Stop AAPI Hate and Activate

Events

Jun 28

Check back on this page for the event recording & transcript coming soon!

Panel + Workshop

The Unconscious Bias Project (UBP) worked with Viv Tran from the What Gives? Podcast to host “Stop AAPI Hate & Activate”. We welcomed all AAPI community members and their allies to our event.

Panel

We had a frank discussion with panelists Rohan Zhou-Lee (Blasian March founder & organizer) and Dr. Liza Talusan (DEI facilitator and AAPI researcher) about recent and historical violent acts both physical, political, and verbal and then equip audiences with bias intervention, trauma first-aid, and tools of political action they can implement during the event, intervene in future moments of harm, and share with others.

The panel discussion was moderated by Viv Tran.

Mini-Workshops

Participants selected to join mini-workshops in one of two topics: political action & donating or intervening & trauma first aid; The group then came together with reflection and learning and some staid after the event concluded to continue the discussion in our bonus coffee/tea session.

Participant Resource Page

With input from our moderator and panelists, UBP created a shareable and downloadable resource including a summary of resources including how to intervene in moments of bias, where to report incidences of harm, and more.

Download the Resource Page

Accessibility

ASL interpreter LC provided interpretation for the duration of the event. We want everyone to enjoy our events, if we can make this page or any event more accessible to you, please email us at ubp@ubproject.org.

Event sponsor logo - UBP @ Cal affiliate student organization of the Unconscious Bias Project.

Thank you to our event sponsor

UBP at Cal, our affiliate registered student organization on UC Berkeley campus, generously provided full event sponsorship to help us cover the costs of the event and allow us flexibility to donate any proceeds exceeding our costs to the Asian Pacific Fund for COVID-19 Recovery.

Recording

Transcript

Linet 00:00

Great. So welcome everybody. My name is Linet Mera, I am Co-ED at the Unconscious Bias Project. We worked closely with Viv Tran from the “What Gives” podcast to bring you “Stop AAPI Hate and Activate.” We will start off with a panel conversation followed by mini-workshops around 3:20 Pacific and with a space of reflection at around 4:00. And then we've made space until 4:30pm Pacific for additional discussion after the official end of the event. So before we get started, I do want to acknowledge that UBP is based in the Bay Area on unceded ancestral homeland belonging to the Ramaytush and Muwekma Ohlone people, some of whom speak the language Chocheno. And in lieu of a more in-depth land acknowledgement, we'd really like to encourage everybody to learn a little bit more about the Ohlone people. And also check out the Shuumi Land Tax, which is a great way to give to the community. So thank you, everybody, for joining us here today. And a shout out to those of you who have the bandwidth to donate as you reserve your ticket, and those that share this event out to have others join you. This event is actually made possible by contributions of individual sponsors people just like you, as well as sponsorship by UBP at Cal, our affiliated student organization and Jose Estrada, who sponsored an honorarium today. So with that, I'll go ahead and get us started and hand it over to Viv. So Viv actually is, so I mentioned she's the podcast host for “What Gives.” She actually co-organized this event with me from a conversation that we just started having after recording a podcast for her show together. She just moved to Texas, but she was recently a Chicago-based organizer. She's an emerging leader in the philanthropy, space connected with so many different nonprofit organizations. And she has over a decade of experience working in that space, mainly in AAPI- and migrant-focused organizations in the Midwest. She has dedicated her career to strengthening diverse communities through education, civic investment, and storytelling. So with that, welcome Viv.

Viv 02:35

Awesome. Thank you for that introduction, Linet. Like she said, we actually met through your podcast, we just kept talking about it. And so we were like, “Let's make this talk official and let people join us.” So that's pretty much why we're here. And with that, we also have Rohan and Dr. Liza joining us today. They're both from our community as well. And so I'll go ahead and introduce them as they will be our panelists for today. So Rohan Zhou-Lee is the founder of Blasian March, and it is a solidarity movement for Black, Asian and Malaysian communities. And in my experience, they are a great speaker on intersectionality of being Asian and just a great speaker on identity in general, which is why we really wanted them to be a panelist with us here today. And in addition to activism, Rohan is also a professional dancer and writer. So I just wanted to put that out there in case y'all wanted to connect with them later on about that. Dr. Liza is actually an educator, a change partner, a leader in the community, writer, leadership coach, parent, she's everything. And with over 25 years experience in pre-K education, strategic leadership, and organizational change. She is truly a leader in facilitating conversations about diversity, anti racism, bias, privilege and power. And that's truly why we have invited her here today, and why we have the privilege of speaking with her. So without further ado, let's start with some questions for the panelists. Awesome. So let's start with setting the stage. Liza, if you could please share with us how the current attention to violence against the AAPI community is linked to the past history of anti-AAPI and how it's really come about in America today. I would love if you could start with that.

Liza 04:47

Great, thanks. First of all, thanks for having me. So people should know this panel has been been planned for like months, we've been talking about this forever, like meetings online and it's so great to get together with each other. So Um, thank you very much. Thank you Unconscious Bias Project. Rohan, I've totally follow you on Instagram since I first met you. Gollow Rohan on Instagram seriously, there's so many great things happening and LC. again, thank you so much for your partnership. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the land in which my parents immigrated to. So they came from the Philippines, we sit on the land of the Wampanoag and the Massachusett people. And people should know that the Massachusett people's ancestors go back 12,000 years here. So even as I was asked to talk about history, it's important to acknowledge the historical nature of this land and who it originally belonged to, and was taken from, as a teacher, it is impossible for me to not also acknowledge the recent discovery of over 1500 remains of children who were brought to and taken - kidnapped - and brought to Indian boarding residential schools. I know there's a lot of fellow educators on this call as well. And for those of us who work deeply with children, in particular, and contributing in ways to try to dismantle the erasure of native people in our country, is just super important. So I was asked to talk a little bit about the history, how we are starting to pay attention to Asian and Asian American communities. And I think it's important to first mention, just like I was talking about with the native and indigenous communities, violence against our communities is not new. Maybe you're paying attention to it now. But this is, this is not new, right? What's been happening to our people, again, I identify as Filipino. Filipinos in this country are what was then, what was understood to be becoming this country have been around here since the 1500s. So when I was at Dunkin Donuts two months ago, trying to get coffee and a very bad for me glazed donut, when someone had told me like to go back to my country - in 2021, like two months ago - I continue to think like, what country exactly do you think I belong to? So that has been a narrative that I've held on to since I was a kid, I was one of the few Asian people in my town at that time. I think my siblings are also on this call, so they can cosign that they were also one of the few Asian people in the schools. And we were told that then, in the 70s, and to be in 2021, and to still be told, go back to my country, and to not be deemed American, is not a new story for us. It is not new, it's certainly not new for my lifetime. And so I work in the education space, a lot of my dissertation was really focused on: how do diverse Asian and Asian American and Pacific Islanders even decide to go into the field of education, a field that has been nothing but traumatic for us? Nothing but as erased our people. Like, why would you choose to do that? Why would you choose to go into that field? When I was asking educators all across the country, like, “what did you learn when you were growing up?” So I grew up outside of Boston, you should know, I know so much about Irish immigration. Like that was what we learned, right? We're about the Irish and the Italians and immigration, I got that on lock, right. I know all about like, what was happening in Faneuil Hall and all that kind of stuff. But what did I learn about being Asian American? Okay, ready? So I learned that we were enemies of this country. Right. So whether it was Pearl Harbor, or the Vietnam War, or the Korean War, or the Japanese incarceration camps, like every narrative that has been told about my people has been one of being on the outside, or one of being an enemy, or one of being very different. And so I was like, well, maybe that's just Boston, maybe all of you in the Bay Area, learn something amazing. Like maybe you learn this incredible Asian American history. And so I interviewed people all around the country. And they're like, naw, we learned the same thing, right? So when I think about the responsibility of education, and its connection to history, the common narrative is that we were never a part of it. Right? The common narrative was that we were never a part of American history. So even for anyone who knew about like the Chinese railroad, or the Chinese who built the railroad, that's about as far as it gets. Oh, I hear that Chinese people built the railroad. Okay, what was left out of that? Right is essentially enslavement. What was left out of that was the number of people who died. What was left out of that was that classic black and white photo, where all the white people when the historic photo and all the Chinese people were asked to stay out of the photo, right, as if the railroad just magically appeared. So I lay this context because when I'm asked the question, “where is this hate coming from? And why are we paying attention to it?” I can say it's always been here. We've learned to make Asian Americans invisible. We have learned to make Asian Americans different. When I think abou,t and again like Rohan is the person to go to in terms of intersecting identities, and so I'm also raising multiracial children. And so when I think about this piece, like nevermind the fact that the Asian American story has been erased, but I can't really trace my knowledge about intersectional identities and multiracial, Asian Americans, except for some of this narrative around what happens overseas, right? And so when I think about my own children who identify as Black and Latinx, and Filipino, like, what are they learning about their people? So I mentioned, we have a lot of educators on this call. And you've probably heard me say this in other formats, like - it's time to tell the truth. It is time to tell the truth about our history, about our people. And when we as educators choose to push that aside, then we are choosing to tell incomplete truth. So when I think about like, all this pushback, like oh, I've never known that there was this violence. I've never heard about this. Well, it's because you've been devoid of the truth of our country, the truth of our history. And that makes it very difficult if you are interested in things like activism. So for example, I grew up with this very dichotomous, Asian versus Black mentality, right? Whether you want to talk about the model minority myth, right, or like the the impact of believing that Asian Americans are better than Black people or want to be closer to whiteness, I grew up with all of those messages. And so ask me how surprised I was when I saw the photo, shortly after Malcolm X was shot, and I saw Yuri Kochiyama cradling his head. And that was the first time in my life when I realized that no, there actually was this vibrant, Asian, Asian American, Black Solidarity Movement. I didn't, I'd never heard the name Larry Itliong. Right. I'd heard Cesar Chavez. And so I never knew that Asian Americans and Filipino Americans, in terms of my identity, were on the front line of solidarity. And so when I think about that narrative, because I've heard this so many times in the past month, well Liza, ready, this false narrative of its Black people who are committing violence against Asian Americans, no, I'm not down with that. I'm not buying that. I'm not doing that. Right. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing this narrative of Asian versus Black anymore. So when I think about this activist movement, and again, like, I'm like such fanning right for Rohan, who does like Blasian March, like this is what activism is when we take all these different aspects of identity, and we not create a new history, because Rohan I love it, you're not creating new history, the history has always been there. Right? The history has always been there of our communities, and solidarity, whatever, whoever you want to blame, right has chosen to erase that has chosen to tell a different divided narrative. And in my life, the narrative my kids are growing up with is this very united solidarity narrative. So that's the new history, right? That's the current representation. That's the history that's always been there that we are finally amplifying that. And it is brings me nothing but joy to be on this call, especially with people who are working and thinking about these different communities. And so let's together, as we think about launching this piece, let's invite the truth of our history. Let's tell a new story, a new critical narrative for us to build together as we stop AAPI hate and activate.

Viv 13:26

Snaps, snaps to that, I see snaps there. And with that, I do, Rohan, I would love for you to talk more about identity and, you know, who are we talking about when we say Asian, and mostly in context to what's happening today in the media and or what's been happening like Liza has said.

Rohan 13:50

Well, first off, thank you, Liza. For that shout out that was all. I, awww… Well, first off, I'd like to introduce myself as Rohan Zhou-Lee. As you all know, my pronouns are they/sha/ta and I'm coming to you from the occupied territory of the Lenape people and for accessibility purposes, I have like medium brown skin. Black curly hair, I'm wearing a Black T shirt with yellow reading that says “Blasian - Black and Yellow.” My virtual background behind me it is a photo of a bunch of protesters of varying races, gender identities, gender presentations, and there's a red banner that we're all carrying that says “Unite Against Hate.” So for me, definitely identity is incredibly important and som of what Liza was saying, identity is very much rooted in history. In the politics. She So looking at mainstream media, and how mainstream media only focuses on specific body types of Asians, specifically, more fair skinned mono racial, East Asians, and that, to me, is part of what I think Liza was referring to, which I tend to perceive as erasure. So it's not only erasure of myself as a Black, Asian, it's also erasure of other Asians who are brown or other mixed race identities. It also cements whatLiza with thing is erasing the long history of racial violence that Asians have experienced on the stolen land. So not just what Liza said earlier. But I'm also going to reference the long history of lynchings of Asians and Asian Americans. I, in 1871, for example, you had the LA Chinatown massacre, in which between 17 and 20 Chinese men were lynched. There's also a wonderful book by Carlos Bulosan, called “America is in the Heart.” And he also talks about the lynchings of Filipinos. So for me, as a Black Asian, this is incredibly important, because these are parts of the story. They're not being told, these are the parts of our identity that are being rejected. And so for that rejection, or that structural exclusion of identity, it then creates this white mythology around why there's tension between other marginalized communities. So when actually in fact, ever since Asian Americans and Black communes came together on the stolen land, there has been solidarity going as far back as Frederick Douglass, who in many of his speeches spoke in solidarity with Asian immigration. And Liza, you also reference Yuri Kochiyama, and Malcolm X. I'm also going to uplift in the LGBTQ community names like Bayard Rustin, an openly gay Black man who was a civil rights activist very much spoke in solidarity with Indian independence. I'm also going to reference and uplifting in Kiyoshi Kuromiya, who was a Japanese American, openly gay activist, who marched with Dr. King at Selma. And in 1970, was the only openly gay panel member of the Black Panther Party convention, which also resulted in the Black Panther Party, essentially endorsing the gay liberation movement and the Women's Liberation Movement. So for me, I think for us moving forward, when we reject this white mythology around Asians and Asian identity, it has to be very much rooted in that history. And because of that history of intersectional struggle, because of that history of the cultivation of intersectional power, I think that we really need to start examining, and being more open minded and more inclusive of what even it means to be Asian.

Viv 18:06

Awesome, and in speaking about that, and in speaking about what's going on when we talk about Asian hate, it's really interesting who we bucket under that umbrella, right? There have been hate crimes against Asians of all skin color tones and intersectionalities. So I do want to speak more about what we mean when we talk about this Asian hate, and hate Asian violence.

Liza 18:37

Thanks, Rohan. I love that we figure it out on Zoom no, like you go. So even when we were doing our prep meeting, we were struggling with this question like, how are we defining hate and violence? I have to say it's somewhat, you know, the past couple of weeks in particular with this like, attack, shall we call it an attack on critical race theory, like, whatever you want to call it, right? I mean, it's just so dangerous the way we want to define hate and violence. So to me, violence can be both it's very external piece. So things that we've seen on video, for example, very physical violence. I often talk about education as a violent space, though, right? So when I think about the one time that the Philippines was even mentioned in my I was in eighth grade, so this is an all K-12. Right, the Philippines was once mentioned, and I remember being so excited, like, oh my gosh, we're studying the Philippines. This is great. And my teacher like totally mispronounced the language. Instead, Tagalog said like Tagalog, and I was too embarrassed to correct the room. And I just remember thinking like, that's all again, like, that's it. So and then I was in doctoral studies. And I was studying the history of higher education. There's this thing called the ash reader and I could like, I could like build muscle with this book. I mean, it's probably like twenty pounds a book, and there's 800 pages, I know that because page 792 to 799 was about the history of Asian Americans 792 to - seven pages, right in this 800-page book. And so when I think about that being violence, like educational violence, what do we leave out? What are the messages that you create for people, 1% of the people get their doctorates, and that was when I had to learn these eight pages, right? So when I think about this violence, that we continue to erase Asian Americans, and thereby create an understanding or a lack of understanding about who we are in the general population. To me, that is violence, right? That's educational violence. That's educational trauma. And so when I run into people who like don't understand why we're paying attention to Asian Americans, or why this even matters, to me, that is violence, right? When I think about this aspect of hate, hate worries me so much more. Because hate can be so internal, like I can walk down the street and not know if you hate me, I can't see that. Right. So to me, that's really scary as well. I'm sure there are a lot of people who hate me, just because I look the way that I do. I did take a trip to New York City this past weekend with my family. And the number of times I kept my sunglasses on and my mask up. Even though I'm vaccinated and all that kind of stuff. It was really for me, I just didn't want people to see me. So let's roll that again. I actually didn't want people to see me. So what does that mean coming from somebody whose community is constantly erased, historically and educationally. And then for me, on July 10, 2021, to say, I don't want people to see me, that's incredibly powerful when you think about hate and violence. And so as we think about well, what do we need to do? What do I need to do? What do people around me need to do so that the world can be safer, easier for me to navigate? I think it's something we don't often talk about, right? What does it mean to want to hide in plain sight, right? What does that mean? So again, when we were planning this, we were like, how do you answer this question? So I'm going to turn it to Rohan to answer what would you, like, what would you say about hate and violence? As you think about those definitions?

Rohan 22:21

Yeah, Liza, definitely, I am going to echo what you said earlier about the idea that the term hate and violence are just kept in very narrow perspectives. And I think if we look at legal definitions, we have to acknowledge that any legal definition has had to go through a white colonial lens, a white system of approval, which means that the way we legally interpret hate and violence is so narrow, it is built in a way that actually helps white society evade accountability for how they treat Asian communities. So apart from the hate crimes that we are seeing, within that structure, even of itself, the virulent hate report, projects, outside excuse me, the virulent hate projects, in conjunction with the University of Michigan actually released a survey, a report in May, May 18, and of this year, and it reported that in 2020, of all the articles, all of the hate crime reports they found at let's see, maybe this right, 89.6% of those hate crimes or acts of violence towards Asian Americans were done by white people, which completely contradicts the mainstream white-directed media, which speaks only to highlight the hate crimes that involve Black perpetrators. And this sort of white mythology, is how Asian communities Black communities, other communities of color are very much distracted by the fact that Liza, as you mentioned, the erasure of Asians from education is a form of violence and hatred, because it is erasing our stories and not allowing us to be empowered. I'm also going to talk about gentrification displacement here in New York. Our Chinatown, as we speak, is literally being erased and recolonized by white people, as they are taking over space. That was literally a ghetto, without, for lack of a better term, a ghetto for Chinese communities, because of that sort of segregation that white societies impose on Asian communities. I'm also going to name policing as a form of anti Asian hate, which we very rarely speak on because our society, as stands very much relies on policing to affirm white power. Because policing does not contain white, violence policing white violence. I I'm in this space, I'm going to uplift names, like Christian Hall. Last year in December, he was killed by police while having a mental health crisis. I'm also going to uplift names like Angelo Quinto, who was a Filipino veteran, and was also experiencing a mental health crisis. And similar, and parallel to George Floyd died with a knee on his neck by police. I'm also going to uplift Yang Song, who was a sex worker, immigrant Asian woman who worked in a massage parlor and experienced sexual violence by police. And shortly after she admitted it, there was a police raid on her place of work where she fell for stories to her death, which is so, which to me is a very terrible echo of back to history, the 1871 Page Act, which excluded all Chinese female immigration on the basis that white government officials assumed that all Chinese women were prostitutes, or sex workers, excuse me, that term, sex worker, better term. And that also remains a terrible foreshadow, in my opinion, of the Atlanta shooting, where a white man killed several Asian American women who were working in these massage parlors. And police defended him by saying he had a sex addiction, when that's actually sexualized racial violence against Asian communities. So I think moving forward, when we really talk about or think about anti-Asian hate anti-Asian violence, in our own minds, we have to really reject any specific notions that come from white miseducation, that come from white mythology.

Viv 26:48

So I think it's super powerful that you both talk about how we have continued to view violence and hate through a white lens. And in this next part, where we're going to be talking about how we take action, I kind of want everybody to continue to remember this. Because as we try to step up and storytell, and take action, we should continue to acknowledge that we should be taking action not through just the white lens, and not just for white people to hear us. Right. So with that, how are you both empowering yourselves to take action today?

Liza 27:31

Thanks, Rohan. So first, I know that Dr. Mera put this in the chat box. But yes, so I want to uplift Rohan, that you in the middle of like presenting to all these people, you modeled correcting terminology, right? Like in real time in this moment. And that was incredible. So I'm here to say, as you engage in this work, everybody, myself included, we're gonna make mistakes, right? We're gonna misstep, we're gonna say an oops, there's something that's going to happen. And so I'm just so appreciative of the way that you model that for people. Because I think the other, the two other options are, we just make the mistake and just keep going, or we don't even put ourselves out there to make them, to be in that space at all. So lots of appreciation and love for you in that moment. So I think that's part of it, like being active getting in there, I think it's important to remember that even as an Asian American, I do not nearly know, everything I'm supposed to know, remember, I grew up outside of Boston, didn't learn anything until my doc program. So I have like 45 years right of catching up to do in terms of education and understanding. And I also have to be a much more critical reader of things that are out there. When earlier in my lifetime, I was reading, like, Asian American stuff written by white people, you know, the book, and I was like, “I shouldn’t have done that.” So now, being a much more critical consumer of books, and knowledge and scholarship, and all that kind of stuff, it almost feels like I'm getting very Asian centric, or Asian American, Asian identity centric. And for me, that's what I've had to do. Right? So I'm gonna talk from the “I” perspective, I don't think there's any of us who are gonna say, “Here's the list of things you all should do.” Like, that's what I needed to do for me, I had to catch up, I had to get there, I had to better understand. I also had to really interrogate my relationship to anti-Blackness in this work. So not only was I socialized with an absence of Asian American, I was socialized through a very anti-Black, pro-white lens. So it is taken me a lot of work and it's ongoing, to better understand what the actual impact of that has been for me. So I'll say at this point in time, for me to address it Asian American activism for me, it has to go hand in hand with my dismantling anti-Blackness and decolonizing these really white privilege, white supremacist models of thinking, and that's it, that's what it is for me. It might be different for other people out there. But to engage in that activism, I feel like I'm having to do a lot of this mind work and be in community for or other people who are exploring these deep issues. But again, for me, it's about this Asian American centric piece and its relationship to anti-Blackness in my activism at this point.

Rohan 30:13

Oh, how do I follow that, Liza, you're so brilliant. I guess for me, when I empower myself I, one: lik to ground that in a sense of joy. A sense of, I'm doing this for me, I do this for my ancestry. I do this for the other Black Asians around me, I do this for the Black Asians to come. And for me, that manifests by means of undoing my erasure or how society has erased me, or how Asian communities have erased me, or how even Black communities have erased me. So at times, for me, that means showing up in a kurta to express my my South Asian heritage. I think last month with the Blasian March, we organized a Pride rally. And I wore terno sleeves to celebrate my Filipino identity. And I think for me, that's incredibly powerful. Because in that moment, it's almost like - I command this story. I command a narrative now, because there's no way a photographer can erase me or my Black Asian identity, it is there. You can document it only by a way that I decide. And that's been something that I really, really found very powerful for me in my work. I also just for myself, my own personal time, I am proud to say that I am surrounded by a wonderful community of queer and trans Black Asian people. And recently more mixed Blasian people also play a Black people who are now learning just now are like, Oh, that's me, I'm Blasian. I'm like, wait. I love how we're all just now discovering this or like just now giving ourselves permission to step into that, or use that word to begin to be like this is now a space that we command, we are now able to see the racial spectrum and take power in that racial spectrum. I also love queer, Black and Asian, trans and queer art and literature. I just finished a clear Asian fantasy novella series by Neon Yang, called Tensorate, and I am just a huge fan of all their work. And that's how I feel empowered. Because I feel like I say, with fantasy, a fantasy can examine and bring so much truth into our lives, it can really allow us to reimagine so many different things. So that's me.

Viv 33:07

I love that, I love how Liza as a Doctor of Education is just like about self-education. And then Rohan, you're just like, dancer and activist. I just dance and I wear all these beautiful - I love it. I love both avenues that y'all take. And how do you how do you see allies and others showing up for you?

Rohan 33:33

Okay, I'll go first. Thank you for the gesture. Um, for me, I think allies, and I'm specifically speaking to the anti-racist community, who are really trying to work hard on you know, not just the anti-Blackness, also anti-Asianness, I'm going to echo Liza and say a lot of it really comes down to just simply educating yourself. If it means looking at a documentary, if it means just Googling policing, or police violence towards Asian Americans to find names, because there are hundreds of names of Asian Americans have been killed or maimed by police, including our children. And that's very heavy to say. And for me, I'm gonna reference one of my really good friends, Sole Yu, she is another abolition based radical educator on the West Coast, and she uses the term “political imagination.” I love that phrase because I feel rewiring or restructuring your political imagination, that is decolonizing your mind and proactively freeing yourself of white colonial mythology and white colonial miseducation, is gonna be the driving point to all the decisions you make moving forward. Like I think, really, it's really gonna be the change upstairs. For me, I think that's where allies need to start. And let that be the driving force of the actions you take every single day.

Liza 35:16

Yeah, so a very good friend of mine, Justine, she lives in New York City. And she has been at the center of a lot of media storm. She's a sex educator. And as with a lot of things, her work is being talked about in misrepresentative ways. And so she last, in the past this past week or two Sundays ago in the New York Times, put out a response article. And she leaned into the African proverb, you know, “until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Right. And so she was talking about, like, needing that voice in there. And so when I think about the role of allies, I often think about well, Which story are you telling? Right? Which story have you learned? And Which story are you telling? So I, there's always kind of the allies thing of like, I need you to stand up for me. And if you hear a joke, I need you to not laugh, right? That's kind of basic at this point. Like, I actually need allies to like, learn from the lion, right, like stop leaning into the story is told by the hunter. And so the story is told by the hunter, to use Rohan's words is a very, like white lens, how are we engaging in this world from the white lens, if you grew up in the United States, our history books are through the white lens, they're through the tale of the hunter. And I'm really appreciative of a lot of my friends and fellow scholars who are putting more critical scholarship out there we are finally making and creating space for indigenous Pacific Islander scholars, native Alaskan scholars, right, because they often get out left out of kind of the big Asian, Asian American Pacific Islander category. So creating different space for these voices. And so I keep thinking for allies, what I want you to do is listen to the tale of the lion. Right? Like, what are the other stories that are out there? What are the stories about incarceration, Japanese incarceration from those who are Japanese? Right? What are the stories of those who are impacted by the wars in Vietnam and Korea, from the perspective of those people? I think the story that we often tell is this very white savior story. And so I have to say, for me, whenever I've been socialized in the white savior story, I feel like I owe white people something. I felt like I've owed white people something, because they have “saved” me, my people, when, you know, as a Filipino, I have to really understand the impact of militarization and military bases. And it's not just “oh, these wonderful Americans showed up.” There's a whole other story to that. But the story that was provided to me, was one of the hunter. So for allies, what does it mean for you to listen to the tale of the lion? Right? What does it mean for you to actively disrupt some of your own white historical socialization - of which I received top, for my researchers out there, what does it mean to include Asian American voices in this? I’m so tired of coming across articles that only take either a Black, white, maybe Latinx identity? Or does that, our data, and doesn't include Asian American or indigenous or multiracial data? So I know I have a lot of scholars and researchers on this call as well. What does that mean? What does that look like? I think the other thing for allies, knowing that we have a lot of educators on here, as well is don't shy away from topics that are not just of you, right? So I'm the summer I'm really committed to understanding and learning more from the indigenous perspective. But I didn't just Google “what's a good indigenous book?” right? Like I went to like, really good scholars to say, “what are the ones that you cosign?” because the last thing I need to do is to read another inaccurate historical, white piece of text. And so it's been important for me to really put in the labor of understanding the story of the lion. So that's really where I would start, allies. And again, I think about my own allyship to other communities as well. And the work that I have to do so, what I'm saying to you is really aligns with what I'm what I'm trying to do in my practice, too.

Viv 39:18

And I did want to bring up something we discussed while we were planning this, but we were talking we were talking about how we want a different allyship from different groups of people. And I thought that was very important and very, it's just the piece I do want to bring up as well. So if you could both, or one of you could speak on that.

Rohan 39:41

Yeah, for sure. I'm sorry, I just jumped the gun. I was like, “I'm ready.” Definitely because so there's a really really good resource out there by Deepa Iyer. Spelled d-e-e-p-a. Her last name is i-y-e-r, and she has a map of social change, and a social change ecosystem map. And every single part shows a different opportunity for people to jump into movement work. And it's a great way to show that it's based on your talents, what brings you joy in this work, you don't have to be on the front lines all the time to do this kind of work. And I think, you know, looking at, Liza here talking, you reminded me of something about the white lens and how you talk about Asian hate crimes. I remember when the President made his speech about what's going on. But the exact same time, he was actually deporting several Vietnamese folks to Vietnam, as we all know, based on history, a country that's still recovering from basically US aggression. And that, quite frankly, is the embodiment of the phrase “go back to your country.” Like, the government has literally taken that phrase and turned it into policy. So we need people to be on the frontlines protesting. We need people try to do the healing work, we need people to also be doing the policy change. What, who has real political knowledge or political understanding? Because someone like me, I don't have that specific knowledge. I can speak as an advocate, I can speak as as a person on the front lines on the ground. But I'm not the person who is actually going into these chambers and writing legislation. That is not my skill set. It does not bring me joy. I promise you that. So it really comes down to what brings you joy, and how can you bring joy to better our community as a whole?

Liza 41:49

Viv, is it okay, if I, if I jump in a little bit?

Viv 41:53

Um, I think we have about a minute or two left, so.

Liza 41:56

Yeah, great. I can do it, I can get to it. So um, I have to say, Well, it's been very emotional for me over the past few years, especially as I leaned into greater Black, Asian, Latinx, Indigenous solidarity in particular, is rooted in the model minority myth, which for many of us, we understand when these communities when our communities of color were really coming together, it's super scary, right? People of Color start to amass real political power, critical capacity. And so what is the best way? What is our playbook for dividing those communities up? It's creating hierarchies. And so this model minority myth then became this hierarchy to create closeness to whiteness for Asian Americans. And to say that every other racial group is bad, delinquent. Right? So created, it successfully created that rift. And so for me, as someone who is actively dismantling that white supremacist model of breaking apart our communities, it really brings me to tears when I see people who identify, our Black communities, people identify as Black, Latinx, or Indigenous constantly being in solidarity with each other, right? So I amplify indigenous and native voices at the same frequency that I amplify Black voices and Latinx voices. And for my people in my circle to do that for me as well. Like every time that happens, right? Every time that happens, I go, yes. Like, this is how we do it, right, not to quote bad 90s songs, but like, this is how we do it, right, to continue to engage in this way, whether it's formally right through the Blasian March or the solidarity movements. And when I think about white people who are kind of listening and watching this, too, how can you continue to amplify cross racial solidarity? Because that is how we keep this movement going. That is absolutely what brings me joy. But I do need different things from different communities. Right, I need to, I do need different things from different communities in that way. But showing up being there, and working in solidarity is the key to how to move this all forward.

Viv 43:53

Well, thank you so much, Rohan, and Liza, I've learned so much from both you and I hope the rest of the audience has as well. I'm going to letLinet take it away and introduce us to our workshops that we have planned for everybody.

Linet 44:08

Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Viv. That was awesome. So everybody, we're gonna give our panelists a little bit of a break now. We're gonna split you all into breakout groups. So folks that want to be in the activism and advocacy group that's going to be led by Viv. If you haven't already, please rename yourself to adding the number one in front of your name, so I can assign you to the right breakout room. If you don't have a number. I will just assign you randomly. And if you want to join my breakout room, which I'll be running, it's a mini-workshop on intervention and trauma first aid. And if you can't pick just just choose one. Don't worry, you're gonna have a full page of resources that has all of the prompts and information that folks are gonna be going to into the separate breakout groups, you don't worry about that. And then we'll come back. And we'll have about 5 to 10 minutes of reflection time, and then Q&A time, if you want with our panelists. And then, and then if folks are still really active and have a lot of discussion left, we have our little sort of coffee space, if you will. Okay, so looking at the list, I still see a couple of folks that haven't changed their names. Andrew and Jane, if you're still there, could you please message into the chat which breakout group you'd like to join? If not, I will just assign them to breakout group three, and I will send you all into your breakout groups, okay. There we go. There they go. Okay. And lastly, does anybody need to connect to LC, our ASL interpreter, I will put LC into the room where you need interpreting. So last chance to ask. Okay, I will send you all to breakout rooms and how fun. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the breakout room. Let me go ahead and get us started. How's everybody doing today? Good. Okay, yeah, that was a really powerful, that was a really powerful start for us. So I'm going to be sharing with you some slides shortly, we work together, we reached out to Hollaback, as well as Asian Americans Advancing Justice to put together this resource for you. I'm just getting my other computer connected here. We also worked with the Center for cognitive diversity to put this together today. And you're going to receive all of this in a resource page at the end of the event, this material can be a little rough. So if you ever feel overwhelmed, it's okay to you know, step away, turn off the screen or turn the volume off. So I encourage you to just exercise a lot of self care. Now, I'm going to share a screen so we can start the presentation. And if you have questions throughout, you are welcome to DM me, Liza is with us here. But she's just she's just watching at this point. Although she's a great facilitator, if you ever if you ever need anybody. Okay, so let's get us kicked off.

So today we're going to cover just a little bit of basics. What is bias? Can I be biased? You know, spoiler alert, the answer is yes. interventions and then we're going to go into Trauma 101. So knowing what is ahead of us today, if you have a pen and paper handy, go ahead and write out write down what your intention is for this mini-workshop today. I'll give you about 30 seconds to do that. Go ahead and and rate, what is your intention for today's mini-workshop? [Pause] Five seconds left, doesn't have to be full sentences or research paper. Great. Okay. So let's start with the definition. So we can think of bias as prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. And unconscious or implicit bias is bias that you have, even though you don't consciously realize or really agree with it, or even know it's there. And both unconscious or intentional bias can be at play. When we encounter harassment and violence, whether it's justified as a I don't recognize you in my neighborhood, or it's something a little more obvious, like you don't belong here. And they both have roots in the same history of colonialism and slavery that we all talked about earlier. And these are intertwined with white supremacy that impact our societal structures and norms today. And through these structures of discrimination, people justify mistreatment of any person that isn't white, able bodied heterosexual, upper middle class, cisgender, male, or Christian. So this can apply, what we're going to talk about today can apply to all sorts of different groups and all sorts of different situations, but we're just focusing on AAPI today. So, in getting to thinking about interventions, the most important thing is to really trust yourself. Now, what does this mean? This means, like, trust your instincts, if you have a gut reaction that is like something isn't right here, this is feeling uncomfortable, then something is probably wrong. And there is no right or perfect response if something is happening to you. But studies do show that having some kind of a response, either in the moment, or following up with that person later, can reduce trauma associated with harassment. If you do decide to respond, just do it for yourself. And remember, it's okay to do nothing, it's even okay to smile and just to keep walking, you get to decide what's right for you. With that in mind, harassment can be anything from something verbal, physical, sexual, or even a behavior like following you are blocking your path. Slide. So, the second step that you can take, if you do decide to do something about it, is to just reclaim your space. And this is really something that I consider as being optional. You know, you have to decide if that's okay for you. Right. And so if you are ready to sort of act, you want to first try to set a boundary, tell the person that's harassing you exactly what you want them to do and why. They recommend - so if you're in the US, this what you do in the US, you look them directly in the eye, and you denounce their behavior with a strong and clear voice. Many people prefer to specifically name that behavior where you can say, you know, “do not follow me, that's harassment.” Or you can just look at them and say, “that is not okay.” Or “don't speak to me that way.” Say whatever feels natural to you. And the most important thing is that you aren't apologetic in your response, and you don't engage with them, as much as possible, after you set the boundary. So once you've said your piece, just keep moving. Number two is engaging bystanders. Now, this is really powerful, because when something is being directed at you, you can feel like you're all alone. The truth is you you aren't, and a bystander may not be noticing what's going on until it's too late. So go ahead and reach out to somebody if you can. Tell them what's going on and what they can do to help. And not all bystanders have been trained to respond as you will shortly. But typically, people do understand that harassment isn't okay, violence isn't okay, and racism isn't okay, and they would want to help. So the first thing you do is you loudly announce to the people around you what the harasser just said or did and identifying, identify them like “that man in the red shirt is following me. I need your help.” And then tell them what you'd like them to do. “Can you wait for me here? Can you call the police?” for example. Remember that it is okay to ask for help. And it doesn't mean that you're weak. In fact, it means that you're very strong because you are taking charge of the situation and acknowledging that something is bad and that it is harming you, and taking action. A third possibility to reclaim your space is to document the situation. So if you feel safe, consider taking a picture or a video of your experience or asking a bystander to do this. You can report any incident through stopAAPIhate.org. And simply by turning the lens onto the person harassing you, has been shown to be hugely transformative. And again, only do this if it feels right for you and you feel safe. It doesn't work for everybody in the same way. So just make sure to ask yourself, “is this right for me right now?” Or “is there another way to respond?” Okay. And, lastly, we want you to think about engaging with resilience. So any sort of interaction, whether it's something tiny, like being looked at the wrong way in the supermarket to something major, like having an encounter with police, that feels discriminatory is a source of trauma. Ah, and there isn't a perfect response, just always know that it is not your fault, and you are not alone. So we really want to encourage you to take the time to engage in recovery and in taking care of yourself. And we'll talk more about that after we get through the bystander intervention piece. And if you're scribbling down hurriedly, don't worry, this will all be in that resource page that you'll get after the event. Okay, so sorry, the animation came out funny. But if you are a bystander, there are the five Ds of intervention from holla backs training, that's Distract, Delegate, Document, Delay, and Direct. And throughout all of these, just really be sure to tune in to yourself, so you know, what is within your ability and when you need to also resource yourself. So even as a bystander, you may experience vicarious trauma through witnessing that experience. So be sure to take care of yourself. So the first is to “whoops,” to sort of distract. So distraction is something really subtle, in a very, like simple way to intervene, you can get really creative with it. And the goal is to just disrupt the interaction. By doing something that distracts attention from the moment, you can do any of the following like pretending to be lost, pretending you know, somebody accidentally getting into the way, accidentally on purpose, spilling your coffee, or your groceries or your bag, you know, whatever that causes an interruption. Of course, you do want to read this situation and choose this method. If it seems appropriate, the person who's being targeted will usually catch on, and hopefully your act or statement or something can help deescalate the situation. Oh, you can also just tell the person that's being targeted, like, “Hey, neighbor, how are you doing? You know, did you want to go grab coffee,” now, you know, anything like that to sort of disrupt the situation? Delegate. So, delegation is when you ask for assistance, like getting a resource or getting help from a third party. Now, for this one, you don't have to be the one to intervene directly, but you can be that nucleus to get something going. There are studies out there that show that if you're in a larger group, it's a lot harder to be that first person to intervene. So if you can, even nucleate somebody else doing something, you're already making a difference. And just look around you. So for example, if you're near a school, you can recruit a teacher, if you're by a store, a store clerk, maybe you have a friend next to you, maybe speak to somebody near you, who notices what's happening. And you can also call 911 or 311, if it's safe to request help. Now, a very important note here, before contacting 911, use distract the distract method to try to check in with the person that's being targeted first, to make sure they're okay with you contacting law enforcement. Because as we talked about earlier, not everyone will be comfortable or safe with the intervention of law enforcement. And for many folks, there's a history of being mistreated by police. And it generates fear and mistrust. And in the current climate, lots of different communities that you might not even think of like people might be undocumented. They might be people with disabilities, they could be any sort of Person of Color. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Lisa. Yeah, so it might not be the best situation to call to call law enforcement. And somebody just direct messaged me that assuming that teachers are safe, they aren't always - that is true. However, you know, if you are near a school, there may be a teacher or a staff or somebody in there. So the person that you're calling in to nucleate, that intervention doesn't necessarily have to be somebody that you've vetted as an ally. They're just somebody to help you be like in the moment, and you know, there can be more than one passerby. So that's a really good point. Yeah, you you want to not assume everybody has the best intention, but more slightly more than one person will. Okay, next, intervention against AAPI. Hey, you want to document so it can be really helpful to record an incident as it happens to someone but there are a lot of things to keep in mind to safely and responsibly document harassment. So first, you want to assess the situation? Is anybody helping that person already? If not, then use some of the other four methods of intervention. Even if somebody is already helping out, assess your own safety, and if you're safe, go ahead and start recording. And always, always, always ask the person who is being harassed what they want to do with the recording, absolutely never under any circumstance posted online or use it without their permission. And there are so many reasons for it. First and foremost, being harassed or experiencing harm can already be a really disempowering experience, and can make a person feel even more powerless if you share it without their consent to if the documentation goes viral, it can lead to further trauma and a level of visibility that they might not have asked for. Third, posting footage without their consent makes it public. Meaning that something can get lead to a whole bunch of like legal issues, for example, law enforcement, and they may be forced to engage with the legal or policing system in a way that they're not comfortable with. And lastly, it could have been traumatic and you know, publicizing somebody else's trauma without their consent is really not a good way to be a good bystander. So do report incidences with police if you feel safe doing so. And also always please try to report witnessing and helping the pertinent person experiencing it, report to stopAAPIhate.org because they keep track of all of these and you don't necessarily have to submit names if you don't want to. Next intervention, our next intervention is delaying - hey, animations. So even if you can't act in the moment, you can make a lot of difference for the person who has been harassed by checking in on them after the fact. And lots of different types of harassment can happen really quickly. Or they can happen in passing and you just not really realize it until after it happened. If that's the case, you can still speak to the person who was targeted. And there are some really great ways to use this tactic. One is to just ask them if they're okay. Validate their experience, you know, tell them that was something really awful that happened to you, I'm so sorry, it happened to you. Ask them if there's a way you can support them. You can offer to accompany them to their next destination or sit with them for a while. And you can share resources with them and maybe offer to help them make a report if they want to. And again, if you've documented the incident, you know, now's the time to ask if they'd like you to send it to them. So make sure that they are the ones sort of with the with the power to direct what's going to happen next. Okay, great. And then lastly, animations got a whole bunch. That's all right. Lastly, direct. So what if you want to directly respond in in this moment of harassment, and say you want to name what is happening or confronting this harasser, this can be really tricky. The harasser may redirect their abuse towards you, and it could escalate the situation. So, you know, again, the best thing is to do something, just know that there are risks, and know that by you intervening, especially if you're somebody of a different identity from the person experiencing the harassment, you're bringing some mode of privilege into the situation. So you're bringing a different dynamic, you can bring your own power your own agency into this. So before you decide to respond directly, do the best you can to take a deep breath. And just assess - are you safe? Is the person being harassed physically safe? Does it seem unlikely that the situation will escalate? Can you tell if the person being harassed wants somebody to speak up? And if you can answer yes to all of these questions, that is a time when you might choose a direct response. And if you choose to directly intervene, there are some things that you can say, such as, and these are very similar to what we said if we're responding to something directed at ourselves. Like, “whatever you just did. That's inappropriate. That's disrespectful. Hey, that's not okay. Hey, leave them alone.” Or you can even name what's happening. “That's homophobic, that's racist, that's sexist.” Whatever it is, you can name what's happening. The most important thing here is to be succinct and try to be assertive. So say it very clearly and loudly so everybody in the situation can hear it. Do your best to stay away from engaging in dialogue or any sort of argument, because this is how situations tend to escalate. So now is not the time so if it's a real crisis moment, now's not the time to engage in conversation. If they're hurt assert guests respond, just try your best to focus on the person who was targeted instead of the harasser. So just like literally put your body in between them, or just turn to them. And, and focus your attention on the person who was targeted. So a note about safety. Nobody ever wants anybody to get hurt trying to help somebody out. So if you think about people drowning, or if you're on an airplane like and you're going down, just make sure that you are safe first, before you go and help otherwise, you'll just both be in trouble. So always think about safety and consider possibilities that are unlikely to put you or anybody else in harm's way first, before going to emergency. Okay, great. So the question is, what if you do want to engage, right, there are some situations maybe it's at work, maybe it's a member of your community. Maybe it's somebody that you want to maintain a relationship with. And you really want this moment to engage in a teaching moment. And this, again, can be the safe, it can be a good option, if everybody is safe from physical harm, right, we're gonna focus on safety first. So if you do, it's important to know what you're feeling and experiencing so you can respond in the way that you want to. So I'm going to quick review four pillars of self awareness from psychology here. First, check in with yourself emotionally. Take a quick breath and figure out how you're feeling. Next, engage with yourself. Check in with yourself, physiologically, what is your body feeling? Are you tensing? Are you feeling empowered? Cognitive, what kind of thoughts are coming through your mind? And behavioral? Are you shrinking away from the conversation? Are you starting to, you know, have an aggressive stance, you know, all of these can be clues for yourself. And use that to inform what you want to do. So if you're feeling really angry, and unsafe, we just suggest walking away, like it's not worth it to get into an argument. If you are already, you know, at a max, you can say something like, “I don't want to have this conversation right now, I need to return to work,” or “my friend is waiting for me.” If you're raising some yellow flags, and you still want to stay connected, we recommend our Three-R strategy. One, reduce your stress, by focusing on relaxing your body or finding a more comfortable location for the conversation. Maybe you're out in public and you want to go to a cafe, for example, posts COVID, or distance to reconnect to the why remember why you want to have this conversation in the first place, and bring up shared values with that other person, like saying, “I can see you're upset. And we're obviously neighbors and I would prefer to talk to you as a neighbor.” Right. And, or you can also revisit the conversation at a later point, when you may feel more comfortable like saying, “I see we're getting heated heated up right now. Let's talk about it over coffee next time,” something like that. And if you're feeling cool as a cucumber, go ahead, but just remember to check in frequently. Okay, so we are sorry. So now we're going to shift to trauma. I know it's going fast. Again, you'll have all the resources. But I wanted to share a quick analogy from Emily Santiago from the Center for Cognitive Diversity. And she really thinks about trauma, as as in thinking about trauma as water, and our body and our psyches as sponges. So she she said that so she encouraged us to consider our bodies and psyches like a sponge and trauma and stress like water. If you're soaking in water, it was gonna be really hard to take on any more water. And this is really important to keep in mind both as a person intervening for ourselves, as well as if you're a bystander, right? Okay, great. All right, so I'm going to take you through a brief meditation to find a situation that you can use to apply in this last piece of our workshop. Now, if you've recently experienced trauma, or know that meditation may trigger PTSD, we don't recommend you follow this meditation instead just turn the volume down or work on self resourcing for the next five minutes. Everybody else if you'd like to turn off your cameras, you don't have to be on video for this. But I just want to invite you to take a few deep breaths start settling into your body. You can close your eyes or keep a soft focus maybe a foot or so in front of you. Try to feel your body's weight on the chair. Connect with your breath. Try to see if you can feel the temperature of the air as you breathe in. And as you breathe out, let your breath resume its natural cadence that you are here, and that we are here together in relative safety. Maybe you have a mantra that you can reach to, “I am whole I am worthy.” So with that grounding, I would now like us to bring to mind a difficult situation. Something that was uncomfortable but not a crisis situation, like a two or a three instead of a five. It could be something that you experienced, or something that you witnessed happen to somebody else. Once you find that situation, that memory, and if you can't, you can make one for yourself. I'm going to ask you a few questions that would be very soft. And I want you to gently ask them to yourself in the setting without letting the thoughts or memories take you very far. What setting are you in? Who is around you? What happened in this moment? How do you feel in your body? What sorts of thoughts are you having? Okay, now that you have it in your mind, hold it there and create a little bit of distance like you're looking at it from a movie screen or you're a third person looking into the situation. Know that we will find your resources that you can apply to the situation. So it is less impactful the next time you remember it or you encounter something like this. Now slowly wiggle your toes or start moving your head from side to side. Come back to the seat and back to this room together. In your own time, go ahead and open your eyes. Okay, great. Thank you for joining me with that. Right. So with that situation firmly in mind, I'm going to read each prompt and give you a little time to scribble down some answers on your piece of paper. So first, think about that situation. What are your concerns in that situation? Go ahead and write down a couple of of words. They don't have to be full sentences. What were your concerns in that situation? Okay, next, consider what are your triggers what would make you feel like you aren't able to decide how to respond in that moment. And a trigger could be a physical action a setting or something spoken or something else? What would make you feel like you can't control what you want your response to be? Go ahead and write down a couple of things. Just be one word or two. Next, when you're feeling stressed or anxious, what are the signs of your stress response? How do you feel it in your body? What are your thoughts what are your behaviors go ahead and take some time to write that down. Okay, great. Now how, what are ways that I can feel safe and supported during this moment and after Okay. Now I'm going to leave this next piece for you all to work out on the resource page. But what you want to do is then take this information that you've written out, take the situation as an example, to work through this prompt, I'm going to share my example. And you can fill out your own in your own time. So when I notice these warning signs are triggers. And for me, those are rushing thoughts, a tense jaw, and then I'm physically shrinking within myself, I will, and for me, that's do a short meditation, maybe wiggle my fingers or rub my hands together. So I can sort of feel reconnected to my body to support myself. Now, when others notice that so these are the behaviors that we have when we're under high stress, or in one of these situations, that I've stopped talking, that's one of my behavioral science. I'd like others to help by asking if I need to sit down, take a sip of water, or step away. So these are what I would like other folks to do if I'm in the situation. And then it's really important to write down who are the folks that you want in that moment? Or at least think about them once. So that if you do get find yourself in this type of moment, then you can go back to that. And for me, that's that example is Alexis. Alexis is my Co-ED. And so we have one minute. Alexis is my Co-ED. And she is the one that I go to for support. And how do I contact them? So usually, when we're in the middle of work, we have a sign that's a crab. So I could say I'm feeling crabby. Or just do this, and that is enough of a sign to know that I'm seeking help. And then lastly, do they know how to help me when I need that help? It's important when you're making these plans to contact these folks, so that they know what to do when you need it. And so yes, Alexis knows that I mostly just need somebody to listen or that if I asked her for help during a virtual meeting in Slack, that I want her to intervene in that moments. And if she doesn't know what's going on, then I just tell her, you know what it is we just like each other for that. Okay, so I think breakout rooms to close shortly. But once we joined back into the main room, we're going to take a minute to write down something that we learned something that we felt today and one action that we'd like to take. So if you if you want to go ahead and take a few seconds right now, while the breakout rooms are closing, go ahead and write down maybe one thing that you learned felt or wants to act on. And be ready to share that in the main room. Thanks, everybody, for joining me for this very brief, tiny mini mini workshop.

Viv 1:18:23

If you didn't hear that, we're gonna just take a second and just reflect on what we learned from both Liza and Rohan. You know, we talked a lot about how we view how we've been viewing hate and violence through a wide lens, and how we can all show up in very different ways and in different ways that fit with us. So I want everybody to take about 15 to 30 seconds to just write down on a piece of paper or just have it in your brain. What is one goal you have for yourself in this mini-workshop. This is, you know the second portion of the Stop AAPI Hate and Activate, we're truly going to try to activate so let's think about one goal of one way to activate in fight against AAPI hate. So starting now 15 seconds.

Linet 1:19:57

Awesome, and Susanna, Can you go to the next slide, please?

Viv 1:20:04

So this is, I'm sorry, can you go back? Oh, there you go. So just so everybody sees what we're really going to be talking about today, we're going to cover, What is bias? Am I biased? Advocating and engaging in activism. And then lastly, supporting. So we're going to cover these topics. And Susanna, next slide, please. So, so we're gonna start with a definition of bias. And I know, most of you have probably heard this, and probably no, you know, I have some sort of bias within me. So the definition that we're working with here today is prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person or group compared with another, and usually in a way that's considered to be unfair. So that's a definition we're working with today. And because we're working with the Unconscious Bias Project, we're really going to be focused on the unconscious bias aspect. I am no expert in this. So background, I know Linet through working with nonprofits, and I know the panelists, through my community work. But unconscious bias is really not my area of expertise. So when that will be perfect for asking questions about this, but I just wanted to give y'all a caveat that I'm not an expert in this. But Susanna can go to the next slide, please. So unconscious and implicit bias. The unconscious and the implicit bias, explicit bias, there's unconscious and intentional bias, which can be at play when we encounter harassment, violence. It's justified as, “I don't recognize you, you are more obvious, more obvious, like you don't belong here.” So there are unconscious biases. The conscious bias that we might be dealing with could be you know, outright racism, while unconscious bias is very subtle. And it could be, you know, something like, “Hey, why don't you go to the kitchen to help the other women now,” that's pretty unconscious. There's not a lot of intention there. So So those are the differences between those two. And then we're going to talk about how it fits into individual, institutional, and structural. And that's with this slide here. So at the individual level, bias can really look like someone avoiding Asian restaurants, or someone saying passive comments. Someone who is frequenting other restaurants, citing COVID, with concerns and not visiting, you know, Chinese restaurants. So that can be a very individual-level bias. At the institutional level, bias impacts people due to unfair policies, practices and procedures. Like, let's say, in a personal network, we really reinforce or a personal network within business, we really enforce majority white male demographic in a lot of fields, such as science and tech. And it could really impact how we hire people. So institutionally, that's how unconscious bias can affect us. So when we're hiring, and maybe for in the medical field, a lot of people tend to think that AAPI people, they fit more of that role, or that vision that people see in the medical field. And so they might be hired for more roles there. So that's kind of an institutional unconscious bias. at the structural level, it's about the intersection of history and current reality of bias across multiple institutions. And throughout a dominant culture that benefits some folks over another. And with that example, it could be you know, people viewing AAPI people as being more financially stable. And we are, we do have the highest median household income as AAPIs. But that's a huge umbrella of people we're looking at, right so um, so when we include, you know, Vietnamese and Filipino communities within that, that sub-group, Vietnamese and Filipino and a lot of Southeast Asian groups don't tend to have the highest median household income and actually have some statistical issues with, you know, having a high school degree or having owning a house. And so we could see that being a problem when AAPI organizations and nonprofits don't receive as much funding because they're viewed as being in a higher median household income. So that's more of a structural unconscious bias. And you could see this playing out with discrimination and buying homes or discrimination in business loans, or even in voting. You know, you need an address or a district that you're a part of to vote. And sometimes people don't have an address, but they should still reserve the right to vote. So that's more of a more of a big structural unconscious bias that we deal with. And that's how it can play out in in some people's lives. So snap judgments, historical imprints and simmering stereotypes really could destroy careers, leave brilliant people outside of classrooms and labs, whether they be Black Latinx, or people with disabilities or women or LGBT, LGBTQ, or any combination of those groups. So no one really escapes from the system. And if you you think the system is okay, and it's getting better, it's probably because you were benefiting from it before. So this is really something that everybody needs to work on. I know myself, I have, you know, some of the privileges of being part of the model minority myth. And so, and benefiting from some of the bias there. So it is a system that benefits some people in in some aspects and not in others. And it's really something that we all have to work on. So that's why you'd be at up we talk about all these pieces of the puzzle, and the effects of the system as a whole.

Linet 1:27:01

So can we go to the next slide, please, Susanna?

Viv 1:27:06

So this workshop is really about activating, so we're going to really be hands on here. And if everybody could, Susanna, can you share the link for everybody? For taking action? There you go. So Susanna just shared a link in the chat. And if you could all open up that resource page, we're going to do some workshopping here, and we're going to actually take some action. So let me open up this link as well.

Linet 1:27:42

Thanks, Susanna.

Viv 1:27:46

So for the first portion, we're going to really be looking at local and national action. And so we're gonna, if you scroll down, we're going to take three types of actions. So under Actions, activist organizations, petitions and opportunity to write to your representative, you'll see a grid of three types of actions that you can take. In the next five minutes, we're going to try and do all of them or whichever one that you're comfortable with. So signing a petition is is a really quick and easy one, contacting Congress for this one, you can go ahead and mute yourself. I believe you can call or write an email for this one.

Linet 1:28:37

Let me see that I think it is a call.

Viv 1:28:43

Nope, you can you can just submit your information. And then for the third one, the Philippine Human Rights Act, you can take multiple kinds of actions you can read about the act, you can join the coalition, you can endorse your donation, or you can just follow the cause. So we're going to take five minutes here and just go through these three together. So I'm gonna be doing this with you as well. Oh, I'm sorry. I just saw the three links above but there's actually like 10, okay you don't have to do them all right now I think what we should do is pick the three that that we do want to get done today and go ahead and do those? Awesome um, does anybody need any more time to complete their three

Guest 1 1:34:29

I think I need 30 seconds.

Viv 1:34:32

Okay, take your time. I'm gonna give you a one to two more minutes. Um, yeah, I just realized that this is saying, oh, this is a lot longer than five minutes. Awesome, and if you all would just put in the chat the three that y'all chose to do and just share with each other sort of which ones we decided to pick. So actually, what I chose to do is I texted the resist to fly before oh nine and then I joined Asian Americans Advancing Justice and then I also signed the anti-racism petition. So awesome. I love this.

Awesome, I love seeing what all of y'all are doing. Alexis signed a bunch of petitions. Yep, that's part of activism. Right. Um, so Susanna key go to the next slide awesome, and we, you know, as activists, we have to recruit our friends to be doing the same thing or sharing this on our socials. So if you could share on your social media or on text or however you want to, with your friends to to what you were you decided to do and link some of the things that you've done. That would be awesome or you could share this entire document with them if you want. I think that's something you can do. Yeah, so go ahead, I'll give you all another three minutes to to go ahead and share an email and post on your socials and everything and I am going to do that with you as well. In this portion you can also choose to donate to any of the organizations in the resource dock. I know they all have some sort of donation or campaign going on. So, you can do that here now with us now or you can do it later on as well.

Linet 1:39:21

I'll give everybody just one more minute here.

Viv 1:40:14

Awesome. And then for the last three minutes, I wanted to open up the floor and Susanna, can you go to the next slide? We're just gonna talk about, you know, what we thought, what we've learned how we feel and about some of the actions that we took. So does anybody is anyone brave enough to share? I know in this workshop, we literally just forced you to take action. But that's the goal here.

Linet 1:40:45

I can go. Hi, Andrew.

Guest 2 1:40:50

Yeah, I think one thing that I learned is the different types of bias, I think you view bias that's like, one specific thing, but I didn't really think about how like, structurally and explicitly and implicitly bias works. So that was something I didn't fully realize, I think feeling-wise, I think, feeling-wise, I actually feel a bit empowered, like nice to know that, like, you know, there's others who are like on the same page and feeling like the same kind of like, emotion and towards this turn into action. I think trying to be more vocal about these issues, I'm gonna try and sit down, read a bit more and try to be more vocal on social media, like in real life, too. So I think that's the main action go on, but like, also trying to be more open to all the things I can do.

Viv 1:41:40

Cool, awesome. And you did take so much action today, you did three things! Anybody else want to share?

Guest 3 1:41:49

Early on the presentation, I definitely felt like I learned a lot about some of those missing pieces, like the parts of history that are left out but were not taught that are actually really important.

Viv 1:42:05

Yeah, I definitely learned a lot too. Anyone else like to share? Anyone want to share the three, how taking the thre actiona made them feel?

Guest 4 1:42:29

I'll share so just the my feeling from the presentation overall was was very, I think healing and validating. It's just good to be reminded of ways in which our erasure affects us. And I think that discussion on hate was fantastic. Because we have a lot of Stop Asian Hate signs in our town, which I think it's great, but at the same time, it always made me wonder, you know, “what do you mean by hate?” As an as far as the action, I felt a bit like, oh, okay, there's like, no discussion about this, like, jump in, sign up?

Viv 1:43:14

Yeah, we tried to squeeze a lot in like an hour and a half.

Guest 4 1:43:18

No, but I felt this sense of initial like, oh, okay, I just need to do this. I think I tend to try to, I am afraid to commit. So I think that, so it was good to be pushed.

Viv 1:43:33

I know this was truly like we just forced everyone to take action. But I hope you know, you guys are able to just feel good about having taken three powerful steps today. And taking some action and really helping the Asian community, whatever that means to you. And I think we're gonna go back into the main room in about a minute here.

Guest 4 1:44:01

Can I just say the, the one that you talked about the texting on the I don't remember the number of 504 something. I clicked on the links and they didn't work? Do you know if you there's a-?

Viv 1:44:15

if you have like a, like a firewall or something, I think that happened to Linet as welll, and it was a firewall situation. Okay, but yeah, I'm gonna, we’ll go through the links. Again, thank you for letting us know. And we'll make note of that. I think Linet still working on her workshop. Does anyone want to go go ahead and talk about you know, whether or not they've known about these organizations before, if they've been taking other actions they'd like to share share with the group.

Guest 5 1:45:07

So I guess like how I got into learning about this, and actually how I heard about UBP was at my company, they started, like a Diversity Equity and Inclusion committee. So if if your company has something like that, or doesn't yet, definitely push your company to try to implement something like that, it can be like an employee-run committee where you just kind of learn and share resources with employees and make change within your company. So

Viv 1:45:42

Yeah, that's a great. I love that, Alexis. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great advice, because that's something that I did with my company as well. I was like, I don't know anything about it. But I know that us not doing anything right now it doesn't feel right. And I don't feel right, or empowered to go to work, if we're not going to acknowledge some things. So I literally sent an email to my CEO, and it worked out great. So that's a, yeah, that's a great action that you can take.

Alexis 1:46:09

And, sorry, May I interrupt? Definitely, like, if you do that, if you have, if you have a DEI committee at your work, or you want to start one, make sure it's accommodated in your schedule, make sure you're getting paid for that work, especially if it's on behalf of a group that you are personally experiencing oppression for being a part of. And if they say like, oh, that sounds like money, that sounds like time, be like “we are adding value to your company by making it a more inclusive place. So you are going to have less churn,” whatever, right? You don't - we have an ethical view on that, but like put it in the terms that they understand if they're quibbling about money, be like “we're bringing value to the company, and you need to pay us for that.”

Viv 1:46:59

Yeah. And if you, on that point, if you want to look up, you can literally Google like DEI ROI. Or the McKinsey CSR report, which DEI is a CSR - corporate social responsibility. You can bring up those reports as well as a way of proving like “our company needs this. It's good for the company.” You shouldn't have to do that. Right. But.

Alexis 1:47:25

BUt if it’s the language they understand.

Viv 1:47:27

Right, right. These are great. These are great. Does anybody else, we have 50 seconds, anybody else been doing something really cool that they want to share?

Viv 1:47:46

So in the last 30 seconds, I think Rohan, you know, putting on your cultural garment and going and celebrating and just learning about your own culture. Talking to your family about it, those are some of the things I've been doing as well. So yeah, I don't know if that's something that you want to try. But that's really brought joy to me in the last couple of months, while we go through these collective traumatic experiences together. So yeah. Thank you, everyone.

Linet 1:48:16

I'll see you back in the room. Great. Hi, folks. Welcome back into the room. Great. Well, thank you, Viv for moderating the breakout room. Thank you, Liza and Rohan for joining us for the panel event today. I forgot to highlight myself. And yeah, I wanted to encourage everybody to go ahead and share maybe one thing that you thought, felt, or want to act on, thanks to today. So you can go ahead and unmute yourself or if you're shy, you can DM me or Viv. We have a message from Liza this time together has been so good for my own heart and mind. Thank you to so many who came engage today. Thank you, Liza.

Viv 1:49:30

I just want to say that I'm so proud of everyone, you know, taking out their phones, putting out their emails and sharing with their friends and just doing the activist work that is going to make a change. So I want to thank everyone and I'm so proud of everybody for doing that.

Linet 1:49:48

That's amazing. Alexis has a thank you to Liza and Viv and Rohan, with a heart, thanks Alexis. For those of you that were with me in breakout too That's the Alexis that's my Co-ED and she's my buddy when I need help. Anyone else? I'll go ahead and remove all the spotlights so we can see each other. I think that might be better. So vague. Okay, we have a question in chat, I tried to read find resources mentioned. Great for chat. Thank you so much, Jane. Yes, you will receive an email. If you sign up through Eventbrite, you'll receive an email if you haven't signed up through the Eventbrite, you can go ahead and DM me or email me a ubp@ubproject.org. Dropping that into the chat, and we'll send you resources. We’ll also have a recording of this event and the breakout rooms into our website at ubproject.org. ubproject.org. says Andrew, “I think this workshop helps a lot. I showed me many organizations I wasn't aware of.” Wonderful, I'm so happy for that. Great, great. Anybody else, something you felt you learned or that you wanted to share with everybody?

Guest 6 1:51:28

I'll go if nobody minds. Thank you. Yeah. So I learned that there is a Blasian March. And I didn't know that,, I think that's amazing. And, you know, the five-D model that you walked us through was not one that I was familiar with. I've you know, I've learned some psychological first aid and some trauma things like that. But it's always good to have another tool in the toolbox. So, thank you all very much.

Linet 1:51:59

Wonderful. I'm glad that was helpful for you. Thank you for sharing that. All right. Well, I do want to take a second before we officially end the main event. We share screen here, to give a thank you. Oh, we have a from Liza. “I'm so excited for my own children to experience all the affirmation that you created, Rohan, with the Blasian March. Yeah, it's really powerful. If y'all haven't checked out Blasian March on Instagram, go check it out.

Rohan 1:52:40

That’s so touching. Thank you, Liza. And thank you for being such a good mom.

Linet 1:52:53

We have so much love in this room. Thank you, Christina. “Thank you for this great discussion, all the knowledge and support” - Yeah, that's what we're here for. I did want to give a quick shout out to all the folks that made this event possible. So this event is made possible through contributions of individual sponsors and contributors just like you. We want to give a special shout out to Jose Estrada who covered an entire speaker honorarium for today, thanks to UBP at Cal for their pledge for their sponsorship. And by Social Good Fun, 501(c)3 nonprofit, which is our fiscal sponsor. Thank you, everybody who joined us here today. And a big shout out to those of you that have the bandwidth to donate as you reserve your ticket and all of you that shared this event. This is really powerful. Thank you so much. Any proceeds beyond what we need to cover the cost of this event will go to the Asian Pacific Fund as selected by our panelists. Bye, Rohan. Thank you. Big round of applause to our panelists, Rohan and Liza and Viv Tran for moderating and organizing, thank you to LC for interpreting for us today. Thanks to our assistant Susanna Lim, for her support during the breakout sessions. And thank you to Kaitlyn being on there for our Social Media Group. And with that, I'll stop sharing and just leave it open for discussion. I know some folks have to go thank you. And this part is is going to be really casual. So I'm just going to hit go ahead and stop recording so nobody feels like they'll have all of their, you know, thoughts and deep personal beliefs out there if you don't want to.

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