In the summer of 2022, the Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) together with Disney plus, dropped Ms. Marvel, a six episode exclusive series starring a Pakistani-American teenage girl, Kamala Khan. The show received widespread praise for its ground-breaking depiction of a South Asian American Muslim super-shero. The series grew in popularity quite quickly for being quirky, lighthearted, witty in showcasing its protagonist Kamala’s nerdy love of the Avengers, to exploring and re-storying much more serious aspects of South Asian history and reality, such as the Partition of India and current day Islamophobia.

The series follows Kamala as she navigates her journey as a super-shero, while also struggling with her family’s intense and unresolved past against the backdrop of the Partition of India and Pakistan. Her character has been lauded as a landmark cinematic milestone in representation for both South Asian American and Muslim American communities. On this APEX Express edition, producer Preeti Gamzeh explores the specifics and the larger context behind the series through a robust discussion with three South Asian American Muslim feminists: Sabiha Basrai, Taz Ahmed, and Haleema Bharoocha.

The post APEX Express – January 19, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #4 

Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental. 

Lisa Lowe’s Book: 

In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press

About the DJ

My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound. 

Lastly, special shoutout to my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family. 

Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU @paigechung

Episode #4 Track List 

This month’s episode features the following music: 

The post APEX Express – 1.12.23 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents #4 by DJ Miu appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

South Asians and Labor Justice

 [00:00:00] 

[00:00:00] Swati Rayasam: Good evening everyone and Happy Thursday, my name is Swati Rayasam. While I’m usually in the background of APEX Express editing, this week I’m honored to bring you a piece from a dear friend of mine Sandhya Jha. We explore Sandhya’s background as a mixed race kid, a housing, labor, and racial justice organizer, and a faith leader. 

[00:00:50] Swati Rayasam: And then we dive into an amazing project, Sandhya did for the South Asian American Digital Archive’s Archival Creators Fellowship program. Stay locked in.[00:01:00] 

[00:01:00] Swati Rayasam: I’m really excited actually today to talk to Sandhya Jha, who is a really close friend of mine. Hi Sandhya. Hi there. Sandhya is, a Pastor is a consultant and has been working on this really amazing project with the South Asian American Digital Archive that will get into later in the episode. But yeah, Sandhya I’m just really excited to learn more about you and to hear more of your story and, let’s just dive in.

[00:01:26] Swati Rayasam: Absolutely. 

[00:01:27] Swati Rayasam: We should first talk a little bit about how we know each other, you have this long organizing background. I’ve been in the Bay Area for the past seven years and I would be totally lying if I said I have not historically been, or I’m not even currently an active fangirl of yours. You are literally a pastor. You are a movement worker, how did you get involved in organizing?

[00:01:53] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. So I am the product of my parents who were generous, compassionate [00:02:00] people who thought about the world beyond themselves, but were never involved in organizing or activism or anything like that. I think for anybody who comes from immigrant backgrounds, it’s hard to tell our stories without naming who we come from. Right. And so my father was Sunil Kumar Jha from the village of Tildanga in West Bengal. My mother, who is still alive is Jeanette Campbell Jha. She is from Glasgow. So I come from a mixed religion and mixed race home. My parents chose not to name me Sandhya Campbell Jha not to give me that kind of grounding, but I was called Sandhya Rani Jha, which is a lot to live up to, well, yes, Rani does mean Queen. But it was actually handed down to me, part of the reason they wanted that middle name was it was my aunt’s name, Durga Rani Upadhyay and she was the one who really [00:03:00] brokered my mother’s acceptance into the Indian family and I think that there was something about being accepted on the Indian side of the family and not for many, many years on the Scottish side. That caused my parents and particularly my mother to double down on making sure I knew who I came from and who I came from was my people in the village of Tildanga.

[00:03:23] Sandhya Jha: I grew up in Akron, Ohio, so we immigrated to this country when I was a toddler, in the late 1970s, which was a complicated time for Asian immigrants to be in the Midwest because it was a time that the rust belt was rusting and there was a growing sense that we were the reason. But also I grew up alongside folks who were trying to figure out how to put food on the table. So I think that landscape shaped me in a lot of ways. And I also come from people who grew up in poor working communities. And[00:04:00] when I went off to college, there was an organizing campaign. The board of directors of the university had created a for-profit corporation with the exact same board. 

[00:04:15] Swati Rayasam: Oh wow. 

[00:04:16] Sandhya Jha: So that the universities could subcontract all of their catering, all of their custodial work to this… basically Shell corporation. 

[00:04:28] Swati Rayasam: Are we telling on the university? 

[00:04:29] Sandhya Jha: Mm, Yeah. Why not? It was Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and I think that’s relevant because the tension between Black communities next to Johns Hopkins Medical School and the school itself were very real because this was part of a very long history of exploiting community members. So the workers were organizing, and you know, I had read about activism, I cared about it. I paid as much attention as I could for a high school student. But when I got to college, this organizing [00:05:00] campaign was going, and the workers were really clear, Hey, college kids who are excited about this, we do have a role for you. It’s to fill the crowd. It’s to cheer us on. It’s to when we ask you communicate to the university that our well-being matters to you because they will listen to you in different ways. But the campaign centered the workers and was really clear with us about what our role was because we were the folks with all the privilege by getting to be there, right? We had tons of privilege and it was a really good lesson for me. I am so grateful. The first organizing campaign I was a part of was a labor campaign that understood what it meant to center the people who were the most impacted by injustice and I think that shaped the rest of my career. 

[00:05:46] Swati Rayasam: And that’s so special too because I think for many people who come into organizing, and I will definitely cop to this myself, like coming up and organizing through high school and college level organizing. When you are a student, nobody ever [00:06:00] tells you that actually you are the least useful kind of organizer that exists. Right. You are in this incredibly enclaved community. Your oppressor, the university, all they have to do is wait for you to graduate institutional memory will not keep you. Yeah. Right. And I think that it is, it’s this perfect storm of, you have actually sometimes cool ideas, sometimes very rudimentary ideas, but you also have this turnover issue and you have this sense of self import, which often comes with your teens, early twenties. Yep. As you’re just figuring all of that out. So Yeah, self differentiation, right? It’s a narcissistic phase in our development. . 

[00:06:46] Swati Rayasam: It absolutely is and I think that’s so important, and I can’t imagine how my life would be shaped if I didn’t have to spend a lot of time unlearning the self import and narcissism that I had gained through student [00:07:00] organizing.

[00:07:00] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. No, I am really, really grateful for it. 

[00:07:02] Sandhya Jha: My first job outta college was working for a member of Congress, which sounds super fancy and pretentious, but, a member of congress from Akron, Ohio. So put that all in perspective. His name, believe it or not, was Tom Sawyer. Oh, wow. What I loved about Tom was back in those days, he believed very strongly that 80% of legislation was nonpartisan and that was the part that he spent most of his time on. He would weigh in with his party, when they were dealing with that 20% pretty consistently. But he was more interested in the stuff that everybody could agree on and I remember for about 15 years after I worked for him, I looked back and found myself thinking that was so naive. How did he not understand where we were about to head with the divisions between the political parties? But at this point in my life, I realize the people I respect most in organizing work keep pointing out that the binary of [00:08:00] left and right actually doesn’t serve us very well. One of my biggest heroes in the movement right now is the Reverend Dr. William Barber, 

[00:08:07] Swati Rayasam: Hometown hero of mine. Yes. 

[00:08:09] Sandhya Jha: Poor People’s campaign from North Carolina. And he always talks about how it’s not about right and left. It’s about right and wrong. And it turns out that when we engage in organizing with the awareness that there are huge swaths of things that most of us are well served by, we can do better organizing. And that was actually how Tom was legislating. And at a certain point I realized that my deep passion was around racial justice, but the distinct experience I had in a multi religious household was an awareness of how religion was being used as a weapon. I had an obsession. Every paper in college I wrote was about the Christian coalition, this right wing, organizing body in the nineties. So a friend of mine [00:09:00] said, You know, there’s an interfaith organization working against the Christian Coalition. And it was called the Interfaith Alliance. Her mom had been a superintendent in Washington state in eastern Washington and was a pretty conservative person by my standards.

[00:09:18] Sandhya Jha: But, Dr. Chow believed in multiculturalism and believed in teaching evolution. And the Christian coalition had organized to push her out of her position as superintendent and the Interfaith Alliance of Washington State had supported her in that time.

[00:09:38] Sandhya Jha: And so Liz said, you know, they’ve got a national chapter, a national office. And that’s where I ended up, cutting my adult organizing teeth which was great because talk about learning lessons for our current moment where religion is being weaponized in ways that are anti-trans, that are anti-queer, that are anti-women, that [00:10:00] are anti reproductive rights, that are anti-immigrant and refugee. I am really grateful to have experienced the power of multi-faith organizing, around a lot of those same issues. So that was what I did in the early two thousands and then I went to seminary and public policy school, and then I ended up out here pastoring a congregation of 10 people in a building of 40,000 square feet.

[00:10:29] Sandhya Jha: And long story short, that’s how the Oakland Peace Center was born, was out of this dream of cultivating deeper collaboration among nonprofits who were dedicated to a shared cause. The Oakland Peace Center, which is a collective of 40 different nonprofits committed to dismantling the root causes of violence in our community. I was the founder of that organization and it was when I was pastoring First Christian Church of Oakland that I asked the handful of folks who were members of that church, what they wanted to [00:11:00] contribute to the community, and they said they wanted to contribute peace in the midst of violence. And for a dozen folks to have given birth to a space that in non pandemic years, saw over a hundred thousand people do things like the Lawyers for Black Lives Conference and to do Kingian non-violence training and to be a part of food and clothing distribution, to participate in all the very diverse ways that we can create peace is pretty impressive. 

[00:11:30] Sandhya Jha: And a couple of years ago, I left the Oakland Peace Center because a colleague of mine said, Anybody can run a non-profit. We need you to do what you’re actually good at, and what she meant by that was we need more people of color doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work that is actually grounded in power analysis. That isn’t just how do we be nicer to each other in the workplace, but how do we recognize the ways that systems of white supremacy [00:12:00] unconsciously often shape the culture of our workplaces? And what do we do to dismantle that white supremacy culture so that we can be building nonprofits and institutions of higher education and faith organizations, and even corporations that are dedicated to our full liberation, our liberation, the lands liberation.

[00:12:23] Swati Rayasam: I mean coming, especially from the place that you come in grassroots organizing and in faith based organizing, what is it actually to transition into this kind of consulting space around racial justice and really interface with a lot of people that I feel like as organizers, we don’t really talk to?

[00:12:42] Sandhya Jha: One of my favorite things about this shift in my work is I love getting to work with folks who don’t think of themselves as organizers, who, it turns out are organizers, Right. I think we sometimes create a cult of here’s what an organizer looks like, you [00:13:00] have to be a Martin Luther King or a Cesar Chavez and what I love is getting to work with moms and with teenagers and with folks who think of themselves as caring, compassionate, individuals, and when I go into an organization and work with their handful of folks who care about this issue, the DEI team, I get to teach them how to strategically organize. I get to teach them how do you create culture shift over time? I get to teach them how do you figure out who your allies are? How do you figure out how to move people who are neutral? It turns out that there are a lot more organizers out there than we realize if we don’t create one definition of what an organizer needs to look like. 

[00:13:45] Swati Rayasam: I have been reading this political scholar Eqbal Ahmed, who really talks about the way the burden is on those of us who are deeply committed to movement work, narrow definition people, the burden is really on us to try and [00:14:00] create a liberatory future that feels both achievable. Mm-hmm. and safe for everybody. Because when people engage in mass struggle and in revolution, there are people who are a hundred percent willing to put their lives on the line. People who are willing to die for the cause. And we absolutely need those people. And there are many people along the spectrum who, if you can create a future that feels like it’s within their grasp, they will come with you. 

[00:14:30] Sandhya Jha: Yep. I teach a lot of organizing classes and have gotten a chance to teach alongside my beloved colleague BK Woodson at Allen Temple Baptist Church, they have a leadership institute there. And one of the books we use is Blueprint for a Revolution by Srđa Popović. And I feel like I learned a lot as we read that book together and thought about how to apply it to the work we’re doing in Oakland. They talked about how by engaging in nonviolent direct action, [00:15:00] they created space for elders to be a part of their work and youth to be a part of their work and families to be a part of their work. By making the movement playful. They gave people hope and gave people courage because dictators are terrified of being mocked. 

[00:15:17] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. And I think by being really restrictive or narrow about who we view as actually valuable organizers. And I think labor movements teach us this a lot, right? We really cut ourselves off at the knees on our ability to build a network or to be in touch with the general population, many of whom are more connected than we ever give them credit for. 

[00:15:41] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Yep. it’s part of why I love labor organizing. I talk with a lot of people who are disenchanted with organizing who ask me how I can have stayed involved for the past 25 years. And why I’ve been able to stay in it is cuz I’m organizing alongside workers and they have [00:16:00] full lives. And the work that they’re doing in the movement is so that they can live their full lives. And there’s something about having that perspective and recognizing the why all the time instead of getting lost in the weeds of the what. Is so important in this work. I think that has been a big theme of my organizing life is how do we build to the greatest common denominator? As my friend BK often says how do we build towards those shared values that often get erased when we are engaged in the right versus left debate.

[00:16:39] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that it is so important and I also think that it’s really hard in this moment of what feels like constant trauma and re trauma.

[00:16:51] Swati Rayasam: And to some extent especially when we’re talking about the left right dichotomy there are real concerns [00:17:00] about safety. Yep. And there are real concerns about security and who you are in community with and who you can find even the smallest level of acceptance from to ensure that you won’t have violence visited upon you. And I think that these conversations of united front organizing, Right. trying to bridge across difference mm-hmm. for a shared goal, for a shared liberatory future Yep. Are really important. And they feel kind of impossible to achieve right now. 

[00:17:31] Sandhya Jha: It’s interesting cuz I think that in many ways that is true. There are a lot of conversations that I think people with privilege expect, people who are marginalized to engage in. And those expectations are unfair, what I found very frustrating was the number of people with a lot of privilege who would be like, Ugh, I just can’t talk to those people. And I’m like, Then who’s going to? Exactly. and so I do think that some of this is about being willing to have [00:18:00] hard conversations in the places where we have privilege and recognizing who’s at actual risk and showing up in ways that are protective of who is at risk. But that doesn’t mean walking away from people who aren’t where we are. Right. Because the fact of the matter is everybody’s on a journey. And I have watched at the same time some of the disposability culture in movements write off people without giving them any way to address harm, repair harm, and find a pathway back into community.

[00:18:41] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that’s why, at least I am feeling really hopeful about, what I’ve seen over the past couple of years, this really important track into transformative justice and restorative justice, to acknowledge that there is harm that has happened, there are harms that happen every day between people. [00:19:00] And also we are all on our own journey to unlearn the things that we have been taught either directly or indirectly by our upbringing, by our environment and that you cannot easily dispose of people and that people are able to come back into community. Now that comes with a very important caveat that like they recognize the harm. Mm-hmm. that. They have done or how they’ve been party to it, that they acknowledge that there is healing work that needs to be done both with the person that they harmed and also probably in internally. 

[00:19:35] Sandhya Jha: Well, and the community, folks who don’t do RJ on a regular basis tend to skip the community aspect. Yeah. That there is actually repair that needs to be done with community and there’s work community needs to do to figure out how to re-embrace reabsorb people who have done harm in ways that still protect the person who’s been harmed.

[00:19:55] Swati Rayasam: Exactly. In ways that do not erase the harm that has happened, but [00:20:00] acknowledge, contextualize it and say, Okay, we are patching this and we are working to move forward in step with each other. Absolutely. 

[00:20:09] Sandhya Jha: Can I just say that one of the other things that I think you and I have in common is a real passion for bringing joy back into the work of Justice I quote Fabiana Rodriguez a lot on this particular thing, because I was at an event she was doing eons ago, and she looked out at us and most of us were activists and she said, Listen, y ‘all you keep inviting people to a struggle. I’m on your side and I don’t wanna join a struggle. I want to join a party. And that was like a call to arms for me when I heard her say that. I was like, Oh my gosh, you’re right. We are so much more fun. Like, I’ve hung out with people who are anti-trans and anti queer and anti-immigrant and anti refugee. They are not fun people. No, no. We have all of the best parties. So I don’t know why we don’t [00:21:00] capitalize on that more. So I think the role of joy and justice is so important. And this is why I was so excited to have you on the podcast that I launched recently.

[00:21:11] Sandhya Jha: Right. Bending Towards Justice Avatar the last Airbender for the Global Majority. 

[00:21:15] Swati Rayasam: So literally like bringing it together. Two of my favorite things right, is like TV shows, wholesome TV shows like Avatar, The Last Airbender that I deeply love and organizing. Yes. All the work that I love. And I think it’s true You know, what is actually really the important work is to work to build toward a future that is desirable Yep. That people want to be a part of. Yeah. That people can see happen. Yeah. And I think that is a lot of the difficulty that I have seen in some organizing circles. We are so well versed in what we are against and all of the things that are bad that so many people have a really hard time seeing or visioning or communicating [00:22:00] what it is that we are fighting for. Yeah. Right. And it’s not enough to say, I’m fighting for a world where we can all be safe. Right. Yeah. I’m not, I’m fighting for a world where we can all take long naps in the middle of the day if we’d like to do that. Right. Yeah. But like really building and visioning that future of like, in this world in which we are all safe, there will be harm that happens. How do we deal with that? Yeah. What do we do with that? How do we make sure that it is able to keep everybody safe and also able to account for the times in which it is not able to keep everybody safe.

[00:22:38] Sandhya Jha: Visionary does not have to mean naive. And we need it to be visionary. And sometimes I forget to do the visionary stuff. I’ve got a colleague, Dave Bell, he’s a farmer who is also an anti-racism trainer and we do a lot of work together. He’s a white guy who lives in White Swan, Washington, on the reservation and I remember being at a training with him and I [00:23:00] was all fired up and I was so excited about the conversations we were having and the people were really ready to do the hard work and roll up their sleeves. And Dave says to them, I would like to not have to do this work. And I’m like, What is he talking about? This is amazing. We’re doing such good work. And he says, I would like for us not to have to talk about racism all the time. I would rather be farming. I would rather be, taking care of the cows in my field.

[00:23:26] Sandhya Jha: I would rather be talking about my pottery work that I’m doing badly but learning how to do, I would rather be doing anything than have this conversation. But I don’t get to be on the farm with the wheat, with the cows, with my bad pottery until we figured out how to do this anti-racism work. And it was a really humbling moment for me because I also get into that like I’m an organizer, that’s my identity space. And it was this reminder of Dave’s doing this. So he gets to live in a world where he gets to hang out in the fields and he [00:24:00] gets to, love on the cows. There’s something about being reminded that we’re doing this so that eventually we don’t have to do it. That I think is actually visionary in its own way and it’s important. 

[00:24:12] Swati Rayasam: Moving into a little bit more of the grit of like why I asked you to be on the show today. I met you originally when I moved to the Bay Area when you were the executive director of the Oakland Peace Center because At that time I was doing organizing work with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, which is a 20 year old bay area based organization, that was really founded around the Laki Reddy Bali Reddy sex trafficking. Yep. Caste and labor exploitation case that happened in Berkeley in 1999. And I was just so thrilled to be around and have in community so many rad desis. And you also did work with ASATA, right. Historically and are actively doing work with us. 

[00:24:56] Sandhya Jha: Absolutely. One of the places I think I invested the most [00:25:00] energy in where we got to spend a lot of quality time in the kitchen was one of the projects, Bay Area Solidarity Summer, an organizing institute, camp, however you wanna refer to it.

[00:25:10] Swati Rayasam: Political education, Summer camp. 

[00:25:12] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. For young South Asian Americans who are committed to activism. What I think was the most beautiful part of that program when I was involved in it, and it’s still the case today, is for young South Asians who think that they’re the only ones who care about justice issues, who haven’t met other people, who are South Asian, and identify as justice seekers first to meet each other and realize that there are people just like them. Then to look around and realize that those of us who are usually 10, 15, 20 years older than them are also committed to the work and have been doing it for decades. And then for them to get exposed to the long history of radical visionary organizing and activism of South [00:26:00] Asians here in the US and also in the homelands of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and diasporic countries all over the world.

[00:26:13] Sandhya Jha: There’s something about realizing, Oh, you have contemporaries, oh, you have elders, oh, you have ancestors. Mm-hmm. Especially in the face of the model minority lie that so many of us have had imposed on us, this lie that all we are all we’re supposed to be is cogs in this larger capitalist machine that are non disruptive, which is why we’re allowed to survive. And if we are non disruptive enough, we might even be able to be comfortable. And to discover that there’s more to our story than that is so exciting and I love, love, love being a part of that. 

[00:26:52] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that is like fundamentally one of the most important kind of activities that [00:27:00] happens in the ASATA universe, I was a kid who also grew up thinking that there were no other South Asians like me, or there were no other folks who were interested in justice. I spent a lot of time doing, reproductive and queer justice in the south; I always think about what would it have meant if I came in, BASS for 18 to 24 year olds. Yep. what would it have meant if I had come in at a fresh 18 and been able to basically be apprised of the fact that I have this history Yeah. That it’s not just me. And that actually, immigration and white supremacy and neo-colonial culture has created this project of assimilation that all of our parents have been in on, in a way to survive Yeah. And to be safe. And I tell my, I tell my mom that a lot because she’s always a little surprised about the organizing work that I do. And I was just like, Your job was to survive. My job is to liberate. Yeah. [00:28:00] You know? Yeah. And I could not do that if you were not so focused on creating that environment for me.

[00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: I love that. 

[00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: we’ll drop in the show notes, but, BASS – Bay Area Solidarity Summer is solidaritysummer.org. So we’ll put that in the show notes as well as ASATA, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action is ASATA.org. And yeah, I think that is a really good segue into how we got involved in this amazing project. 

[00:28:31] Swati Rayasam: You’re tuned in to APEX express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3, KPFB in Berkeley. And [email protected]. 

[00:28:43] Swati Rayasam: I think it was Fall 2021 that you and I were talking. Yep. And you were telling me that you were involved in this amazing archival fellowship project. Is run by the South Asian American Digital Archive and [00:29:00] that you were going to do your project about labor. Mm-hmm. and South Asians. Yep. And my immediate, incredibly naive response was, how many South Asians are there in labor? 

[00:29:12] Sandhya Jha: Exactly. And it’s not naive. It’s interesting cuz I think that this project actually emerged out of my favorite part of BASS, which was when the young adults would ask what their opportunities were in the world of justice. And I would say, you know, there’s a place for us in labor justice. It had never crossed most of their minds. Right. We don’t think of ourselves as having a role especially in formalized unions. And so SAADA, the South Asian American Digital Archives has an archival fellows project. And the whole purpose of it is to diversify their archives and collect the stories that are usually overlooked in the telling of South Asian American stories.

[00:29:56] Sandhya Jha: And they have done a great job over the years of collecting the [00:30:00] stories of informal organizing, like the Punjabi Taxi Drivers campaign, the Bangladeshi Nail Workers Campaign. Those were informal labor organizing campaigns. That have been really well archived and they’re amazing stories. I wanted to make sure that the next generation of South Asian activists knew about the South Asians who were actually part of the formal organized labor movement.

[00:30:30] Sandhya Jha: And so I spent this past year interviewing, maybe a half a dozen or so South Asian American workers. Generally, not always, but mostly what would be classified as low wage workers who found a pathway into formal organizing bodies, unite here or the building trades or any number of the formal unions that keep [00:31:00] the labor movement alive across the country today. And I’m really proud of the fact that we do have South Asian workers who have moved up the ranks to be official organizers or to be at negotiating tables. And so that’s part of the story I thought it was worth us telling.

[00:31:19] Swati Rayasam: And I am, I’m so excited that we get to dive deeper into this project and I really love your framing too, around the three large bins that you have, solidarity, spirit and struggle.

[00:31:34] Swati Rayasam: Right? Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:31:35] Sandhya Jha: I started out with certain assumptions about what I was going to learn, partly because I’ve been doing labor solidarity work for 25 years at this point. I really thought I knew what I was gonna hear. And what I discovered was there were these consistent themes across, the interviews. that there were these notions of, Oh, what’s meaningful to me is [00:32:00] getting to organize across cultures, getting to organize with people who, on the surface and even deep down are very different than me, but we share this vision of what our lives can be. And so that solidarity message I found really powerful. Also, and admittedly because I come out of a spiritual background, was probably looking for it. I was really struck by how many of the interviews ended up talking about the role of spirituality and shaping people’s values. And in a couple of instances, organizers said, what my religion taught me was that religion needs to be challenged. And building up that muscle was what helped me challenge systems of injustice in other places. But others said that their journey with their faith tradition was what guided them into the work of labor organizing.

[00:32:52] Sandhya Jha: And then that third bucket of struggle, I think is the lived experience of how [00:33:00] hard it is to take on oppressive systems of capitalism, how hard it is to take on decks that are stacked against us and what it means to have somewhere to turn in the midst of those struggles. I will say there were also a couple of lessons I was surprised by because my South Asian identity is so central to my organizing work, I was expecting to collect stories of people who were proud South Asians, who were also proud to be involved in the labor movement. And I assumed that they would see connections between those things because I certainly do. But what I discovered is for the most part, they were like, Yeah, I’m South Asian. I’m not saying that doesn’t matter, but it’s not super relevant to my organizing work. My organizing work is about [00:34:00] our cross-cultural solidarity. And that was something I hadn’t been expecting that emerged as I did those interviews. Interesting. And I’m really grateful that the South Asian American Digital Archives likes telling all of the stories because I think I promised them that what they were going to get was, we’re proud to be South Asian organizers. And what I got was, yeah, we’re South Asian, we’re proud to be organizers. And the that SAADA is like, yeah, that’s part of our story too. 

[00:34:28] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that’s, that I think is incredibly important. We have this really, amazing series of audio clips from your SAADA interviews that really represent a lot of the themes that you were highlighting about solidarity, spirit, and struggle. And I’m just really excited to play them as we talk through these larger themes in your larger project and the experience of South Asian labor organizers.

[00:34:55] Swati Rayasam: This clip is from somebody that you and I both know, which [00:35:00] is Prem Pariyar. I was so thrilled that Prem was a part of your project. I think Prem is an incredible organizer, so yeah tell our listeners a little bit about Prem.

Prem 

[00:35:09] Sandhya Jha: It was pretty exciting to get to work with him you know, he moved here from Nepal and in Nepal he had been a Dalit activist and he came to the United States and had this notion that in the United States there is no caste and he was disabused of that notion very quickly as a restaurant worker dealing with anti Nepali bias in Indian restaurants, dealing with caste bias in Nepali restaurants, well dealing with Caste bias in all the restaurants. 

[00:35:35] Swati Rayasam: Hey, everyone, Narrator Swati here, I just wanted to put in an explanatory comma, a la W Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu to talk about some terms you just heard. Sandhya referenced that Prem was a Dalit activist and also talked about Caste bias. For those of you who don’t know, Caste is a violent system of oppression and exclusion, which governs social status in many south Asian countries, although it is [00:36:00] most commonly associated with India. It works on an axis of purity and pollution, and it’s hereditary. At the top of the caste system are Brahmins, by the way Sandhya and I are both Brahmin, and not even at the bottom, but completely outside of the system are Dalits who were previously referred to by the slur untouchable and Adivasis who are indigenous to South Asia. 

[00:36:25] Swati Rayasam: Despite being “illegal” Caste bias, Caste Oppression, Caste apartheid, are still prevalent, both in South Asia and as Sandhya references, in the United States. It manifests in many ways that people experience racial injustice, via socioeconomic inequality, systemic and interpersonal violence, occupation, and through the determination of marriage and other relationships. You can learn more at EqualityLabs.org and APEX currently has a show in the works that delves into this more deeply. Now. Back to Sandhya 

[00:36:58] Sandhya Jha: What is [00:37:00] delightful to me is Prem went on to get an MSW and is building out amazing mental health resources for Dalit communities for the Nepali community. Seeking to build out a program where there are more and more people in Nepal who are trained with MSW skills. 

[00:37:21] Sandhya Jha: I met with one of his professors from CSU East Bay where he got his degree and she said, You know, that the entire Cal State system is adding caste to its anti-discrimination policies thanks to the work he started at CSU East Bay. And it was really beautiful to hear that because the focus of my conversations with him were more around how his experiences in the restaurants led him into the solidarity work with nail salon workers.

[00:37:53] Swati Rayasam: To just, kick back to the caste abolition work that Prem has been doing, that caste abolition work [00:38:00] at CSU East Bay has been such critical work in these ongoing conversations around caste that have been in the South Asian community primarily, but have been percolating elsewhere.

[00:38:13] Swati Rayasam: You know, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Cisco systems Yep. For caste discrimination in their workplace and there have been all these conversations around caste and tech work and interplay that with the no tech for apartheid work. Right. That has been happening in Palestinian liberation circles. Yeah. And really building that solidarity movement. So I think that Prem is an absolute powerhouse Yeah. In that regard. But yeah, let’s listen to this clip. 

[00:38:42] Prem: During that time, I got connected with other community organizer, like workers group. I got connected and so I was connected with nail salon workers, who were exploited at their workplace and with them, [00:39:00] I got to go to the capital in Sacramento. And so I thought I need to advocate for the restaurant workers. that was my first experience, like working with other workers and with the assembly members and like other other policy makers I shared what is happening what kinds of discrimination happening at the workplace. So I advocated for the restaurant workers at that time. I shared my stories and I supported the rights of nail salon workers. I was there to support them and they supported me as well, and it was wonderful. And finally that advocacy worked. And the bill was drafted and it was passed finally. And so it was huge achievement at that time. 

[00:39:49] Swati Rayasam: I love that. I think that is such a perfect story of when you win, we all win. 

[00:39:56] Sandhya Jha: And what I also love about it is he goes on [00:40:00] to talk about how he has remained in relationship with those nail salon workers. That they show up for each other, that they take each other food, that they show up to each other’s baby showers and birthday parties, and there’s this sense of community that emerges out of this shared struggle. And so that’s a cross-cultural campaign. They were mostly Vietnamese. There were some Bangladeshi nail salon workers, but it was mostly people from a different culture than his.

[00:40:27] Sandhya Jha: But somebody at the Asian Health Services program that he was at, saw his gifts, saw his passion, and he really responded to that in exactly, the most powerful way. I can imagine.

[00:40:38] Swati Rayasam: And I think one of the nice things as well about that is that person at Asian Health Services connected Prem in and the Nail Salon Worker group, California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, Prem came from Nepal, I’m not sure, but the extent to which his organizing background and how comfortable he was in the US organizing space around labor [00:41:00] issues was probably significantly less that worker group took it upon themselves when they saw Prem come in to say, Oh, you are advocating on behalf of restaurant workers. Great. Why don’t you join us? Let’s help support and so the nail salon workers saw Prem, saw solidarity with Prem and said, It is our responsibility mm-hmm to bring you into this space to connect you in and to move in, struggle together. Yeah. Toward our shared goals of safety, of health, of rights. Yep. 

[00:41:35] Sandhya Jha: Exactly. 

[00:41:36] Swati Rayasam: So, we have this clip from Daljit, tell me a little bit about Daljit.

Daljit

[00:41:42] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Daljit was an attorney who now reads tarot for people because she needed a break from the toxicity of that career and how it was taking her away from her family. Daljit is a deeply spiritual person and, [00:42:00] as I mentioned before, this theme of spirit showed up in some really beautiful ways in some of the interviews. I loved the way she understood her Sikh tradition as foundationally being connected with the land and foundationally connected with the people who work the land.

[00:42:15] Daljit: Agriculture is our culture and the religion that I was born into, Siki, the founder of that faith was a farmer. And so a lot of the scripture, the analogies, the metaphors, the poetry, the music, the songs, the boon, the traditional folk songs, that can be taunting and teasing banter, all that stuff the land is the framework for that. And my most favorite line from the Guru Granth Sahib, our holy book, is, [speaks Punjabi] and that basically means that, the waters our guru, the airs our father, but our mother is Earth. And that’s the greatest of all , and that’s adherence to ecosystem. That’s the [00:43:00] indigenous Cosmo vision that should be paramount. And that’s what I try to teach my children. And so I think that’s what I was taught as a kid without necessarily being able to pinpoint it, but it was just infused throughout our songs, our music, our food, the Harvest, there’s two times a year that our celebrations, whether it Baisakhi or Lohri. It’s so connected to the harvest and what is coming out of the soil or not. And you’re connected to the cycles of nature.

[00:43:28] Swati Rayasam: The connection between nature land, spirituality the way that it shows up in so many faith backgrounds and so many faith organizers, I think is really, really beautiful. 

[00:43:41] Sandhya Jha: And I love that Daljit Kaursoni who was raised in this tradition, has found her way to Buddhism and is raising her kids with those connections, but without ever losing this grounding in the liberation of the land, the liberation of the [00:44:00] people.

[00:44:00] Sandhya Jha: And for that to be a key element of her spirituality, even as her spirituality evolves, I think it’s pretty powerful. 

Tafadar

[00:44:08] Sandhya Jha: One of the other people I got to interview ,Tafadar, he’s a Bangladeshi American in the building trades and is a deeply committed Marxist. For me, this was a particularly exciting interview because I’m Bengali, so from West Bengal, before partition, Bangladesh and what’s now West Bengal, were one state. And so it was fun to get to talk with him and to say, Hey, this is our legacy as Bengalis is radical worker organizing.

[00:44:40] Sandhya Jha: And I remember saying to him, Some people in the building trades are not super excited to be working with brown people. And some people in the building trades are a little biased against women. And as a very, very progressive South Asian? How do you navigate that [00:45:00] space?

[00:45:00] Sandhya Jha: And he said, Here’s the thing is, yeah, I organize alongside some moderate to conservative white folks from New Jersey and he said, but in the building trades, if that moderate to conservative white guy from New Jersey decides he doesn’t like my feminist politics, or he doesn’t like my brown skin, if he decides that’s a reason not to train me, he might die. And it was really interesting because even though I’ve been doing labor justice work for a long time, it was one of those moments I was like, Oh, right. Your work is very dangerous and you all have to rely on each other whether you like each other or not. That is the magic of organizing that no one ever talks about. This is why we can do cross class, cross-cultural work because literally you have to trust each other with your lives. Right. That was a really clarifying moment for me. And it was one of those interesting moments where I was like, [00:46:00] Solidarity is not a romantic thing. Uh, it is very much a matter of life and death.

[00:46:05] Sandhya Jha: And I think that is really important and that exact thing that you brought up, you don’t even have to necessarily trust somebody. Right. But you do need them. Yep. Right. And like that really clear understanding that like your fates are intertwined and it is truly in everybody’s best interest. If you are trained well, irrespective of whether or not at lunch, I’m interested in sitting anywhere near you. I think that’s really great.

[00:46:32] Sandhya Jha: One of the things that was really exciting about talking with Tafadar was the reminder that labor organizing and formal union organizing at its best can be in solidarity with other movements really worker justice and housing justice and racial justice are inseparable, on some level. And so, one of the most inspiring stories I got to hear across all of these interviews [00:47:00] was a campaign that brought together folks across the anti- gentrification, the immigrant rights, and the labor justice movement.

[00:47:14] Tafadar: It’s ironic, building affordable housing with deadly exploitation. And, um, to do this, the de blassio administration, they embark on massive major rezonings of poor areas to relax the local zoning laws to be able to bring in these developments. And a couple of years ago, my, my union in local 79’s. Took a very sharp turn towards a community organizing approach because labor can’t win on our own, and that’s the perspective that all of labor should adopt. In order to fight against the sweatshops in our industry. We united with a lot of community organizations in the South Bronx.

[00:47:53] Tafadar: We formed the South Bronx, Safe Southern Boulevard Coalition. And along with these groups, we [00:48:00] protested and did a whole lot of activism, lobbying, community organizing to stop the rezoning of Southern Boulevard, which is a massive stretch in the South Bronx, while the De Blassio administration had succeeded in another part of the Bronx where there’s like massive displacement still underway right now. And we were determined to stop it there. And it was a beautiful thing that we can unite because on our end as labor, we had to prevent all these trash companies from coming in and exploiting workers. And we were working with these tenants who are afraid of being displaced. And people generally, we do need revitalization of our neighborhoods. We do need investment. We do need things to be changed and made better. For us. If it’s not for us, if it’s done without us, then eventually we’re not even gonna be here anymore. So we had that alliance going on and not only did we manage to stop that rezoning, we also educated the local city councilman on why his position was wrong and supporting the rezoning. And he eventually completely flipped this [00:49:00] position. And now chairs the land use committee of the city council from the perspective that we educated him on, which it’s just been a very interesting dynamic. But, there’s a lot of rezoning battles all over the city that’s like the main front of anti gentrification struggles. And I’ve been watching those kinds of campaigns go on since I began organizing about 15, 16. I’ve seen very different approaches to them, but I’ve never seen any model really work until that one kicked in where Labor and the community came together. So that was one of my favorite campaigns because of that lesson that we were able to concretely put into practice and set as an example for not only for community movements all over New York City, but also for Labor.

[00:49:43] Sandhya Jha: I think this hit me in particular because I’ve done so much work around antis displacement in Oakland, and my experience has been.

[00:49:53] Sandhya Jha: That while for most of us on the ground, the connection between housing justice and labor justice is really clear. When you [00:50:00] start getting into the technical policy issues and the funding issues, the folks who are running labor and housing justice or affordable housing, struggle to find ways to collaborate. And it’s been one of my consistent heartbreaks for at least a decade at this point because I work at the intersection of those things and sometimes I despair of us being able to find ways to move forward together. And so to hear a story like this one and to be reminded at core, those justice issues can and must be we already knew, must be, but actually can function together to build a better community. That was actually really life giving for me to hear. 

[00:50:45] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. And I think the point that Tafadar as well brings in the clip of just saying we knew that we could do this, but we knew we couldn’t do this without community organizing. Right? Yeah. That labor couldn’t do this alone. Yeah. [00:51:00] And I think that is a lot of what, when we talk about solidarity politics, it’s not just a backdoor way of inclusion for inclusion’s sake, we have to all do this. Actually, it is integral that all of us are involved in any of these campaigns because it impacts all of us. And because we are not going to win with only a single constituency and in the very same way that, Tafadar was identifying that labor couldn’t do that alone. in community organizing spaces that you and I have been in mm-hmm. , like we are constantly talking about how we cannot do any of this without labor. Yep. And I think a beautiful example of that is the Block the Boat campaign yeah that the Arab Resource Organizing Center, started back in 2014 and then again during 2021 to block the Zim ship from the port of Oakland. And like this community organization [00:52:00] AROC could not do that without working with the longshoreman to collaborate with the port workers. And I think that when we see the marriage of community organizing and labor organizing, that is when we get the power of grassroots organizing.

[00:52:16] Sandhya Jha: Something I wanna mention about the SAADA Fellowship that I was really grateful for: two things. First off, they did a really good job of making sure we got trained in grassroots oral history. So they took really seriously what it meant for this to be justice work. And they made sure we had exposure to methodology that was gonna lift up and honor and foster the voices of people whose stories don’t get heard often enough. And that was a really big deal to me. The other thing is they made sure that we had an advisory board, people who are in this [00:53:00] work who could help us, figure out who to talk with, who could help us build out an event strategy. And you helped me build out my advisory committee. Anibel Ferris-Comelo who is with the University of California Labor Center, 

[00:53:14] Swati Rayasam: Prem Pariyar, a Nepali Dalit restaurant worker, organizer pushing for Caste as a protected category with Equality Labs, a Dalit feminist organization, and a social worker supporting the mental health needs of his and many other South Asian communities in Alameda county. 

[00:53:31] Swati Rayasam: Will Jamil Wiltchko with the California Trade Justice Coalition, Terry Valen who I did a lot of organizing with at the beginning of the pandemic, around the struggles that seafarers were facing with the onset of COVID-19. And he’s the organizational director of the Filipino Community Center in San Francisco. The president of NAFCON which is the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns and just an all in all amazing organizer

[00:53:57] Sandhya Jha: the last thing I wanna mention [00:54:00] is SAADA also helped me set up a digital exhibit with Art by Madhvi Trivedi Patak and I wanted to give them a shoutout because they’re an incredible artist, but also they grew up in a working class family and didn’t get exposed to what it looks like to do labor justice. And so as they developed the artwork to go with the digital exhibit, they got to experience the possibilities of labor solidarity that they hadn’t gotten to experience as a child. And so I really loved that Madhvi was a part of this project as well

[00:54:38] Swati Rayasam: All of the clips that you shared really identifying, again, these like huge fundamental pillars of solidarity and spirit and struggle. these clips were amazing. They are so rich and so layered with all of these people’s varying and different experiences. Really showing in [00:55:00] all of these different walks of life at all of these ages with all of these experiences, that all of these people have this unified and shared identity in struggle, in spirit, and in solidarity for liberation.

[00:55:14] Sandhya Jha: And one of the things that I think is worth celebrating is whether they see it as part of their South Asian identity or not. People who do identify as South Asian now have this resource that says there’s a home for you in the labor movement. Yes, there are. There is a value to your voice. There is a value to your wisdom, there’s a value to your experience in the labor movement.

[00:55:36] Swati Rayasam: I think it’s a beautiful project. Sandhya, I think it has been an amazing amount of work I’ve watched you do over the past year. These stories are so wonderful. I really encourage people to check it out. Where can they find your project?

[00:55:49] Sandhya Jha: The website’s www.saada.org/acfp [00:56:00] /exhibit/solidarity-forever. We’ll put that in the notes. We’ll definitely put that in the show notes.

[00:56:05] Swati Rayasam: I just wanna make sure that we replug your podcast Bending Toward Justice Avatar, The Last Air Bender for the Global Majority and you can find that at tinyurl.com slash ATLA podcast, Capital P (tinyurl.com/ATLAPodcast). And then the last thing that I also wanna make sure that we plug is Without Fear Consulting.

[00:56:27] Sandhya Jha: I love working with folks who know that their organization could be a little more liberative, and are, just not quite sure where to start. I love working with a team of folks who want to be about the work of incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into the DNA of their organization and I love setting them up so that they can keep doing that long after I’m working with them. So please do find me withoutfearconsulting.com. If you’re interested in that. 

[00:56:58] Swati Rayasam: Amazing. Sandhya [00:57:00] Jha, Pastor, Racial Justice consultant, podcast host, archivist, singer songwriter, amazing cook. You can do it all. I think you deserve a nap. it has been amazing talking to you. I am so glad to be able to hear about your project and also to hear a lot more about your life. 

[00:57:23] Sandhya Jha: Yay. Thank you so much.

[00:57:25]  Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night. 

The post APEX Express 1.5.23 South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement appeared first on KPFA.

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

Transcript [12/29/23] ARU “Camp Leadership” 

[00:00:00] 

Hello everyone. Welcome to acrete on Epic Express Radio. I’m your host, Robin Goong, and I’m from United, one of the 11 organizations from the Asian-American Civil Rights Equality Network, also known as the Network. Today we are reflecting on Asian and refugees United Camp for emerging leaders, and we will be interviewing na.

And to share about [00:01:00] their experiences of participating at Asian Refugees United Annual Youth Leadership Camp as Refugees United, also known as aru, is an art and healing leadership center. Our mission is to cultivate and rest, restore wholeness in communities impacted by displacement for embodied training programs, collective power building, ancestor practices, and connection to.

We envision a home and belonging for all are. We started in 2016 in the San Francisco Bay area. Currently we are operating in two states. Our headquarter in California and our youth center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,

as in Refugees United Designs, and produces a yearlong youth leadership training program called Camp for Immers Leaders, also known as. Camp is an immersion experience into the many elements of personal and community [00:02:00] transformation. This program is designed to build a network of vibrant community, of refugee leaders, organizers, artists, and activists to become, as in each year, the theme and the focus of the program are developed collaboratively by project coordinators and participants to be responsive to the needs of the c.

This year, we had about 20 young and amazing leaders participate in our program. Each of these participants were divided into free groups based on their interest areas, his storytelling group, mental health group, and educational group. Tonight we have novel arrived from the Storytelling group, VA from the Mental Health Group, and Kamal from the Education Group.

I want to welcome each one of you on this. So, Welcome everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank [00:03:00] you so much. All right. How about we begin with, um, each one of your introductions, tell us who you are.

Yes sir. Alright, Sandra, you wanna begin? Yeah, so hi everyone. Uh, my name is John Vato. I am one of the former refugees from, uh, Nepal. I was born in refugee camp and lived there for like 14 years. After that, uh, we migrated to United States, uh, from league, uh, um, at the beginning we came to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Grant, uh, president Biden was born there.

And, um, I, I lived there for like, I think eight years. I did my high school there and went to college after that, after graduating college, then, uh, we moved to [00:04:00] Harrisburg. So currently I’m living in Harrisburg and uh, I’m also working in one of the major pharmaceutical company as a business analyst. Um, and also I’m currently working as a volunteer in one of our community organization at a religious organization, and I’m working there as a media coordinator.

Uh, that’s pretty much it from my site. Thank you, Sandra. Thank you, Noel. Do you wanna go next?

Hi, um, I’m Noal Wright. Uh, I am a 21 years old college student. Um, I currently attend Des Moines, uh, area Community College here in Des Moines, Iowa. And I was born and raised in Nepal, uh, in pad camp where I spent, um, almost. Uh, 12 years of life there in, uh, in camp, and I moved here in [00:05:00] Des Moines back in 2013.

Um, since then, I have been living, uh, in Iowa, in Des Moines, Iowa. And I have been right now just focusing on school and also trying to work with Asian, um, Asian refugee, United to like volunteer and give my time to my community. Um, so.

Thanks all. Hello. I’m the last participant for this interview. I was born in, also the Bhutanese refugee camps and my journey to the United States started when I was only. Five years old and so many people ask me like, what do you remember about Nepal? And my response is always the same. I was so young, so like a lot of my memories started here.

Although I am still fluent in both Nepali and English because my parents never allowed me to like feel otherwise. But I don’t really have a lot [00:06:00] of memories from the camps. I do have, uh, ever like remember everything from like here, from like starting kindergarten here, all the way to where I am currently.

So I’m currently a senior in Penn Manor High School, which is a high school in suburban Lancaster. I don’t know if you guys are ever, ever heard of the area, but it is a small city in central Pennsylvania. And I’m planning for college right now and a u has kind of helped with that to see that I really love social work, so I’m planning to major in social work and also be on the pre-med track.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. All of you. Um, I mean, all of you mentioned that, uh, you all. We’re born in refugee camps in Nepal. I mean, KA I started, uh, sharing about some of the experiences like, um, I’m curious, like, and [00:07:00] um, do you have any, do you wanna share any experiences of grow up in camps? Um, any fond memories or challenges?

Um, yeah, I can, I can go with that. Um, when I think about back home, um, back home in refugee camp sometime, like, it feels like a dream and like, that sounds so cliche, but it’s like sometimes it feels like this is a life that, you know, I. Like, I didn’t, I don’t feel like I lived that life, um, in this life, you know, because it just, the life that I live now is so, so, so different than the life that I grew up, the place that I grew up in.

So, um, such thing just like, just housing, it’s like, you know, talking about housing, um, the house is like, There’s things that we have right now. Um, let’s talk about those little things like heater or coolers, you [00:08:00] know, like that little basic needs, uh, to survive. Though we, those were things not very necessary, um, for the temperature that we lived in, um, that we grew up in.

But still, like those little things that really make me think sometimes and how, um, things that I take, uh, for granted now, nowadays, um, and going up in Nepal, I feel like there’s just. Feeling of nostalgia, like, um, that I, that I get just like thinking about eating, you know, having to get to eat one piece of candy was that would bring so much happiness and, you know, that is not the same and, uh, anymore and it just, I miss, I miss being grateful.

I. Not saying that I’m not grateful right now, now just the fact that like, you know, I was able to find that little happiness or I was able to appreciate those little things. Um, so those things are definitely something that [00:09:00] I miss a lot about. Um, because here our life is, our life really does depend on like, , we’re always busy and I feel like we kind of miss track of focusing on little things, being, um, thankful for the little things that we have.

Um, and yeah, that’s, that’s something I really miss and I remember just, um, being happy and like the most without having this reason to like, you know, to, uh, especially like, uh, anything that was. Like anything big or anything, you know, like, especially with the money and stuff, we didn’t grow up with the money and it, it’s, I I say the feeling, I miss the feeling of just being home and like feeling of, uh, being connected to the people that I lived around with.

Um, so that’s kind of where my, a lot of my memories comes from. That feeling of that community and just being surrounded by people that. [00:10:00] that knows, you know, that you feel that makes you feel like you are home. So that’s, that would be my take on that.

Thank you so much, Nolo. How about Chandra? Uh, so I seriously feel like I’m missing a lot. Like I wanted to, uh, really tell life again. You know, it’s so much, uh, memory attached. It’s emotion and everything. Like from your childhood to the teenage point, right? And going through those little, uh, little hurdles and everywhere, going out of the boundary, playing with kids like wish to play the ball, you know, with, with the socks, you know, wish to make a ball with the , with the socks and the refu wrapping papers and everything, right.

And just running down. When it’s raining, this splashing [00:11:00] the water and then swimming in river. So it was a lot of fun. I mean, I wish I can live that life again, you know? And which is truly missing here. I mean, we don’t normally get to experience that in here. Um, when comparing to a lot of kids nowadays, you know, we, they are raise, they’re like raising in America currently.

They don’t have much option other than. Playing on phone and they don’t have touch to the nature, they can’t connect to nature as they only go maybe vacation once a month, or not even once a month. I mean once a year, right? So, That kind of the environmental touch, the sense in your life is missing. And I wish I can relie that.

Jlu, I mean, a lot of memories and beautiful, uh, time is spent with other friend and neighborhood, um, that, that the brotherhood that we share in community. So yeah,[00:12:00] 

I, I certainly miss that. Um, Time that, yeah, we used to spend in the open field. Um, definitely the sense of community, right? Mm-hmm. , um, yeah, and like novel said, the sense of appreciation to folks, uh, the people who have, uh, lives in data camps, right? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Um, Kana already kind of started, uh, on this. Um, I wanted to kind of hear.

The experiences of, uh, uh, that in, during the transition, like from the refugee camp to resettlement in the United States, like what was it like, what do you remember? Uh, can you share, uh, some of the experiences of, uh, the, that transition from the camp to the United? Sure, [00:13:00] of course. I really appreciate hearing about Chandra and all those experiences because for me, I didn’t live those experiences by actually living it because I don’t remember it.

But I lived through those experiences because of those stories that I hear. So it’s always so nice to hear about my birth country. For me. Coming to the United States at the young of age of five, I also had two older siblings. Right. And for them, I feel like the transition might have been a little bit harder, but for me, I got out of E SSO when I was in the second grade.

I was told I was always bright. So for me it was really easy to catch the like, Culture here, and also to learn the language. But for me, I just really struggled with, uh, I imposter syndrome. And I also really struggled with like the differences in culture, the taboos that my parents would tell me. And then I’d go outside of my house and I’d be like, that’s not what’s true out there.

Like I talked a lot [00:14:00] about. Menstrual struggles that I’ve had before with like the taboos and stuff, and a lot of my writing that I do because I feel like it’s really important to acknowledge that because in, um, the Nepali society, it’s told that like menstruation is impure and stuff like that. But as soon as I’d like step outside of my house, Like everyone, even on my period, they would still hug me.

I would still be able to eat with them. In fact, I was working at like a fast food place where I was making food for people during my menstruation cycle back at home. I was not allowed to sit at the table. So I think things like that are just what like really touched me. And I just struggled with my identity until, I think it was like middle school when I transitioned from like a city school until more of like a suburban, rural.

Um, school district. And from there, that’s when I felt like culture shock, because while the city school was really [00:15:00] populated with like racial ethnicities, my um, rural schools were more like filled with white kids. And that’s when I felt like I was like a sore thumb in the midst of like so many. Blonde hair and like white skinned people.

I felt really left out and I struggled really, really hard then. But then after I got through that phase and after I accepted my identity and I learned a lot more about my background and the reason why we have menstruation. Taboo was actually that it’s for sanitary purposes, right? It’s not because I was impure, it was because before they didn’t have stuff like menstruation, pads.

They didn’t have tampons. So that’s why they would keep the girls a little bit separate from their families. So after I learned the reality instead of the taboo, that’s when I learned to accept myself. That’s when I learned to accept the culture, and that’s also when I learned to educate others and embrace my culture.

So for me, it was just learning. [00:16:00] A lit a little bit more about what I didn’t know and also getting a lot closer to my family. Wow. What, what is Ernie Counter? Uh, thank you so much for sharing. Um, Sandra, uh, and, um, how was your experiences like during the, the transition time?

Do one of you want to share, um, transition time from the refugee camp to the Newland, uh, the United States of America? Uh, what was it like? Um, Experiences or the emotions, the challenges, or any fond memories that you want to share?[00:17:00] 

Yeah, so, um, initially, um, if you wanna start, start from beginning, I think, um, at the initial phase, right, it did not meet our expectation cuz uh, Back in the camp when we were given orientation about the America, right. Uh, we were shown a different picture of the America. And then when, when it came to the real, it was not as what they saw in the picture, right in, in those videos, like, um, In orientation they had so, like, so much luxury and everything, like the, the boss would come to pick your kids, take you to home, right?

Uh, take you, take, take them to school, bring them back to home, and all those facilities that they were, uh, swinging in those orientation. But um, when we came to the reality that was not true. I mean, it could be true for some people, but for, in our [00:18:00] case, that was not true. So we had come to different experience.

We had to walk to the school every day, and my school was like, I think two miles away from my house. So I had to wake up early in the morning and go to school, walk two mile, come back, two mile, right? And it was so challenging. And then, We didn’t even know. I didn’t even know how to use the public transportation at that time.

And on top of that, like blending into the new culture and speaking English was the end of the hurdle to come over, right? Cuz uh, we had a British English accent and then it does not match with Americans. So people normally used to make fun of you and being harassed and his school were taking public trans transportation.

So there are a lot of challenges at the beginning. And as, as a time went through and then we started to learn about new culture and started knowing more about the cities and [00:19:00] how things work. Then it eventually started getting better. So it takes at least three, around like two to three years to adapt to new cultures and learning new things in community.

Yeah, so it was initially challenging for me.

Yeah. Um, I can go home. I’m sorry. Sure, go ahead. No, sorry to cut you off that. Um, but yeah, I totally agree. Um, kind of just piggyback, piggyback, uh, piggyback off like just what Kana said, and, uh, Chandra, like for me, it wa like the transition to the state was, uh, it was like a climbing a mountain, basically just because of, um, lot of things.

It was just a big cultural shock. First of all, like go back in Nepal. I was a very, um, not go America like, and uh, like I was kinda like, um, against Immigra immigrating through the states. [00:20:00] And like I, um, which I don’t re uh, don’t really remember exactly why, but, um, coming to coming here and it’s, it wa it’s a different experience, you know, like you come to this, to this place and space where, um, you have only.

Fantasize of like, you know, that you have only heard of, um, through stories, through movies and, and like when you actually get there, it’s not. It’s not all that, you know, it’s not all the fancy, um, fancy, like fancy dinners or like, you know, this nice, beautiful big houses or like this and that. So like to come to the states and.

Like being put into this house, this, um, like, you know, this house where basically it’s a house of cockroaches and like, um, all this insects in the house. Like, you know, seeing [00:21:00] that and experiencing those, uh, those experience when I first moved to the states and. It was like, wow, this is not what I expected.

And that’s not the, and that’s like just a little thing. And I feel like co and coming to, uh, coming here, and I have always knew that and I was different. I always felt different. I always been different than, uh, than other Norm, uh, nor those other kids that I grew up playing. You know, while my, uh, guy’s friend, uh, when we were young, one of my guy’s friend go play soccer and go play sports.

I loved dance. I would go. With my girlfriends. Um, and I would do theaters, you know, all those stuff. Like it’s, and like I never realized what it was, you know? Um, and coming to the states and seeing, understanding, uh, What that part of me, you know, that part of me who wanted to do that, uh, that part of me, that when a guy, uh, wa a guy and a girl walked, passed by, I’m [00:22:00] like, oh, this is a really good looking man.

Like, where did that come from? Those kind of questions. Like, I was living in this, um, this, this life where I really didn’t know who I was. And though there was a lot of challenges that came, um, came, came, came to me, you know, uh, that I had to. Uh, realizing my sexuality, you know, and finally coming to the term where, to myself, where, okay, maybe I am d I am actually different than everyone in that way, you know, like I realized I was gay and that was not the end of it.

I was my sexuality. You know, after that I had to navigate my way through how do I, how do I, uh, explain this to my family? You know, how do I explain this to my community? Um, so. Took a really big toll on me, especially when I was in high school. So, and I definitely went, uh, through a very deep depression, um, where, um, like I [00:23:00] was not doing very good and like, you know, and there was some substances I was using as like, it was just like to cope with things and it just didn’t, it was not the ideal situation for this immigrant child who.

Came to the states, you know, and, um, had with this big dreams, but I’m very, but with all that, I’m thankful to say that I always had, um, really great support system. Either it was with my friends, like coming to high school and like, you know, all that. So I, I was very involved throughout high school. Like, you know, I, I need, I knew that, you know, I had to do extra hard.

I needed to do, go, uh, Do things, get involved as much as possible and get great good grades and like, you know, that mindset of like, okay, I need to do something for my family because I’m the first one, uh, to go into of going off to college and doing all this. So there, so it was, it was a lot of challenges that way, you know, and.

just like participating in school. Like I would dance [00:24:00] in the morning at like, you know, practice from like 6:00 AM I had to find a ride way to school at 6:00 AM like, you know, to my uncle who would go to work at 4:00 AM So like he would drop me off my, uh, off to my cousin who lived to my, who lived by school and had to walk from there at my practice.

Um, Like from taking a 30, 40 minute nap and like after that out of theater practice at night until like 6:00 PM and then get a, a transportation, like the public ride back home and make sure like, you know, I cook food from my family before they get home, um, at, before they get home from work. So it was just, Of it was a way like, you know, it was a very crazy, crazy way, but I feel very, um, I feel stable with where I am right now and like I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without those experience that I had to go through.

Um, Though I do not wish all this to anyone, but you know, it, I, I do wanna say like it will get better once you come to the term to accept for who you are and like, you know, [00:25:00] acknowledging that your weakness is, but also knowing that you know it’s okay and it’s okay to be this and be. . So yeah, that was really something.

And just coming, having a family who really does support you and even though they don’t underst like they don’t understand, they will try to listen to you and, you know, try to get you. So that was something that I’m really grateful for, for, and yeah. I’m sorry I, that took a little too long. . No worries.

Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing all. Um, I came to us in 2012 and before. Coming to here, uh, you know, Martin Luther King Jr. Was my hero. And I thought, like when, you know, reading his biography, his work, I thought, you know, the, uh, the history around, um, uh, racism, um, kind of, um, had [00:26:00] already. Uh, because of Martin Luther King.

That was my understanding. That was what I had heard. And, and when I came, um, like early 2012 when, when I started working in the grocery store, like, um, kind of most of the customers, uh, used to kind of like ask me where I’m. Like, uh, and being a, uh, the, the idea of identity, um, where I’m from has always been a big crisis in my life.

And I’m sure, um, you know, most of you had, um, if you remember growing up in the refugee camp, um, I’m sure most of you have similar experiences. Um, I wanted to, I’m curious like, you know, um, My observation, um, the early days of my, um, experience in this [00:27:00] country was, um, I didn’t know that this country is so black and white, like the Wrestl divide, um, the cancel between one race versus another race.

And then, and then I wasn’t aware of like, you know, Fall into the brown category and, and then there is this like, big question like, you know, where do we exist between this, uh, between black and white? Um, um, I’m kind of like curious about your own observation, um, when you look at the larger, uh, scenario of this country.

Um, did, did you have any. Observation around that on the,[00:28:00] 

any one of you? Yeah. So, um, I normally encounters, um, scenarios where, I’ve been labeled as an Indian, you know, , so it’s very st stereotypical. It’s so unfortunate. Um, but mm-hmm. , the people in this country, they does not realize that the country is built on the base of immigrant blood. You know, so all America, it’s, it’s all a part of melting pot.

Whatever concept that we bring in, it’s. So the man founding pillar, right? The standing pillars of America is based on the immigration, right? It’s from immigrant. Mm-hmm. , no matter, like you are born here, but your, uh, ancestors are from somewhere else, you know, unless you are a Native American, then that’s a different case.

So it’s very unfortunate that the discrimination is still exist and people still [00:29:00] judge you. By your cover, you know, so yeah, I have, I have seen that so many time in, in workplace, in a school, in grocery, I mean, normally you get treated so differently, even if you were like a hoodie to a store and then you are like a different color, they instantly judge you right there and then, uh, even like a storekeeper or they’ll have ice on you no matter where you go around the store.

So I have faced that personally. So, yep.

Yeah. Um, yeah, go piggyback, uh, of what Chandra said. Like, I, so I work at Target, like in a retailer and stuff, so, and those things are very, um, common thing that I have to witness from lot of my white team members lot of the time, um, especially racially profiling, um, customers. It’s. and [00:30:00] like, not to give them excuse, like not to excuse their action.

Like a lot of the time it’s so for white. Um, from my experience, like I, I’ve been like, I was very, I, I got involved with white folks when I, when I first moved, I state it was just, um, for me to be comfortable in this, you know, to, to this new place. So I definitely switched my . Switch my, uh, what, I guess like culturally, I switched myself culturally when I first moved to the state, so I got to witness a lot of things I feel like from the both side and like, so, and, and those times where like I had to cut some people off from my life because I, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, uh, accept a lot of the things that would, I, it was not something a lot of the time intentionally, it was just something that was engraved in their thing.

It, it’s like they wouldn’t even realize the impact they. , like with the words that they’re saying, like, um, just for example, a lot of [00:31:00] the time this, uh, the white folks in my, uh, work, uh, they will be watching people closely to the, uh, mostly like a lot of the time it’s always bipo people, you know? And it’s really frustrating to see that, um, See, see that, and because I do have friends who are, um, who are black, you know, we’re brown, who even Nepali friends who have a very darker tone than, um, than some of us, you know?

And like even my little sister, she has a way darker tone than, oh, than me or my little brother. So I think this, uh, this stereotypes and things that really does impact our everyday life and just like being, especially for me and my personal level, I. , like I try to connect with people through experience more than, um, the racial and geograph geographical, uh, place that we’re born in.

Because I feel like when, when I do that, I just find it hard for me, uh, for me to, uh, connect with people or, uh, you know, to find that. Feeling of home or like [00:32:00] finding that connection with people. Because when I think that way, it’s just like, oh, they’re not Nepali. You know, they wouldn’t, they will never understand me.

But I try to listen to other Bipo people, um, and their stories and try to like, you know, empower each other to, uh, what we can do, what, uh, like actions that we can take to do better. So I think, um, this, the, the racial. Tension bet, uh, in America? I don’t, it has been better, I feel like, from when I, when I first came, but I don’t think it’s gonna go anywhere anytime soon.

But I feel like this collective, uh, like, you know, learning of each other’s culture and like learning and just respecting, um, respecting each other is gonna help us move forward. I feel like.

Thank you Noel and Sandra for sharing. You are listening to Apex Express and K P 4 94 [00:33:00] 0.1. 89.3 KP fp and online at kpfa Doz. Stay tuned in for more about Arrows Scam for Immers Leaders Reflection.

Ka Uh, how about, um, I. I mean, three of you are part of, were part of the Arrows Youth Leadership Camp, uh, 2022 cohort. Um, Kamara, do you wanna kind share with us, uh, your intention to join Arrows Youth Leadership Camp and share some of your experiences being part of the leadership camp? Absolutely. So going back to.

Last question. So for racism, I feel like I really, really struggled to find my community within the school because I never felt like I was a part of one of them. I try to find friends, I try to make friends. I’m like really outgoing. But neither with the teachers [00:34:00] or the students. Did I ever get the opportunity to connect?

And you think like, I went here from fifth grade, so it would’ve been easier to integrate into the culture and stuff, but I never felt like I belong there. And even now, I. Do go to high school, but I do Don normal, so I try to like be out of the high school as much as I can because some of my hardest struggles I feel like, have been inside those school walls because even talking to teachers, I never felt like heard or felt recognized instead of, I always felt like I was like undermined, and so I reached out from my community outside of the school walls.

So I really, really tried to. A part of the Nepali community as much as I could, like speaking, Nepali, being, seeing someone who was Nepali in the halls, that would always brighten up my day because it felt like that’s a part of my identity. So, uh, I joined a r u with the intention to meet new people [00:35:00] that were from the same background that I was, because that’s what makes me feel valid.

And I was really interested in the leadership camp because I wanted to grow. I wanted to learn about myself, and I was already doing some stuff in the community for my community, but I also wanted to learn more. I wanted to mentors. I wanted to be inspired. And I think after going to the camp, that’s exactly what a R u did for me.

It helped me re. The problems that we have in our society and how I can not only just acknowledge it, but become a part of the solution.

Thank you Pamela, for sharing. How about what was your intention and um, can you please share, share some of the experiences being part of the nuclear?[00:36:00] 

Sorry, I can go . I can go. Um, first, um, like, yeah, so my in first intention, uh, was. To, uh, reconnect with my roots and, um, to my, to the, uh, to Bhutanese community. Um, like I had mentioned earlier, I, after I moved to this stage, just, um, because of my sexuality, one of the big reason was my sexuality. That really made me very, uh, distant from my community.

So, I just completely shot myself from going to Nepal events. Like, you know, hey, like just even reaching out to like Nepali friends or like, even I moved to the States, I had no connection with my Nepal, like friends from Nepal or like friends that had moved to the States with like before I did. You know, like I used to reconnect with them, uh, in the beginning of the years when I first moved in.

Um, and like after realizing that my, uh, about my sexuality and I just completely shut [00:37:00] that off. Like after that it was just me and American friends, you know? And like that’s, I lived my life that way. Um, I lived as like the, uh, quote unquote American teen li um, teens life, uh, when I was, um, when I was in high school.

Uh, even. In college, like beginning of college. And not until like, you know, recent, really recently, 20 20, 20 19, um, being in college, that kind of really made me realize, what, what do I really want to do with life? And like, you know, uh, what, what am I gonna do and who I am? Those questions started popping off and one of the main reasons a lot of this stuff also happened because of like a lot of those.

Activism that was arising against, um, black Li against the police brutality and the, the unfair treatment of black, uh, black individuals by the law enforcement. And with Black Lives Matter moment rising up and with Covid, with a, [00:38:00] like the Asian hate, all those stuff really put me in this place to like, make me think about like my whole life, you know, and where do I, where do I come from, who I am and.

like at, at that point I had, uh, my family had knew who I was and like, you know, I was being more comfortable of being myself and having conversation with my families about just our histories and all those stuff. So, and then Aru came in, uh, which I knew for a long time, but this year I. My uncle sent me an email, uh, messaged me and was like, Hey, said, sent, like, do this.

And I was like, oh my God. Yeah. And then I looked up and it was just exactly what I needed at the right, like, you know, the, the perfect time timing because I had opportunity, uh, before, but my mindset was not there to do those kind of activism, like, um, and I always did have that place for it. But this, um, and just having this experience this year, just.

Totally [00:39:00] like it changed me in a way, like, you know, it, it made me see my community, uh, from the side that I have never seen, like, you know, the side of, like, especially with the hi, like the, the traumas that my community had to deal with because of the displacement from Bhutan and moving to the states and I, I really just started, started dissecting myself.

History and like, you know, how it’s impacting me and my family and like my community. So that was definitely one of the main reasons I wanted to join, um, to learn about myself, you know, because I had questions, um, of why I am and I still do so. But I think, um, since I started wor uh, being part of aru, I, a lot of this.

Questions are being answered for me and I, I, yeah, that, and I hope that we can keep working, um, working with, I, I hope to keep working with Arrow in Future and have, uh, make [00:40:00] someone like, who felt like you know me, who feels like me in future, to make them feel connected to our community for our future generation.

So that’s really something that I am very grateful for, aro, for making me, bringing me back to. To my community, you know, to bringing back to my home, I would say. Thank you. Thank you. Sandra, how about you? Do you wanna share? Yeah, so, uh, For me, I think I like wanted to really my leadership life, you know, cuz uh, in the past I have attended a few leadership camp and I have been mentor of leadership camp and, um, and I was missing that experience.

You know, it, it went a long time. The first camp that I did was back in 2011 as a student. It was a migrant leadership camp in Pennsylvania. Right. It was a six day camp. Which happened in [00:41:00] Millersville University on Lancaster. Um, so yeah, I was missing those experience and I just wanted to make a new connection and then see, um, like what problems that our community are facing, what I can do maybe, you know, try to embol in it.

Uh, it particular like triggered me from after the, the, the, the pandemic hit cuz. Most of us were literally living in case, right? Where like I isolated for like, uh, two years. And then normally somebody recommended, I mean, to the camp, uh, , it’s like, why don’t you join the camp? And I was like, okay. So I’ve been in case for a long time, I have not make an interaction like social interaction with people and just wanted to make a new connection and see how I can blend into the.

Community, you know, as a new identity cuz uh, I didn’t have the, uh, my spiritual identity [00:42:00] in past when I used to did, uh, when I did those kind of a camp. And then I was just wondering, like, I was just testing myself. Will I be able to fit in because, uh, people normally kind of, you know, criticize you’re looking.

Your face joing, like, what are you doing? What, what are you wearing that aren’t you missing your life being spiritual or like trying to be religious? So I just wanted to taste that on myself. So that’s the initial reason to join the camp. Then I was very glad that it did meet my expectations and camp people were very nice and a friendly, they gave my space.

So yeah, I was very happy about it and I did make a, uh, lifelong connection. In the camp. So it’s really good and I’m very happy about it. Thank you. I’m, I’m also very happy that you all joined our leader camp. Um, [00:43:00] I know, uh, by the, uh, middle of the leadership training program, we divided, um, the participants into three groups.

Um, Storytelling group, mental health group and education group. Can you tell us more about your group and the, um, issues that your group is trying to address? Kana, do you, do you wanna begin? Sure. I could start us off. So for me, I, we were able to pick the groups that we pro. Prioritize. And for me, education was really on the top because for me, I always felt that there was a barrier between my parents and I.

And although they’re so, so supportive and they’re just amazing with that, they are illiterate. And my father was the oldest of his family, and my mother was also the eldest of her family. [00:44:00] So neither of them got to attend school at. So for me, I also felt like education was a barrier, which is why I, I wanted to explore a little more into that disparity.

And after, um, talking to our previous mentors that have gone through this camp program before, they identified that there was a large group of high school dropout rates in Harrisburg. So after that, we, um, spent some time. Trying to do surveys and stuff so we could see exactly what was the problem.

Because after conversations with the leaders in Harrisburg, also, we discovered that like they knew that this was a evident problem and stuff like that, but they weren’t aware of why. So we were like, why not start at the population that’s impacted the most? Right. So we started with the high school kids and.

We launched a survey, the results told us back that yes, this was an issue, [00:45:00] and that there was things that, hello?

Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I’m so sorry. So, We found out that like the issues were prominent in high school and we’ve mainly focused on launching it in the summer, so we had a little bit difficulties getting enough participants, but at the end we did get like a good amount and we found out that it was because of finance stuff, because they weren’t able to get resources that they need and our team and a R.

Joined together to now open a resource center in Harrisburg, which I think is so inspiring. I’m so ready for the next step.

Great. Thank you. Thank you Kana for sharing. Um, Chandra, do you wanna [00:46:00] talk about the mental health group? Yes. So, um, I was part of Mental Health Group and as you know, Our people have been, have been through like a lot of difficulties in their life from like flooding, from country, uh, and then spending their life as a refusing.

And then after that they had to overcome another hurdle moving to the, moving to the new country, which they have never thought up, where it does not match their religion culture. So it’s totally different, right? And then there has been a lot of trauma, people who are torture and they have like lots of thing going on and does not matter, like whichever is there, right?

So, so mental, mental health was one of the use issue. And normally in community there is a huge tabby about it. Like [00:47:00] people doesn’t know, like how to acknowledge it or they don’t think it exists. And, um, that’s really concerning and it’s, it’s hurting people day by day internally, but they does not realize that it’s been harming them.

So we just wanted to rate some awareness regarding that. So, um, so in past sessions in our leadership camp, we tend to focus on mainly the youth section, the teenagers. So, We decided to do a small research based on the substance substances abuse with the teen. Um, so what, what, what is causing them to have such a problem?

And for me, the reason behind me joining in mental group, mental health group was that. I believe like the spiritual healing could be also the one of the potential solution to overcome that issue. [00:48:00] So I thought, why not? Maybe I can repeat some spiritual idea and maybe they’re gonna help. So that’s the initial reason I wanted to be the part of it.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Sandra. Now do you, do you wanna respond to that? Can you respond? I mean, can you say the question one more time? Yeah. So, um, during the youth leadership training program, we divided the participants into three groups, right? Mental health group, right. And education group and new, uh, were interested in the storytelling group.

So, uh, can you tell us, um, more about the storytelling group? What you all are doing, what, uh, kind of, uh, community issues that the his storytelling group is, uh, trying to address. [00:49:00] Yeah, so there’s two different, uh, storytelling groups, but the one that, um, that we’re constant, constantly working toward right now is our performance, um, performance piece that is focused on, um, our personal story.

And the reason I was, uh, interested in storytelling was because I feel that, um, Coming to Iowa, you know, and like, just realizing that learning so much his, like, so much thing about other people’s history. Like, you know, obviously it’s empowering, um, but at the same, at the same time, it makes you question, right?

Like, you know, what about my story? And like that, that may be a little selfish take on it, but at the same time, espe, you know, with just the treatment of, um, Bhutanese people from the Bhutanese, uh, the Vietnamese monarchy and just. Just the way that the political scene played out is just so unjust to, um, our people.

And there’s still, uh, [00:50:00] uh, political prisoners that are still in Bhutan that are serving, uh, their jail time who were just trying to fight for their right to live in the land that they had been living for a long time. And I see nothing wrong with that, and I. The stories and, uh, you know, the struggle of my community, of my family that, uh, the journey that they had to take is worth of, um, worth of being like, you know, those stories are worth of being told, worth of being heard.

Um, and it is. I, I like talking about life. I like talking about, um, learning about other people’s stories, learning, uh, sharing my own stories. Um, so that was one of the main reason, uh, I wanted to do that. Um, plus I do have like a little bit of, uh, performance, back background with Dune Theater back in camp, so that was definitely something that I did.

And like right now we are, um, so this, over this camp, um, [00:51:00] this summer we all came up with our own, you know, experience, uh, living. being an immigrant, being a refugee, and like, you know, uh, like how that has impacted us. And we all came up with a collective, a collective, uh, script of, um, after writing our own personal stories.

So right now we’re, we’ve been meeting like, you know, every, every month, once a month this year after the, uh, after summer. But next, once, uh, 2023 starts, we’ll be working like twice a month to, you know, really. Um, clean our performance and like clean the stories that we’re trying to sell, like, you know, um, so, and we’ll be performing that in San Francisco this summer in Bay Area, um, which I’m really excited about, uh, because we’ll be able to share this performance, uh, to other communities, uh, who can, who may relate to us, you know, who may feel heard and seen through our performance.

Uh, so yeah, I’m just really excited to represent our, um, our community in, [00:52:00] in that respect. So,

Great. Great. Yeah. Um, the, the name of the performance, uh, is called Mero Marietta. Right. And, um, Mero Literal, uh, translation would be my song, my Journey, and. And we look forward to perform at, uh, Y V C A in San Francisco, which is going to be exciting. Um, thank you. Thank you all of you for, uh, sharing, uh, your life journey, your experiences in the physic camps in US, and, uh, your experiences, um, being part of the youth leadership camp.

Um, before we close out, uh, do you wanna share any final.

After attending the leadership camp Camp, I felt like so heard, so [00:53:00] validated, and I honestly think that if there’s any other Bhutanese refugee youth out there, I definitely recommend a U’S leadership camp because it is a safe space for us all and I think that we would always appreciate new bonds, new connect.

Thank you Pamela. Any final thoughts?

Yeah. Uh, so like to appreciate you for hosting us today and also wanted to specially thanks Apex Express for giving us wonderful opportunity to share our experience Ke. And as equine kaa, I would definitely all the youth out there to come out and then at least play some role in, um, uplifting this organization and as young as you can also build some skills and grow along with the organization.

So like to invite every single [00:54:00] one out there was listening to us definitely should come out and try this leadership camp experience in long lot from it. Thank you so much. Thank you. No. Any final thoughts? Yeah. Um, not like, um, I, my final thought would be, um, just take your journey like, you know, one by one and not to, uh, not to sound like I’m giving advice or anything, cuz I, I’m still like myself growing and going through this journey, uh, trying to navigate my own self and trying to find myself.

So I think. , just be patient with yourself, especially if you’re someone listening who is a child epidemic comes from of experience that we have lived. I just wanna say that, you know, take your time, trust your process. Um, it’s okay to be easy on yourself. It’s okay to, um, [00:55:00] feel like that you don’t belong because, um, that’s such a suck, a sucky feeling, but.

Part of this journey and

uh, I think we lost normal. Um, alright, so, uh, it’s time to close, uh, for tonight. Thank you all for joining. Uh, thank you for such a rich conversation. Uh, please check out our website, kzla program. App Express to find out more about this show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there.

If resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your reasons with the world. Your voices are very important. Netflix [00:56:00] Express is produced by Mi Lee, Jalina, Kimley, and ung, and. By Ryon. Tonight’s episode was hosted by Robin Goong and Is United. Thank you so much to the K P F A staff for their support.

Have a great night. Thank you.

[00:57:00] [00:58:00] 

The post APEX Express – 12.29.22 ARU’s CAMP for Emerging Leaders Reflections appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

This episode highlights a wonderful hybrid book club event from AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality a collective of Progressive Asian organizations that APEX is a part of. It was hosted at the East Wind Bookstore in Berkeley, CA. Ko Kim of “We are the Gems” joined us in a conversation about books people enjoyed reading growing up and later Innosanto Nagara is interviewed by Miko Lee.

Miko’s Favorite AAPI Children’s Books (live from East Wind Books in Berkeley) With author Ko Kim

All books written and illustrated by AAPI authors/artists unless noted

Ko Kim

Ko Kim’s Book We are Gems attached is the watermarked PDF only for the AACRE community.

A is for Activist

Counting on Community 

Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes

Red is a Dragon: A Book of Colors

The Story of Rap 

Picture Books

It Began with a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way biography on artist Gyo and the impact of the Japanese American incarceration during WWII

Drawn Together. A boy and his grandfather draw and talk story. Deals with intergenerational drama and imagination. Check out a lesson plan for this book I helped develop with Agency By Design in Oakland

Juna’s Jar Juna goes on adventures and collects things. Good STEAM book. Check out this lesson plan for this book by Agency By Design in Oakland

Dad Bakes -Formerly incarcerated Cambodian dad bakes with his daughter

The Paper Kingdom – Janitor parents take their son to work at night and he imagines a kingdom. 

A Friend for Henry – Focused on Henry, a young boy with autism

The Ugly Vegetables – Chinese family grows Chinese vegetables and daughter is embarrassed and longs for the neighbors flowers, until mom makes soup that everyone longs for.

Whoever You Are – Mem Fox’s beautiful book about our diverse world (non AAPI writer, but beautiful book with great message)

The Paper Crane – A paper crane transforms a town (non AAPI writer, but beautiful book with great message)

The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination – a young woman, who is going blind reimagines the NY subway

Positive Body Image

Eyes That Kiss the Corners – a girl learns to love her Asian eyes

Eyes that Speak to the Stars – a boy learns to love his Asian eyes

Happy to Be Nappy – a child learn to appreciate her black hair

Laxmi’s Mooch – a girl learns to appreciate her body hair (mustache)

Global

First Laugh–Welcome, Baby!  Indigenous writers share Navajo story about baby’s first laughter ceremony.

Enough! 20 Protesters Who Changed America picture book about protests

Bread, Bread, Bread, Families, Houses and Homes  White writer Anne Morris photo compilations showcase commonalities around the world. 

We March African American writer Shane Evans picture book about 1963 March on Washington

Coffee Rabbit Snowdrop Lost by Birkjaer — https://enchantedlion.com/all-books/coffee-rabbit-snowdrop-lost

Julian is Mermaid by Jessica Love — https://jesslove.format.com/julian-is-a-mermaid

Dragon Hoops by Gene Yang   — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626720794/dragonhoops

[00:00:00] Swati: Good evening everyone, and happy Thursday. This is Swati Rayasam, your very special guest editor for tonight’s episode of APEX Express. Tonight we’re going to listen in on a wonderful hybrid book club event from AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality a collective of Progressive Asian organizations that APEX is a part of.

[00:00:55] Swati: This book Club event was so sweet and so lovely, and [00:01:00] admittedly was very eye-opening for me as someone who has quote unquote graduated from children’s books, but more about that later. I wanted to also flag for listeners that because this was a hybrid event, there are some weird bumps and pops as a result of the recording that impact the audio quality just a bit. Hopefully it’s not too distracting, but whatever you may not be able to fully hear, we’ve tried our best to capture in either the transcript or the show notes.

[00:01:29] Swati: Now, without further ado, I’ll pass you along to Miko over in Children’s Book Landia, AKA East Wind Books in Berkeley. Stay locked in! 

[00:01:43] Miko Lee: We are thrilled to be here and every time we talk about getting a book, of course where you go to buy that book is here in Berkeley at East Wind Books or online. So we are thrilled to see you all and as some of you know, initially today [00:02:00] was gonna be with Innosanto Nagara and I sent stuff out on Ino and then just, we had this whole last minute mix up. We’re gonna showcase some of his books, but instead, B was amazing to recommend Ko Kim. And then I learned about Ko’s book, which was just so exciting. So we’re gonna start off just with Ko reading through the book and having you all ask questions of Ko, and then Ko and I are gonna talk about our favorite AAPI children’s books so that you all can get your gift ons for the holidays and for baby stuff that’s coming up.

[00:02:33] Miko Lee: There’s so many. When I was growing up, I was longing for books that represented our community and now there are so many that represent our intersectionality, our diversity, our specific communities. So there are so many things that we will share with you soon.

[00:02:51] Miko Lee: But first, I wanna take a moment to just introduce Ko. We are so happy that she joined us last minute. She worked with two amazing illustrators, Christine [00:03:00] Yoon and Andrew Hem and co grew up 10 minutes from the US Mexico border and like so many of us just felt invisible in school. She didn’t see herself in textbooks and in bookshelves or anywhere. And that isolation motivated her to become an educator, a public school teacher in title one schools. So she got the traditional education with a masters at Stanford, but keeping it real in the community with low income students showcasing what progressive education can be about. And I’m gonna now throw it to Ko. Thank you Ko, so much for joining us.

[00:03:37] Ko Kim: Wow. Thank you Miko, for that introduction. I wanna carry you everywhere I go, and just have you introduce me. Cuz, that was such a beautifully done one. And I just wanna say thank you everyone for the honor of being here. I love community. I love learning in community. I really want this to be a learning space, so before we begin, it sounds like from the audience, I heard a lot of folks saying they like picture books. They’re looking [00:04:00] for more resources, they have nieces and nephews in their lives or a baby on the way.

[00:04:05] Ko Kim: So I wanted to share a quick resource. I’m sure a lot of you follow Bookstagrammers on Instagram. There is a whole ecosystem of children’s book Instagrammers. Some of them are Berkeley native slash assistant principal Shuli who runs Asian Lit for Kids.

[00:04:21] Ko Kim: And then there’s also my story books who’s based in Southern California. Just a little heads up there. 

[00:04:27] Ko Kim: So as Miko mentioned, I created a book with Christine Yoon and Andrew Hem called We Are Gems: Healing From Anti-Asian Microaggressions Through Self Love and Solidarity. What a title. Christine Yoon is by the way, an ER doctor who’s also an artist, Andrew Hem started off as a street artist and now his work is seen globally and his murals are in over, I believe 10 countries. 

[00:04:50] Ko Kim: Andrew identifies as Cambodian American. Christine and I identify as Korean American, and I think context is important here because I think stories in our own voices are really important.

[00:05:00] 

[00:04:59] Ko Kim: We are Gems shimmering with wisdom handed down from our Asian and Asian American elders. You may face cuts and scrapes called microaggressions, but like those before you, your inner luster will blaze if placed in shared liberation. Shared liberation is solidarity with our Black and Indigenous neighbors against systemic racism, lost traditions and behaviors that harm people with African and Indigenous roots from classrooms to courtrooms, only through solidarity will we glisten.

[00:05:32] Ko Kim: So when people ask you where are you really from? Reply that you are at home as long as you hold sacred the air, water, soil, animals and plants. Reply that you are at home when you honor Indigenous elders. Then ask in return, how are we taking care of all that has life? When Indigenous youth and elders resist polluting pipes, how do we respond?

[00:05:56] Ko Kim: Our liberation is bound to the life and dignity of Indigenous [00:06:00] peoples. When they advise you to speak up, tell them to listen closely, our voices have been roaring for generations. Then ask, how intently do you listen to the hopes and dreams of Black activists leaders? For seven decades, Grace Lee Bogs rallied for fair wages and housing alongside Black community organizers [unclear] introduced civil disobedience to the Highlander Folk School, helping Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. prepare for the fight for freedom. Our liberation is tied to Black joy. When people try to commend you with, you are unlike the others. Reply that you’re not straining yourself toward the dull cast of saying this and tell them, I am blooming as myself under the light of the divine and the glow of our grandmothers, our liberation is self love.

[00:06:49] Ko Kim: Thank you so much.

[00:06:51] Miko Lee: So thank you Ko for sharing your new book with us. I wanna open it up to see if anybody has any questions for [00:07:00] Ko And while you’re thinking about those questions, I wanna just ask Ko to tell about what inspired you to create this work.

[00:07:06] Ko Kim: Yeah, two things. One, I’m an auntie to many nieces and nephews, and it pained me to not see our voices represented on the bookshelves. Public school teacher as well, former public school teacher and it really pained me cuz I would see my students experiencing microaggressions, but it’d be hard to process that with them. Lastly 2020 during shelter in place a man holding a tray of sushi started to say all the racial slurs at me at a grocery store and came so close to my face, I felt the spit on my cheek. And I was like, oh, great, I’m gonna get COVID and verbally assaulted today. And when that happened, there were children around who witnessed that, and the educator in me was like, in pain. Made me wonder, okay, here’s this episodic explosive event, how are caregivers and explain that to their children and then the other thought I have [00:08:00] had was what about the everyday racism that Asian American face? Right? How are we helping caregivers, teachers, parents talk about everyday anti-Asian racism?

[00:08:11] Miko Lee: I just wanna point out that Ko also has a presentation that she does in schools. So if you know teachers that are interested in that, she has a whole presentation, reads some of the book and then breaks down who is Grace Lee Boggs, what is the background. So it’s really helpful. And also talking about not just the times we are in right now with the microaggressions that our community are facing, but who are our solidarity leaders historically and who are people that are working in the community now. So does anybody else have a question for Ko, the author in the space?

[00:08:44] Paige: Hi, Ko, thanks for reading your story, and I’m really sorry that a person assaulted you verbally. 

[00:08:50] Paige: I, I was looking at the title and wondering if there was any association with the TV show where they’re like all gems and then they like sing [00:09:00] songs. Stephen Universe. 

[00:09:00] Ko Kim: I’m just gonna lie and be like, yes. I, I planned that . No, there isn’t, but I actually pulled a lot of my teacher educator friends. To think about how could we self love our and love our Asian Am AAPI children? And that’s what I came up with. But, great question, Paige. 

[00:09:23] Miko Lee: And Ko, you did a non-traditional method for publishing. Can you share a little bit about that and why you chose that route? 

[00:09:30] Ko Kim: Yeah, I would love to share that cuz I do know there’s someone in the audience who talked about possibly writing a children’s book of their own.

[00:09:37] Ko Kim: So I think we use the tools we’re most familiar with, and I’m really used to reaching out to mutual aid, through my community. I’m sure this is something that everyone knows a lot of public school teachers fund their own libraries, fund their own field trips, right? And so I often reached out to my community to help fund those activities, resources , and I had no connection to the publishing world. [00:10:00] So I did this unconventional way and I made sure to recognize the folks in my community that made this book possible. If you look at the very back, their names are listed on the Kickstarter. I also, maybe I was like creeping on fans, people that I really like, but I DMed a bunch of authors on Instagram and asked them for some advice. And Innosanto Nagara has also been very gracious in that process. I have no idea if he remembers that I DMed him, but he gave me some really good tips. He himself started off as a Kickstarter, as you know, and his book was picked up by

[00:10:33] Ko Kim: Seven Story Press. 

[00:10:36] Jasmine: Thanks. I’m curious, Ko if you’ve read this book with your students and your nibbling, how have the kids received it? 

[00:10:46] Ko Kim: It’s really interesting. I thought only middle grades or like upper elementary children would be interested in this, but I actually presented this to a bunch of high schoolers in Hayward and there was a huge response from them. They loved [00:11:00] it. I think we do this false age designation where we’re like, oh, by the time you’re 18 you don’t like pictures. Which is not true, right? Like if the look at the popularity of TikTok, it’s such, such a visual medium, right? People rely on visuals and I think art is actually a great activist tool and way of being. And so, I’ve seen K through 12, a lot of warmth about the images. I had one Jamaican American teacher email me and say, these things happen to me all the time and I brush them aside, and this book helped me heal. I had another teacher in the audience write me that they went to therapy after the book reading, which I think is a great next step. I’m all about healing ourselves. Thanks for that question, Jasmine.

[00:11:49] Miko Lee: Thank you. Anybody else with questions for Ko? 

[00:11:52] Paige: I have another question related to the topic, we were reading the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead in college my [00:12:00] freshman year. And I remember someone asked in class like, how early is it to talk about these things? Like kind of how you’re talking about the age of what you had imagined, the children reading the book. And my teacher was like, I don’t think sixth grade is that early for this book. And that book it was really, it’s quite violent , so I was just, yeah. How were you thinking about that when you were writing this book? Can you say more about thinking about the violence, about introducing that to children? 

[00:12:29] Ko Kim: Yeah, for sure. I did try really hard to be age appropriate, if you notice. I intentionally focused on microaggressions and not the explosive physical violence just cause I know our children, they can’t handle things, but it has to be done in a way that’s scaffolded. There’s that piece of it, but I also wanna cite, a really well known Instagram Spanish educator, she goes by the woke Spanish teacher. She co-wrote an academic article with a college professor in education. [00:13:00] It’s called The Myth of Teaching Social Justice to Elementary School Students. And it kinda debunks some of the ideas that our children cannot handle these experiences because it’s fact of the matter is they are experiencing these racialized moments and they’re turning to adults to make sense of this, or turning to each other to make sense. Right? And it feels weird to just neglect that and wish them good luck versus addressing it and centering their lived experiences. 

[00:13:28] Miko Lee: The other person I’d shout out in that vein is that woke kindergarten, and that’s an amazing educator who’s introduces all these topics with kindergarten students and recognizing that the world we live in, you have to, because that’s the only way that we can create children that understand a greater sense of justice in the world. They do such amazing work, check out their website and they’ve done teach-ins and. 

[00:13:55] Miko Lee: Other questions for Author Ko Kim?

[00:13:57] Ko Kim: Bring it. Everyone. Just give me the questions.[00:14:00] 

[00:14:02] Tran: Hey Ko, this is Tran! How are you? 

[00:14:04] Ko Kim: Oh my gosh. Can I just take a moment to thank you for being such a model to me? When I was at UCLA? I was such an undergrad. I was such a poop head and you really helped me understand, solidarity.

[00:14:14] Tran: Oh, thank you. Yeah. Small world that we went to college together and now you’re a children’s book author. That’s amazing. so I’m actually a mom to a toddler, and so of course making sure that I have a library of books that he can see himself, in and relate to, right. And not just like Asian American, but other like BIPOC books as well. And I actually didn’t know about this book until this event, so I’m really glad, that y’all are hosting those events. So now I know about it and added to my collection, but I was curious, Ko do you have, other ideas for books that you wanna do in the future? Are you planning on doing more books? Cause I’d love to hear if you are. 

[00:14:55] Ko Kim: Yes. Oh my gosh. I do wanna create an ethnic study series for children. [00:15:00] I’ve been toying with the idea of debunking the American Dream myth, just trying to figure out how to do that in a way that’s accessible to young readers. Another one I’ve been toying with is the idea of how do we talk about the anti-Blackness that does exist in the Asian American community, even though we do have a long history and legacy of solidarity with, Black folks. I’ve been toying with those and have been drafting. Thank you Tran.

[00:15:24] Miko Lee: Exciting coming soon, Ko Kim’s latest work. Yay.

[00:15:28] Swati: You are tuned in to APEX express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. And [email protected]. Coming up is Ka BJ or Puzzle by Diskarte Namin from the album Kultural Guerillas. [00:16:00] [00:17:00] [00:18:00] [00:19:00] [00:20:00] [00:21:00] 

[00:21:45] Swati: That was Ka BJ by Diskarte Namin from the album Kultural Guerillas. And now. Back to the children’s book club with Miko

[00:21:57] Miko Lee: We can start talking about some of me and Ko’s [00:22:00] favorite books that you all can have access to. I wanna first talk about who we talked about in the very first place, who was a mentor and was supposed to be here today. Innosanto’s work A is for Activist, people often ask me, what children’s books I get, I as a few of you mentioned love children’s books. I personally try to never keep adult books because I read ’em and I pass ’em on to other people or I’m a big library person, but the only books I buy all the time are children’s books because I like the art, the vibe, what it’s about and my go to little kids, like when somebody first has a baby, are these books, A is for Activist and Counting on Community. And I like them because they’re board books, which kids can chew on, but they’re also like teaching their alphabet books. But they’re teaching. Our values about activism, about community, about movement, about growth, and about where we are in our world. The other thing I wanted to mention is the other Ino book for [00:23:00] older kids, to the question about, when do you start introducing social justice concepts? You start as early as possible. And with my own kids, you start when they’re babies, you start teaching sign language. So you’re talking about different access to learning and understanding. But then as we know, people grow and they get more sophisticated and they want more information. So actually this is one of, Ino’s more recent books. It’s called The Wedding Portrait the under title is the Story of a Photograph and Why we Sometimes Break the Rules, and this would be good for like fourth graders because it breaks down how critical it is for us to take action. So it talks about from the Dakota pipeline to nuclear weapons to the farm workers boycott and it breaks it down in a way that’s accessible and understandable and really brings it home for older kids that want a little bit more information. So I will follow up with all these books linked [00:24:00] and how you can buy them along with a bunch of others that we might not talk about, because literally I came in here 45 minutes ago and just pulled things off the shelf that were interesting. But I have a whole list of other go-tos. Ko, What are some of your favorites? Or anybody here? What are some of your, like right when somebody’s gonna have a baby, books that we give people? What are your go-tos?

[00:24:21] Ko Kim: Yeah, I would love to share some, but I would love to hear from the folks first. 

[00:24:25] Miko Lee: Anybody have some go to children’s books that they just love getting every time? 

[00:24:31] Jasmine: I bought the book Julian is a Mermaid. It’s a really beautiful book about this little kid and it’s kind of magical and like just exploring gender in different expansive ways. 

[00:24:42] Miko Lee: Thanks Jasmine for sharing that , I really like the artwork on that too.

[00:24:47] Ko Kim: I wanna say everyone likes all categories of books. I understand that. And if you so happen to wanna focus on that topic of gender identity, sexual orientation, there’s actually a really cool mobile children’s Book Bus. [00:25:00] Maybe you’ve heard of them. It’s called Out and About and they’re based in the Bay Area and they have the most beautiful lavender school bus full of books.

[00:25:09] Tori: I just read a picture book called Coffee Rabbit, Snow Drop Lost, I think it’s Danish, perhaps it’s in translation. But it’s about dementia and the relationship between a grandchild and grandparents. And it like made me cry in just a couple of minutes that it took to read it, which I wasn’t expecting. It was very powerful. 

[00:25:29] Miko Lee: I’m not familiar with that book. I love it when books break things down in a way that helps to bring an issue to light. 

[00:25:39] Paige: I also read this in college. I only read two children’s book as a child, and one of them is actually my favorite The Giving Tree. When I was little I was like, why am I so sad reading this book? It’s so sweet and this tree loves this little boy. And then it felt like when I read that book, it reminded me of my relationship with my parents, like, why do my parents love me so much? [00:26:00] And then, the second book I actually read in college was His Own Wear by June Jordan, it’s so beautiful. I love June Jordan. So I would definitely get that for your babies.

[00:26:11] Miko Lee: Anybody else wanna share some?

[00:26:14] Tracy: I’ll just share some thematic books that I can’t remember the names of them. But as a child since I grew up in San Francisco I got exposed to a lot of books around Chinese folklore about the moon festival and like where the moon festival came from, and the woman who ended up in the moon and like the moon goddess. And it’s like the shape of a rabbit. So I really loved thematically those kinds of books that taught me about my culture, but through like children’s books, but then in terms of an actual book name, I don’t know what range we’re doing, but because I read a lot of graphic novels, I really loved everything Gene Yang has done, like American Born Chinese. And his latest book is Hoop Dreams and it’s about him being a teacher in Oakland at a private high school. And I love, love, [00:27:00] love, everything because it breaks down a difficult topic. So the one about him being a teacher in Oakland was about the different students who are on a basketball team there and their backgrounds. You learn about each of the students, whether they’re Black, Asian, or Arab, learn about their specific kind of stories and the ups and downs they have and how like basketball kinda brings them together.

[00:27:25] Miko Lee: I’m so glad. Gene I love him. A local person. And there actually, as some of you might know, making a whole TV series based on ABC and the Monkey King thing. So I, I really appreciate his work. There’s a ton of graphic novelists we could talk about that I also adore, so we could go down that road. Ko what about you? 

[00:27:46] Ko Kim: Yeah, I just wanna thank everyone. I’m learning a couple new title. So there’s a book that was published this year by Julia Kuo it’s called Let’s Do Everything and Nothing. Maybe you’re familiar with this book.[00:28:00] I love it shows the intimacy and affection between a mother and a daughter in each page. And the illustrations are stunning. I never knew burnt orange and navy blue can make me cry but it made me cry in this book for sure and then I know folks are familiar with this book from 2018, Drawn Together. I love it because just like Julia Cole’s book, it talks about the affection between family members, but this one kind of centers a common grief that a lot of AAPI families have where there’s a generational language, cultural difference between grandparents and their grandchildren. It talks about bridging that gap.

[00:28:36] Miko Lee: Can I add to that one? So I love that book and I actually, um, built a curriculum on that book, which I’m sending to you, and it’s linked and I did it with an organization in Oakland called Agency by Design and During the Pandemic, we put together kits for all Title One School Kids in Oakland that included that book and then all the art supplies you could to make on it because it’s about imagination and bringing imagination alive.

[00:28:59] Ko Kim: [00:29:00] Miko That’s, that’s amazing. How can I get my hand on a kit? 

[00:29:05] Miko Lee: I don’t, I don’t know if they’re remaking the kits right now, but you could get your hands on the curriculum and I will say we intentionally made the kits very accessible. So basically even if you didn’t have the kit, you could pull it from things at home or have free access. whenever I’m making an arts inclusive kit, I try and make it with high quality supplies, but then also just things you can get from your house. So it makes it more accessible to everybody. 

[00:29:30] Ko Kim: Great to know. And then I have two other titles 

[00:29:33] Ko Kim: I’m so glad I was recommending ABC American Born Chinese. This book breaks down what does it mean to acclimate versus assimilate to American culture, right? And that’s a huge heavy topic for adults alike. And in fact, Minh Le the author and illustrator of that book he just posted on Instagram under the campaign of Books Save Lives how reading this book in college really helped him stay afloat.

[00:29:57] Ko Kim: And then the last middle grade [00:30:00] recommendation I have is called, In the Beautiful Country by Jane Kuo this came out in June, 2022. She’s a local Bay Area author and artist actually and each chapter is pithy and painfully beautiful it digs into the richer life of an Asian female protagonist in Southern California. It was very healing. And in talking to Jane she was talking about how this book was supposed meant to also be healing for the caregivers reading the book as well. So I couldn’t put this book down. I finished it in one sitting.

[00:30:31] Kenny: So I got this as a gift from my newborn coming in it’s called Hush and it’s a very simple book, it goes through different animals and just the different sounds that other languages make to represent those animals. And I think it’s just really fun to go through that and learn all the different noises that they make. And it’s a story about a mom who’s just telling all of these animals to be quiet cuz the baby is sleeping just something that I feel like is cool to [00:31:00] introduce to my son since he’s gonna be half Thai. 

[00:31:02] Miko Lee: I wanted to throw out some more artist based ones because I think one of the things is sometimes we just get it. For me, I feel like having raised two artists and realizing the importance of art and life, bringing that into our young people is so critical and I love how Drawn Together does that in terms of inter generations. And really talking about intergenerational trauma. There is an another book about an artist, it’s about Gyo Fujikawa, who is an amazing artist, and it’s called, It Began With a Page and it outlines what is in an artist’s imagination and how they create things, how they use and bring the world alive. And there’s another one called The Sound of Colors, A Journey of the Imagination by Jimmy Liao and it is about a blind woman and it’s the colors that she sees while she’s blind and how she navigates through the world. And [00:32:00] it’s just such a mix. It’s so beautiful. The other is a lovely book about an artist, a kid, whose parents work as janitors in San Francisco and they’re low income workers. And because they don’t have childcare, they take their kid with them and they’re Asian American and the kid uses their imagination while their parents are working. It’s just such a good book talking about imagination and labor. Do you have some more? Should I keep going or does anybody wanna throw some out here?

[00:32:30] Ko Kim: I wanna shout out a longtime author illustrator named Rob he’s one of the organizers of the sixth annual Children’s Social Justice book Fair. 

[00:32:37] Miko Lee: He’s also works with Janine Youngblood on this, collaborative that is around trying to publish BIPOC voices, but it’s very, very small, they don’t have like huge budgets. There are a lot of children’s books that have curriculum that go with them. So I don’t know if some of you’re interested in that, especially during our time of, COVID-y time when people have had to shelter in [00:33:00] place and stay home. Sometimes having activity books for single kids are really great. 

[00:33:04] Miko Lee: This is one that’s about Filipino mythology and culture, Who Turned on the Sky, and it comes with this whole coloring and activity book. The book actually has a whole series of different, Filipino mythology and culture, and I think Tracy was talking about that earlier about how we grow up learning some of these things around culture. So that’s one that actually comes with a curriculum. And then this other one, a really sweet one. Called Juna and Appa which is a Korean girl, and it’s about her and her father. And it has magical realism in it. And it’s again about emotions and intergenerational work. And this also has a curriculum. This was another project I did with Agency by Design that comes with a whole series of questions that young people can do for doing interviews with their elders. Even if you can’t write, it’s how do you draw an interview process? 

[00:33:57] Tracy: Ko you mentioned earlier about this [00:34:00] idea of, we should talk about race as early as possible with kids, but, as educator scaffolding is important, I would literally love to hear your ideas of ways we can scaffold learning. I’ll give you an example, I have a bunch of children’s books that I gave to my sister to give to her kids. And then she took out three of ’em and was like, these are not appropriate for the kids. And I was like, oh, what do you mean by not appropriate? And I didn’t get into it, but I was like, she’s actually a math teacher, so she also understands scaffolding. so I’m really interested in your ideas of scaffolding and what that means to introduce material at the right level. 

[00:34:39] Ko Kim: Yeah that’s a great question cause I think sometimes the work of Social Justice, I tend to leave out the joy of social justice work sometimes. Cause I get so serious and bogged down. I forget that social justice work, it means wellness for me, wellness for us. Wellness for all of us. So you’re right, it has to be age appropriate. Teaching for Justice has really great lesson plans and [00:35:00] they pair books. It goes by grade level. And then as you get to higher grade levels people’s history, you know, the Howard Zinn open resource lesson plans also have a great one. I think it, to your point, it’s really important to introduce a topic where folks are at. Cause that’s also true for adults, right? Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you’re ready for that topic either. There’s a lot of pre-work and scaffolding that has to happen regardless of our age and reading skill. Yeah. Did that help answer your question, Tracy? 

[00:35:32] Tracy: Yeah. Thanks for the resource. I think that like some of the principles you’re sharing is like meet people where they’re at and I used to be an environmental educator and my framework I use with kids and adults is appreciation, education, action. So it’s like no one’s gonna wanna take action on something that they don’t appreciate first. So once you feel the joy, like you said, then you learn more about it. Also, you don’t wanna learn about anything you don’t really like. So it’s like you appreciate it, you like [00:36:00] it, you bring joy, then you learn more and then there’ll be those like desire to learn.

[00:36:04] Tracy: Then you actually wanna take action. It’s really hard to get people to take action if they don’t really appreciate or understand. So you’re reminding me that is a framework, but, the meeting people where they’re at is if they’re already past appreciation, then maybe they’re ready for an education or action book.

[00:36:21] Miko Lee: And the only thing I would add to both of your great words is partly part of our work is to just show representation and to show different types of AAPI voices in this context. For instance, this is a lovely book called, a Map Into the World, and it’s not, you know, Political, but it’s about a Hmong girl and how she feels and how she walks through the world. And then there’s another book that I was just introduced to, which is, Incarcerated Dad. I have it in my stacks of books around here, but it’s a dad who is Cambodian and he’s [00:37:00] incarcerated and it doesn’t make a big deal about his incarceration. How great is that? It’s about a dad who bakes, but the dad was formerly incarcerated. So just to show this representation is also a political act, right? We are saying that there are many different types of people within our community. Our community is broad. They come from different places, they have different experiences. So that doesn’t have to be overly like we are being political , but it’s really saying, look, our community is diverse.

[00:37:30] Miko Lee: On the same vein I have stacks of children’s books around me by the way that I put into categories. So I was going like, food is such an easy fit in for people because, we’re looking within the network about narrative power, right? And there’s all this research that, what’s the number one thing people think of with Asian people? They think of food. Okay? Some people think that is such a drag. Why is it just around food? Why is it on Christmas? You know, everybody’s eating at the Chinese restaurants, right? But there’s a way to use that to our [00:38:00] advantage. It can be an in for people to understand culture. And so there are tons of books that are just about food and about culture.

[00:38:10] Paige: I wanna just mention Magic Fish. I read all the recent children’s books that I know in the last three years, or like the last three to five years. That book is so pretty. Like the art is so emotional.

[00:38:23] Miko Lee: Yes. Beautiful. Lovely book. We haven’t been talking enough about the graphic novels, so I love this. This is such an amazing book. 

[00:38:33] Miko Lee: This author, Grace Lynn has a bunch of books. Both picture books and board books. This one’s called Dim Sum for Everyone, it’s really cute. The artwork is quite adorable. She actually has another one that I love that’s called The Ugly Vegetables, and it is about how her family grows traditional Chinese vegetables in her neighborhood and the kid hates it because everybody else grows flowers. And then at the end of [00:39:00] the season, the mom cooks the most amazing bitter Melon Soup, and all the neighbors smell the food and they all come and they wanna have the food. And so the whole neighborhood has celebration together over food and they bring flowers. So again, it’s using food as a road in. There’s also these great books about cultures coming together and making food together that are just titled by like bread or rice and all the different people around the world that eat bread and rice in the ways in which they do that. This one it’s called Lunchtime with Samnang, and it’s about learning, imagination, exploration, and about this kid’s favorite Cambodian dishes as he hears tales from his grandfather.

[00:39:43] Miko Lee: I think back to Tracy’s original question around, how do you introduce hard topics, the first thing I was saying was representation, which I think is really critical. And then I think the other part is introducing some kind of like soft more deeper threads. [00:40:00] And so this is one that actually talks about a Rohingya, which are the oppressed minority peoples in China. And it’s about a kid and his love of this bird. And so you could look at this as this allegory, right? About the oppression of peoples. Or you could read it as a boy and his bird. So you could take it multiple ways and have as in depth conversations as you want to have. But it really depends on who’s the reader, right? And what are they reading with it? And there’s a few more that are like this. There’s a really good one. There’s a few good ones about the Japanese, internment that I think, helped to tell that story. Like this one, A Place Where Sunflowers Grow. And it’s really sweet and the art is quite lovely and it just tells about the Japanese incarceration, through a lens of a young girl. And I will say, what I find remarkable about this is there’s a lot of books about the Japanese incarceration, a lot of children’s books. [00:41:00] Almost all of them are about a boy or a male’s perspective. Boys play baseball, boys go fishing, boys do this. So this is specifically about a girl and what she goes through and the lens that she leaves the world. I will say to you all, that I am incredibly biased. I raised two daughters and because I felt like the world is always introducing them to male writers and particularly white male writers that the only books I ever, ever read to them were written by BIPOC women, some men, but usually BIPOC women. and so I think it’s also about the intentionality when you’re picking children’s book out about what you want to be able to share with your young people. 

[00:41:44] Miko Lee: Any other questions or thoughts? Oh, let me share one more one that I just saw, which was so fun. I love this one because this is an intersectional one and it’s about a Japanese American and family, but their cousin is African American [00:42:00] and it’s about when our cousins come. And so it has the family. And there this author has written a bunch like this I have them all at home. They’re all about growing up in the inner city. And it’s really this Blasian experience. What is it like to be Blasian and to be living in the inner city? So I think that’s really fun. And what do we have to teach each other about our different cultures and how are we creating a new kind of Blasian culture? 

[00:42:26] Miko Lee: While we have a two more min, few more that’s left is, many folks know about Yoyo Ma and his amazing work and how he does this work playing at the borders. The author Johanna Ho, who wrote it, and she’s written a lot of other lovely books. But there’s a great breakdown too, and if you wanted to do this with your young person, you could also play that actual music and see some of the real videos. So there’s a way of reading the book, but then taking it to the next level and really showing with your young people how a book can push you off into additional learning.

[00:42:57] Miko Lee: This one Eyes that Kiss in the Corners is [00:43:00] another about body affirmation. You know, a lot of us grow up with like slanting eyes or those stereotypes. And this is about just appreciating your body. Loving your body. 

[00:43:09] Ko Kim: And Johanna Ho has a male version of that one. Eyes stare into the sky, I think. Cause I think it’s different, right? For how that topic is addressed by gender.

[00:43:21] Paige: Jasmine, you were gonna say something? 

[00:43:25] Jasmine: Something I’m curious about, and maybe we’ll need to write the book for, but a book for kids who are mixed white and Asian, around understanding their white privilege specifically, yeah. 

[00:43:39] Miko Lee: Ooh, that would be good. Jasmine. There was a bunch of books with half white kids, but nothing, I haven’t seen anything. Ko have you seen anything about white privilege? Jasmine? There you go. There’s your opening. Take it, write it. 

[00:43:55] Ko Kim: I’m here for a jasmine. I would love to see that. [00:44:00] 

[00:44:00] Miko Lee: Love that. thank you all so much. You know, last book club we talked about Thi Bui’s book and I just wanted to point out Thi’s Children’s book, A different Pond. This is a amazing, Caldecott honor book, which is like the best that you can get in Children’s book Landia. And it is just a really beautiful. It was written by a different author, but Tui illustrated it and is really about a boy and his dad and, their relationship. Tui has two more children’s books, one actually that she wrote with her son and, another one with the author of the Sympathizer Viet Thanh and his son and they co-wrote them. Okay. We have one minute left. Thank you so much everybody for joining us. Thank you Ko Kim and all of you for joining us today for our AACRE Book Club on children’s books. Thank you all. Have a great rest of your day and a lovely weekend. 

[00:44:52] Swati: Hey folks, Swati here. Miko was so bummed about not being able to have Innosanto Nagara come [00:45:00] to the children’s book club but lucky enough she and Inno were able to sit down for a bonus interview! So we’re going to play that for you now.

[00:45:09]  Miko Lee: Welcome Innosanto Nagara to APEX Express.

[00:45:12] Miko Lee: We had an AACRE book club event and I was talking about your brilliant books. As I was saying that my go-to gifts for people that I have bought many time is A is for activists and C is for community. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got started writing those?

[00:45:33] Innosanto: Thank you so much. Well I wrote a as for activist because I wanted to have the book that I wanted to read to my child. You know, I live in this community, cosent community and my son was the youngest of eight to be born into our community and I’d been reading children’s books to children for quite a while. And as you know, when you have kids, you read these books to them [00:46:00] often over and over and over again. And some of those books you love reading over and over and over again. And sometimes, not so much , but that’s what they want, so you do it. But, when my own kid was born, I realized I was gonna be reading all these books to my kid over and over and over and over again, and I wanted to have the book that I wanted to read to my kid over and over and over again. So I wrote A is for Activist . 

[00:46:22] Miko Lee: And that was your first book? 

[00:46:24] Innosanto: Yes. I had no, aspirations towards becoming a children’s book author at that point, my idea was I was just gonna write this to share with my kid, and once I had written it and I was illustrating it, I thought, well, maybe you’ll print out, Maybe a dozen or maybe even a hundred and get them out as presents to friends and community members. And I found out that it turns out to do a proper board book, you couldn’t only print, a couple hundred. I had to actually print a couple thousand. And so I went into this whole process of trying [00:47:00] to figure out how to finance it and, I had this idea that it was gonna be a five year project and I was borrowing money from friends and family that I would pay back over time and I would put it on a credit card if at the end of the five years it didn’t pay off.

[00:47:14] Innosanto: But as it turns out, I underestimated how many other people wanted a book just like this. And it took off on its own. And, the rest is history. 

[00:47:22] Miko Lee: So you self-published A is for Activist? 

[00:47:24] Innosanto: Yeah. The first time around I self-published it. I had two pallets of books in my living room, in our community living room and every morning I was packing up books to drop off at the post office and every evening I was getting all the labels printed and all this stuff.

[00:47:41] Innosanto: So it became a bit of a second job. 

[00:47:45] Innosanto: What then happened was after we sold it out, all the books, I had to decide whether I was gonna reprint them myself and keep on doing this. Or if there would be a publisher that wanted to take it on. And I think at that point it was actually 3000 books were sold. I thought that was good proof of [00:48:00] concept and a lot of the bookstores were saying, yeah, you should approach this publisher or that publisher, they’ll be really happy to publish it a lot of people want this book.

[00:48:08] Innosanto: But as it turns out, at the time, self-publishing was seen as the kiss of death for books and no publishers would want to take on a book that had already been self-published. but that’s changed since then and one of the publishing companies that changed that as Seven Stories press, they had published, What Makes A Baby by Corey Silverberg, which was originally self-published. And they were realizing that the fact that something was self-published did not make it something that they couldn’t produce and distribute more broadly. And so they actually took on A is for Activist as well. And all my books have been published by them ever since.

[00:48:45] Miko Lee: That is so interesting. Almost like filmmakers and TV shows that have come off of social media accounts it’s just changing the industry in a way. 

[00:48:54] Innosanto: Yeah, I think there’s been some experiences where the industry is opening its mind a little bit. [00:49:00] Publishing has always been a hard to break into industry with a lot of gatekeepers that represent particular demographics and what they think makes a good book. And I think, one of the positive things that’s come out of people being able to do things like self-publish and Put your work out in the world without going through those gatekeepers, is that we’re discovering that there’s actually a lot of missed opportunities, a lot of really good things that have people are producing that perhaps those experts have somehow, missed.

[00:49:37] Innosanto: And I think that’s been the case in all kinds of media and music as well. So some people like, Maya Christina Gonzalez, who has been working on this field for a long time. She is the author of numerous books on multiculturalism and Gender, and she’s pretty much decided to really promote self-publishing to try to fill the gap [00:50:00] of the missing number of books by and for people of color in America.

[00:50:08] Miko Lee: Who’s that? 

[00:50:09] Innosanto: Maya Christina Gonzalez. OG has been doing it for a long time. 

[00:50:12] Miko Lee: Love it. So I also think it’s amazing that you’ve stayed with the same publisher all of these years and your latest book. The Wedding Portrait, I loved discovering that and one of the things we were talking about at the book club is at what age and how do you start to talk with kids about difficult topics? And I really think the wedding portrait really delves into that. Can you share with our audience what the book is about and what inspired you to create it?

[00:50:42] Innosanto: Yeah, the wedding portrait. Is essentially about direct action and civil disobedience. And why sometimes to make change and pretty much all the time to make change. It requires breaking the rules. And for kids that can be a complicated Topic because they’re being told [00:51:00] to follow the rules all the time.

[00:51:01] Innosanto: And so much of schooling and so much of life is learning how to play by the rules. And yet to make change, we have to be able to identify the times and places when we break the rules. And so that, that book, it came out a few years back right when trump was elected, so we were all expecting that there would be a lot of rule breaking that was gonna have to happen on our side. And I guess to answer your question as to when, it’s gonna be different for different kids depending on what their experience is and what their life situation is. But, the main question here is who is talking to kids about difficult subjects, right? They will be talking about difficult subjects amongst themselves in a schoolyard. They’re gonna be seeing things on tv, they’re gonna be talking to other adults, teachers, and so on. And so the question of how do you approach difficult subjects with [00:52:00] kids, it’s really a question of who do you want to have had those conversations with them first and through these processes, through the times that we’re living in. For me I think it’s when they start having questions and when they start wanting to have these conversations, there’s really not a time that’s too early to be able to address their concerns and question.

[00:52:22] Miko Lee: Thanks. So talk to me about your latest book. 

[00:52:24] Innosanto: Since the wedding portrait there’s been a few I did a middle grade book called M is for Movement, which is set in Indonesia. The way that I talk about my books is, A is for Activist is about the issues, counting on community is about how we live. my night in the planetarium, is about art and resistance and colonialism, and of course I say they’re about these, but those are sort of the underlying themes. But, My night in the planetarium is about a kid. Me, it’s a true story about how growing up under the dictatorship in Indonesia and an experience that I had,[00:53:00] the wedding portrait is about direct action civil disobedience. So it’s about tactics and it stems from a personal experience when my partner, I got married, we went and did a direct action civil disobedience action, and there’s a photograph of that but the broader context of the book is these vignettes about the different types of direct action and civil disobedience and tactics that have been used throughout the history of social justice movements. M is for Movement is kind of like bringing all those things together. And that one’s actually fiction, but it’s about overthrowing the government for children. And that’s a middle grade chapter book. And then after that I did, Oh all the things we’re for, which is very dear to my heart because it’s a lot of these other books are about direct actions civil disobedience, protests, the things that we’re fighting against. But I think it’s really important to also talk about the things that we’re for and the solutions and [00:54:00] the better world that we can envision in terms of democracy, in terms of human rights, in terms of environmental justice. And I feel like we have lots of solutions, but we tend to focus on the problems. And it’s important to have a vision of the possibilities in order to be able to be motivated to fight for change. And then the last book, I didn’t write it, but I illustrated it was written by my friend, Mona Damluji, and it’s called Together. And that’s also board book format. And it’s a bit of a poem about, You’ll have to read it, but, the theme that I think comes up a lot when we’re talking to children about social change is the idea of collective action. But she does it in a way that, that I found really exciting because there’s a lot of really good stories about people coming together to make change. But she does it in a way that is, poetic and accessible.

[00:54:55] Miko Lee: Very exciting. I have M is for movement right by my side here, and I really appreciate you [00:55:00] going into middle school, which I think was a new venture for you, right? To write for middle school age? 

[00:55:06] Innosanto: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, all my books have followed the age of my kids, I basically write for him.

[00:55:13] Miko Lee: Does that mean you’re gonna be working on a high school book coming soon?

[00:55:16] Innosanto: That’s always a possibility. 

[00:55:19] Miko Lee: I also appreciate oh, the things we are for that you’re talking about the irresistible future because it’s hard we get bogged down in the problems without mm-hmm. imagining the beautiful future. So thank you for that. 

[00:55:32] Innosanto: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And you know, I do believe in protest and confronting injustice, and so it’s not an either or, but I do think that we do need both especially for those of us who’ve been in this fight for a long time, I think having the vision is important as well as having the willingness to fight against the problem.

[00:55:52] Miko Lee: Absolutely. It’s a yes and 

[00:55:54] Innosanto: yeah. Yeah. 

[00:55:55] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for spending some time chatting with me. I always sure look [00:56:00] forward to hearing your voice and I so appreciate your art and your contributions. Thank you, Inno. 

[00:56:05] Innosanto: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:56:07] Swati: Thank you so much to Miko for holding this amazing AACRE book club event. the children’s book hour. Thank you to Kim Ko for subbing in last minute and being completely lovely. And thank you to, Innosanto Nagara who came in for a surprise interview. I loved being able to hear about children’s books that impacted everyone, children’s books that they love, and children’s books that they still hope to write.

[00:56:33] Swati: I absolutely agree that you know, no matter how old you are, you are never too old for a picture book, especially if it has a good message. There were of course, a ton of books mentioned in the show today, and even more that weren’t mentioned. We’ll drop a full list into the show notes with links, so please feel free to go to kpfa.org/program/apex-express to check [00:57:00] that out. And of course, as always, we hope that you buy small and local for your nibbling and yourself.

[00:57:06] Swati: Finally, thank you so, so much to East Wind Books now and for always for co-hosting these events with AACRE and allowing Miko a chance to get lost in your shelves and emerge with these treasures. We really hope that you enjoyed these recommendations and strongly encourage you to share your own recommendations with us. 

[00:57:25]  Miko Lee: Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night.

The post APEX Express – 12.22.2022 – Children’s Books at East Wind Bookstore with Ko Kim appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

The post APEX Express – December 15, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

The post APEX Express – December 8, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents Episode #3 

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Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents combines Lisa Lowe’s theories and music from around the world to create intellectually stimulating sonic experience. DJ Miu created this radio show with a mission to spread the message: “Freedom is Yet to Come.” I encourage listeners to take the time to read, write, and resist. We require inoculations that repel the seductions of corporate servitude. Cauleen Smith told us. Starting with reading Lisa Lowe’s writing. Reading is Fundamental. 

Episode #3

This month’s episode features Sault, Irene Cara, and so much more. May Irene Cara transition peacefully. 

Lisa Lowe’s Book: 

In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism. Cop it over at Duke University Press

About the DJ

My name is Paige Chung. I am a writer, skater, poet, and turntablist-in-training. My last project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. Based in LA, but I roll everywhere. I am currently enrolled at the Beat Junkies Institute of Sound. 

Lastly, special shoutout to my DJ crew 730 Faders. Catch us throwing the next best party in LA and coming near you. And my deep study crew Quinnette, Zahara, Discott and the Soul in the Horn family. 

Find me anywhere and everywhere @DJxMIU @paigechung

The post APEX Express – 12.1.22 Intimate Sounds of the Four Continents #3 by DJ Miu appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

This episode highlights Lavendar Phoenix’s Peer Counseling Program. Tonight you’ll be hearing interviews from Iris Yip, Phibi Loc Tran, Madhvi  trivedi-pathak, and Al. 

They launched their Peer Counseling Program back in August 2022 and 

Lavender Phoenix builds transgender, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pacific Islander power in the Bay Area. We inspire and train grassroots leaders, transform our values from scarcity to abundance, and build vibrant intersectional movements.

AACRE Thursdays is monthly radio show featuring an organization from the AACRE: Asian American for Civil Rights and Equality. AACRE Thursdays premiers every third Thursday of the month at 7pm. Find more APEX Express Shows here.

Links:

Lavender Phoenix Transcript:

[11/23/22] Peer Counseling pilot

[00:00:00] Apex express Asian Pacific expression.

Unity and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions, and voices coming to you with Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the apex express. 

[00:00:14] paige: Hello, welcome to acre Thursdays on apex express radio. My name is Paige Chung and tonight we’ll be listening to interviews from lavender Phoenix, an organization of transgender non-binary and queer Asian Pacific Islanders fighting for community safety, healing justice. And sustainable movements in the San Francisco bay area. 

[00:00:33] paige: I’m really excited tonight to showcase lavender. Phoenix is peer counseling program. Tonight. You’ll be hearing interviews from Iris Yip , Phoebe loc tran, Madvi Trivedi-Pathak, and Al, all members of lavender, Phoenix. So they launched their peer counseling program back in August, 2022. And this pilot came out of their trans justice committee’s needs assessment findings called “up to us”. In their findings they found out that trans and nonbinary API people [00:01:00] struggle with mental health and not being able to access, affirming mental health support. So they wanted to create a free mental health healing program that was led by trans Asian Pacific Islander people. And did not involve the police. 

[00:01:13] paige: So about seven plus trans and non binary API planned organized for almost two years to make this pilot happen in August, 2022. So From June to August, 2022, they trained 10 trans and non-binary API counselors. And abolitionists and disability, justice based peer counseling. Using the help of project LETS and Asian-American peer counseling. Then in August, 2022, they held their peer counseling program with eight participants. The majority of the organizers, the counselors and the participants were from the priority groups of lavender, Phoenix, which include the working class, south Asian people, Southeast Asian people, Pacific Islander people and central Asian people. And they chose these groups to prioritize because they’re the most [00:02:00] impacted by systematic oppression in their community. And one participant who receives counseling said, ” both of my peer counselors were so lovely to talk to. And I felt more seen in one session that I have in 10 years of searching for a therapist who could understand my intersectionality.” 

[00:02:16] paige: So we’ll first hear from Iris. Yep. And Mahdavi, and then you’ll hear from Phoebe and I’ll later on. And yeah, we’ll hear about their peer counseling program that they launched and their reflections from it. Here is Iris Yip. 

[00:02:31] Iris: So the first question is about the planning process of the pilot. So thinking about the planning process with peer counseling pilot what do you think has been going well with the process?

[00:02:42] Madhvi: With the planning process? Process? I came in during a later iteration. So by the time that I entered into this space there, several folks through Healing Justice and maybe even other committees that had given their [00:03:00] input.

[00:03:00] Madhvi: So it’s gone through many different folks, many different perspectives have been included in the planning process, and I think that creates a really well-rounded experience. You can tell that there’s a lot of consideration too, on who’s been generally excluded from life spaces where gaining the tools for healing and community support and really trying to center the planning around. Amplifying and creating a space that feels welcoming for folks that are often excluded, even within our large QT API umbrella. It’s nice that this is a trans centered space. This is one that is really trying to honor working class narratives to think that’s a place of invisibilization often. So there’s a lot of thoughtfulness that has been put into the planning process.

[00:03:48] Iris: And what would you say that is the impact of that thoughtfulness and having had so many perspectives be involved in the creation of this?

[00:03:56] Madhvi: I think impact is that when there has been gaps, it does end up [00:04:00] getting filled. There is an abundance of perspectives coming in. So there’s this flow of thoughts that , keep it full , very thoughtful in that way. also the folks who are on, who are in this iteration of the planning and organizing. I’ll come from really interesting, unique backgrounds. So you’re able to see the input from each different person and it gives it a really beautiful, full experience to be able to see the ways in which the curriculums can develop the way in. And the art connecting to the flyers, that was created by a previous summer organizer too. There’s just it’s nice to have a history already, in this mix, being made and so many people being involved. Okay. 

[00:04:45] Iris: And then thinking about the planning process again what has been difficult about the process?

[00:04:50] Madhvi: Since this is a first time pilot program, there’s so much beauty and potential for what seeds are being sewed in this segue of [00:05:00] wanting to make sure things feel. Evenly doable for folks who are the peer counselors in training as well as the people who are on the organizing end and so it’s this chemistry situation where we’re , okay.

[00:05:13] Madhvi: I’m , does this feel too much too soon? Or does it feel not enough? We wanna be able to. Support folks and feeling supported to be able to do this pilot. It’s new for everyone, for the organizers, for the people who are being trained, for the folks that are gonna be receiving the counseling. So there’s a lot of considerations around ethics, safety, holding, these notions of what is safe? What feels the individual, in their agency and autonomy can hold and the organization too. Where are the places where lavender, phoenix, maybe impacted, Are there things around informed consent or if there is some kind of moment things that we’ve had conversations about, it’s okay, what. 

[00:05:53] Madhvi: Someone gets activated a peer counselor’s not able to hold the space or they end up leaving feeling [00:06:00] activated from a session. We were thinking a lot about the chain of support, so how the organizers can support the peer counselors as they’re supporting the people being counseled and then how lavender Phoenix can help the organizers. So it’s just a lot of figuring it out for the first time. . And also peer counseling is really beautiful in this way where it’s separate from the clinical, mandated regulations that maybe counselors who are held by, state laws are in relationship with. 

[00:06:30] Madhvi: So there’s more freedom here. And then also moving through that space. It’s also when we’re in that place of freedom, there’s this underlying, I feel the state tries to instill fear in people who are trying to do this work that you’re gonna fuck up or gonna do something wrong. And it’s really a lot of us being , we actually know what we need to do, how to be able to maneuver out of these state based policies that rely on violence systems and give each other the tools.

[00:06:57] Iris: Okay. And then last question [00:07:00] on the planning process do you have any recommendations for improving the process or

[00:07:05] Madhvi: For the planning process? I think that there’s really great intention to share, if people are feeling. Burnt out overexerted. And also I think that a lot of us, including myself, [laughter], I think from the , I will not really share that when it’s happening, even though the language at Lavender Phoenix and the culture is ask for help when you need it.

[00:07:25] Madhvi: There’s so much of that. And then yet there’s still this feeling of resistance or feeling , Bad about not being able to do more and pushing past, what does feel comfortable I’m wondering if there’s a space for people in the planning process as organizers to kinda anonymously send feedback to staff anonymous feedback survey sort of thing, during the process to kinda gauge. People’s level of feeling energized, exhausted, what maybe is needed.

[00:07:56] Madhvi: And since there are people who are yeah, the working class [00:08:00] end too, of the organizing side. It would be cool if there were stipends. It is a lot of work and labor that goes into it for compensation is a cool thing. And also it’s one of those things too, even saying it feels a guilt twinge or being , this is something where it’s community. We’re doing it for a reason outside. But it’s also the, sometimes it’s hard to be able to do the psych work when our own cups are emp.

[00:08:26] Iris: Yeah. Great. Thank you for sharing the ation. And I think there’s a of the important things there, especially around feedback. Yeah. I think anonymous feedback is to bridge that of job and how difficult it’s my next set of. Is it that the sustainability you talk a little bit about, but I know that the peer counseling team has tried to do a lot of work around making the process sustainable for both the planning team and counsel. So thinking about the sustainability of the process what do you think has worked so far?

[00:08:57] Madhvi: Sustainability wise, it has [00:09:00] been nice to be able to have the larger healing justice committee plug into the efforts. And there’s I think five or six of us who are in the organizing peer counseling side right now, but they’re , Yeah, as I shared before, there have been so many people the earlier iterations of this too. It’s being able to know that you can kinda pass the torch and there’s gonna be other people there. It’s not all of the responsibility is on this group of five or six people. There are so many people who are down to rise to the occasion and support and be here for the next iteration too. I think that’s gonna be something that’s gonna help with. Long term visions of sustainability too, and knowing that there will be breath in between and there’s always consent in the process too, really invitations to kind join into these efforts. Nothing feels, it feels the space to communicate.

[00:09:55] Madhvi: Okay, if it’s when does it end? Are we. ending there. Are we [00:10:00] continuing, it does seem there’s a finite end point for this moment in time, which gives a break and that feels just good to know in terms of future planning and if the invitation to come back to help the pilot program or the program if it wants, if it grows. Something that’s gonna be a larger part, for the future of lavender Phoenix. And there’s that aspect, which is great. Sustainability wise, it’s cool that we’re not, the organizers are not doing all the trainings. I thought that was originally what it was and it felt a lot.

[00:10:28] Madhvi: But we’re able to resource out to people in the community who’ve been doing this work for a really long. Who are living their lives, Project lets folks in that word Stephanie, get to make their living off of doing this amazing disability justice work. And it’s cool to be able to financially support them too in the process of feel sustainable. Even in the way that we’re creating the relationships, new relationships to other orgs that haven’t been part of Lavender Phoenix’s network in the past. So it feels yeah, there’s that way of [00:11:00] being able to be supportive, sustaining other people, other projects, other orgs, utilizing other folks’ knowledge.

[00:11:07] Iris: Yeah. as a follow up to that, what you think the impact has been of outsourcing, the training to project LETS rather than digging it.

[00:11:16] Madhvi: Yeah, The impact has been a really great learning experience, I think for even the organizers doing this too. We get to learn alongside the peer counselors, we get to build relationships with project labs other groups too we’re gonna be doing role play later. I’m forgetting what the acronym starts with aapc. And just being able to these are folks that have been doing peer counseling specifically in Asian American communities, for a good second too. So they have inside guidance, a history, a way to be able to support and navigate and offer their own wisdom. As this specific, lavender, phoenix seed is in its way of sprouting out a peer counseling. So [00:12:00] it’s lovely being able to , have people who’ve been doing this, be able to offer feedback throughout the process to offer guidance that doesn’t , feel one of those things , ah, we’re starting from scratch.

[00:12:10] Madhvi: No, it’s it’s already here. This resource is here and we’re connecting to what is already, and then if, Yeah, making the changes that feel the needed transformation, maybe if it. Spaces haven’t honored trans, non-binary, intersex communities, in the process of centering their spaces, That’s what we’re able to do better. What we’re able to commit to doing better is owning those kinds of spaces and having folks within our own communities getting trained who have lived experience in that way. So just different places, orgs that have lived experience in their own ways, taking the gems and then knowing that our peer counselors have this other lived experience that maybe not as represented in other spaces. They get to add their own little non-binary flare too. Yeah.

[00:12:58] Iris: And then on the flip [00:13:00] side thinking about the sustainability of this project, what do you think could make this process more sustainable?

[00:13:06] Madhvi: It really feels in the future since we’ve already kinda done a lot of the initial connecting, getting the trainings, learnings and understandings, from this experience, going forward it’s gonna be a lot less work on the organizing end since we’ve done a lot of research amongst all the different iterations of folks who have passed through the planning process for this. That there’s just a beautiful database that is growing and growing in so many resources that are growing and growing that it’s feeling very. A tangible vault of okay, this is where we’re gonna go and we know where we’re gonna go. Versus I’m not sure yet. It’s kinda we transgressed into the place of knowing okay, these orgs are here and that helps, that feeling of sustainability and kind shortening, that place of panic of Oh, where do we go? Who do we turn to support us and who can we support to in. . 

[00:13:58] Madhvi: Yeah, and [00:14:00] if we’re able to keep in touch and keep those relationships strong, there may be even more places of connecting and growing and offering. People in not just the live under Phoenix community, but community, but larger communities the ability to access maybe free or, Yeah, free trainings on peer counseling and letting it be more of a widespread so to resource that it’s just a really beautiful thing that folks can tap into feeling that level of agency, that feels self sustainable, too, sustainable for organizations when people , feel they’re equipped.

[00:14:35] Iris: Thank you for your response to that. My last two questions are about the future of the program. So first do you have any thoughts on if we should continue this program after the pilot stage and what would the impact of that be? Whether we do or not?

[00:14:53] Madhvi: I think it would be really wonderful for it to be something that happens.[00:15:00] A few times a year. I know when peer support things do start out, it’s smaller, shorter, and then as people can be more familiar with the process and the comfort of knowing their own agency and holding space, it feels something that it could be in many seasons throughout the year and the space of just.

[00:15:21] Madhvi: Drop in support. It’s something that feels a need that’s always gonna be a need. And it’s also to have free, culturally competent, gender expansive, aware ways of being, in listening in support. That feels a forever healing justice. Home to kinda be able to provide community. It feels important. It seems and fingers crossed, that people who are going through this training program are able to tap in deeper cuz there’s a good handful of folks, I believe 16 people and those folks can be organizers in so many different renditions down the line too, having had [00:16:00] this experience and they’re coming in. Yeah. I’m just so curious to hear their own feedback on this process and what they think future peer counselors would need for it to grow. I’m sure that there’s gonna be maybe more, carefully cultivated, cohort experiences could be a. Powerful experience for folks.

[00:16:19] Madhvi: Cause right now it does feel a little bit looser in the sense of different parts of , the summer organizer. There’s a strong sense of Oh, we’re building relationships with each other. That doesn’t seem it exists so strongly for people who are peer counselors right now, they’re showing. These spaced weekends with minimal contact with each other throughout. So maybe that could be the future, where there’s a more of a cohort experience. Yeah. 

[00:16:44] Iris: Yeah. The last question is, do you have new recommendations for continuing this program beyond the pilot? If it does.

[00:16:53] Madhvi: Yeah, I think this cohort experience would be cool. Maybe art, kinda. Component too [00:17:00] are a, creating a space, it is something that we didn’t really talk about, but there are ways of making virtual s and things that, And that could be really beautiful as part of this. I’m also curious to hear more people’s stories as to why they’re interested in this work. There was a little bit of that in the welcoming but just the ability to know folks a little bit more feels it could be important. And in the spirit of doing that too, it feels the training would maybe need to. be closer in time as well as instead of spaced out over several months.

[00:17:36] Madhvi: I think the spacing out really helped us as the planning team. Yeah. Cause a lot of things have been figured out very as we’re going, even though we tried to plan ahead, things changed. So it’s okay. But that timeline that allows a sense of intimacy and connection to in a way that feels , okay, more concrete. And yeah, I think more interactive aspects too would be [00:18:00] helpful. It does feel a lot of absorbing, which is super important. And also I think when we get to the role play, we’re gonna be able to witness more so of the peer counselors in the process of. Doing the embodied and the relaying aspects of this where Yeah, right now it’s a lot of absorbing, taking in.

[00:18:21] Madhvi: Yeah. I’m also wondering for the peer counselors in their own lives too, the way that , these interview questions have been kinda asking about sustainability. Or the planning team and all of those I’m curious too, for them, how they would need more support from us. If it feels it’s even an open invitation too, I’m not entirely sure if that has been as carefully created and Yeah. So I think that would. An important thing to consider going forward. Just kinda checking in on where the individuals are too in their life and knowing that they can receive support. I , I hope that they know, in our [00:19:00] emails, there is always that space of feel free to, to connect on things anything in the reading feels activating. This is who you can reach out to and so I hope that There in a way that sometimes even when something is there in that way, it doesn’t mean that people are gonna use it if there’s not that trust and rapport built. 

[00:19:19] Madhvi: So I feel needing to have some trust building, relationship building for people to feel safe enough to actually reach out if they dunno folks. Yeah. Okay. And actually I have one follow up to your, It’s about what do you think would be the impact of having a closer connection between the counselor cohort if they had more opportunities to , interact with each other and talk in that way? , I honestly think that it. I’m just thinking about my own cohort experiences in different places. I’ve been able to lean on those folks, maybe more so than the people who are holding the container. There’s a distance between the people who are holding the [00:20:00] container and the people who are going through the process with you, shared experiences, more maybe of the same questions, insecurities, excitement, joy and being able to have that kinda space to know okay, we’re going through this together, this part of the journey. It could just help additional processing that, stronger feeling of grounded in purpose as well. Yeah. 

[00:20:24] Madhvi: Great. And I totally agree, and that’s my question. Yeah. Thank you for talking with me. I’m going to end the recording now.

[00:20:33] paige: All right. That was the first interview with Iris yip and Madvhi. So now we’re going to take a quick music break and listen to queer brown love by Leo Hegde who is on staff. I love under Phoenix. This is queer brown love by Leo Hegde. 

[00:21:00] [00:22:00] [00:23:00] [00:24:00] 

[00:24:20] paige: You just listened to queer brown love by Leo Hegde who is a staff at lavender Phoenix. You are listening to apex express on KPFA 94.1 and [email protected]. Let’s get back into these interviews by lavender Phoenix. And this next interview will be conducted by Iris Yip who will be talking to Al. 

[00:24:41] Iris: This is the first question. What has gone, what has worked well with the training content? 

[00:24:45] al: Yeah, so what has worked really well, I believe is Lavender Phoenix outsourcing the education to those that are actively learning and practicing. Peer [00:25:00] counseling based on their own lived experiences. I think that opportunity to collaborate with project lets created such a in depth and I. Just , how do I say this? Enlightening space for me and my peers to learn and also express curiosity, ask questions in live time with the coordinator of project lets, and process hard emotions and also bring in our own lived experiences and ask for best practices in live time.

[00:25:29] al: So I just, That has been very revolutionary for me because just in multiple learning spaces that I’ve been in from school to workplaces to internships, people tend to cut corners around education. They think that trainings are just trainings PowerPoints, but. I think that learning from guest speakers that are actually within the realm of work, and especially for this work of working with people, I think that this will create influential impacts on each and every peer counselor. 

[00:25:59] al: There’s [00:26:00] no way that I feel this curriculum has been disengaging. It’s been so engaging and so memorable. And I wanna say too, that I’ve been in different peer counseling cohorts and I’ve been trained on this topic area, but the content was ableist, not trauma-informed, controversial and harmful. And the content that peer counseling has been teaching me has been healing me and been helping me to expand my scope on my family, my lived experiences, and myself and my community. And it’s so much more than just a training. It’s a revolutionary space for sure. 

[00:26:40] Iris: Awesome. Yeah. I love that. Has there been any, specific part of the training that you can share that you think has had that impact on you? 

[00:26:47] al: Has that healing impact on me? Yeah I think that I’ve. I think this might be normal in lavender, phoenix spaces, but it’s not normal for me in my other spaces in my everyday life. [00:27:00] But calling one selves in to whenever they misspoke for instance, one time the coordinator of Project LETS had said something about the word darkness and they had not caught themselves about the racist implications that, that may have because of the just how society binary things, black, white, darkness and light. And there’s a lot of connotations around the words you use and using mindful language. And I didn’t know that it was. Irking, I didn’t know that. But then in that space, someone called them in and the speaker corrected themselves. 

[00:27:34] al: And I got to watch, someone that I look up to model behavior in lifetime of what I’m learning as they’re learning and seeing my educators , or my mentors facilitators, having that student always mentality too, that they’re here to learn from us as well. That’s groundbreaking because I have so much respect for queer elders cuz they’ve lived through so much stuff. But the fact that. The queer [00:28:00] elders in this space in particular want to learn from us, the youth in this space. I think that’s what’s really healing, because in this space, I just see a world where I really actually wanna live in. And that could make me cry because the state of the world outside of the space is really ugly.

[00:28:16] Iris: That’s amazing. I’m really glad this training has given me that space. I really resonated with what you said about being an environment where there’s, again, mutual sense of learning and wanting to learn from each other. I think that curiosity really helps bring an open mind to these kinds of spaces. 

[00:28:30] Iris: Okay. The next question is, so I think you’ve touched on this already, but what do you think has been the impact? Of outsourcing this, people that are really, I guess doing the work of anti ableist behavior and anti-racism, culturally competent peer counseling. What is the impact of that being in this kind of training?

[00:28:47] al: I think that it’s resistance in the making and movement in the making. I think that I feel very lucky to have access this knowledge because not everyone gets the chance to learn what [00:29:00] happens when someone’s under psychiatric arrest? That’s something that you will hear more about when you go through the project lETS training, but understanding. Because I’m coming from a place of privilege where I’ve never been 51 50 that I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never been on the inside doors of a psychiatric treatment facility. So speaking from that point of view and hearing from someone who has, and the harm that the state has on patients and how vulnerable patients are, I feel like that creates movement and solidarity with people who do not have lived experiences with it, but know people who have lived experiences with it and see how fucked up it is and wants to do something better and provide alternative sources and resources for care, specifically community care because .

[00:29:48] al: One of the main reasons why I’m so politicized is because growing up I watch my dad struggle to get the mental health access care he needs because he has severe [00:30:00] mental psychosis that relapses annually. And I believe that the reason why it happens so repetitively and cyclically is because there’s a need that’s not being met and that need should met by the healthcare system in this first world country. But it’s so inaccessible. It’s so culturally irrelevant and dare say it’s harmful, it’s abusive, it’s traumatizing. And so Okay. I’m going on tangents, but it’s, it, I never understood what happened when my dad was hospitalized because I was always on the outside.

[00:30:32] al: I was always his caretaker, wanting to find him a source for him to get care. But He was never able to really communicate to me what was happening on the inside of those doors because of language barriers, because how hard it is to talk about these things in Vietnamese culture. It’s just, there’s so much that separates us from being able to talk about everything he feels and everything he experiences.

[00:30:51] al: There’s just not words to describe how bizarre the state of there is in this country and neglect that he’s faced due to war and [00:31:00] colonization. He doesn’t have the words to describe what he’s going through, but I can see the effects and now I know the effects. I know I have the knowledge and education of what happens behind those hospital doors and how he spends hours and hours trying to pay his hospital bills that are bizarre.

[00:31:16] al: Hundreds of thousands of dollars and so I know these things now because of the space that I hear from other people. And I think that in knowing this, I’m fired up, I’m heated and I, my drive is to build community. My drive is to build actual healing spaces that, we have the potential to create as a collective. And I just don’t wanna rely on the state anymore. And I want better for my dad. I want better for me, I want better for our community Now, future past, I. We can do better now with these tools that we’re learning in this space and how we’re opening our hearts to each other through the various pains and barriers that, that the state is trying to keep in between us all. Yeah. 

[00:31:58] Iris: Yeah. Thank you for [00:32:00] sharing both so vulnerably and so passionately. Oh, no, I really love the way you are always very reflective in what you say. And I think it gives such great knowledge that I can learn from too yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Oh my God, this is great. Okay. My next question is do you think there’s any other additional trainings that you would find helpful or that you think you would to learn more about that hasn’t been met yet?

[00:32:25] al: Yeah. So I actually went to. Bystander Intervention training led by the Safety Committee, Community Safety Committee. I feel that should have been everyone who’s training to be a peer counselor should have gone to that. I feel because it was so relevant. It was basically one thing in particular that I feel , just related so much is because they gave us real life scenarios. What would you do if someone was experiencing active psychosis in the park? What would you do with your body? What would you do with yourself? Would you get other people? All these things that are relevant practice for what’s coming up in this training. [00:33:00] Cuz I know that looking forward we are going to have a pilot program and the more practice that we can get, especially role play practice and especially being in person with one another and establishing those connections with one another, I think that’s so crucial and yeah I, Does that answer your question?

[00:33:19] Iris: Yeah, definitely. And once again, the follow up. What do you think the impact of that would be if everybody that was becoming a peer counselor would take that kind of bystand training? 

[00:33:27] al: Yeah, I think that the effect of that is that we would be able to reach more people who have various learning styles because I know that for me personally, it’s hard for me to learn through Zoom because I don’t have a safe space to be taking my meetings. I still live in my parents house and it’s really hard for me to focus sometimes and feel entirely safe. So having spaces in person for me personally is a space for me to exhale. And be a different type of present cuz I’m with people and [00:34:00] I’m sharing space — space that is established and intentionally safe or encouraged to push you to be brave.

[00:34:08] al: I don’t know if everyone will feel safe there, but that’s definitely the intention. And just for me personally, yeah, being on Zoom kind of you can’t assume that everyone can learn that way, yeah. As effectively, especially since I feel the generation that’s primarily in lavender, Phoenix and the training, we grew up going to school in person. That’s the probably 90 to 95% of the experience. It was just such a shift and learning these super relevant topics. All the while I’m in a space that’s far back in terms of. It’s just being in this house is going back in time or just being in spaces that are not lavender, phoenix it is, you’re going back in time.

[00:34:44] al: Racism is there, homophobia is there, all the bad things are there. But when you’re with lavender Phoenix, you’re just I’m in this new world that I actually have hope in. I was saying earlier, so having a central location for people to meet would be so cool. But I also know that Lavender Phoenix is so spread across the Bay area, [00:35:00] which is so cool. So I know it wouldn’t work for everybody, but I don’t know. Yeah.

[00:35:04] Iris: Yeah. Absolutely . 

[00:35:06] al: Oh, another thing too, an impact that I, a positive impact is that having those scenarios will allow us to practice these skills with various demographics and various sectors of our lives and just honestly live by what we learn. And not just practice it in work, but actually apply it and externally and internally in all facets of our lives, which I think is awesome. That’s what education should be. It’s for liberating the soul and for liberating the people. It’s, yeah, it’s not for a grade, it’s not for a Certifi certificate. It’s for you, and for the people. So I think that getting opportunities to practice with one another and treating it , it’s more than just a training that you can just click through, that’s the difference I think. Yeah. 

[00:35:48] Iris: Yeah. Totally. Awesome. Okay, so next question is going to be moving a little bit away from the training content into, so I know the peer [00:36:00] counseling team has been doing a lot of work to try to make this process sustainable for both the planning team and for the counselors. So thinking about sustainability have there been things that, you’ve seen this program do that you think has worked to make this process more sustainable for the counselors?

[00:36:17] al: Have I seen anything that makes the process seem sustainable for, Is that the question?

[00:36:24] Iris: Yeah.

[00:36:24] al: Remind me again is this peer counseling training program, has it been through generations already? Or is this the first cohort? 

[00:36:31] Iris: This is the first time. 

[00:36:32] al: Have I seen anything that

[00:36:34] al: let’s see. I think it’s been. I think it’s too soon for me to say cause I missed the first meeting because. It was an awkward transition. I had just joined Lavender Phoenix when Lavender Phoenix changed their name. So I missed all the information for the first meeting. I don’t know what it, what the community building aspect that they had planned was at all. And that’s how me, I could have watched the training back, but [00:37:00] it was an hour long and I didn’t want to. Yeah, I would also feel fomo. I was , Oh, I missed it. I wasn’t there. I think that maybe. No, I don’t know how to answer this question cuz I missed 

[00:37:09] Iris: Yeah, that’s OK . That’s ok. Yeah. Then perhaps, is there anything you can think of that Loud could implement to make this process more sustainable? And thinking perhaps in the long run. When this pilot program is actually started now and people are doing the counsel sessions. 

[00:37:25] al: Yeah. I have a couple of things. Yeah. I would say since I missed the first one, I would say that I just wanna get to know people in my cohort better. I think that One thing that works in the past in my other peer counseling programs was that I established a feeling of familiarity with the people that I was learning with and why they’re here and stuff that. And had a lot of focus groups and we practiced on each other for role play. Yeah, feeling less alone in this would definitely make this more, less nerve-wracking. So there’s that for [00:38:00] sustainability of just cause the way that these meetings roll on, I feel not everyone can make it out to each one. So I think time should be cut away for folks to just get to know each other more besides the why are you here? But just prompt questions.

[00:38:12] al: I know Lavender Phoenix can, ask some heartfelt questions and get people to open up to one another because I think that making that making it more personable will make it more sustainable. Cause, when you don’t have a connection to people in a group, I don’t think you’re as likely to return and hold significance for it. So yeah, build building community in that way and not just for meeting. And other thing is I noticed that our meetings are quite sporadic. So I don’t even really remember what I’ve the last time I met with the cohort, so having a more consistent pattern of meetings so that the knowledge that I learned can be processed and then added onto, but there’s been so much processing time that I’ve almost forgotten it already.

[00:38:52] al: So just having more consistent meetings for the next cohorts maybe and then for another, I know that since this [00:39:00] is a pilot program, there may be a lot of pressure around building curriculum. So I understand that’s really challenging and I would say I would love to be a part of the planning process. I don’t know what that would look for Lavender Phoenix and how they do things, but maybe their next court around you can have alumnis come back and be a part of the planning and the conversation. Or even right now opening up this space or opening up spaces for people in the cohort to provide active feedback since there are so many gaps between meetings, just talk to us so we can improve as we go, as opposed to wait and then improve. So more dialogue.

[00:39:37] Iris: I love that. I love feedback. I think it’s important as well. Okay and then now last question. Moving gone. Woo. You already shared some of this, but also thinking about the future of this program, do you have any recommendations for continuing this beyond the pilot that we’re going to have? 

[00:39:52] al: Yeah, please have more cohorts. That’s my feedback. , I think that if Lavender Phoenix has capacity, a cohort a year would be [00:40:00] awesome or I feel very blessed to have had this opportunity, so I want it to keep going. I can’t remember the days in which we were meeting, but having weekend meetings are awesome for students and people who work. Other feedback that I have for longevity and future planning maybe expand the, I don’t know how many people are planning the thing, but maybe more support would help. I have no idea if they’re struggling or what, but yeah, making sure that, cuz this is tough work. It’s a lot of pressure to be birthing such a beautiful generation, So I hope that, on the other end of things, people are being properly supported and taken care of in terms of each other and themselves.

[00:40:37] Iris: Yeah. Yeah, I the, there’s one more question. There’s just the follow with always the impact. So what do you think? So what will be the impact? And just what will be the impact of program, of peer counseling will be impact. 

[00:40:49] al: Intergenerational community care within the, when this, within this queer, trans, non-binary, a API community I think it starts [00:41:00] here and I could see this being a force that spreads across the world. I think what we’re doing is historical and we’re carrying on other history legacies, And I think ultimately this saves lives. It saves lives of the people in this space, people who know the people in this space, and people that are in the space that we haven’t even met. And it preserves our peoples, our stories and our powers and our energies. I’m getting emotional as to how much I love this program. It saves lives, it sets people free.

[00:41:33] al: Yeah. Damn, you’re not a cry. Yeah. I think the impact is be out of this world, I don’t want it to end, I wanna return. I wanna keep learning. I think that’s another thing too, is that as someone is in the core right now, I don’t want it to end. I’d hate to see it end. I wanna keep learning. Yeah. So what does that look ? I don’t know. Maybe I can return and facilitate and learn from people in the cohort. That would be beautiful. 

[00:41:58] Iris: Thank you. Truly [00:42:00] amazing. And I agree from am I involvement in this process too? I really see the power of it and I really, the learning. Community. It’s great. It’s amazing. It’s . So good. Yeah, With that, I’m gonna stop recording now. 

[00:42:15] paige: All right. That concludes the second interview from lavender Phoenix. We’ll be taking a short break. You’re listening to 94.1 KPFA San Francisco, 89.3, Berkeley 88.1, Fresno and 97.5 in Santa Cruz. And of course, [email protected]. 

[00:46:56] paige: You’re listening to 94.1 KPFA San Francisco, 89.3, Berkeley 88.1, Fresno and 97.5 Santa Cruz and [email protected]. We’re going to listen to the last interview from lavender Phoenix. That includes Iris yip interviewing Phoebe. And talking about the peer counseling program that they launched in august of 2022. 

[00:47:26] Iris: So the first question our first set of questions has to do with the planning process for this pilot. And in thinking about the planning process for the peer counseling pilot, what would you say has been going well with the process? 

[00:47:44] Phibi: Yeah. For what’s been going well with the process? It’s been nice that we’ve been able to go at our own pace and capacity, and we’ve also had lot of different learning lessons among the team that our time together. And also helping Jasmine as a staff person just check in with us from time to time has also helped [00:48:00] consolidate our ideas and moving out the process.

[00:48:02] Iris: Great. And on the other hand, what would, what do you think has been difficult about the planning process? 

[00:48:08] Phibi: Yeah, what’s been difficult about the process is that there’s actually been a lot of timeline shifts. For example, the pilot was intended to happen a one day, and then it was pushed back and then push back again. And that main thing that dragged out the process, which can be training in some context. Yeah. And then also what’s been difficult is yeah, how the healing justice members involved in contributing Yeah. Cuz we weren’t sure how to exactly even implement a process for folks outside of the peer counseling team in healing Justice can to support us. And it’s also because, it’s a novel process. It’s just. Staff guided, on the side rather than a directly staff involved process. And making this part from scratch presents a lot of difficulties on the first time. 

[00:48:46] Iris: Speaking on it’s staff guided rather than staff involved. I think it’s a, you said what do you think is the impact of that rather than that, the other way of doing it? 

[00:48:56] Phibi: Yeah I think one of the positive impacts is that it takes some weight [00:49:00] off of the staff. Cause the staff carry on a lot of different responsibilities. And it helps them in that sense. And also it allows more spaciousness for different folks in the planning team to actually take on leadership in the context of makes sense for them, but passively rather than turning to the staff person for the next step, it’s actually up to us to continue the process and then refer to them if we need support along the way.

[00:49:19] Iris: Yeah. Great. Okay. And then, so think about the planning process question, which is, do you have any recommendations for improving the planning process? Maybe for now or for later? 

[00:49:33] Phibi: Yeah, I think. Some recommendations would be to have the staff challenge us with more kinda push or challenging questions. I think I think during the time when Yuan was still the staff member for for counseling, it was someone would ask some really deep questions and I think that really helped us certify our values and also helped us stay on track. So I think times questions that challenge us I guess we wanna do this, but also , why are we doing this important? What is the meaning of it? Yeah. Yeah. And then we also kinda implementing a more formal [00:50:00] process. I think one example would be , Mocha could be a good process or just Or when we first had the pilot, when we first had the planning team set up, it’s oh, we didn’t actually have to have a structure. It was unstructured. And so having a more structured thing in the future would be helpful. And then also listing out all the different resources and contacts that we actually have, including different community organizations is helpful. And I guess if there’s a second iteration of the peer counseling project or pilot, I guess program would be referring back to previous year’s work if this could, if this goes on for multiple years yeah.

[00:50:30] Iris: Yeah. Great. Okay. Next of questions to do around the sustainability of, so I know that the peer counseling team was doing a lot of work around making the process sustainable for both the planning team and the counsel. So thinking about the sustainability of this process, what do you think has worked?

[00:50:48] Phibi: Yeah. Something we recently done is that we actually changed our monthly meetings from the duration of one hour to the duration of an hour and 30. And this actually allowed us to have longer checkins and actually do more relationship building. [00:51:00] Because back when we had just one hour meetings, it just felt really rushed.

[00:51:03] Phibi: We had to check in super quick and then we had to do all our action items and it just felt very , limiting. And so that definit. And also recruiting more Pennington numbers definitely gave us more capacity and also more d and more experiences of folks coming in. And also having deeper and honest conversations or check-ins about the process.

[00:51:21] Phibi: Where are we at? How is our capacity? Doing those type of checkings and finding the balance of , where. We should split up and do certain tasks or we should all, all come together to work on. I think that’s a good balance to help those. Yeah. And so what do you think is the impact of having I guess longer and deeper, check-ins?

[00:51:39] Phibi: Yeah I think having, longer check-ins allows you to settle into the space. Can be coming from anything before. And so I haven’t had a deeper check in can be more real about what, where is your capacity at? And what can you more realistically take on? Yeah.

[00:51:52] Phibi: All right. So thinking about the sustainability of this process again, what do you think could be done to make this [00:52:00] process more sustainable? Yeah. To make this process more sustainable? I’d say having a more solidified structure and action plan, and also making sure that we all feel really grounded in our values. And then also I check in on those values, do they still feel good? Do we change? Do we change anything? Add anything. And. Lesson that we learned was , you really have to do relationship building early on. . And it’s you can’t just put just the work first because then everyone will burn out. If you only do work, you need to check the balance. I wish. And something that we experimented with was working sessions. So outside of the meetings have additional time just to just chill and also do work and also just get to know each other.

[00:52:36] Iris: Okay. Let’s see. So next one, next set of questions is about the training content. What is thinking about the training content, is there anything that you think has worked really well in terms of the training that the counselors have been given and the peer counseling team has created?

[00:52:53] Phibi: For the training content, we actually leaned a lot in the different community organizations that were in contact with. For example, the Asian [00:53:00] American peer counseling. We pulled some of their readings from the reading library to help us do work to figure out what the readings for the counselors. We both found their library and also with Project let’s we we’re in contact with them and we able to purchase the training for the ERs and also invite Stephanie from project lets to do a debrief, which is really nice. But also cost the budget too. And so for costed money as well.

[00:53:22] Phibi: So having a balance of something that would cost money and also something that would be free as well, such as Asian American food concert, the time and also. Having a good mix of experiences and knowledge from the depend team. I know that some other folks are , they’ve done peer counseling before, or they even are therapists in training.

[00:53:37] Iris: That’s really important. Makes sense. Little more project labs this outside. And what it aepc those outside organizations that you’ve worked with. What do you think is an impact of kinda outsourcing some of that training to other organizations rather than having peer counsel team develop everything on their own?

[00:53:54] Phibi: Yeah, I think impact one of the financial aspect of oh, you have to pay a good amount for project lots. And also but it did [00:54:00] also take some. Some pressure off of the team to to do more of 

[00:54:03] Phibi: for example, I think crisis training is difficult and so I think having outsourcing that made things a lot easier. And working with folks who , have had real, hands on experience in the field before, which is why I’ll talk about outsourcing think was helpful. We do have a balance.

[00:54:17] Phibi: We have. Training session. That’s just us. Yeah.

[00:54:20] Iris: Okay. And then is there any additional training that you think maybe would’ve been helpful to include? Or it would be helpful to include in the future? Yeah. 

[00:54:30] Phibi: Oh, and then I actually have one more answer for the previous question as well. 

[00:54:33] Iris: Sorry. Yeah. Go for it.

[00:54:34] Phibi: Yeah. And then also outsourcing to other organizations helps build relationships, with the other organizations too, for example, Asian American for counseling, they actually I think they were in the process trying to help other organizations start for counseling. And so it was kinda mutually beneficial and it didn’t feel transactional and I felt I genuine to do this with them. And then to go back to the current question about what additional training would be helpful yeah, I think rather than outsourcing to have a [00:55:00] direct hands on training us with knowledge that we have I think that would be cool. And then also some somatic training or for example, How do you self-regulate your body when you’re triggered? Those type of practices meditation or movement, I think those can help dreams. 

[00:55:13] Iris: Awesome. Great. Okay. And these are the last set of questions. And this is thinking about the future of the program. So first do you think we should continue the program? What would the impact be if we did or if we didn’t?

[00:55:26] Phibi: I think we should continue the program. I think the only limiting factor is budget for training and just fast of the planning team at the time. I think, excuse me, I think it’s hard to gauge how future peer counseling programs would be , because this palette took more than. I think two years to implement. And so for example, the next one would just be , it would just be ready to go probably a year, less than a year, season for example. And so it would take less time to do it. And so it would actually would be easier to continue the program I think cause we have the foundation already set up and would just be revising over time.

[00:55:58] Phibi: I think in terms of more specific [00:56:00] impact, we’d be. We to get to train more and more folks at Lavender Phoenix. And it could even be in a similar way to how there’s seasonal fundraising where folks get trained every season ish. And so eventually, if folks wanted to, good number of folks at Lavender Phoenix could be trained in prayer counseling at some point, which is really cool. And also it helps us meet our healing justice goal. And it also accomplish the task of Supporting community members along the way.

[00:56:25] Iris: Awesome. Ok. And then my last question is, do you have any recommendations for continuing this program beyond the pilot? 

[00:56:33] Iris: Yeah. Yeah, I think as I said, the seasonal format probably be good. But the key difference would. This pilot actually only has one session with a participant. But in the future, I think it would be great to have more than one session, multiple sessions. And impact of that would be , they see their pre more often or Yeah, more than once. Yeah, because you can’t just settle everything in just one session. Usually that consistency is really helpful for folks. 

[00:56:54] Iris: Yeah. Okay. Do you have anything else that you would to say? Any of these questions? 

[00:56:59] Iris: I’m good. 

[00:56:59] Iris: [00:57:00] Awesome. Okay, then will stop the right now.

That concludes our episode if you want to organize alongside lavender Phoenix, you can join us. Follow us at L a V p H O E N I X laugh Phoenix on Instagram and find us at lavender, phoenix.org.

[00:57:19]  Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee Jalena Keane-Lee and Paige Chung and special editing by Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the KPFA staff for their support have a great night. 

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