, this factor is often the first in consideration and even when it is not explicitly named the numbers that you see around students in these types of categories. Applying under early admissions, applying under early action. As a kind of backdoor for them to be able to ensure their admissions in ways that disadvantage certainly first generation students, immigrant students, students of color that are not benefited by these policies. We see that this is one of the key areas where we do need to address what some people have said is, Affirmative action for wealthy white students and that while this still stands, there is a very clear contradiction in how college admissions is allowed to continue to operate. Miko Lee: Thanks for that, Sally. We know already that nine states have passed anti-affirmative action laws and California sadly did this with Prop 209. Vin, can you talk a little bit about the impact that that has had on the uc system in California and how that can be utilized as a model for how we deal with affirmative action in other states and nationally in the future. Vincent Pan: Sure, sure. It’s a really important question because there’s aspects of Prop 209, the ban on affirmative action in California that overlaps with the ruling that occurred at the Supreme Court. Prop 209 really limited race and gender conscious programs in California’s public institutions that deal with education, employment, and contracting, but it did not govern any of the private institutions. And so, you know, the, the private colleges and, and universities in California were not affected by Prop 209. And I should also say that businesses in the private sector were not affected by it either. Supreme Court ruling affects institutions of higher education that are both public and private. And private because most private colleges have received at least some federal funding. And so they will be governed by this as, as well. What we saw in California was a real drop in access for students of color at the UCs. We saw a tremendous drop in the number of minority owned and women owned businesses who were able to obtain public contracts. We saw real slowdown in the diversity of the public sector workforce. And that includes teachers, includes civil servants, it includes firefighters. We also saw, and this is one thing we need to be careful about, sort of an overreaction too, where many government agencies who could still do a lot of different things just decided not to even try not to even ask the question. Through the support and leadership of advocates, it’s taken time, but we’ve been able to get many of these institutions to do better. At some parts of UC, you do see a rebound in the number of students of color because folks have learned to be more assertive and to really understand that they have to do everything that the law will allow. And I think there’s a lesson there for public colleges and universities. To what Sally was saying before it’s on our petition. This ruling should not be an excuse for college presidents and universities to back down or to shy away from this, this critical question of how we achieve racial justice in society. It’s a call to action for them to really make sure they’re doing everything possible. And that includes getting rid of the SATs. It includes making their campuses more welcoming for students of color by having stronger ethnic studies programs. It includes really accelerating the need for a more diverse faculty. It also means thinking about how we can get at issues of the adversity that students of color face and being able to account for that in the application process. In California we are unfortunately, with Prop 209, we made it very, very hard for ourselves. To achieve the type of equitable society that we all want. But as hard as it’s been, we’ve recognized that there are multiple tools, and affirmative action was a powerful one, but it was not the only one. We’ve got to get better at using all of the tools available to us and also developing new ones. Cheryl Truong: So I’m so glad we’re actually talking about Prop 209 because it’s a point in history where we’ve already repealed affirmative action and we have seen how it affects our communities. I think 40%, the enrollment of black and Latino communities dropped by 40% with the passing of Prop 209. This is going to change how a lot of young people imagine their futures because now we are being told that we cannot financially succeed or we won’t have financial opportunities due to this example of systemic racism. How do you think this repeal of affirmative action is going to impact how families and communities think about our futures? And if you have any advice you’d like to share especially with high schoolers who are trying to navigate the college process in the wake of this repeal. Vincent Pan: Well, I’ll, I’ll go first and I would love to hear what you think Sally. I think a lot of it is still unclear, right? We know like the pathways are as a result of the ruling and by limiting affirmative action or really ending affirmative action in, in college admissions, it’s gonna be much, much, much harder. But a lot of it will depend on what the colleges and universities decide to do. If they decide to take the easy way out and say we really can’t prioritize diversity and inclusion anymore, then the numbers of students of color are going to drop dramatically. There’s no question about that. But on the other hand, if the colleges and universities say, okay we’ve got to double down on our commitment to diversity because our schools can’t function if they’re only serving just one community, the white community or just one community, the rich community. If they really step up and understand that’s not acceptable, then they will have to employ every single tool at their disposal with the absence of affirmative action. And they will have to also create new ones. I think if they do that, then perhaps there’s more reason to be optimistic. what does that mean for, for students and families? I think they have to stay engaged and to really understand what’s happening in, in this space. It’s important as Sally has said before, for students to talk about adversity, to present themselves as who they are. and to also know that in many parts of society that there is still discrimination against all students of color and people of color. It’ll depend on finding allies in particular universities or colleges and really understanding what they’re trying to do in this moment. Are they looking at this as an excuse to go back to when universities were really just for rich white men ? Or are they going to really step up and meet the call that this ruling really demands of all of us. Cheryl Truong: We are deep in conversation with affirmative action specialists, Sally Chen and Vincent Pan from CAA. We’re going to take a quick music break and listen to some music by Namgar, an international ethno music collective that fuses traditional Buryat and Mongolian music with pop, jazz, funk, ambient soundscapes, and art- pop. We’ll be back in just a moment with more on the supreme court ruling after we listen to “part two” by Namgar. Cheryl Truong: Welcome back. You are tuned in to APEX express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB B in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org. That song you just heard was “part two” by Namgar, an incredible four- piece Buryat- Mongolian ensemble that is revitalizing and preserving the Buryat language and culture through music. Now, back to the show as we continue our conversation with Vincent pan and Sally Chen discussing their valuable insights regarding the Supreme court’s recent ruling on affirmative action. Miko Lee: I wanna go back Vin, to something that you just said about getting faculty to look more like the students, and I’m wondering both of your response to actually also getting the Supreme Court to look more like our population , and actions that can be taken to actually change the Supreme Court. Vincent Pan: Well, the Supreme Court questions are as, as many of your listeners know, Supreme Court members are appointed for life and there are not that many of them. It becomes very important to make sure that we have people in the White House who make those appointments. Who I would say not only appoint people who look like America, but who actually represent a vision that works for all Americans. In a very small body like that you’re gonna have your Clarence Thomas’s who, you know, are African-American, but in, in my view, are not representing the interests of, of African-Americans at all. It speaks to the importance of being involved political process and voting and civic engagement throughout the country and being smart about it. I think for folks who say that elections don’t matter, here’s another example of just how much they do. I think that the representation in all aspects of government is also critical. And again, that’s not just the folks who work at college and university say, but it’s also in Congress it’s also all of our elected officials, and I think that we are making progress in, in this way. But for Asian Americans, we again have to be very, very careful because you do see folks running who are Asian Americans on the far right. It’s incumbent upon us not just to vote for someone who looks like us, but to be smart and, and to vote for people who represent the interest of all those who’ve been left behind, including our communities. Miko Lee: That’s right. And I guess I’m asking about expansion of the Supreme Court and actually changing the very function of how it’s operating. Sally Chen: I can uplift here specifically on Supreme Court reform. That is one of the areas in which many of our advocates and allies have been thinking about in and planning for, in pivoting in response to this recent slate of decisions that came out. I’ll uplift here. Equal Justice Society, one of our , close partners, both in the Prop 16 campaign and ongoing that they have really dug into exploring and researching and educating people on the history of Supreme Court expansion at Pivotal moments in US history and other opportunities for reform and even intervention. Curtailing some of the Supreme Court’s power and really calling on the other branches of our federal government to step up here, whether that is our Congress or the executive branch and highlighting equal justice society as well as an expert in that area. Vincent Pan: Yeah, it’s a great point, Sally. You know, and I think it is something we all have to look more closely at because you see like ruling, after ruling, after ruling they are all right wing decisions that sort of overturn not only settled law but are really trying to take the country backwards, to a place where none of us want to go. So whether that’s on reproductive rights, whether that’s on racial justice issues, whether it’s on, student loan, debt relief. This term in particular, right? Voting rights, Trans and queer rights. It’s just like one after the other. So I do think it does make sense to look at ways to try and get the Supreme Court to do what it was meant to do. And at the same time are so many things for all of us work in the grassroots to, to engage in as, as well. And so when we talk about all these other tools at our disposal, we need to know that many of those occur at the local level. sometimes we have pretty good laws maybe passed at the, the state level, but they’re not implemented at the city or township I think that there are always very, and this is one thing I’m really, you know, proud of that we do at CAA and proud of all the folks in AACRE, there’s so many ways to push for social justice. And as despondent and, and frustrated and angry as many of us are about the Supreme Court latest rulings, one thing we cannot say is that there aren’t things that we can do. And that’s one thing in particular that I think for Asian Americans, we have to, you know, we have to step up our game on. Sally Chen: Thanks Vin. And just adding on that, a lot of CAA’s work on the ground, whether that’s in our civic engagement team or our Chinese digital engagement is engaging directly with students, families, community members, and the message that we want to send to students and their families is that our young people should follow their dream, should be able to celebrate their identities, and reach their full potential, strive for success in ways that are meaningful to them. They should feel able to be unapologetically themselves and at the end of the day know that, we, the broader community, are ultimately with them separately. I did, I was thinking a little bit about the legacy question. I just wanted to add one more piece, if that’s okay. Which is that. Reform around the removal of consideration of legacy or significant donations in college admissions is not a new conversation. And in fact, we’ve seen universities like Amherst College only a few years ago, publicly announced that they would no longer consider legacy as a factor in admissions. And they saw a significant change in the demographics of their student bodies admitted .The number of first generation college students certainly increased and they did see racial diversity overall broaden and that this is not a new change and it’s not one that is unprecedented either, and that we really have seen universities already at the forefront of taking action even before this decision came. Vincent Pan: Right. The other piece that I think has been lost in all this is there are more Asian Americans, uh, who attend City College of San Francisco than who are in all of the Ivy Leagues. So there’s a real distortion of just how important the Ivy Leagues are in real terms for Asian Americans. Another good thing to know is that more than half of Asian Americans who are in any type of higher education or in community college, Right. So if we understand that the real damage of the Supreme Court ruling on the one hand is in the way, it’s changing how this country wants to deal with the issues of race and racism. You know, we could also know that for Asian-Americans who are seeking college, that there also has to be an emphasis on where students are actually at, which is in the community colleges. Community colleges have historically been dramatically under invested in. We know that there need to be better pathways for folks to get from the community colleges into to four year degree programs. I think that the degree that we can at CAA we also wanna lift up the need for all of our communities, not just to always be focusing in on what the media feeds us, which is that we only care about the Ivy Leagues, but to focus in on what we also live and experience. That it is the community colleges, it’s the CSUs. It’s all these other nontraditional pathways to higher education that our community benefits from. ESL classes, vocational training. Now, all those need support as well. And those are also other ways to drive educational equity across and with other communities of color. Miko Lee: Well, Vincent Pan and Sally Chen, you’ve given us so many things to think about and so many actions that we can take from fighting for investments in more community colleges to paying attention to Asian American candidates to make sure that we’re in values alignment to checking out this open petition that is on the CAA website, which we will put a link to. What else can people do to get involved so that they can actually take action around affirmative action? Sally Chen: Well, certainly our open petition is still available for signatures. We are hoping to, and are rapidly reaching a thousand signatures by the end of this week, but we are preparing to use that as the launching off point for a lot of engagement with colleges and universities, certainly advocates that have relationships to their alma maters, to their networks should engage as much as possible, show their support publicly for the investment in commitment to values of racial diversity and equity, especially at these institutions of higher education .And like Vin had mentioned, a lot of this implementation will , happen at the local and state level. Folks should pay attention to any attempts to broaden this decision beyond the scope of what it should be, of any kind of backing down from originally stated commitments to equity, diversity, inclusion, and to call that out where they see it. Vincent Pan: Yeah, obviously I second what Sally has, has said in terms of ways for folks to get involved, especially on the issue of, of colleges and universities and access and equity to those institutions. You know, I, I think more broadly for Asian Americans, it, it really can’t be understated how dangerous a time we are in. And that what, the anti civil rights litigator Ed Blum, has done and the way that our community is now being portrayed that it becomes important. So, so important, even more important for Asian Americans to speak out. To speak out and, and declare themselves as an anti-racist, to declare themselves as a supportive of affirmative action, and to declare them themselves in solidarity with all people who have been oppressed.. It’s the time to lift up our histories as activists, as people who have fought for civil rights and social justice. This ruling coupled with everything that we know is going on with the escalation of anti-Asian hate, with the uprising in China, just behooves our community to really to reflect and to, and to move forward and to act, as you said, Miko. And so I think that one of the great ways to support affirmative action in the broad sense is by getting involved with any of the key social justice issues that are currently needing our attention. Again, it’s intersectional. And so whether it’s voting rights, reproductive rights, trans and queer rights, civil rights, immigrant rights, there’s just so much work that all advances this broader ideal that really reflect what affirmative action has always been about. This has to be a wake up call for Asian Americans. Most of us have fought for progress. Most of us know that our fate is intertwined with other communities of color, but there’s also far too many who’ve been on the sidelines. And this should be a wake up call to engage on, on the side of those who have been fighting for justice and equity for all communities and not allowing themselves to be exploited by groups and people who clearly do not have our community’s best interests at heart. Miko Lee: That was a great wrap up, VIN. Thank you. Is there anything else either of you would like to add? Vincent Pan: Yeah, I have one thing. There’s, there was one part of the ruling that was also very instructive. Part of the conservative majority, the ruling said, well, the only institution of higher education and learning that can still maybe consider race are military academies. In effect saying that no, well, we want diversity in the schools that are preparing people to go and die in wars. Right? But it’s not in the rest of of society. And so I thought that was like extremely telling, right? Because I think that these right-wing folks, they really don’t believe in colorblind. They only want to use it as a way to mask white supremacy. But in instances where it won’t uphold white supremacy, then they will toss it overboard, right? So they want race conscious admissions for military academies. They want race conscious admission for the military. I mean, you know, that tells us everything I think that we need to know about what’s motivating them. I’ll pause on that. The other thing that I think affirmative action as it was conceived and as it moved in the 1960s benefited white women, and white women have been perhaps the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action programs. And affirmative action programs have always included gender, right? To say that this has been just about affirmative action when it really is about how we understand race in America. Some parts of the community will still continue and say, oh, this is about whether or not the admissions process is fair. But it really is about trying to solve what’s always been maybe the most difficult thing to solve in America. The question of race. And that there have not been uprise Of opposition against affirmative action programs that have helped white women. It is only because affirmative action has been a tool that’s been able to increase racial diversity at some of these institutions that we’ve seen such a backlash against it. Miko Lee: Holy cow. I just have a whole nother series of questions about white women beneficiaries, but that’s another show. Sally, do you have anything that you wanna add? Sally Chen: I’m good. Thank you both so much, Miko and Cheryl for this interview. Miko Lee: Thank you. Thanks to both of you. I actually additionally have more questions about what’s behind this Ed Blum guy, like what’s in it for him? I mean I’m kind of blown away. I know we’re at time, but I do wanna have a further conversation about that too, because it’s like, dude is the rebellion to his progressive parents. He was raised by Jewish progressive parents and he’s every progressive’s parents nightmare. I just like, what’s in it for him? Is this just a money thing? Like what’s that about? Vincent Pan: That’s great question. Yeah, I don’t know, but maybe there’s a, a six hour version of this podcast that we could do time where we’re just going all different directions. Cheryl Truong: check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about the fight for affirmative action and equal access to higher education. And to learn more about our wonderful guests, Sally Chen and Vincent pan. We think all of you listeners out there, keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Cheryl Truong: Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong tonight’s show was produced by me cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening. The post APEX Express – 7.6.23 Let’s Talk Affirmative Action appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #10 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental. Episode #10 This month’s episode is fun, dance groovy, and bumpin’. We have so much to celebrate in June — Queer and Trans Pride, Juneteenth Black music month, AND my Papa’s birthday??? Yeah this mix has all the right high vibes. Lisa Lowe’s Book: In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press About the DJ Paige Chung is a writer and DJ. Her last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and her current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Listen to Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents on KPFA 94.1 and Sun Salutations on Twitch TV. Based in Los Angeles but she rolls everywhere. She currently trains at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound and studies Performing and Media Arts as a PhD student at Cornell University. Lastly, special shoutout to my QT Viet Crew, deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family. Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU
Website Instagram Twitch Mixcloud SoundCloud
Song List:
Be Honest (Tari “Work It” Edit) (Nik Luis Intro Edit) (Clean) — Jorja Smith FT Burna Boy If — Davido Flash Light — Parliament Savanna Sunset (Wingman) Scwarz & Funk We Came To Party — Armond Van Helden Treat The Rhythm — DJ ITRUTH Champagne Kisses — Reuben James, Ric Wilson, Joel Culpepper, CARRTOONS Bug a Boo (Benaiah’s Amapiano Remix) — Benaiah Takes Time – Toye Jab Dil Mile Amapiano — PRIYANKA Theo Says (L3ni Remix) — L3NI You Got The Floor — Arthur Adams Black Water Gold — African Music Machine Startin’ Stomething’ — Michael Jackson Bring It Here (DJ Organic Edit) — Wild Sugar Masse (DJ Stylus Sol Power Edit ) — Blick Bassy Yemaja — David Walters Ndeko Solo (Voilaa Remix) — Afriqoui, Voilaaa Jingo (Todd Terry Remix) — Candido Quem Vai Querer — Aroop Roy Shango (Daniel Haaksman) — Lord Nelson You Groove me (Osunlade Remix) — Jon Cutler Xoay (Trà Đá Connection Remix) — Tú, Trà Đá Connection Go Nhảy Luôn — Tú, Trà Đá Connection Oo Solriya (Baile Funk) — PRIYANKA HAI HAI (Baile Funk) — NONAZAR’s OMAR X M2RAY Fela Kuti — Wyclef Jean
The post APEX Express – 6.29.23 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents by DJ MIU appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – June 22, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #3 (Rerun) – Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental. Episode #3 This month’s episode features Sault, Irene Cara, and so much more. May Irene Cara transition peacefully. Lisa Lowe’s Book: In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press About the DJ My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, poet, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound. Lastly, special shoutout to my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family. Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU
Website Instagram Twitch Mixcloud SoundCloud
The post APEX Express – 6.15.23 – Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. SURRIJA Our guest tonight is no stranger to your ears. She is most recently known for being the voice of Opera Evelyn in the song “Opera Fight” in Everything Everywhere All at Once that premiered in 2022. Tonight we’re talking about music, diving deep and doing the work, and everything Surrija.
SURRIJA (self-titled album) is an electro art pop rebirth that plays with asymmetry, textures, glitch, electronic treatment of intense classical training, and holding complex emotions in one place. The album features drummer Matt Chamberlain (David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, Sean Watkins, Tori Amos, Perfume Genius), co-produced by Surrija, Sophocles, and Maxwell Gualtieri. After a break from music, she spent four years developing this record and wanted to make music that more closely reflected her feral tendencies. The result is unhinged and off-kilter. Earmilk claims “is simply on a different wavelength … chilling and seductive..”. Classical piano training, degree in choral conducting, singer-songwriter/folk roots, and theatre work all made for a unique sum in this album. “I’m made of a lot of genres and it was always audible. In the end I still think I’m best at putting my hands on the instrument, being tactile, hearing organics. Electronic experimentations of this landed me squarely in this new sound.” Surrija is about finding voice and is a strong genre pivot from her previous songwriter roots. Find Surrija Everywhere (All At Once):
Website Instagram Bandcamp for Surrija’s Music Youtube Twitter
About the Host: Paige Chung is a writer and DJ. Her last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and her current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Listen to Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents on KPFA 94.1 Radio and Sun Salutations on Twitch TV. Based in Los Angeles but she rolls everywhere. She trains at Beat Junkies Institute of Sound in DJ turntablism and studying as Performing and Media Arts PhD student at Cornell University. For more: https://djxmiu.com/ and everywhere @djxmiu Transcript SURRIJA & Opera Evelyn from EEAAO Transcript The post APEX Express – June 8, 2023 – SURRIJA aka Opera Evelyn from Everything Everywhere All At Once appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
QT Viet Cafe Collective and Viet Unity Reflect on their Vietnamese Roots and Routes Part II:
This Thursday June 1 at 7pm back for Part II, Thao Le from Việt Unity, HẢI VÕ and TRANG SÁNG TẠO from ViệtUnity and QT Việt Cafe Collective join Paige Chung to talk about Queer Viet thaaangs!! In the last first part, we shared our families’ journeys from Vietnam to the U.S. after the Vietnam War and for part two we’re back to talk about growing Queer Việt love, joy, freedoms, organzing, and community.
ViệtUnity and QT Viet Cafe are a proud parts of Asian Refugees United (ARU) and ARU are two of the eleven AACRE organizations.
VietUnity Bay Area
- Viet Unity promotes a progressive voice within the Vietnamese Community. Through alliance building, community education, organizing, and collective action, Viet Unity Bay Area works towards positive social change that acknowledges and combats all forms and systems of oppression. VietUnity Bay Area connects it work to broader multi-racial and multi-class movements for social justice and systemic change.
QT Viet Cafe Collective: Circle of Artists and Healers
- The Circle’s purpose is to gather interested and committed QTViệt artists and healers to make space to deeply nurture and support our individual and each other’s art forms and practice and share our creative expressions with the greater community. We welcome and encourage Circle members to consider their art form(s) as it relates to being Queer/Trans and Vietnamese in the dispora and/or homeland. We hope to emulate the beauty of circles – we find them in shapes like the sun, the moon, planets in the cosmos, tree trunks, cell structures, nhãn (longan and many other fruits), and in cycles like the lunar calendar and the concept of plants sprouting, repopulating, and composting.
- https://www.qtvietcafe.com/circle
- https://www.facebook.com/QTVietCafe/
- https://www.instagram.com/qtvietcafe/
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNlW904fkq899D-bnAuLQIQ
AACRE Thursdays* a monthly radio show featuring an organization from the AACRE: Asian American for Civil Rights and Equality. AACRE Thursdays premiers every third Thursday of the month at 7pm. Find more APEX Express Shows here.
Transcript: QT Viets on their Vietnamese Roots and Routes Part II
The post APEX Express – 5.1.23 – QT Viet and Viet Unity Reflect on Vietnamese Roots and Routes pt.II appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – May 25, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – May 18, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – May 11, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – May 4, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
Welcome to a special episode of APEX Express, Host Powerleegirls Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-Lee, a mother daughter duo talk about Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and all the amazing happenings. They talk with with artists, curators, activists who are telling stories about our AAPI experience in different ways. This is actually a two part episode as there are so many things going on. Today we speak to the about film with Thuy Trang, about CAAMfest, the premiere Bay Area Asian American film festival about storytelling with ethnohtec’s Robert Kikuchi yongo and Nancy Wang, and about dance with creator Joti Singh from Duniya dance and drum company.
AAPI Heritage Month Events Bay Area
April 27 – June 15, 2023 Bay Area film, dance, theatre, visual art, food check out full calendar: United States of Asian America festival 2023 Horizons
May 11- 21, 2023 Bay Area film & food Caamfest 2023
May 13, 2023 12:00 – 5:00 PM Kapwa Gardens, SF Yum Yams, Kultivate Labs/Kapwa Gardens‘ popular ube festival
May 12-14, 2023 Mission Dance Center, SF When Eyes Speak (walking tour sold out)
More info about our guests and their work (in order of appearance)
- Joti Singh, Artistic Director Duniya Dance & Drum Company
- Berkeley South Asian Walking Tour
- Anirvan Chatterjee: www.chatterjee.net, @anirvan on Twitter
- Barnali Ghosh: www.barnali.com, @berkeleywali on Instagram
- FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK
- Asian American Storytopia on youtube
- Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo & Nancy Wang, Artistic Directors EthNohTec
Other events not covered in the special
Asian Art Museum Beyond Bollywood 2000 Years of Dance & Art
May 23 Community Care Power & Wellness led by AAPI Women Lead
Stand Up for Yourself & Others Attend a Free Right to Be Bystanding Intervention training:
- Korean 4/25/23 at 3:00pm Pacific: Register Here
- English 5/10/23 at 4:00pm: Register Here
- English 5/13/23 at 11:00am Pacific at Rowland High School in the Performing Arts Center: 2000 S Otterbein Ave, Rowland Heights, CA 91748
- Mandarin 5/13/23 at 11:00am Pacific at Rowland High School in the Performing Arts Center: 2000 S Otterbein Ave, Rowland Heights, CA 91748
- English 5/18/23 at 11:00am Pacific: Register Here
The post REPLAY of APEX Express AAPI Special – May 2, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
Welcome to a special episode of APEX Express, Host Powerleegirls Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-Lee, a mother daughter duo talk about Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and all the amazing happenings. They talk with with artists, curators, activists who are telling stories about our AAPI experience in different ways. This is actually a two part episode as there are so many things going on. Today we speak to the about film with Thuy Trang, about CAAMfest, the premiere Bay Area Asian American film festival about storytelling with ethnohtec’s Robert Kikuchi yongo and Nancy Wang, and about dance with creator Joti Singh from Duniya dance and drum company.
AAPI Heritage Month Events Bay Area
April 27 – June 15, 2023 Bay Area film, dance, theatre, visual art, food check out full calendar: United States of Asian America festival 2023 Horizons
May 11- 21, 2023 Bay Area film & food Caamfest 2023
May 13, 2023 12:00 – 5:00 PM Kapwa Gardens, SF Yum Yams, Kultivate Labs/Kapwa Gardens‘ popular ube festival
May 12-14, 2023 Mission Dance Center, SF When Eyes Speak (walking tour sold out)
More info about our guests and their work (in order of appearance)
- Joti Singh, Artistic Director Duniya Dance & Drum Company
- Berkeley South Asian Walking Tour
- Anirvan Chatterjee: www.chatterjee.net, @anirvan on Twitter
- Barnali Ghosh: www.barnali.com, @berkeleywali on Instagram
- FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK
- Asian American Storytopia on youtube
- Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo & Nancy Wang, Artistic Directors EthNohTec
Other events not covered in the special
Asian Art Museum Beyond Bollywood 2000 Years of Dance & Art
May 23 Community Care Power & Wellness led by AAPI Women Lead
Stand Up for Yourself & Others Attend a Free Right to Be Bystanding Intervention training:
- Korean 4/25/23 at 3:00pm Pacific: Register Here
- English 5/10/23 at 4:00pm: Register Here
- English 5/13/23 at 11:00am Pacific at Rowland High School in the Performing Arts Center: 2000 S Otterbein Ave, Rowland Heights, CA 91748
- Mandarin 5/13/23 at 11:00am Pacific at Rowland High School in the Performing Arts Center: 2000 S Otterbein Ave, Rowland Heights, CA 91748
- English 5/18/23 at 11:00am Pacific: Register Here
The post APEX Express AAPI Special – May 1, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
QT Viet Cafe Collective and Viet Unity Reflect on their Vietnamese Roots and Routes:
Thao Le from Viet Unity, HẢI VÕ and TRANG SÁNG TẠO from QT Viet Cafe Collective join Paige Chung in a conversation sharing their families journeys from Vietnam to the U.S. after the Vietnam War and share different responsibilities each person feels towards organizing their collective Vietnamese community. VietUnity and QT Viet Cafe are a proud parts of Asian Refugees United (ARU) and ARU are two of the eleven AACRE organizations.
VietUnity Bay Area
- Viet Unity promotes a progressive voice within the Vietnamese Community. Through alliance building, community education, organizing, and collective action, Viet Unity Bay Area works towards positive social change that acknowledges and combats all forms and systems of oppression. VietUnity Bay Area connects it work to broader multi-racial and multi-class movements for social justice and systemic change.
QT Viet Cafe Collective: Circle of Artists and Healers
- The Circle’s purpose is to gather interested and committed QTViệt artists and healers to make space to deeply nurture and support our individual and each other’s art forms and practice and share our creative expressions with the greater community. We welcome and encourage Circle members to consider their art form(s) as it relates to being Queer/Trans and Vietnamese in the dispora and/or homeland. We hope to emulate the beauty of circles – we find them in shapes like the sun, the moon, planets in the cosmos, tree trunks, cell structures, nhãn (longan and many other fruits), and in cycles like the lunar calendar and the concept of plants sprouting, repopulating, and composting.
- https://www.qtvietcafe.com/circle
- https://www.facebook.com/QTVietCafe/
- https://www.instagram.com/qtvietcafe/
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNlW904fkq899D-bnAuLQIQ
AACRE Thursdays* a monthly radio show featuring an organization from the AACRE: Asian American for Civil Rights and Equality. AACRE Thursdays premiers every third Thursday of the month at 7pm. Find more APEX Express Shows here.
Transcript:
QT Viet Roots and Routes Transcript
The post APEX Express – 4.27.23 – QT Viet and Viet Unity Reflect on Vietnamese Roots and Routes appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – April 20, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #7
[AI Le is the artist of this IS4C flyer and January Roan is the designer of the logo “DJxMIU”.]
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.
This week we have the pleasure of guest DJ, Discott’s return. She is well known for spinning vinyl on Twitch, Soul in the Horn, and Saturday Night Experience. She is a close friend and one of my favorite DJs, I’m so excited she decided to return on the show!
Lisa Lowe’s Book:
In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press.
About the Guest DJ
Discott is a DJ/Selector based out of Ontario, Canada. She enjoys sharing new digs with others and is a simple girl who enjoys a really good groovy baseline.
Find Discott anywhere and everywhere:
- Mixcloud
- Twitch
- “Wax Nineteen | Session 002 | All Vinyl” Show on Youtube
About the DJ Producer
My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, DJ, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound.
Lastly, special shoutout to my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.
Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU @paigechung
- Website
- Twitch
- Mixcloud
- SoundCloud
Episode #7 Track List:
Cranes in the Sky (Quarantine Sessions) – Tom Misch
Fo Yelle – Florence Adooni
In The Rain – Ernest Ranglin
It’s My House – Risco Connection
Endangered Species – Endangered Species
Eye to Eye (Extended Remix) – Chaka Khan
Read My Mind – Lianne La Havas
Night Drive – Ari Lennox
Don’t Wait Too Long – Beres Hammond
Rockaway – Beres Hammond
Vietnam – Jimmy Cliff
Faluma – Ai Sia Si
Yinne – Florence Adooni
The post APEX Express – 4.13.23 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents #7 by Discott appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – April 6, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #6
[January Roan designed the logo, concept and titling for Intimate Sounds.]
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.
This week we have an amaaazing guest DJ, Discott. She is well known for spinning vinyl on Twitch, Soul in the Horn, and Saturday Night Experience. She is a close friend and one of my favorite DJs, I’m so excited she decided to do this show with me.
Lisa Lowe’s Book:
In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press.
About the Guest DJ
Discott is a DJ/Selector based out of Ontario, Canada. She enjoys sharing new digs with others and is a simple girl who enjoys a really good groovy baseline.
Find Discott anywhere and everywhere:
- Mixcloud
- Twitch
- “Wax Nineteen | Session 002 | All Vinyl” Show on Youtube
About the DJ Producer
My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, DJ, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound.
Lastly, special shoutout to my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.
Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU @paigechung
- Website
- Twitch
- Mixcloud
- SoundCloud
Episode #6 Track List
This month’s episode features the following music:
- APEX EXPRESS INTRO
- Southern Freeze – Sonzeira & Emanuelle Araujo
- My Light – Sault
- Touch A Four Leaf Clover – George Posse Feat. Toyin Adekale
- African King – Sandra Cross
- Lips Illusion – Stephen Encinas
- Um Ba Yo – Merchant
- Maléré – Vikings Guadeloupe
- Pata Pata – Miriam Makeba
- Brush The Heat – Little Dragon
- Street Fighter – Sault
- El Niño – DjeuhDjoah & Lieutenant Nicholson
- Kilimanjaro (Take us Higher) – Letta Maul
- Wow – Andre Gagnon
- We Give Thanks – Kokoroko
- APEX EXPRESS OUTRO
The post APEX Express 3.30.23 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents #5 by Discott appeared first on KPFA.
Zombie Development – Stories from the Konkan Coast: Welcome to the Konkan coast along India’s central western seaboard, where mangoes and cashews are farmed, where shrimp, pomfret, mackerel, and grouper are aplenty, and where heavy-polluting industries are threatening local livelihoods and ecologies of local fishing and farming communities. These are projects that local stakeholders have fought against on the streets and in the courts for decades now, and they have won significant gains for local sovereignty and environmental protection. But these once dead projects are now being resurrected like zombies, by politicians who are putting profits over people. In this episode, guest producer Anuj Vaidya speaks to activist and educator Bhushan Bhoir about the the Wadhwan Port in Palghar which promises to be the largest container port in Asia, and to Neha Rane about the West Coast Refinery in Ratnagiri which, at the cost of Rs. 3 trillion crores, is the most expensive project being undertaken by the current government.
(Image: Mural at Worli Koliwada Housing Society)
The post APEX Express – 3.16.23 – Zombie Development appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists
The post APEX Express – 2.23.23 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists
Tonight on APEX Express it is A Time for Remembering. We are remembering what it is like to grow up in San Francisco and be connected to this land that is not ours. We are remembering the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans. We Are talking with artists and lawyers and policy makers. People who help us shape our vision of what it means to be American. Host Miko Lee talks with artists Celi Tamayo-Lee and Na Omi Judy Shintani and Lawyer Don Tamaki. Join us.
Muni Raised Me February 24–April 9, 2023 Opening Reception, SOMArts Cultural Center
Artist NaOmi Shintani’s website
The Art of Resilience: Tanforan Exhibit Tours, Panel Discussion & Memorial Walk through February 25, 2023 1-4PM PST San Bruno BART Station & AZ Gallery, San Bruno, CA & Online ongoing exhibit on the exterior plaza and inside the San Bruno BART Station.
Day of Remembrance San Francisco, February 19, 2023, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM PST
Tickets here.
StopRepeatingHistory.Org
Additional information about the Cal Reparations Task Force
It convened in June of 2021, and on June 1, 2022, fulfilled its first charge of publishing a sweeping, nearly 500 page report drawing a through line from the harm of 246 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow and racial terror, and decades more of continuing discrimination. Here is link to the 29 page Executive Summary, https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/ab3121-interim-report-executive-summary-2022.pdf
Show Transcripts: A Time for Remembering
[00:00:35] Miko Lee: Tonight on apex express. It is a time for remembering. We are remembering what it is like to grow up in San Francisco and be connected to this land that is not ours. We are remembering the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans. We are talking with artists and lawyers, policymakers, people who help us shape our vision of what it means to be American.
Hi, I’m your host, Miko Lee. And tonight on apex express I speak with artists Celi Tamayo-Lee and Na Omi Judy Shintani and lawyer Don Tamaki join us aboard apex express Welcome to Apex Express, Celi Tamayo-Lee .
[00:01:19] Celi Tamayo-Lee: Thank you for having me, Miko.
[00:01:21] Miko Lee: We’re so happy to have you as an artist, as a community organizer. So my first question for you is, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
[00:01:32] Celi Tamayo-Lee: My people are creatives. people who like to eat a lot. My lineage comes from ELOs Norte in the Philippines, in the province of La Wag and also from Toisan in village, Sega, which is, in the Guandong province in China. My people love to dance. My people are nature lovers, ocean lovers, and those who wanna figure out what it fights to get to liberation. I carry with me legacies. Of deep hope and deep faith and legacies of adventuring. I think a lot about both my grandmothers, my Popo June and my Lola Anisha, who were just both very. Revolutionary in my mind, for their times. My grandmother from the Philippines coming here, from her small village, having I think just a high school degree and making a life for herself and her family in San Francisco.
My other grandmother, June, who was a housewife in Palo Alto, who I think otherwise would have become a doctor, had higher education been m ore accessible for, women in her time. I think both of them were just really loving women , who hosted a lot of open space for their communities through their food, through gatherings and parties and also being a safe place for many of our relatives in the United.
[00:03:09] Miko Lee: Thank you for that. I often think about my Popo who had all this power and imagination and what it would be like if she was living today. Do you feel like you carry an additional, , responsibility to fulfill some of their dreams since they could not during their time.
[00:03:28] Celi Tamayo-Lee: Yeah. I think about that a lot. I think in the moments where I’m like, wow, I have just sat at a table all day on my computer. Is this what my ancestors dreamt for me? But I think especially as I have been exploring more of my gender identity. I think I identify as a non-binary person and I think that might be something that they couldn’t quite, imagine in, in the language and the terms that they knew.
But I think that like real freedom to express one’s within their body and how they express themselves outwardly is definitely something I think they dreamt for me and. I also feel a responsibility to be a part of movement work and be a part of continuing to build community because that is something that I’ve benefited so much from them.
[00:04:22] Miko Lee: Talk a little bit more about your community organizing and how you combine that with your artistry and your imagination.
[00:04:28] Celi Tamayo-Lee: It’s definitely been a journey for myself to identify as an artist and I think, mostly cuz there’s so many messages about the ways in which art will never be a career path because of how dicey it is in terms of making money, in many ways, ironically, shout out my parents, who were both very creative people and also, people who have fought for social justice for most of their lives.
my dad is a civil rights attorney and was a community organizer as a young person, but also, A musician and has always played in bands as a fun side gig. when he was my age, he was in a band called Stand that would perform all over the Bay Area. And my mom herself is also a cook and just a very creative person made all my Halloween costumes growing up and as an avid gardener.
Having parents like that gave me just permission to continue to grow myself in a creative way. And I do think throughout so much of history movements have really succeeded because of their artistic aspects. Even within our Asian American history, there are so many important graphic designers and artists who made protest posters.
Made movement graphics that really called into being like the spirit , of what people were fighting for. , I think about all of the songs that were sung throughout the Civil Rights movement and, I think culture just has a really powerful way of opening people’s minds up to things that may feel out. reach when they’re thinking in a more rational way. I just think that any movement that we need, is gonna depend on the way in which culture has been influenced through art.
[00:06:25] Miko Lee: And speaking of that, you’ve been in the studio at Soma all day today, setting up a new exhibit called Muni Raised Me. Can you tell us about your latest project?
[00:06:35] Celi Tamayo-Lee: This project called Muni Raised Me is a exhibit that will be in Soma Arts for six weeks, and it is a part of their curatorial residency programs. So myself and two of my really good friends, Sasha Vu and Mei Mei Lee, we saw the flyer on Instagram that they were calling for proposals and, , applied with this idea of a show called Muni Raised Me.
really what It is, is, a love letter, a gathering, a dance party of so many of our friends, our talented friends who are. Visual artists, painters, collage artists, fashion designers, photographers it’s really a space that we actually wanted to create for a long time, but never really found the platform to do it. And so much of it is trying to. ,I think juxtapose like the beauty and the roots that we come from having grown up in San Francisco while also naming just the struggle it has been to persist and live here. ,most of us artists were born in the early nineties and have just come of age in this tech era within San Francisco.
2011 was when Mayor Ed Lee invited tech companies like Twitter and Google and LinkedIn in with these major tax breaks. From 2009 to 2013, every time that I visited home, There were just more and more beloved businesses that had been replaced by condos and replaced by fancy coffee shops selling $6 lattes. For myself and for many of my friends it’s been a painful and lonely experience to try and maintain a life here and to, make rent, to feel creative, to still work in public service. So many of the artists in our show are organizers themselves, or are teachers and educators in public schools or in afterschool programs. And so to try and live all those different multiple dreams and identities is really a struggle in San Francisco.
[00:08:53] Miko Lee: So when somebody walks into Soma Arts, what will they see with Muni raised me.
[00:08:58] Celi Tamayo-Lee: Ooh. I will say one of the first things they will see is a Muni bus that we were actually gifted from SFMTA. It just so happened that they were retiring a number of their buses and we got connected to the right person. , shout out Nicole Christian who knew somebody and. We have transformed that bus into an altar. You can walk through the bus, and throughout the bus there will be altars, but there will be definitely a focal point at the very back of the bus for people to view, but also for people to interact with. I think that so much of living in the city and having grown up in the city is an experience of grief and we really wanted to make space in the show for people to bring in ancestors and bring in family members who have been lost, , or, even family members who have been pushed out of the Bay Area.
we also wanna commemorate lives lost to police violence. yeah, We hope that altar can be, a realm in which the spirit is felt beyond just , the material setting of a gallery. There’s also gonna be a lot of amazing collage work from Erin Kimora. We have a beautiful installation from Arena Alejo, along with, Alyssa Avilas, who is a painter and multidisciplinary artist. People will just see a lot of kind of iconography from the nineties. We have a couple of painted Muni passes and a lot of, yeah, just different gestures and shout outs to this public transportation system that I know for myself, I spent hours and hours of my life on. It was a little bit of a pocket of freedom, like with my parents not necessarily knowing where I was. It wasn’t home, it wasn’t school. It was a place where I got to just enjoy and see my city.
[00:11:02] Miko Lee: And What would you like folks to feel after they leave the show?
[00:11:06] Celi Tamayo-Lee: I hope that they leave feeling reminded that San Francisco is them and that any kind of beauty or spark or funkiness or weirdness that they feel themselves missing from San Francisco actually can come back through their own creativity, through their own hello to a neighbor through their own small act of kindness.
You know, I think there are deeper relationships also made through this show. I hope that there’s a feeling of oh, my people are still here. I am connected to a sense of justice and community that maybe doesn’t always feel present in the everyday, but is actually there. I hope that it. Reignites some sense of connectedness to other people who call this place home.
[00:11:59] Miko Lee: I wonder if you could just speak a little bit about how art helps us remember the past so that we can learn and move forward in the future.
[00:12:08] Celi Tamayo-Lee: Yeah, I think art is really critical to remembering our history. It’s definitely one thing to read something in a book and another thing to experience it through imagery and sound and color. it was important to us in this exhibit to in our alter space, include really important historical figures of San Francisco. So we’re including people like Victoria Manalo Draves who was a Filipina American olympic swimmer, she was one of the first women swimmers to win in her divisions of diving.
We also have people like Mary Ellen Pleasant, who was an African-American woman, one of the first African-American millionaires in the country, who is also dubbed as the Harriet Tubman of the West. She helped hundreds of African-American people, basically find and make lives here in San Francisco. And, She challenged the government when they told her that she couldn’t ride actually on a certain part of the public transportation, and it went to the California Supreme Court and she won and that is what stopped discrimination on the trolley routes in San Francisco. Art reaches people who would not normally seek out that history. I think it just gives people a much deeper sense of their own legacies or legacies that they may not even know that they’re connected to.
[00:13:51] Miko Lee: Celi Tamayo-Lee, thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express.
[00:13:56] Celi Tamayo-Lee: Thank you for having me. Miko. For anyone who’s looking for more information, you can follow us on Instagram@MuniRaisedMe and also find us online@somaarts.com/Muniraisedme.
[00:14:10] Miko Lee: That was Sealy to Mio Lee talking about muni raised me. Now take a listen to pistol jazz by Hi no Tori. A taiko solo.
[00:17:41] Miko Lee: Welcome back. You are tuned into apex express, a 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPF. Be in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org. That was a Taiko solo. Hi no Tori by pistol jazz.
Welcome artist and narrator of culture, NaOmi Judy Shintani to Apex Express.
[00:18:03] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk with you.
[00:18:06] Miko Lee: We’re excited to talk with you too, and I wanna kick it off by first asking you, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?
[00:18:16] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Well, I do quite a bit of my artwork about, the Japanese American history and so those are some of my people, I would say. But I also want my work to be visible to all kinds of people. So I’d say everyone’s my people. The legacy I carry, part of that has to do with the incarceration, that is part of the history of my family. That is something that I carry with me. I think that there is intergenerational trauma. There’s lessons you learn in legacy from your family and your culture.
[00:18:54] Miko Lee: So we are coming along to the Day of Remembrance, which is a day that recognizes the Japanese-American incarceration. Can you tell about your family’s personal connection with the incarceration.
[00:19:07] NaOmi Judy Shintani: My father’s family was up in Washington State in the Puget Sound area, and they lived on a houseboat and were oyster farmers. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, they immediately came and got my grandfather, who was a leader in the community. They were a concerned or worried that he might be a spy or might have information. And so He was taken away and my grandmother and my father’s and his sibling didn’t really know what had happened to him. A few days later they came for my grandmother and my father and his siblings. They eventually ended up at Tule Lake incarceration camp. Then my grandfather was allowed to be with the family there. On my mother’s side, she was actually in Hawaii and the family was not incarcerated per se, though there’s a lot of limitations and curfews that they had to live with. Her father was also a leader in the community and he was taken away for a year. And I think At that time my mother didn’t really, probably up until the time of her death did not believe that they were incarcerated in Hawaii. But of course, we’ve learned later that there were incarceration camps in Hawaii and that my grandfather actually was incarcerated.
[00:20:36] Miko Lee: Yeah, so many of these stories are hidden. Finally the one incarceration camp in Oahu is just getting turned into a, a national park soon. So More people will know about that history. That’s one of the many hidden histories about the internment camps in Hawaii.
[00:20:52] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Exactly. One of my goals is to explore the incarceration history in Hawaii. I’ve mostly been focused on my father’s family cuz there’s been more information.
So I’m very interested in learning more about the legacy of trauma in Hawaii.
[00:21:10] Miko Lee: You’re an amazing artist, have created so many important pieces, and can you talk more about how you combine your sense of family history, your activism with your artistry?
[00:21:22] NaOmi Judy Shintani: I think originally I started wanting to learn more about what happened to my family and also to come to grips with it for my own self. That’s when I really started exploring trying to learn more, trying to Get my father to talk more about his experience and that is what really spurred me to start making art. At one point when we went to the Tule Lake pilgrimage together, he was asked how often do you think about the incarceration? It was a general question out to the elders that were at Tule Lake and they had to raise their hand and so they said every 10 years, every five years, every. Three years and they kept going and my father still had his hand raised for every day. And at that point I thought, this is something that is deep in our family, a deep trauma that’s not been talked about a whole lot, and it has affected me and many families.
That’s when I really decided, Spend more time exploring that and exploring also meant doing research. It meant talking to other people. It meant gathering information. I did a lot of outreach to hear other people’s stories written or oral. I also did surveys for descendants of people that were incarcerated cuz I hadn’t heard that much from them. All of these thoughts and stories became part of my art and I think of my art as a way of educating people as well as honoring them honoring the people that were incarcerated and as a healing.
[00:23:16] Miko Lee: In the byline next to your name, it says that you are a “narrator of culture, the unspoken compels me to create.” Can you share a little bit more about what that means to you?
[00:23:27] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Well, I was thinking about what is it that I’m actually doing in my work and I was working with someone to come up with some sort of naming of myself, and I finally came up with the idea that I tell other people’s stories, I tell stories of culture so that’s why I became a narrator of culture. The unspoken compels me to create, that’s because I am very Adamant about bringing these stories out to the public. I think that is through the personal stories about what people experienced. That is how we really know the history. A lot of this kind of history, these personal stories are not in history books in high school or middle school. It’s about, Individuals and families. It’s not just about, 120,000 people. I mean, that’s a big number, but to hear the actual stories of parents and children and grandparents I think that puts a whole different light on it.
[00:24:36] Miko Lee: Can you talk a little bit about your piece that’s at the San Bruno BART station.
[00:24:41] NaOmi Judy Shintani: I was hired by bay Area Rapid Transit Bart to create a art exhibit or historical exhibit about the Tanforan detention center that was on the land of where the BART station and the mall is now and was originally a racetrack. I came in as a curator, so I thought about what is important for people to know about Tanforan and how am I going to express that through writing and through art and through historical photographs. I actually thought that there’s a lot of discrimination and hardships that Japanese immigrants, the Issei experience before. Pearl Harbor was bombed that I think had an influence on how the Japanese people were treated during that war time. So I really started talking about the history way earlier. About coming over, not being able to become citizens, not being able to own land and yet persevering and becoming successful. So that all rolled into the incarceration. There was a lot of discrimination because, the successfulness of the Japanese even though they had so many hardships.
That was just an example of what things I thought were important for people to know about the incarceration, the history of Tanforan. I also spent a lot of time Expressing and telling the history of the artists that were at Tanforan art was a very important part of the incarceration. So I talked about people that were incarcerated, artists that were incarcerated, the art school they had there, and showed some of the art that was created there. and then I also included Art of Descendants. To express, you know, what’s happened? How are people expressing the incarceration in art now.
[00:26:48] Miko Lee: I love that you curated this kind of trauma informed practice that has been lasted for generations. Can you talk more about the art school that was at the Tanforan concentration camp? I hadn’t heard that story before.
[00:27:02] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Obata, who was a professor at uc, Berkeley was incarcerated. And so When he got there, he thought we have to have something that will give people some hope or some something to do while they’re in prison. He had an art school that was for children as well as for adults. to Teach and encourage people to use their creativity to survive this difficult time. They had hundreds of students and a lot of different subjects as well as drawing and painting.
[00:27:36] Miko Lee: So anybody can go and see this public exhibit that opened in September, right?
[00:27:42] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Yes. If you want to go see it, you can of course you can ride on Bart and get off at the San Bruno BART station is, it’s right on the main street level floor. If you’re going by car, if you come to the Bart parking lot or the Tanforan Shopping Center, you can let the station agent know that you’re there to see the exhibit. Then you’ll be able to come in without having to buy a ticket. They’re also encouraging classrooms and groups to come in. So you have a large group. You can call or email Bart and they will arrange that. There’s also a memorial which is outside of the BART station, and that was put together by a group of Japanese Americans, some of which had connections with the incarceration there at Tanforan. They just opened a beautiful outdoor memorial, which has a statue of two of the young mochita girls that were in incarcerated photographed by Dorthea Lang. And also they have the names of the people that were . Incarcerated engraved, and they have a horse stable structure that can give you the size and the space that you would’ve been in if you were incarcerated there. BART and AAWAA, which is the Asian American Women’s Arts Association are putting on a curatorial tour, as well as a memorial walkthrough and a multicultural artist panel on February 25th. People that wanna get more information can come have a special experience on that day.
[00:29:26] Miko Lee: You’re tuned into APEX express., a 94.1 K PFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org.
Can you talk to me about your project that you’re working on right now?
[00:29:40] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Dream Refuge for Children imprisoned was originally introduced at the Triton Art Museum in Santa Clara. And it has since been traveling. It not only is about the Japanese incarceration, but I’ve also included children that were incarcerated in the United States, including native American children in boarding school situations that were removed from their communities and also the Central American refugee children which are the most recent group that has been incarcerated and a t the beginning were removed from their parents, and I just thought that was traumatic and horrible. It’s reminded me so much of what our families went through in the incarceration of the Japanese Americans.
[00:30:34] Miko Lee: Can you describe for listeners what this work looks like?
[00:30:39] NaOmi Judy Shintani: I did life size drawings of children on mattresses are put onto cots. I also sewed talismans on each of the children. That represents a form of protection, a symbol of protection for the different children. So the Japanese Americans had little embroidery symbols as in Japan they would sew them on the back of children’s kimonos to watch their back. I carried on that tradition of adding those kinds of symbols in red thread. For the native American children, I made little belt pouches of cedar and sage herbs that were given to me by a elder who knew I was working on this project. And so I sewed those into little red pouches that had the symbol of the four directions. For the Central American children I sewed purple crosses cuz they would often be carrying these crosses, with them when they came across the border.
So those are all arranged in a circle. I just felt that the circle was such a healing shape and I wanted people to come into the space and see these sleeping children in this safe space and to relate to their experiences. And I had recordings of stories that were told by elders now about their experience when they were children. I had a woman that was in Native American boarding schools that told her stories and then also collected the stories. Belinda Arianga, a woman in Half Moon Bay that went to the border, and she told me the stories of those children. These voices were all recorded so that you can hear their stories in the room.
[00:32:33] Miko Lee: So why for you as an artist, did you want to have both something that you could look at and then also listen to what was the impact of having those dual experiences for audience? What’s your intention behind that?
[00:32:46] NaOmi Judy Shintani: I really wanted people to experience the incarceration with different modalities. So I felt that by them seeing the children sleeping, they had one experience also walking in a circle. That was another experience. So they, there was a movement involved. To hear the stories I think gave another level and also to hear elders telling the stories that they remembered when they were children, along with hearing children speaking in Spanish and in English. And to have different ages and different genders. Telling the stories that they experienced. I think that just gave a whole nother. Way of the history entering the viewers.
[00:33:32] Miko Lee: To me, there’s also something quite powerful about the fact that they’re sleeping children , because there’s this whole innocence and kind of beauty that comes within that sleeping space, and yet they’re held in detention. So it’s this very intense juxtaposition.
[00:33:51] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Yes. That was something that I really thought about and wanted to express that sort of vulnerability, but yet when they’re sleeping, they have this time to dream of being in a different place or being in their own space. That was one of the things I really wanted people to come away with. The other thing I didn’t talk about is that the Central American children I placed on the floor and they’re sleeping among the Mylar blankets as well as textiles from Central America. And that really came to me when I spoke to a woman who was from Honduras who been released from those detention centers and she said whatever you do, don’t put our children on beds, because they had to sleep on the cement floor. So I really took that to heart and wanted to show them in their correct plight of being imprisoned in such horrible conditions and the circle of the children around them. From the earlier generations of incarceration, I felt they were almost like guardians for the Central American children.
[00:35:06] Miko Lee: And you went down to Crystal City to be part of the pilgrimage and protest, is that right?
[00:35:12] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Yes. I was invited by Satsuki. Ina I wanted to talk to her about her story and about her experience. She said why don’t you come along? We are going to go to Crystal City. It was the first time they were going. We’re also gonna do a protest at the detention center. You can talk to a lot of people there. You can see what’s happening I did talk to some families and children at the bus station that had been released when we were giving them some food and backpacks and things like that, and that was really moving and I think that actually that experience of going on that trip that sort of cemented the dream refuge for me.
[00:35:56] Miko Lee: You mentioned your dad and how he kept his hand raised the whole time that he thought about the incarceration every day. Has he had the opportunity to see your work?.
[00:36:05] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Yes, he has seen my work. He was very proud of it. He would often go to my art exhibits and be photographed with my work and Attend shows and I was always very happy to have him there and I think it was emotional for him. He didn’t necessarily speak a lot, but he was present and I think it meant a lot to him that I was making work about his experience.
[00:36:33] Miko Lee: Since we’re coming up upon the day of Remembrance, how does art impact remembering and specifically about remembering about the Japanese incarceration?
[00:36:44] NaOmi Judy Shintani: Well, I think it impacts it in a lot of ways. One way is that there were not a lot of cameras allowed into camp. A lot of the art that was created in camps are the only documentation, true documentation by the prisoners of what it was. To be there and how they were feeling and how they were experiencing camp. Mine Okubo’s work, who I use in the Tanforan exhibition is really important because her drawings were almost the only thing I could find that showed just the. Experience of being in a horse stable, the experience of having to go to public bathrooms where people had no privacy. I mean, Those kinds of things weren’t photographed by Dorothea Lang or any of the other photographers that were sent by the W R A because they were not trying to show the traumatic side of the incarceration. The fact that these artists were able to document and express themselves, that, that is, historically important and also important as a way of people understanding the emotional impact of what was going on in the camps. There’s just something about a painting or a sculpture or drawing that shows such a deeper level of history it doesn’t even have to be history, just the colors or the brush strokes. These are all things that you can’t read about in a history book. You can’t experience it in the same way. I also feel that with the descendants creating art for example, the Sansei Granddaughters is a collective I’m part of. We’ve all expressed our family’s experience. in different ways some people are sewing, Rako Fuji, she uses glass to create kimonos with photographs. There’s just different ways, that people use whatever media they think is right to express their history.
[00:38:53] Miko Lee: Na Omi Shintani thank you so much for speaking with me. We’re looking forward to seeing more of your artwork and your voice in the world.
[00:39:01] NaOmi Judy Shintani: I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about the art and how important it is for our history in our education of this traumatic experience. I wanted to also make sure that people come to the carrying the light for Justice Bay area Day of Remembrance. Sunday, February 19th from two to four Pacific Standard Time, it’s going to be at the Christ United Presbyterian Church on Sutter Street in San Francisco. In person or online. The keynote speakers can be Don Tamaki. There’s gonna be spoken word performance by Lauren Ito the MCs Ryan Yamamoto, the anchor for C B s News Bay Area. And there’ll be a candle candle lighting ceremony. It’s always a very moving experience. It’s a time for remembering and honoring those who’ve been incarcerated. It’s a time of community and I hope people will attend.
[00:40:05] Miko Lee: Welcome Don Tamaki, amazing esteemed lawyer and activist. Welcome to Apex Express.
[00:40:11] Don Tamaki: Thank you.
[00:40:11] Miko Lee: So first I wanna just start with the big question. Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with?
[00:40:18] Don Tamaki: I’m part of the Japanese American community, I’m most known for serving on the legal team, which reopened Korematsu versus the United States. The 1944 US Supreme Court decision, widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in US Supreme Court history, our legal team reopened it some 37 years later. Newly discovered secret, intelligence reports and Justice Department memos admitting. There was no reason to lock up Japanese Americans. They were not a dangerous population. They were not engaging in espionage or sabotage , and arguments and memos between Justice Department lawyers about their legal duty and the fact that they were about to tell lies to the US Supreme Court in order to manipulate the outcome of that decision. That decision ended up in 1944 upholding the constitutionality of uprooting some 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, including my parents and their extended families into 10 concentration camps, stretching from California to Arkansas.
[00:41:26] Miko Lee: Wow. You’ve just given us a whole history lesson. Thank you so much. And you have been a part of so many critical moments in the Asian American Pacific Islander movement. You described part of that in the overturning of the Fred Korematsu 40 year conviction, but you’re also the founder of Asian Law Alliance. And were the ED at Asian Law Caucus and you’re the co-founder of Stop Repeating History all of your work is just so powerful and important. I wonder with the rise and attention on anti-Asian hate right now, where do you see the Asian-American movement going forward?
[00:42:02] Don Tamaki: Well, I’m glad that all light is being shined on they hate incidents against Asian Americans. It has been happening for some time, but it’s never really has gotten national attention let alone regional and local attention as it is now. So I think it’s on balance. It’s a good thing. On the other hand, I think we as Asian Americans knowing our history need to understand where the hate comes from in the first place. And by that I mean what is the cultural strain, the historical tradition, the norm of policies and laws that led to prejudice being so systemic in the first place.
If you connect the dots, I think it does go back to 1619 in the very beginnings of enslavement in America, which laid the foundations propped up the institution of slavery for 246 years. 90 years of Jim Crow to follow, and decades more of exclusion and discrimination targeted first at black people. But while those policies and laws put a target on the backs of African-Americans it also Ended up targeting on occasion Asian Americans, Latinos other disfavored groups. And so this bias has really recycled over and over through our entire history. And from time to time resurfaces to impact us as Asian Americans. The Trump administration’s a pretty good example where even though we have our model minority status Asian Americans became the spreaders of the Chinese virus. Mexicans were labeled as drug dealers and rapists. White supremacists declared that Jews and immigrants were poised to replace them.
And the continuation of black people being killed at the hands of law enforcement, and it barely would ev evoke any reaction at all because it was deemed so normal until the May 25th, 2020 murder of George Floyd, which was captured on videotape. So this kind of thing where, you know, of course the Japanese Americans ended up in concentration camps. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first ban against a country. But it gets recycled in different forms, whether it’s the 2017 Muslim ban that Trump put out or other things that ultimately in fact, the thinking I think, of the entire country including our own communities. While I’m very hardened that we’re focusing on the hate incidents against Asian Americans, I think that’s been a ignored area. I’m concerned about each group sticking up for its own tribe only and not connecting the dots I did to identify where this pathology comes from in the first.
So speaking of cross solidarity work, I know your work led to the groundwork reparations for incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War ii, and last year you were appointed by Governor Newsom to a reparations task force for African Americans. Can you tell where that reparations committee is at right now?
Following the murder of George Floyd triggering the largest protests in American. By September of the same year, 2020 the legislature had passed secretary Shirley will Webber’s bill creating a task force to study reparations proposals for African Americans and make recommendations to the legislature. I’m one of nine members appointed by the governor in the legislature, and we have three charges. One is to document the harm of the legacy of slavery, covering two and a half centuries and another century of Jim Crow in decades, more of exclusion and discrimination, and connect those dots.
To the current outcomes today, and we’ve done that in a very sweeping, scholarly, comprehensive report. It’s been called the Interim report because it’s not the final ones coming out this June. The second goal is to study reparations proposals and make recommendations to the legislature. The final report, which is due 2023 in just a few months. The third requirement is to educate the public about what’s happened. Because as this is really, the subject is so buried and erased. The product of a willful amnesia call it. The fact that we’re. The American public, the New York Times, Washington Post is just now publishing articles on Tulsa and Greenwood in which 300 African Americans were murdered in what was called a race riot, even though that happened over 100 years ago. People are just learning about that now. And what the I interim report that we issued last June reveals is that this is not an isolated incident. That the history is littered with Greenwood. Part about educating the public, creating curriculum to provide information to students and so on. That’s really our charge going forward. And in June of 2023, we’ll be issuing our final report.
I know that both Tsuru for solidarity and the Japanese American Citizen League worked last year to get reparations for African Americans in the Chicago area utilizing marijuana tax. I’m wondering if there’s other reparations models that have been happening in the US.
There’s discussion for the first time. The reparation idea is as old as the Civil War when 40 acres in a mule was promised with a period of 12 years of reconstruction that happened only to have all of that rescinded. Thereafter, and again, I think because of at least it was triggered, I think by the Floyd murder local municipalities and counties, about maybe two dozen or TA have taken this up in California so far as the only state and each of those areas are coming up with different kinds of proposals.
I have to say that this is largely because of the unwillingness of Congress even to study reparations, let alone do anything about it. And so local jurisdictions have taken up the lead on this. As far as the state task force on reparations is concerned, I think all of the forms are on the table. None have been decided on yet or voted on. That will come in the run up to June of 2023.
[00:48:54] Miko Lee: I believe you’re the only non-African-American member of that commission. Is that right?
[00:48:58] Don Tamaki: That is right.
[00:49:00] Miko Lee: So how can the Japanese-American reparations and apology be utilized as a model for reparations for African-American and indigenous folks?
[00:49:09] Don Tamaki: They’re big differences, of course between the Japanese American experience and. The experience of black people in America. First off, as the listeners know, there’s simply no equivalence between four to five years in the concentration camp, losing all of your property and your businesses. Some folks even lost their lives as compared to 400 years of two and a half centuries of enslavement followed by Jim Crow and. Legalized and customarily enforced segregation, the results of which we’re seeing e every day in our communities. But there are some things that are useful.
The Japanese American redress and reparations movement is maybe one of the very few examples where the government acknowledged a great, wrong, apologized for. and put meaningful compensation behind that to create a meaningful atonement and how we got there. Some of the, there are some lessons that are maybe of some use. I think the other thing in my role as the only non-black person on the task force is to demonstrate. We can and should, and we’re obligated to be allies in this effort. And although Japanese Americans don’t have the history of black Americans in America we do know something about racial profiling.
We know something about being removed and vilified and organizing to get back our dignity and some measure of atonement and. that lesson is really an American story of the meaning of the Constitution and what it means to be an American. When democracy and institutions are being challenged and in our case failed.
I think with respect to other groups, whether they’re. Native people or Latinos or L G B T Q, populations, disabled and so on. We all ought to be taking a look at reparations because it shines a light on so much of where the sense of separation and inequality comes from in the first place.
[00:51:17] Miko Lee: Can you talk to us about the Day of Remembrance? I know you’re gonna be the keynote speaker this year. Can you talk about the importance of the day? of remembrance?
[00:51:25] Don Tamaki: Well, It’s certainly important from a personal standpoint for our own community. It’s time to reflect on our families who were taken away and incarcerated for no good reason but for the country, it’s important to memorialize, and we do this annually about the perils to democracy. When racism shouts louder than the Constitution and our community endured a time where, The facts didn’t matter. The law didn’t matter and the constitution didn’t matter. And why is that important?
Because we’re seeing that play out in real time today. The January 6th Capitol insurrection the Capitol was defied, five people died. 25,000 troops were deployed to protect the peaceful transfer of power. and millions today believe the election was stolen despite the utter lack of any evidence of fraud that would’ve made any difference in the outcome. This kind of collapse is something our own community experienced. literally the three branches of government failed. The presidency, legislative branch, Congress, and in our case, the courts they all bowed to the will of a racist notion knowing, and the government knew it at the time that that was.
A, a completely false premise and yet no one had the courage to stand up, at least within the Department of Justice and within the courts. It was so normal that it was allowed to happen. We’re seeing this playbook play out. It’s not peculiar to the United States. This demagoguery is something that’s happening worldwide and the elements are the same, which is, number one, appeal to prejudice.
Number two, engage in fear mount mongering and scapegoating and three traffic in conspiracy theories and fake news. There’s certainly a parallel there And that also led to the formation of stop repeating history. To be an alert, to be a point of reflection that we’ve seen this before and unless we become active and intervene, it’s gonna happen over and over again. So that’s certainly. A big reason why the day of remember it is such an important annual event.
[00:53:41] Miko Lee: How does it feel to be the keynote speaker this year?
[00:53:44] Don Tamaki: Well, I’ve gotten more than my share of recognition. There are many other people that have done really important work, but it gives me a platform at least to talk about the importance of reparations for African Americans and why it is not just a black issue, but an issue of long overdue justice. And that by shining a light on the origins of systems of exclusion, discrimination, that it helps all of us. It gives me an opportunity to connect some of the dots between our community struggle and that which been a constant for black people in America.
[00:54:20] Miko Lee: We’re gonna put a link to stop repeating history onto the show notes so people can take a deeper dive into some of your work. Don, you make change happen through policy and laws, and we’re also talking with artists in this episode. How do you think art can help shape and change social issues?
[00:54:38] Don Tamaki: As a lawyer, I used to think that laws and cases and legal action are the most important thing. And don’t get me wrong it’s, important. We reopened this ancient case of Korematsu versus United States, and we made a legal point as well as a public policy point. But I think the driving force For both good and bad in America, which is an amalgamation of both is culture and what I mean to say that is to say, if the culture says you will be locked up, the laws don’t matter. The constitution doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You will be locked up because the culture is saying that is the norm. and I think we’re again seeing this over and over again. And so how is culture created these belief systems? A lot of it has to do with artists authors those who create. that reflect and help shape the public’s values. I think Artists and writers and others play a huge role in determining or helping to determine the values of a society. In the reparations movement, as well as to happen in the Japanese American redressing, reparations. the Art was really important when we went to announce our reopening of the filing of the petition in behalf of Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayshi and Minori Yasui, I called up news desks and these are educated journalists who had no idea that this had even happened in America. When I talked about American style concentration camps, they said you’re talking about Japanese prisoners of war, aren’t you? And they said, no, these are the removal and incarceration of an entire American population. They had not heard about that.
Since that time, there’ve been so many books and movies and creative works and art. After how many years later Now it’s in the public consciousness. People generally on both sides of the aisle, now regard this roundup is really bad idea of real travesty and an injustice. I’m glad that we played a legal role in all that. But how did the script get flipped? That was because of education. So the impact of documentary films, of books, of magazine articles, played a huge role in moving the needle of public opinion. and I think that’s been true of every movement especially in the modern era. I think the artists are crucial.
[00:57:07] Miko Lee: Don Tamaki, thank you so much for speaking with us. We look forward to hearing your keynote speech at the San Francisco Day of Remembrance.
[00:57:15] Don Tamaki: Thank you, Miko.
[00:57:16] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night.
The post APEX Express – 2.16.23 – A Time for Remembering appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Host Miko Lee talks about Theatre & Memory with Bay Area native artists: composer Byron Au Yong and playwright Lauren Yee. They provide behind the scenes news about their upcoming productions at ACT and Berkeley Rep.
More info on our guests:
Byron Au Yong, composer
The Headlands, ACT
Lauren Yee, playwright
Cambodian Rock Band, Berkeley Rep
Transcript: Theatre and Memory or Why Art Matters
[00:00:00] Miko Lee: Good evening and welcome to APEX Express. I’m your host, Miko Lee, and tonight we’re talking about theater and memory or why art matters. So many artists grapple with this concept of memory and how each of us has a different story to share. And tonight we get to hear from two bay area locals, a playwright, and a composer, each share a bit about their creative process and why art matters to them.
I have the pleasure of speaking with composer, Byron Au Yong who had been creating music for the Headlands, which opens this weekend at act. And with playwright Lauren Yee who’s musical Cambodian rock band comes back home to Berkeley rep at the end of the month. First off. Let’s take a listen to one of Byron Al Yong’s compositions called know your rights. This is part of the trilogy of the Activists Songbook. This multi-lingual rap, give steps to know what to do when ice officers come to your door.
song
That was know your rights performed by Jason Chu with lyrics by Aaron Jeffries and composed by my guest, Byron Au Yong. Welcome, Byron Au Yong to Apex Express. We’re so happy to hear from you.
[00:04:11] Byron Au Yong: Thanks, Miko. It’s so great to be here.
[00:04:13] Miko Lee: I wanna talk to you about a couple of things. First and foremost, you have the Headlands that is opening up at ACT really soon. Tell me about who your people are and where you come from.
[00:04:27] Byron Au Yong: Sure. So my grandparents, both maternal and paternal, left China in the late thirties and they both immigrated to the Philippines. And so both my parents were born to Philippines in different areas. And so I come from a family of refugees who then settled into Philippines and my parents were not the first in their family.
They were actually both the fourth and they left and immigrated to the United States when the United States opened up immigration in post 1965. So they were part of that wave. And then I was born in Pittsburgh. They, they were actually introduced here in Seattle. And I was born in Pittsburgh because my dad was in school there.
And then they moved back to Seattle. So I’m from Seattle and in 2016 I moved to San Francisco.
[00:05:17] Miko Lee: Thank you. So you are a composer. Have you always played music and have you always been attuned to audio? Tell me about how you got started as a composer.
[00:05:28] Byron Au Yong: Sure. As a kid my parents divorced when I was age seven and I was an only child up until age 16. My mom worked. In the evenings. And my dad wasn’t in the household and so I had a lot of time to myself and I would sing a lot to myself. And then my next door neighbor was a piano teacher, and so I started to play the piano at age nine, and then at age 11 I started to write stuff down. And yeah, so I’ve been doing music for a bit.
[00:05:59] Miko Lee: So music has always been a part of your life, essentially. It’s been your playmate since you were young.
[00:06:04] Byron Au Yong: Yes, absolutely
[00:06:05] Miko Lee: Love that. So tell us about the Headlands that’s gonna be opening at ACT pretty soon.
[00:06:11] Byron Au Yong: Yeah so The Headlands is a play by Christopher Chen, who you may know is playwright, who is born and raised and continues to live in San Francisco. And it’s his love letter to San Francisco. It’s a San Francisco noir play. It’s a whodunit play. It’s a play about a main character who’s trying to figure out who he is after the death of his dad. Which causes him to wonder who he is and where he is from.
I’m doing original music for the show, this is gonna be an American Conservatory Theater, and Pam McKinnon, who’s the artistic director, will be stage directing this production as well. I actually met Chris Chen in 2013 when I had a show called Stuck Elevator that was at ACT. And I’ve been really fascinated with his work as a playwright for a while, and so I was thrilled when ACT invited me to join the creative team to work on music.
Miko Lee: Oh, fun. Okay. I wanna talk to you about Stuck Elevator next, but first let’s stick with the headlines.This is a play that’s about memory and storytelling. I’m wondering if there is a story that has framed your creative process.
Byron Au Yong: Yeah. Thinking about this show as a memory play, and, memory as something, we go back in our memories to try and figure stuff out, which is very much what this play is. And also to claim and to. figure out if something from our memory was recalled maybe in completely. And so the main character is, piecing together fragments of his memory to figure out who he is in the present. And considering this I actually went back to music. I composed when I was still a teenager.
I actually dropped outta school and was working a lot. I think I realized early on that I was indeed, I wanted to dedicate myself to being an artist and was very concerned about how I would make a living as an artist in the United States. And so I thought I’ll figure out how to make money away from the music.
And so I had a lot of jobs and I was trying to write music, but, I was in a sad place, and so I never finished anything. I have a bunch of fragments from this time. But on Memorial Day I woke up and, it was sunny in Seattle and so I said, I’m gonna finish a piece of music today.
And that became part of a project in mine where every Memorial Day I finish a piece of music and it’s a solo piano piece that I finish. And so, going back in my personal history, I found one of these Memorial Day pieces and thought, oh, this actually works.
Because it’s a bit awkward and it doesn’t resolve, and I remember who I was back then, but it’s also me piecing together things and so I used that as the foundation for the music, for The Headlands, which is a different thing.
If you didn’t know that was my source material, that’s in some ways irrelevant. But that’s my personal connection in thinking about music for this. And of course I’ve also done a lot of research on film noir. A lot of noir films were set in San Francisco. And and the music is awesome, amazing of this genre. And, it’s mysterious it is a certain urban Americana music. And so I include those elements as well.
[00:09:36] Miko Lee: Thank you. That’s so interesting that you have a Memorial Day ritual to create a piece of music. I’m wondering if, aside from the Headlands, have you used the Memorial Day Music in other pieces you’ve created?
[00:09:48] Byron Au Yong: No this is the first time.
[00:09:51] Miko Lee: Wow. Yeah. That’s great.
[00:09:53] Byron Au Yong: I think Miko is because, it’s a private thing for me. I think the other thing too is as you mentioned, music was my friend growing up. The piano was. Definitely one of my best friends.
And so solo piano pieces for me are, it’s where you can have an audience of one. And one of the things that helped me, when I was not in school was. Playing through a lot of different other solo piano pieces. And so part of these Memorial Day pieces too are that they’re meant to be simple enough that they could be sight read.
And so if, if there’s a musician who you know, is in a similar state of, oh, I’m not able to really do anything, but I want to be with music. I can sight read through, these different Memorial Day pieces.
[00:10:38] Miko Lee: And do you have them set in a specific part of your house or where, how, where do you keep your Memorial Day projects and when do you open them up to look at them?
[00:10:48] Byron Au Yong: Oh yeah. They’re handwritten in a folder. None of the things so special.
[00:10:54] Miko Lee: What was it that inspired you to go back and look at them for the headlands?
[00:10:58] Byron Au Yong: Oh, you know what it is there are, be, because I know you, you also create stuff too in your memory of your catalog.I’m wondering if you have. If you have works that, that you remember that you made and then tho those works may remind you of a certain mood you were in or a certain room or and so I think they’re musical things from certain or, things I was experimenting with for these Memorial Day. Said, I’m like, oh, I remember this. Let me go back to the folder where I collect this stuff every year and look through it. And I think that parallels actually the headlands and what the main character is doing because he recalls, and what’s so cool about the production is we go into the same scene, but there’s like a clue that’s been revealed. And so we as an audience get to revisit the scene again. And there’s a different interpretation of what was happening in the scene. And so what might have been like a scene between Henry’s parents, Lena and George, which he thought, oh, this is how it was when I was a kid, when I was 10 years old.
Thinking about it, remembering it, but now with this new information, this is how I’m gonna interpret the scene. And so I think similarly with, music from my past, these Memorial Day pieces, I’m like, oh, this is what I was interested in working on. But now as a older composer, I’m like, ah, and I can do this with this material.
[00:12:26] Miko Lee: I love that. And I also really appreciate that this play about memory you pulled from your Memorial Day pieces, that it goes with this whole flow of just re-envisioning things with your own frame and based on where you’re at in any given time.
[00:12:42] Byron Au Yong: Totally.
[00:12:43] Miko Lee: I know that the show was created 2020, is that right? Yes. Is that when, first? Yeah,
Byron Au Yong: I think it’s right before the pandemic.
Miko Lee: Yeah. And you’ve had several different directors, and now in a way you both are coming home to San Francisco and artistic director, Pam McKinnon is directing it. I wonder if you have thoughts about some of the difference approaches that these directors have brought to the process.
[00:13:06] Byron Au Yong: Oh, yeah. And, miko, this is the first time I’m working on the headlands. And so when it was at Lincoln Center, there was a different creative team.
[00:13:12] Miko Lee: Oh, so the music, you’re just creating the music for this version of the show.
[00:13:16] Byron Au Yong: Yes, correct. Wow. And it is a new production because that Lincoln Center was in a stage called LCT 3, which is a smaller venue. Whereas this is gonna be in a Toni Rembe theater, which is, on Geary. It’s a 1100 seat theater. And the set is quite fabulous and large . And what’s also great is, aside from Johnny, all the cast is local. And like it will have the feel of a San Francisco production because many of us live here, have lived here and know these places that are referenced in the show.
[00:13:51] Miko Lee: Thanks for that clarification. So that’s really different to go from a small house at Lincoln Center to the big house at a c t Yes. With local folks with, your local music. That brings a very different approach to it. I’m excited to see it. That sounds really interesting. And now I wanna go back to talk about Stuck Elevator, which I was so delighted to learn about. Which was your first piece That was at ACT what, back in 2013? So tell our audience first about where Stuck Elevator came from and then tell what it’s about.
[00:14:23] Byron Au Yong: Sure. So stuck elevator. So I was living in New York in 2005 and there were some there were some images of like photos in the newspaper, initially it was local news because it was a Chinese delivery man who was missing. And most of the delivery people at the time, they carry cash, they won’t go to the police. And there, there had been a string of muggings and then one was actually beaten to death. And so it was local news that this guy was missing.
And then a few days later, and in New York Times, there was a big article because he was found in an elevator in the Bronx and he had been trapped in his elevator which had become stuck. And he was trapped for 81 hours, which that’s like over three days. And so it made international news. And then when I read the article and learned more about him, there were many parallels like where he was from in China, which is Fujan Province, which is where my grandparents left that he was paying a debt to human smugglers to be in the United States.
And different things that I thought, wow, if my grandparents hadn’t left I wonder if, I would be the one who was, paying to be smuggled here rather than paying for grad school. And so I became quite fascinated with them. And then also, realized at the time, in 2005, this is like YouTube was just starting, and so all like the Asian American YouTube stars, they weren’t as prominent in the news.
And, BTS wasn’t around then. So for me to see an Asian male. In the US media there was always this feeling of oh why is this Asian male in the news? And then realized, oh, it’s actually part of a larger story about being trapped in America about family obligation, about labor, about fear of, in his specific case because he’s an undocumented immigrant, fear of deportation. So there were many issues that, that I thought were broader than the specific story. And so I thought, this would be a great opera slash musical. So that’s what it became at
[00:16:23] Miko Lee: you, you basically read a story and said, whoa, what is this? I feel this is so wild. And then created it into an opera. Yes. Also, it just resonated with me so much as a person who has been trapped in elevators, in broken elevators six different times, . Oh my goodness. Yes. I’m like, wow. And his story, that many hours, that has to be like a record.
Byron Au Yong: Right? Nobody else has been trapped that long. Yeah. It’s a record.
Miko Lee: So you created this piece, it premiered at ACT? Yes. Did you ever connect with the guy that was stuck in the elevator?
[00:16:59] Byron Au Yong: No. So the New York Times did something which is actually not cool. They they revealed his immigration status and that at the time I’m not sure if it’s still the case,but at the time, you’re not allowed to reveal people’s immigration status. Especially, in such a public way. And so what was cool was that the AALEDF, which is the Asian American Legal Education and Defense Fund, they the volunteer attorneys there step forward to represent Ming Kuang Chen and his case and ensure that he had legal representation so he would not be deported. The thing is, he was suffering from PTSD and there was also another case at the time it was a different un undocumented immigrant case that AALEDF was representing that had a bit more visibility and so he actually didn’t want to be so much into public eye, and so he went back into hiding. And so while I didn’t meet him specifically, I met his translator. I met other people at AALEDF met with other people who were related to the stories that he was a part of. So for example, used to be an organization, which I think they’ve changed their name, but they were the Fujanese Restaurant Workers Association.
Most of the undocumented immigrants who worked in restaurants at the time are from Fujan Province. Also, Asian Pacific American Studies at New York University. Is a mix o f people who were working in restaurants as well as people, scholars who were studying this issue.
[00:18:46] Miko Lee: Can you describe a little bit about Stuck Elevator for folks that haven’t seen it? Sure. How did you conceive of this piece, that song?
[00:18:53] Byron Au Yong: Yeah so it’s a thru sung piece about a guy who’s trapped in America. He’s a Chinese food delivery man, and he’s, delivering food in the Bronx. And what I think is You know what I didn’t realize when I started it. And then I realized working on it was the thing about being stuck in the elevator is, especially for so long, is that you and I don’t know if this is your case, Miko it’s so fascinating to hear you’ve been trapped six different times.
There’s the initial shock and initial oh my gosh, I have to get out. And then there’s this. Maybe not resignation but there’s this, okay. Okay. I’m gonna be here so now what? Now what I’m going to do and the time actually, especially for someone who works so much delivering food and sending money back home to his wife and son in China and his family is that he actually is not working, right?
And so he has time to consider what his life has been like in New York for the past, the two years he’s been there. And to consider the choices he’s made as well as to remember his family who are back in China. And part of this too is you’re not awake the entire time. Sometimes you go to sleep, and so in his sleep he dreams. He has hallucinations. He has nightmares. And this is where the music theater opera really starts to confront and navigate through the various issues of being trapped in America.
[00:20:22] Miko Lee: Any chance this will come into production, somewhere?
[00:20:26] Byron Au Yong: Yeah, hopefully, we were just at Nashville Opera last week, two weeks ago.
[00:20:30] Miko Lee: Oh, fun.
[00:20:31] Byron Au Yong: so Nashville Opera. So the lead Julius Ahn who was in ACT’s production is an opera singer. And and he had told the artistic director of Nashville Opera about this project years ago. And John Hoomes, who’s the artistic director there had remembered it. Last year John Hoomes reached out to me and said, you know, I think it’s the time for to be an operatic premiere of Stuck Elevator. And so we had an amazing run there.
[00:20:58] Miko Lee: Great. Wow. I look forward to seeing that too somewhere soon. Yes. I also wanted to chat with you about this last week, a lot of things have been happening in our A P I community with these mass shootings that have been just so painful. Yes. And I know that you worked on a piece that was called The Activist Songbook. Are you, can you talk a little bit about that process and the Know Your Rights project?
[00:21:23] Byron Au Yong: Yeah, absolutely. And I’m gonna back up because so Activist Song Book is actually the third in a trilogy of which Stuck Elevator is the first, and related to the recent tragedies that have happened in Half Moon Bay and also in Monterey Park.
The second in the trilogy is it’s called the Ones. It was originally called Trigger, and it also has the name Belonging. And I can go through why it has so many different names, but the first in the trilogy was Stuck Elevator, and it was prompted by me again, seeing an Asian male in the US media.
So the second actually all three are from seeing Asian males in the US media. And the second one was an incident that happened in 2007 where a creative writing major shot 49 people killing 32, and then himself at Virginia Tech. And and when this happened I realized, oh shoot Stuck elevator’s part of a trilogy. I have to figure out how to do this show called Trigger or what was called Trigger. And then realized of the different layers in a trilogy. Yes. There’s this initial thing about Asian men in the US media, but then there’s this other thing about ways out of oppression. And so with Stuck Elevator, the way out of oppression is through the main character’s imagination, right? His dreams, his what ifs, right? The possibilities and the different choices he can make with the second one, what me and the creative team realized is that, the way out of oppression is that the creative writing major who you may remember was a Korean American he was so isolated at Virginia Tech and the tragedy of him being able to purchase firearms and then kill so many people, including himself in working on it, I was like, I need to understand, but it’s not this story I necessarily want to put on stage.
And so what it became is it became a story, and this is also the national conversation changed around mass violence in America. The conversation became less about the perpetrator and more about the victims. And so it became a choral work for community performers. So rather than a music theater opera, like Stuck Elevator, it’s a music theater forum with local singers. And this was actually performed at Virginia Tech during the 10 year memorial of the tragedy. And this one I did eight site visits to Virginia Tech and met with people including the chief of police of Blacksburg. First responder to director of threat assessment to family members whose children were lost. A child of, teachers were also killed that day to counselors who were there to Nikki Giovanni, who was one of the faculty members. So yeah so many people. But this one, the second one, the way out of oppression is from isolation into community, into belonging.
And Virginia Tech Administration said we could not call the work trigger. And so the work there was called (Be)longing with the be in parentheses. And now we’ve done a new revision called The Ones partially influenced by the writer, one of his teachers was June Jordan who was at UC Berkeley. And she has a phrase, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And so the ones which is a 2019 revision, the show, what it does is Act three youth takeover, right? It’s about coming of age and an age of guns, and the youth have become activists because they have no choice because they are being shot in places of learning, and so Parkland in Chicago and other places have been influential in this work. And then the third in the trilogy is Activist Songbook. And for this one we went back to an earlier asian male who was in the US media, and that was Vincent Chin who you may know was murdered 40 years ago.
And so activist song book is to counteract hate and energize movements. And it’s a collection of different songs that is even further away from musical theater opera production in that the rally component of the songs can be taught within 10 minutes to a group of people outdoors to be used right away. And that one, the way out of repression is through organizing.
[00:25:49] Miko Lee: Well, Byron Au Young, thank you so much for sharing with us about all the different projects you’ve been working on. We’ll put a link in the show notes to the headlands that folks can see at a c t. Tell our audience how else they can find out more about you and your life as a composer and more about your work.
[00:26:05] Byron Au Yong: Sure. I have a website. It’s my name.com or b y r o n a u y o n g.com.
[00:26:12] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for spending so much time with me.
[00:26:14] Byron Au Yong: Of course.
[00:26:15] Miko Lee: You are tuned into apex express on 94.1, KPFA an 89.3 K P F B in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org. We’re going to hear one more piece by composer, Byron Al young called This is the Beginning, which was prompted by Lilly and Vincent chin and inspired by Helen Zia and other organizers.
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That was, This is the Beginning by Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jeffrey’s. Featuring Christine Toi Johnson on voice and Tobias Wong on voice and guitar. This is a beginning is prompted by organizing in response to the racially motivated murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit. This hate crime was a turning point for Asian American solidarity in the fight for federal civil rights.
Lily chin Vincent’s mom refused to let her son’s death be invisible. Next up, I have the chance to speak with playwright Lauren Yee who’s musical Cambodian rock band. Returns to Berkeley rep where it first got its workshop and it will be there from February 25th through April 2nd. And here’s a teaser from Cambodian rock band by Lauren Yee. Take a listen to seek CLO.
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Miko Lee: Welcome Lauren Yee to Apex express.
[00:34:35] Lauren Yee: Thank you so much, Miko.
[00:34:37] Miko Lee: We’re so happy to have you a local Bay Area person. Award-winning playwright. Coming back to town at Berkeley Rep with your show, Cambodian Rock Band. Yay. Tell us about the show.
[00:34:51] Lauren Yee: Yes so Cambodian Rock Band. Is actually a piece that has some of its like earliest development roots in the Bay Area and also like specifically at Berkeley Rep. Getting to bring the show to Berkeley rep really feels like some sort of poetic justice. In addition to the fact, that it’s like my old stomping grounds. . Essentially Cambodian rock Band started in 2015, or at least the writing of it. It actually started, if I’m being honest much earlier than that. I think it was about 2010 2011. I was down in San Diego in grad school and one of my friends was just like dying to go see this band play at a music festival. She was like, I saw this band play. They’re amazing. You should totally come.
And I was like, sure. And I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, but it’s like, going somewhere, hearing a band, and even before you know anything about them or their story, you just fall in love. You fall like head over heels in love and you say, oh my God who are these people? And I wanna know everything about them.
And that band was Dengue Fever. Which is amazing. You fell
in love with the band first. Yep. Before the play.
Yes. And it was the band Dengue Fever which is an LA band. And their front woman Choni Mall is Cambodian American and she leads this sound that I think started in covers of Cambodian oldies from that golden age of rock for them, and has over time morphed into Dengue Fever’s own original sound.
Like we’re nowadays, they’re coming out with an album soon, their own original songs. But I fell in love with Dengue Fever and I was like, oh, okay, who are these people inspired by? And I just went down that rabbit hole of learning about this whole musical history that I never knew about.
My own background is Chinese American. I’m not Cambodian American. And so a lot of kids who grew up in the public school system, I did not get basically any education about Cambodian history and America’s role in seeding the elements that led to the Khmer Rouge’s takeover the country, and the ensuing genocide.
[00:37:12] Miko Lee: So you first fell in love with the band and then you went down an artist rabbit hole. We love those artist rabbit holes. Yes. And then what was your inspiration for the play itself? The musical?
[00:37:22] Lauren Yee: Yeah so I fell in love with the music and I was like, there is something here because you had all these musicians in Cambodia who like, when 1975 hit and the communists took over the country there was just a time when like the country was a hostile place for artists where artists were specifically targeted among other groups.
And so much of Cambodia’s musicians and its musical history, was snuffed out, and I was like, there is a story here, that I find deeply compelling. And for a long time I didn’t know how to tell that story because there’s just so much in it. And then came 2015 where two things happened.
One was that I was commissioned by a theater in Orange County called South Coast Rep, and they invited me to come down to their theater and just do research in the community for two weeks on anything you want. So I was like, I wanna look at malls, I wanna look at the video game culture down there, all kinds of things.
And one of the things that I was interested in and just bubbled to the surface was the Cambodian American community, which is not in Orange County proper, but in, situated largely in Long Beach, right next door. And it just so happened that while I was there, There were just a lot of Cambodian American music related events that were going on.
So the second annual Cambodian Music Festival, the Cambodia Town Fundraiser, Dengue Fever, was playing a gig in Long Beach. Like all these things were happening, that intersected me, with the Kamai or Cambodian community in Long Beach. And the other thing that happened coming out of that trip is that I started beginning to write the seeds of the play.
And I did a very early workshop of it up at Seattle Rap. And I’m the sort of playwright. probably like writes and brings in collaborators like actors and a director sooner than a lot of other people. Most people probably wait until they have a first draft that they’re comfortable with, whereas I’m like, I have 20 pages and I think if I go up and get some collaborators, I think I can generate the rest of it.
So I went up to Seattle with kind of my, 20 or 30 pages and we brought in some actors. And that workshop had an actor named Joe No in it, and I knew Joe from previous work I’d done in Seattle. But during our first rehearsal when we were just like chatting he said to me like, this is my story.
And I was like, oh, it’s a story that calls out to me too. Thank you. And he was like no. You don’t understand. Like, So my parents were born in Battambang Cambodia. They were survivors of the Khmer Rouge. I feel deeply connected to this material. And that conversation sparked.
a very long relationship, between me and Joe and this play. That I, I think of him as like the soul, of this play. He became just like an integral part. And in the South coast rep production and in subsequent productions he’s kind of been like our lead. He is Chum, and it’s a role that I think is like perfectly suited for who he is as a human being and what his like essence is. And also he plays electric guitar which I think influenced things a lot because initially it was a play about music, right? It wasn’t a musical, it was just people like talking about a music scene that they loved.
And as I went along and found like the perfect people for these roles it was like, Joe plays electric guitar. It would be crazy not to have him try to play a little electric guitar in the show. And that kind of began that, the evolution of this play into a piece where music is not only talked about, but is an integral part of the show. You know that it’s become a show that has a live band. The actors play the instruments. They play about a dozen songs. And it’s a mix of Dengue, half Dengue Fever songs, half mostly Cambodian oldies.
It’s kind of been an incredible journey and I could not have imagined what that journey would be, it’s hard to replicate.
[00:41:53] Miko Lee: I love that. So has Joe been in every production you’ve done of the show so far?
[00:41:57] Lauren Yee: So he hasn’t been able to be in everyone. There were two productions happening at the same time, and so he could only be in one place at one time. But I bet you he would’ve tried to be in two places at once. But he’s basically been in almost every production. And the production that he’s in currently running at the Alley Theater in Houston is is like the production, the original production directed by Chay Yew.
[00:42:24] Miko Lee: Wow. And was it difficult to cast all actors that were also musicians?
[00:42:30] Lauren Yee: In some ways there there’s I think if you were starting from scratch and you like open your window and you’re like, where could I find some actors? I think it would be tough. But I just kept running into kind of like crazy happenstance where I would find a person and I wasn’t even thinking about them musically.
And they’d be like, yeah, like I’ve played bass, for 15 years. and I could kind of do drums, right? That what was remarkable is that there were all these Asian American actors who were like known as actors. But then once you like, dig down into their biographies, you’re like, Hey, I see like you’ve actually played drums for X number of years, or, Hey, I see that you play like guitar and bass.
Miko Lee: Tell me more about that.
Lauren Yee: So it’s almost like finding all these stealth musicians and like helping them dust the instruments off and being like, Hey, come back here. Fun. And so it’s just been, it’s just been like a joy.
[00:43:27] Miko Lee: Oh, that’s so great. I know the play is about music and also about memory, and I’m wondering if there’s a story that has framed your creative process that stands out to you.
[00:43:39] Lauren Yee: I don’t know if it’s one specific memory, but I find that just a lot of my stories I think they deal with family. I think they deal with parents and their grown children trying to reconnect with each other, trying to overcome family secrets and generational struggles. I would say I have a great relationship with my father.
But I think, in every parent and child relationship, one thing that I’m fascinated by are these attempts to get to know someone, like especially your own parent, even when you know them well, and especially when you know them well. That kind of is able to penetrate that barrier that sometimes you hit in generations, right?
That there’s a wall that your parents put up. Or that there’s this impossibility of knowing who your parents were before you had them because they had a whole life. And you only know this like tiny bit of it. And I think I’m just like fascinated by that. I’m fascinated by the impact of time. I’m fascinated by extraordinary circumstances and the ordinary people who lived through those times.
And I think for a large part, even though Cambodian rock band features a family whose lived experience is different from my own. I think there’s a lot of my own relationship with my father that I put into that relationship. This desire to know your parent better, this desire to know them even as they’re trying to protect you. So yeah.
[00:45:06] Miko Lee: What do your parents think about your work?
[00:45:10] Lauren Yee: I think my parents are incredibly supportive, but like different in the way that one might think because my parents aren’t arts people they of course like enjoy a story or enjoy a show, but they’re not people who are like, I have a subscription to this theater, or I’m gonna go to this museum opening. and so their intersection with the arts, I feel like has been out of a sense of like love for me. Their ways of supporting me early on when like I was interested in theater and trying to figure out a way to go about it, like in high school when I was trying to like, put on a show with my friends and they were like in the back folding the programs or like building, the door to the set. And hauling away, all the furniture, so we could bring it to the theater. So like my parents have been supportive, but in a very, like nuts and bolts kind of way.
Miko Lee: That’s so sweet and that’s so important. When I was doing the theater, my mom would come to every single show.
Lauren Yee: Just Oh, bless that is, bless her.
[00:46:14] Miko Lee: Ridiculous commitment. Yeah. I don’t that for my kids, like every show. I wanna back up a little bit cuz we’re talking about family. Can you tell me who are your people and where do you come from?
[00:46:27] Lauren Yee: Ooh. That’s such a great question. I think there are like many ways of answering that. When I think of home, I think of San Francisco, I live in New York now. But my whole youth, I grew up in San Francisco. My parents were both born there. My grandmother was born and raised there, one of my grandfathers was, born more like up the Delta and the other side of my family, my grandparents came from Toisan China. So on one hand, my family’s from like that Pearl River Delta part of China. And at various times, like made a break for the United States. I think starting in the 1870s and spanning into the early 20th century you know, so we’ve been here for a while.
And another way of thinking about it is we’re all very, I think, suffused in our family’s history in San Francisco. It’s hard for me to go to a Chinese restaurant with my family without somebody from our table knowing somebody else in the restaurant, like inevitable.
And it’s something that never happens to me. I don’t think it’s ever happened to me when living in New York. Yeah. And I think And that’s fun. That’s fun. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think b eing able to be Chinese American. Growing up in San Francisco, it’s different than other, Asian Americans living in other parts of the country.
Like in a strange way, it allows you to like be more of whoever you wanna be, right? When you’re like not the only one. That it allows you to like, potentially choose a different path and not have to worry about. I don’t know, just like carrying that load.
[00:48:01] Miko Lee: That is so interesting. Do you mean because there’s safety, because you’re around so many other Chinese Americans, Asian Americans, that you can bring forth a greater sense of your individuality?
[00:48:13] Lauren Yee: Yeah, I think so, like I went to Lowell High School where, you know, two thirds of the class is Asian American. There’s just such a wide range of what an Asian American student at Lowell looks like. And what we’re interested in and how our weird obsessions manifest so I think I just felt more freedom in differentiating myself cuz I like theater and I like storytelling.
[00:48:36] Miko Lee: That’s really interesting. Thanks so much for sharing that. I’m wondering, because Cambodian rock band is partially about when the communists took over Cambodia. If, when you were growing up as a multi-generational Chinese American, did you hear very much about communism and the impact on China?
[00:48:57] Lauren Yee: I did not. And possibly it was swirling around. And I was too young to really understand the impacts. But when I look back on it, a lot of my plays, Cambodian Rock Band included, have to do with the intersection of Communism and American culture. Like another play I have called The Great Leap which was at ACT in San Francisco, also dealt with American culture like basketball, intersecting in communist China in the 1970s and then the 1980s.
And like, honestly, in retrospect, the effects of communism were all around me growing up in San Francisco in the nineties. That the kids that I went to school with, like in elementary school, came there in various waves, but a lot of them pushed from Asia because of the influences of communism that you had of a wave of kids who came over. In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, you had kids who came preempting, the Hong Kong handover back to China. You had kids, who came to San Francisco in the wake of the fall of the Vietnam War. So there were like all these, political movements the effects of war that were like shaping the people around me. And I didn’t realize it until like very much later.
[00:50:19] Miko Lee: Oh, that’s so interesting. Thank you so much. By the way. I really loved the Great Leap. It was such an interesting thank you way of really talking about some deep issues, but through such an American sport like basketball I enjoyed that so much. So thank you so much for sharing about your San Francisco influence. I’m curious because you’ve been writing TV now limited series like Pachinko and also congrats on writing the musical for Wrinkle In Time. Amazing. Thank you.
[00:50:49] Lauren Yee: That is a book that I loved and just shook me, I forget what grade I was in, but I was probably like, 10 or 11 or something. So I think the fact that I get to interface and get to dig into such an iconic work as Wrinkle in Time, blows my mind.
[00:51:05] Miko Lee: That is going to be so exciting. I’m really looking forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. But my question was really about you working on Pachinko and these other series, how different is playwriting to screen versus TV writing?
[00:51:17] Lauren Yee: Yeah. I think in a way like the work that I did on Pachinko, for instance, like I was on the writing staff, that’s a role where you’re like supporting the creator of the show, which in this instance is Sue Hugh, who is just an incredible mind. And she had like kind of this vision for what she wanted to do with the adaptation of Pachinko. And, you know, you, as a writer on staff you’re really helping to support that.
So I think your role is a little bit different when you’re brought on staff for tv that you’re helping to birth the thing along and contribute your part. Whereas when you’re a playwright like the piece remains with you, and you just have I think a greater sense of control over what happens to it.
[00:52:00] Miko Lee: What surprised you in your creative process while you were working on this play, this musical?
[00:52:08] Lauren Yee: I think the thing that I realized when I was writing Cambodian Rock Band is that in order for the play to really click together is that joy has to be at the center of it. That Cambodian rock band is a piece about art and artists and family surviving really horrific events. And in order to tell that story, you need to fall in love with the music.
You need to understand why these people might have risked their lives. For art, you need to understand why art matters. And I think a feature of my work is finding the light in dark places that there is a lot, in the play that is heavy. There are points where it is surprisingly and shockingly funny and that there are moments of just incredible heart in places like you probably won’t be expecting. And I think that’s been a big lesson of developing this piece.
[00:53:14] Miko Lee: Lauren Yee thank you so much for talking with me and sharing about Cambodian Rock Band and your artistic process. I know it’s gonna be running at Berkeley rep February 25th through April 2nd. Where else is it running for folks that might not live in the Bay?
[00:53:30] Lauren Yee: Yeah, so if you live in the Bay Area, or if you want just see it again, which is totally fine. Lots of people see it again. This same production is going to travel to arena stage in DC over the summer in the fall it’ll be at Fifth Avenue and Act Theater up in Seattle, and then at the very beginning of 2024 it will be at Center Theater Group.
[00:53:54] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for chatting with me today. I really appreciate you and your work out there in the world.
[00:54:00] Lauren Yee: Thank you, Miko.
[00:54:02] Miko Lee: That was playwright Lauren Yee. And I’m going to play you out, hearing one song from Dengue Fever, which is in Cambodian rock band. This is Uku.
song
[00:56:55] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night.
The post APEX Express – 2.9.23 Theatre & Memory or Why Art Matters appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #5
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.
Lisa Lowe’s Book:
In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press
About the DJ
My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound.
Lastly, special shoutout to my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.
Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU @paigechung
- Website
- Twitch
- Mixcloud
- SoundCloud
Episode #5 Track List
Coming soon…
The post APEX Express – 2.2.2023 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents #5 by DJ Miu appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
This episode on APEX EXPRESS highlights Khamsa, the Arabic word for “five,” is a multimedia art project showcasing Black, Muslim, Immigrant, and Refugee visual artists and musicians traversing the five stages of grief. In September 2022, Khamsa launched with an art exhibition at Aggregate Space Gallery in Oakland with a line-up of community events featuring musical performances from the project’s hip hop artists and guest artists such as dancer Linkk and harpist Destiny Muhammad. Khamsa continues with an ongoing podcast series and a hip hop album released on October 23, 2022 through Simmons Music Group. Khamsa aims to address the different forms and contexts of grief, weaving both personal and universal experiences of loss. From the personal pain of losing a loved one, to the toll of Islamophobia and prejudice, Khamsa will draw in each and every one of us while bringing the stories and experiences of Black, Muslim, Immigrant, and Refugee artists to the forefront. Khamsa is a project to find harmony in our shared stories, bridging differences in cultures, beliefs, and history. Check out more about their work here: https://www.artogether.org/khamsa/
This episode was interviewed, produced, and edited by @Swati Rayasam.
Muslim, Black, Refugee rappers and artists launch healing project in West Oakland: Khamsa Project
OAKLAND, CA – Khamsa, the Arabic word for “five,” is a multimedia art exhibition showcasing twenty Muslim, Black, Immigrant, and/or Refugee visual artists and musicians traversing the five stages of grief. Oakland-based organizations ARTogether and Gathering All Muslim Artists (GAMA) encourage the audience to explore different aspects of trauma’s universality, striving to spark new narratives around grief and trauma, by using varied media and disciplines to present new perspectives on mental health.
“The 5 stages of grief are not a linear process, we may spend some time in anger and then move to acceptance, spend some time there and move to depression,” says Abbas Mohamed, Executive Director of GAMA. “Our goal is not to remove grief from the community, because grief never goes away, but rather to equip the community with the perspectives needed to process and heal through the grief.” Weaving both personal and universal experiences of loss—from the personal pain of losing a loved one, to the toll of Islamophobia and prejudice—Khamsa is a project to find harmony in our shared stories, bridge differences in cultures, beliefs, and history, and heal through the grief.
“Art plays an important role in healing our communities, especially for people of color.” Guled Muse, Executive Producer and Lead Artist, states. “I am truly excited that I was able to work with ARTogether and GAMA to collectively bring artists from different mediums, nationalities, and beliefs to explore their minds in how they process emotions and grief through music and visual arts.”
Khamsa ran from September 2 – October 15, 2022 at Aggregate Space Gallery in Oakland. This program is made possible with support from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Building Bridges Program.
Featured visual artists include Keyvan Shovir, Meriam Salem, Nabi Haider Ali, and Zara. Featured musical artists include Bryan C. Simmons, Cheflee, Mani Draper, Spote Breeze, and Sukina Noor.
Khamsa Project Transcript Attachment
Khamsa Project Transcript:****
[00:00:00] Swati:
[00:00:33] Swati: Good evening everyone. And welcome to apex express. This is Swati Rayasam your very special guest host. Tonight I got the chance to sit down with Leva Zand and Guled Muse to talk about their recent project Khamsa which launched at the aggregate space gallery in west Oakland. Khamsa the Arabic word for five is a multimedia art project, showcasing Black, Muslim immigrant, and refugee visual [00:01:00] artists and musicians transversing the five stages of grief.
[00:01:03] Swati: I was so glad I was able to learn about not only Humsa but more about Leva and Glad’s backgrounds and how in the process of putting together this show. They navigated their own grief and the multifaceted nature of grief, from the personal, such as the loss of a loved one to the societal toll of the COVID 19 pandemic, Islamophobia, or other forms of prejudice and violence.
[00:01:26] Swati: Stay locked in.
[00:01:28] Swati: Leva and Guled I’m so excited to have you. Welcome to APEX Express. I’m really thrilled to talk about your show, Khamsa, to talk about the music Guled that you’ve been working on, and Leva to talk a lot more about Art Together and kind of your, vision for using art as part of social change.
[00:01:45] Guled: Absolutely. For sure. And thank you so much for bringing us to the show. Truly appreciate it. My name is Guled Muse. Vallejo, Bay Area. I’m a music producer, curator, event, and content creator[00:02:00] had a lot of years, community organizing in San Francisco.
[00:02:04] Leva: My name is Leva Zand I was born and raised in Iran and I came to the US with my family in 2003 as refugees. My professional background was an international development. And I founded and I started Art Together in 2017 and I’m currently the executive director of the organization.
[00:02:25] Swati: Awesome. And can you tell me a little bit more about what Art Together is?
[00:02:29] Leva: Absolutely. The promise of Art Together is that we can do community building through art. Our original story is that during 2016 we were all very mad and sad and angry of election of Trump. To me, it was actually a shock because I didn’t expect, and I realized that after, like being here for 15 years, I don’t really know people enough. And also I experienced a sort of anger and rage in me that was very unique and new.
[00:02:56] Leva: And that feeling stayed for a couple of months and I was like, I have to do [00:03:00] something about this. And it’s very interesting because it seems like that election of Donald Trump was the moment that I felt American in a way that I felt like I have some skills. This is my community, this is my place, this is my people. I wanna bring those skills home. My goal was like, what is missing in the services that refugees and immigrants are receiving?
[00:03:23] Leva: If you remember, we had lots of anti-refugee, anti-immigrant rhetoric back then. Muslim Ban and all of those. So I start researching what services available, what has changed since my family came here. And I realize not that much. There are amazing organizations who are providing services when refugees arrived, or social services, like mental health food or logistical support, like helping them finding housing or employment, but I couldn’t find any community building program. I remember when we came here, me and my siblings speak English, but that was not the [00:04:00] case for my parents. And it took them many years to basically found their community. And knowing that, and also be familiar, that, language, is a barrier for new arrivals here for many of them. I was thinking like, what can be a medium that bring people together that they don’t necessarily needs language or enter a room, a space that don’t immediately feel like, oh, they don’t know English, and the shame or isolation that ca comes with it. And that’s why art came to mind basically.
[00:04:28] Leva: It is something that everybody can enjoy, everybody can practice that you don’t have to be artists to go enjoy music or theater or arts. So I started talking with a few friends of mine. And, we put together some concept of this Art Together, like how can art be used as community building? And then I started reaching out to, some service agencies, some resettlement agencies that, Hey, what do you think about this idea? Many of them welcome this idea of like how to use art to bring community together, so [00:05:00] that was the origin of story basically the first year.
[00:05:02] Swati: Awesome. Yeah. Guled, if you could just give our listeners like a background, How did you become a musician? What was your inspiration? What’s your vibe?
[00:05:12] Guled: As far as my music, it really just started with Rap City, back when I was like 10 years old when I first immigrated to this country and we got cable in the apartment. I remember, the channels we were just flipping through and BET was one of them. And more specifically Rap City. I remember it vividly because I remember like just that small television in the living room. We didn’t have too much furniture. And, I remember seeing Black Star, Definition, the music video. And just seeing these brothers just spitting the way that they were was like, was absolutely fascinating. I’ve always had an experience with hip hop, but then it was much more like the commercial, like bad boy puffy, big willy style, men in black soundtrack. And from a global perspective you only get like what is being pushed to you, but [00:06:00] then really starting to understand regional hip hop, whether it was Outkast, whether it was, listening to hieroglyphics. It was something that fascinated me to the point where I started to participate in the culture as an mc, I was known as that little rapper in school. And, went on and just, things evolved. Being in college, doing a lot of events hip hop related in SF State. Shout outs to Professor Fisher, Donna, Lisa, the whole Africana studies department over there. Major love to them and the experience that they had provided me in being able to also participate in the educational aspects of teaching hip hop.
[00:06:36] Guled: I remember moving to Oakland. I think that was the city that really provided the spirit inside of me. I was once outer shell of myself, just didn’t know who I was and like really Oakland around that time just like really embraced me. And just being around a lot of creators, a lot of artists inspired me, but then there’s so much politics within the rap game. There’s a lot. [00:07:00] To the point where artists had to compromise the way that they would rap. The music that they would create. And I was seeing, an underground movement happening at the same time in Oakland, shout outs to Smart Bomb. They’re doing phenomenal work. And they really inspired me to the point where, my colleagues and I, we created a website, a music project called Speak With Beats, where we were highlighting, beat makers and musicians from the Bay Area because in the Bay, we are very unique, due to the fact that we’re siloed from a lot of other regions where we’re not really inspired by what is hot at the moment. It’s always been a thing, but now with the internet, everything sounds the same, right? Because you’re being inspired by so many different artists from a click of a button.
[00:07:44] Guled: But still, there’s this unique aspect of people making original music and I wanted to reward them and to highlight these artists that I was just fans of before I was friends, like fans of, just to give them a platform was very important.
[00:07:58] Guled: And that’s where I [00:08:00] saw where my skillset was. It’s transmuted from, like participating more as an mc now, just being much more behind the scenes and utilizing the organizing experience that I’ve had to empower my people, my colleagues, my friends who are just extremely talented and just to know that I see them.
[00:08:19] Swati: I love that. I love, that’s such like a beautiful local Bay Area story. How did you two get into contact? How’d you find each other?
[00:08:27] Guled: It’s funny that Leva mentioned like the 20 16, 20 17, moments of our politics. Around that time I was dealing with personal issues, to the point where I just wanted to just step away from a lot of things, including music, art, activism. I was just personally more or less burnt out. And all of this stuff started happening. During 20 15, 20 16, I was wanting to think about ways of like really pushing, the culture that I was witnessing and experiencing and supporting at that [00:09:00] time to like new heights, right? Because when it comes to beat making music, like the instrumental hip hop scene, folks are now getting the taste of it with the lo-fi Cafe Girl, but I wanted to take it, one step further because I seen like the process of how people were creating the music, the way that they were sampling the music, the way that they would just come up with the production out of thin air. And I wanted to merge it in a, in such a way where it was like classical music, like jazz music, right? Because people were just putting out beat tapes consistently. Didn’t have no theme, no nothing whatsoever. So I was like, let me try to curate something that was going to affect people in a way that words cannot describe.
[00:09:44] Guled: So that’s where like the origins of the Khamsa project started coming to be, just bubbling. So around that time I stepped away from a lot, but that project always lingered. It always was there. And I would have not [00:10:00] brought this project into manifestation if it wasn’t for my co-creator, my brother, Abaas Muhammad from the GAMA collective Gathering All Muslim Artists.
[00:10:10] Guled: Major love to him. He was someone who really just inspired me to push this further because as somebody who was providing support, sometimes you need support, right? I remember, some of my peoples telling me, a therapist also needs a therapist, right? At that moment, he was a person who really helped me out, who just didn’t want me to stop my artistry. he recognized it and he really supported me to the point where he brought me into the attention of art together.
[00:10:40] Guled: And then just from there, that’s where it really started and it’s been a long time coming, it’s been a long time coming. This project has been years in the making, but it’s just started having a mind of its own and I can’t thank art together enough.
[00:10:54] Leva: Thank you. Thank you for saying that you came from your mind. Let me also share my side of a story. First of all, part [00:11:00] of our mission was supporting refugees and immigrants. Very soon we realized that the disparity in art community and also the exclusivity of art community here, especially for immigrants or refugees it’s very hard to get into the art world here. So, I think it was 2018, that we start thinking about how can we support, art together and support artists, refugee and immigrants artists.
[00:11:21] Leva: And by then there were a team of like few interns who were working volunteers so we decided to partner with, GAMA, gathering all Muslim artists and Oakland Art, Asian Cultural Center to put a group show together to celebrate refugee immigrants artists in Auckland.
[00:11:38] Leva: So we put the show together, I think we showcased at the work of more than 30 of such artists at O A C C, March 16th, 2020. Four days before everything goes down . And, Basically Guled came to one of our meeting. We didn’t have office gallery or any of those things back then. And he said, well, I need a [00:12:00] couple thousand dollars for this. And we were looking at the project and we were like, this can be a major project.
[00:12:05] Leva: This can be a lot bigger than this. Just the music. So we told him that yes, we are in. Let’s see if we can find resources for that. First we didn’t get them, and then we applied for a major grant through Doris Duke Foundation, building varied bridges, which is about, bringing more Muslim artists and our Islamic arts to the community here. And back then Angira Huka was our program director and the project developed a lot through talking through meetings and gatherings. we were really trying that not let funding or that the direction of fund shaped the project. And that’s always a challenge because funders are interested in specific things. So we took some liberty on that. We took some liberty to making sure Guled’s Ideas is actually coming out and GAMA shout out to them. Great partner. and that’s how this came together.
[00:12:56] Guled: Yeah. I wanted add as well too, I told Abbas, if I [00:13:00] wanted to pursue this project, like I had to provide compensation for the artists. I feel like it was really important, especially like in the hip hop community over here, there’s a lot of pro bono work that goes on. I just wanted to break that culture of pro bono work because people are just working so many jobs while doing music and some of them, they just basically making music for free.
[00:13:25] Guled: But just to have that component, to say once again that I see you, like I wasn’t going to do this project with without that. So to be able to partner up with Art together, partner up with GAMA, partner up with the Doris Duke Foundation, it was really humbling. It was really one of those moments in my life that kind of reinvigorated my admiration and my aspirations in the arts. And since then, it was just like, it was history.
[00:13:56] Swati: Yeah. I think that it is so critical, for [00:14:00] both of you having worked in community spaces and actively involved in community spaces in different ways, it’s so important that like when you create projects or when you pursue things, that you do it with that code of ethics, right? I know that what I am doing is building up folks who are behind me, who are with me, that We seek to create a world in art and in any other aspect that is less exploitative than the one we inherited, the forever pursuit of liberation through that. So, tell me a little bit about what the Khamsa project is and then what was it that inspired you or that kept, you kind of stuck on it.
[00:14:37] Guled: Yeah. It’s grief, like there’s multiple levels to it. Everybody has their own relation to it. But at that moment, once again, it was just like me losing myself, I was grieving my hopes or whatever that I was personally dealing with at that time. I wanted to create this music project but then have people step inside the music project, [00:15:00] inside the mind of it.
[00:15:01] Leva: I got interested in the project because it was about shared human experience. It was a thing that you don’t need to be from Somalia, Iran, America, Texas, I don’t know. You name it. You don’t have to be from any of those to experience grief.
[00:15:15] Leva: So it’s a shared human experience and that’s basically what we are doing at art together to emphasize on things that we can share rather than things that dividing us. And also it is not just grief. It’s not grief for life. It can be loss of land, loss of people lots, loss of home. All of those things are lost.
[00:15:33] Leva: So it’s not necessarily just life that we are losing and we are grieving for. So for me, that aspect was very interesting that this is a shared human experience. And of course the timing of it you know, COVID was happening and before that, the experience of gun violence in this country and what’s happening for the Black community specifically here.
[00:15:51] Leva: So all of this came together for me at least, it was like this is a shared human experience and this is something that everybody can come and enjoy and [00:16:00] understand and also process. Guled is talking a lot about the music aspect of that, but we also put lots of emphasize and work on the visual, part of it for your listeners who may not know, Khamsa project, we partnered with aggregated Gallery space, which is a gallery in West Oakland, and we basically turned the space, like people could walk and they could, there were stations that they could listen to music, but they were also seeing different form of art forms. We had abstract art. We had video art, digital art. We had fabric art. So all of them were in the one place that walking people through this stages of grief, we all experienced it in a different way and different stages. It’s not a linear thing. But Khamsa itself was a project walking through grief while music is with you. And while you are looking at some of these visual arts, this is how I describe it. and also I like it that it’s hard to describe because it was very intersectional. It was very different from like other exhibitions or other albums [00:17:00] that you go through because it was just very intertwined with each other.
[00:17:03] Guled: Yeah. the aspect of bridging the gap between different communities was an important aspect, as someone who identifies as Muslim, and I’ve been in a lot of Islamic art shows and it was always something that relates to politics. They’re always, something relates to Islamic history. I really wanted something that was more human. So to be able to have my homies who created the music project at the same time, the visual artists, they were also doing their own thing, creating art for the gallery. The funniest aspect is that none of them riffed ideas off of each other. They were all working independently away from each other. So it was a way to look at this concept from different vantage points, from different identities, but we’re all looking at the same thing.
[00:17:51] Guled: And that’s like kind of the commonality of us just being humans in general. Somebody who now sees the world different. Like what I saw is [00:18:00] like a lot of different groups, they would always share their culture.
[00:18:04] Guled: So just like the music project was one component, it was gonna be an instrumental music project, but then, I needed that element of the mc and needed the element of just raw MCs that were in our local area who were just phenomenal to speak on grief, to speak on the state of the community.
[00:18:22] Guled: And in the meantime, like just being able to have these visual artists express themselves in such a way was the idea. But things just started . As Leva said, it just started becoming this, when the exhibit got launched, it just became a safe space for people to go through that journey and heal each other.
[00:18:42] Guled: Because there was a question in the exhibit where it says, how do you heal and grieve? And the last piece of the puzzle was the people. And they all shared some phenomenal answers and I feel like it’s just in the end, became such a community project, like what makes the Bay Area so great, makes the Bay Area so unique.[00:19:00]
[00:19:00] Swati: Yeah. I think that’s so beautiful. I am so intrigued by the fact that you had all of these visual, auditory, otherwise artists grappling independently with what is grief to them. Being at the exhibit, you know there were a lot of different examples of grief, right?
[00:19:17] Swati: Grief around lost girlhood, grief around home, grief around relationships within family, within community, and all these different aspects. How did you stitch the visual, the auditory, and even the live performance? I’d love for one of you to talk about the live performance.
[00:19:36] Leva: I feel like we were working with immensely talented people. We had two amazing project manager, Abbas and Michelle Lin from Art Together. Shout out to her. I think they did a phenomenal job in coordination because it was not easy to coordinate between that many artists.
[00:19:53] Leva: And so part of it was coordination and also, be intentional about every connection. This [00:20:00] project as Guled said was very intertwined with people who were there. Like it was a different experience if you would go there and people were there, and then if you go just watch or look at the arts or listen, it became a safest space for grief because people immediately felt connected to the message. And what I loved, loved about the project was that it brought people to, to see the exhibition and listen to music that we don’t necessarily consider them gallery goers or exhibition goers. Right, aunties and uncles came and they were part of creating this space.
[00:20:34] Guled: Yeah, absolutely. I would to say strategically for this project, once again, special shout outs to Angira and, and Michelle for really holding us down, my brother Abbas was such an important part and Art together was such an important part to this project. Their wheelhouse was understanding the visual arts realm and the exhibits and galleries and what it takes for the artists to come up with their pieces. [00:21:00] Myself was on the music. What I really enjoyed about it so much about the music project was just like, once again, I’m just a fan of everybody. I’m a fan of everybody. It was just like, if you had a basketball team, who would you pick? It was my version of Oceans 11 , just like picking the best artists that I knew at that time, you know?
[00:21:21] Guled: When it came to the music production side, I wouldn’t have, done this project also with one of my good brothers, Pat Mesiti Miller, phenomenal audio engineer, beat producer and also a curator as well. He would take things sonically to another level. So, once that was done, it was like two worlds coming together and I really feel like the Aggregate Space Gallery really brought these two worlds to merge.
[00:21:50] Swati: Guled you know can you tell me a little bit about, Khamsa the music album component of your project and how you originated it.
[00:21:58] Guled: Yeah. Right now the, yeah, the Khamsa Music [00:22:00] Project is a five track ep. Each one of the tracks represent the different five stages of grief. I initially wanted to create this more as an instrumental music project. Same way you can kind of feel jazz music, classical music, if you were thinking about, or processing an emotion, creating music that words can’t describe, right?
[00:22:21] Guled: Like such, like these types of experiences that you go through with grief. But however, as, as years went on, I just felt that the importance of having an mc was crucial. I felt like we needed a voice. We were losing too many hip hop artists, to gun violence. COVID affected us. George Floyd affected us, whenever experiences, critical moments in history happened like the way that hiphop responded was always powerful to me. Whether it was the death of Amadou Diallo and how a lot of the hiphop artists at that time spoke up against his death to Tupac, to Biggie, like they [00:23:00] were reflections of their time. And I just felt it was important the MCs, speak on the state of their consciousness, but also in return, being able to let the community know that they’re with them.
[00:23:11] Guled: Initially also, we were going to have interludes within each of these tracks, with a phenomenal artist, by the name of Sekina Noor, based out in London, with these MCs talking and rapping with each stage of grief, it was going to be her spoken word pieces during the interludes this divine feminine consciousness of what was going on in the way that we were processing this journey altogether. But yeah, just really touched base with all my homies from the Bay Area who are born and raised in Oakland Richmond, or who have had many years being in the bay, gotten in a lot of game from the Bay Area and these are all like my favorite artists I’m a fan of all of them. [00:24:00] And I guarantee three, four or five years from now you’re gonna hear a lot more noise from these people.
[00:24:05] Swati: So in the process of reaching out to all of these artists that you respect all your friends, right? How did you go about curating each of these tracks did you pair the track or the theme to the artist? was that collaborative?
[00:24:20] Guled: And what’s funny is, cuz all these other MCs, I spoke with them, a long time ago, I told them, straight up like, Hey, listen, I’m not going to ask of this from you if I don’t have a budget and as soon as Allah blessed me with the grant money from the Doris Duke Foundation, it was on.
[00:24:36] Guled: These were people that I’ve known for years, so I’ve kind of recognized their strengths except for D. Lee, D. Lee is just like one of those people who I met on the fly, and he’s such a natural, he’s just a phenomenal artist.
Denial
[00:24:49] Guled: I was wanting to work with another artist for the track denial, but that didn’t work out. But in the meantime, out of the blue, I remember I was just like listening to Water, [00:25:00] water for the Town Project, a project that’s a compilation project of the Smart Bomb Collective. And it was a track with D.Lee, with his cousin, spoke Breeze and when I heard him, I was just blown back. I had to just like, you know, press it on repeat again. And I was just like, this is, he’s great. You know? And so I had to reach out to my boy, spoke and spoke, reached out to D. Lee and we politiced. And what’s funny is that he was the first person to deliver the track to me. And then the dope thing about it too was on the production side, you got pASDOO, who’s a phenomenal producer who understands the science of sound.
[00:25:37] Guled: [00:26:00] As far as with the track anger with Mani Draper, you know, shoutouts to Grand National, Mani to me he’s such a great artist. I feel like he was able to bring anger home, like if you listen to the track, it sounds like Grand Master Flash is the message. You know, like, just don’t push me. And he, I feel like can represent that. And then the energy that he brought with the track, I just knew he would be the right fit. We have Brian Simmons, a phenomenal composer. He tours with fantastic Negrito and this music project that’s on his label, he brought it home .
[00:27:00]
Bargaining
[00:27:03] Guled: When I was thinking about who will be the right mc for bargaining, Spote Breeze just popped in my mind because of his albums, because of his music. He’s a very, very layered, very complex lyricist, and I feel like the stage of bargaining was perfect for him. Cheflee is a genius, and Spote Breeze and Cheflee works together so well. And he brought it home not only providing the instrumental, but also he included the hook and the instrumental, so it was like a song that was writing itself and it just paired so well [00:28:00]
Depression
[00:28:14] Guled: When it came to the track of depression, I reached out to my boy Nu Nasa, and Nu Nasa to me is one of the most positive, positive MCs. If you listen to the rest of his catalog of music, it’s very uplifting. It’s highly spiritual, and I’ve only known him artistically on that side. I wanted to see his shadow self something that was different. shout outs to aboveclouds from Virginia, he really brought that Boom Bap the style of Boom B ap was perfect.
Acceptance
[00:28:46] Guled: [00:29:00] As far as with acceptance, my man, Gavin Anthony. He was somebody who I knew in my years being an mc. He was like, one of my OGs, one of my big brothers in the hip hop community. And he is not only a phenomenal lyricist, he’s a phenomenal freestyler and his reflections and is just being like, older than me. [00:30:00] You know, I feel like he’s been through the cycles of grief himself, so for him to talk about acceptance, it’s kind of like this brotherly advice and just wisdom of somebody who’s went through all of this and was able to accept. And I felt like it was a great piece to the puzzle. And then Sydequest really bringing the project home.
[00:30:18] Guled: [00:31:00] Each one of these tracks were challenging for the artists to process. So once again, all of these people I am a fan of, and I just thought like, what would happen if these folks were paired up together. and, The first time I heard it was two months after it got mixed. My boy pASDOO. He was also the audio engineer of this project. He was like, Hey, listen, you’re not gonna listen to this project until the listening session. So we had a listening session at the Reef Studios on Oakland, OG Jaren and Brian C. Simmons spot. And when I first heard the project, I was just blown back, I didn’t expect, the magic.
[00:31:38] Guled: It was hair raising to be in the studio, listening to the songs blare out, the speakers to be around my people. It was definitely a dream come true. Like just sitting there and listening to it all. It felt like I was at a brief moment living my aspiring self. Just being there, [00:32:00] just seeing, just witnessing everything and just knowing that the art was coming from a very deep place. It just came out to being something that I thoroughly enjoy just as a fan and I felt like I put all my chips in one basket and got double in return.
[00:32:16] Swati: Yeah. No, it’s a really seamless album. As you said, it had been years between when you talked about this project and when it finally got funded you were like, it’s go time. And I think it speaks to the strength of the Oakland hip hop community to your music community that like, everybody was like, absolutely, let’s go.
[00:32:38] Swati: You’re tuned in to apex express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org. Coming up we have two songs from Khamsa the album. The first Anger by Mani Draper. Co-produced by Mani Draper and Brian C. Simmons followed by [00:33:00] Something by spote Breeze produced by Cheflee
[00:33:03] Swati: [00:34:00] [00:35:00] [00:36:00] [00:37:00] [00:38:00] you just heard Something by Spote breeze produced by Cheflee and before that [00:39:00] was Anger by Mani Draper. Co-produced by Mani Draper and Brian C. Simmons from Khamsa at the album. Now, back to the interview.
[00:39:09] Swati: Going back to kind of what I think both of you said at different points that like this exhibition was really about breaking barriers in terms of who is considered somebody that goes to a gallery, goes to an art show, and also what art is appropriate and then even then, what belongs together. And I think particularly in the space of Islamic art, it’s so important both that you married the visual of having, artists of color having, Islamic art, but then also really having this huge hip hop auditory component to explicitly have that conversation of blackness and muslimness and creation together.
[00:39:51] Guled: The thing is that this project was challenging for everybody. Like, for everybody. And when I’ve approached my homies about it, they’re like, [00:40:00] you know, I have to really dig deep because there’s trauma involved. We don’t normally talk about it as much so for people to muster that up, even with the visual artists as well too, for them to really go into these spaces, that is hard, but they understood that the purpose of it was to really let people know that they’re not alone, you know? To bring these world together cuz there was so much, these years, like from the moment this project was thought of to like, when the exhibit was happening, so much was going on in the world. And for people to be that vulnerable it takes a toll.
[00:40:38] Guled: But some of the best art, I’ve ever seen came from those spaces and for them to become the mirror for people to reflect on their own sense of grief gives all this work a lot of meaning. Just the way that the people was also able to participate, in these events. I know you mentioned something about the event [00:41:00] program inside, some were planned and others weren’t, one of them in particular, cuz there was just so much gun violence going on in Oakland, we had a shooting that occurred around that time in the mosque, that took the lives of, Asam Al-Awjri and Belal Esa, two people from the community, were lost to gun violence, and also the school shootings that were happening as well. Like even during that moment, while the exhibit was going, we had to curate spaces for that as well. And, just to kind of reflect back, even after the exhibit was done, some of that emotion, some of that energy, it still lingers with me to this day.
[00:41:42] Guled: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that also I attended the closing ceremony and you know, Leva you gave this really beautiful speech around the crisis in Iran and what grief was bringing up for you in this space. I was wondering if you’d be open to speaking about that. [00:42:00]
[00:42:01] Leva: Yeah, it takes a lot to be comfortable with vulnerability and that is something that Khamsa and the space that it created, for it to be safe for me as the director of an organization, feel comfortable enough and feel safe enough to come and talking about what’s going on in my community.
[00:42:20] Leva: Right. And feel safe enough to just cry and talk.
[00:42:23] Swati: just to interject, could you give a very brief overview of what the crisis in Iran is from your perspective?
[00:42:29] Leva: So what’s happening in Iran is that people are tired of 40 years, four decades of autocracy and dictatorship, and a version of Islam, a version of religion that has been dictated to them no matter what they want or how they want to practice religion.
[00:42:46] Leva: Unfortunately, what happened is that under this Islamic regime, I’m not calling it Islamic country because the regime itself is a dictatorship, and this is different from people. So like any fascism, they are harassing [00:43:00] people. They’re killing people.
[00:43:01] Leva: I came to the US as refugee because as religious minority back in Iran, my family around their persecution, my uncle is in right now, a couple of my friends are in prison. My uncle is in prison just because he was teaching in a university to people like us, right? So the current uprising started after a young woman got killed under custody of police, morality, police, if you don’t know, in Iran, there is morality police who is basically telling women in the streets how to wear hijab, how to practice their religion.
[00:43:29] Leva: And people basically got tired of that so the uprising started with that, and very soon people got united that everyone wanted this regime to go. Unfortunately, what’s happening is massive execution that has been regime’s strategy in the last 40 years. Because again, they’re killing and executing young people, young folks, without having any reason for that or any. Fair trial. So that is also grief. And it feels like for my community, we’ve been grieving for 40 years and that’s [00:44:00] why I feel like sharing this stuff and sharing about this emotion is important. But yeah, Basically that’s what’s going in Iran, protests are still going, the mass execution, basically every day we’re waking up to some execution news and we really hope that again we are so desperate and helpless from here.
[00:44:17] Leva: That was a day that a big fire was happening in a prison that most of the political prisoners are there. And I had no idea how to process that but still be a professional person, go to work, go to the speech, do the speech, because again, that’s my job. So having that space and feeling so comfortable for that many people to just see me crying.
[00:44:38] Leva: Again, the beauty of Khamsa I don’t know if I would be able to be the same or talk the same way or tell the same story if it was in another exhibition or another art opening. The space itself I feel like gave me and of course people who were around and I will see them I feel comfortable enough with them. And this is not common in our communities, especially men Muslim men, because [00:45:00] I know many of them and they’re friends of mine, it’s not common to talk about this emotions, what’s going on. And again, Shout out to Guled and the whole team who created that space. during that time, one of our staff member was going through a shooting. And again, as a whole, we felt like, my God, this is space Khamsa, was the right time, right place for all of us to be able to be vulnerable and still feel safe and connected.
[00:45:26] Swati: I really empathize with that feeling of desperation and hopelessness being in diaspora currently. But I think, you know, maintaining conversations around what is going on currently in Iran keeping tabs on what is going on, talking about it, talking about injustice and lending complexity to a narrative and not giving it to the regime, not giving it to the United States government, but really giving it to the people who have deserved it for all this time.
[00:45:50] Leva: Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, this is also important for me personally, having many Muslim friends that I want them to also understand that this is not an uprising [00:46:00] against religion and the way that hijab was dictating on us we never had a choice. For me to be able to go to a school, I had to wear hijab, right? We never had a choice to practice what we wanted to do. So this is not an uprising against Islam, it’s not about being Islamophobic. or don’t want that. It’s just people tired of fascism that govern them under the name of this religion. And that’s why I feel like solidarity of Muslim community outside of Iran is crucial for them because the government in Iran can’t say that, oh this anti-Islam, this is anti-religion movement. But thank you for bringing that up. Absolutely correct that we also have duty to keep this conversation going.
[00:46:40] Swati: Yeah, definitely. And I think back to just really what the whole purpose of Khamsa is, right? In terms of humanizing people and bringing to light and bringing to immersive experience.
[00:46:53] Swati: This really, scary emotion that all of us are feeling constantly and trying [00:47:00] to avoid. I mean, Guled, how has grief modified and changed over the lifetime of that project and what does it mean to you right now?
[00:47:09] Guled: I feel like grief is like one of those, like eternal human tragedies, just when we are very well versed in what it is theoretically, like when it happens to you, you feel the effects, whether you far away, whether you’re close to someone. It’s like one of those truths, right? For me, just living with it, I remember seeing something really cool about Japanese art where they glue pieces together of like pottery with gold. Because even through all of that, amidst of all of the suffering and the trauma. You gain wisdom, you gain light, you gain hope. You gained this understanding of what it is to be human because day by day we’re still like running around. You’re just going from one place to another and not really sitting down with the experience, like what it is to live this life, in the third dimension . And I felt that art has always been a [00:48:00] way to bring something from the ether or from a different dimension, from a different place these things that really affect us to the core.
[00:48:07] Guled: As far as with, my Muslim identity like Islam. You know, there’s a really important fact that people have to understand is that, the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) there was a period of his time called the Year of Sorrow, where he lost his beloved uncle who protected him from his persecutors and his first wife who was holding him down, who supported him since day one. This is somebody who we revere as extremely holy, somebody who had divine revelations from the most high in a very personal way. But yet somebody of this stature still dealt with grief, he still dealt with that. So, the beautiful part about the Muslim artists is the fact that, there’s people who identify with Islam you know, and from a different perspective. You could [00:49:00] be Shia, you can, speak on like the history of what happened to the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and his family, and the anger that community still feels to this day during Karbala, you can, speak on behalf of Leva’s experience where , you have this regime that is pushing Islam in such a way where it’s suppressing people when it’s supposed to liberate us.
[00:49:22] Guled: And I myself, even though I identify as Sunni, for Somali people in general, when I did the knowledge, you know, we have Sufism we have that spiritual component in our faith. And just knowing the spiritual wisdom behind the experiences that we deal with, in our day-to-day, is kind of way of God still communicating with us. Even outside of a book is God still communicating with us. So this project really, you know, after going through it, it really brought me closer to a higher power. But in the meantime, made me [00:50:00] realize like there’s still so much that we have to do. Not even on the activism way, but to just even call somebody. Just tell them that you love them. Like how many of us are really doing that? Because we’re chasing money. We, are putting our lives or putting our value towards things that are material, you know? It gave me such a deep reflection and for others to share their art this way and for the community to show up and provide their wisdom. It helped me a lot. It helped me a lot emotionally. It helped me a lot spiritually. It still has a mind of its own, it’s still lingering. But I’m grateful and I’m blessed
[00:50:40] Leva: Thank you Guled for sharing. People processing grief very differently. I believe that, I think when I was a child, somebody told me that everybody who’s living your life is taking a little piece of your heart with him. And there is a hole there that you have to learn to live with that hole and still survive. There are lots of holes in our hearts, and as we are [00:51:00] growing up, there are more and more of them. So it is actually, how are you gonna manage that? To me, over time, it became the celebration of life. It became the celebration of what we lost.
[00:51:10] Leva: If it was a relationship, if it was land, if it was home, how can I cherish the moments because I cannot have them back. Coming to the realization of that, and also give it time, it’s like we cannot say that, oh, I’m gonna give a five months timeline to this grief, and then I’m gonna be fine. No, every grief is different.
[00:51:28] Leva: For now I’m at the stage of my life that for me, it became more about celebration of life. Then go back and thinking about that piece of the hole that I have in my heart. It may change in a few years, but I am there. Right now .
[00:51:44] Swati: That’s such a beautiful sentiment. So for both of you, as we’re closing, what projects are currently in the works or up next for either of you, or are you taking a very well deserved nap?
[00:51:59] Guled: [00:52:00] As a matter of fact, right now I got the Khamsa Music project on all streaming platforms I have a Spotify playlist right now drop a Gem on them. It’s a, It’s a song from Mob Deep, one of my favorite hip hop groups. And it’s a lot of just powerful hip hop music from different artists, from my own personal listening collection that got me by cuz hip hop taught me a lot. And I just feel like in this moment, I wanted to share that so people could, can get educated and learn and to also feel, and the same way that I really love hip hop. But in the meantime, you know, working with different artists and their music projects, Got some stuff under wraps, I’m still pushing. No matter how much, I’m, I’m trying to , I try I feel like this always still calls me and this still inspires me.
[00:52:50] Leva: We just opened Art Together’s center in downtown Oakland. We started with a gallery. We really hope to make it a[00:53:00] new cultural hub for artists who may otherwise not have the opportunity.
[00:53:03] Leva: right now, Unfortunately, artists needs to be artists, they’re social media manager, marketing person, project manager. So they have to be all of those things while also their brain is working on the art. I feel like organization like Art Together and specifically artist support program is coming handy because we are trying to take care of the logistic of the board and let the artist brain work the way that it’s working.
[00:53:27] Leva: Right? And that’s why we are trying to have one or two major artistic project every year, the end result is going to be a public display of art, but we are here to support the logistical part of it and make it happen. This is unfortunately part of being an artist that you need to do everything and everything is harder for artists of colors and refugee immigrants, Black artists, everything is harder for them, so this is a mission for this space. I invite everyone to please come 1200 Harrison, downtown Oakland, close to Bart, make a visit. You wouldn’t regret that. In terms of like major [00:54:00] projects, we are currently working with Toro Hatari, Japanese American artists for a participatory project that contains some installation coming out of workshops that spark conversation between refugees and non-refugee and locals, sharing experience and sharing a story. So we are excited about that one. That is our major art project for now. But our community art programs and many other stuff are going on. Look at our website, www art together.org.
[00:54:28] Swati: Amazing. I am so glad, Leva, that you were all able to find a new home at 1200 Harrison, you said in downtown Oakland. And you know, Guled I think for the most part, all I can say is that we have to keep an eye on you. But, I really appreciate, both of you coming onto Apex Express. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about before we closed out?
[00:54:50] Guled: So the Humsa album is on Bandcamp, on all streaming platforms this project was, an artist-led one. So all money is gonna go [00:55:00] towards, the folks that were involved. just
[00:55:02] Guled: Shout out to Simmons Music Group or shout out to Brian Simmons. Shout out to Mani Draper,Nu Nasa, pASDOO. My brother D. Lee, definitely he’s next up from East Oakland. Fire! Spote Breeze, Cheflee, my brothers Sydequest, Gavin Anthony, all my brothers. And the music project, major love town, major love to leva, major love to art together. Once again, it gives me reassurance to keep going. And in art and once again, . Major shoutouts to Abbas Muhammad GAMA Collective and shout out to all the listeners
[00:55:40] Swati:
[00:55:40] Swati: Amazing. So that would be khamsaprojectartist.bandcamp.com/album/khamsathealbum. We’ll drop that in the show notes for those of you who are curious.
[00:55:52] Leva: Everything that Guled says, plus I wanna name the visual artists who were part of this project Fahd Butt, Romina Zabihian, [00:56:00] Keyvan Shovir, Shaghayegh Cyrous, Gazelle Samizay, and Nabi Haider Ali, Meriam Salem, Fatima Zara. They were amazing visual artists. Shout out to Miles, Michelle, Angira, Velasani and everybody else who make this project possible. And thank you. Thank you for giving us this platform and opportunity to talk.
[00:56:21] Guled: See we have like a hundred people on this project.
[00:56:24] Guled: Yeah. You say, I was like, this
[00:56:26] Swati: is, this is absolutely a community project.
[00:56:29] Guled: Yeah, definitely a community project.
[00:56:32] Swati: Awesome. Well, thank you both so much.
[00:56:35] Swati: To learn more about Khamsa a collaborative and very clearly community involved project by ArtTogether and Gathering All Muslim Artists Collective or GAMA visit www.art together.org/khamsa. That’s KHAMSA. From there, you’ll be able to find and purchase the album on Bandcamp, listen to the podcast and learn more about the project as a whole.
[00:56:58] Swati: Thank you [00:57:00] so much for joining us, please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there, keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, jalena Keane-Lee, Paige Chung, and today Swati Rayasam.
[00:57:30] Swati: Thank you so much to KPFA staff for their support and have a great night.
[00:58:00]
The post APEX Express – 12.26.23 – Khamsa Project appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
The post APEX Express – January 19, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #4
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental.
Lisa Lowe’s Book:
In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press
About the DJ
My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound.
Lastly, special shoutout to my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family.
Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU @paigechung
- Website
- Twitch
- Mixcloud
- SoundCloud
Episode #4 Track List
This month’s episode features the following music:
- APEX EXPRESS INTRO
- Get Down (Q-Tip Remix) Instrutmental Craig Mack ft. Q-TIP
- Chant to Mother Earth – BLOC
- Fefe Naa Efe – Fela Kuti
- Sante Yalla – Cheikh Lo
- Sade’s Kiss of Life (remix) – Ahmed Sirour
- No Scrubs (remix) Mangu Daddy edit – Radical One
- African Superstar (El Barrio Recipe) – Flo Sanders
- Never (Lagos Never Gonna Be The Same) (Cool Cats Mix) – Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela
- Africa by D’angelo – JBoogie Edit
- Massé (DJ Stylus Sol Power Edit) – Blick Bassy
- Sunshine Jimetta Extended – L3ni
- Baby I love You V4 – L3ni
- I Might Do Something Wrong (Yoruba Main Mix) – Tortured Soul
- Mulata Astatke (Deejay Irie Edit) – Yègellé Tezeta
- Whatever It Takes – L3ni
- Stomp! (Intro Clean) – Brothers Johnson
- Hot Jazzybelle – Kaytranada
- The Roof Is On Fire – Rock Master Scot & The Dynamic Three
- Soul Makossa (Nick Bike 45 Edit) – Manu Dibang
- Give It Up (Bossa Remix) – James Brown
- Don’t Go Yet – Camila Cabello
- Funky Tumbao (Mo’s Beat Junkie Sound Edit) – Setenta
- Kiss of Life by Sade – Kaytranada Remix
- do you remember – Quinnette
- Scenario [Young Nation Mix] – A Tribe Called Quest
- Space Talk (SFS EDIT) – Asha Puthli
- Butterflies (Track Masters Remix – Feat. Eve) – Michael Jackson
- cosmic relaxation – Quinnette
- Yes Baby Yes – Mo’ Horizons
- Jawa Jawa – Akalé Wubé
- Rare Asian Funk Groove – julz Made This One
- Power of Soul – Idris Muhammed
- Mastermind – Zaniah
- APEX EXPRESS OUTRO
The post APEX Express – 1.12.2023 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents #4 by DJ Miu appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
This Thursday APEX Express proudly presents “South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement.” This episode highlights Sandhya Jha, a pastor, founder and former Executive Director of the Oakland Peace Center, and racial, housing, and labor justice activist. In the first half of the episode, we discuss Sandhya’s life, their path into organizing, and what they’re up to now. The second half is dedicated to their recent project with the South Asian American Digital Archive’s Archival Creators Fellowship Program. This episode was interviewed, produced, and edited by Swati Rayasam Follow @Sandhya Jha on Facebook and check out Sandhya’s website https://sandhyajha.com/ APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Listen to the episode live on KPFA 94.1 in San Francisco, 89.3 in Berkeley, and online at KPFA.org. References throughout the Show and Links: Without Fear Consulting * Interfaith Alliance * Oakland Peace Center * Book – Blueprint for a Revolution * Book – The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad * Podcast – Bending Toward Justice: Avatar the Last Airbender for the Global Majority * The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action – ASATA + Bay Area Solidarity Summer * South Asian American Digital Archive + Archival Creators Fellowship Program + Sandhya Jha’s project, you can listen to all of the oral histories here. - Solidarity Forever Online Exhibit * Arab Resource and Organizing Center + Block the Boat + No Tech for Apartheid * University of California Labor Center * Equality Labs * California Trade Justice Coalition * NAFCON – National Alliance for Filipino Concerns * Filipino Community Center * Madhvi Trivedi Patak Transcript:South Asians and Labor Justice*
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Swati Rayasam: Good evening everyone and Happy Thursday, my name is Swati Rayasam. While I’m usually in the background of APEX Express editing, this week I’m honored to bring you a piece from a dear friend of mine Sandhya Jha. We explore Sandhya’s background as a mixed race kid, a housing, labor, and racial justice organizer, and a faith leader.
[00:00:50] Swati Rayasam: And then we dive into an amazing project, Sandhya did for the South Asian American Digital Archive’s Archival Creators Fellowship program. Stay locked in.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Swati Rayasam: I’m really excited actually today to talk to Sandhya Jha, who is a really close friend of mine. Hi Sandhya. Hi there. Sandhya is, a Pastor is a consultant and has been working on this really amazing project with the South Asian American Digital Archive that will get into later in the episode. But yeah, Sandhya I’m just really excited to learn more about you and to hear more of your story and, let’s just dive in.
[00:01:26] Swati Rayasam: Absolutely.
[00:01:27] Swati Rayasam: We should first talk a little bit about how we know each other, you have this long organizing background. I’ve been in the Bay Area for the past seven years and I would be totally lying if I said I have not historically been, or I’m not even currently an active fangirl of yours. You are literally a pastor. You are a movement worker, how did you get involved in organizing?
[00:01:53] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. So I am the product of my parents who were generous, compassionate [00:02:00] people who thought about the world beyond themselves, but were never involved in organizing or activism or anything like that. I think for anybody who comes from immigrant backgrounds, it’s hard to tell our stories without naming who we come from. Right. And so my father was Sunil Kumar Jha from the village of Tildanga in West Bengal. My mother, who is still alive is Jeanette Campbell Jha. She is from Glasgow. So I come from a mixed religion and mixed race home. My parents chose not to name me Sandhya Campbell Jha not to give me that kind of grounding, but I was called Sandhya Rani Jha, which is a lot to live up to, well, yes, Rani does mean Queen. But it was actually handed down to me, part of the reason they wanted that middle name was it was my aunt’s name, Durga Rani Upadhyay and she was the one who really [00:03:00] brokered my mother’s acceptance into the Indian family and I think that there was something about being accepted on the Indian side of the family and not for many, many years on the Scottish side. That caused my parents and particularly my mother to double down on making sure I knew who I came from and who I came from was my people in the village of Tildanga.
[00:03:23] Sandhya Jha: I grew up in Akron, Ohio, so we immigrated to this country when I was a toddler, in the late 1970s, which was a complicated time for Asian immigrants to be in the Midwest because it was a time that the rust belt was rusting and there was a growing sense that we were the reason. But also I grew up alongside folks who were trying to figure out how to put food on the table. So I think that landscape shaped me in a lot of ways. And I also come from people who grew up in poor working communities. And[00:04:00] when I went off to college, there was an organizing campaign. The board of directors of the university had created a for-profit corporation with the exact same board.
[00:04:15] Swati Rayasam: Oh wow.
[00:04:16] Sandhya Jha: So that the universities could subcontract all of their catering, all of their custodial work to this… basically Shell corporation.
[00:04:28] Swati Rayasam: Are we telling on the university?
[00:04:29] Sandhya Jha: Mm, Yeah. Why not? It was Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and I think that’s relevant because the tension between Black communities next to Johns Hopkins Medical School and the school itself were very real because this was part of a very long history of exploiting community members. So the workers were organizing, and you know, I had read about activism, I cared about it. I paid as much attention as I could for a high school student. But when I got to college, this organizing [00:05:00] campaign was going, and the workers were really clear, Hey, college kids who are excited about this, we do have a role for you. It’s to fill the crowd. It’s to cheer us on. It’s to when we ask you communicate to the university that our well-being matters to you because they will listen to you in different ways. But the campaign centered the workers and was really clear with us about what our role was because we were the folks with all the privilege by getting to be there, right? We had tons of privilege and it was a really good lesson for me. I am so grateful. The first organizing campaign I was a part of was a labor campaign that understood what it meant to center the people who were the most impacted by injustice and I think that shaped the rest of my career.
[00:05:46] Swati Rayasam: And that’s so special too because I think for many people who come into organizing, and I will definitely cop to this myself, like coming up and organizing through high school and college level organizing. When you are a student, nobody ever [00:06:00] tells you that actually you are the least useful kind of organizer that exists. Right. You are in this incredibly enclaved community. Your oppressor, the university, all they have to do is wait for you to graduate institutional memory will not keep you. Yeah. Right. And I think that it is, it’s this perfect storm of, you have actually sometimes cool ideas, sometimes very rudimentary ideas, but you also have this turnover issue and you have this sense of self import, which often comes with your teens, early twenties. Yep. As you’re just figuring all of that out. So Yeah, self differentiation, right? It’s a narcissistic phase in our development. .
[00:06:46] Swati Rayasam: It absolutely is and I think that’s so important, and I can’t imagine how my life would be shaped if I didn’t have to spend a lot of time unlearning the self import and narcissism that I had gained through student [00:07:00] organizing.
[00:07:00] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. No, I am really, really grateful for it.
[00:07:02] Sandhya Jha: My first job outta college was working for a member of Congress, which sounds super fancy and pretentious, but, a member of congress from Akron, Ohio. So put that all in perspective. His name, believe it or not, was Tom Sawyer. Oh, wow. What I loved about Tom was back in those days, he believed very strongly that 80% of legislation was nonpartisan and that was the part that he spent most of his time on. He would weigh in with his party, when they were dealing with that 20% pretty consistently. But he was more interested in the stuff that everybody could agree on and I remember for about 15 years after I worked for him, I looked back and found myself thinking that was so naive. How did he not understand where we were about to head with the divisions between the political parties? But at this point in my life, I realize the people I respect most in organizing work keep pointing out that the binary of [00:08:00] left and right actually doesn’t serve us very well. One of my biggest heroes in the movement right now is the Reverend Dr. William Barber,
[00:08:07] Swati Rayasam: Hometown hero of mine. Yes.
[00:08:09] Sandhya Jha: Poor People’s campaign from North Carolina. And he always talks about how it’s not about right and left. It’s about right and wrong. And it turns out that when we engage in organizing with the awareness that there are huge swaths of things that most of us are well served by, we can do better organizing. And that was actually how Tom was legislating. And at a certain point I realized that my deep passion was around racial justice, but the distinct experience I had in a multi religious household was an awareness of how religion was being used as a weapon. I had an obsession. Every paper in college I wrote was about the Christian coalition, this right wing, organizing body in the nineties. So a friend of mine [00:09:00] said, You know, there’s an interfaith organization working against the Christian Coalition. And it was called the Interfaith Alliance. Her mom had been a superintendent in Washington state in eastern Washington and was a pretty conservative person by my standards.
[00:09:18] Sandhya Jha: But, Dr. Chow believed in multiculturalism and believed in teaching evolution. And the Christian coalition had organized to push her out of her position as superintendent and the Interfaith Alliance of Washington State had supported her in that time.
[00:09:38] Sandhya Jha: And so Liz said, you know, they’ve got a national chapter, a national office. And that’s where I ended up, cutting my adult organizing teeth which was great because talk about learning lessons for our current moment where religion is being weaponized in ways that are anti-trans, that are anti-queer, that are anti-women, that [00:10:00] are anti reproductive rights, that are anti-immigrant and refugee. I am really grateful to have experienced the power of multi-faith organizing, around a lot of those same issues. So that was what I did in the early two thousands and then I went to seminary and public policy school, and then I ended up out here pastoring a congregation of 10 people in a building of 40,000 square feet.
[00:10:29] Sandhya Jha: And long story short, that’s how the Oakland Peace Center was born, was out of this dream of cultivating deeper collaboration among nonprofits who were dedicated to a shared cause. The Oakland Peace Center, which is a collective of 40 different nonprofits committed to dismantling the root causes of violence in our community. I was the founder of that organization and it was when I was pastoring First Christian Church of Oakland that I asked the handful of folks who were members of that church, what they wanted to [00:11:00] contribute to the community, and they said they wanted to contribute peace in the midst of violence. And for a dozen folks to have given birth to a space that in non pandemic years, saw over a hundred thousand people do things like the Lawyers for Black Lives Conference and to do Kingian non-violence training and to be a part of food and clothing distribution, to participate in all the very diverse ways that we can create peace is pretty impressive.
[00:11:30] Sandhya Jha: And a couple of years ago, I left the Oakland Peace Center because a colleague of mine said, Anybody can run a non-profit. We need you to do what you’re actually good at, and what she meant by that was we need more people of color doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work that is actually grounded in power analysis. That isn’t just how do we be nicer to each other in the workplace, but how do we recognize the ways that systems of white supremacy [00:12:00] unconsciously often shape the culture of our workplaces? And what do we do to dismantle that white supremacy culture so that we can be building nonprofits and institutions of higher education and faith organizations, and even corporations that are dedicated to our full liberation, our liberation, the lands liberation.
[00:12:23] Swati Rayasam: I mean coming, especially from the place that you come in grassroots organizing and in faith based organizing, what is it actually to transition into this kind of consulting space around racial justice and really interface with a lot of people that I feel like as organizers, we don’t really talk to?
[00:12:42] Sandhya Jha: One of my favorite things about this shift in my work is I love getting to work with folks who don’t think of themselves as organizers, who, it turns out are organizers, Right. I think we sometimes create a cult of here’s what an organizer looks like, you [00:13:00] have to be a Martin Luther King or a Cesar Chavez and what I love is getting to work with moms and with teenagers and with folks who think of themselves as caring, compassionate, individuals, and when I go into an organization and work with their handful of folks who care about this issue, the DEI team, I get to teach them how to strategically organize. I get to teach them how do you create culture shift over time? I get to teach them how do you figure out who your allies are? How do you figure out how to move people who are neutral? It turns out that there are a lot more organizers out there than we realize if we don’t create one definition of what an organizer needs to look like.
[00:13:45] Swati Rayasam: I have been reading this political scholar Eqbal Ahmed, who really talks about the way the burden is on those of us who are deeply committed to movement work, narrow definition people, the burden is really on us to try and [00:14:00] create a liberatory future that feels both achievable. Mm-hmm. and safe for everybody. Because when people engage in mass struggle and in revolution, there are people who are a hundred percent willing to put their lives on the line. People who are willing to die for the cause. And we absolutely need those people. And there are many people along the spectrum who, if you can create a future that feels like it’s within their grasp, they will come with you.
[00:14:30] Sandhya Jha: Yep. I teach a lot of organizing classes and have gotten a chance to teach alongside my beloved colleague BK Woodson at Allen Temple Baptist Church, they have a leadership institute there. And one of the books we use is Blueprint for a Revolution by Srđa Popović. And I feel like I learned a lot as we read that book together and thought about how to apply it to the work we’re doing in Oakland. They talked about how by engaging in nonviolent direct action, [00:15:00] they created space for elders to be a part of their work and youth to be a part of their work and families to be a part of their work. By making the movement playful. They gave people hope and gave people courage because dictators are terrified of being mocked.
[00:15:17] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. And I think by being really restrictive or narrow about who we view as actually valuable organizers. And I think labor movements teach us this a lot, right? We really cut ourselves off at the knees on our ability to build a network or to be in touch with the general population, many of whom are more connected than we ever give them credit for.
[00:15:41] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Yep. it’s part of why I love labor organizing. I talk with a lot of people who are disenchanted with organizing who ask me how I can have stayed involved for the past 25 years. And why I’ve been able to stay in it is cuz I’m organizing alongside workers and they have [00:16:00] full lives. And the work that they’re doing in the movement is so that they can live their full lives. And there’s something about having that perspective and recognizing the why all the time instead of getting lost in the weeds of the what. Is so important in this work. I think that has been a big theme of my organizing life is how do we build to the greatest common denominator? As my friend BK often says how do we build towards those shared values that often get erased when we are engaged in the right versus left debate.
[00:16:39] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that it is so important and I also think that it’s really hard in this moment of what feels like constant trauma and re trauma.
[00:16:51] Swati Rayasam: And to some extent especially when we’re talking about the left right dichotomy there are real concerns [00:17:00] about safety. Yep. And there are real concerns about security and who you are in community with and who you can find even the smallest level of acceptance from to ensure that you won’t have violence visited upon you. And I think that these conversations of united front organizing, Right. trying to bridge across difference mm-hmm. for a shared goal, for a shared liberatory future Yep. Are really important. And they feel kind of impossible to achieve right now.
[00:17:31] Sandhya Jha: It’s interesting cuz I think that in many ways that is true. There are a lot of conversations that I think people with privilege expect, people who are marginalized to engage in. And those expectations are unfair, what I found very frustrating was the number of people with a lot of privilege who would be like, Ugh, I just can’t talk to those people. And I’m like, Then who’s going to? Exactly. and so I do think that some of this is about being willing to have [00:18:00] hard conversations in the places where we have privilege and recognizing who’s at actual risk and showing up in ways that are protective of who is at risk. But that doesn’t mean walking away from people who aren’t where we are. Right. Because the fact of the matter is everybody’s on a journey. And I have watched at the same time some of the disposability culture in movements write off people without giving them any way to address harm, repair harm, and find a pathway back into community.
[00:18:41] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that’s why, at least I am feeling really hopeful about, what I’ve seen over the past couple of years, this really important track into transformative justice and restorative justice, to acknowledge that there is harm that has happened, there are harms that happen every day between people. [00:19:00] And also we are all on our own journey to unlearn the things that we have been taught either directly or indirectly by our upbringing, by our environment and that you cannot easily dispose of people and that people are able to come back into community. Now that comes with a very important caveat that like they recognize the harm. Mm-hmm. that. They have done or how they’ve been party to it, that they acknowledge that there is healing work that needs to be done both with the person that they harmed and also probably in internally.
[00:19:35] Sandhya Jha: Well, and the community, folks who don’t do RJ on a regular basis tend to skip the community aspect. Yeah. That there is actually repair that needs to be done with community and there’s work community needs to do to figure out how to re-embrace reabsorb people who have done harm in ways that still protect the person who’s been harmed.
[00:19:55] Swati Rayasam: Exactly. In ways that do not erase the harm that has happened, but [00:20:00] acknowledge, contextualize it and say, Okay, we are patching this and we are working to move forward in step with each other. Absolutely.
[00:20:09] Sandhya Jha: Can I just say that one of the other things that I think you and I have in common is a real passion for bringing joy back into the work of Justice I quote Fabiana Rodriguez a lot on this particular thing, because I was at an event she was doing eons ago, and she looked out at us and most of us were activists and she said, Listen, y ‘all you keep inviting people to a struggle. I’m on your side and I don’t wanna join a struggle. I want to join a party. And that was like a call to arms for me when I heard her say that. I was like, Oh my gosh, you’re right. We are so much more fun. Like, I’ve hung out with people who are anti-trans and anti queer and anti-immigrant and anti refugee. They are not fun people. No, no. We have all of the best parties. So I don’t know why we don’t [00:21:00] capitalize on that more. So I think the role of joy and justice is so important. And this is why I was so excited to have you on the podcast that I launched recently.
[00:21:11] Sandhya Jha: Right. Bending Towards Justice Avatar the last Airbender for the Global Majority.
[00:21:15] Swati Rayasam: So literally like bringing it together. Two of my favorite things right, is like TV shows, wholesome TV shows like Avatar, The Last Airbender that I deeply love and organizing. Yes. All the work that I love. And I think it’s true You know, what is actually really the important work is to work to build toward a future that is desirable Yep. That people want to be a part of. Yeah. That people can see happen. Yeah. And I think that is a lot of the difficulty that I have seen in some organizing circles. We are so well versed in what we are against and all of the things that are bad that so many people have a really hard time seeing or visioning or communicating [00:22:00] what it is that we are fighting for. Yeah. Right. And it’s not enough to say, I’m fighting for a world where we can all be safe. Right. Yeah. I’m not, I’m fighting for a world where we can all take long naps in the middle of the day if we’d like to do that. Right. Yeah. But like really building and visioning that future of like, in this world in which we are all safe, there will be harm that happens. How do we deal with that? Yeah. What do we do with that? How do we make sure that it is able to keep everybody safe and also able to account for the times in which it is not able to keep everybody safe.
[00:22:38] Sandhya Jha: Visionary does not have to mean naive. And we need it to be visionary. And sometimes I forget to do the visionary stuff. I’ve got a colleague, Dave Bell, he’s a farmer who is also an anti-racism trainer and we do a lot of work together. He’s a white guy who lives in White Swan, Washington, on the reservation and I remember being at a training with him and I [00:23:00] was all fired up and I was so excited about the conversations we were having and the people were really ready to do the hard work and roll up their sleeves. And Dave says to them, I would like to not have to do this work. And I’m like, What is he talking about? This is amazing. We’re doing such good work. And he says, I would like for us not to have to talk about racism all the time. I would rather be farming. I would rather be, taking care of the cows in my field.
[00:23:26] Sandhya Jha: I would rather be talking about my pottery work that I’m doing badly but learning how to do, I would rather be doing anything than have this conversation. But I don’t get to be on the farm with the wheat, with the cows, with my bad pottery until we figured out how to do this anti-racism work. And it was a really humbling moment for me because I also get into that like I’m an organizer, that’s my identity space. And it was this reminder of Dave’s doing this. So he gets to live in a world where he gets to hang out in the fields and he [00:24:00] gets to, love on the cows. There’s something about being reminded that we’re doing this so that eventually we don’t have to do it. That I think is actually visionary in its own way and it’s important.
[00:24:12] Swati Rayasam: Moving into a little bit more of the grit of like why I asked you to be on the show today. I met you originally when I moved to the Bay Area when you were the executive director of the Oakland Peace Center because At that time I was doing organizing work with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, which is a 20 year old bay area based organization, that was really founded around the Laki Reddy Bali Reddy sex trafficking. Yep. Caste and labor exploitation case that happened in Berkeley in 1999. And I was just so thrilled to be around and have in community so many rad desis. And you also did work with ASATA, right. Historically and are actively doing work with us.
[00:24:56] Sandhya Jha: Absolutely. One of the places I think I invested the most [00:25:00] energy in where we got to spend a lot of quality time in the kitchen was one of the projects, Bay Area Solidarity Summer, an organizing institute, camp, however you wanna refer to it.
[00:25:10] Swati Rayasam: Political education, Summer camp.
[00:25:12] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. For young South Asian Americans who are committed to activism. What I think was the most beautiful part of that program when I was involved in it, and it’s still the case today, is for young South Asians who think that they’re the only ones who care about justice issues, who haven’t met other people, who are South Asian, and identify as justice seekers first to meet each other and realize that there are people just like them. Then to look around and realize that those of us who are usually 10, 15, 20 years older than them are also committed to the work and have been doing it for decades. And then for them to get exposed to the long history of radical visionary organizing and activism of South [00:26:00] Asians here in the US and also in the homelands of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and diasporic countries all over the world.
[00:26:13] Sandhya Jha: There’s something about realizing, Oh, you have contemporaries, oh, you have elders, oh, you have ancestors. Mm-hmm. Especially in the face of the model minority lie that so many of us have had imposed on us, this lie that all we are all we’re supposed to be is cogs in this larger capitalist machine that are non disruptive, which is why we’re allowed to survive. And if we are non disruptive enough, we might even be able to be comfortable. And to discover that there’s more to our story than that is so exciting and I love, love, love being a part of that.
[00:26:52] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that is like fundamentally one of the most important kind of activities that [00:27:00] happens in the ASATA universe, I was a kid who also grew up thinking that there were no other South Asians like me, or there were no other folks who were interested in justice. I spent a lot of time doing, reproductive and queer justice in the south; I always think about what would it have meant if I came in, BASS for 18 to 24 year olds. Yep. what would it have meant if I had come in at a fresh 18 and been able to basically be apprised of the fact that I have this history Yeah. That it’s not just me. And that actually, immigration and white supremacy and neo-colonial culture has created this project of assimilation that all of our parents have been in on, in a way to survive Yeah. And to be safe. And I tell my, I tell my mom that a lot because she’s always a little surprised about the organizing work that I do. And I was just like, Your job was to survive. My job is to liberate. Yeah. [00:28:00] You know? Yeah. And I could not do that if you were not so focused on creating that environment for me.
[00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: I love that.
[00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: we’ll drop in the show notes, but, BASS – Bay Area Solidarity Summer is solidaritysummer.org. So we’ll put that in the show notes as well as ASATA, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action is ASATA.org. And yeah, I think that is a really good segue into how we got involved in this amazing project.
[00:28:31] Swati Rayasam: You’re tuned in to APEX express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3, KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org.
[00:28:43] Swati Rayasam: I think it was Fall 2021 that you and I were talking. Yep. And you were telling me that you were involved in this amazing archival fellowship project. Is run by the South Asian American Digital Archive and [00:29:00] that you were going to do your project about labor. Mm-hmm. and South Asians. Yep. And my immediate, incredibly naive response was, how many South Asians are there in labor?
[00:29:12] Sandhya Jha: Exactly. And it’s not naive. It’s interesting cuz I think that this project actually emerged out of my favorite part of BASS, which was when the young adults would ask what their opportunities were in the world of justice. And I would say, you know, there’s a place for us in labor justice. It had never crossed most of their minds. Right. We don’t think of ourselves as having a role especially in formalized unions. And so SAADA, the South Asian American Digital Archives has an archival fellows project. And the whole purpose of it is to diversify their archives and collect the stories that are usually overlooked in the telling of South Asian American stories.
[00:29:56] Sandhya Jha: And they have done a great job over the years of collecting the [00:30:00] stories of informal organizing, like the Punjabi Taxi Drivers campaign, the Bangladeshi Nail Workers Campaign. Those were informal labor organizing campaigns. That have been really well archived and they’re amazing stories. I wanted to make sure that the next generation of South Asian activists knew about the South Asians who were actually part of the formal organized labor movement.
[00:30:30] Sandhya Jha: And so I spent this past year interviewing, maybe a half a dozen or so South Asian American workers. Generally, not always, but mostly what would be classified as low wage workers who found a pathway into formal organizing bodies, unite here or the building trades or any number of the formal unions that keep [00:31:00] the labor movement alive across the country today. And I’m really proud of the fact that we do have South Asian workers who have moved up the ranks to be official organizers or to be at negotiating tables. And so that’s part of the story I thought it was worth us telling.
[00:31:19] Swati Rayasam: And I am, I’m so excited that we get to dive deeper into this project and I really love your framing too, around the three large bins that you have, solidarity, spirit and struggle.
[00:31:34] Swati Rayasam: Right? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:31:35] Sandhya Jha: I started out with certain assumptions about what I was going to learn, partly because I’ve been doing labor solidarity work for 25 years at this point. I really thought I knew what I was gonna hear. And what I discovered was there were these consistent themes across, the interviews. that there were these notions of, Oh, what’s meaningful to me is [00:32:00] getting to organize across cultures, getting to organize with people who, on the surface and even deep down are very different than me, but we share this vision of what our lives can be. And so that solidarity message I found really powerful. Also, and admittedly because I come out of a spiritual background, was probably looking for it. I was really struck by how many of the interviews ended up talking about the role of spirituality and shaping people’s values. And in a couple of instances, organizers said, what my religion taught me was that religion needs to be challenged. And building up that muscle was what helped me challenge systems of injustice in other places. But others said that their journey with their faith tradition was what guided them into the work of labor organizing.
[00:32:52] Sandhya Jha: And then that third bucket of struggle, I think is the lived experience of how [00:33:00] hard it is to take on oppressive systems of capitalism, how hard it is to take on decks that are stacked against us and what it means to have somewhere to turn in the midst of those struggles. I will say there were also a couple of lessons I was surprised by because my South Asian identity is so central to my organizing work, I was expecting to collect stories of people who were proud South Asians, who were also proud to be involved in the labor movement. And I assumed that they would see connections between those things because I certainly do. But what I discovered is for the most part, they were like, Yeah, I’m South Asian. I’m not saying that doesn’t matter, but it’s not super relevant to my organizing work. My organizing work is about [00:34:00] our cross-cultural solidarity. And that was something I hadn’t been expecting that emerged as I did those interviews. Interesting. And I’m really grateful that the South Asian American Digital Archives likes telling all of the stories because I think I promised them that what they were going to get was, we’re proud to be South Asian organizers. And what I got was, yeah, we’re South Asian, we’re proud to be organizers. And the that SAADA is like, yeah, that’s part of our story too.
[00:34:28] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that’s, that I think is incredibly important. We have this really, amazing series of audio clips from your SAADA interviews that really represent a lot of the themes that you were highlighting about solidarity, spirit, and struggle. And I’m just really excited to play them as we talk through these larger themes in your larger project and the experience of South Asian labor organizers.
[00:34:55] Swati Rayasam: This clip is from somebody that you and I both know, which [00:35:00] is Prem Pariyar. I was so thrilled that Prem was a part of your project. I think Prem is an incredible organizer, so yeah tell our listeners a little bit about Prem.
Prem
[00:35:09] Sandhya Jha: It was pretty exciting to get to work with him you know, he moved here from Nepal and in Nepal he had been a Dalit activist and he came to the United States and had this notion that in the United States there is no caste and he was disabused of that notion very quickly as a restaurant worker dealing with anti Nepali bias in Indian restaurants, dealing with caste bias in Nepali restaurants, well dealing with Caste bias in all the restaurants.
[00:35:35] Swati Rayasam: Hey, everyone, Narrator Swati here, I just wanted to put in an explanatory comma, a la W Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu to talk about some terms you just heard. Sandhya referenced that Prem was a Dalit activist and also talked about Caste bias. For those of you who don’t know, Caste is a violent system of oppression and exclusion, which governs social status in many south Asian countries, although it is [00:36:00] most commonly associated with India. It works on an axis of purity and pollution, and it’s hereditary. At the top of the caste system are Brahmins, by the way Sandhya and I are both Brahmin, and not even at the bottom, but completely outside of the system are Dalits who were previously referred to by the slur untouchable and Adivasis who are indigenous to South Asia.
[00:36:25] Swati Rayasam: Despite being “illegal” Caste bias, Caste Oppression, Caste apartheid, are still prevalent, both in South Asia and as Sandhya references, in the United States. It manifests in many ways that people experience racial injustice, via socioeconomic inequality, systemic and interpersonal violence, occupation, and through the determination of marriage and other relationships. You can learn more at EqualityLabs.org and APEX currently has a show in the works that delves into this more deeply. Now. Back to Sandhya
[00:36:58] Sandhya Jha: What is [00:37:00] delightful to me is Prem went on to get an MSW and is building out amazing mental health resources for Dalit communities for the Nepali community. Seeking to build out a program where there are more and more people in Nepal who are trained with MSW skills.
[00:37:21] Sandhya Jha: I met with one of his professors from CSU East Bay where he got his degree and she said, You know, that the entire Cal State system is adding caste to its anti-discrimination policies thanks to the work he started at CSU East Bay. And it was really beautiful to hear that because the focus of my conversations with him were more around how his experiences in the restaurants led him into the solidarity work with nail salon workers.
[00:37:53] Swati Rayasam: To just, kick back to the caste abolition work that Prem has been doing, that caste abolition work [00:38:00] at CSU East Bay has been such critical work in these ongoing conversations around caste that have been in the South Asian community primarily, but have been percolating elsewhere.
[00:38:13] Swati Rayasam: You know, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Cisco systems Yep. For caste discrimination in their workplace and there have been all these conversations around caste and tech work and interplay that with the no tech for apartheid work. Right. That has been happening in Palestinian liberation circles. Yeah. And really building that solidarity movement. So I think that Prem is an absolute powerhouse Yeah. In that regard. But yeah, let’s listen to this clip.
[00:38:42] Prem: During that time, I got connected with other community organizer, like workers group. I got connected and so I was connected with nail salon workers, who were exploited at their workplace and with them, [00:39:00] I got to go to the capital in Sacramento. And so I thought I need to advocate for the restaurant workers. that was my first experience, like working with other workers and with the assembly members and like other other policy makers I shared what is happening what kinds of discrimination happening at the workplace. So I advocated for the restaurant workers at that time. I shared my stories and I supported the rights of nail salon workers. I was there to support them and they supported me as well, and it was wonderful. And finally that advocacy worked. And the bill was drafted and it was passed finally. And so it was huge achievement at that time.
[00:39:49] Swati Rayasam: I love that. I think that is such a perfect story of when you win, we all win.
[00:39:56] Sandhya Jha: And what I also love about it is he goes on [00:40:00] to talk about how he has remained in relationship with those nail salon workers. That they show up for each other, that they take each other food, that they show up to each other’s baby showers and birthday parties, and there’s this sense of community that emerges out of this shared struggle. And so that’s a cross-cultural campaign. They were mostly Vietnamese. There were some Bangladeshi nail salon workers, but it was mostly people from a different culture than his.
[00:40:27] Sandhya Jha: But somebody at the Asian Health Services program that he was at, saw his gifts, saw his passion, and he really responded to that in exactly, the most powerful way. I can imagine.
[00:40:38] Swati Rayasam: And I think one of the nice things as well about that is that person at Asian Health Services connected Prem in and the Nail Salon Worker group, California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, Prem came from Nepal, I’m not sure, but the extent to which his organizing background and how comfortable he was in the US organizing space around labor [00:41:00] issues was probably significantly less that worker group took it upon themselves when they saw Prem come in to say, Oh, you are advocating on behalf of restaurant workers. Great. Why don’t you join us? Let’s help support and so the nail salon workers saw Prem, saw solidarity with Prem and said, It is our responsibility mm-hmm to bring you into this space to connect you in and to move in, struggle together. Yeah. Toward our shared goals of safety, of health, of rights. Yep.
[00:41:35] Sandhya Jha: Exactly.
[00:41:36] Swati Rayasam: So, we have this clip from Daljit, tell me a little bit about Daljit.
Daljit
[00:41:42] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Daljit was an attorney who now reads tarot for people because she needed a break from the toxicity of that career and how it was taking her away from her family. Daljit is a deeply spiritual person and, [00:42:00] as I mentioned before, this theme of spirit showed up in some really beautiful ways in some of the interviews. I loved the way she understood her Sikh tradition as foundationally being connected with the land and foundationally connected with the people who work the land.
[00:42:15] Daljit: Agriculture is our culture and the religion that I was born into, Siki, the founder of that faith was a farmer. And so a lot of the scripture, the analogies, the metaphors, the poetry, the music, the songs, the boon, the traditional folk songs, that can be taunting and teasing banter, all that stuff the land is the framework for that. And my most favorite line from the Guru Granth Sahib, our holy book, is, [speaks Punjabi] and that basically means that, the waters our guru, the airs our father, but our mother is Earth. And that’s the greatest of all , and that’s adherence to ecosystem. That’s the [00:43:00] indigenous Cosmo vision that should be paramount. And that’s what I try to teach my children. And so I think that’s what I was taught as a kid without necessarily being able to pinpoint it, but it was just infused throughout our songs, our music, our food, the Harvest, there’s two times a year that our celebrations, whether it Baisakhi or Lohri. It’s so connected to the harvest and what is coming out of the soil or not. And you’re connected to the cycles of nature.
[00:43:28] Swati Rayasam: The connection between nature land, spirituality the way that it shows up in so many faith backgrounds and so many faith organizers, I think is really, really beautiful.
[00:43:41] Sandhya Jha: And I love that Daljit Kaursoni who was raised in this tradition, has found her way to Buddhism and is raising her kids with those connections, but without ever losing this grounding in the liberation of the land, the liberation of the [00:44:00] people.
[00:44:00] Sandhya Jha: And for that to be a key element of her spirituality, even as her spirituality evolves, I think it’s pretty powerful.
Tafadar
[00:44:08] Sandhya Jha: One of the other people I got to interview ,Tafadar, he’s a Bangladeshi American in the building trades and is a deeply committed Marxist. For me, this was a particularly exciting interview because I’m Bengali, so from West Bengal, before partition, Bangladesh and what’s now West Bengal, were one state. And so it was fun to get to talk with him and to say, Hey, this is our legacy as Bengalis is radical worker organizing.
[00:44:40] Sandhya Jha: And I remember saying to him, Some people in the building trades are not super excited to be working with brown people. And some people in the building trades are a little biased against women. And as a very, very progressive South Asian? How do you navigate that [00:45:00] space?
[00:45:00] Sandhya Jha: And he said, Here’s the thing is, yeah, I organize alongside some moderate to conservative white folks from New Jersey and he said, but in the building trades, if that moderate to conservative white guy from New Jersey decides he doesn’t like my feminist politics, or he doesn’t like my brown skin, if he decides that’s a reason not to train me, he might die. And it was really interesting because even though I’ve been doing labor justice work for a long time, it was one of those moments I was like, Oh, right. Your work is very dangerous and you all have to rely on each other whether you like each other or not. That is the magic of organizing that no one ever talks about. This is why we can do cross class, cross-cultural work because literally you have to trust each other with your lives. Right. That was a really clarifying moment for me. And it was one of those interesting moments where I was like, [00:46:00] Solidarity is not a romantic thing. Uh, it is very much a matter of life and death.
[00:46:05] Sandhya Jha: And I think that is really important and that exact thing that you brought up, you don’t even have to necessarily trust somebody. Right. But you do need them. Yep. Right. And like that really clear understanding that like your fates are intertwined and it is truly in everybody’s best interest. If you are trained well, irrespective of whether or not at lunch, I’m interested in sitting anywhere near you. I think that’s really great.
[00:46:32] Sandhya Jha: One of the things that was really exciting about talking with Tafadar was the reminder that labor organizing and formal union organizing at its best can be in solidarity with other movements really worker justice and housing justice and racial justice are inseparable, on some level. And so, one of the most inspiring stories I got to hear across all of these interviews [00:47:00] was a campaign that brought together folks across the anti- gentrification, the immigrant rights, and the labor justice movement.
[00:47:14] Tafadar: It’s ironic, building affordable housing with deadly exploitation. And, um, to do this, the de blassio administration, they embark on massive major rezonings of poor areas to relax the local zoning laws to be able to bring in these developments. And a couple of years ago, my, my union in local 79’s. Took a very sharp turn towards a community organizing approach because labor can’t win on our own, and that’s the perspective that all of labor should adopt. In order to fight against the sweatshops in our industry. We united with a lot of community organizations in the South Bronx.
[00:47:53] Tafadar: We formed the South Bronx, Safe Southern Boulevard Coalition. And along with these groups, we [00:48:00] protested and did a whole lot of activism, lobbying, community organizing to stop the rezoning of Southern Boulevard, which is a massive stretch in the South Bronx, while the De Blassio administration had succeeded in another part of the Bronx where there’s like massive displacement still underway right now. And we were determined to stop it there. And it was a beautiful thing that we can unite because on our end as labor, we had to prevent all these trash companies from coming in and exploiting workers. And we were working with these tenants who are afraid of being displaced. And people generally, we do need revitalization of our neighborhoods. We do need investment. We do need things to be changed and made better. For us. If it’s not for us, if it’s done without us, then eventually we’re not even gonna be here anymore. So we had that alliance going on and not only did we manage to stop that rezoning, we also educated the local city councilman on why his position was wrong and supporting the rezoning. And he eventually completely flipped this [00:49:00] position. And now chairs the land use committee of the city council from the perspective that we educated him on, which it’s just been a very interesting dynamic. But, there’s a lot of rezoning battles all over the city that’s like the main front of anti gentrification struggles. And I’ve been watching those kinds of campaigns go on since I began organizing about 15, 16. I’ve seen very different approaches to them, but I’ve never seen any model really work until that one kicked in where Labor and the community came together. So that was one of my favorite campaigns because of that lesson that we were able to concretely put into practice and set as an example for not only for community movements all over New York City, but also for Labor.
[00:49:43] Sandhya Jha: I think this hit me in particular because I’ve done so much work around antis displacement in Oakland, and my experience has been.
[00:49:53] Sandhya Jha: That while for most of us on the ground, the connection between housing justice and labor justice is really clear. When you [00:50:00] start getting into the technical policy issues and the funding issues, the folks who are running labor and housing justice or affordable housing, struggle to find ways to collaborate. And it’s been one of my consistent heartbreaks for at least a decade at this point because I work at the intersection of those things and sometimes I despair of us being able to find ways to move forward together. And so to hear a story like this one and to be reminded at core, those justice issues can and must be we already knew, must be, but actually can function together to build a better community. That was actually really life giving for me to hear.
[00:50:45] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. And I think the point that Tafadar as well brings in the clip of just saying we knew that we could do this, but we knew we couldn’t do this without community organizing. Right? Yeah. That labor couldn’t do this alone. Yeah. [00:51:00] And I think that is a lot of what, when we talk about solidarity politics, it’s not just a backdoor way of inclusion for inclusion’s sake, we have to all do this. Actually, it is integral that all of us are involved in any of these campaigns because it impacts all of us. And because we are not going to win with only a single constituency and in the very same way that, Tafadar was identifying that labor couldn’t do that alone. in community organizing spaces that you and I have been in mm-hmm. , like we are constantly talking about how we cannot do any of this without labor. Yep. And I think a beautiful example of that is the Block the Boat campaign yeah that the Arab Resource Organizing Center, started back in 2014 and then again during 2021 to block the Zim ship from the port of Oakland. And like this community organization [00:52:00] AROC could not do that without working with the longshoreman to collaborate with the port workers. And I think that when we see the marriage of community organizing and labor organizing, that is when we get the power of grassroots organizing.
[00:52:16] Sandhya Jha: Something I wanna mention about the SAADA Fellowship that I was really grateful for: two things. First off, they did a really good job of making sure we got trained in grassroots oral history. So they took really seriously what it meant for this to be justice work. And they made sure we had exposure to methodology that was gonna lift up and honor and foster the voices of people whose stories don’t get heard often enough. And that was a really big deal to me. The other thing is they made sure that we had an advisory board, people who are in this [00:53:00] work who could help us, figure out who to talk with, who could help us build out an event strategy. And you helped me build out my advisory committee. Anibel Ferris-Comelo who is with the University of California Labor Center,
[00:53:14] Swati Rayasam: Prem Pariyar, a Nepali Dalit restaurant worker, organizer pushing for Caste as a protected category with Equality Labs, a Dalit feminist organization, and a social worker supporting the mental health needs of his and many other South Asian communities in Alameda county.
[00:53:31] Swati Rayasam: Will Jamil Wiltchko with the California Trade Justice Coalition, Terry Valen who I did a lot of organizing with at the beginning of the pandemic, around the struggles that seafarers were facing with the onset of COVID-19. And he’s the organizational director of the Filipino Community Center in San Francisco. The president of NAFCON which is the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns and just an all in all amazing organizer
[00:53:57] Sandhya Jha: the last thing I wanna mention [00:54:00] is SAADA also helped me set up a digital exhibit with Art by Madhvi Trivedi Patak and I wanted to give them a shoutout because they’re an incredible artist, but also they grew up in a working class family and didn’t get exposed to what it looks like to do labor justice. And so as they developed the artwork to go with the digital exhibit, they got to experience the possibilities of labor solidarity that they hadn’t gotten to experience as a child. And so I really loved that Madhvi was a part of this project as well
[00:54:38] Swati Rayasam: All of the clips that you shared really identifying, again, these like huge fundamental pillars of solidarity and spirit and struggle. these clips were amazing. They are so rich and so layered with all of these people’s varying and different experiences. Really showing in [00:55:00] all of these different walks of life at all of these ages with all of these experiences, that all of these people have this unified and shared identity in struggle, in spirit, and in solidarity for liberation.
[00:55:14] Sandhya Jha: And one of the things that I think is worth celebrating is whether they see it as part of their South Asian identity or not. People who do identify as South Asian now have this resource that says there’s a home for you in the labor movement. Yes, there are. There is a value to your voice. There is a value to your wisdom, there’s a value to your experience in the labor movement.
[00:55:36] Swati Rayasam: I think it’s a beautiful project. Sandhya, I think it has been an amazing amount of work I’ve watched you do over the past year. These stories are so wonderful. I really encourage people to check it out. Where can they find your project?
[00:55:49] Sandhya Jha: The website’s www.saada.org/acfp [00:56:00] /exhibit/solidarity-forever. We’ll put that in the notes. We’ll definitely put that in the show notes.
[00:56:05] Swati Rayasam: I just wanna make sure that we replug your podcast Bending Toward Justice Avatar, The Last Air Bender for the Global Majority and you can find that at tinyurl.com slash ATLA podcast, Capital P (tinyurl.com/ATLAPodcast). And then the last thing that I also wanna make sure that we plug is Without Fear Consulting.
[00:56:27] Sandhya Jha: I love working with folks who know that their organization could be a little more liberative, and are, just not quite sure where to start. I love working with a team of folks who want to be about the work of incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into the DNA of their organization and I love setting them up so that they can keep doing that long after I’m working with them. So please do find me withoutfearconsulting.com. If you’re interested in that.
[00:56:58] Swati Rayasam: Amazing. Sandhya [00:57:00] Jha, Pastor, Racial Justice consultant, podcast host, archivist, singer songwriter, amazing cook. You can do it all. I think you deserve a nap. it has been amazing talking to you. I am so glad to be able to hear about your project and also to hear a lot more about your life.
[00:57:23] Sandhya Jha: Yay. Thank you so much.
[00:57:25] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night.
The post APEX Express 1.5.23 South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement appeared first on KPFA.
APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
This week’s episode highlights Asian Refugees United (ARU)’s CAMP for Emerging Leaders. Robin Gurung interviews three past participants: Nawal Rai, Chandra Bastola and Kamana Dhimal. CAMP for Emerging Leaders is a 5-day leadership training workshop designed to build a network of vibrant community leaders, organizers, artists, and activists in the Bhutanese Community currently living in the United States. Our mission is to train Bhutanese community leaders, organizers, artists and activists to become agents for change. CAMP is an immersion experience into many elements of personal and community transformation. Asian Refugees United builds intergenerational and inter-ethnic power for positive lasting change through sharing art, healing, culture and political engagement. Started in 2007 as a project of Forward Together, ARU addresses workers’ rights and community health issues in general by building the voice, visibility and power of Bhutanese and Vietnamese immigrant and refugee communities in East Oakland. Donate to their work here: https://sites.google.com/caasf.org/aru/donateAACRE Thursdays is monthly radio show featuring an organization from the AACRE: Asian American for Civil Rights and Equality. AACRE Thursdays premiers every third Thursday of the month at 7pm. Find more APEX Express Shows here. Transcript [12/29/23] ARU “Camp Leadership”
[00:00:00]
Hello everyone. Welcome to acrete on Epic Express Radio. I’m your host, Robin Goong, and I’m from United, one of the 11 organizations from the Asian-American Civil Rights Equality Network, also known as the Network. Today we are reflecting on Asian and refugees United Camp for emerging leaders, and we will be interviewing na.
And to share about [00:01:00] their experiences of participating at Asian Refugees United Annual Youth Leadership Camp as Refugees United, also known as aru, is an art and healing leadership center. Our mission is to cultivate and rest, restore wholeness in communities impacted by displacement for embodied training programs, collective power building, ancestor practices, and connection to.
We envision a home and belonging for all are. We started in 2016 in the San Francisco Bay area. Currently we are operating in two states. Our headquarter in California and our youth center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
as in Refugees United Designs, and produces a yearlong youth leadership training program called Camp for Immers Leaders, also known as. Camp is an immersion experience into the many elements of personal and community [00:02:00] transformation. This program is designed to build a network of vibrant community, of refugee leaders, organizers, artists, and activists to become, as in each year, the theme and the focus of the program are developed collaboratively by project coordinators and participants to be responsive to the needs of the c.
This year, we had about 20 young and amazing leaders participate in our program. Each of these participants were divided into free groups based on their interest areas, his storytelling group, mental health group, and educational group. Tonight we have novel arrived from the Storytelling group, VA from the Mental Health Group, and Kamal from the Education Group.
I want to welcome each one of you on this. So, Welcome everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank [00:03:00] you so much. All right. How about we begin with, um, each one of your introductions, tell us who you are.
Yes sir. Alright, Sandra, you wanna begin? Yeah, so hi everyone. Uh, my name is John Vato. I am one of the former refugees from, uh, Nepal. I was born in refugee camp and lived there for like 14 years. After that, uh, we migrated to United States, uh, from league, uh, um, at the beginning we came to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Grant, uh, president Biden was born there.
And, um, I, I lived there for like, I think eight years. I did my high school there and went to college after that, after graduating college, then, uh, we moved to [00:04:00] Harrisburg. So currently I’m living in Harrisburg and uh, I’m also working in one of the major pharmaceutical company as a business analyst. Um, and also I’m currently working as a volunteer in one of our community organization at a religious organization, and I’m working there as a media coordinator.
Uh, that’s pretty much it from my site. Thank you, Sandra. Thank you, Noel. Do you wanna go next?
Hi, um, I’m Noal Wright. Uh, I am a 21 years old college student. Um, I currently attend Des Moines, uh, area Community College here in Des Moines, Iowa. And I was born and raised in Nepal, uh, in pad camp where I spent, um, almost. Uh, 12 years of life there in, uh, in camp, and I moved here in [00:05:00] Des Moines back in 2013.
Um, since then, I have been living, uh, in Iowa, in Des Moines, Iowa. And I have been right now just focusing on school and also trying to work with Asian, um, Asian refugee, United to like volunteer and give my time to my community. Um, so.
Thanks all. Hello. I’m the last participant for this interview. I was born in, also the Bhutanese refugee camps and my journey to the United States started when I was only. Five years old and so many people ask me like, what do you remember about Nepal? And my response is always the same. I was so young, so like a lot of my memories started here.
Although I am still fluent in both Nepali and English because my parents never allowed me to like feel otherwise. But I don’t really have a lot [00:06:00] of memories from the camps. I do have, uh, ever like remember everything from like here, from like starting kindergarten here, all the way to where I am currently.
So I’m currently a senior in Penn Manor High School, which is a high school in suburban Lancaster. I don’t know if you guys are ever, ever heard of the area, but it is a small city in central Pennsylvania. And I’m planning for college right now and a u has kind of helped with that to see that I really love social work, so I’m planning to major in social work and also be on the pre-med track.
Great. Thank you. Thank you. All of you. Um, I mean, all of you mentioned that, uh, you all. We’re born in refugee camps in Nepal. I mean, KA I started, uh, sharing about some of the experiences like, um, I’m curious, like, and [00:07:00] um, do you have any, do you wanna share any experiences of grow up in camps? Um, any fond memories or challenges?
Um, yeah, I can, I can go with that. Um, when I think about back home, um, back home in refugee camp sometime, like, it feels like a dream and like, that sounds so cliche, but it’s like sometimes it feels like this is a life that, you know, I. Like, I didn’t, I don’t feel like I lived that life, um, in this life, you know, because it just, the life that I live now is so, so, so different than the life that I grew up, the place that I grew up in.
So, um, such thing just like, just housing, it’s like, you know, talking about housing, um, the house is like, There’s things that we have right now. Um, let’s talk about those little things like heater or coolers, you [00:08:00] know, like that little basic needs, uh, to survive. Though we, those were things not very necessary, um, for the temperature that we lived in, um, that we grew up in.
But still, like those little things that really make me think sometimes and how, um, things that I take, uh, for granted now, nowadays, um, and going up in Nepal, I feel like there’s just. Feeling of nostalgia, like, um, that I, that I get just like thinking about eating, you know, having to get to eat one piece of candy was that would bring so much happiness and, you know, that is not the same and, uh, anymore and it just, I miss, I miss being grateful.
I. Not saying that I’m not grateful right now, now just the fact that like, you know, I was able to find that little happiness or I was able to appreciate those little things. Um, so those things are definitely something that [00:09:00] I miss a lot about. Um, because here our life is, our life really does depend on like, , we’re always busy and I feel like we kind of miss track of focusing on little things, being, um, thankful for the little things that we have.
Um, and yeah, that’s, that’s something I really miss and I remember just, um, being happy and like the most without having this reason to like, you know, to, uh, especially like, uh, anything that was. Like anything big or anything, you know, like, especially with the money and stuff, we didn’t grow up with the money and it, it’s, I I say the feeling, I miss the feeling of just being home and like feeling of, uh, being connected to the people that I lived around with.
Um, so that’s kind of where my, a lot of my memories comes from. That feeling of that community and just being surrounded by people that. [00:10:00] that knows, you know, that you feel that makes you feel like you are home. So that’s, that would be my take on that.
Thank you so much, Nolo. How about Chandra? Uh, so I seriously feel like I’m missing a lot. Like I wanted to, uh, really tell life again. You know, it’s so much, uh, memory attached. It’s emotion and everything. Like from your childhood to the teenage point, right? And going through those little, uh, little hurdles and everywhere, going out of the boundary, playing with kids like wish to play the ball, you know, with, with the socks, you know, wish to make a ball with the , with the socks and the refu wrapping papers and everything, right.
And just running down. When it’s raining, this splashing [00:11:00] the water and then swimming in river. So it was a lot of fun. I mean, I wish I can live that life again, you know? And which is truly missing here. I mean, we don’t normally get to experience that in here. Um, when comparing to a lot of kids nowadays, you know, we, they are raise, they’re like raising in America currently.
They don’t have much option other than. Playing on phone and they don’t have touch to the nature, they can’t connect to nature as they only go maybe vacation once a month, or not even once a month. I mean once a year, right? So, That kind of the environmental touch, the sense in your life is missing. And I wish I can relie that.
Jlu, I mean, a lot of memories and beautiful, uh, time is spent with other friend and neighborhood, um, that, that the brotherhood that we share in community. So yeah,[00:12:00]
I, I certainly miss that. Um, Time that, yeah, we used to spend in the open field. Um, definitely the sense of community, right? Mm-hmm. , um, yeah, and like novel said, the sense of appreciation to folks, uh, the people who have, uh, lives in data camps, right? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Um, Kana already kind of started, uh, on this. Um, I wanted to kind of hear.
The experiences of, uh, uh, that in, during the transition, like from the refugee camp to resettlement in the United States, like what was it like, what do you remember? Uh, can you share, uh, some of the experiences of, uh, the, that transition from the camp to the United? Sure, [00:13:00] of course. I really appreciate hearing about Chandra and all those experiences because for me, I didn’t live those experiences by actually living it because I don’t remember it.
But I lived through those experiences because of those stories that I hear. So it’s always so nice to hear about my birth country. For me. Coming to the United States at the young of age of five, I also had two older siblings. Right. And for them, I feel like the transition might have been a little bit harder, but for me, I got out of E SSO when I was in the second grade.
I was told I was always bright. So for me it was really easy to catch the like, Culture here, and also to learn the language. But for me, I just really struggled with, uh, I imposter syndrome. And I also really struggled with like the differences in culture, the taboos that my parents would tell me. And then I’d go outside of my house and I’d be like, that’s not what’s true out there.
Like I talked a lot [00:14:00] about. Menstrual struggles that I’ve had before with like the taboos and stuff, and a lot of my writing that I do because I feel like it’s really important to acknowledge that because in, um, the Nepali society, it’s told that like menstruation is impure and stuff like that. But as soon as I’d like step outside of my house, Like everyone, even on my period, they would still hug me.
I would still be able to eat with them. In fact, I was working at like a fast food place where I was making food for people during my menstruation cycle back at home. I was not allowed to sit at the table. So I think things like that are just what like really touched me. And I just struggled with my identity until, I think it was like middle school when I transitioned from like a city school until more of like a suburban, rural.
Um, school district. And from there, that’s when I felt like culture shock, because while the city school was really [00:15:00] populated with like racial ethnicities, my um, rural schools were more like filled with white kids. And that’s when I felt like I was like a sore thumb in the midst of like so many. Blonde hair and like white skinned people.
I felt really left out and I struggled really, really hard then. But then after I got through that phase and after I accepted my identity and I learned a lot more about my background and the reason why we have menstruation. Taboo was actually that it’s for sanitary purposes, right? It’s not because I was impure, it was because before they didn’t have stuff like menstruation, pads.
They didn’t have tampons. So that’s why they would keep the girls a little bit separate from their families. So after I learned the reality instead of the taboo, that’s when I learned to accept myself. That’s when I learned to accept the culture, and that’s also when I learned to educate others and embrace my culture.
So for me, it was just learning. [00:16:00] A lit a little bit more about what I didn’t know and also getting a lot closer to my family. Wow. What, what is Ernie Counter? Uh, thank you so much for sharing. Um, Sandra, uh, and, um, how was your experiences like during the, the transition time?
Do one of you want to share, um, transition time from the refugee camp to the Newland, uh, the United States of America? Uh, what was it like? Um, Experiences or the emotions, the challenges, or any fond memories that you want to share?[00:17:00]
Yeah, so, um, initially, um, if you wanna start, start from beginning, I think, um, at the initial phase, right, it did not meet our expectation cuz uh, Back in the camp when we were given orientation about the America, right. Uh, we were shown a different picture of the America. And then when, when it came to the real, it was not as what they saw in the picture, right in, in those videos, like, um, In orientation they had so, like, so much luxury and everything, like the, the boss would come to pick your kids, take you to home, right?
Uh, take you, take, take them to school, bring them back to home, and all those facilities that they were, uh, swinging in those orientation. But um, when we came to the reality that was not true. I mean, it could be true for some people, but for, in our [00:18:00] case, that was not true. So we had come to different experience.
We had to walk to the school every day, and my school was like, I think two miles away from my house. So I had to wake up early in the morning and go to school, walk two mile, come back, two mile, right? And it was so challenging. And then, We didn’t even know. I didn’t even know how to use the public transportation at that time.
And on top of that, like blending into the new culture and speaking English was the end of the hurdle to come over, right? Cuz uh, we had a British English accent and then it does not match with Americans. So people normally used to make fun of you and being harassed and his school were taking public trans transportation.
So there are a lot of challenges at the beginning. And as, as a time went through and then we started to learn about new culture and started knowing more about the cities and [00:19:00] how things work. Then it eventually started getting better. So it takes at least three, around like two to three years to adapt to new cultures and learning new things in community.
Yeah, so it was initially challenging for me.
Yeah. Um, I can go home. I’m sorry. Sure, go ahead. No, sorry to cut you off that. Um, but yeah, I totally agree. Um, kind of just piggyback, piggyback, uh, piggyback off like just what Kana said, and, uh, Chandra, like for me, it wa like the transition to the state was, uh, it was like a climbing a mountain, basically just because of, um, lot of things.
It was just a big cultural shock. First of all, like go back in Nepal. I was a very, um, not go America like, and uh, like I was kinda like, um, against Immigra immigrating through the states. [00:20:00] And like I, um, which I don’t re uh, don’t really remember exactly why, but, um, coming to coming here and it’s, it wa it’s a different experience, you know, like you come to this, to this place and space where, um, you have only.
Fantasize of like, you know, that you have only heard of, um, through stories, through movies and, and like when you actually get there, it’s not. It’s not all that, you know, it’s not all the fancy, um, fancy, like fancy dinners or like, you know, this nice, beautiful big houses or like this and that. So like to come to the states and.
Like being put into this house, this, um, like, you know, this house where basically it’s a house of cockroaches and like, um, all this insects in the house. Like, you know, seeing [00:21:00] that and experiencing those, uh, those experience when I first moved to the states and. It was like, wow, this is not what I expected.
And that’s not the, and that’s like just a little thing. And I feel like co and coming to, uh, coming here, and I have always knew that and I was different. I always felt different. I always been different than, uh, than other Norm, uh, nor those other kids that I grew up playing. You know, while my, uh, guy’s friend, uh, when we were young, one of my guy’s friend go play soccer and go play sports.
I loved dance. I would go. With my girlfriends. Um, and I would do theaters, you know, all those stuff. Like it’s, and like I never realized what it was, you know? Um, and coming to the states and seeing, understanding, uh, What that part of me, you know, that part of me who wanted to do that, uh, that part of me, that when a guy, uh, wa a guy and a girl walked, passed by, I’m [00:22:00] like, oh, this is a really good looking man.
Like, where did that come from? Those kind of questions. Like, I was living in this, um, this, this life where I really didn’t know who I was. And though there was a lot of challenges that came, um, came, came, came to me, you know, uh, that I had to. Uh, realizing my sexuality, you know, and finally coming to the term where, to myself, where, okay, maybe I am d I am actually different than everyone in that way, you know, like I realized I was gay and that was not the end of it.
I was my sexuality. You know, after that I had to navigate my way through how do I, how do I, uh, explain this to my family? You know, how do I explain this to my community? Um, so. Took a really big toll on me, especially when I was in high school. So, and I definitely went, uh, through a very deep depression, um, where, um, like I [00:23:00] was not doing very good and like, you know, and there was some substances I was using as like, it was just like to cope with things and it just didn’t, it was not the ideal situation for this immigrant child who.
Came to the states, you know, and, um, had with this big dreams, but I’m very, but with all that, I’m thankful to say that I always had, um, really great support system. Either it was with my friends, like coming to high school and like, you know, all that. So I, I was very involved throughout high school. Like, you know, I, I need, I knew that, you know, I had to do extra hard.
I needed to do, go, uh, Do things, get involved as much as possible and get great good grades and like, you know, that mindset of like, okay, I need to do something for my family because I’m the first one, uh, to go into of going off to college and doing all this. So there, so it was, it was a lot of challenges that way, you know, and.
just like participating in school. Like I would dance [00:24:00] in the morning at like, you know, practice from like 6:00 AM I had to find a ride way to school at 6:00 AM like, you know, to my uncle who would go to work at 4:00 AM So like he would drop me off my, uh, off to my cousin who lived to my, who lived by school and had to walk from there at my practice.
Um, Like from taking a 30, 40 minute nap and like after that out of theater practice at night until like 6:00 PM and then get a, a transportation, like the public ride back home and make sure like, you know, I cook food from my family before they get home, um, at, before they get home from work. So it was just, Of it was a way like, you know, it was a very crazy, crazy way, but I feel very, um, I feel stable with where I am right now and like I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without those experience that I had to go through.
Um, Though I do not wish all this to anyone, but you know, it, I, I do wanna say like it will get better once you come to the term to accept for who you are and like, you know, [00:25:00] acknowledging that your weakness is, but also knowing that you know it’s okay and it’s okay to be this and be. . So yeah, that was really something.
And just coming, having a family who really does support you and even though they don’t underst like they don’t understand, they will try to listen to you and, you know, try to get you. So that was something that I’m really grateful for, for, and yeah. I’m sorry I, that took a little too long. . No worries.
Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing all. Um, I came to us in 2012 and before. Coming to here, uh, you know, Martin Luther King Jr. Was my hero. And I thought, like when, you know, reading his biography, his work, I thought, you know, the, uh, the history around, um, uh, racism, um, kind of, um, had [00:26:00] already. Uh, because of Martin Luther King.
That was my understanding. That was what I had heard. And, and when I came, um, like early 2012 when, when I started working in the grocery store, like, um, kind of most of the customers, uh, used to kind of like ask me where I’m. Like, uh, and being a, uh, the, the idea of identity, um, where I’m from has always been a big crisis in my life.
And I’m sure, um, you know, most of you had, um, if you remember growing up in the refugee camp, um, I’m sure most of you have similar experiences. Um, I wanted to, I’m curious like, you know, um, My observation, um, the early days of my, um, experience in this [00:27:00] country was, um, I didn’t know that this country is so black and white, like the Wrestl divide, um, the cancel between one race versus another race.
And then, and then I wasn’t aware of like, you know, Fall into the brown category and, and then there is this like, big question like, you know, where do we exist between this, uh, between black and white? Um, um, I’m kind of like curious about your own observation, um, when you look at the larger, uh, scenario of this country.
Um, did, did you have any. Observation around that on the,[00:28:00]
any one of you? Yeah. So, um, I normally encounters, um, scenarios where, I’ve been labeled as an Indian, you know, , so it’s very st stereotypical. It’s so unfortunate. Um, but mm-hmm. , the people in this country, they does not realize that the country is built on the base of immigrant blood. You know, so all America, it’s, it’s all a part of melting pot.
Whatever concept that we bring in, it’s. So the man founding pillar, right? The standing pillars of America is based on the immigration, right? It’s from immigrant. Mm-hmm. , no matter, like you are born here, but your, uh, ancestors are from somewhere else, you know, unless you are a Native American, then that’s a different case.
So it’s very unfortunate that the discrimination is still exist and people still [00:29:00] judge you. By your cover, you know, so yeah, I have, I have seen that so many time in, in workplace, in a school, in grocery, I mean, normally you get treated so differently, even if you were like a hoodie to a store and then you are like a different color, they instantly judge you right there and then, uh, even like a storekeeper or they’ll have ice on you no matter where you go around the store.
So I have faced that personally. So, yep.
Yeah. Um, yeah, go piggyback, uh, of what Chandra said. Like, I, so I work at Target, like in a retailer and stuff, so, and those things are very, um, common thing that I have to witness from lot of my white team members lot of the time, um, especially racially profiling, um, customers. It’s. and [00:30:00] like, not to give them excuse, like not to excuse their action.
Like a lot of the time it’s so for white. Um, from my experience, like I, I’ve been like, I was very, I, I got involved with white folks when I, when I first moved, I state it was just, um, for me to be comfortable in this, you know, to, to this new place. So I definitely switched my . Switch my, uh, what, I guess like culturally, I switched myself culturally when I first moved to the state, so I got to witness a lot of things I feel like from the both side and like, so, and, and those times where like I had to cut some people off from my life because I, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, uh, accept a lot of the things that would, I, it was not something a lot of the time intentionally, it was just something that was engraved in their thing.
It, it’s like they wouldn’t even realize the impact they. , like with the words that they’re saying, like, um, just for example, a lot of [00:31:00] the time this, uh, the white folks in my, uh, work, uh, they will be watching people closely to the, uh, mostly like a lot of the time it’s always bipo people, you know? And it’s really frustrating to see that, um, See, see that, and because I do have friends who are, um, who are black, you know, we’re brown, who even Nepali friends who have a very darker tone than, um, than some of us, you know?
And like even my little sister, she has a way darker tone than, oh, than me or my little brother. So I think this, uh, this stereotypes and things that really does impact our everyday life and just like being, especially for me and my personal level, I. , like I try to connect with people through experience more than, um, the racial and geograph geographical, uh, place that we’re born in.
Because I feel like when, when I do that, I just find it hard for me, uh, for me to, uh, connect with people or, uh, you know, to find that. Feeling of home or like [00:32:00] finding that connection with people. Because when I think that way, it’s just like, oh, they’re not Nepali. You know, they wouldn’t, they will never understand me.
But I try to listen to other Bipo people, um, and their stories and try to like, you know, empower each other to, uh, what we can do, what, uh, like actions that we can take to do better. So I think, um, this, the, the racial. Tension bet, uh, in America? I don’t, it has been better, I feel like, from when I, when I first came, but I don’t think it’s gonna go anywhere anytime soon.
But I feel like this collective, uh, like, you know, learning of each other’s culture and like learning and just respecting, um, respecting each other is gonna help us move forward. I feel like.
Thank you Noel and Sandra for sharing. You are listening to Apex Express and K P 4 94 [00:33:00] 0.1. 89.3 KP fp and online at kpfa Doz. Stay tuned in for more about Arrows Scam for Immers Leaders Reflection.
Ka Uh, how about, um, I. I mean, three of you are part of, were part of the Arrows Youth Leadership Camp, uh, 2022 cohort. Um, Kamara, do you wanna kind share with us, uh, your intention to join Arrows Youth Leadership Camp and share some of your experiences being part of the leadership camp? Absolutely. So going back to.
Last question. So for racism, I feel like I really, really struggled to find my community within the school because I never felt like I was a part of one of them. I try to find friends, I try to make friends. I’m like really outgoing. But neither with the teachers [00:34:00] or the students. Did I ever get the opportunity to connect?
And you think like, I went here from fifth grade, so it would’ve been easier to integrate into the culture and stuff, but I never felt like I belong there. And even now, I. Do go to high school, but I do Don normal, so I try to like be out of the high school as much as I can because some of my hardest struggles I feel like, have been inside those school walls because even talking to teachers, I never felt like heard or felt recognized instead of, I always felt like I was like undermined, and so I reached out from my community outside of the school walls.
So I really, really tried to. A part of the Nepali community as much as I could, like speaking, Nepali, being, seeing someone who was Nepali in the halls, that would always brighten up my day because it felt like that’s a part of my identity. So, uh, I joined a r u with the intention to meet new people [00:35:00] that were from the same background that I was, because that’s what makes me feel valid.
And I was really interested in the leadership camp because I wanted to grow. I wanted to learn about myself, and I was already doing some stuff in the community for my community, but I also wanted to learn more. I wanted to mentors. I wanted to be inspired. And I think after going to the camp, that’s exactly what a R u did for me.
It helped me re. The problems that we have in our society and how I can not only just acknowledge it, but become a part of the solution.
Thank you Pamela, for sharing. How about what was your intention and um, can you please share, share some of the experiences being part of the nuclear?[00:36:00]
Sorry, I can go . I can go. Um, first, um, like, yeah, so my in first intention, uh, was. To, uh, reconnect with my roots and, um, to my, to the, uh, to Bhutanese community. Um, like I had mentioned earlier, I, after I moved to this stage, just, um, because of my sexuality, one of the big reason was my sexuality. That really made me very, uh, distant from my community.
So, I just completely shot myself from going to Nepal events. Like, you know, hey, like just even reaching out to like Nepali friends or like, even I moved to the States, I had no connection with my Nepal, like friends from Nepal or like friends that had moved to the States with like before I did. You know, like I used to reconnect with them, uh, in the beginning of the years when I first moved in.
Um, and like after realizing that my, uh, about my sexuality and I just completely shut [00:37:00] that off. Like after that it was just me and American friends, you know? And like that’s, I lived my life that way. Um, I lived as like the, uh, quote unquote American teen li um, teens life, uh, when I was, um, when I was in high school.
Uh, even. In college, like beginning of college. And not until like, you know, recent, really recently, 20 20, 20 19, um, being in college, that kind of really made me realize, what, what do I really want to do with life? And like, you know, uh, what, what am I gonna do and who I am? Those questions started popping off and one of the main reasons a lot of this stuff also happened because of like a lot of those.
Activism that was arising against, um, black Li against the police brutality and the, the unfair treatment of black, uh, black individuals by the law enforcement. And with Black Lives Matter moment rising up and with Covid, with a, [00:38:00] like the Asian hate, all those stuff really put me in this place to like, make me think about like my whole life, you know, and where do I, where do I come from, who I am and.
like at, at that point I had, uh, my family had knew who I was and like, you know, I was being more comfortable of being myself and having conversation with my families about just our histories and all those stuff. So, and then Aru came in, uh, which I knew for a long time, but this year I. My uncle sent me an email, uh, messaged me and was like, Hey, said, sent, like, do this.
And I was like, oh my God. Yeah. And then I looked up and it was just exactly what I needed at the right, like, you know, the, the perfect time timing because I had opportunity, uh, before, but my mindset was not there to do those kind of activism, like, um, and I always did have that place for it. But this, um, and just having this experience this year, just.
Totally [00:39:00] like it changed me in a way, like, you know, it, it made me see my community, uh, from the side that I have never seen, like, you know, the side of, like, especially with the hi, like the, the traumas that my community had to deal with because of the displacement from Bhutan and moving to the states and I, I really just started, started dissecting myself.
History and like, you know, how it’s impacting me and my family and like my community. So that was definitely one of the main reasons I wanted to join, um, to learn about myself, you know, because I had questions, um, of why I am and I still do so. But I think, um, since I started wor uh, being part of aru, I, a lot of this.
Questions are being answered for me and I, I, yeah, that, and I hope that we can keep working, um, working with, I, I hope to keep working with Arrow in Future and have, uh, make [00:40:00] someone like, who felt like you know me, who feels like me in future, to make them feel connected to our community for our future generation.
So that’s really something that I am very grateful for, aro, for making me, bringing me back to. To my community, you know, to bringing back to my home, I would say. Thank you. Thank you. Sandra, how about you? Do you wanna share? Yeah, so, uh, For me, I think I like wanted to really my leadership life, you know, cuz uh, in the past I have attended a few leadership camp and I have been mentor of leadership camp and, um, and I was missing that experience.
You know, it, it went a long time. The first camp that I did was back in 2011 as a student. It was a migrant leadership camp in Pennsylvania. Right. It was a six day camp. Which happened in [00:41:00] Millersville University on Lancaster. Um, so yeah, I was missing those experience and I just wanted to make a new connection and then see, um, like what problems that our community are facing, what I can do maybe, you know, try to embol in it.
Uh, it particular like triggered me from after the, the, the, the pandemic hit cuz. Most of us were literally living in case, right? Where like I isolated for like, uh, two years. And then normally somebody recommended, I mean, to the camp, uh, , it’s like, why don’t you join the camp? And I was like, okay. So I’ve been in case for a long time, I have not make an interaction like social interaction with people and just wanted to make a new connection and see how I can blend into the.
Community, you know, as a new identity cuz uh, I didn’t have the, uh, my spiritual identity [00:42:00] in past when I used to did, uh, when I did those kind of a camp. And then I was just wondering, like, I was just testing myself. Will I be able to fit in because, uh, people normally kind of, you know, criticize you’re looking.
Your face joing, like, what are you doing? What, what are you wearing that aren’t you missing your life being spiritual or like trying to be religious? So I just wanted to taste that on myself. So that’s the initial reason to join the camp. Then I was very glad that it did meet my expectations and camp people were very nice and a friendly, they gave my space.
So yeah, I was very happy about it and I did make a, uh, lifelong connection. In the camp. So it’s really good and I’m very happy about it. Thank you. I’m, I’m also very happy that you all joined our leader camp. Um, [00:43:00] I know, uh, by the, uh, middle of the leadership training program, we divided, um, the participants into three groups.
Um, Storytelling group, mental health group and education group. Can you tell us more about your group and the, um, issues that your group is trying to address? Kana, do you, do you wanna begin? Sure. I could start us off. So for me, I, we were able to pick the groups that we pro. Prioritize. And for me, education was really on the top because for me, I always felt that there was a barrier between my parents and I.
And although they’re so, so supportive and they’re just amazing with that, they are illiterate. And my father was the oldest of his family, and my mother was also the eldest of her family. [00:44:00] So neither of them got to attend school at. So for me, I also felt like education was a barrier, which is why I, I wanted to explore a little more into that disparity.
And after, um, talking to our previous mentors that have gone through this camp program before, they identified that there was a large group of high school dropout rates in Harrisburg. So after that, we, um, spent some time. Trying to do surveys and stuff so we could see exactly what was the problem.
Because after conversations with the leaders in Harrisburg, also, we discovered that like they knew that this was a evident problem and stuff like that, but they weren’t aware of why. So we were like, why not start at the population that’s impacted the most? Right. So we started with the high school kids and.
We launched a survey, the results told us back that yes, this was an issue, [00:45:00] and that there was things that, hello?
Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I’m so sorry. So, We found out that like the issues were prominent in high school and we’ve mainly focused on launching it in the summer, so we had a little bit difficulties getting enough participants, but at the end we did get like a good amount and we found out that it was because of finance stuff, because they weren’t able to get resources that they need and our team and a R.
Joined together to now open a resource center in Harrisburg, which I think is so inspiring. I’m so ready for the next step.
Great. Thank you. Thank you Kana for sharing. Um, Chandra, do you wanna [00:46:00] talk about the mental health group? Yes. So, um, I was part of Mental Health Group and as you know, Our people have been, have been through like a lot of difficulties in their life from like flooding, from country, uh, and then spending their life as a refusing.
And then after that they had to overcome another hurdle moving to the, moving to the new country, which they have never thought up, where it does not match their religion culture. So it’s totally different, right? And then there has been a lot of trauma, people who are torture and they have like lots of thing going on and does not matter, like whichever is there, right?
So, so mental, mental health was one of the use issue. And normally in community there is a huge tabby about it. Like [00:47:00] people doesn’t know, like how to acknowledge it or they don’t think it exists. And, um, that’s really concerning and it’s, it’s hurting people day by day internally, but they does not realize that it’s been harming them.
So we just wanted to rate some awareness regarding that. So, um, so in past sessions in our leadership camp, we tend to focus on mainly the youth section, the teenagers. So, We decided to do a small research based on the substance substances abuse with the teen. Um, so what, what, what is causing them to have such a problem?
And for me, the reason behind me joining in mental group, mental health group was that. I believe like the spiritual healing could be also the one of the potential solution to overcome that issue. [00:48:00] So I thought, why not? Maybe I can repeat some spiritual idea and maybe they’re gonna help. So that’s the initial reason I wanted to be the part of it.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Sandra. Now do you, do you wanna respond to that? Can you respond? I mean, can you say the question one more time? Yeah. So, um, during the youth leadership training program, we divided the participants into three groups, right? Mental health group, right. And education group and new, uh, were interested in the storytelling group.
So, uh, can you tell us, um, more about the storytelling group? What you all are doing, what, uh, kind of, uh, community issues that the his storytelling group is, uh, trying to address. [00:49:00] Yeah, so there’s two different, uh, storytelling groups, but the one that, um, that we’re constant, constantly working toward right now is our performance, um, performance piece that is focused on, um, our personal story.
And the reason I was, uh, interested in storytelling was because I feel that, um, Coming to Iowa, you know, and like, just realizing that learning so much his, like, so much thing about other people’s history. Like, you know, obviously it’s empowering, um, but at the same, at the same time, it makes you question, right?
Like, you know, what about my story? And like that, that may be a little selfish take on it, but at the same time, espe, you know, with just the treatment of, um, Bhutanese people from the Bhutanese, uh, the Vietnamese monarchy and just. Just the way that the political scene played out is just so unjust to, um, our people.
And there’s still, uh, [00:50:00] uh, political prisoners that are still in Bhutan that are serving, uh, their jail time who were just trying to fight for their right to live in the land that they had been living for a long time. And I see nothing wrong with that, and I. The stories and, uh, you know, the struggle of my community, of my family that, uh, the journey that they had to take is worth of, um, worth of being like, you know, those stories are worth of being told, worth of being heard.
Um, and it is. I, I like talking about life. I like talking about, um, learning about other people’s stories, learning, uh, sharing my own stories. Um, so that was one of the main reason, uh, I wanted to do that. Um, plus I do have like a little bit of, uh, performance, back background with Dune Theater back in camp, so that was definitely something that I did.
And like right now we are, um, so this, over this camp, um, [00:51:00] this summer we all came up with our own, you know, experience, uh, living. being an immigrant, being a refugee, and like, you know, uh, like how that has impacted us. And we all came up with a collective, a collective, uh, script of, um, after writing our own personal stories.
So right now we’re, we’ve been meeting like, you know, every, every month, once a month this year after the, uh, after summer. But next, once, uh, 2023 starts, we’ll be working like twice a month to, you know, really. Um, clean our performance and like clean the stories that we’re trying to sell, like, you know, um, so, and we’ll be performing that in San Francisco this summer in Bay Area, um, which I’m really excited about, uh, because we’ll be able to share this performance, uh, to other communities, uh, who can, who may relate to us, you know, who may feel heard and seen through our performance.
Uh, so yeah, I’m just really excited to represent our, um, our community in, [00:52:00] in that respect. So,
Great. Great. Yeah. Um, the, the name of the performance, uh, is called Mero Marietta. Right. And, um, Mero Literal, uh, translation would be my song, my Journey, and. And we look forward to perform at, uh, Y V C A in San Francisco, which is going to be exciting. Um, thank you. Thank you all of you for, uh, sharing, uh, your life journey, your experiences in the physic camps in US, and, uh, your experiences, um, being part of the youth leadership camp.
Um, before we close out, uh, do you wanna share any final.
After attending the leadership camp Camp, I felt like so heard, so [00:53:00] validated, and I honestly think that if there’s any other Bhutanese refugee youth out there, I definitely recommend a U’S leadership camp because it is a safe space for us all and I think that we would always appreciate new bonds, new connect.
Thank you Pamela. Any final thoughts?
Yeah. Uh, so like to appreciate you for hosting us today and also wanted to specially thanks Apex Express for giving us wonderful opportunity to share our experience Ke. And as equine kaa, I would definitely all the youth out there to come out and then at least play some role in, um, uplifting this organization and as young as you can also build some skills and grow along with the organization.
So like to invite every single [00:54:00] one out there was listening to us definitely should come out and try this leadership camp experience in long lot from it. Thank you so much. Thank you. No. Any final thoughts? Yeah. Um, not like, um, I, my final thought would be, um, just take your journey like, you know, one by one and not to, uh, not to sound like I’m giving advice or anything, cuz I, I’m still like myself growing and going through this journey, uh, trying to navigate my own self and trying to find myself.
So I think. , just be patient with yourself, especially if you’re someone listening who is a child epidemic comes from of experience that we have lived. I just wanna say that, you know, take your time, trust your process. Um, it’s okay to be easy on yourself. It’s okay to, um, [00:55:00] feel like that you don’t belong because, um, that’s such a suck, a sucky feeling, but.
Part of this journey and
uh, I think we lost normal. Um, alright, so, uh, it’s time to close, uh, for tonight. Thank you all for joining. Uh, thank you for such a rich conversation. Uh, please check out our website, kzla program. App Express to find out more about this show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there.
If resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your reasons with the world. Your voices are very important. Netflix [00:56:00] Express is produced by Mi Lee, Jalina, Kimley, and ung, and. By Ryon. Tonight’s episode was hosted by Robin Goong and Is United. Thank you so much to the K P F A staff for their support.
Have a great night. Thank you.
[00:57:00] [00:58:00]
The post APEX Express – 12.29.2022 ARU’s CAMP for Emerging Leaders Reflections appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
This episode highlights a wonderful hybrid book club event from AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality a collective of Progressive Asian organizations that APEX is a part of. It was hosted at the East Wind Bookstore in Berkeley, CA. Ko Kim of “We are the Gems” joined us in a conversation about books people enjoyed reading growing up and later Innosanto Nagara is interviewed by Miko Lee.
This book club event was so sweet and so lovely, and admittedly was very eye-opening for me as someone who has quote unquote graduated from children’s books, but more about that later. We came up with a list of books people enjoyed reading growing up! AACRE Thursdays is monthly radio show featuring an organization from the AACRE: Asian American for Civil Rights and Equality. AACRE Thursdays premiers every third Thursday of the month at 7pm. Find more APEX Express Shows here.APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.Miko’s Favorite AAPI Children’s Books (live from East Wind Books in Berkeley) With author Ko Kim
All books written and illustrated by AAPI authors/artists unless noted
Ko Kim
Ko Kim’s Book We are Gems attached is the watermarked PDF only for the AACRE community.
Board Books
A is for Activist
Counting on Community
Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes
Red is a Dragon: A Book of Colors
The Story of Rap
Picture Books
It Began with a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way biography on artist Gyo and the impact of the Japanese American incarceration during WWII
Drawn Together. A boy and his grandfather draw and talk story. Deals with intergenerational drama and imagination. Check out a lesson plan for this book I helped develop with Agency By Design in Oakland
Juna’s Jar Juna goes on adventures and collects things. Good STEAM book. Check out this lesson plan for this book by Agency By Design in Oakland
Dad Bakes -Formerly incarcerated Cambodian dad bakes with his daughter
The Paper Kingdom – Janitor parents take their son to work at night and he imagines a kingdom.
A Friend for Henry – Focused on Henry, a young boy with autism
The Ugly Vegetables – Chinese family grows Chinese vegetables and daughter is embarrassed and longs for the neighbors flowers, until mom makes soup that everyone longs for.
Whoever You Are – Mem Fox’s beautiful book about our diverse world (non AAPI writer, but beautiful book with great message)
The Paper Crane – A paper crane transforms a town (non AAPI writer, but beautiful book with great message)
The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination – a young woman, who is going blind reimagines the NY subway
Positive Body Image
Eyes That Kiss the Corners – a girl learns to love her Asian eyes
Eyes that Speak to the Stars – a boy learns to love his Asian eyes
Happy to Be Nappy – a child learn to appreciate her black hair
Laxmi’s Mooch – a girl learns to appreciate her body hair (mustache)
Global
First Laugh–Welcome, Baby! Indigenous writers share Navajo story about baby’s first laughter ceremony.
Enough! 20 Protesters Who Changed America picture book about protests
Bread, Bread, Bread, Families, Houses and Homes White writer Anne Morris photo compilations showcase commonalities around the world.
We March African American writer Shane Evans picture book about 1963 March on Washington
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness White writer talks about privileged. This is the book for your white friends kids who want to use a book to spark a family conversation about racism.Audience Recommendations of Children’s Books Book Recommendations with LinksCoffee Rabbit Snowdrop Lost by Birkjaer — https://enchantedlion.com/all-books/coffee-rabbit-snowdrop-lost
It Might Be An Apple, Yoshitake — https://bookbugsanddragontales.com/product/9780500650486Julian is Mermaid by Jessica Love — https://jesslove.format.com/julian-is-a-mermaid
His Own Where — https://www.nationalbook.org/people/june-jordan/ Dragon Hoops by Gene Yang — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626720794/dragonhoops
Little One or We Sang You Home by Richard Van Camp — https://www.orcabook.com/We-Sang-You-HomeAmerican Born Chinese by Gene Yang — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250811899/americanbornchineseIn the Beautiful Country by Jane Kuo — https://janekuo.com/book/in-the-beautiful-country/Hush by Min Fong Ho — https://www.bfbooks.com/Hush-A-Thai-LullabyRob Liu Trujillo — http://work.robdontstop.com/Who Turned on the Sky by Marielle Atanacio — https://www.bymatanacio.com/Juna and Appa by Jane Park — https://www.leeandlow.com/books/juna-and-appaA map into the World — https://lernerbooks.com/shop/show/17915A Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen — https://solrad.co/refugee-fairytales-the-magic-fish-by-trung-le-nguyenAll these below you can buy at East Wind Bookstore!Lunchtime with Samnang Our Little Kitchen by Tamaki A Place Where Sunflowers Grow When the Cousins Came by Playing at the Border: A Story of Yo-Yo Ma A Different Pond by Thi Bui Places to buy your books: https://www.asiabookcenter.com/ aka East Wind Bookstore https://diversebooks.org/resources/https://socialjusticebooks.org/https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-the-united-states https://www.learningforjustice.org/Transcript: AACRE Children’s Book Club[00:00:00] Swati: Good evening everyone, and happy Thursday. This is Swati Rayasam, your very special guest editor for tonight’s episode of APEX Express. Tonight we’re going to listen in on a wonderful hybrid book club event from AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality a collective of Progressive Asian organizations that APEX is a part of.
[00:00:55] Swati: This book Club event was so sweet and so lovely, and [00:01:00] admittedly was very eye-opening for me as someone who has quote unquote graduated from children’s books, but more about that later. I wanted to also flag for listeners that because this was a hybrid event, there are some weird bumps and pops as a result of the recording that impact the audio quality just a bit. Hopefully it’s not too distracting, but whatever you may not be able to fully hear, we’ve tried our best to capture in either the transcript or the show notes.
[00:01:29] Swati: Now, without further ado, I’ll pass you along to Miko over in Children’s Book Landia, AKA East Wind Books in Berkeley. Stay locked in!
[00:01:43] Miko Lee: We are thrilled to be here and every time we talk about getting a book, of course where you go to buy that book is here in Berkeley at East Wind Books or online. So we are thrilled to see you all and as some of you know, initially today [00:02:00] was gonna be with Innosanto Nagara and I sent stuff out on Ino and then just, we had this whole last minute mix up. We’re gonna showcase some of his books, but instead, B was amazing to recommend Ko Kim. And then I learned about Ko’s book, which was just so exciting. So we’re gonna start off just with Ko reading through the book and having you all ask questions of Ko, and then Ko and I are gonna talk about our favorite AAPI children’s books so that you all can get your gift ons for the holidays and for baby stuff that’s coming up.
[00:02:33] Miko Lee: There’s so many. When I was growing up, I was longing for books that represented our community and now there are so many that represent our intersectionality, our diversity, our specific communities. So there are so many things that we will share with you soon.
[00:02:51] Miko Lee: But first, I wanna take a moment to just introduce Ko. We are so happy that she joined us last minute. She worked with two amazing illustrators, Christine [00:03:00] Yoon and Andrew Hem and co grew up 10 minutes from the US Mexico border and like so many of us just felt invisible in school. She didn’t see herself in textbooks and in bookshelves or anywhere. And that isolation motivated her to become an educator, a public school teacher in title one schools. So she got the traditional education with a masters at Stanford, but keeping it real in the community with low income students showcasing what progressive education can be about. And I’m gonna now throw it to Ko. Thank you Ko, so much for joining us.
[00:03:37] Ko Kim: Wow. Thank you Miko, for that introduction. I wanna carry you everywhere I go, and just have you introduce me. Cuz, that was such a beautifully done one. And I just wanna say thank you everyone for the honor of being here. I love community. I love learning in community. I really want this to be a learning space, so before we begin, it sounds like from the audience, I heard a lot of folks saying they like picture books. They’re looking [00:04:00] for more resources, they have nieces and nephews in their lives or a baby on the way.
[00:04:05] Ko Kim: So I wanted to share a quick resource. I’m sure a lot of you follow Bookstagrammers on Instagram. There is a whole ecosystem of children’s book Instagrammers. Some of them are Berkeley native slash assistant principal Shuli who runs Asian Lit for Kids.
[00:04:21] Ko Kim: And then there’s also my story books who’s based in Southern California. Just a little heads up there.
[00:04:27] Ko Kim: So as Miko mentioned, I created a book with Christine Yoon and Andrew Hem called We Are Gems: Healing From Anti-Asian Microaggressions Through Self Love and Solidarity. What a title. Christine Yoon is by the way, an ER doctor who’s also an artist, Andrew Hem started off as a street artist and now his work is seen globally and his murals are in over, I believe 10 countries.
[00:04:50] Ko Kim: Andrew identifies as Cambodian American. Christine and I identify as Korean American, and I think context is important here because I think stories in our own voices are really important.
[00:05:00]
[00:04:59] Ko Kim: We are Gems shimmering with wisdom handed down from our Asian and Asian American elders. You may face cuts and scrapes called microaggressions, but like those before you, your inner luster will blaze if placed in shared liberation. Shared liberation is solidarity with our Black and Indigenous neighbors against systemic racism, lost traditions and behaviors that harm people with African and Indigenous roots from classrooms to courtrooms, only through solidarity will we glisten.
[00:05:32] Ko Kim: So when people ask you where are you really from? Reply that you are at home as long as you hold sacred the air, water, soil, animals and plants. Reply that you are at home when you honor Indigenous elders. Then ask in return, how are we taking care of all that has life? When Indigenous youth and elders resist polluting pipes, how do we respond?
[00:05:56] Ko Kim: Our liberation is bound to the life and dignity of Indigenous [00:06:00] peoples. When they advise you to speak up, tell them to listen closely, our voices have been roaring for generations. Then ask, how intently do you listen to the hopes and dreams of Black activists leaders? For seven decades, Grace Lee Bogs rallied for fair wages and housing alongside Black community organizers [unclear] introduced civil disobedience to the Highlander Folk School, helping Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. prepare for the fight for freedom. Our liberation is tied to Black joy. When people try to commend you with, you are unlike the others. Reply that you’re not straining yourself toward the dull cast of saying this and tell them, I am blooming as myself under the light of the divine and the glow of our grandmothers, our liberation is self love.
[00:06:49] Ko Kim: Thank you so much.
[00:06:51] Miko Lee: So thank you Ko for sharing your new book with us. I wanna open it up to see if anybody has any questions for [00:07:00] Ko And while you’re thinking about those questions, I wanna just ask Ko to tell about what inspired you to create this work.
[00:07:06] Ko Kim: Yeah, two things. One, I’m an auntie to many nieces and nephews, and it pained me to not see our voices represented on the bookshelves. Public school teacher as well, former public school teacher and it really pained me cuz I would see my students experiencing microaggressions, but it’d be hard to process that with them. Lastly 2020 during shelter in place a man holding a tray of sushi started to say all the racial slurs at me at a grocery store and came so close to my face, I felt the spit on my cheek. And I was like, oh, great, I’m gonna get COVID and verbally assaulted today. And when that happened, there were children around who witnessed that, and the educator in me was like, in pain. Made me wonder, okay, here’s this episodic explosive event, how are caregivers and explain that to their children and then the other thought I have [00:08:00] had was what about the everyday racism that Asian American face? Right? How are we helping caregivers, teachers, parents talk about everyday anti-Asian racism?
[00:08:11] Miko Lee: I just wanna point out that Ko also has a presentation that she does in schools. So if you know teachers that are interested in that, she has a whole presentation, reads some of the book and then breaks down who is Grace Lee Boggs, what is the background. So it’s really helpful. And also talking about not just the times we are in right now with the microaggressions that our community are facing, but who are our solidarity leaders historically and who are people that are working in the community now. So does anybody else have a question for Ko, the author in the space?
[00:08:44] Paige: Hi, Ko, thanks for reading your story, and I’m really sorry that a person assaulted you verbally.
[00:08:50] Paige: I, I was looking at the title and wondering if there was any association with the TV show where they’re like all gems and then they like sing [00:09:00] songs. Stephen Universe.
[00:09:00] Ko Kim: I’m just gonna lie and be like, yes. I, I planned that . No, there isn’t, but I actually pulled a lot of my teacher educator friends. To think about how could we self love our and love our Asian Am AAPI children? And that’s what I came up with. But, great question, Paige.
[00:09:23] Miko Lee: And Ko, you did a non-traditional method for publishing. Can you share a little bit about that and why you chose that route?
[00:09:30] Ko Kim: Yeah, I would love to share that cuz I do know there’s someone in the audience who talked about possibly writing a children’s book of their own.
[00:09:37] Ko Kim: So I think we use the tools we’re most familiar with, and I’m really used to reaching out to mutual aid, through my community. I’m sure this is something that everyone knows a lot of public school teachers fund their own libraries, fund their own field trips, right? And so I often reached out to my community to help fund those activities, resources , and I had no connection to the publishing world. [00:10:00] So I did this unconventional way and I made sure to recognize the folks in my community that made this book possible. If you look at the very back, their names are listed on the Kickstarter. I also, maybe I was like creeping on fans, people that I really like, but I DMed a bunch of authors on Instagram and asked them for some advice. And Innosanto Nagara has also been very gracious in that process. I have no idea if he remembers that I DMed him, but he gave me some really good tips. He himself started off as a Kickstarter, as you know, and his book was picked up by
[00:10:33] Ko Kim: Seven Story Press.
[00:10:36] Jasmine: Thanks. I’m curious, Ko if you’ve read this book with your students and your nibbling, how have the kids received it?
[00:10:46] Ko Kim: It’s really interesting. I thought only middle grades or like upper elementary children would be interested in this, but I actually presented this to a bunch of high schoolers in Hayward and there was a huge response from them. They loved [00:11:00] it. I think we do this false age designation where we’re like, oh, by the time you’re 18 you don’t like pictures. Which is not true, right? Like if the look at the popularity of TikTok, it’s such, such a visual medium, right? People rely on visuals and I think art is actually a great activist tool and way of being. And so, I’ve seen K through 12, a lot of warmth about the images. I had one Jamaican American teacher email me and say, these things happen to me all the time and I brush them aside, and this book helped me heal. I had another teacher in the audience write me that they went to therapy after the book reading, which I think is a great next step. I’m all about healing ourselves. Thanks for that question, Jasmine.
[00:11:49] Miko Lee: Thank you. Anybody else with questions for Ko?
[00:11:52] Paige: I have another question related to the topic, we were reading the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead in college my [00:12:00] freshman year. And I remember someone asked in class like, how early is it to talk about these things? Like kind of how you’re talking about the age of what you had imagined, the children reading the book. And my teacher was like, I don’t think sixth grade is that early for this book. And that book it was really, it’s quite violent , so I was just, yeah. How were you thinking about that when you were writing this book? Can you say more about thinking about the violence, about introducing that to children?
[00:12:29] Ko Kim: Yeah, for sure. I did try really hard to be age appropriate, if you notice. I intentionally focused on microaggressions and not the explosive physical violence just cause I know our children, they can’t handle things, but it has to be done in a way that’s scaffolded. There’s that piece of it, but I also wanna cite, a really well known Instagram Spanish educator, she goes by the woke Spanish teacher. She co-wrote an academic article with a college professor in education. [00:13:00] It’s called The Myth of Teaching Social Justice to Elementary School Students. And it kinda debunks some of the ideas that our children cannot handle these experiences because it’s fact of the matter is they are experiencing these racialized moments and they’re turning to adults to make sense of this, or turning to each other to make sense. Right? And it feels weird to just neglect that and wish them good luck versus addressing it and centering their lived experiences.
[00:13:28] Miko Lee: The other person I’d shout out in that vein is that woke kindergarten, and that’s an amazing educator who’s introduces all these topics with kindergarten students and recognizing that the world we live in, you have to, because that’s the only way that we can create children that understand a greater sense of justice in the world. They do such amazing work, check out their website and they’ve done teach-ins and.
[00:13:55] Miko Lee: Other questions for Author Ko Kim?
[00:13:57] Ko Kim: Bring it. Everyone. Just give me the questions.[00:14:00]
[00:14:02] Tran: Hey Ko, this is Tran! How are you?
[00:14:04] Ko Kim: Oh my gosh. Can I just take a moment to thank you for being such a model to me? When I was at UCLA? I was such an undergrad. I was such a poop head and you really helped me understand, solidarity.
[00:14:14] Tran: Oh, thank you. Yeah. Small world that we went to college together and now you’re a children’s book author. That’s amazing. so I’m actually a mom to a toddler, and so of course making sure that I have a library of books that he can see himself, in and relate to, right. And not just like Asian American, but other like BIPOC books as well. And I actually didn’t know about this book until this event, so I’m really glad, that y’all are hosting those events. So now I know about it and added to my collection, but I was curious, Ko do you have, other ideas for books that you wanna do in the future? Are you planning on doing more books? Cause I’d love to hear if you are.
[00:14:55] Ko Kim: Yes. Oh my gosh. I do wanna create an ethnic study series for children. [00:15:00] I’ve been toying with the idea of debunking the American Dream myth, just trying to figure out how to do that in a way that’s accessible to young readers. Another one I’ve been toying with is the idea of how do we talk about the anti-Blackness that does exist in the Asian American community, even though we do have a long history and legacy of solidarity with, Black folks. I’ve been toying with those and have been drafting. Thank you Tran.
[00:15:24] Miko Lee: Exciting coming soon, Ko Kim’s latest work. Yay.
[00:15:28] Swati: You are tuned in to APEX express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org. Coming up is Ka BJ or Puzzle by Diskarte Namin from the album Kultural Guerillas. [00:16:00] [00:17:00] [00:18:00] [00:19:00] [00:20:00] [00:21:00]
[00:21:45] Swati: That was Ka BJ by Diskarte Namin from the album Kultural Guerillas. And now. Back to the children’s book club with Miko
[00:21:57] Miko Lee: We can start talking about some of me and Ko’s [00:22:00] favorite books that you all can have access to. I wanna first talk about who we talked about in the very first place, who was a mentor and was supposed to be here today. Innosanto’s work A is for Activist, people often ask me, what children’s books I get, I as a few of you mentioned love children’s books. I personally try to never keep adult books because I read ’em and I pass ’em on to other people or I’m a big library person, but the only books I buy all the time are children’s books because I like the art, the vibe, what it’s about and my go to little kids, like when somebody first has a baby, are these books, A is for Activist and Counting on Community. And I like them because they’re board books, which kids can chew on, but they’re also like teaching their alphabet books. But they’re teaching. Our values about activism, about community, about movement, about growth, and about where we are in our world. The other thing I wanted to mention is the other Ino book for [00:23:00] older kids, to the question about, when do you start introducing social justice concepts? You start as early as possible. And with my own kids, you start when they’re babies, you start teaching sign language. So you’re talking about different access to learning and understanding. But then as we know, people grow and they get more sophisticated and they want more information. So actually this is one of, Ino’s more recent books. It’s called The Wedding Portrait the under title is the Story of a Photograph and Why we Sometimes Break the Rules, and this would be good for like fourth graders because it breaks down how critical it is for us to take action. So it talks about from the Dakota pipeline to nuclear weapons to the farm workers boycott and it breaks it down in a way that’s accessible and understandable and really brings it home for older kids that want a little bit more information. So I will follow up with all these books linked [00:24:00] and how you can buy them along with a bunch of others that we might not talk about, because literally I came in here 45 minutes ago and just pulled things off the shelf that were interesting. But I have a whole list of other go-tos. Ko, What are some of your favorites? Or anybody here? What are some of your, like right when somebody’s gonna have a baby, books that we give people? What are your go-tos?
[00:24:21] Ko Kim: Yeah, I would love to share some, but I would love to hear from the folks first.
[00:24:25] Miko Lee: Anybody have some go to children’s books that they just love getting every time?
[00:24:31] Jasmine: I bought the book Julian is a Mermaid. It’s a really beautiful book about this little kid and it’s kind of magical and like just exploring gender in different expansive ways.
[00:24:42] Miko Lee: Thanks Jasmine for sharing that , I really like the artwork on that too.
[00:24:47] Ko Kim: I wanna say everyone likes all categories of books. I understand that. And if you so happen to wanna focus on that topic of gender identity, sexual orientation, there’s actually a really cool mobile children’s Book Bus. [00:25:00] Maybe you’ve heard of them. It’s called Out and About and they’re based in the Bay Area and they have the most beautiful lavender school bus full of books.
[00:25:09] Tori: I just read a picture book called Coffee Rabbit, Snow Drop Lost, I think it’s Danish, perhaps it’s in translation. But it’s about dementia and the relationship between a grandchild and grandparents. And it like made me cry in just a couple of minutes that it took to read it, which I wasn’t expecting. It was very powerful.
[00:25:29] Miko Lee: I’m not familiar with that book. I love it when books break things down in a way that helps to bring an issue to light.
[00:25:39] Paige: I also read this in college. I only read two children’s book as a child, and one of them is actually my favorite The Giving Tree. When I was little I was like, why am I so sad reading this book? It’s so sweet and this tree loves this little boy. And then it felt like when I read that book, it reminded me of my relationship with my parents, like, why do my parents love me so much? [00:26:00] And then, the second book I actually read in college was His Own Wear by June Jordan, it’s so beautiful. I love June Jordan. So I would definitely get that for your babies.
[00:26:11] Miko Lee: Anybody else wanna share some?
[00:26:14] Tracy: I’ll just share some thematic books that I can’t remember the names of them. But as a child since I grew up in San Francisco I got exposed to a lot of books around Chinese folklore about the moon festival and like where the moon festival came from, and the woman who ended up in the moon and like the moon goddess. And it’s like the shape of a rabbit. So I really loved thematically those kinds of books that taught me about my culture, but through like children’s books, but then in terms of an actual book name, I don’t know what range we’re doing, but because I read a lot of graphic novels, I really loved everything Gene Yang has done, like American Born Chinese. And his latest book is Hoop Dreams and it’s about him being a teacher in Oakland at a private high school. And I love, love, [00:27:00] love, everything because it breaks down a difficult topic. So the one about him being a teacher in Oakland was about the different students who are on a basketball team there and their backgrounds. You learn about each of the students, whether they’re Black, Asian, or Arab, learn about their specific kind of stories and the ups and downs they have and how like basketball kinda brings them together.
[00:27:25] Miko Lee: I’m so glad. Gene I love him. A local person. And there actually, as some of you might know, making a whole TV series based on ABC and the Monkey King thing. So I, I really appreciate his work. There’s a ton of graphic novelists we could talk about that I also adore, so we could go down that road. Ko what about you?
[00:27:46] Ko Kim: Yeah, I just wanna thank everyone. I’m learning a couple new title. So there’s a book that was published this year by Julia Kuo it’s called Let’s Do Everything and Nothing. Maybe you’re familiar with this book.[00:28:00] I love it shows the intimacy and affection between a mother and a daughter in each page. And the illustrations are stunning. I never knew burnt orange and navy blue can make me cry but it made me cry in this book for sure and then I know folks are familiar with this book from 2018, Drawn Together. I love it because just like Julia Cole’s book, it talks about the affection between family members, but this one kind of centers a common grief that a lot of AAPI families have where there’s a generational language, cultural difference between grandparents and their grandchildren. It talks about bridging that gap.
[00:28:36] Miko Lee: Can I add to that one? So I love that book and I actually, um, built a curriculum on that book, which I’m sending to you, and it’s linked and I did it with an organization in Oakland called Agency by Design and During the Pandemic, we put together kits for all Title One School Kids in Oakland that included that book and then all the art supplies you could to make on it because it’s about imagination and bringing imagination alive.
[00:28:59] Ko Kim: [00:29:00] Miko That’s, that’s amazing. How can I get my hand on a kit?
[00:29:05] Miko Lee: I don’t, I don’t know if they’re remaking the kits right now, but you could get your hands on the curriculum and I will say we intentionally made the kits very accessible. So basically even if you didn’t have the kit, you could pull it from things at home or have free access. whenever I’m making an arts inclusive kit, I try and make it with high quality supplies, but then also just things you can get from your house. So it makes it more accessible to everybody.
[00:29:30] Ko Kim: Great to know. And then I have two other titles
[00:29:33] Ko Kim: I’m so glad I was recommending ABC American Born Chinese. This book breaks down what does it mean to acclimate versus assimilate to American culture, right? And that’s a huge heavy topic for adults alike. And in fact, Minh Le the author and illustrator of that book he just posted on Instagram under the campaign of Books Save Lives how reading this book in college really helped him stay afloat.
[00:29:57] Ko Kim: And then the last middle grade [00:30:00] recommendation I have is called, In the Beautiful Country by Jane Kuo this came out in June, 2022. She’s a local Bay Area author and artist actually and each chapter is pithy and painfully beautiful it digs into the richer life of an Asian female protagonist in Southern California. It was very healing. And in talking to Jane she was talking about how this book was supposed meant to also be healing for the caregivers reading the book as well. So I couldn’t put this book down. I finished it in one sitting.
[00:30:31] Kenny: So I got this as a gift from my newborn coming in it’s called Hush and it’s a very simple book, it goes through different animals and just the different sounds that other languages make to represent those animals. And I think it’s just really fun to go through that and learn all the different noises that they make. And it’s a story about a mom who’s just telling all of these animals to be quiet cuz the baby is sleeping just something that I feel like is cool to [00:31:00] introduce to my son since he’s gonna be half Thai.
[00:31:02] Miko Lee: I wanted to throw out some more artist based ones because I think one of the things is sometimes we just get it. For me, I feel like having raised two artists and realizing the importance of art and life, bringing that into our young people is so critical and I love how Drawn Together does that in terms of inter generations. And really talking about intergenerational trauma. There is an another book about an artist, it’s about Gyo Fujikawa, who is an amazing artist, and it’s called, It Began With a Page and it outlines what is in an artist’s imagination and how they create things, how they use and bring the world alive. And there’s another one called The Sound of Colors, A Journey of the Imagination by Jimmy Liao and it is about a blind woman and it’s the colors that she sees while she’s blind and how she navigates through the world. And [00:32:00] it’s just such a mix. It’s so beautiful. The other is a lovely book about an artist, a kid, whose parents work as janitors in San Francisco and they’re low income workers. And because they don’t have childcare, they take their kid with them and they’re Asian American and the kid uses their imagination while their parents are working. It’s just such a good book talking about imagination and labor. Do you have some more? Should I keep going or does anybody wanna throw some out here?
[00:32:30] Ko Kim: I wanna shout out a longtime author illustrator named Rob he’s one of the organizers of the sixth annual Children’s Social Justice book Fair.
[00:32:37] Miko Lee: He’s also works with Janine Youngblood on this, collaborative that is around trying to publish BIPOC voices, but it’s very, very small, they don’t have like huge budgets. There are a lot of children’s books that have curriculum that go with them. So I don’t know if some of you’re interested in that, especially during our time of, COVID-y time when people have had to shelter in [00:33:00] place and stay home. Sometimes having activity books for single kids are really great.
[00:33:04] Miko Lee: This is one that’s about Filipino mythology and culture, Who Turned on the Sky, and it comes with this whole coloring and activity book. The book actually has a whole series of different, Filipino mythology and culture, and I think Tracy was talking about that earlier about how we grow up learning some of these things around culture. So that’s one that actually comes with a curriculum. And then this other one, a really sweet one. Called Juna and Appa which is a Korean girl, and it’s about her and her father. And it has magical realism in it. And it’s again about emotions and intergenerational work. And this also has a curriculum. This was another project I did with Agency by Design that comes with a whole series of questions that young people can do for doing interviews with their elders. Even if you can’t write, it’s how do you draw an interview process?
[00:33:57] Tracy: Ko you mentioned earlier about this [00:34:00] idea of, we should talk about race as early as possible with kids, but, as educator scaffolding is important, I would literally love to hear your ideas of ways we can scaffold learning. I’ll give you an example, I have a bunch of children’s books that I gave to my sister to give to her kids. And then she took out three of ’em and was like, these are not appropriate for the kids. And I was like, oh, what do you mean by not appropriate? And I didn’t get into it, but I was like, she’s actually a math teacher, so she also understands scaffolding. so I’m really interested in your ideas of scaffolding and what that means to introduce material at the right level.
[00:34:39] Ko Kim: Yeah that’s a great question cause I think sometimes the work of Social Justice, I tend to leave out the joy of social justice work sometimes. Cause I get so serious and bogged down. I forget that social justice work, it means wellness for me, wellness for us. Wellness for all of us. So you’re right, it has to be age appropriate. Teaching for Justice has really great lesson plans and [00:35:00] they pair books. It goes by grade level. And then as you get to higher grade levels people’s history, you know, the Howard Zinn open resource lesson plans also have a great one. I think it, to your point, it’s really important to introduce a topic where folks are at. Cause that’s also true for adults, right? Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you’re ready for that topic either. There’s a lot of pre-work and scaffolding that has to happen regardless of our age and reading skill. Yeah. Did that help answer your question, Tracy?
[00:35:32] Tracy: Yeah. Thanks for the resource. I think that like some of the principles you’re sharing is like meet people where they’re at and I used to be an environmental educator and my framework I use with kids and adults is appreciation, education, action. So it’s like no one’s gonna wanna take action on something that they don’t appreciate first. So once you feel the joy, like you said, then you learn more about it. Also, you don’t wanna learn about anything you don’t really like. So it’s like you appreciate it, you like [00:36:00] it, you bring joy, then you learn more and then there’ll be those like desire to learn.
[00:36:04] Tracy: Then you actually wanna take action. It’s really hard to get people to take action if they don’t really appreciate or understand. So you’re reminding me that is a framework, but, the meeting people where they’re at is if they’re already past appreciation, then maybe they’re ready for an education or action book.
[00:36:21] Miko Lee: And the only thing I would add to both of your great words is partly part of our work is to just show representation and to show different types of AAPI voices in this context. For instance, this is a lovely book called, a Map Into the World, and it’s not, you know, Political, but it’s about a Hmong girl and how she feels and how she walks through the world. And then there’s another book that I was just introduced to, which is, Incarcerated Dad. I have it in my stacks of books around here, but it’s a dad who is Cambodian and he’s [00:37:00] incarcerated and it doesn’t make a big deal about his incarceration. How great is that? It’s about a dad who bakes, but the dad was formerly incarcerated. So just to show this representation is also a political act, right? We are saying that there are many different types of people within our community. Our community is broad. They come from different places, they have different experiences. So that doesn’t have to be overly like we are being political , but it’s really saying, look, our community is diverse.
[00:37:30] Miko Lee: On the same vein I have stacks of children’s books around me by the way that I put into categories. So I was going like, food is such an easy fit in for people because, we’re looking within the network about narrative power, right? And there’s all this research that, what’s the number one thing people think of with Asian people? They think of food. Okay? Some people think that is such a drag. Why is it just around food? Why is it on Christmas? You know, everybody’s eating at the Chinese restaurants, right? But there’s a way to use that to our [00:38:00] advantage. It can be an in for people to understand culture. And so there are tons of books that are just about food and about culture.
[00:38:10] Paige: I wanna just mention Magic Fish. I read all the recent children’s books that I know in the last three years, or like the last three to five years. That book is so pretty. Like the art is so emotional.
[00:38:23] Miko Lee: Yes. Beautiful. Lovely book. We haven’t been talking enough about the graphic novels, so I love this. This is such an amazing book.
[00:38:33] Miko Lee: This author, Grace Lynn has a bunch of books. Both picture books and board books. This one’s called Dim Sum for Everyone, it’s really cute. The artwork is quite adorable. She actually has another one that I love that’s called The Ugly Vegetables, and it is about how her family grows traditional Chinese vegetables in her neighborhood and the kid hates it because everybody else grows flowers. And then at the end of [00:39:00] the season, the mom cooks the most amazing bitter Melon Soup, and all the neighbors smell the food and they all come and they wanna have the food. And so the whole neighborhood has celebration together over food and they bring flowers. So again, it’s using food as a road in. There’s also these great books about cultures coming together and making food together that are just titled by like bread or rice and all the different people around the world that eat bread and rice in the ways in which they do that. This one it’s called Lunchtime with Samnang, and it’s about learning, imagination, exploration, and about this kid’s favorite Cambodian dishes as he hears tales from his grandfather.
[00:39:43] Miko Lee: I think back to Tracy’s original question around, how do you introduce hard topics, the first thing I was saying was representation, which I think is really critical. And then I think the other part is introducing some kind of like soft more deeper threads. [00:40:00] And so this is one that actually talks about a Rohingya, which are the oppressed minority peoples in China. And it’s about a kid and his love of this bird. And so you could look at this as this allegory, right? About the oppression of peoples. Or you could read it as a boy and his bird. So you could take it multiple ways and have as in depth conversations as you want to have. But it really depends on who’s the reader, right? And what are they reading with it? And there’s a few more that are like this. There’s a really good one. There’s a few good ones about the Japanese, internment that I think, helped to tell that story. Like this one, A Place Where Sunflowers Grow. And it’s really sweet and the art is quite lovely and it just tells about the Japanese incarceration, through a lens of a young girl. And I will say, what I find remarkable about this is there’s a lot of books about the Japanese incarceration, a lot of children’s books. [00:41:00] Almost all of them are about a boy or a male’s perspective. Boys play baseball, boys go fishing, boys do this. So this is specifically about a girl and what she goes through and the lens that she leaves the world. I will say to you all, that I am incredibly biased. I raised two daughters and because I felt like the world is always introducing them to male writers and particularly white male writers that the only books I ever, ever read to them were written by BIPOC women, some men, but usually BIPOC women. and so I think it’s also about the intentionality when you’re picking children’s book out about what you want to be able to share with your young people.
[00:41:44] Miko Lee: Any other questions or thoughts? Oh, let me share one more one that I just saw, which was so fun. I love this one because this is an intersectional one and it’s about a Japanese American and family, but their cousin is African American [00:42:00] and it’s about when our cousins come. And so it has the family. And there this author has written a bunch like this I have them all at home. They’re all about growing up in the inner city. And it’s really this Blasian experience. What is it like to be Blasian and to be living in the inner city? So I think that’s really fun. And what do we have to teach each other about our different cultures and how are we creating a new kind of Blasian culture?
[00:42:26] Miko Lee: While we have a two more min, few more that’s left is, many folks know about Yoyo Ma and his amazing work and how he does this work playing at the borders. The author Johanna Ho, who wrote it, and she’s written a lot of other lovely books. But there’s a great breakdown too, and if you wanted to do this with your young person, you could also play that actual music and see some of the real videos. So there’s a way of reading the book, but then taking it to the next level and really showing with your young people how a book can push you off into additional learning.
[00:42:57] Miko Lee: This one Eyes that Kiss in the Corners is [00:43:00] another about body affirmation. You know, a lot of us grow up with like slanting eyes or those stereotypes. And this is about just appreciating your body. Loving your body.
[00:43:09] Ko Kim: And Johanna Ho has a male version of that one. Eyes stare into the sky, I think. Cause I think it’s different, right? For how that topic is addressed by gender.
[00:43:21] Paige: Jasmine, you were gonna say something?
[00:43:25] Jasmine: Something I’m curious about, and maybe we’ll need to write the book for, but a book for kids who are mixed white and Asian, around understanding their white privilege specifically, yeah.
[00:43:39] Miko Lee: Ooh, that would be good. Jasmine. There was a bunch of books with half white kids, but nothing, I haven’t seen anything. Ko have you seen anything about white privilege? Jasmine? There you go. There’s your opening. Take it, write it.
[00:43:55] Ko Kim: I’m here for a jasmine. I would love to see that. [00:44:00]
[00:44:00] Miko Lee: Love that. thank you all so much. You know, last book club we talked about Thi Bui’s book and I just wanted to point out Thi’s Children’s book, A different Pond. This is a amazing, Caldecott honor book, which is like the best that you can get in Children’s book Landia. And it is just a really beautiful. It was written by a different author, but Tui illustrated it and is really about a boy and his dad and, their relationship. Tui has two more children’s books, one actually that she wrote with her son and, another one with the author of the Sympathizer Viet Thanh and his son and they co-wrote them. Okay. We have one minute left. Thank you so much everybody for joining us. Thank you Ko Kim and all of you for joining us today for our AACRE Book Club on children’s books. Thank you all. Have a great rest of your day and a lovely weekend.
[00:44:52] Swati: Hey folks, Swati here. Miko was so bummed about not being able to have Innosanto Nagara come [00:45:00] to the children’s book club but lucky enough she and Inno were able to sit down for a bonus interview! So we’re going to play that for you now.
[00:45:09] Miko Lee: Welcome Innosanto Nagara to APEX Express.
[00:45:12] Miko Lee: We had an AACRE book club event and I was talking about your brilliant books. As I was saying that my go-to gifts for people that I have bought many time is A is for activists and C is for community. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got started writing those?
[00:45:33] Innosanto: Thank you so much. Well I wrote a as for activist because I wanted to have the book that I wanted to read to my child. You know, I live in this community, cosent community and my son was the youngest of eight to be born into our community and I’d been reading children’s books to children for quite a while. And as you know, when you have kids, you read these books to them [00:46:00] often over and over and over again. And some of those books you love reading over and over and over again. And sometimes, not so much , but that’s what they want, so you do it. But, when my own kid was born, I realized I was gonna be reading all these books to my kid over and over and over and over again, and I wanted to have the book that I wanted to read to my kid over and over and over again. So I wrote A is for Activist .
[00:46:22] Miko Lee: And that was your first book?
[00:46:24] Innosanto: Yes. I had no, aspirations towards becoming a children’s book author at that point, my idea was I was just gonna write this to share with my kid, and once I had written it and I was illustrating it, I thought, well, maybe you’ll print out, Maybe a dozen or maybe even a hundred and get them out as presents to friends and community members. And I found out that it turns out to do a proper board book, you couldn’t only print, a couple hundred. I had to actually print a couple thousand. And so I went into this whole process of trying [00:47:00] to figure out how to finance it and, I had this idea that it was gonna be a five year project and I was borrowing money from friends and family that I would pay back over time and I would put it on a credit card if at the end of the five years it didn’t pay off.
[00:47:14] Innosanto: But as it turns out, I underestimated how many other people wanted a book just like this. And it took off on its own. And, the rest is history.
[00:47:22] Miko Lee: So you self-published A is for Activist?
[00:47:24] Innosanto: Yeah. The first time around I self-published it. I had two pallets of books in my living room, in our community living room and every morning I was packing up books to drop off at the post office and every evening I was getting all the labels printed and all this stuff.
[00:47:41] Innosanto: So it became a bit of a second job.
[00:47:45] Innosanto: What then happened was after we sold it out, all the books, I had to decide whether I was gonna reprint them myself and keep on doing this. Or if there would be a publisher that wanted to take it on. And I think at that point it was actually 3000 books were sold. I thought that was good proof of [00:48:00] concept and a lot of the bookstores were saying, yeah, you should approach this publisher or that publisher, they’ll be really happy to publish it a lot of people want this book.
[00:48:08] Innosanto: But as it turns out, at the time, self-publishing was seen as the kiss of death for books and no publishers would want to take on a book that had already been self-published. but that’s changed since then and one of the publishing companies that changed that as Seven Stories press, they had published, What Makes A Baby by Corey Silverberg, which was originally self-published. And they were realizing that the fact that something was self-published did not make it something that they couldn’t produce and distribute more broadly. And so they actually took on A is for Activist as well. And all my books have been published by them ever since.
[00:48:45] Miko Lee: That is so interesting. Almost like filmmakers and TV shows that have come off of social media accounts it’s just changing the industry in a way.
[00:48:54] Innosanto: Yeah, I think there’s been some experiences where the industry is opening its mind a little bit. [00:49:00] Publishing has always been a hard to break into industry with a lot of gatekeepers that represent particular demographics and what they think makes a good book. And I think, one of the positive things that’s come out of people being able to do things like self-publish and Put your work out in the world without going through those gatekeepers, is that we’re discovering that there’s actually a lot of missed opportunities, a lot of really good things that have people are producing that perhaps those experts have somehow, missed.
[00:49:37] Innosanto: And I think that’s been the case in all kinds of media and music as well. So some people like, Maya Christina Gonzalez, who has been working on this field for a long time. She is the author of numerous books on multiculturalism and Gender, and she’s pretty much decided to really promote self-publishing to try to fill the gap [00:50:00] of the missing number of books by and for people of color in America.
[00:50:08] Miko Lee: Who’s that?
[00:50:09] Innosanto: Maya Christina Gonzalez. OG has been doing it for a long time.
[00:50:12] Miko Lee: Love it. So I also think it’s amazing that you’ve stayed with the same publisher all of these years and your latest book. The Wedding Portrait, I loved discovering that and one of the things we were talking about at the book club is at what age and how do you start to talk with kids about difficult topics? And I really think the wedding portrait really delves into that. Can you share with our audience what the book is about and what inspired you to create it?
[00:50:42] Innosanto: Yeah, the wedding portrait. Is essentially about direct action and civil disobedience. And why sometimes to make change and pretty much all the time to make change. It requires breaking the rules. And for kids that can be a complicated Topic because they’re being told [00:51:00] to follow the rules all the time.
[00:51:01] Innosanto: And so much of schooling and so much of life is learning how to play by the rules. And yet to make change, we have to be able to identify the times and places when we break the rules. And so that, that book, it came out a few years back right when trump was elected, so we were all expecting that there would be a lot of rule breaking that was gonna have to happen on our side. And I guess to answer your question as to when, it’s gonna be different for different kids depending on what their experience is and what their life situation is. But, the main question here is who is talking to kids about difficult subjects, right? They will be talking about difficult subjects amongst themselves in a schoolyard. They’re gonna be seeing things on tv, they’re gonna be talking to other adults, teachers, and so on. And so the question of how do you approach difficult subjects with [00:52:00] kids, it’s really a question of who do you want to have had those conversations with them first and through these processes, through the times that we’re living in. For me I think it’s when they start having questions and when they start wanting to have these conversations, there’s really not a time that’s too early to be able to address their concerns and question.
[00:52:22] Miko Lee: Thanks. So talk to me about your latest book.
[00:52:24] Innosanto: Since the wedding portrait there’s been a few I did a middle grade book called M is for Movement, which is set in Indonesia. The way that I talk about my books is, A is for Activist is about the issues, counting on community is about how we live. my night in the planetarium, is about art and resistance and colonialism, and of course I say they’re about these, but those are sort of the underlying themes. But, My night in the planetarium is about a kid. Me, it’s a true story about how growing up under the dictatorship in Indonesia and an experience that I had,[00:53:00] the wedding portrait is about direct action civil disobedience. So it’s about tactics and it stems from a personal experience when my partner, I got married, we went and did a direct action civil disobedience action, and there’s a photograph of that but the broader context of the book is these vignettes about the different types of direct action and civil disobedience and tactics that have been used throughout the history of social justice movements. M is for Movement is kind of like bringing all those things together. And that one’s actually fiction, but it’s about overthrowing the government for children. And that’s a middle grade chapter book. And then after that I did, Oh all the things we’re for, which is very dear to my heart because it’s a lot of these other books are about direct actions civil disobedience, protests, the things that we’re fighting against. But I think it’s really important to also talk about the things that we’re for and the solutions and [00:54:00] the better world that we can envision in terms of democracy, in terms of human rights, in terms of environmental justice. And I feel like we have lots of solutions, but we tend to focus on the problems. And it’s important to have a vision of the possibilities in order to be able to be motivated to fight for change. And then the last book, I didn’t write it, but I illustrated it was written by my friend, Mona Damluji, and it’s called Together. And that’s also board book format. And it’s a bit of a poem about, You’ll have to read it, but, the theme that I think comes up a lot when we’re talking to children about social change is the idea of collective action. But she does it in a way that, that I found really exciting because there’s a lot of really good stories about people coming together to make change. But she does it in a way that is, poetic and accessible.
[00:54:55] Miko Lee: Very exciting. I have M is for movement right by my side here, and I really appreciate you [00:55:00] going into middle school, which I think was a new venture for you, right? To write for middle school age?
[00:55:06] Innosanto: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, all my books have followed the age of my kids, I basically write for him.
[00:55:13] Miko Lee: Does that mean you’re gonna be working on a high school book coming soon?
[00:55:16] Innosanto: That’s always a possibility.
[00:55:19] Miko Lee: I also appreciate oh, the things we are for that you’re talking about the irresistible future because it’s hard we get bogged down in the problems without mm-hmm. imagining the beautiful future. So thank you for that.
[00:55:32] Innosanto: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And you know, I do believe in protest and confronting injustice, and so it’s not an either or, but I do think that we do need both especially for those of us who’ve been in this fight for a long time, I think having the vision is important as well as having the willingness to fight against the problem.
[00:55:52] Miko Lee: Absolutely. It’s a yes and
[00:55:54] Innosanto: yeah. Yeah.
[00:55:55] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for spending some time chatting with me. I always sure look [00:56:00] forward to hearing your voice and I so appreciate your art and your contributions. Thank you, Inno.
[00:56:05] Innosanto: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:56:07] Swati: Thank you so much to Miko for holding this amazing AACRE book club event. the children’s book hour. Thank you to Kim Ko for subbing in last minute and being completely lovely. And thank you to, Innosanto Nagara who came in for a surprise interview. I loved being able to hear about children’s books that impacted everyone, children’s books that they love, and children’s books that they still hope to write.
[00:56:33] Swati: I absolutely agree that you know, no matter how old you are, you are never too old for a picture book, especially if it has a good message. There were of course, a ton of books mentioned in the show today, and even more that weren’t mentioned. We’ll drop a full list into the show notes with links, so please feel free to go to kpfa.org/program/apex-express to check [00:57:00] that out. And of course, as always, we hope that you buy small and local for your nibbling and yourself.
[00:57:06] Swati: Finally, thank you so, so much to East Wind Books now and for always for co-hosting these events with AACRE and allowing Miko a chance to get lost in your shelves and emerge with these treasures. We really hope that you enjoyed these recommendations and strongly encourage you to share your own recommendations with us.
[00:57:25] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night.
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #3 –Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental. Episode #3This month’s episode features Sault, Irene Cara, and so much more. May Irene Cara transition peacefully. Lisa Lowe’s Book: In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University PressAbout the DJMy name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, poet, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound. Lastly, special shoutout to my DJ crew 730 Faders. Catch us throwing the next best party in LA and coming near you. And my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family. Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU @paigechung WebsiteInstagramTwitchMixcloudSoundCloud The post APEX Express – 12.1.22 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents #3 by DJ Miu appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. This episode highlights Lavendar Phoenix’s Peer Counseling Program. Tonight you’ll be hearing interviews from Iris Yip, Phibi Loc Tran, Madhvi trivedi-pathak, and Al. They launched their Peer Counseling Program back in August 2022 and
This pilot came out the Trans Justice committee’s Up to Us needs assessment finding around trans and non binary API people struggling with mental health and not being able to access affirming mental health support. We wanted to create a free mental healing program that was led by trans API people and did not involve the police. About 7+ trans and non binary API members planned and organized for almost 2 years to make this pilot happen in Aug 2022. In June-August 2022 we trained 10 trans and non binary API counselors in abolitionist and disability justice based peer counseling (with the help of Project LETS and Asian American Peer Counseling). In August 2022 we held peer counseling with 8 participants. The majority of the organizers, counselors and participants were from our priority groups: working class, South Asian/South East Asian/PI/Central Asian. We chose these groups to prioritize those most impacted by systemic oppression in our community. One participant who received counseling said: “Both of my peer counselors were so lovely to talk to, and I felt more seen in that one session than I have in 10 years of searching for a therapist who could understand my intersectionality.”
Lavender Phoenix builds transgender, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pacific Islander power in the Bay Area. We inspire and train grassroots leaders, transform our values from scarcity to abundance, and build vibrant intersectional movements. AACRE Thursdays is monthly radio show featuring an organization from the AACRE: Asian American for Civil Rights and Equality. AACRE Thursdays premiers every third Thursday of the month at 7pm. Find more APEX Express Shows here. Links:
Donate to sustain our work: lavenderphoenix.org/donate Instagram: @lavphoenix Facebook: facebook.org/lavphoenix Twitter: @lav_phoenix
Lavender Phoenix Transcript: [11/23/22] Peer Counseling pilot [00:00:00] Apex express Asian Pacific expression. Unity and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions, and voices coming to you with Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the apex express. [00:00:14] paige: Hello, welcome to acre Thursdays on apex express radio. My name is Paige Chung and tonight we’ll be listening to interviews from lavender Phoenix, an organization of transgender non-binary and queer Asian Pacific Islanders fighting for community safety, healing justice. And sustainable movements in the San Francisco bay area. [00:00:33] paige: I’m really excited tonight to showcase lavender. Phoenix is peer counseling program. Tonight. You’ll be hearing interviews from Iris Yip , Phoebe loc tran, Madvi Trivedi-Pathak, and Al, all members of lavender, Phoenix. So they launched their peer counseling program back in August, 2022. And this pilot came out of their trans justice committee’s needs assessment findings called “up to us”. In their findings they found out that trans and nonbinary API people [00:01:00] struggle with mental health and not being able to access, affirming mental health support. So they wanted to create a free mental health healing program that was led by trans Asian Pacific Islander people. And did not involve the police. [00:01:13] paige: So about seven plus trans and non binary API planned organized for almost two years to make this pilot happen in August, 2022. So From June to August, 2022, they trained 10 trans and non-binary API counselors. And abolitionists and disability, justice based peer counseling. Using the help of project LETS and Asian-American peer counseling. Then in August, 2022, they held their peer counseling program with eight participants. The majority of the organizers, the counselors and the participants were from the priority groups of lavender, Phoenix, which include the working class, south Asian people, Southeast Asian people, Pacific Islander people and central Asian people. And they chose these groups to prioritize because they’re the most [00:02:00] impacted by systematic oppression in their community. And one participant who receives counseling said, ” both of my peer counselors were so lovely to talk to. And I felt more seen in one session that I have in 10 years of searching for a therapist who could understand my intersectionality.” [00:02:16] paige: So we’ll first hear from Iris. Yep. And Mahdavi, and then you’ll hear from Phoebe and I’ll later on. And yeah, we’ll hear about their peer counseling program that they launched and their reflections from it. Here is Iris Yip. [00:02:31] Iris: So the first question is about the planning process of the pilot. So thinking about the planning process with peer counseling pilot what do you think has been going well with the process? [00:02:42] Madhvi: With the planning process? Process? I came in during a later iteration. So by the time that I entered into this space there, several folks through Healing Justice and maybe even other committees that had given their [00:03:00] input. [00:03:00] Madhvi: So it’s gone through many different folks, many different perspectives have been included in the planning process, and I think that creates a really well-rounded experience. You can tell that there’s a lot of consideration too, on who’s been generally excluded from life spaces where gaining the tools for healing and community support and really trying to center the planning around. Amplifying and creating a space that feels welcoming for folks that are often excluded, even within our large QT API umbrella. It’s nice that this is a trans centered space. This is one that is really trying to honor working class narratives to think that’s a place of invisibilization often. So there’s a lot of thoughtfulness that has been put into the planning process. [00:03:48] Iris: And what would you say that is the impact of that thoughtfulness and having had so many perspectives be involved in the creation of this? [00:03:56] Madhvi: I think impact is that when there has been gaps, it does end up [00:04:00] getting filled. There is an abundance of perspectives coming in. So there’s this flow of thoughts that , keep it full , very thoughtful in that way. also the folks who are on, who are in this iteration of the planning and organizing. I’ll come from really interesting, unique backgrounds. So you’re able to see the input from each different person and it gives it a really beautiful, full experience to be able to see the ways in which the curriculums can develop the way in. And the art connecting to the flyers, that was created by a previous summer organizer too. There’s just it’s nice to have a history already, in this mix, being made and so many people being involved. Okay. [00:04:45] Iris: And then thinking about the planning process again what has been difficult about the process? [00:04:50] Madhvi: Since this is a first time pilot program, there’s so much beauty and potential for what seeds are being sewed in this segue of [00:05:00] wanting to make sure things feel. Evenly doable for folks who are the peer counselors in training as well as the people who are on the organizing end and so it’s this chemistry situation where we’re , okay. [00:05:13] Madhvi: I’m , does this feel too much too soon? Or does it feel not enough? We wanna be able to. Support folks and feeling supported to be able to do this pilot. It’s new for everyone, for the organizers, for the people who are being trained, for the folks that are gonna be receiving the counseling. So there’s a lot of considerations around ethics, safety, holding, these notions of what is safe? What feels the individual, in their agency and autonomy can hold and the organization too. Where are the places where lavender, phoenix, maybe impacted, Are there things around informed consent or if there is some kind of moment things that we’ve had conversations about, it’s okay, what. [00:05:53] Madhvi: Someone gets activated a peer counselor’s not able to hold the space or they end up leaving feeling [00:06:00] activated from a session. We were thinking a lot about the chain of support, so how the organizers can support the peer counselors as they’re supporting the people being counseled and then how lavender Phoenix can help the organizers. So it’s just a lot of figuring it out for the first time. . And also peer counseling is really beautiful in this way where it’s separate from the clinical, mandated regulations that maybe counselors who are held by, state laws are in relationship with. [00:06:30] Madhvi: So there’s more freedom here. And then also moving through that space. It’s also when we’re in that place of freedom, there’s this underlying, I feel the state tries to instill fear in people who are trying to do this work that you’re gonna fuck up or gonna do something wrong. And it’s really a lot of us being , we actually know what we need to do, how to be able to maneuver out of these state based policies that rely on violence systems and give each other the tools. [00:06:57] Iris: Okay. And then last question [00:07:00] on the planning process do you have any recommendations for improving the process or [00:07:05] Madhvi: For the planning process? I think that there’s really great intention to share, if people are feeling. Burnt out overexerted. And also I think that a lot of us, including myself, [laughter], I think from the , I will not really share that when it’s happening, even though the language at Lavender Phoenix and the culture is ask for help when you need it. [00:07:25] Madhvi: There’s so much of that. And then yet there’s still this feeling of resistance or feeling , Bad about not being able to do more and pushing past, what does feel comfortable I’m wondering if there’s a space for people in the planning process as organizers to kinda anonymously send feedback to staff anonymous feedback survey sort of thing, during the process to kinda gauge. People’s level of feeling energized, exhausted, what maybe is needed. [00:07:56] Madhvi: And since there are people who are yeah, the working class [00:08:00] end too, of the organizing side. It would be cool if there were stipends. It is a lot of work and labor that goes into it for compensation is a cool thing. And also it’s one of those things too, even saying it feels a guilt twinge or being , this is something where it’s community. We’re doing it for a reason outside. But it’s also the, sometimes it’s hard to be able to do the psych work when our own cups are emp. [00:08:26] Iris: Yeah. Great. Thank you for sharing the ation. And I think there’s a of the important things there, especially around feedback. Yeah. I think anonymous feedback is to bridge that of job and how difficult it’s my next set of. Is it that the sustainability you talk a little bit about, but I know that the peer counseling team has tried to do a lot of work around making the process sustainable for both the planning team and counsel. So thinking about the sustainability of the process what do you think has worked so far? [00:08:57] Madhvi: Sustainability wise, it has [00:09:00] been nice to be able to have the larger healing justice committee plug into the efforts. And there’s I think five or six of us who are in the organizing peer counseling side right now, but they’re , Yeah, as I shared before, there have been so many people the earlier iterations of this too. It’s being able to know that you can kinda pass the torch and there’s gonna be other people there. It’s not all of the responsibility is on this group of five or six people. There are so many people who are down to rise to the occasion and support and be here for the next iteration too. I think that’s gonna be something that’s gonna help with. Long term visions of sustainability too, and knowing that there will be breath in between and there’s always consent in the process too, really invitations to kind join into these efforts. Nothing feels, it feels the space to communicate. [00:09:55] Madhvi: Okay, if it’s when does it end? Are we. ending there. Are we [00:10:00] continuing, it does seem there’s a finite end point for this moment in time, which gives a break and that feels just good to know in terms of future planning and if the invitation to come back to help the pilot program or the program if it wants, if it grows. Something that’s gonna be a larger part, for the future of lavender Phoenix. And there’s that aspect, which is great. Sustainability wise, it’s cool that we’re not, the organizers are not doing all the trainings. I thought that was originally what it was and it felt a lot. [00:10:28] Madhvi: But we’re able to resource out to people in the community who’ve been doing this work for a really long. Who are living their lives, Project lets folks in that word Stephanie, get to make their living off of doing this amazing disability justice work. And it’s cool to be able to financially support them too in the process of feel sustainable. Even in the way that we’re creating the relationships, new relationships to other orgs that haven’t been part of Lavender Phoenix’s network in the past. So it feels yeah, there’s that way of [00:11:00] being able to be supportive, sustaining other people, other projects, other orgs, utilizing other folks’ knowledge. [00:11:07] Iris: Yeah. as a follow up to that, what you think the impact has been of outsourcing, the training to project LETS rather than digging it. [00:11:16] Madhvi: Yeah, The impact has been a really great learning experience, I think for even the organizers doing this too. We get to learn alongside the peer counselors, we get to build relationships with project labs other groups too we’re gonna be doing role play later. I’m forgetting what the acronym starts with aapc. And just being able to these are folks that have been doing peer counseling specifically in Asian American communities, for a good second too. So they have inside guidance, a history, a way to be able to support and navigate and offer their own wisdom. As this specific, lavender, phoenix seed is in its way of sprouting out a peer counseling. So [00:12:00] it’s lovely being able to , have people who’ve been doing this, be able to offer feedback throughout the process to offer guidance that doesn’t , feel one of those things , ah, we’re starting from scratch. [00:12:10] Madhvi: No, it’s it’s already here. This resource is here and we’re connecting to what is already, and then if, Yeah, making the changes that feel the needed transformation, maybe if it. Spaces haven’t honored trans, non-binary, intersex communities, in the process of centering their spaces, That’s what we’re able to do better. What we’re able to commit to doing better is owning those kinds of spaces and having folks within our own communities getting trained who have lived experience in that way. So just different places, orgs that have lived experience in their own ways, taking the gems and then knowing that our peer counselors have this other lived experience that maybe not as represented in other spaces. They get to add their own little non-binary flare too. Yeah. [00:12:58] Iris: And then on the flip [00:13:00] side thinking about the sustainability of this project, what do you think could make this process more sustainable? [00:13:06] Madhvi: It really feels in the future since we’ve already kinda done a lot of the initial connecting, getting the trainings, learnings and understandings, from this experience, going forward it’s gonna be a lot less work on the organizing end since we’ve done a lot of research amongst all the different iterations of folks who have passed through the planning process for this. That there’s just a beautiful database that is growing and growing in so many resources that are growing and growing that it’s feeling very. A tangible vault of okay, this is where we’re gonna go and we know where we’re gonna go. Versus I’m not sure yet. It’s kinda we transgressed into the place of knowing okay, these orgs are here and that helps, that feeling of sustainability and kind shortening, that place of panic of Oh, where do we go? Who do we turn to support us and who can we support to in. . [00:13:58] Madhvi: Yeah, and [00:14:00] if we’re able to keep in touch and keep those relationships strong, there may be even more places of connecting and growing and offering. People in not just the live under Phoenix community, but community, but larger communities the ability to access maybe free or, Yeah, free trainings on peer counseling and letting it be more of a widespread so to resource that it’s just a really beautiful thing that folks can tap into feeling that level of agency, that feels self sustainable, too, sustainable for organizations when people , feel they’re equipped. [00:14:35] Iris: Thank you for your response to that. My last two questions are about the future of the program. So first do you have any thoughts on if we should continue this program after the pilot stage and what would the impact of that be? Whether we do or not? [00:14:53] Madhvi: I think it would be really wonderful for it to be something that happens.[00:15:00] A few times a year. I know when peer support things do start out, it’s smaller, shorter, and then as people can be more familiar with the process and the comfort of knowing their own agency and holding space, it feels something that it could be in many seasons throughout the year and the space of just. [00:15:21] Madhvi: Drop in support. It’s something that feels a need that’s always gonna be a need. And it’s also to have free, culturally competent, gender expansive, aware ways of being, in listening in support. That feels a forever healing justice. Home to kinda be able to provide community. It feels important. It seems and fingers crossed, that people who are going through this training program are able to tap in deeper cuz there’s a good handful of folks, I believe 16 people and those folks can be organizers in so many different renditions down the line too, having had [00:16:00] this experience and they’re coming in. Yeah. I’m just so curious to hear their own feedback on this process and what they think future peer counselors would need for it to grow. I’m sure that there’s gonna be maybe more, carefully cultivated, cohort experiences could be a. Powerful experience for folks. [00:16:19] Madhvi: Cause right now it does feel a little bit looser in the sense of different parts of , the summer organizer. There’s a strong sense of Oh, we’re building relationships with each other. That doesn’t seem it exists so strongly for people who are peer counselors right now, they’re showing. These spaced weekends with minimal contact with each other throughout. So maybe that could be the future, where there’s a more of a cohort experience. Yeah. [00:16:44] Iris: Yeah. The last question is, do you have new recommendations for continuing this program beyond the pilot? If it does. [00:16:53] Madhvi: Yeah, I think this cohort experience would be cool. Maybe art, kinda. Component too [00:17:00] are a, creating a space, it is something that we didn’t really talk about, but there are ways of making virtual s and things that, And that could be really beautiful as part of this. I’m also curious to hear more people’s stories as to why they’re interested in this work. There was a little bit of that in the welcoming but just the ability to know folks a little bit more feels it could be important. And in the spirit of doing that too, it feels the training would maybe need to. be closer in time as well as instead of spaced out over several months. [00:17:36] Madhvi: I think the spacing out really helped us as the planning team. Yeah. Cause a lot of things have been figured out very as we’re going, even though we tried to plan ahead, things changed. So it’s okay. But that timeline that allows a sense of intimacy and connection to in a way that feels , okay, more concrete. And yeah, I think more interactive aspects too would be [00:18:00] helpful. It does feel a lot of absorbing, which is super important. And also I think when we get to the role play, we’re gonna be able to witness more so of the peer counselors in the process of. Doing the embodied and the relaying aspects of this where Yeah, right now it’s a lot of absorbing, taking in. [00:18:21] Madhvi: Yeah. I’m also wondering for the peer counselors in their own lives too, the way that , these interview questions have been kinda asking about sustainability. Or the planning team and all of those I’m curious too, for them, how they would need more support from us. If it feels it’s even an open invitation too, I’m not entirely sure if that has been as carefully created and Yeah. So I think that would. An important thing to consider going forward. Just kinda checking in on where the individuals are too in their life and knowing that they can receive support. I , I hope that they know, in our [00:19:00] emails, there is always that space of feel free to, to connect on things anything in the reading feels activating. This is who you can reach out to and so I hope that There in a way that sometimes even when something is there in that way, it doesn’t mean that people are gonna use it if there’s not that trust and rapport built. [00:19:19] Madhvi: So I feel needing to have some trust building, relationship building for people to feel safe enough to actually reach out if they dunno folks. Yeah. Okay. And actually I have one follow up to your, It’s about what do you think would be the impact of having a closer connection between the counselor cohort if they had more opportunities to , interact with each other and talk in that way? , I honestly think that it. I’m just thinking about my own cohort experiences in different places. I’ve been able to lean on those folks, maybe more so than the people who are holding the container. There’s a distance between the people who are holding the [00:20:00] container and the people who are going through the process with you, shared experiences, more maybe of the same questions, insecurities, excitement, joy and being able to have that kinda space to know okay, we’re going through this together, this part of the journey. It could just help additional processing that, stronger feeling of grounded in purpose as well. Yeah. [00:20:24] Madhvi: Great. And I totally agree, and that’s my question. Yeah. Thank you for talking with me. I’m going to end the recording now. [00:20:33] paige: All right. That was the first interview with Iris yip and Madvhi. So now we’re going to take a quick music break and listen to queer brown love by Leo Hegde who is on staff. I love under Phoenix. This is queer brown love by Leo Hegde. [00:21:00] [00:22:00] [00:23:00] [00:24:00] [00:24:20] paige: You just listened to queer brown love by Leo Hegde who is a staff at lavender Phoenix. You are listening to apex express on KPFA 94.1 and online@kpfa.org. Let’s get back into these interviews by lavender Phoenix. And this next interview will be conducted by Iris Yip who will be talking to Al. [00:24:41] Iris: This is the first question. What has gone, what has worked well with the training content? [00:24:45] al: Yeah, so what has worked really well, I believe is Lavender Phoenix outsourcing the education to those that are actively learning and practicing. Peer [00:25:00] counseling based on their own lived experiences. I think that opportunity to collaborate with project lets created such a in depth and I. Just , how do I say this? Enlightening space for me and my peers to learn and also express curiosity, ask questions in live time with the coordinator of project lets, and process hard emotions and also bring in our own lived experiences and ask for best practices in live time. [00:25:29] al: So I just, That has been very revolutionary for me because just in multiple learning spaces that I’ve been in from school to workplaces to internships, people tend to cut corners around education. They think that trainings are just trainings PowerPoints, but. I think that learning from guest speakers that are actually within the realm of work, and especially for this work of working with people, I think that this will create influential impacts on each and every peer counselor. [00:25:59] al: There’s [00:26:00] no way that I feel this curriculum has been disengaging. It’s been so engaging and so memorable. And I wanna say too, that I’ve been in different peer counseling cohorts and I’ve been trained on this topic area, but the content was ableist, not trauma-informed, controversial and harmful. And the content that peer counseling has been teaching me has been healing me and been helping me to expand my scope on my family, my lived experiences, and myself and my community. And it’s so much more than just a training. It’s a revolutionary space for sure. [00:26:40] Iris: Awesome. Yeah. I love that. Has there been any, specific part of the training that you can share that you think has had that impact on you? [00:26:47] al: Has that healing impact on me? Yeah I think that I’ve. I think this might be normal in lavender, phoenix spaces, but it’s not normal for me in my other spaces in my everyday life. [00:27:00] But calling one selves in to whenever they misspoke for instance, one time the coordinator of Project LETS had said something about the word darkness and they had not caught themselves about the racist implications that, that may have because of the just how society binary things, black, white, darkness and light. And there’s a lot of connotations around the words you use and using mindful language. And I didn’t know that it was. Irking, I didn’t know that. But then in that space, someone called them in and the speaker corrected themselves. [00:27:34] al: And I got to watch, someone that I look up to model behavior in lifetime of what I’m learning as they’re learning and seeing my educators , or my mentors facilitators, having that student always mentality too, that they’re here to learn from us as well. That’s groundbreaking because I have so much respect for queer elders cuz they’ve lived through so much stuff. But the fact that. The queer [00:28:00] elders in this space in particular want to learn from us, the youth in this space. I think that’s what’s really healing, because in this space, I just see a world where I really actually wanna live in. And that could make me cry because the state of the world outside of the space is really ugly. [00:28:16] Iris: That’s amazing. I’m really glad this training has given me that space. I really resonated with what you said about being an environment where there’s, again, mutual sense of learning and wanting to learn from each other. I think that curiosity really helps bring an open mind to these kinds of spaces. [00:28:30] Iris: Okay. The next question is, so I think you’ve touched on this already, but what do you think has been the impact? Of outsourcing this, people that are really, I guess doing the work of anti ableist behavior and anti-racism, culturally competent peer counseling. What is the impact of that being in this kind of training? [00:28:47] al: I think that it’s resistance in the making and movement in the making. I think that I feel very lucky to have access this knowledge because not everyone gets the chance to learn what [00:29:00] happens when someone’s under psychiatric arrest? That’s something that you will hear more about when you go through the project lETS training, but understanding. Because I’m coming from a place of privilege where I’ve never been 51 50 that I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never been on the inside doors of a psychiatric treatment facility. So speaking from that point of view and hearing from someone who has, and the harm that the state has on patients and how vulnerable patients are, I feel like that creates movement and solidarity with people who do not have lived experiences with it, but know people who have lived experiences with it and see how fucked up it is and wants to do something better and provide alternative sources and resources for care, specifically community care because . [00:29:48] al: One of the main reasons why I’m so politicized is because growing up I watch my dad struggle to get the mental health access care he needs because he has severe [00:30:00] mental psychosis that relapses annually. And I believe that the reason why it happens so repetitively and cyclically is because there’s a need that’s not being met and that need should met by the healthcare system in this first world country. But it’s so inaccessible. It’s so culturally irrelevant and dare say it’s harmful, it’s abusive, it’s traumatizing. And so Okay. I’m going on tangents, but it’s, it, I never understood what happened when my dad was hospitalized because I was always on the outside. [00:30:32] al: I was always his caretaker, wanting to find him a source for him to get care. But He was never able to really communicate to me what was happening on the inside of those doors because of language barriers, because how hard it is to talk about these things in Vietnamese culture. It’s just, there’s so much that separates us from being able to talk about everything he feels and everything he experiences. [00:30:51] al: There’s just not words to describe how bizarre the state of there is in this country and neglect that he’s faced due to war and [00:31:00] colonization. He doesn’t have the words to describe what he’s going through, but I can see the effects and now I know the effects. I know I have the knowledge and education of what happens behind those hospital doors and how he spends hours and hours trying to pay his hospital bills that are bizarre. [00:31:16] al: Hundreds of thousands of dollars and so I know these things now because of the space that I hear from other people. And I think that in knowing this, I’m fired up, I’m heated and I, my drive is to build community. My drive is to build actual healing spaces that, we have the potential to create as a collective. And I just don’t wanna rely on the state anymore. And I want better for my dad. I want better for me, I want better for our community Now, future past, I. We can do better now with these tools that we’re learning in this space and how we’re opening our hearts to each other through the various pains and barriers that, that the state is trying to keep in between us all. Yeah. [00:31:58] Iris: Yeah. Thank you for [00:32:00] sharing both so vulnerably and so passionately. Oh, no, I really love the way you are always very reflective in what you say. And I think it gives such great knowledge that I can learn from too yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Oh my God, this is great. Okay. My next question is do you think there’s any other additional trainings that you would find helpful or that you think you would to learn more about that hasn’t been met yet? [00:32:25] al: Yeah. So I actually went to. Bystander Intervention training led by the Safety Committee, Community Safety Committee. I feel that should have been everyone who’s training to be a peer counselor should have gone to that. I feel because it was so relevant. It was basically one thing in particular that I feel , just related so much is because they gave us real life scenarios. What would you do if someone was experiencing active psychosis in the park? What would you do with your body? What would you do with yourself? Would you get other people? All these things that are relevant practice for what’s coming up in this training. [00:33:00] Cuz I know that looking forward we are going to have a pilot program and the more practice that we can get, especially role play practice and especially being in person with one another and establishing those connections with one another, I think that’s so crucial and yeah I, Does that answer your question? [00:33:19] Iris: Yeah, definitely. And once again, the follow up. What do you think the impact of that would be if everybody that was becoming a peer counselor would take that kind of bystand training? [00:33:27] al: Yeah, I think that the effect of that is that we would be able to reach more people who have various learning styles because I know that for me personally, it’s hard for me to learn through Zoom because I don’t have a safe space to be taking my meetings. I still live in my parents house and it’s really hard for me to focus sometimes and feel entirely safe. So having spaces in person for me personally is a space for me to exhale. And be a different type of present cuz I’m with people and [00:34:00] I’m sharing space — space that is established and intentionally safe or encouraged to push you to be brave. [00:34:08] al: I don’t know if everyone will feel safe there, but that’s definitely the intention. And just for me personally, yeah, being on Zoom kind of you can’t assume that everyone can learn that way, yeah. As effectively, especially since I feel the generation that’s primarily in lavender, Phoenix and the training, we grew up going to school in person. That’s the probably 90 to 95% of the experience. It was just such a shift and learning these super relevant topics. All the while I’m in a space that’s far back in terms of. It’s just being in this house is going back in time or just being in spaces that are not lavender, phoenix it is, you’re going back in time. [00:34:44] al: Racism is there, homophobia is there, all the bad things are there. But when you’re with lavender Phoenix, you’re just I’m in this new world that I actually have hope in. I was saying earlier, so having a central location for people to meet would be so cool. But I also know that Lavender Phoenix is so spread across the Bay area, [00:35:00] which is so cool. So I know it wouldn’t work for everybody, but I don’t know. Yeah. [00:35:04] Iris: Yeah. Absolutely . [00:35:06] al: Oh, another thing too, an impact that I, a positive impact is that having those scenarios will allow us to practice these skills with various demographics and various sectors of our lives and just honestly live by what we learn. And not just practice it in work, but actually apply it and externally and internally in all facets of our lives, which I think is awesome. That’s what education should be. It’s for liberating the soul and for liberating the people. It’s, yeah, it’s not for a grade, it’s not for a Certifi certificate. It’s for you, and for the people. So I think that getting opportunities to practice with one another and treating it , it’s more than just a training that you can just click through, that’s the difference I think. Yeah. [00:35:48] Iris: Yeah. Totally. Awesome. Okay, so next question is going to be moving a little bit away from the training content into, so I know the peer [00:36:00] counseling team has been doing a lot of work to try to make this process sustainable for both the planning team and for the counselors. So thinking about sustainability have there been things that, you’ve seen this program do that you think has worked to make this process more sustainable for the counselors? [00:36:17] al: Have I seen anything that makes the process seem sustainable for, Is that the question? [00:36:24] Iris: Yeah. [00:36:24] al: Remind me again is this peer counseling training program, has it been through generations already? Or is this the first cohort? [00:36:31] Iris: This is the first time. [00:36:32] al: Have I seen anything that [00:36:34] al: let’s see. I think it’s been. I think it’s too soon for me to say cause I missed the first meeting because. It was an awkward transition. I had just joined Lavender Phoenix when Lavender Phoenix changed their name. So I missed all the information for the first meeting. I don’t know what it, what the community building aspect that they had planned was at all. And that’s how me, I could have watched the training back, but [00:37:00] it was an hour long and I didn’t want to. Yeah, I would also feel fomo. I was , Oh, I missed it. I wasn’t there. I think that maybe. No, I don’t know how to answer this question cuz I missed [00:37:09] Iris: Yeah, that’s OK . That’s ok. Yeah. Then perhaps, is there anything you can think of that Loud could implement to make this process more sustainable? And thinking perhaps in the long run. When this pilot program is actually started now and people are doing the counsel sessions. [00:37:25] al: Yeah. I have a couple of things. Yeah. I would say since I missed the first one, I would say that I just wanna get to know people in my cohort better. I think that One thing that works in the past in my other peer counseling programs was that I established a feeling of familiarity with the people that I was learning with and why they’re here and stuff that. And had a lot of focus groups and we practiced on each other for role play. Yeah, feeling less alone in this would definitely make this more, less nerve-wracking. So there’s that for [00:38:00] sustainability of just cause the way that these meetings roll on, I feel not everyone can make it out to each one. So I think time should be cut away for folks to just get to know each other more besides the why are you here? But just prompt questions. [00:38:12] al: I know Lavender Phoenix can, ask some heartfelt questions and get people to open up to one another because I think that making that making it more personable will make it more sustainable. Cause, when you don’t have a connection to people in a group, I don’t think you’re as likely to return and hold significance for it. So yeah, build building community in that way and not just for meeting. And other thing is I noticed that our meetings are quite sporadic. So I don’t even really remember what I’ve the last time I met with the cohort, so having a more consistent pattern of meetings so that the knowledge that I learned can be processed and then added onto, but there’s been so much processing time that I’ve almost forgotten it already. [00:38:52] al: So just having more consistent meetings for the next cohorts maybe and then for another, I know that since this [00:39:00] is a pilot program, there may be a lot of pressure around building curriculum. So I understand that’s really challenging and I would say I would love to be a part of the planning process. I don’t know what that would look for Lavender Phoenix and how they do things, but maybe their next court around you can have alumnis come back and be a part of the planning and the conversation. Or even right now opening up this space or opening up spaces for people in the cohort to provide active feedback since there are so many gaps between meetings, just talk to us so we can improve as we go, as opposed to wait and then improve. So more dialogue. [00:39:37] Iris: I love that. I love feedback. I think it’s important as well. Okay and then now last question. Moving gone. Woo. You already shared some of this, but also thinking about the future of this program, do you have any recommendations for continuing this beyond the pilot that we’re going to have? [00:39:52] al: Yeah, please have more cohorts. That’s my feedback. , I think that if Lavender Phoenix has capacity, a cohort a year would be [00:40:00] awesome or I feel very blessed to have had this opportunity, so I want it to keep going. I can’t remember the days in which we were meeting, but having weekend meetings are awesome for students and people who work. Other feedback that I have for longevity and future planning maybe expand the, I don’t know how many people are planning the thing, but maybe more support would help. I have no idea if they’re struggling or what, but yeah, making sure that, cuz this is tough work. It’s a lot of pressure to be birthing such a beautiful generation, So I hope that, on the other end of things, people are being properly supported and taken care of in terms of each other and themselves. [00:40:37] Iris: Yeah. Yeah, I the, there’s one more question. There’s just the follow with always the impact. So what do you think? So what will be the impact? And just what will be the impact of program, of peer counseling will be impact. [00:40:49] al: Intergenerational community care within the, when this, within this queer, trans, non-binary, a API community I think it starts [00:41:00] here and I could see this being a force that spreads across the world. I think what we’re doing is historical and we’re carrying on other history legacies, And I think ultimately this saves lives. It saves lives of the people in this space, people who know the people in this space, and people that are in the space that we haven’t even met. And it preserves our peoples, our stories and our powers and our energies. I’m getting emotional as to how much I love this program. It saves lives, it sets people free. [00:41:33] al: Yeah. Damn, you’re not a cry. Yeah. I think the impact is be out of this world, I don’t want it to end, I wanna return. I wanna keep learning. I think that’s another thing too, is that as someone is in the core right now, I don’t want it to end. I’d hate to see it end. I wanna keep learning. Yeah. So what does that look ? I don’t know. Maybe I can return and facilitate and learn from people in the cohort. That would be beautiful. [00:41:58] Iris: Thank you. Truly [00:42:00] amazing. And I agree from am I involvement in this process too? I really see the power of it and I really, the learning. Community. It’s great. It’s amazing. It’s . So good. Yeah, With that, I’m gonna stop recording now. [00:42:15] paige: All right. That concludes the second interview from lavender Phoenix. We’ll be taking a short break. You’re listening to 94.1 KPFA San Francisco, 89.3, Berkeley 88.1, Fresno and 97.5 in Santa Cruz. And of course, online@kpfa.org. [00:46:56] paige: You’re listening to 94.1 KPFA San Francisco, 89.3, Berkeley 88.1, Fresno and 97.5 Santa Cruz and online@kpfa.org. We’re going to listen to the last interview from lavender Phoenix. That includes Iris yip interviewing Phoebe. And talking about the peer counseling program that they launched in august of 2022. [00:47:26] Iris: So the first question our first set of questions has to do with the planning process for this pilot. And in thinking about the planning process for the peer counseling pilot, what would you say has been going well with the process? [00:47:44] Phibi: Yeah. For what’s been going well with the process? It’s been nice that we’ve been able to go at our own pace and capacity, and we’ve also had lot of different learning lessons among the team that our time together. And also helping Jasmine as a staff person just check in with us from time to time has also helped [00:48:00] consolidate our ideas and moving out the process. [00:48:02] Iris: Great. And on the other hand, what would, what do you think has been difficult about the planning process? [00:48:08] Phibi: Yeah, what’s been difficult about the process is that there’s actually been a lot of timeline shifts. For example, the pilot was intended to happen a one day, and then it was pushed back and then push back again. And that main thing that dragged out the process, which can be training in some context. Yeah. And then also what’s been difficult is yeah, how the healing justice members involved in contributing Yeah. Cuz we weren’t sure how to exactly even implement a process for folks outside of the peer counseling team in healing Justice can to support us. And it’s also because, it’s a novel process. It’s just. Staff guided, on the side rather than a directly staff involved process. And making this part from scratch presents a lot of difficulties on the first time. [00:48:46] Iris: Speaking on it’s staff guided rather than staff involved. I think it’s a, you said what do you think is the impact of that rather than that, the other way of doing it? [00:48:56] Phibi: Yeah I think one of the positive impacts is that it takes some weight [00:49:00] off of the staff. Cause the staff carry on a lot of different responsibilities. And it helps them in that sense. And also it allows more spaciousness for different folks in the planning team to actually take on leadership in the context of makes sense for them, but passively rather than turning to the staff person for the next step, it’s actually up to us to continue the process and then refer to them if we need support along the way. [00:49:19] Iris: Yeah. Great. Okay. And then, so think about the planning process question, which is, do you have any recommendations for improving the planning process? Maybe for now or for later? [00:49:33] Phibi: Yeah, I think. Some recommendations would be to have the staff challenge us with more kinda push or challenging questions. I think I think during the time when Yuan was still the staff member for for counseling, it was someone would ask some really deep questions and I think that really helped us certify our values and also helped us stay on track. So I think times questions that challenge us I guess we wanna do this, but also , why are we doing this important? What is the meaning of it? Yeah. Yeah. And then we also kinda implementing a more formal [00:50:00] process. I think one example would be , Mocha could be a good process or just Or when we first had the pilot, when we first had the planning team set up, it’s oh, we didn’t actually have to have a structure. It was unstructured. And so having a more structured thing in the future would be helpful. And then also listing out all the different resources and contacts that we actually have, including different community organizations is helpful. And I guess if there’s a second iteration of the peer counseling project or pilot, I guess program would be referring back to previous year’s work if this could, if this goes on for multiple years yeah. [00:50:30] Iris: Yeah. Great. Okay. Next of questions to do around the sustainability of, so I know that the peer counseling team was doing a lot of work around making the process sustainable for both the planning team and the counsel. So thinking about the sustainability of this process, what do you think has worked? [00:50:48] Phibi: Yeah. Something we recently done is that we actually changed our monthly meetings from the duration of one hour to the duration of an hour and 30. And this actually allowed us to have longer checkins and actually do more relationship building. [00:51:00] Because back when we had just one hour meetings, it just felt really rushed. [00:51:03] Phibi: We had to check in super quick and then we had to do all our action items and it just felt very , limiting. And so that definit. And also recruiting more Pennington numbers definitely gave us more capacity and also more d and more experiences of folks coming in. And also having deeper and honest conversations or check-ins about the process. [00:51:21] Phibi: Where are we at? How is our capacity? Doing those type of checkings and finding the balance of , where. We should split up and do certain tasks or we should all, all come together to work on. I think that’s a good balance to help those. Yeah. And so what do you think is the impact of having I guess longer and deeper, check-ins? [00:51:39] Phibi: Yeah I think having, longer check-ins allows you to settle into the space. Can be coming from anything before. And so I haven’t had a deeper check in can be more real about what, where is your capacity at? And what can you more realistically take on? Yeah. [00:51:52] Phibi: All right. So thinking about the sustainability of this process again, what do you think could be done to make this [00:52:00] process more sustainable? Yeah. To make this process more sustainable? I’d say having a more solidified structure and action plan, and also making sure that we all feel really grounded in our values. And then also I check in on those values, do they still feel good? Do we change? Do we change anything? Add anything. And. Lesson that we learned was , you really have to do relationship building early on. . And it’s you can’t just put just the work first because then everyone will burn out. If you only do work, you need to check the balance. I wish. And something that we experimented with was working sessions. So outside of the meetings have additional time just to just chill and also do work and also just get to know each other. [00:52:36] Iris: Okay. Let’s see. So next one, next set of questions is about the training content. What is thinking about the training content, is there anything that you think has worked really well in terms of the training that the counselors have been given and the peer counseling team has created? [00:52:53] Phibi: For the training content, we actually leaned a lot in the different community organizations that were in contact with. For example, the Asian [00:53:00] American peer counseling. We pulled some of their readings from the reading library to help us do work to figure out what the readings for the counselors. We both found their library and also with Project let’s we we’re in contact with them and we able to purchase the training for the ERs and also invite Stephanie from project lets to do a debrief, which is really nice. But also cost the budget too. And so for costed money as well. [00:53:22] Phibi: So having a balance of something that would cost money and also something that would be free as well, such as Asian American food concert, the time and also. Having a good mix of experiences and knowledge from the depend team. I know that some other folks are , they’ve done peer counseling before, or they even are therapists in training. [00:53:37] Iris: That’s really important. Makes sense. Little more project labs this outside. And what it aepc those outside organizations that you’ve worked with. What do you think is an impact of kinda outsourcing some of that training to other organizations rather than having peer counsel team develop everything on their own? [00:53:54] Phibi: Yeah, I think impact one of the financial aspect of oh, you have to pay a good amount for project lots. And also but it did [00:54:00] also take some. Some pressure off of the team to to do more of [00:54:03] Phibi: for example, I think crisis training is difficult and so I think having outsourcing that made things a lot easier. And working with folks who , have had real, hands on experience in the field before, which is why I’ll talk about outsourcing think was helpful. We do have a balance. [00:54:17] Phibi: We have. Training session. That’s just us. Yeah. [00:54:20] Iris: Okay. And then is there any additional training that you think maybe would’ve been helpful to include? Or it would be helpful to include in the future? Yeah. [00:54:30] Phibi: Oh, and then I actually have one more answer for the previous question as well. [00:54:33] Iris: Sorry. Yeah. Go for it. [00:54:34] Phibi: Yeah. And then also outsourcing to other organizations helps build relationships, with the other organizations too, for example, Asian American for counseling, they actually I think they were in the process trying to help other organizations start for counseling. And so it was kinda mutually beneficial and it didn’t feel transactional and I felt I genuine to do this with them. And then to go back to the current question about what additional training would be helpful yeah, I think rather than outsourcing to have a [00:55:00] direct hands on training us with knowledge that we have I think that would be cool. And then also some somatic training or for example, How do you self-regulate your body when you’re triggered? Those type of practices meditation or movement, I think those can help dreams. [00:55:13] Iris: Awesome. Great. Okay. And these are the last set of questions. And this is thinking about the future of the program. So first do you think we should continue the program? What would the impact be if we did or if we didn’t? [00:55:26] Phibi: I think we should continue the program. I think the only limiting factor is budget for training and just fast of the planning team at the time. I think, excuse me, I think it’s hard to gauge how future peer counseling programs would be , because this palette took more than. I think two years to implement. And so for example, the next one would just be , it would just be ready to go probably a year, less than a year, season for example. And so it would take less time to do it. And so it would actually would be easier to continue the program I think cause we have the foundation already set up and would just be revising over time. [00:55:58] Phibi: I think in terms of more specific [00:56:00] impact, we’d be. We to get to train more and more folks at Lavender Phoenix. And it could even be in a similar way to how there’s seasonal fundraising where folks get trained every season ish. And so eventually, if folks wanted to, good number of folks at Lavender Phoenix could be trained in prayer counseling at some point, which is really cool. And also it helps us meet our healing justice goal. And it also accomplish the task of Supporting community members along the way. [00:56:25] Iris: Awesome. Ok. And then my last question is, do you have any recommendations for continuing this program beyond the pilot? [00:56:33] Iris: Yeah. Yeah, I think as I said, the seasonal format probably be good. But the key difference would. This pilot actually only has one session with a participant. But in the future, I think it would be great to have more than one session, multiple sessions. And impact of that would be , they see their pre more often or Yeah, more than once. Yeah, because you can’t just settle everything in just one session. Usually that consistency is really helpful for folks. [00:56:54] Iris: Yeah. Okay. Do you have anything else that you would to say? Any of these questions? [00:56:59] Iris: I’m good. [00:56:59] Iris: [00:57:00] Awesome. Okay, then will stop the right now. That concludes our episode if you want to organize alongside lavender Phoenix, you can join us. Follow us at L a V p H O E N I X laugh Phoenix on Instagram and find us at lavender, phoenix.org. [00:57:19] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night. Apex express Asian Pacific expression. Unity and cultural coverage, [00:58:00] music and calendar, The post APEX Express – 11.24.22 Lavender Phoenix’s Peer Counseling Program by and for Trans Nonbinary Asian Pacific Islander people appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – November 17, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #2
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental. Episode #2 This month’s episode features Thao and The Get Down, Stay Down, Star Feminine Band, Taj Majal, and Tohur Aizawa Quartet. Sounds from Cambodia, Benin, Americas, and so much more. With winter coming in the northern hemisphere, I was inspired by music that ponders, wanders, and lingers. A time of reflection of the change from mercury retrograde and the stillness in this Scorpio season and recent Scorpio eclipse and the current mars in retrograde in Gemini. All that to say, reflect on your desires, needs, and goals. Be honest, truly honest about where you are and where you want to be. Send compassion to yourself and those around you. Listen to this set and allow yourself to transmute these energies by meditation and sonic medicine. Star Feminine Band
A group of 7 girls, aged between 10 and 17 years old, from Natitingou, a remote town in the north of Benin. I absolutely fell in love with the energy of their music, light and playful and deeply talented. I found their record digging in Pasadena, CA over the summer of 2022.
Thao and The Get Down, Stay Down
I first heard her and her band in Los Angeles for my auntie’s birthday. It was a free concert and that’s how my aunt convinced our whole family to go. I was 14 at the time and I didn’t really connect to her music at first, my auntie did get an autograph and it was the happiest I’ve ever seen her. But then when the pandemic came around, I listened to Thao’s tiny desk and it ignited a love for her and her music. I had spent more time learning about folk, rock music so I was able to appreciate it more and understand the depths of her music, especially during March of 2020.
Geraldo Pino
So I found this next track off the Nigeria Soul Power 70 Compilation album. It’s got some serious gems on it and this is no exception. Pino is a Sierra Leonean Nigerian musician. He was one of the early pioneers of modern African pop music.
The Charles LLoyd Quartet
This was one of the “First psychedelic jazz bands” and the group was all about “Communication is the prime concern” The quartet is made up of Keith Jarret, Ron McClure, Charles Lloyd, Jack DeJohnnette.
Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal is a Blues musician but fuses Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific so naturally I had to share some of his music. I found his music crate digging as well as all good music is found by word of mouth or found hidden in a crate. Henry chose his stage name, Taj Mahal, from dreams he had about Mahatma Gandhi, India, and social tolerance. He started using the stage name in 1959 or 1961—around the same time he began attending the University of Massachusetts. He formed one of the first interracial bands back in 1964 when he moved out to Santa Monica and they released one album together before creative differences. At that time he also worked with Buddy Lee and Muddy Waters. Later in his career, he formed Hula Blues Band in Hawaii. He will be performing in Oakland if you want to check him out on December 2 and 3 at the fox theater and in Los Angeles on December 4.
Tupac
Tupac is famously known for his rap music and repping Los Angeles, California. Though he was born in Oakland, CA and wrote an amazing book collection of poetry called “The Rose That Grew From Concrete” that features the very first track “Wake Me When I’m Free” as well as other tales of growing up in the ghetto and his life stories. The rose is a symbol of beauty and love showing resilience in its ability to grow in the face of insurmountable odds, the concrete.
Lisa Lowe’s Book: In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press About the DJ My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, poet, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere and go by DJ Miu. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound. Lastly, special shoutout to my DJ crew 730 Faders. Catch us throwing the next best party in LA and coming near you. And my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family. Find me anywhere and everywhere @paigechung @DJxMIU
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Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents’ Episode #2 Set List:
apex express intro music “Wake Me When I’m Free” by sang by Babatunde Olatunji, Sikiru Adepoju written by Tupac “Teacup’s Jazzy Blues Tune” by Taj Mahal “Holy Roller” by Thao and The Get Down Stay Down “Samba De Orfeu” by Tohru Aizawa Quartet “PEBA” by Star Feminine Band “Love In (live)” by The Charles Llyod Quartet “Man of Constant Sorrow by Pan Ron “A Who Se Me Dun (Blind Alley Mix)” by Cutty Ranks (DJ Babu famously routined this beat) “Ain’t Nothing Wrong” by KC and The Sunshine Band “Wan Maha Sanook” by Plearn Promdan “Bacao Suave” by Bacao Rhythm and Steel Band “Sob A Luz Do Sol” by A Bossa Electrica “Soul Lam Plearn” by The Petch Phin Thong Band “Words of Wisdom” by Tupac Shakur “Femme Africaine” by Star Feminine Band “Suối Mơ” by Khánh Hà “Love Till The End of Time” by Paulinho da Costa “Higher” by DJ BABU “Tribal Dance” by The Charles Lloyd Quartet “La Musique” by Star Feminine Band “Ngày Vui Bên Nhau” by Khánh Hà “Saturday Love (Mirror Pop Remix)” by Cherelle ft. Alexander O’ Neal “Africans Must Unite” by Geraldo Pino and The Heartbeats “Merengue” by Boliver “Loan mắt nhung” by Elvis Phương APEX Express Outro
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Host Miko Lee speaks with two women professors Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu and Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez about their approach to education, activism, motherhood and moving forward. Show Transcript A Tale of Two Professors Story [00:00:00] Swati: Tonight on APEX Express, we have a piece highlighting the work of two professors with a lot in common, both Filipino scholar, activists, and grieving mothers who are approaching their work in similar and different ways. Listen in on Miko’s interview, exploring both of their amazing backstories, their current work and where they see their futures. Also editorial side note Miko and Robyn’s audio got a little funky at times. So it might be a little bumpy. [00:00:59] Miko Lee: Welcome Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu and Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez to APEX express. Dr. Robyn is the first Filipino American to serve as chair of the UC Davis Asian American Studies Department, the first one in 50 years. She also became the founding director of the Bulosan Center for Filipino studies and has authored so many books. Dr. Celine scholar filmmaker, and the new Dean of the Division of Arts at UC Santa Cruz. You worked at my Alma mater San Francisco State University in the School of Cinema. You were a professor of Asian-American feminist film and media studies at UC Santa Barbara. I mean, you’ve, you’ve been like through the whole California system. We are so happy to have you on APEX express. I believe you were the first Asian-American Dean in this position. And how does this feel for you to be at UC Santa Cruz during this work? [00:01:51] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: As the first woman of color Dean at UC Santa Cruz, as well as the first Asian American woman. Of course, it feels weighty, to hear that the lived experience of it is very much about prioritizing subjugated knowledges, making sure that we have an abundance of voices and abundance of traditions and knowledges that we are teaching so that students can really have access to you know what they want to study as well as be situated, and a long tradition of inquiry and method. It’s really wonderful to be at the helm of a division that really takes seriously, people who want to practice art, people who want to study art historically, critically theoretically and we all have defined. Our role, and helping to make this world A place where everyone has a role, [00:02:48] Miko Lee: and art is just being part of who you are that it’s just part of being human. Um, Robyn, I want to go way back and talk with you about when you first became politically active. [00:02:59] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I would say that the beginnings of my political activism started when I was in either my freshman or sophomore year of high school. And it started with a letter. I was concerned about what we now call racial profiling of young Filipino American men in my neighborhood. I grew up in Union City, California in the east bay. And there was a supposed kind of gang problem in Union City and I recall young boys really in our neighborhood at school, who I thought were being unfairly targeted, not only by police, but also mistreatment really from other authority figures at school, I felt really concerned about that and wrote a letter. I was encouraged by my mom to express my opinions or my kind of concern about how my peers are being treated by writing a letter. And so I wrote the letter and I addressed it to the mayor of Union City, the chief of police, and the superintendent of the school district. And in the letter, I expressed how I felt that my peers were being unfair ly treated and proposed that they introduce what I was calling, multicultural education. The idea I thought was that if our teachers and authority figures really understood us better, and at the same time, if we encountered a stories and histories of our community that somehow this so-called gang problem could be somewhat addressed. So that was my first, I think, kind of a political act or act of activism. And I would then go from there really getting involved in electoral politics. And then after that when I’m in college is really when I started to get more involved in other kinds of organizing work community organizing work. [00:05:10] Miko Lee: I love that. What do you think, was it your parents’ upbringing or your peers? What do you think rose up your feisty nature to be able to write back to the school board at such a young age? [00:05:22] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I think it was a couple of things. I think one was actually my mother modeling a modeling sort of letter writing in particular as a mode of calling out issues of inequity or injustice and what had happened and I remember this very clearly. I think it probably was my earliest observation or experience of racism and it was at church. I just remember I grew up Catholic and somehow I just remember sitting in the pew and fidgeting and sort of halfway listening to the priest’s sermon and I recall the priest saying something about how Filipinos were not contributing sufficiently enough to the parish. And I remember that very clearly. And I remember feeling that tension rise because there’s so many people in mass who are Filipino and I could feel, my mother bristling at that. My father, I just, the tension was just so palpable. My mother was feeling after mass talking about how insensitive the priest had been. Didn’t quite say racist, that it was just really wrong and a mis-characterization of the Filipino community. And she was going to write a letter and address it. And I remember observing that and that had a real impact on me. I think the influence again, via my mother is the fact that my middle name, which actually translates into ‘to be angry’ comes from an ancestor on a maternal ancestor. It was a made up name by one of my ancestors who decided to change his name to Magalit it as an expression of defiance against the Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines and actually ended up joining the anti-colonial revolutionary cause himself. And so that was that’s an important story that is passed on through my mom’s, through my mom’s family. We’re very proud of that revolutionary history. I was always very proud of it always insist on using my middle name everywhere and anywhere. And so I think there’s also that, that, that feeling, or I think I was encouraged to, we were encouraged to really be those people who would be critical of any circumstances where people are oppressed, exploited, marginalized. Even my father. Growing up he would tell me, you’re so fortunate that I left the day before martial law was declared in the Philippines, because otherwise I would have been, I would have stayed and I would have been part of the movement to topple the dictatorship. And I wouldn’t be able to be here and be your dad. And I recall to, with my father he drew really a hard and fast lines between himself and people in the community, even friendships would think, he walked away from friendships if he felt a friend was sympathetic to the dictatorship. So there’s just all of these ways that might. Both, exhibited as anti-authoritarian kind of, the sort of critique of structures of power that I grew up with and I observed and was inspired by. So I think that’s what explains why I would end up doing what I did as a freshman in high school. [00:08:39] Miko Lee: Wow. The power of being angry, built into your DNA and your name and your love it. We love to hear that. Dr. Celine What do you think Drove you into ethnic studies [00:08:54] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: I came to the United States with my family, in the early to mid eighties and I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was one of three Filipino Americans in my high school of 3000 people. And the others were my siblings, and education for me was really sanctuary, like being at school because there was food because we were so poor and, we were the center of our worlds, my multicultural set of friends and I loved, learning about my new country, and when I moved to Berkeley as an undergrad, there were many questions that I had, like, why is it that, my parents, even though they were hyper educated in a way, had to work low wage jobs, as immigrants and they had to work two jobs and they were never around then why was I, and my sister, we were 14, 13 years old. We were already working, in order to help put food on the table for our large immigrant family. So I had so many questions. What was this about, why are we here? And. I loved ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, it was a way to really understand subjugated knowledges, and it was really understanding why we no longer ate together as a family because my parents had to work. At UC Berkeley, ethnic studies was such a wonderful place because it was an interdisciplinary approach to history, to cinema, to literature. It was the time where so many amazing people were there. Not only was it Trinh Min-ha, June Jordan, Cherrié Moraga. I learned in their classrooms and also created my own classrooms by becoming an activist, because there was so much in our experiences that I needed to see on paper. Like what it means to walk around with a large Asian American family, what it means to, grow up with a white mom, but be seen as a woman of color, like your closest intimate as this white woman who may or may not see you. So these were stories that my classmates were telling me. We did a lot of organizing, you know, a woman of color magazine named, ‘Smell This’, a woman of color film festival, a woman of color retreat. We were really trying to figure out how can we be effective advocates in a world, using our education, using the power and weapons of our education in order to, make significant, impactful cultural contributions that will change the world. And I realized I wanted to really capture the historical moment of how there were so many women of color writing professors there, Maxine Hong Kingston, June Jordan, Cherrié Moraga. Were all there and we were all doing spoken word and poetry slams, and the tradition of women of color literature, with ‘This Bridge Called My Back’ Audrey Lorde, Chrystos, Pat Parker and more, this was a vibrant, legacy growing all of us, all of these books were seeds, and I came up with the name, ‘Smell This’ in the hallways of the co-op in which I lived in at the time. I think I didn’t even really think about it sexually, even though, I’m a sexuality scholar and I’m a porn study scholar, I really didn’t. I really thought of it as a multisensorial experience that you enter when you are exposed to writing. That’s so truthful, that’s so brutal and it’s confrontation with, what it means to be a multiply subjugated person, just walking down the street, for me at the time you’re growing up as a young adult and you’re blossoming, your interests are blossoming, your sexuality is blossoming, and so it was for me, just this multi-dimensional kind of growth, and I wanted this name to assert that multisensorial experience of what it means to grow up in a world. And at the time, give yourself the permission to say my voice is important, my perspective is important, and that’s why I called it that. I think somewhat innocently. And I remember just being on Sproul Plaza, blasting, hip hop music, and just roping in as many women of color as we could, to contribute to the magazine. And we had these gigantic parties and we had the band Yeasty Girls perform. And so we had these legendary epic parties that were all about validating the cultural production of a women of color. [00:13:13] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: I suppose you know, that early act of defiance or that act of resistance writing that letter was the beginnings of my journey towards ethnic studies .I think intuitively I knew that there was something problematic about the fact that I grew up in a predominantly community of color and that there was and most of the students, most of my peers were people of color. And yet most of the figures of authority, teachers, administrators were not people of color. And that the books that we were reading typically had scant mention of our community. So there’s some, I think intuitively I knew that that could not be right. When I. First took an ethnic studies course after I transferred to Santa Barbara, my third year after a stint at community college. We’re actually, I first encountered sort of women of color writers. But it was a class where I was introduced to This Bridge Called My Back, very important anthology by a co-edited by Cherrié Moraga. So that, was sort of my initial foray into kind of women’s studies and ethics studies and then by my junior year at UC Santa Barbara, I had this opportunity to take all these classes to class and Chicano studies, a class in Black studies, but the class that really set me on this path toward academia was a class by Dr. Diane Fujino, it was her very first quarter teaching at UC Santa Barbara and Asian-American studies as an assistant professor. It was really the first time I had encountered a Asian American woman professor who also was unapologetically an activist. And that class seeing her just really changed my life. I was so inspired by Diane by what she was doing in the classroom, which she was inviting us to do students, I felt really challenged and really important in good ways by her and I thought, I think that’s the way that I want to that, that’s what I want to do. I knew I wanted to choose a career of service, I wasn’t quite sure what that was going to be. I thought being a lawyer might be it then I changed my mind, then I thought, oh, maybe I should work as a lobbyist for some of these progressive causes. And then I changed my mind thought I even wanted to be an elected. Maybe then changed my mind. And then professor seemed like something that I could get into. I love learning, I love reading, I love research, I also got introduced to other options that could have been a possibility of me being a labor organizer, so yeah, professor felt like a potential way to actually be at the university lectern, but also to be able to write books that students might be able to encounter in other university classrooms and, Diane embodied this very real possibility for me and I chose to follow that path. She represented and continues to represent to me an approach to Asian-American studies that I want to see more of, I think that As much as Asian-American studies was born out of these movements for liberation, the Ethic Studies movement, the Third World Liberation Front, the Asian-American movement, Black Power movement. I think there is a way that I feel as if Asian American studies and Ethics Studies more broadly has become so institutionalized. And I understand that, some of the reasons for this hyper, this institutionalization of Asian-American studies or Ethnic Studies had everything to do with just the backlash against it and just survival. I think that to survive different kinds of decisions were made such that Asian-American studies are at the end, even ethics studies as a field, had to look and feel more the other disciplinary and interdisciplinary formations in the university and less this insurgent site for knowledge production and dissemination that it it had started off as, and Diane for me, always felt like, still feels like one of the few scholars who continues to see Asian-American studies and Ethnic Studies as the site for insurgent knowledge production and dissemination, as the site where we as scholars use our platforms use our training use the kinds of resources we have access to, to amplify the issues of our communities and to also work in partnership with the community in trying to reimagine everything as Grace Lee Boggs invites us to do, to do the critical work of the thinking and the dreaming and strategizing to achieve a better world for all of us. We created a scholar activist affinity group or section is what we call it. And then we’d, frequently organized panels where we would invite activists to come and engage our colleagues because, we recognize that activists and organizers are also thinkers and theoreticians who have really important frameworks and analysis of the world. And that we as scholars could benefit just as much as we as scholars are, doing full-time work and kind of thinking and teaching that we can also extend different kinds of insights to our organizer colleagues. [00:18:42] Miko Lee: For folks that want to hear more about this. There’s actually an entire APEX express episode that covers a reading done by both Robin and Diane at Eastwind Books. Last year you both received a mentorship award. Can you share about how important it is to be a mentor and how you combine being both a mentor, an activist. And a scholar. How do you combine those elements? [00:19:12] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: you know, Mentorship is so important to me, I think on one hand, I benefited from mentorship clearly, I wouldn’t have even been able to pursue this path, this career path if I hadn’t had a mentor like Diane, Dr. Fujino to not just exist, but actually to see who cultivated a relationship with me who was willing to take the time to help me understand the world of academia which was a world that was completely foreign to me. Dr. Fujino, along with other mentors that I had as an undergraduate really helped guide me. On one hand I got research experience. So they both, they all helped me gain a real understanding of what an academic life actually feels like. I knew I wanted to be a professor, but I didn’t quite know what getting a PhD would require and getting a PhD requires research and I needed the research experience and they guided me through that process by giving it to me helping me to cultivate my own research questions and carry out my own research project. And all of that not only exposed me to this world to confirm for me that yeah, absolutely that is a path I want to pursue. And they were very frank and honest about what kinds of challenges I might face. I don’t know that I fully understood some of their kind of cautionary kind of tales about academia. It took having to actually get into a program and go through it for me to fully understand what I think they were trying to advise me about, and namely that is just, the elitism of academia the ways in which, you know, academia can be limited especially if you’re a kind of an activist or committed to social justice and that there are ways that, academia isn’t always necessarily the place for that sort of work. Mentorship was so valuable for me individually, and then as I finished my doctorate the mentors I had, helped me just provide that emotional support. Even sometimes it’s not even about the nuts and bolts of how do you do research and how do you finish a dissertation? It’s simply just supporting you and making you feel like you belong in a space that makes you feel like you don’t more often than not. And so just having that community of support was important from mentors. But, there are still too few people of color as more senior professors, a lot of my mentors were my peers who were just a couple of years ahead of me, and I vowed that, as soon as I was in a position that I would be that person who would throw the gate open and keep it open and and support people. But I also approach mentorship in in my own sort of way. I think, I have always tried to be just very transparent with my students about what, the challenges of academia can feel like for a woman of color, for a person of color. I also, I had a child when I was in grad school. So that also created other challenges that other people didn’t necessarily have to have. And I, I wanted to be able to, again, to support women who might make choices in graduate school, around, having families or, all of that so mentorship is so vital I think to ensuring that academia continues to be open to alternative voices and particularly folks of color like academia sometimes it’s like a long hazing process. I feel like this isn’t any different than being in a fraternity or sorority, I feel like, it’s all just this huge hazing process. It’s not fully transparent about what goes on and nobody really wants to let on. And , that prevents us from moving forward. You get stuck in grad school, you end up not finishing your doctorate and, dropping out or you get a job, but then you can’t get tenure. And there’s just so much that I feel like is so shrouded in secrecy sometimes about academia and I wanted to be able to be that person if I got through that, I would keep the gate wide open and give folks, as much information as possible and support in, moving forward and through through academia and all of the hoops that, you have to jump to get to a place where I am now. [00:23:24] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: Mentorship and activism to me are all so interrelated. When I went to UC Berkeley as an undergrad, and I think you can say this about the UC system as a whole, it’s usually an experience of disorientation when you get different kinds of pressures around you saying that your history is unimportant. Your voice is unimportant. Your perspective is unimportant, and this is why ethnic studies exists. And this is why programs like the minority summer research program and various other programs are designed. So as to lift up people who otherwise feel like they don’t belong and they don’t deserve to study, and they don’t deserve the time that is the gift of mentorship. And so I was given the gift of mentorship by so many faculty members who really looked me in the eye and said, what did you make of this material that you read? And to say that, my perspective based on, the knowledge I was learning, the methods I was learning mattered really meant that we could have important places in the world as cultural thinkers, as people who can make an intervention in how we interpret things that we experience. That’s what criticism is about. I think a lot about how 88% of critics are white. It means that even the material that we looked at are dissected from such a limited demographic, what a rip off. What would it mean if cultural critics were more diverse, what a robust enriching debate that would be more, and so when a student walks into my office, for the past 20 plus years of teaching, I wanted to share that gift of mentorship to let them know that the university needs their perspective in order for it to do its job. Because if we hear from too few people, then we don’t know as much as we should. If it’s true that over 90% of the most popular films are made by white men. And it is true, according to the Annenberg Studies at USC and UCLA, then what we know about love, marriage, sexuality, immigration, families more, comes from such a limited place. And it takes away from our understanding of each other. It becomes such a limited imprisoning understanding of each other. If we don’t hear from more people, and people who are really critical people who say that, what we shouldn’t know, we should know, and the university is a place to dig up those stories. And so for me as a Dean, it’s not only about the mentorship I give, but the structures of mentorship that we implement. I think we all need mentors, even for me as a Dean, I have mentors who are Presidents, mentors who are Provosts, so that I have a better understanding of the institution. And I think about this a lot for my, for the faculty in my division. I hope that everyone has a network where you run your ideas by, because you only become stronger for it. You, you have a larger perspective of how institutions work and what your strengths are and then you realize, oh my goodness, all those people who gave me that time. What a big deal that was, that they recognized that you were worth the time that you were worth, the space and the knowledge, and I recognized how good it felt, to be the recipient of that. And then once you start doing it, you realize that. Oh, it’s so amazing to be able to give it back, because you’re really shaping the next generation. I learned so much from them. That’s really the goal for me, not only am I a Dean, but I’m also a grieving mother. And I think a lot about that, about how. All of us are going to confront inevitably, the death of a loved one and so I think about. What our students are doing is really, preparing to have a role in the world that a significant, that really takes advantage of their passion, their strength, their commitment, so that they can, find a purpose that will enable them to get through, this inevitable pain. [00:27:24] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing that. That really makes me think about your latest film, the Celine Archive, which is such a beautiful personal documentary that, combined so much of your pain and also just uncovering this history of Filipina American. I wonder if you can talk more about what inspired your film. [00:27:45] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: So in the mid nineties, 1994, through 1996, I believe around that time the community historian Alex Fabros was teaching a Filipino American history class, Filipino American experience class. There were about 200 students who were going through that curriculum and they found the story that he had grown up with about a Filipino American immigrant woman who was buried alive by her community in the 1930s Stockton Jersey island area. I myself was discovering the story at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. And I made this film, in the era of the Me Too and Time’s Up movements and really wanted to dig deeply into our capacity to suppress the violent experiences that women undergo in our communities. There’s so little known and studied about Filipino American history in our curriculum K through 12. And when we do hear about it, we primarily hear men’s stories, the late great historian, Dawn Mabalon and talks quite a lot about this and like her and like many other historians and community organizers, cultural workers and the Filipino American community. I wanted to amplify her story. So as to invite us to think about our female past and how Asian American women continue to endure violent silencing we see this, especially, today, not only in the Atlanta shootings, but in the murder of Christina Yuna Lee in New York. [00:29:32] Miko Lee: Can you share a little bit more about how you decided to weave both. Adding this Filipino woman’s story into our broader awareness but also weaving in your personal story, sharing a name with the woman who was murdered and your personal story of your tragedy in your family. How did you decide to weave those stories together? [00:29:54] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: You know, when people undergo. An unexpected, very sudden death of a loved one, in my case, it was the death of my eight year old son from a common virus that attacked his heart, and in the case of Celine Navarro in the 1930s, she was abducted tortured and punished by her community, supposedly for committing an act of infidelity. Even though she was undergoing violence for quite some time within the community. The death happened, very suddenly her family did not know what had happened or where she was. So when you undergo a sudden and unexpected death, the meaning of your own life, really comes to the, fore. You become, I think, intensely alive because your loved one cannot have their life. So the question then emerges, what do you do with your life? And I had to turn to making the film as an act of creativity in the face of devastation, you know, my own demise because the death of a child. Could really have meant my own death, even though I was still alive. And in the act of filmmaking, you’re really bringing together a community, in my case, it’s bringing together not only community historians and Filipino-American scholars in the academy, but also my students, I think I opened up a way of speaking with my students that acknowledged, the pain that they also undergo, and it became for us a collective effort of looking into history and I’m making it come alive by becoming close to Celine Navarro’s family. So when the articles first came out about her, it became such an affirmation of this unbelievable thing really did happen and we carry it with us. This is something that flows, within multiple generations of her family. And it’s a question for me I think that I really think about a lot, like my son was eight, but he had a community, he had a huge impact in our own family about the way, he lived this life. So the question for me was how do you remember someone you love, who died but continues to live almost like in a very physical way, I feel his presence. And so I. Take the love that I continue to feel for my son and use that to make something in this world. I’m so happy to be alive, to be able to make this film. For example, that I can make this gift through the film for Celine Navarro’s family, but then also to invite Filipino American women to say, you can be the center of your own story, and that your story is multilayered and it’s worth investigation, because of course, what I found out in digging up Celine Navarro’s story was that she herself was a very courageous woman who spoke up against domestic violence, that led her to testify against men who were protecting another violent man. I can’t even imagine what that was like, and so to be able to pull up that story and to ask the question that began the film where are Filipino women in American history? I wanted to start the movie in that way because I want everyone to care about Filipino women so I wanted that to also be a courageous act that honored the subject of my film. [00:33:21] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. I’m one, just so sorry for the loss of your son. And so appreciative of the fact that you utilize your grief to funnel it into a beautiful work of art. Thank you so much for that [00:33:34] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: You’re welcome and I also wanted to say, that my new film 80 years later, is about my family on my husband’s side. It explores the racial inheritance of Japanese American family incarceration during World War II. As you may know, this year is the 80th anniversary of executive order 9066 that imprisoned 120,000 Japanese Americans, and my film shows. Conversations between survivors and their descendants as they continue to grapple with their legacy and I asked the question, how do we care for our stories? What stories do we feel responsible for carrying or admonishing or living? What is that ongoing legacy and how do we live it? [00:34:23] Miko Lee: Well, I’m looking forward to seeing it. That’s very exciting. So much of what you’re saying around adding women’s stories are hidden stories. How we care for our stories. It reminds me of a Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio talks about this idea of Koana, which is a Hawaiian word for many perspectives that we have all these layers. For so many white Americans, we see all those different layers, but for our people, for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, we don’t get the multitude of stories. I’m wondering if you cover some of this in your upcoming book, The Movies of Racial Childhoods: Screaming, Self Sovereignty in Asian America. [00:35:05] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: Yes. So my new book that’s forthcoming from Duke University Press “The Movies of Racial Childhoods” it’s motivated by two very powerful forces that I can’t deny. The first is it’s a book that really explores who my son would be now, if he were alive, I think about, the independence of one who was in middle childhood, one who is in adolescence, when my son died, I was so stunned by the world that he owned apart from me. When you think about a child, you think, oh, I control what they’re exposed to, who they talk to, but when they’re in school, they meet so many people and they create their own world. So I found out things that I didn’t know, that how he was the judge of handball in the recess, world, so if something happened, he would adjudicate what was fair or unfair. I had no idea that he was doing this, and he had been doing it for years. And when I look at the films that I’m studying, I’m always stunned by, how the subjectivity of people of color are eclipsed. So that’s the second motivation of the book is when I think about childhoods, you always think about an innocent kind of white childhood. Oh, they don’t work because they’re children. But we think about people of color from the beginning they, they work, they enslaved children had to work and they had no right to play for example, when you’re looking at the scholarship of, African-American childhoods, so what does it mean to talk about an Asian or Asian American childhood? Like people say, oh, there’s going to represent our family. So you’re forever a baby, in that vision. But there’s also this premature, adultification that co-exists with this intense infantilization and you also see the college admissions process. It’s oh, you can’t play around because you have to get into an amazing school. Therefore you have to disavow play and you have to become, the future lawyer of America while you’re 12, and you can also see this in the, sexualization of youth as well. So I’m trying to figure out, know those two questions. I’ve just finished the book and hopefully it’ll be out next year. [00:37:16] Swati: You are tuned in to APEX Express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org. [00:37:28] Miko Lee: Dr. Robyn is the academic elitism that you talk about why you founded the Women of Color, Non-binary People of Color Scholars Inclusion Project? [00:37:36] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Oh, yeah, absolutely. , I could tell you stories about my experiences of just racism in academia. So WACSIP or the Women of Color Scholars Inclusion Project, it’s really a space primarily for those who identify as women of color or non-binary of color, both graduate and faculty. And it’s really meant as a safe space for us to be able to convene and support one another. It started off as simply a support group where we could all gather from across campus and all the various places where we are. If you’re a woman of color, a non binary, a person of color, the likelihood is that there’s just always one or two of you in a particular department or program, and so part of what we wanted to simply do is just get everybody together from across campus, in a space that felt safe where we could literally break bread with one another and be very honest with one another and transparent about what we were struggling with. There is a way that sometimes you feel like you’re being gaslighted or you’re not really certain that what you’ve experienced is actually some form of racism or sexism. And sometimes all you need is just, a space where people who have experienced what you’ve experienced can just affirm that yes, your experience is a real thing and it’s not okay and we’re here to simply be there as support. We also would organize more formal programs, of course organizing people to come and provide tips and tricks, I guess, to approach teaching and how to, negotiate the challenges of teaching, but especially sometimes the challenges of teaching as women of color. Teaching about race and gender and sexuality as women of color and, contending with sometimes the undermining of our authority as professors in the classroom or by our peers. We’d also organize more formal workshops like that. Writing workshops even, to provide folks with support on publishing because that adage, publish or perish is a very real thing when you’re at a major research university, if you do not publish, you cannot secure tenure, you cannot move up in the academic kind of pecking order. So yeah, that was what the intention of the space was, is to create this space of support and it was also to engage as we could in institutional change, trying to document our collective experiences and offer up recommendations to higher ups around shifts that needed to happen to transform institutional culture. That is the piece that was always the struggle. And perhaps what’s fed into my frustration with academia, among many other things, but we were successful in providing a space of support for one another. To what extent these groups that I’ve founded, helped to really shift institutional culture less clear. [00:40:20] Miko Lee: I’m wondering, because WACSIP was has been focused on networking around Critical Race and Ethnic Studies has the anti- CRT fervor that sort of going on by right wing propaganda. Has that impacted your work? [00:40:34] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Yeah, I think anti-CRT fervor it’s interesting. I don’t know, to what extent that actually has impacted my work at the university in the sense that I feel as if academia has been effectively anti-CRT and anti-Ethnic Studies for a very long time. And it doesn’t have to be articulated in the ways that the current movement that’s engaged primarily at banning CRT in the K through 12 levels, it’s never taken that kind of vitriolic kind of tone at the university, but we know it by the failures of investments, in our departments, in faculty of color who do work on race. So we’ve been dealing with, I feel like I, along with my colleagues who do this sort of work, we’ve been subject to “anti- CRT” campaigns at the university level for quite some time now. But again, how they’ve manifested has been in the form of, a failure of investments whether it’s we can’t get new hires, we can’t get funding support for our research, whether we’re not being recruited to take leadership positions, how many times have I been in conversation with people administrators who I know barely encounter women who look like me, on the faculty and can never get my name right. Or know who I am at all. This is just what we’re contending with. So in some ways, what’s happening outside the university doesn’t affect us because we’ve already been under attack certainly it doesn’t help us either. [00:42:09] Miko Lee: Dr. Celine You have so many things in the works right now at the same time. How are you balancing all this? [00:42:15] Dr. Celine Parreñas Shimizu: As Dean, I have to take care of so many people not to take care of the institution, and I think a lot about how there’s very few Asian-American women in this role and I think a lot about how, we live such a intensely sexualized, life. There is that force of sexualization that I’ve felt growing up, throughout my childhood, throughout my early adulthood and as a full grown woman, this intense sexualization, and I don’t think that’s compatible with our understanding of who is a leader. There’s an amazing book by Margaret Chin called “Stuck”, which identifies how very few Asian Americans there are in C-suites, but also in executive leadership roles, but just stunning considering how many Asian-Americans are in these, leading higher ed institutions, but so few of us are leaders of higher ed institutions, right? So it’s important, every day to think about how I’m refashioning, what is a popular understanding of what leadership looks like. It is one that is a compassionate and empathetic. And also, how I have to take care of myself through it because you’re so in service of others. And I actually go to my own work in order to always remember what is the purpose of my life? What is it that I am protecting in the enterprise of the university, which is, the freedom to inquire. With courage about the most challenging issues of our day, so yeah, it’s working out for me, going to my own work, even in the most demanding moments of leadership. It’s a reminder, you know what I want to make sure our faculty and students and staff have access to, which is, the excellence of inquiry and debate that is truly available in the university unlike other places, in our world right now you have so many reactionary uneducated, superficial perspectives, but what we do in the university is so special. The seminar is so special where you come into a room and you would have read, material deeply, closely together. You figure out the questions that you have that have been asked by generations before you, you stand on the shoulders of people who have done the work in order to produce your own. There’s no greater pleasure. So I’m so happy to be the guardian of that, I’m so happy to lead the arts division that UC Santa Cruz, because that is our enterprise and what’s amazing about it is that it produces beautiful work, impactful work, needed work in our world today. I think about empowering every single voice, in our university and to be open, to be surprised by it. And I think the abundance of voice, doesn’t just mean the background, that you carry the cultural inheritances that you’re trying to grapple with, but it’s really also working with people who are different from you, across class, across nation, across region, to see what you can come up with together. And so the students really feel like, oh my God these films are really going to make an impact, and so I think a lot about what we can do on university campuses that really train the next generation of students to be ready for a truly, multiracial world, in 2045, we’re going to be a majority people of color country, and so our students need to be educated as, as widely and broadly as possible not only in terms of what they know, but also how they take care of themselves. And we’re doing so much here. That’s so exciting we’re saying these are the people who are coming to this campus and trying to figure out their voices, trying to learn their craft. And what we’re going to do is to give them a space in order to get. share their experiences, whether it’s with policing or prison abolition, the university is a place where we can do all of that. [00:46:11] Miko Lee: Robyn, I’ve heard you talk about being a people’s professor. Can you share what that means? [00:46:17] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Sure for me, people’s professor it means that the university pays me, but I work for my community. And what that means is that I have always seen my work, whether it’s my research and scholarship, you know what I decide to research who I’m writing for when I do, when I write what I teach, how I teach it what I do, but recognizing kind of the stature that comes with being a university, professor, all of my research, my teaching, how I move in the world is driven by and rooted in my community organizing and activist commitments. It comes out of my personal interest, true, but I’ve been very attuned, always to the issues that emerge in the organizing spaces that I am part of. I’ve always been a member of a community organization wherever I’ve been. So I have commitments, it’s not simply that I have my ear on the ground and I see issues that pop up in the media. I have commitments, I’m part of the community, I joined organizations, I know what our communities are grappling with and all of that is always shaped my research agenda and found its way in my teaching. That’s what I mean by people’s professor that, my allegiance is not to the university, my allegiance is not even to my career and advancing my career. It’s really to, using my skills, using my training, using my platform to advance the work of social justice. I think that’s the role I feel like I want to play. That’s why I entered academia to begin with. [00:48:00] Miko Lee: So your next iteration of the people’s professor after you leave UC Davis next year, will be the School for Liberating Education. [00:48:09] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: The School for Liberating Education is quite simply a platform that allows anybody in the community to be able to access Ethic Studies knowledge, I think it’s just so vital and healing and transformative to take Ethnic Studies courses. And yet, as you mentioned earlier, we are under attack. We’ve had many important Ethnic Studies victories, but there’ve been sufficiently forces who’ve managed to water down the kind of curriculum that many of us who fought for Ethnic Studies and continue to fight for Ethics Studies really want. And so among the things that the pandemic offered us is new kinds of technologies to connect virtually and, I myself, was taking virtual courses as part of my own healing process in the wake of the loss of my son in August of 2020. And it occurred to me that, these courses were amazing for my own healing journey and that I could possibly use these same platforms that were helping me to be able to offer Ethnic Studies to a broader audience of folks, especially in a context where Ethnic Studies or CRT was being viciously attacked. So yeah, that’s really what it started off as, and in its first phase it’s been a series of online courses first in, Asian American studies, which is really in my wheelhouse, and in Filipinx Studies specifically, I’d like to expand even more of the offerings that dive deep into the Chicanx experience and Latinx experience the Black experience, Native studies, Native and Indigenous studies and interracial kind of examinations as well, just in terms of the online courses. I guess the 2.0 version of this School for Liberating Education is the courses that I’m hoping to offer here on site at the new farm that we’ve just purchased. We want to be able to host intensive learning retreats and kind of educational workshops that center land-based and Indigenous knowledges. So in other words, either doing in-person short courses that are somewhat based on the current offering of courses online or extensions of them or just kind of new courses. There’s a lot of new work in advancing healing justice that I also want to help to organize and curate here at the farm. Definitely want to center these land based and Indigenous knowledges and I’m super excited about the possibilities of what I can do as a people’s professor outside of the space of academia outside of also the space of, the politics of it all and here. We’re just at the beginnings of setting up the farm proper we’re beginning to break ground because we have some seeds in the ground. I have my Hmong father and mother-in-law are helping us and already passing on generations of wisdom about the land and how to till the land and how to, just be in community with the land, just, in the work that they’ve been doing and helping us to cultivate it, but yeah, this is the next phase and I’m just really excited about the possibilities for learning that I can extend, but also for myself, I don’t see myself as only being the professor actually in this space. I see myself more as an organizer and a curator who has some knowledge to impart, but also as somebody who can gathered together other people with other forms of expertise. [00:51:27] Miko Lee: It’s a combination of a lot of your wheelhouse, a lot of your strengths as an educator and doing cross solidarity work and bringing in this sense of connecting to the land and healing and wellness. It’s very beautiful. I’m looking forward to learning more and we will post a link to School for Liberating Education in the show notes for APEX Express. You spoke about healing and wellness. And I know 2020 was a really hard year and I am so sorry for the loss of your son. I really appreciate how you are turning that just tragic loss into a powerful foundation. Can you speak about the foundation and what that’s all about? [00:52:08] Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: Yeah. Absolutely. I’m still struggling. The healing process is ongoing for me. And people often talk about how there are different kinds of losses one can experience, and I’ve experienced a lot of those kinds of losses. I’ve lost a dear grandparent, my grandmother who helped raise me, I’ve lost a parent. I lost my father in 2014. And all of those losses, hurt in deep ways, of course, but there is something acute about the loss of a child. And though, he was a young man so full of promise though, just at the young age of 22 to have lost his life. And the foundation is an opportunity for me to ensure that his legacy and everything that he was so passionate about and that he lived and fought and died for lives on. And, so the Amado Khaya Foundation is meant to be a space that will support the causes that , was so passionate about. Clearly indigenous people’s struggles, that’s where he spent the last few months of his life, he was serving the Magguangan and Maduro in the wake of terrible typhoons that had hit the island. He was also very passionate about Ethnic Studies, that was an issue he was very involved in before leaving for the Philippines. He was passionate about housing justice. He really came of his own as a community organizer and activist. And I want to just ensure that, the work that he started can continue, but I also want to center mental health and wellness in the work that Amado Khaya does because he really acutely understood the ways that community organizers and activists hold the collective trauma of our people. His father who I am no longer with, was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa. Had really experienced the violence of the apartheid regime was witness to the violent clashes between activists and the police and the state, and that had a major impact on Amado’s father. And deep mental health impacts that Amado recognized, so that’s something I really want to also center in the Amado Khaya Foundation is not just continuing to support the organizations or the issues he fought for, but to support the mental health and wellness of organizers themselves, who are doing all this great work and kind of providing them the support and care that they also really require to continue the work of social justice and among the things that we’ve we’ve done through Amado Khaya, we’re still finishing up our 501c3 process. But we have a home that we purchased in honor of Amado called Amado’s Kaia, which translates into Amado is home. Kaia actually also means home in Zulu. But we have a home that we offer as a gift to organizers as a sanctuary refuge for rest. We’ve been able to get some grants and in the process of setting up a digital media lab, Amado was a aspiring filmmaker. So we want to be able to also use media film in particular, which was what he was passionate about, and video as a way of also supporting activists causes. Part of what I’m also hoping that Amado Khaya does , and this is what the connection comes back to the school, I’m very inspired by Grace Lee Boggs, so Re-Imagination Lab is the social enterprise that holds all of my kind of entrepreneurial initiatives and the idea is that we want to get to a place where we generate a surplus revenue that we would reinvest into Amado Khaya, other non-profits. Somebody who’s worked in alongside nonprofits we know how much our, a nonprofit organizations struggle to hustle for funding. And they’re often beholden to foundations, that, oftentimes relate to non-profits in what amounts to a very colonized and very white supremacist, relationship and which constrain the kind of work that nonprofit organizations can do in service of the community. And so I want to be able to get to a place where Amado Khaya will either draw sufficient donations from individuals or revenues from Re-Imagination Lab so that we can help fund movements without constraints so they can do the work that they need to do without any limitation. I think that there are a lot of us who are trying to figure out how do we redistribute resources in our community and not have to be beholden to foundations that may very well be responsible for creating the very problems that nonprofits are forced to have to address. [00:56:56] Miko Lee: Dr Robyn, the people’s professor. Thank you so much. Dr. Celine thank you both for turning your grief into positive action and thank you for just continuing to share your work with by and for the broader community. I really appreciate what you’re doing. [00:57:12] Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night. The post APEX Express – 11.3.22 – A Tale of 2 Professors appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express Host Miko Lee interviews Cathy Ceniza Choy author of Asian American Histories of the United States. Show Transcripts [00:00:00] Opening: Asian Pacific expression. Unity and cultural coverage, music and calendar revisions influences Asian Pacific Islander. It’s time to get on board. The Apex Express. Good evening. You’re tuned in to Apex Express. [00:00:18] Jalena Keane-Lee: We’re bringing you an Asian American Pacific Islander view from the Bay and around the world. [00:00:22] Miko Lee: This is Miko Lee. And in August, I had the wonderful opportunity of hosting a live event. One of the first live events. That KPFA was offering at the back room in Berkeley. And it was an interview with Catherine Cinzia Choi on her new book Asian-American histories of the United States. So take a listen to the interview. You’re going to hear some clapping and some noise because it was a live audience. we hope you enjoy it and find out more information at our website kpfa.org. take a listen welcome to KPFAS live virtual event. I’m Miko Lee from apex expressed in your host for tonight. A big round of applause to our producers of K PFA events that are here. Kevin Hunt, Sanger, and Brandy Howell in the back of the room. Wow, it’s so great to be in front of a live audience. Thank you to Sam Rudin and the back room. This amazing glorious space for hosting us this live evening. Okay. Y’all we’re coming back. We’re coming out. We’re still pandemic land. People are in their beautiful masks, but we’re coming back and KPFA has a few more upcoming events. I wanna do a land acknowledgement, and I want to acknowledge that K P F a is located on unseated, Cho Chino speaking, Lonni land known as the Huk, as journalists and community members. We have the responsibility to engage critically with the legacy of colonists. Colonialist violence and to uplift the active and ongoing indigenous struggles connected to the land that we are gathered on tonight. If you wanna check out more, go to native land dot California, and if you live in the east bay, I’m asking, do you pay the Shmi land tax, which is led by indigenous women, find out more about Ante’s work of reation and returning in indigenous lands to the people establishing a cemetery to reinter stolen alone, ancestral remains and building urban gardens, community centers and ceremonial spaces. So current and future generations of indigenous people can thrive in the bay area. Thank you so much for joining us. We are honored tonight to welcome author Cathy Cenzia Choy. Cathy is currently a professor of ethnic studies at our own UC Berkeley, and she has published multiple books around Asian American identity. And is here tonight to chat with us about her latest book, Asian American histories of the United States. Welcome Cathy. Yes. Thank you. Okay. I’m gonna do anode to the great poet Chinaka Hodges, and ask, who are your people and where do you come from? [00:03:19] Cathy Cenzia Choy: I am the daughter of Filipino immigrants born and raised in New York city. I’ve been in Berkeley since 2004, and UC Berkeley has been a very important institution and community for me. And it’s just such an honor to be. Your presence today and tonight I wanna thank you Miko for taking the time to, to host this. I wanna acknowledge my family and friends who are in the audience, my husband and my daughter are here. And I’m so pleased about that. And I feel like I’m with my people right now. [00:04:03] Miko Lee: what are the legacies that you carry with you from your ancestors? [00:04:11] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Wow. These are really Deep questions. I know. I feel like I care, even though sometimes I’m not aware. All the details. I feel like I carry the histories of my ancestors, even though, as I write in the book. So many of us in including myself didn’t grow up knowing much about Asian American history because it wasn’t taught to us in our schools. And even with that I feel my ancestors’ presence with me. And I especially thank my mother Petri, za and other family members for also making that presence alive in so many ways while I was growing [00:04:57] Miko Lee: up in New York city. And are there certain elements that you carry with you on the daily? [00:05:05] Cathy Cenzia Choy: I don’t know. In terms of the daily, because now I’m at this point in my life where I’ve had many experiences and I. Learned more to own my voice. And I feel owning that voice like through speaking and through writing is something I’ve learned and carried from them. But it took me also some time to, to get to this point. And even though I’ve talked to so many people in public spaces I always feel still some, some. nerves every time. [00:05:50] Miko Lee: So maybe it’s self-expression and passing on the torch to the next generation around storytelling, around [00:05:56] Cathy Cenzia Choy: teaching. Absolutely. I think one of the things that I try to impart in, in my teaching at UC Berkeley at university of Minnesota twin cities, where I had taught for six years prior to coming to Berkeley, I try to impart that, that lesson of learning to, to cultivate your confidence and to own your voice. [00:06:19] Miko Lee: Your book is such an interesting collection because you’re talking about some deep Asian American history stories, and then you’re intertwining it with your own personal stories. And I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about your personal family story and your her story and how that intertwines with Asian American, her story. [00:06:39] Cathy Cenzia Choy: One of the things that is different from in terms of this book compared to my previous two books, is that it was intended for a very broad audience. And given what Asian Americans have been going through in this country since 2020 in many ways it was also born out of some very difficult, challenging circumstances. And I’ve experienced like many Asian Americans have experienced since 2020, a level of fear and anxiety and grief, at what has been happening with the surgeon anti-Asian violence, its relation to coronavirus related anti-Asian racism and. all of this has infused a different approach to writing in this book. And I write in the first person, the second person in one chapter on, on world war II. And I write in the more traditional third person which is typical and scholarly history books. So when I write in the first person, I share personal experiences that are intertwined to these histories. And this includes some of the fear and anxiety I was already mentioning. And that concern about the surge in anti-Asian violence and that when I see those stories on the media I see my family members, I see my elders and. in the book. I talk about how I’ve talked to my children and I realize that they see me. And so that’s one personal experience, but my husband is. And his family’s history is also on the, in the book. There’s one chapter titled 19, 19 declaration of independence and 1919, that declaration of independence is referring to the declaration of. Korean independence, both in Korea against Japanese imperialism but also a Korean Congress that came to Philadelphia in April 19, 19. And my husband’s parents on his father’s side were among those Korean independence activists in the early 20th century. And I share experiences also how we’ve tried to pass on Asian American history to our children. And I talk about a moment where we brought our son to the Japanese American Memorial garden in tan Farran, which is now a shopping mall, but used to be a horse racing track and then was converted into an assembly center or what they would call a relocation center which forcibly relocated Japanese Americans here in, in the bay area there before. Forcibly incarcerating them in internment camps during world Wari. So there’s quite a bit of my history, my family’s history in this, even though the, of, it’s not the, all of the histories that I talked about, you’re [00:09:50] Miko Lee: telling part of your family stories, but then you’re also telling a bunch of personal stories, small stories of people to help really illuminate a moment in history. And I’m wondering how you went about the process of selecting those individual stories to help shed light on a bigger [00:10:03] Cathy Cenzia Choy: issue. Yeah that’s a great question. I think that’s one of the challenges with history, which has story in it history and is about communicating stories and the choices we make matter. So I chose stories that I felt reflected key moments events, groups in Asian American histories over the past almost 200 years. And the idea also was that in selecting these stories, many of which came from research, I had done in the past and also my teaching. But I also wanted to create this feeling in the book of engaging and inviting readers to think about what stories would they want to include and not to cut it off and say, these are the stories we need to know, but rather these are the stories of. People’s families and communities. And what are the stories of your families and communities? [00:11:09] Miko Lee: So in a way, it’s an invitation for the readers and the audience members to look at your personal stories and how they intertwine with Asian American [00:11:17] Cathy Cenzia Choy: history. Yes. I hope that one of my hopes is that the book is as accessible as possible and that it is shared across an incredibly diverse audience. Also multi-generational and it would mean a great deal to me, for people to share the histories in this book with their elders and people of their generation and younger generations. [00:11:44] Miko Lee: And speaking of stories and connections, one of the biggest connections of a API community is around our food. people. It doesn’t matter where you are, people know about Asian food and Asian Pacific Islander food. And you have a whole section in your book that is an interlude around food. And I’m wondering if you can just read the bolded sections of the interlude to the audience as a teaser, and then we’ll talk about it some [00:12:08] Cathy Cenzia Choy: more. Okay. Yes. I’d love that. Okay. We, [00:12:13] Miko Lee: so for those of you that haven’t read the book, , here’s a little bit of a teaser of what the book has to offer Yes. And just the fact there, there’s an interlude in the book. Which is also do you wanna talk about that now or after you pretty different? [00:12:19] Cathy Cenzia Choy: It’s just it was, getting at a point that I had made earlier about how I wanted to write differently. I also felt compelled to write differently. And there’s an interlude in the book and it’s entitled 1965 reprise the faces behind the food. And I’m going to read an abridged version because this way of reading, it makes it like a shout out poem.yeah. So 1965 reprise the faces behind the food. This is for the Asian American faces behind the food that nourishes Americans and enriches American cuisine. The general public knows. So little about Asian American people, but our food is everywhere at one’s exotic and mainstream. This is for Larry. I Italy on the Filipino American farm workers who started the grape strike in Delano, California in 1965. This is for Dawn Baan and those who champion labor history. This is for the over 300,000 Asian migrants, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino, whose labor made sugar production, Hawaii top industry. This is for the Chinese workers who transformed tens of thousands of acres of California, swamp land into airable land, and who applied their ingenuity to orchards from Oregon to Florida. This is for the Chinese, Japanese and Filipino workers in the canned salmon industry of the Pacific Northwest. This is for the Japanese fruit and vegetable farmers. This is for the Asian, Indian, agricultural workers. Many of whom found work in California’s fields in the early century. This is for the restaurant workers like chinch wing, who started working at an Americanized Chinese restaurant in 1936 in New York city. This is for the food service workers in cafeteria. This is for the writer and migrant worker, Carlos bloon. This is for de leaping sound who in 1956 became the first person of Asian descent elected to serve as a us representative and champion the farmers of his Southern California district. This is for Thai American. Who have a complicated relationship with Thai food because they are often conflated with it. This is for the monos. Mono is a term that conveys respect for Filipino elders in the 1920s and 1930s, they followed the crops from California to the Pacific Northwest. The Mons demonstrated their militancy. The 1965 grape strike was not an exception, but rather a singular point on a continuum. In the age of COVID 19 Asian Americans continued to be the many faces behind the food, using their creativity and leadership to promote communal care during a critical time. This is for Hannah DRA, a self-identified Pakistani American Muslim, and the co-founder of transformation. A technology platform that redistributes leftover, prepared food from restaurants and companies to places that need them like homeless shelters. This is for heart of dinner, whose mission is to nourish New York, city’s Asian elders with love and food every week, the irony of Asian Americans producing America’s food and enlivening, the overall food experience and the context of hate and violence has not been lost on them historically. And in the present day in March, 2021, people gathered at North Dakota state university in Fargo to protest against anti-Asian hatred. One poster red love us. Like you love our food. [00:16:51] Miko Lee: Thank you so much. Yes. Can make some noise. That’s good. And if I may add, this is for. Adding all of your stories so that our Asian American history and tapestry can become richer and deeper. Thank you so much, Kathy, for sharing that. Now talk about why you wanted a kind of musical interlude in the middle of the book. [00:17:15] Cathy Cenzia Choy: It had to do with the histories the multiplicity that I emphasize in the book that there are multiple origins of Asian American history. And we should refer to these as Asian American histories, because my approach in the book is less about a linear, a traditional linear approach which can sometimes suggest causality or. Progress all the time and rather than take a linear approach. One of the things that’s distinctive about the book is that the first substantive chapter begins with the year 2020. And the book concludes with 1869 and then each of the chapters. So it goes back in time and each of the chapters moves forward and back in time. So one of the chapters is titled 1965. And it’s about the faces of post 1965 Asian America. And it’s referring to the immigration and nationality act of 1965, which dramatically changed the democratic the demographics of our country. And. Yet, it was difficult to weave in seamlessly the story of Larry Italy and the Filipino farm workers and how important that grape strike was in, in Delano, California. And I thought to myself I don’t ne I, I don’t wanna put a, another chapter entitled 1965. So I’m gonna do, I’m gonna do this interlude and then, and write in a different way to give people a break from the style and then encourage you to give shout outs of your own. [00:18:57] Miko Lee: Thank you. Speaking of Larry Iley who in a bunch of your book, you talk about erasure or as Helen Z talks about missing in history. What are those moments that are MIH? And Larry I. Long is one of those many stories we always hear about Cezar Chavez and the great boycott when it was actually a Filipino man, Larry Ile that you write about. And I’m wondering after doing this exhaustive research for your book and as a professor, what are some kind of key missing in history moments? Do you think stand out in Asian American Pacific Islander history? [00:19:30] Cathy Cenzia Choy: There are key moments in every chapter in this book. In the first chapter on, on 2020 I talk about the disproportionate toll of COVID 19 on Filipino nurses in this country. And so one of the things that’s MIH, which I’ve tried to address in my own research and was the topic of my first book was why and how the Philippines became the world’s leading sending country of professional nurses and a specifically to, to the United States. And so in, in every chapter, the chapter after 2020 is one on 1975, and it’s about Southeast Asian Americans and the refugee experience, but also the descendants of refugees in Southeast Asian immigrants. And so much of their stories are MIH because we are familiar with the Vietnam war, but often from the American perspective. And we, the. Participation of and Laosian Americans were part of a secret army and a secret war. So there’s so many instances of that in every single chapter where this I, ideas of erasure secrecy being overlooked like Larry Ile who worked closely with Suor Chavez for years, they were director and assistant director of the U F w but many of us yes, know that story. [00:20:58] Miko Lee: I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about the great former photojournalist quirky Lee and his impact, because I think one of those things about missing a history are those that have stood up to try and tell that story again, and you profile quirky. Can you tell a little bit the audience about Corky Lee and what he did. [00:21:14] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yeah, well, thanks for giving me the opportunity Corky Lee was one of the most important, I think photo journalists of the late 20th and early 21st century and is such a pioneer in Asian American journalism. And he is just one of the over 1 million people we have lost in the United States as a result of COVID 19. And I wanted to honor his memory in the book. He was well known for taking a photograph of a sick American after nine 11 and so many sick Americans in our country after nine 11 were targeted for anti-Asian violence, they were conflated with the stereotypical image of what a terrorist might, might look like in our country. And so we took this photograph of a sick man wearing a red turban with the United States flag draped around his shoulders. And the other thing he’s also very well known for is something that is a major theme in this book, which is the theme of erasure of Asian American history and experience in the overall us experience and that era. one of the key moments is in 1869 with the completion of the building of the first transcontinental railroad, which took place at a Ary summit in Utah. And this is a very important moment in, in the history of our nation as a symbol of our modern progress that, enabled us expansionism across the continent. And eventually also into the Hawaiian islands and Asia and Chinese workers at were. About 90% of the labor force of the central Pacific here in the Western region of building [00:23:17] Miko Lee: my family that railroad. Yes. Yeah. My ancestors built that railroad. [00:23:21] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes. I re we talked about that briefly and there might be other descendants here too of the railroad workers. And when they finally met at Promentory summit, there was a celebratory photo it’s quite known and there was not a single Chinese worker in this photo. Not a single Chinese worker and quirky Lee. When he was in grade school, he remembered, learning about Chinese participation in the building of this railroad. And so he looked at that photo and he noticed that absence and erasure. And so I believe it was the hundred and 45th anniversary of the building of. that railroad. And he rest staged that iconic photograph. And this time he included the descendants of the Chinese railroad workers and other Asian Americans. And it was a joyous moment. And he referred to these moments, photographic justice. [00:24:24] Miko Lee: I love that whole even ethos of photographic justice. And you wrote in your book that was a 2014, that’s so recent that this has happened. It’s just this and also one person. And it also shows the power. Hello, ethnic studies, professors in the house, the power that he, this one, man heard this story and said, why isn’t this being told, right? [00:24:46] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes. And that’s the, one of my hopes for the book is you’ll notice that in, throughout the book in the various chapters, I oppose these questions. No questions for us to think about. It’s not solely about here’s the experience and here are the dates and the years and the events, but it’s the way we all participate in history, but by what we choose to remember to reflect upon and how we use that historical knowledge to, to move forward, [00:25:20] Miko Lee: next up listen to girl gang by Rubia barra That was girl gang by the amazing Ruby Abara. [00:27:26] Miko Lee: You are tuned into apex express on 94.1 K PFA and 89.3 K P F B. Now let’s get back to my interview with author Kathleen. Cinzia joy. [00:27:41] Miko Lee: Keeping on with this conversation about erasure and representation, you quote this study by Nancy Angwin, who is amazing. That is it really recent last year, 2021 study that says 40% of films have no zero Asian American Pacific Islander representation and of the films that do have representation over 25% of the characters die, violent. talk to us a little bit more about what does that say? How is that connected to erasure? What does that mean to the broader multicultural universe? What does it say about Asian Americans? [00:28:19] Cathy Cenzia Choy: In that chapter I’m gonna paraphrase since I’m not directly reading from it, but in that chapter, I reflect on that study and those statistics. And one of the things that if you wanna look directly at that study because in the notes, there’s the URL to it. You, you will read that those statistics are juxtaposed with statistics about anti-Asian violence in 20, 20 and 2021. And I posed the question in that chapter. Are you, are we human? If we’re not portrayed in a dignified and humane way. in popular culture. And if the only representations or the major representations of you are as, one dimensional flat stereotypes. And if it gets to the point where you’re so used to the narrative on screen, that you can expect that Asian or Asian American character to die and not make it, what does that do to our psyche and how we view real world Asian Americans. So I didn’t share this in the book, but when my children were younger, I actually had this experience. We, we brought them to this action film and this Asian American character was on screen. and I remember putting my head down thinking, oh I really hope this character doesn’t die. and I turned to my son who was quite young at the time, and I tried to like, prepare him for that. And then the character did die in, in, in the film. So it’s that feeling of why are we seeing such similar stories over and over again? And how can we begin to change that narrative? [00:30:14] Miko Lee: Connected to that and connected to your earlier book about Filipino nurses. One of my pet peeves, I love watching doctor shows as just totally fluff. And one of my pet peeve is that there are never enough Asian doctors and I am in the bay area. Every single one of my doctors is Asian. So I’ve always been like, this is such I don’t understand. And especially with how many Filipinos are in the medical profession. So can you expand a little bit more of that and bringing in your last book, which is empire of care, nursing and migration and Filipino American history? [00:30:50] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes, I oh the present the past present and future of American nursing is inextricably linked to the presence of Filipino American nurses in this country. And Filipino American nurses have been in the United States for six. Decades. Many of them are immigrants, so they were born and raised in the Philippines, but the United States has been their home and they have made this incredible contribution to us healthcare delivery. And California we are one of the beneficiaries of their labor they’re in hospitals, they’re in elder care. And in the book I mentioned the Emmys, I forgot what year that was, but one of the co-host Michael Shay actually, said can you believe, Hollywood is a diversity problem and can you believe they did 15 seasons of ER without one single Filipino nurse? And have you been to a hospital in this country? And I feel also that frustration and that irony and it’s, I have to say it’s. It was especially painful since 2020 because Filipino nurses and other Asian American healthcare workers were also among the targets of anti-Asian violence. And hate in this country, even while they were wearing medical scrubs. For example, there was testimony given and there’s one hospitalist in, in New York who I I quote in, in the book who, who talked about this paradox that here they are contributing to the health of our nation and putting their lives on the line yes. Through exposure and dealing with this hate and violence. And he said, it’s really challenging being. celebrated and villainized at the same time. And that’s the problem when so much of our common understanding or what we think is an understanding of Asian Americans is based on stereotypes. Because stereotypes are flat. They’re one dimensional. They dehumanize even the most seemingly positive ones. [00:33:13] Miko Lee: Okay. I wanna talk about a different topic, which is in 1997, time magazine released this cover and on the cover where all these cute Asians, and it said the model minority. And I remember being in school and my teacher bringing that in and showing that magazine cover the class and pointing to me and I just had this like visceral gut reaction to it. Can you talk about how the model minority, the whole ethos of model minority has been used as a tool for white SuPM. [00:33:49] Cathy Cenzia Choy: I, I appreciate you phrasing the question that way. The model minority stereotype, which is a myth is such a complex stereotype. And some people might say, the model minority is about Asian Americans being smart and economically successful. And what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that positive? Isn’t that the best kind of branding any group or could ask for. And it is a tool of divide and conquer. It is a tool of white supremacy which is, I think the way I understand. You’re phrasing of the question because it too has a history. And part of that history is emerging in the late 1960s during civil rights and other, social movement protests, and having media stories quoting academics as experts contrasting Asian Americans as successful model minorities who don’t complain. Don’t ask for government help pull themselves up by their bootstraps in contrast to black Americans. And it was really direct like that now in, in contrast to African Americans who are protesting and demanding justice and change from the government this is a. Strategy of divide and conquer and prevent us from seeing. So in some ways it’s another form of erasure that I talk about in the book that there’s this longer history of Asian American and black solidarity and friendship living in neighborhoods together, working together in organizing [00:35:39] Miko Lee: together, [00:35:39] Cathy Cenzia Choy: organizing together work, interracial relationships and families. And we’re [00:35:45] Miko Lee: talking about you, Grace Lee [00:35:46] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Boggs yes, I right. Grace Gracely BOS is certainly, part of that, one of many right. One, one of many who was married to James Boggs, a a black auto worker and author and activist. And they were married for a long time and together created. Summer which was this community, youth based organization and out of that love and marriage and mutual activism created something which is relating to another main theme in the book of resistance. It’s like that creative spark like Detroit summer to create community gardens and to paint murals and to have intergenerational dialogues and to move forward in, in the most hopeful and an inclusive. Possible. And that’s just one example. [00:36:42] Miko Lee: Yeah. I appreciate how in the book you’re talking about erasure, you’re having resistance stories, and then you did bring up talking about mixed race and global adoption. And I know your former book was around global families. So I am you share some really lovely tidbits in there, like about Punjabi Mexican communities that I think maybe folks don’t know about, or maybe folks in the bay area went to go see the amazing Bonura ballet folk, Loco production that told that whole story in dance that Joti sing and Zenon Beon did. But you also talk about Kip full books’ book about Hopper’s mixed race folks. So do you feel that and your own kids are mixed race? My own kids are also mixed race different Asian ethnicities together. I’m wondering. Okay, sorry, this is a long question, but I’m thinking back to years ago, the amazing performer David photo Moto did a production where he came out, dressed in Scottish. It came out, dressed in entire Kabuki outfit with a kimono and a face, and he did a whole entire Kabuki dance and then picked up his bagpipe and played a Scottish bagpipe. And it was such a great combo of his two cultures that he meshed together and that he was sharing about himself with the audience. So with that being said, and with your both personal family story, and you’re having written this book, what is your take on cross racial adoption and mixed race folks being a bridge to the future? [00:38:17] Cathy Cenzia Choy: well, so it’s an interesting way of saying that because I think in that chapter, which is titled 1953 mixed race lives I don’t necess, I do say they’re about our future because our future is multiracial. And we know that since the 2000 census and in the most recent 20, 20 census we know that an exponential number. The largest growing group are of people who I identify as more than one racial category. But one of the key things I key points that I make in that chapter is that being a mixed race and multiracial is not solely about our future, but it’s also about our past and our present. and we have a multiracial past. And that includes some key examples in the, in that chapter are early 19th century Chinese and Irish marriages and in New York city and east Bengali Puerto Rican, African American, west Indian families and communities in Harlem and Filipino and Irish multiple generational families in new Orleans. And you had mentioned, P Punjabi Mexican Americans from Texas to California and MES Filipino, Mexican family is especially in Southern California. That is just as much about our past and our present as, as well as our future and the adoptees also figure in, in, in that chapter and 1953 each year serves as a touchstone for going back and forth in time. 1953 is referring to the end of the Korean war and how foundational the international adoption, especially by American families of mixed race Korean and American children, born of us servicemen and Korean women. How important that group was in terms of transforming the United States into an international adoption nation to. Which, which leads the world in terms of internationally adopting children. And even though Russia, Guatemala Romania, Ukraine are also major sending countries of adoptive children to the United States. Most of those adoptive children are from Asian countries and Korea plays an important role in that history, but so does Japan and Vietnam as, as well. And they’re an important part of Asian American history that I also think tends to be marginalized in our understanding of the Asian American experience. [00:41:09] Miko Lee: Okay. My last questions before we open it up to our lovely audiences, juicy questions is what would you like readers to walk away with after reading your book? [00:41:20] Cathy Cenzia Choy: I would love for readers to walk away with a more. nuanced and deeper understanding of Asian American histories and to reflect upon how relevant that is for this moment. This is a moment when so many of us are confronting so many different existential crises from climate to economic insecurity, but since 2020 for Asian Americans, this this dual crises of the pandemic and the surge in anti-Asian hate has really made an impact on so many of us and our communities. And I believe that understanding Asian American histories, understanding them as multidimensional human beings, who are part of the American experience Is one important step to, to reduce and end this violence. Thank [00:42:24] Miko Lee: you. Okay. We’re passing out cards. Do we have, oh, we have some collected. Rolling. Does anybody have any questions? Does anybody have any questions? Oh, wow. [00:42:34] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yeah, jump in the [00:42:35] Miko Lee: card. Okay. I read this. Can you talk a little bit about medical scapegoating, which you mentioned in your book? [00:42:44] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes. One of the things that we are observing since 2020, and since COVID 19 has become a pandemic, is that medical scapegoating of Asian Americans. And in the book, I talk about how there’s a long history of anti-Asian medical scapegoating that is as old as the oldest migration. Oldest mass migration of Asians to, to the United States. And in the second half of the 19th century Chinese and by extension Chinese American bodies were blamed for smallpox outbreaks. Japanese immigrants were blamed for typhoid. South migrants were associated with hookworm. And what this does is that it scapegoats people, it dehumanizes them and makes them targets for egregious forms of violence. And that what we are experiencing today is not new. And this relates to that point about kind of one of my hopes for the book is that learning and engaging about these histories is really important. To end this medical scapegoating and the violence that accompanies it. [00:44:02] Miko Lee: I think people don’t even realize that China towns were burned down during those times, too. [00:44:07] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes, I in addition to erasure and resistance violence is a third major theme, of the book and violence means many different things. We, in the media, it often focuses on the most egregious forms of violence like mass shooting. But the anti-Asian hate incidents and violence have ranged from bullying and harassment in schools, spitting on Asian Americans name calling I’m telling Asian Americans to go back to where they, they came from and you were referring to arson and burning down of Chinatowns and , this was something here in California and in, in the Pacific Northwest the method of anti-Asian violence was all often in the form of expulsion of Chinese from their communities through arson shooting stoning threats, [00:45:04] Miko Lee: right. You talked a little bit in the beginning, and this is an audience question. You talked a little bit in the beginning about the order of the book and we had you read the interlude and you said that it was done in a different order, starting with, 20, 20. Can you talk a little bit more about your thought process in creating the book in this kind of non-linear time structure? [00:45:24] Cathy Cenzia Choy: In the preface I write and also in the acknowledgements I give thanks to my students over so many years at university of Minnesota UC Berkeley especially but also other institutions that earlier in, in my career, I’ve learned so much from my students, from listening to them from engaging in dialogue about what we’re reading. And in spring of 2021, I taught this class on Asian American history in the age of COVID 19. And some of the students were telling me that they really appreciated having taken previous courses in Asian American history, but how sometimes the courses they would go in that linear approach and then primarily end. Maybe in like the 1980s or maybe the, the glass class would be here, are these contemporary issues now related to all the things that we’ve talked about. And they were just voicing, some concern about how is history relevant today. And so I played with the chronology using a non-linear approach to make this point that Asian American history is relevant. Now, it’s relevant in 2020, it’s relevant in 1975. It’s relevant in 1953. It’s relevant in 1869. And it’s relevant right now. And we’re all we’re all a part [00:46:59] Miko Lee: of it. So I’m gonna combine a few questions here. And this one is really about the different waves of Asian American immigration and how those impacted the storytelling. And I think. The different, there’s different immigrant communities have gone into really specific fields for instance, Chinese laundries and, Vietnamese nail salons, Cambodian donut shops. Can you talk a little bit about how the storytelling is connected to the different waves of immigration first generation second, third generation? [00:47:35] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Yes that’s a great question. And the book is not organized that way in the sense, like this year represents a particular wave and so does the next year. But there are particular chapters in the book that refer to immigration waves. And one of the chapters not the 1965 reprise, but there is a chapter 1965 about the faces of post 1965 Asian America and 1965 referring to the immigration act. Of 1965 is often considered this a major wave and a new kind of immigration that was different from late 19th and then early 20th century waves of immigration. Because by that point, immigration policy had created preferences for highly educated persons with needed skills. And one of the reasons why we are seeing so many Asian immigrant professionals in the United States is not an outcome of our innate ability in stem. But is also an outcome of but is an outcome of immigration policy. It’s not in any ability there’s quite a bit of training, that, that goes into it. And I actually didn’t have much talent in the stem fields, even though I write sometimes about them like, like nursing but in the chapter, 1975 trauma and transformation, I talk about waves theory and how there’s often the conceptualization of three different kinds of waves to describe Southeast Asian refugees to the United States with. the first wave beginning immediately after the fall of psych on in 1975 tended to be this wave of people who Southeast Asians who had connections to the us military there, I had worked with them and were more highly educated. And that was part of the first wave. And then the second wave, which is sometimes referred to as the boat people, even though a number of Asian American studies scholars have criticized the use of that term because it obscures their heroic will to live, but more, more, much more di diverse, ethnically a lot of Chinese Vietnamese people of farming backgrounds from rural areas in contrast to the first and then like this third wave that, that came later that involved groups like ations and even later than that also immigrants through immigration policy as opposed to, to refugee policy. And what I also point out is that these kinds of conceptualizations are important. They help us, understand historically some major changes in terms of Southeast Asian American demographics in this country. But I wanted to emphasize, so I write in the book, waves are constantly moving and taking different shapes. And in 2000 there was a new group of refugees who were resettled in Minnesota. And this is a living history and that newer waves of refugees are coming from Myanmar and Butan and who are working in places like. The state of Iowa and working in our meat packing plants and who also have been exposed disproportionately to COVID 19 because then president Donald Trump had invoked the defense production act to keep meat, packing plants open. So waves are important, but they’re not set and they’re always moving and flowing like our histories [00:51:16] Miko Lee: as a follow up to that. One of our audience members has a question about how many immigrants have when they first arrive have been exploited in their labor positions. And they’re wondering if you could share some positive stories and I M I wonder if you could share with the audience about uncle Ted and what he did with donuts [00:51:35] Cathy Cenzia Choy: well, I think. it isn’t it isn’t as though there are positive and negative stories, oftentimes when you are really deeply engaging with these histories and these stories, there’s often these moments that might be negative and then others that are more positive. And I think that adds to the humanity of people. And so just to give an, the example of the Filipino healthcare workers, some of ’em are nurses, but are also working in elder care. And some of those conditions that they’re working in are very challenging. It’s very challenging to be a caregiver. And at the same time, so many of them also take pride in their. I don’t wanna portray them as just solely being, having a negative experience. They’re proud of their caregiving and we need to care for our caregivers a bit more in this country. In terms of positive stories, so one thing I’ll share is there’s this and this is an example. I, I feel of resistance and that creative spark there’s something called the south Asian American digital archive SAA D and they have this project called the first day’s project. And it’s a project where immigrants, regardless of immigrants from around the world can share their story on this digital platform to describe their first days in, in the United States. And. Even though these first days have a mix of like positive and negative aspects. I have to say while reading these stories it brought just smile and joy. For me and reading these stories that are so unique and universal at the first time, same time. And so one of the stories was of this young girl who was nine years old back in, in the early 2000 tens and she was from Nepal. And so she came from Nepal and she was. I imagine they were, they landed at SFO and then they had to go to San Pablo and she wrote she said I was disappointed that what I saw wasn’t like, TV shows of New York city with all those tall buildings and all that fun stuff, but she took her first Bart ride. And she said that was just so amazing. She had never been on this kind of faster public transportation that brought them from San Francisco to San Pablo and something like 40 minutes. And then she said, she was working really hard. She was like nine years old. And then she became, because her, both her parents were working, I believe in the fast food industry. And she had a younger sister, so she had to learn how to cook for her parents and her. Her sister and even some extended family. And so she said I learned English from like watching, watching the joy of painting with Bob Ross. Wow. Yes. And then she said she watched shows with Rachel Ray and em, Emerald Lagosi like on food network and, and she said like she wanted to become, she learned from those shows. She wanted to become really famous. And so she would do the cooking in like she was on her own food network show in front of the audience. Her younger sister, [00:55:00] Miko Lee: so cute. So cute and shout out to VIN G and bar go, who founded that and also run the Berkeley south Asian radical history walking tour. If you haven’t been on that, you should because it’s amazing. I am sad to say that this brings our evening to a close. Thank you so much for joining us. I wanna just say that back in the corner, we have the most amazing east wind books, our local bookstore, yay. East wind books. And we didn’t touch on one of the questions that I wanted to ask, but about Asian American, the terminology, Asian American Pacific Islander actually. Expressed a whole episode on that interviewing Harvey, Don, who is the founder of east wind books and is a fellow professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley. [00:55:49] Cathy Cenzia Choy: And one of the veterans of the strike is also here from the late 1960s both that took place in San Francisco state college as it was then as, as well as UC Berkeley. And that’s part of the reason why I have my livelihood and is it part of the legacy? This book is part of that legacy. [00:56:09] Miko Lee: So check out our legacy Asian American history is of the United States by our amazing guest, Kathy Cena Cho, you can get the books and get autographed back in the corner. We thank you for supporting independent bookstores. [00:56:24] Cathy Cenzia Choy: Thank. [00:56:31] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us, please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program. Backslash apex express. To find out more about our show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Because your voices are important. Apex express is a proud member of the acre network, Asian Americans for civil rights and equality apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Paige Chung, Hien Nguyen and Nate Tan and with special editing by Swati Rayasaman. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support. Have a great The post APEX Express – 10.27.22 Cathy Ceniza Choy appeared first on KPFA.
Apex Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #1
Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental. This is my very first episode of Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents, where I dug a lot of music from Southeast Asia, Vietnam mainly to pay homage to my roots, where my people are from as well as China where my ancestors migrated from into Vietnam. I also share some Vietnamese New wave music, popularized in the 1980’s in Southern California, where my mom and many other Vietnamese refugees migrated to after the Fall of Saigon. So there’s some funky music that Vietnamese diasporic people digs into European electronic, synths, disco, and recorded covers of that. Check out Elizabeth Ai’s documentary New Wave that talks all about that era and my people. And I also threw in some love and heartbreak songs, because they are always timeless. My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, poet, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere and go by DJ Miu. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound. Special shout out to my dear friend, Thao Le for introducing me to so much of this music and creating the Southeast Asian Psych Funk playlist on Spotify. Lastly, special shoutout to my DJ crew 730 Faders. Catch us throwing the next best party in LA and coming near you. And my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family. Lisa Lowe’s Book: In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press Find me anywhere and everywhere @paigechung @DJxMIU
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Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents’ Episode #1 Set List:
APEX EXPRESS INTRO Ba Đình Đời (Ba Dinh Existence) by Trà Đá Connection Sáng Rừng by Thanh Lan This is no horse by AJL BAND Gotta be the one by THE NEW TOPNOTES Hurt so bad by TRACY La Isla Bonita (Demonslayer edit) by Vwave- Vietnamese New Wave 1980’s The Petch Phin Thong Band by Soul Lam Plearn 葉德嫻 – 輕輕嘆 by DEANIE Hào Hoa feat. Blacka (DJ Release Remix) – Saigon Soul Revival Xin Lễ Cưới Em – Túy Phượng Nhớ Mình Anh Thôi – Mai Lệ Huyền Swearin to God – CHARING CARPIO Sài Gòn by Carol Kim Make me believe in you by OSCAR AND HIS ORCHESTRA You’re the one by LOUIE CASTRO Mandarin Night by Midnight Runners Thôn Trăng Mở Hội Trăng Tròn by Sơn Ca Ruth Edit by Midnight Runners Lovin’ You by RITA KWONG Ghana Highlife by Midnight Runners Pioneer Spirit by Trà Đá Connection Makibaka / Ikalat by Dakila Pioneer Spirit by Trà Đá Connection Xoay (Trà Đá Connection Remix) by Tú,Trà Đá Connection Take it to the Bossman by THE REFLECTION Day Dreamin’ by JULIE SUE Cô Tây Đen by Vân Sơn Khi Tình Yêu Đến by Sơn Ca APEX EXPRESS OUTRO
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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – October 13, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – October 6, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – September 29, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – September 22, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
Listen to this amazing panel and join the #APSC3 and hear their reflections on working at Asian Prisoner Support Committee as immigrant and refugee community members. Hear about their journey towards healing and their fight against deportation and family separation. Additionally, they’ll share thoughts and reflections on VISION Act and the movements for mass clemency. Maria, Ke, & Peejay have overcome incredible hardships. Like many SEA youth, they were subjected to violence & trauma growing up. Today, they used their lived experiences to support others in their healing through reentry work & mentorship. We continue the fight for the APSC3 and urge @GavinNewsom to pardon the #APSC3 who are at risk of deportation. Leaders like Ke, Maria & Peejay are the hearts of our movement. As they cont. to serve their communities, they live in immigration limbo. Use the toolkit to call on @GavinNewsom to #PardonAPSC3 Link in bio 🔗bit.ly/apsc3 Transcript 20220825-APSC3 Panel Transcript The post APEX Express 9.15.22 – Asian Prisoner Support Committee Panel: the fight against deportation of APSC3 appeared first on KPFA.
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. The post APEX Express – September 8, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.