Episodi
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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.
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. -
Dalit Dreamlands Curator Manu Kaur
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.
Anika Nawar Ullah, 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. -
Episodi mancanti?
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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 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 TRANSCRIPTSOpening: [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.
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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. 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 websiteChinese for Affirmative Action InstagramJustice Patch articleKelly 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 BorderTranscriptCheryl 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.
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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 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=en
Billy 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.
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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. -
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.”
MUSIC
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:
Cam’s GoFundMe
Cam’s Re-entry Toolkit
Transcript
Cheryl 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 [email protected].
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 [email protected]. 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!
The post APEX Express – 2.8.24 Welcome Home Cam! 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 – 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:
Sign on to Queer Crescent’s Ceasefire Campaign for LGBTQI+ organizations and leaders
Queer Crescent’s Pinkwashing Resources
Queer Crescent Website
Palestinian Feminist Collective Website
ASWAT Instagram (@aswatfreedoms)
Lavender Phoenix Website
Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD) Website
Purchase Blood Orange by Mx. Yaffa
Transcript
Shenaaz 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.
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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.
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
Instagram
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.
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