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CAAL | Fireside Chat: Suni Lee Making History

Fireside Chats are informal conversations between staff at the Coalition of Asian American Leaders and network leaders on issues and topics impacting our Asian Minnesotan community. In this Fireside Chat, held on August 6, 2021, former CAAL Executive & Network director Bo Thao-Urabe and Representative Kaohly Her discuss the significance of local olympian and gold medalist Sunisa Lee’s win for the Hmong community and the importance of uplifting the perspective of women and girls.

Find out more about upcoming Fireside Chats and about CAAL on their website.

AAU | Statement, Resources, & Action Items on Violence Against Asian Community

AAU Statement on Violence Against Asian Community + Resources & Action Items

These past few weeks, US headlines and news sources have been highlighting a significant increase in anti-Asian harassment and violence since early 2020 with more than 3000 documented incidents across the country. Most recently, we grieve Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old man from Thailand who suffered fatal injuries after being shoved to the ground on one of his daily walks. We stand in solidarity with Noel Quintana, who was slashed across the face on the New York City subway, the 71-year-old grandma who was knocked to the ground and robbed in Oakland, the 91-year-old grandpa who was shoved to the sidewalk on a sunny day in Oakland Chinatown. We feel the pain of the families and friends of those who have been victims of racist violence.

Amidst these stories, we also must say the name of Christian Hall, the 19-year-old Chinese American teen who was fatally shot by the Pennsylvania State Police when Hall was undergoing a mental health crisis. Although the victims of anti-Asian violence may initially seem unrelated to Hall’s case, AAU believes that the oppressive systems of our society and the blatant disinvestment in public services not only allow these incidents of violence to persist, but create them in the first place. Thus, all these seemingly disparate stories are tied together. In these moments of anger, grief, and sorrow AAU wants to encourage our community to connect our pain to that of the Black community immense and unjust losses at the hands of police. We all suffer under white supremacy and no minoritized or economically disenfranchised community in the United States is able to avoid its violence.

Just a year ago, in March 2020, AAU convened a community forum on the rising number of incidents of anti-Asian harassment and violence across the country. This increase was broadly attributed to the administration’s stoking of public bias and anti-Chinese sentiment (i.e. using terms like “kung-flu”) as news spread about the first reported cases of Covid-19 in Wuhan. At the forum, eight Philadelphia Asian leaders discussed recent anti-Asian incidents and the rising levels of fear and stress in our communities. A year later, we are again hearing reports of anti-Asian violence, with some of the most egregious reported recent incidents occurring  on the West Coast. 

Throughout AAU’s 35 year history, we have seen many incidents of anti-Asian violence, harassment and hate crimes. We know that these racially motivated events have also been a long part of our nation’s history and increase especially during times of upheaval when community members turn blame and fear towards each other rather than towards larger systemic causes. 

Whether it is one incident or many, the effects of violence aimed at our communities can be felt across age, gender, class, or Asian ethnic/cultural background. Our youth, their parents, and our elders are afraid— often on a daily basis. Additionally, we all come from histories of societal discord, war, violence, immigration, displacement. Incidents in the current moment raise our communal memories of incidents in the past. And during this pandemic, there is less space for continued efforts towards generational healing. 

When these incidents occur and fears are stoked, we see our own communities’ racism rise (especially targeting black communities). Again, the histories in our communities where Asians and Black people have been pitted against one another leave us disconnected, angry, unaware of the privilege that Asian communities have been granted over Black and Latinx communities, unaware of our own racism. Our community leaders end up calling for increased police presence and gun ownership. We get more entrenched in a vicious cycle that this country has perpetuated since it began.

At AAU, we are concerned at how difficult it is to remember in difficult times to look at a larger picture— at the whole situation of larger systemic failure. The pandemic shows the many holes through which our communities can fall under the inhumane system we live in. Millions and millions of people in the U.S. are without work, adequate healthcare, food, or shelter. Millions of people are incarcerated. Thousands of people in our immigrant and refugee communities are facing deportation and detention in this incarceration system. How can we expect crime and tensions in our communities not to rise in these circumstances?

We must not blame each other. The solution to violence cannot be more violence. Our communities need linguistically accessible resources, mental health services, cross-racial community, solidarity building, and restorative justice programs.

We must look further. We must dismantle our history of economic inequity and racism. Who are the wealthy people benefiting every day from the suffering of the oppressed? Who are the people who reinforce this oppressive system every day to protect their profits and privilege? It is so difficult to consider that we may have more in common with even those who target our Asian elders and youth with violence  than we do with those who keep their hands clean while the systems of oppression do their dirty work for them— keeping us from lives with dignity and plenty where we could begin to heal from centuries of damage, violence and disconnection. 

In this moment, we ask our communities to continue envisioning and enacting safe and just futures that honor everyone’s humanity and make reparations for historic and ongoing oppression. Ask how conservative visions of a safe community (more police, more firearms) will perpetuate both anti-Black and anti-Asian violence. Ask what will really have to change in our society so that none of our community members are faced with the many forms of violence (physical, economic, emotional) we are confronted with every day.  Fight for justice for Christian Hall as a part of a lineage of murder that follows Walter Wallace, Briana Taylor, George Floyd, Eric Garner, and too many more.

Action Items:

View the list of resources and suggested readings here!

Statement of Solidarity From the Asian American Leaders Table on 9/11

To mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Asian American Leaders Table invited us and our colleagues in the Asian American and racial justice movements to remember and reflect on the past 20 years. We asked ourselves: How did the tragedy affect me, us, and our community? What are we still grappling with as communities of faith and communities of color? How do we use our collective power and resources to build a truly inclusive nation? Click the link below for some reflections that our Arab, Muslim and South Asian leaders offered and for the full statement of solidarity from the Asian American Leaders Table with additional resources: https://9-11solidaritystatement.carrd.co/

September 10, 2021

As a network of local and national Asian American organizations that convened in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been working together to address the rise in anti-Asian violence. Together, our collective voice has been louder and stronger in uplifting the shared strength of our communities and speaking out against racism and violence.

It is in that spirit that we offer reflections and commitments upon the 20th anniversary of September 11th and its aftermath. 9/11 lives in our memories as a day of unspeakable loss and pain. In the days, weeks and years that followed 9/11, we witnessed an unprecedented rise in hate violence, bullying, profiling and workplace discrimination targeting members of South Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh communities. In addition, government policies instituted in the US and abroad as part of the War on Terror led to war and torture, surveillance and profiling, and detentions and deportations. In response, South Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh organizations and advocates organized, resisted, and strengthened the power of grassroots movements.

To mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Asian American Leaders Table invited our colleagues in the Asian American and racial justice movements to remember and reflect on the past 20 years. We asked ourselves: How did the tragedy affect me, us, and our community? What are we still grappling with as communities of faith and communities of color? How do we use our collective power and resources to build a truly inclusive nation?

Here are some reflections that Arab, Muslim and South Asian leaders offered:

“This narrative to fear and suspect Muslim and Middle Eastern communities has created this culture of scarcity that makes us think ‘well at least it isn’t us,’ rather than a culture of abundance that assumes there is enough freedom, enough humanity for all of us.”

“I’d like us to stop apologizing for 9/11. We were never supposed to have been apologizing to begin with. Stop forcing us to explain things we had nothing to do with.”

“We cannot continue to center our solutions around law enforcement. This doesn’t mean there’s no accountability when a hate crime is committed, but that as we seek whatever the currently available means for justice that do exist in our flawed system, that we also invest in creating the alternative.”

“Let’s start conversations, call each other in, and avoid engaging in the tactics used to divide us. Let’s have compassion as we work for accountability. Let’s listen more, empathize and work to build community and alliances across movements.”

“What we’ve become much more aware of in the last 20 years is an understanding of a history of state violence targeting immigrant communities of color in the US. We’re talking about immigration bans, surveillance, forced removals, mass roundups, detentions and deportations. We need to be prepared now, because there will be a racial backlash against Afghans here and we have to stand against that in solidarity and to protect the refugees arriving on our shores.”

“I’m hopeful that we will be able to continue to grow our communities’ power and do it in an intersectional, multigenerational way. The young people we’re working with now know nothing of the pre-9/11 experience. This is their reality, and that’s their future.”

On this 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Asian American Leaders Table recommits ourselves and our organizations to building deep and meaningful solidarity with South Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh communities. We condemn the misguided policies and climate that have targeted and harmed communities on the basis of their faith, race, national origin, and additional identities.

As we reflect on our collective movement for freedom and justice, we also acknowledge that Asian Americans can do much more to advocate for the rights of South Asians, Muslim, Sikh and Arab Americans. This means that we pay close attention to our own rhetoric and messages to avoid falling into stereotypical language or national security justifications. It means that we do not compromise on the rights of Muslim, Arab, South Asian and Sikh communities in advocating for public policies. It means incorporating the histories and perspectives of communities targeted in the wake of 9/11 within Asian American movement curricula and political education. It means recognizing that we are working against a shared source of oppression, and finding the commonalities and connections between the Islamophobia that profiled Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11 to the xenophobia that incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II to the racism that’s driving the rise in anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We commit to learning from programs that are anchored in transformative solidarity such as Bridging Communities where the Japanese American Citizens League and Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (and later involved the Council on American-Islamic Relations) brought together Muslim and Japanese American youth to visit Manzanar, building connnections from a shared history of being treated as outsiders in their own homes.

We also look to Vigilant Love as another way to move forward. Created in a time of rapid response following the 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, this Los Angeles-based group of Muslim and Japanese American leaders are challenging Islamophobia through direct action, political education, and arts performances.

We look to the solidarity between the children of incarcerated Japanese Americans who stood side by side with Muslims and Africans affected by the Trump Administration’s Muslim and African bans.

Our work will continue beyond the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Today, we are witnessing another consequence of the War on Terror with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Our communities add our voices to the call for welcoming Afghan refugees to the United States.

As Asian Americans, it is our responsibility to step up and speak out. Solidarity in a post-9/11 America asks us to acknowledge the pain and injustice inflicted on Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian communities; to stand together as Asian Americans, engaged in a steadfast practice of building relationships beyond our identity groups; and to commit to our collective movement for freedom and justice. We are here to answer that call.

IN SOLIDARITY,

18 Million Rising
9to5
AAPIs for Civic Empowerment Education Fund
API Equality-LA
Asian American Advocacy Fund
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Chicago
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – LA
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Justice San Antonio, TX
Asian Americans United
Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote)
Asian Law Alliance
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA)
Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO)
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Asian Pacific Islander Community Actions
Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance (API PA)
Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council (A3PCON)
Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council/Stop AAPI Hate
Asian Solidarity Collective
AYPAL
CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities
California Commission on APIA Affairs
Can’t Stop! Won’t Stop! Consulting
Center for Empowered Politics
ChangeLab
ChangeLawyers
Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA)
Chinese Progressive Association, San Francisco (CPASF)
Coalition of Asian American Leaders – Minnesota (CAAL – MN)
Community Youth Center of San Francisco (CYCSF)
Filipino Advocates for Justice
Freedom, Inc
Grassroots Asians Rising
HANA Center
Hate Is A Virus
Helen Zia
Immigrants Rising
Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)
Korean Americans for Civic Participation
Legacies of War
Mekong NYC
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF)
National Coalition For Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD)
National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA)
National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC)
National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA)
New Breath Foundation
North Carolina Asian Americans Together (NCAAT)
OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates
OPAWL
Organization of Chinese Americans National (OCA National)
San Francisco Rising (SF Rising)
Seeding Change
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Stop AAPI Hate
South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)
Southeast Asian Freedom Network (SEAFN)
Stop AAPI Hate
Tsuru for Solidarity
VietLead

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

We’ve compiled a list of additional resources and initiatives related to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. This is a non-exhaustive list; please further research and support Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian (AMEMSA)-led organizations.

  • 911hub.org — a learning hub on the impact of 9/11 on people of color hosted by Sikh activist Valerie Kaur
  • Teaching Beyond September 11th — multimodal curriculum for high school and college educators and students about the ongoing global impact of 9/11
  • The American Mosque 2020 — gives the most current data on mosques and their congregations in the United States from Institute for Social Policy & Understanding
  • Teaching the Costs of War — provides resources for university educators seeking to engage their undergraduate students in interdisciplinary conversations about the post-9/11 wars and their costs, as well as alternatives for a demilitarized future
  • Teaching September 11, 2001 in Classrooms — tool to facilitate and enrich classroom discussions in schools about the 20th anniversary of September 11th hosted by Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
  • 9/7 – 9/10: Reckoning with the Global War on Terror: Rethinking Security and Realizing Justice — virtual conference on the impacts of the global war on terror hosted by The American Friends Service Committee
  • 9/7 – 9/10: 20 Years Later: A Peace and Justice Film Festival — virtual film festival commemorating the 20th anniversary of September 11
  • 9/9: Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign — public conversation on “Multifaith Solidarity: 20 Years Since 9/11”
  • 9/10: South Asian Americans Leading Together — 20 years since, an interactive pop-up installation in New York City’s Greenwich Village
  • 9/11: Whose Narrative? 20 Years since September 11, 2001 — Moderated by renowned historian dr. Robin D. G. Kelley, this inaugural roundtable kicks off a semester-long intergenerational conversation that challenges the exceptionalization of 9/11/2001; legitimization of “war on terror” and other imperialist wars and interventions; justification of the “Security” State, and promotion of hyper masculinity and a colonial gender and sexualized order of modernization and “civilization.”
  • 9/13: De-Securitizing Muslim Identity Lecture Series — by Professor Abdullahi An’Naim & Center for Security, Race and Rights
  • 9/14: 20 Years After 9/11: Solidarity Lessons and Practices — an online teach-in to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 through the lens of solidarity hosted by Building Movement Project & SolidarityIs
  • 9/20: 20 Years Post 9/11 — Relive, Reflect, React Virtual Symposium hosted by SALDEF
  • 9/20: Letters from Detention — virtual performance, conversation, and reflection on 20 years since the post-9/11 roundups, detentions, and deportations hosted by Center for Constitutional Rights & The Public Theater

Questions or concerns? Please email [email protected].

Made with Carrd

Racial Equity Tools

Racial Equity Tools is designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. It offers over 600 resources including tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their understanding and to help those working for racial justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large.  We curate resources that use language and analysis reflecting an understanding of systemic racism, power, and privilege and are accessible on-line and free to users. The only exceptions are the Transforming White Privilege curriculum which is behind a paywall on the RET site, and the Racial Equity Learning modules which are linked to World Trust Educational Services’ site.

Reviving Sisterhood | Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota

In 2016, Reviving Sisterhood kicked off its Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota series — a storytelling project to amplify girls and women in our community who aren’t waiting for permission to change the world. The project includes a series of video shorts, a collection of stories, and a podcast/radio show, as well as a set of illustrations. Each story features a Shero — a female trailblazer who is creating change in her community. She takes risks, she challenges misconceptions and addresses injustices. Sheroes are on a mission to build a better world, and the Sisterhood is here to support them and uplift their voices. View the Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota here. A Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota educational guide was also created in partnership with Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) is available to download through PBS Learning Media. The guide includes lesson plans and discussion questions for children and students grades 6-12.

#MinneAsianStories 2021: Beyond the Myths & Monolith

This spring, in an effort to reclaim our own narratives, we invited our community members to share stories and creative reflections with us that reflect on this current moment and the ups and downs of this past year (there have been so many!).

Stay tuned below as we release our 2021 storytelling campaign throughout the month of May, as we share stories and experiences from the community. We hope that this brings us closer to a world where we control the headlines written about us and our collective understanding of what it means to be Asian Minnesota expands beyond the myths and monolith.

Culture Surge Art Content Hub

Culture Surge’s Mission
We believe that artists and culture makers are the visionary leaders needed to galvanize us towards a future rooted in justice, care, and connection. During this pivotal election year and unprecedented public health crisis, Culture Surge will provide the coordination, resources and direction to maximize the collective impact of cultural influencers, artists, strategists, and movement leaders.

About Culture Surge

With over two dozen members and organizations, Culture Surge is a broad coalition of change makers working together in this vital moment for the survival of our communities, our democracy, and our shared future. We are artists from every sector and strata. We are from historically marginalized communities, we are cultural influencers, Hollywood decision-makers, and electoral strategists. We are led and driven by the needs and voices of women of color, we center the vision of artists, and we work in close partnership with frontline social justice groups.

The coronavirus pandemic is reshaping how we take civic engagement. There is palpable urgency and momentum toward transforming national narratives about how we vote, how we show up for each other in times of crisis, and how structural inequities must be addressed. The stakes are too high to work in silos. It’s crucial that we come together to align our values and our narrative approach. Culture Surge serves as a nexus for influencers, artists, and cultural strategists who can breathe life, hope, and representation into our civic efforts.

We connect change makers to key narratives across issues and campaigns, including voting access campaigns, COVID-19 response work, and we coordinate resources and advising to maximize the impact of culture-driven initiatives to lead to concrete change. Culture Surge’s powerful coalition allows us to combine the skills to imagine a new future, broaden minds and inspire hearts, with on-the-ground partners in pivotal regions across the country.

 

Learn more about Culture Surge

 

 

Democracy is Indigenous Newsletter #4

For the fourth issue of the Democracy in Indigenous Newsletter, the National Urban Indian Family Coalition (NUIFC) wants to showcase the work of three centers in Nevada, Colorado, and Missouri. These centers are connecting with the community with a foundational organizing strategy; by offering food and art for the community and building upon the institutional trust they have. Subscribe to their newsletter by navigating to the website provided above.

What is the Democracy is Indigenous Newsletter?

With the most consequential election of our lives 18 days away, the NUIFC wants to take some time each week to share the work our Cohort is doing to make history. This newsletter will be a space to uplift the grassroots work our partner organizations are doing during the most ambitious Urban Indian Get Out the Vote campaign in history. The NUIFC look forward to bringing this inspiring work right to your inbox every week.

The Native Vote Can Define The Future

Register for the Democracy is Indigenous Newsletter on the National Urban Indian Family Coalition website here.

I Am Not a Virus

“Inspired by recent events, Korean-Swedish artist Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom is addressing the hostility Asians increasingly are facing during the COVID-19 global pandemic in a series of one-panel comics.” Read more about her art here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/i-am-not-a-virus-how-this-artist-is-illustrating-coronavirus-fueled-racism

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Be careful what you wish for … I’ve been complaining for decades about the lack of representation of East Asians in the West. I’ve been feeling neglected and overlooked. Well, not anymore. I’ve never felt more visible and monitored than now, and everywhere I look I see pictures of Asian people: Asians portrayed as sick, as infectious, as harbingers of death. Western media seems unable to publish any sort of news articles covering the coronavirus without decorating it with images of East Asians. Even when the article is about the spread of the virus in for example Sweden, whose Asian population is tiny. Sadly, the other type of articles featuring Asians now are the ones who bring up the often violent racism against people who look or are Chinese. As painful as it is, I’m glad that these hate crimes get coverage though, as racially charged abuse against us usually goes unnoticed or is labelled as something other than racism. Social media is of course overflowing with memes and videos of East and Southeast Asians where we are portrayed as everything from evil, disgusting and unhygienic people who eat anything that moves to being ridiculously cautious wearing huge plastic bottles on our heads. Even people who label themselves “anti racist” are happily sharing this type of imagery now with the excuse that they’ve no intention of harming anyone – the very same excuse they usually disqualify when calling out other people for sharing racist content. I’ve spent most of my life wishing I was white, something I’ve been glad to say I’ve moved on from. Now, however, I wish I was invisible instead. #IAmNotAVirus

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Artist: Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom | Instagram: chung.woolrim