Asian American Media Activism: Addressing Culture, Citizenship, and Coloniality

(people chattering) - Hi everyone. I'd love to get started since we have an amazing panel, amazing speaker. We have a lot to get through, so I wanna make sure that we have a lot of room for that, and room for your questions at the end. So I'd love to just kick this off, and welcome you to our event tonight, Asian American Media Activism, Addressing: Culture, Citizenship, and Coloniality. Thank you all so much for coming tonight, and spending your time on a Thursday with us. A really special than

k you to our co-sponsors, the Asian Pacific American Institute and the Center for Multi-Cultural Education and Programs, and a lot of gratitude to the MCC event staff, especially Dov and Carlisa, and also Ameda from the AP Institute, who has worked with us on this event, and who's also graciously hosting us tomorrow for a follow-up workshop on Media Strategies To Solidarity. To kick us off, I'd like to introduce Dr. Paula Chakravartty, and this was here, professor here at the MCC, and also at th

e Gallatin School For Individualized Study. - Hey, well, welcome everyone. It's great to see such a great turnout, although, I feel a little mixed since this is supposed to be the Day Without Immigrants, but I suppose we're not buying anything, right? So we're just here to talk about the issues that are being raised by that action and many more. I'm just briefly gonna introduce the thematics of this workshop in a way. When Rachel and Kiran, who by the way, we should thank for organizing this won

derful (applauding drowns out speaker). Wonderful graduate students, and we're very lucky to have them in MCC and NYU. Important as intellectual presence, but also in terms of their political and social, you know, the work that they do all around. Okay, so when Rachel and Kiran invited Izra and myself to think about a conference on Asian American media activism, it seems like it was a lifetime ago, a lifetime before the reality of the Trump presidency on the horizon, on discussions about what me

dia activism and Asian American studies communities might mean at that time was constituted differently, I would say. The current political crisis around immigration, deportation, and institutional xenophobia, institutional Islamophobia raises the stakes of this conversation, as I'm sure all of us are well aware. When I think about what that means, in terms of Asian American studies and Asian American media activism, some questions that come to mind, is how do we think through and strategically

respond to the co-constituent violence that makes up the current legislative and security state lead attacks on, quote/unquote, "Muslims and Mexicans"? What is the responsibility of Asian American study, scholars, and activists given our long colonial history of differential citizenship? It seems like this is the time to expand on horizons more than ever. We need to expand our conversation and action, in terms of thinking about a transnational solidarity, so open borders, the call for sanctuary

university cities and states. I think some of the conversation today will be on cultural citizenship, and what cultural citizenship means at a time when people's material access to citizenship is being challenged in very real ways. So I think one maybe framing question for us to think about tonight, is what is the relationship between the realm of culture, the fight at the realm of culture? Which, you know, many can say that we have won, but perhaps we have lost other fights in this country, and

other fights that we haven't paid maybe as much attention to as we should. Also, in terms of expanding our horizons of what Asian America, Asian Americaness is, is perhaps the need to think, we'll, in a sense, West, right? We need think about the rationalization of our Muslim brothers and sisters in this country and beyond. We need to think West geographically, from South Asia to West Asia, and there's no reason why Arab Americans, South Asians, you know, Middle Eastern and North African commun

ities should not be part of our conversation, right? Those worlds have to come together. I just wanna close my brief comments here with just one specific reference, and this is to the issue of sanctuary in this very place at NYU. So NYU is one, is a university, that unlike 60 plus universities in this country, has not signed on to be a sanctuary campus, and I wanna just think about what that means, and I think it does get to issues around legal and cultural notions of citizenship. Our president,

President Hamilton, has made many gestures, positive, in response to the Trump administration's racist and xenophobic policies, and that's a good thing. However, the university has refused to declare itself a sanctuary campus, saying essentially, that it is doing everything but naming sanctuary. So I guess I'd like us to think a little bit about what it means to name a place sanctuary. How does that change the relationship to intuitions to the relationship between institutions with power? Like

NYU, a wealthy, private institution, part of New York City, to its vulnerable populations and public. Those issued sanctuary campus cities and state speaks to contestations over cultural, symbolic, and material meetings of citizenship. Here at NYU, vulnerable members of the NYU community are perhaps even more acutely aware of the legal, and other uncertainties attending their status than the rest of us, and are conscious that NYU's declaration is not legal reassurance that there is a distinction

between NYU's authority and federal authority. This is what's always said in response to sanctuary, which is it's meaningless, because, you know, what does it really mean in practice? However, they are aware that their vulnerabilities lie not only through direct federal action, but also in the broader climate of aggression and prejudice that it enables even within institutions like NYU. Some of you probably know this, but last week, NYU students for Justice in Palestine received an email target

ing their Muslim and Arab members, threatening to disclose their members' immigration status, their immigration statuses, their religious affiliation, and other personal information to US and Israeli federal agencies. Just as the executive orders transmitted a message condoning and empowering such actions, NYU's declaration of a sanctuary campus will transmit a much needed counter-message of solidarity and support for the most vulnerable members of the NYU community. To choose not to send that m

essage will be equally telling. The need for vocal and unequivocal articulation of that support has never been more urgent, but the decision not to declare itself a sanctuary campus suggest an equivocation even if unintended. And so in a sense, I wanted to bring this up, because I think that the, our academic conferences at this moment, this particular moment, have an urgency that we need to ground in the politics in which we are embedded today. So thank you very much, and if you wanna know more

information about the sanctuary campus campaign, contact me, contact Rachel and Kiran, who have been really involved. Thank you. - Our event will begin with a short talk by Dr. Lori Kido Lopez, with responses by Dr. Isra Lee, Assistant Professor at MCC, and Rachel, a doctoral student here. Then we will transition our panel with Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Diane Wong, Christina Xu, and Thanu Yakupitiyage. Without further ado, let me introduce Dr. Lori Kido Lopez. Lori is an assistant professor of medi

a and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also affiliate faculty in the Asian American Studies Program and the Department of Gender and Women Studies. Her work exams how Asian Americans use digital media in their fight for social justice, and her first book that came out last spring is "Asian America Media Activism: Fighting for Colonial", excuse me, "Cultural Citizenship", which looks at how Asian American activists have used online spaces and tools to organize prote

sts against racism in entertainment industries. We're selling books in the back. She is also the co-editor of the "Routledge Companion to Asian American Media", and the founder of the National Race and Media Conference. Please welcome Lori. - So thank you to you all for coming, and thank you so much to Rachel and Kiran for putting this event on. I am really excited to connect with everyone on this topic, and really looking forward to our panel discussion tonight. So in my comments today, I'm gon

na give some brief thoughts on how Asian Americans have organized to shift norms around media production, representation, and interpretation. And in particular, I wanna talk to about, what I'm calling, contradictory activism, or the idea that we often struggle to reach ideological unity when addressing complicated problems, such as representational racism, or how to effect changes in media industries. So I'm just gonna give a few examples about disagreements that I've seen between different acti

vist collectives. In doing so, I hope to gesture more broadly toward what makes media activism, but really all kinds of activism difficult, and to help guide us toward developing new interventions and strategies for moving Asian American activism forward. Okay, so first, let's talk about what it is we're tryin' to change. In my work, I've been focused on the question of how Asian Americans have come together to try to improve representation in entertainment media. This issue of representation, o

f course, extends much more broadly beyond entertainment media. We can and should be concerned with Asian American representation, in terms of political leadership, in journalism, and news media, in academia, in every arena of public life where the few come to speak for the many, and which historically excluded Asian Americans. And nowadays, when our civil liberties are being violently stripped away, talking about a sitcom, or a silly YouTube video might seem frivolous or irresponsible, but this

is not the case. On the contrary, it's more important than ever to continue thinking deeply about the fictions that we get lost in, the fantasy worlds we retreat to, the images that make us laugh and cry, that enrage and inspire us. Popular culture connects with us as the level of affect, and the potential to speak across so many of the divisions that separate us into mutually exclusive silos on our Facebook feeds. But this is exactly why we should be talking about how something like the movie

La La Land, which has been critically acclaimed, but is feeding into a nostalgic longing for an all White fantasy, can be so dangerous. This is why we need to sharpen our tools for analyzing media representations, as well as the political, and economic forces that support media production and distribution. In my research, I've worked to identify some of the different realms where Asian Americans are strategically organizing to combat the racism that has so long left Asian Americans voiceless and

subordinated. It has always been the case that filmmakers of color, who focus on stories about their own specific communities face an uphill battle for recognition and professional success. Asian Americans have always been rare within the realm of film and television, where they're still limited by a bamboo ceiling. And you may have seen recent articles, like this one in the New York Times, trying to make this very old form of racism seem new. Like oh, we've never noticed this before. That's ne

wsworthy. We know that's been going on for forever. Asian Americans have always been fighting for visibility. So we know these things to be true, and I think we fixate a lot on these problems, on making sure people understand that these problems exist, that we need to document them, and name them. But what are we doing about these problems, and is it making a difference? So there are a lot of answers to this question, and I found that those who are engaged in this particular battle often have wi

ldly varying and contradictory positions and strategies. So let's dig into them. My first example is about Mindy Kaling, and her show, "The Mindy Project". So this show premiered in 2012 on FOX. Obviously, groundbreaking for having a South Asian woman as the star, but also working behind the scenes, writing, sometimes directing, show running. Oops, let's go back forward. So this way. So the show was canceled in FOX in 2015, but then immediately picked up on Hulu, by Hulu, and then now it's in it

s 5th season on Hulu. So as some of you are probably aware, a lot of the conversation surrounding Mindy Kaling has been critical. One of the big reasons for this is that these are the kinds of men that she dates on the show. So basically, she never dates men of color, and particularly, not Asian men. So the show is specifically focusing on the love life of this Indian woman, but the only pairings that we see are between Mindy and White men. And then, in terms of politics, the show veers from bei

ng kinda mildly apolitical to having Mindy actually seem pretty conservative, and even a little racist herself, with very little connection to other minorities. So let's look at two contradictory responses to the show. So first we have traditional media activism organizations, such as the Media Action Network for Asian Americans. They have their logo, and then a protest that they were putting on. So this kind of organization often focuses very single mindedly on the issue of eradicating stereoty

pes. They're always fighting to challenge common stereotypical portraits of Asian Americans, and they champion representations that they think are stereotype busting. So when watchdog groups noticed that a show was redefining the stereotype that Asian women are only interested in White men, they were extremely critical. This kind of imagery has, of course, historically contributed to the emasculation and oppression of men of color as if they are not worthy partners for Asian men, for Asian women

, and Asian women are left positioned as merely prizes to be won by, who is usually, a White male lead. They also noticed, that Mindy, as the only Asian or South Asian colored, person of color in a episode, doesn't ever talk about facing racism, which kinda helps to propagate ideologies that people of color don't have communities that they care about, or that racism is easily overcome, and doesn't affect the lives of people of color anymore. They would say that we should demand images that refle

ct our diverse communities and our real struggles. But we can contrast this condemnation and criticism with a different response from activists who work within Hollywood and the television networks, to actually create policies, and institute programs that will change the way that film and television are made. So on the one hand, we have these activists who are standing outside of the studio protesting, and then there are those who align themselves with content producers, and try to shift represe

ntations from the inside. And this is to not to say that there's no overlap between these positions, or it's sometimes not the same groups that are doing both, but I do wanna note that it's a different strategy. These are distinct strategies. And there have been many efforts made by Asian American activists over the years to try to encourage television networks to increase minority hiring at all levels, including as writers, and directors, and producers, right? All the behind the scenes roles, n

ot just what's represented on screen. Of course it's the case that we want to see more Asian Americans in a position of power to be able to tell their own story, and influence the direction of the narrative, and in order for that to happen, we need to see an increase in talent recruitment and training since we just can't expect new minority talent to appear out of nowhere. So activists fought to institute diversity programs, like NBC's Diverse Staff Writers Initiative, which was actually where M

indy Kaling got her start, and was able to write for "The Office", and launch her career. So it's incredibly significant that this woman of color has been given so much power to tell the kinds of stories she wants to tell, and we should not require her to tell a certain kind of story, the kind that we deem authentic, as if such an authenticity actually exists. Hopefully you can see my noting these bullet points of arguments. Many activists are afraid that if Asian Americans are given a chance an

d they fail, they'll never be given an opportunity like this again. So this kinda support is actually vital to the cause. For instance, after, there's this show, the NBC show, "Outsourced", which was about South Asians. It came out in 2010, and it was kind of criticized for being a little bit stereotypical, then it was canceled after only one season. And there was this fear then there would never be another show like this. We would never have a show that had a predominantly South Asian cast, and

we haven't had one in the last six years, right? So this is the reason why there's these fears about that kind of criticism. So many Asian American activists are celebrating the success of Mindy Kaling's show, and are begging the networks to let her continue in this position of power, which remains exceedingly rare outside of examples like Shonda Rhimes. So Shonda Rhimes is also someone who has been criticized heavily for primarily sticking to colorblind casting philosophies. She also rarely ad

dresses issues of race or racism in her shows, like "Grey's Anatomy" or "Scandal", but she's obviously making incredible strides forward, in terms of increasing the overall diversity of network television. Okay, so that's one example of a pretty typical disagreement between two kinds of Asian American activism, or just two approaches to the question of what it is we want to see with regard to Asian American media. And I'll just show one more example. So if we look to the world of Asian American

YouTubers, we have seen a number of pretty amazing strategies for success. I'm sure that many of you are familiar with some of the Asian Americans who wield so much power and influence through the videos that they share online. And one of the moves that we are starting to see more of is the formation of partnerships with corporations and advertisers. So Wong Fu Productions is a group of Asian American filmmakers who have been making of videos since about 2007, and they make videos on their own,

which has been great, but in the past few years, they have been approached by Asian American advertising agencies to produce, what are essentially, sponsored content, kind of like big, long commercials for corporations like Toyota or AT&T, but, you know, with their signature spin. So this is the story behind their series, "Away We Happened", which was an interactive story where audiences got to vote on what direction the narrative would take, kind of like a choose your own adventure, where the w

inning option would be the story that was told, like, the next week. And as you can see in the picture, it has like a subtle AT&T picture in the corner, and they're on their phones, so their phones play an integral role in the plot of this story. And then there was a contest called, Take Your Shot, where viewers could submit ideas for a story. It was a contest, and then, the winners got to work with Wong Fu productions and AT&T to actually create their narrative. So this was one of the videos th

at actually got created, and again, all the winning stories happen to be ones where they would use the AT&T technologies, and they were really important to the plot. These kinds of partnerships play an important role in Asian American media activism because of the work that they do in helping to construct Asian American consumer audiences, and connect with them in significant ways. Media corporations are profit driven, and create content with an eye toward reaching certain market segments. So th

e more that Asian Americans can be recognized for their buying power, the more influenced they could wield in the marketplace. For a long time this has been one of the main roles of Asian American advertising agencies. So their job is kind of just to convince corporations, like AT&T, that Asian Americans are an important market, that they should be considering them, and they should be trying to create media that reaches them, and speaks to them, and represents their interests, like these kinds o

f videos that we see here. So when these YouTubers signed on with AT&T, they were given the financial resources to produce new Asian American content, and AT&T affirmed that Asian American audiences were valuable. But there are many Asian American activists who are critical of building relationships where Asian American media becomes controlled by corporate interests, understandably. Throughout the history of Asian American cinema, including the rise of Asian American community arts organization

s, and Asian American film festivals, there has been a deep skepticism about sacrificing radical politics, and substituting consumer or capitalist logic's. The field of Asian American studies, like other critical race and ethnic studies projects, has always been aligned with anti-capitalist critique because of the way the capitalism disenfranchises and disempowers racial minorities. So they would say, that we should resist having our activism become co-opted by market forces. That we need to hav

e full control over our own means of production, so that we are the ones who benefit. So I hope you can see that the different perspectives I discussed here are all clearly examples of Asian American media activism. This includes the groups who protest outside of the movie theaters, and call networks with angry complaints, the policy advocates who work behind the scenes to encourage production companies to change their hiring practices, and support diversity initiatives, the Asian American YouTu

bers who are drawing in millions of Asian American audiences using the accessible and interactive platforms, and the Asian American media art centers that align themselves with more radical political movements. But they clearly disagree about the mechanism that will actually lead to changes and improvements. So how do we move forward? What should Asian American media activism look like, and what strategies should we be takin' up? So my simple answer, is that I think we need all of these differen

t modes of activism, and that there's value and merit to all of these different understandings of how media activism should work. Instead of getting lost in the disagreements, we need to work to find the common ground between different modes of activism. In my book, I talk about the concept of cultural citizenship as being one framework through which we can start to see how different Asian American media activists are all fighting for the same thing, that Asian Americans may have legal citizensh

ip in the US, though, they also may not, but the bottom line is, their cultural identities aren't validated or accepted. So what draws these activists together is that they all want Asian Americans to be treated with the equality and dignity, to be able to see themselves represented in entertainment media as a way of acknowledging their identities and communities, for their voices to be heard, rather than ignored or silenced, and to ultimately feel a stronger sense of belonging within the US. Al

so, social justice efforts are incredibly complex and multi-faceted, and what might outwardly appear to be a wrong-headed strategy, can often be reframed as simply different pieces that will help us to all solve a bigger puzzle. Each strategy speaks to a different audience, activates a different contingent to participants, and contributes something unique to the larger fight for social change. Rather than contradictory forms of activism necessarily serving to cancel each other out, we can see th

em working together as different vectors in a multi-dimensional activist matrix that is always in motion. So we may be frustrated when minority storytellers have a position of power, and fail to use it to lift up others like themselves, but, of course, that doesn't mean we should stop pushing for them to have more opportunities, because their works are still political just for existing, and the success of someone like Mindy Kaling can open the door toward the creation of a show, like "Fresh Off

The Boat", which is much more explicitly political in its storytelling. And if you were (mumbling) initially be drawn toward identifying an Asian American fan of Wong Fu Productions simply because of its cultural cache, or because they think it's funny, or they just liked them, but they may later build from that collective consciousness to join an Asian American political action when called upon. So while there's something to be said for ideological unity, I would challenge the notion that there

is any one activist strategy that is full proof, or they could possibly be exempt from criticism, and one of the problems is certainly that criticism is easy. I know my Facebook feed always seems to have just tons of hot takes that are tearing down the latest activist intervention for not being good enough. I think it's really easy to point to the kinds of activism that we think are a waist of time and resources, or that we think maintain the status quo, rather than challenging it. What's hard,

is finding ways to work together, because you recognize, the struggle will outlast us all, and that we will never have the energy to continue onward if all we do is criticize. Hopefully you can see some of the possibilities in what I've discussed with regard to Asian American media activism, but I also hope that we can think about applying these to broader cases of Asian American activism, where the contradictory arguments become even more unwieldy. For instance, we have seen violent disagreeme

nts between Asian Americans for fighting, some are fighting to protect Peter Liang, the Chinese American cop who killed Akai Gurley, versus Asian Americans who align themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement in condemning police violence, and we have also seen Asian Americans on opposite sides of debates on affirmative action, hate crime legislation, and many other important issues. So in the rest of our conversation tonight, I hope we can hear more concrete examples of the ways that Asian

American activism is taking place, and maybe we'll even all disagree with each other, but I hope that these remarks give us a bit of a framework for how to consider the bigger picture. I'm really excited to hear from all these amazing women who have been engaged in activist efforts over the years, and also excited they're all women. (laughing) That's great. And to think about this idea of forming alliances and solidarity in order strengthen all of our efforts toward achieving social justice. Th

ank you. (audience applauding) - Hello everyone, welcome. Thank you first to Rachel and Kiran for organizing this really wonderful event, and for getting us all together. I too am very excited for our conversation, and thank you Lori so much for your talk. I, for one, really appreciate that Lori has generously opened our discussion by putting forth the framework of disagreement. I think that approach really lends itself to the activist component of our discussion. So I'm just gonna make a few ve

ry quick, brief comments, and hopefully give you something good to disagree with, right? So these comments are less a response to Lori's work, and are more indicative of the ways in which Lori's work provokes interesting questions for me. I'm fascinated by the idea of cultural citizenship, which is a central component of Lori's work, and I wanna think a little bit about the idea of cultural citizenship in relationship to assimilation, which is another term that Lori uses in her work. So perhaps

we can think a little bit about the, a little bit about the disagreements that Lori has highlighted here, in terms of the relationship between cultural citizenship and assimilation. I think the question of assimilation in relationship to citizenship has a great deal of resonance in this particular moment of public and political discourse, particularly in regards to immigration, and to refuges, and how certain populations are framed as outside of the possibility of assimilation. So like many peop

le who have immigrated to the US, before I actually became a resident American, and began the legal procedure of acquiring citizenship, I was acculturated to the American experience through the consumption of Western music, and films, and television, so that when I actually arrived in the US, I could deploy my knowledge of US culture in a way that allowed me to assert a type of cultural citizenship. So my knowledge of American pop culture situated me as one who could be assimilated. That is gene

rally how I thought about culture and citizenship as a young Asian American immigrant, that knowledge of American culture was a path to an individualized form of cultural citizenship. And it wasn't, of course, until I began studying media critically that I began to think about cultural citizenship as about changing the landscape of cultural production and representation in order to create belonging for the collective of Asian Americans. So the former is the individualized view of cultural citize

nship that is entirely encompassed essentially by the project of assimilation, and the later project, thinking about cultural citizenship in terms of the collective, I think creates a much more fraught engagement with the project of assimilation. So in her book, Lori goes back to the mid 20th century to chart the beginnings of Asian American media activism, and at that time, the focus is on critiquing and challenging the very limited representations of Asian Americans that are cartoonish, and of

ten offensive, and generally marginalized in the landscape of storytelling, and a big part of that struggle in that moment is to push for Asian Americans to gain entry into the realm of mainstream media production so that the stories of Asian Americans can be told by Asian Americans, thereby reducing negative portrayals and stereotypes. So traditional Asian American media activism focused on highlighting assimilation in these early days. There's a clear, political project in declaring that Asian

s are, quote, "Just like other Americans in this moment". So here we are farther on in the early 21st century, and we've come to a moment when there are some Asian Americans who are actually producing media about the lives and experiences of Asian Americans. Not that there are a huge number, of course, and, of course, we need many more Asian Americans producing popular culture and entertainment, but the conversation is no longer solely about absences. So what role does assimilation now play in t

his landscape? So I'd like to pick up on Lori's example of Mindy Kaling, and her show, "The Mindy Project", and we can also think about Eddie Huang's, "Fresh Off the Boat", as well as Aziz Ansari's, "Master of None", which he co-created with another Asian American comedy writer, Alan Yang. In this scenario, all three of these shows are created, and in some cases, written and produced by Asian Americans, and they are 30-minute sitcoms, a very traditional form of American cultural production, and

they traverse the traditional sphere of network television production, and quote, "to new digital television production and distribution", and all three are actively looking to gather a large mainstream audience, the largest audience possible. So all three represent in some ways the gains made by Asian American media activists, and the shifts in cultural production, that, of course, coincide with the increasing recognition of Asian Americans as markets of media consumers also. So all three are a

lso stories of cultural consumption and assimilation. All three frame the attainment of cultural citizenship as individuals through their individual practices of cultural consumption. So Mindy Kaling's imagination of herself as a character in a sitcom is drawn explicitly from her love of White romantic comedies. So she, in a list of her 10 favorite romantic comedies published in 2016, she listed only rom coms starring White characters, right? "The Princess Bride", and "Silver Linings Playbook",

and the most diverse that she got is to include the Australian comedy, "Strictly Ballroom". So the criticism of Kaling's show that I have seen, as Lori pointed out, has largely centered on a lack of diversity in casting, but the fact that her cultural imaginary of romance comes almost exclusively from White American culture does not actually often get discussed. And Huang frames her character as a young teen, in terms of his love of hip-hop culture and Black artists, which puts him at odds with

his traditional Asian family, and Ansari gains his credibility and status through White hipster culture primarily, and affiliations with contemporary hip-hop culture through artists like Kanye West. So all three of these shows claim cultural citizenship for these individuals through a narrative of assimilation, and that assimilation is demonstrated through their position as, quote, "good consumers of American culture", that is explicitly not Asian, right? As I did when I tried to assert my own a

bility to be assimilated through my consumption of American culture. In all three of these shows, their, quote, "Asianess" is illustrated through family relations, particularly through grandparents and parents who may be partly assimilated, and consuming some American culture, but who are deeply attached to Asian cultures from another place, and that generation are attached to transnational sort of identities of Asian Americaness. So these three producers are, of course, certainly not even close

to the totality of Asian Americans producing media, and they are all limited to one form, so I'm only talking about mainstream, 30-minute television comedies, but I do think they bring up an interesting set of questions, namely, what do we make of assimilation in the contemporary landscape of Asian American media activism, and what strategies do we take up when we think about this particularly contemporary moment? I think assimilation is the heart of the disagreements that Lori highlights here.

Is the project of Asian American media activism to integrate into the system as it exists, and celebrate when Asian American achieves critical and commercial success in the current media landscape, or is the purpose of Asian American media activism to go beyond greater visibility, and representation, and production to argue for a change in the system itself? And this begs the question I think, of what role individual storytellers, and individual stories play in the larger project of gaining cul

tural citizenship for the collective? And I'm sure there is plenty to disagree with about that. Thank you. (audience applauding) - Thank you Lori for your talk, and also Isra with the response. One of the themes that is present here, it seems to be how we grapple with representation, and its complexities, and contradictions, and then thinking about the role of media activism, and shifting narratives, and thus shifting, and redistributing how we're amplifying voice, amplifying power. And it seems

crucial here to think about the multiple levels of engagement in our (coughing drowns out speaker) of house communities that we share, or across other communities of color, that there are many different ways of doing political work. We need media activism against racist ideologies and markets, and Hollywood perhaps is a way to open up a case on a national scale where you could imagine belonging. Yeah, but potentials and limitations of pinning desires on the celebrities who do have amplified voi

ces, and thus amplified power. Perhaps this is why we might feel excited about Aziz Ansari's, "Master of None", and simultaneously, really, really frustrated and troubled when he let collaboratists black paper visibility, as opposed to Asian invisibility as part of his jokes. We also need immediate activism outside of mainstream markets, as alternative spaces to produce different forms of value. As we navigate the politics of also being included, we must also continue to ask, what are we trying

to be included in? For example, in thinking about citizenship, and knowing that it's bound up in material benefits, and it's very necessary, like how are we also thinking about the legacy of citizenship as a violent technology of exclusion rooted in histories of colonization and imperialism? Are we having our dollars, asking for dollars to be included, and to be included as capital? As Asian Americans have a long and ongoing history of struggle in order to belong politically and also culturally

in the United States, sometimes those struggles have also come at the expense of those within our communities, and also communities that we're not a part of. So for example, desire for visibility can be a double-edged sword. For example, for some who also identify as Asian Americans, being visible may suggest increased surveillance by the state. So while Asian American itself as a category has been a strategically unifying term, we must also pay attention to the multiple histories and experience

s across our many communities, and having a range of media vehicles for narratives and storytelling allows for that. So I'd like to transition us to our panelists, and all of them engage with storytelling and the importance of narrative representation across multiple platforms and practices, and also use culture media as a vehicle for activism. All of them do work in translating complex issues of social justice across different audiences, and do work in ways that attempt to address questions of

unity and specificity when it comes to solidarity within the Asian American community, and also across other communities, and they offer us a way to think about what it means to have different spaces for activism and resistance. So to move us over to the panel, I'd like to reintroduce Kiran, a graduate student here at MCC, and my co-conspirator, and favorite person, and she's gonna be moderating. And I'd like to introduce, Samhita Mukhopadhyay. She is the senior editorial director of culture and

identity at Mic. She is the former executive editor of an award winning blog, Feministing.com, and the author of "Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life", and also co-editor of an upcoming anthology, "Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America". Whoo! (audience applauding) You can all applaud at the end. (laughing drowns out speaker) (mumbling) I would also like to introduce, Thanu Yakupitiyage. She is the senior communications manager at the New York Immigrati

on Coalition, and her role is that of a storyteller taking complex immigration policy, and humanizing them for a live audience. Thanu is also an artist, cultural organizer, and DJ, and utilizes the power of culture and music as a vehicle for organizing and supporting immigrants and people of color. (audience applauding) Yeah! And then we have Diane Wong. Diane is a doctoral candidate at Cornell University where she writes on the intersession of race, gender, and gentrification of Chinatowns, and

is currently involved with the Asians for Black Lives NYC movement. She previously worked as the Social Media Wizard for 18 Million Rising. (audience applauding) And then we have Christina Xu, an independent ethnographic researcher and writer working to help people understand each other better through research, writing, and cultural translation. Some of her current projects include coordinating Letters for Black Lives and producing "Multi Entry", a storytelling project about China's creative pa

st. (audience applauding) - Yeah! - Okay great, so hi, I'm Kiran. Like Paula said earlier, when Rachel and I were discussing who to have in this panel, we were really looking at people who's work challenged us, pushed us, gave us hope, and showed us possibilities, and then the election happened, right? These past few weeks have been frightening and angering, but perhaps it is silver lining of sorts, because of the incredible movement work and organizing, which we'll get into. Also empowered, and

really energized to do some good work. It made this panel take on new meaning too as we come together as members of Asian communities, as allies, as activists, people ready to do some good work, and so I'm incredibly excited and honored to be here now with these ladies. They are diverse, not only in how they respectively represent some, but not all, of Asian America, but also in terms of the sites of their study and work, and where and how they practice their activism. What Rachel and I also re

alized when we finalized these panelists is that they're all women of color. It was not fully intentional, but it was also fully intentional. (laughing) It's significant to have women on this panel about activism because women, and women of color specifically, have historically and undoubtedly will continue to be the ones who's labor, and strategies, bodies, and voices are so critical in moving the needle into social justice and libratory efforts forward. So I'd just like an introductory round o

f hands for these women. (audience applauding) I had more to say, because I'm a narcissist, but I won't, and I'll kinda just go right into the panel itself. So I think, you know, what we've talked about so far is the idea of citizenship, and the different forms that it takes on, right? Cultural citizenship, legal citizenship, obviously, political citizenship, civil citizenship, and so I'd like us to kind of keep that framing, especially given that all of these wonderful women work on such differ

ent fronts that also intersect. I'd also like us to think about how they impact each other, how cultural citizenship might impact legal citizenship in the, you know, opposite way also. In Lori's book, we talk about, well, she talks about cultural citizenship as a collective endeavor, you know, in that eighth American activists have defied assimilation, broadened their understanding of citizenship to include others cultural practices, allowing life to be lived in full color, so to speak. So Samhi

ta, this question is for you to begin with. As founder of Feministing.com, and now has culture in identities running that section, as well one of the senior editors at Mic, a core feature of your journalism career has been to kind of expand the media scape to account for different voices and identities not reflected in the mainstream. How has your activism taken shape, and embodied roles, and now, at Mic, what is your strategy, specific regard to Asian American narratives? - Yeah, so that's a lo

t of things. So, you know, my background is in activism, and kind of gender, and feminist activism, and one of the reasons, and so, and this (mumbling), I'm not the founder, but I was one of the original editors of Feministing. It was actually founded by Jessica Valenti in 2004, and I gave response to the fact that the mainstream media like absolutely did not talk about young women's lives at all in any kind of robust or interesting way, and so we wanted to kind of create a platform that elevate

d a really diverse set of women, talking about the news, and kind of experiences that they were having, that kind of a new generation of women could relate to. And so that kind of started, I think, you know, a bit of an affect on mainstream media, where all of a sudden, you know, the New York Times was like concerned about sexism in the election, and, you know, you kind of saw like mainstream media outlets being like, oh wait, like maybe identity politics like actually matters, right? Specifical

ly in the reporting that we're doing, the way that we tell stories. And so now, I think 10 years later, you're really seeing identity issues are kind of at the core of how we understand the world around us, right? I mean, everything that's happening every single day, and the Trump administration impact some kind of like identity based group, and not having a newsroom that's equipped to deal with it is a problem in this kind of modern news, like, media and political landscape. So, you know, one w

ay that we think about it, first of all, not to, you know, kill every older journalist by saying this, but, like, objectivity is dead, right? Like that's not really a thing, and, you know, I think at Mic we really embrace the idea that there's a difference between being objective versus being fair, and the importance of telling a story based on kind of, you know, who you are, and what that opens you up to, in terms of the possibilities of storytelling. And, you know, I always say, like, for me,

it's not just about having a really diverse newsroom, which we are very lucky to have, it's about having a set of journalists that have a diverse set of experiences, and as a result, can find new types of stories, and tell, you know, connect with communities that historically kind of journalists haven't been able to. And to me, that is, you know, it's not saying that everything has to be biased, right? It's actually saying, that the more diverse you have, in terms of the people that are writing,

telling the story, is the more diverse the stories are ultimately gonna be. - Great. And the Christina, I'd love to hear, in terms of Multi Entry and Letter for Black Lives. I guess, what are the strategies that you've employed kind of building those projects? - Sure, so I didn't really fully intend to do either of those projects, to be honest. I started doing Multi Entry largely because I realized that over the course of my life I was just getting increasingly frustrated with the depiction of

China, and what it means to be a Chinese person as a Chinese American immigrant, and that there was just no one writing these stories that I really wanted to read, so eventually, I just took it upon myself to write them. So Multi Entry for me was really about helping people see stories about China with a, like centering Chinese people, as opposed to centering the White experience in China, or centering China as an economic asset, or liability, or whatever. I just basically wanted to read stories

about China that didn't involve smog, like, constantly, right? Like, people have fun there, and they do stuff. I don't know. So that was very much where I came from with that, and it was about representation for myself, which then I was actually kind of surprised to find many, many other Chinese Americans resinated with that very strongly. That's when I decided to turn it into a project. Letters for Black Lives was even more accidental. I basically, the strategies that I think I was trying to e

mploy there, in so far as there were any, was that I found myself with sort of this, like, swelling of interest in this project, which I had thought was something very personal to me, which was that I wanted to-- (cross-talking) - aNd then if you briefly wanna, yeah. - Sure, so basically, I wanted to write a letter to my parents explaining why I cared about Black Lives Matter, and why I thought they should care, and basically translate it into Chinese, and distribute it on the platforms where th

ey were actually reading their news. So it actually came out of some of the ethnographic work I was doing, paying attention to Chinese communities, and realizing that, especially for my parents' generation, they don't actually, like, watch the American news that much. They're now getting all their information from WeChat, and so if I wanted to reach them, I'd better write something and put it on WeChat, and that was very much just like, I wanted to reach them where they were, and I was surprised

to find this sort of huge swelling of attention, and interest from not just other fellow Chinese Americans, but also all sorts of Asian Americans and beyond who felt like this was a really important project to take on. I can talk more about that later, but yeah. - Yeah, no, I mean, that actually leads into the next question I had, which is, so around last Thanksgiving, Gene Demby, who is the host of code Switch on NPR, the Thanksgiving episode was about who does the hard work of being the race

ambassador for their families, for those hard conversations that are usually had on Thanksgiving when kind of the family all comes together, and something interesting that came out of that was that children of immigrants very often have to kind of take on that label, excuse me, that label and that labor of having those hard conversations, and being steward or ambassador of sorts. And, you know, that immediately came out to me as super interesting and also compelling, given that I, you know, even

though my parents could be considered, you know, progressive when it comes to certain social justice issues, still have to do some leg work in terms of kind of bridge the divide, or, you know, be a translator of sorts, and so I'd love to talk about the role of Asian American kids specifically, and I'd love for everyone to kind of jump in, you know, as they see fit. But Christina, you know, just to kind of jump off what you were saying, you know, Asian American kids, many of whom are second gene

ration, really act as that fulcrum between two worlds, their parents, or older generations in their immediate worlds within American communities. And so I personally found Letter for Black Lives so intriguing because it acknowledged that complex role, as well as it really provided a tool for them to use, and go out and kind of be a steward. You know, I also find the site of Google Drive really interesting, because it turned into a crowd sourcing project, so I'd love for you to kinda talk about t

hat, and then the motivation for that being a site as well, and kind of what the response was, you know, around, you know, Asian America. - I mean, my first homeland is China. My second homeland is the US. My third homeland is absolutely the internet. So whenever I, like, think, basically, any complicated thoughts, I start a Google doc. That's just like an automatic reflex, and in this case, I was hoping for a few people to come and help me with the Chinese translation, 'cause my Chinese is not

that good. So that's why I designed it to be collaborative from the beginning, and obviously, it kind of grew beyond that. It was a couple hundred people, like, sort of working on it over the course of a week and a half, two weeks. Yeah, I think the, I realized a set of things about my parents when I started talking to them about these issues, and, you know, to be clear, like, I started talking to them about the issues partially because they were starting to get involved in Asian American organi

zations that were producing the rallies in support of Peter Liang. So it was not like, let's just have this, like, fun argument. It was like, they were actively contributing in a way that I thought was harmful for our community, and sort of the world at large. And it was this new thing, right? Like, my parents' generation with the Chinese American community historically had not been active, or their segment of that generation has not been politicly active. So in talking with them, I kind of star

ted to realize that, you know, even though we'd been in the country for exactly the same amount of time, they saw the world very differently than I did, and this really came through when they were starting to send me, like, statistics about essentially why I shouldn't trust Black people, but, you know, some of the statistics were the same statistics that people for social justice, like, people use to prove that racism is happening, right? And so it's like the same numbers, the same facts viewed

from two different perspectives told different stories, and that's when I realized, oh, the problem isn't that they don't have enough numbers, right? The problem is that nobody has tried to connect these narratives, and that somebody has to do that hard work, and if not me, then who, right? And that's kind of like, there was such a call for, like, allyship, right? And to be a responsible ally, and part of what that means is going and collecting your community, and if my community doesn't include

my parents, then, like, what am I doing, right? - Yep, and then Diane and Samhita, I know you've kind of worked on this front. So in what ways did the Town Halls that you host, Thanu, and the articles that you make room for, Samhita, how do they kinda speak to this as well? - Sure, I think, I mean, I can also talk a little bit about the question you asked about, sort of how we have conversations with our families, 'cause I think it's such an important question, especially in this political clim

ate. So I think that this is a new opportunity for us to talk with our elders, with our communities, with our parents about sort of how we can challenge hard issues, like anti-Black racism, right? So I often think of this quote from James Baldwin that I like to use as a framework of having these conversations. "So if I love you, I need to make you, if I love you, I need to make you conscious of the things that you don't see." and so this is the framework I wanna use when it comes to bringing my

activism home, or to more intimate spaces. And I think that we need to make an intentional effort to speak to our family members about the world around us, to make connections for them in ways that they can understand, and also to draw on experiences that they can relate to, right? As refugees and as immigrants. And we really need to meet them more than halfway sometimes, because we won't get free, not unless of the aunties, grandmas, and grandpas, or moms are also, they're with us on the same p

age. So I think that what's so difficult though about these conversation is that it's going to look different for everyone in this room, which is why I think that it's really important to learn about how to use some of the online platforms that our elders are using, like WeChat, right? So I just recently learned, that my mom sometimes buys vegetables off of WeChat, so that's a (speaking faintly). Or how to use leverage technology, like Slack, to translate resources, like Letters for Black Lives,

right? And how to have these conversations at home on a daily basis about topics, like anti-Black racism, as difficult as they are. So I think that instead of directing questions at them, we should really be trying to answer questions together, right? So how do we make anti-Black racism an issue that our parents will care about? How do we draw connections between the oppressions that are others face as immigrants with what Black and Brown communities are going through today? And if there's no c

ommon language, what are ways that we can have those conversations without speaking through art or comics that will relate, or they can relate to? So it's gonna be a trail and effort process, but if we're not gonna do it, then no else is gonna do it for us, right? So in thinking about that other question, right? The purpose of Town Hall forums, so when I was with 18 Million Rising, this was during the Akai Gurley case three years ago. Just for context, Akai Gurley was shot by a Chinese police of

ficer, Peter Liang, three years ago in Brooklyn, Pink Houses, and this case sort of divided the Chinese community among those who supported the police officer, or thought that he was being used as a scapegoat, versus those who stirred with Akai Gurley's family, and wanted the police officer, and all, basically all cops to be held accountable for their actions and their violence. And what we realized, was that a lot of the mainstream narrative focused on Chinese folks as rallying behind Peter Lia

ng, and that never really depicted folks that were rallying in support of Akai Gurley's family, or justice for Akai Gurley, right? So we wanted to have this town forum to really discuss ways that we can complicate the narrative to hold our own folks accountable, and what Asian-Black solidarity looks like on the ground. So the Town Hall forum was actually hosted on YouTube, because the work that we did as, what we do at 18 Million Rising is entirely virtually based, so we were able to have a live

stream on YouTube, and we invited scholars and also community partners, like DRUM, CAAAV, Organizing Asian Communities, as well as BYP100, to talk about what Asian-Black solidarity means in this time and age. - Cool. So kind of speaking to how we hold each other accountable through the-- - Yeah. - Yeah. - I mean, how Asian Americans specifically might be able to-- - Yeah, so, I mean, it's actually been really fascinating. So our, a lot of the content that does really well on our site is kind of

, you know, different groups calling other groups out. So like the biggest narrative on our Facebook page is like calling out racism in the gay community, right? It's like, and I think like we're just like in this really exciting time where people are having really robust conversations that include words like intersectionality, even when they use it wrong, (laughing) which I recently got to use. Kim got to use, (coughing drowns out speaker). She was like, yeah, people say it wrong a lot. (laughi

ng) But I think that, you know, what I always think about, in terms of making a lot of these themes, so like even listening to, you know, your opening remarks, it's like a lot of the language that we use to talk about some of the, you know, struggles between communities, or the ways that we think about representation can be really in accessible to broader groups of people that are kind of just trying to, like, watch TV, and, you know, come home from work, and they're just like, so what if Mindy

Kaling only dates White guys? I only date White guys. You know, like, it's not like, (laughing) it's like very, you know, it's like it's, 'cause sometimes that can be like really difficult to engage people, and one thing I'm really interested in at Mic is kind of bringing up stories that give us that nuance without having to use language that's inaccessible for it, and, you know, showing people through kind of examples, and inviting them in to have the conversation, rather than constantly, which

, you know, social media has really given arise to this kind of like call out culture where it's like no one is ever woke enough, and like, I feel like really woke. And like, according to Twitter, I like might as well be Republican sometimes. Like-- (laughing) Wow, I have not woken up. You know, so I-- (laughing) I think while it's so important that we elevate this, like, really complicated language, and bring nuance to a lot of stuff, we kinda also have to meet people where they are, and how th

ey can kind of engage with these themes in a way that is actually, like they can actually internalize it. - Please. - So I could just, - Yeah. - I can speak from the immigrant rights lens. So I actually have a complicated relationship with the term Asian American, 'cause I wasn't born in the US, and I came to the US in 2003. So I don't know if, I'm-- (cross-talking) Yeah, but I'm still tryin' to figure out whether I identify as Asian American, 'cause I only recently became a legal permanent resi

dent two months ago, and now I'm told I can't leave the country because I might be detained, so that's complicated. But I think in terms of like accountability, you know, I think one thing that Asian American communities across the board really need to recognize, is also the ability to be upwardly mobile, and immigrate to the US has very much, has to do with the civil rights movements, right? And so this idea, like, so the 1965 Immigration Act is really what opened up the space for immigrants fr

om all over Asia, from Africa, to come to the United States, because prior to the 1965 Immigration Act, there was a 1924 National Origins Act that actually limited immigration. So there was higher number of immigration from like Western Europe, for example, than anywhere in the world. And so, you know, it really is the civil rights Movement that helped to elevate Asian Americans to where they are, so when we talk about sort of our responsibilities to whether it's the Black Lives Matter movement,

or any other sort of, you know, intersectional movement, am I using it right? (laughing) That's something that we really have to think about. And, you know, within the immigrants rights movement, so I don't work specifically within the Asian immigrants right movement. I work sort of across movements, and so what's been really important, is also for all communities to really be supporting each other, because, like, not all Asian Americans look the same, right? So with the Peter Liang case, for e

xample, you know, perhaps there was this particular, you know, set of, you know, Chinese Americans who were supporting Peter Liang, but there was also, like, Laotian and Cambodian refugees, and lower income people in places like Minneapolis and other places who were really in line with Black communities, because they were living in Black neighborhoods, right? So we need to really also complicate the narrative of like who is accountable to who, because I think that's where sort of class, and race

, and citizenship really comes into play, and also, I would say that within the Asian American frame, also complicating our understanding of citizenship, because there's a lot of Asians, you know, within the United States who are actually undocumented. It's actually, like, over, I think, I don't remember the exact number. Like 1.5 million to two million Asian Americans from South Asian to East Asian who are undocumented. So sort of where are there spaces also for those communities when we talk a

bout Asian American? - Perfect. - Let me just add to that really quickly. I think the coolest part about Letters for Black Lives for me was we made the decision, so we were gonna write the letter, and then translate it into all these different languages, and what we asked the translators to do is not just to do a straight up translation, but to also translate the context, and what that meant was that, so every version of the letter for every different community looked completely different. So th

e letter for, like, Vietnamese communities like addressed the refugee, you know, situation. The letter for Koreans addressed like LA, and the race riots that happened there. So it was, that was like a really, I think that was, like, very important to show off the sort of multiplicity of the, like, Asian American experience, because it is, it's this label that just like falls on us, right? Whether we choose it or not. Like if you're an Asian person in America you're kind of Asian American. Within

the Chinese community, it's been fascinating to see, like, these groups of people coming here for college, and now, suddenly, they are Chinese American, right? And so, like, what does that mean for the rest of us, and how do we, like, calibrate to this group that is constantly changing not of our own accord, right? - [Kiran] Yep. Actually wanna talk about that designation of Asian American. I mean, we're not a monolith, right? You look around the room, you can, like, tell that already. We have

a lot of different countries, different cultures, traditions. There are absolutely commonalities, but there are also complexities and differences that we need to pay attention to. So I wanna talk about the importance of that designation, and how it also might work to flatten us. This is Thanu and Diane, but also kind of a larger group, because both of you worked in organizations that work on the designation of Asian American as a category. Both of you work with communities on the fringes in some

respects of American public consciousness. What are we missing in popular discourse, or what's invisible? In what ways can we be exclusionary or simply myopic in how we understand Asian America and Asian American activism, and are there strategies that you guys are attempting to do professionally in order to account for this exclusion? I think, I mean, Asian American is an important political identity, you know? Like it's not at all to discount Asian American as a political identity, but I do t

hink it's really, really important to bring out the nuances. So in my work at the New York Immigration Coaliltion, we're an umbrella advocacy organization. We support over 175 community-based organizations across New York state, and a lot of the smaller CBOs work with various communities. So for example, this is rising, rising up and moving, DRUM, which is based in Jackson Heights, they focus on, you know, low-income South Asian and West Indian communities. MinKwon Center for Community Action is

a Korean American organization in Flushing. They focus on, you know, Korean communities. And, of course, we work with like Arab communities, Muslim communities, Caribbean, and African, and what we really try to do is be a political vehicle for all of these different organizations. And then, particularly around Asian American communities, I think what one of the interesting things about the sort of solidarity work that we've been doing is that it's allowed for us to be a political vehicle to pus

h forward issues. So for example, in new York City, actually this week there was a major win, where now services in New York City are gonna be accessible in 10 different languages, as opposed to six different languages, and it required a real coalition of people in order to get Urdu, Mandarin, Korean, XYZ, like into the list of languages that were being used for service translation, and so that required like all of these different groups, including South Asian, East Asian, you know, Pacific Isla

nder groups to be coming together to really define, you know, what our collective priorities are, otherwise, we're siloed. And particularly in support for undocumented communities, I think, you know, like 15, 20 years ago it was really siloed. There was like no real sense of, okay, well, we're all in this together. Like, you know, there's like, you know, these many undocumented students in, you know, all of these schools, and they're across all of these communities, you know? So yeah, what we've

tried to do is really just work collectively, and that's really helped, I think, to strengthen the bond between various kinds of Asian communities. - So I think that my definition of what it means to be Asian American changes almost every day. Especially being on Twitter, I feel like Asian Americans on Twitter are just its own group. But I guess to situate this question in the context of the current political environment, I'm an East Asian second generation woman, and I guess under this adminis

tration, I'm acutely aware of the anti-China rhetoric that Trump has spread through its rhetoric and through his actions, and I am sort of really preparing for how his xenophobic sentiments are going to be translated in domestic and international policies, right? And I think that I'm afraid, because his rhetoric and framing of China as the economic enemy really reinforces, and sort of is similar to what the anti-Asian riots in the 1800s, to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and also the death o

f Vincent Chin in 1982. But I think at the same time, right? To recognize the privileges that I have as East Asian second generation woman, right? Of not being forced under surveillance under the state, of not being explicitly targeted for deportation or detainment, and I think it's really important to note as a fact, right? That Trump has explicitly targeted Brown, and Muslim people, and families. And so I think it's really important for us, or for me as an East Asian woman to be specific about

what I mean when I say Asian American, and to organize in ways that doesn't erase those who are most in the margin, right? And who are most at risk under this administration. So I think the question right now, is how do we shift the focus from a traditional East Asian centered analysis to really center and support the needs of South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, and Middle Eastern communities? Does our organizing work reinforce existing power relations, or does it build an inclusive movement with

room for everyone to get free, right? So I think we need to move towards the latter, and one way that we can do it is with, is by leveraging social media and technology. But I think what's difficult about using technology or digital activism in this day and age is a lot of the stories that are being told aren't really told by people who look like us, and the platforms that they're told on aren't booked by us either, right? We can't rely on corporate media to be telling our stories because we kn

ow that, ultimately, they will be the ones profiting, or that they will be the ones who will have a final say. So I think we really need to use this opportunity to learn how to build our own platforms, and to communicate with our communities with, about our needs, the kind of stories that we wanna see, and the kind of stories that we want told. And I think that one, well, example of this kind of vision is through 18 Million Rising's voter box. It's a web-based app that was launched last year tha

t connects basically unlimited English proficient voters with those who have language capacity to ensure that everyone has access to a ballot, and everyone has access to registration information. And so this is the kind of, I guess, media tool that I'm talking about when I say that, you know, we really need to be looking at ourselves to be building the tools, and to really leveraging the capacities that we already have in our communities. - That's actually a great lead in for my next question, i

s about the importance of Asians telling Asian stories. So we see this play out in Hollywood all the time, the casting of, like, people like Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson in what we're originally written as Asian roles, or in discourse online, and hashtag, not your mule, hashtag, not your Asian sidekick, or Oscar's so White. So I'd love to talk about the potential and limits. I'd love to talk about that first of all, but I'd also like to talk about the potential, and limits, and pinning expe

ctations into celebs or public figures, and then can we reasonably expect this to kinda be a second, a two-way street? And so, Lori and Samhita I'd love you to take the lead, and we can kinda go from there. - So yeah, I always say that, so first of all, like, I think it's, like, only 13 Asian Americans have ever been, or Asians, period, have ever been nominated for an Oscar, like, within the history of (mumbling), like, or for any major award, not just, like, best actor or best picture. So like,

when you say underrepresentation, it's like almost really we don't even exist on television. It's, like, it's happened in the last, like, five to six years. Like, I remember when I was a kid, I was like, is that girl from En Vogue Indian maybe? Like, I think I look like her. (laughing) So we've seen this, like, tremendous growth of Asian American, 'cause like, especially in sitcoms, right? I mean, we talked about a bunch of them, or Lori talked about a bunch of them earlier. "Fresh Off the Boat

", and kind of "Master of None", which I think, you know, and "The Mindy Project", which, you know, were all written by Asian Americans, and kind of got to control the story and the narrative of how those communities could be represented. And, I think, you know, it's really hard to find the perfect kind of representation, like we're never gonna be happy, and we're always gonna be pushing for more, but the more diversity we see, the better it is, right? Because ultimately, you know, representatio

n and media matters, because it's not just like, oh, it's, like, nice to have, like, United Colors of Benetton from our show. It's like, no, it matters because when, like, people watch television, they watch the movies for, you know, imagination and possibility, and when you see yourself in the kind of media around you, then you believe you can be something more than kind of your day to day life. And, you know, especially as like Asian Americans grapple with all of these different political real

ities, and, you know, kind of just economic, and kind of inter-community realities, like it's so much more important for us to have so, like, kind of diverse images, even if we don't agree with all of them. So that's the first. I think the second, is, you know, right now, there's just this huge opportunity, and kind of like, if you look at the mainstream media of like reporting on issues that impact the Asian American community, and I think that, you know, like the Times doesn't really care abou

t that necessarily, right? And at Mic, like, I've gotten the possibility to have an entire reporting stream on Islamophobia, right? Which is not something you're gonna see in other newspapers, but it's like, that's more important than ever, and I think that if we don't have both Asian American reports in the news room, and opportunities to kind of tell those stories, we're not actually gonna see an impact on policy, or like public mindset. - Yeah, so we're not gonna have perfect representation,

for sure. It always kind of makes me sad that this is still where we're at. It's like such a basic injustice. It's so boring, right? That like, oh, Asians are being played by White people, like we decided that was awful so long ago, and it just doesn't stop. But, yeah, so I wish that, I wish that we could move on beyond like the most basic problem, because I actually think that the issues of casting, and multi-racial complexity, and the question of authenticity, and I don't know. There's so many

different, like race bending. We could think of so many more things that are way more interesting to talk about, in terms of casting, and representation, and who gets to tell what story, and what it does it mean to have a certain body tell a certain story. I think those are actually, like, really interesting questions, but we get stuck, and we can't even move on to them, because we just have, like, Matt Damon saving all the Chinese people from the dragons, or I don't know. Yeah, but I guess lik

e in line with the argument that I was making earlier, I would say that, like, well, sometimes you think it's a blessing that it's so obvious, right? Because that's how you get people into the movement. Like when I tell people that I study Asian Americans in media, who are not activists, or like, aren't, like, in one of my classes on race and media, or whatever, they're always like, oh yeah, Asians in the media, do we have those? You know, like, it only takes a second for them to be like, oh, ri

ght, wow, and then if you, like, say the statistics, or you talk about the Oscars, or you talk about these blatant cases, then they're immediately on board, right? So it just takes a second of asking the question, giving the answer, and then they can be like, what's, then then what, and what's next, right? So I think that, like, sometimes when we have what we see as this kind of flowering of representations where it's like, we have "Master of None", and "Fresh Off the Boat", and we have, like, s

o many great things happening, it makes it seem like we don't have any problems anymore, and that's kind of a dangerous space to be in too, right? So I don't know. I think it's a good, like, make that basic argument, and then move on, but boy, do I hope we can move on at some point. - I kinda wanna add on to that, because I've been talking to so many people about "The Great Wall". Everyone wants to talk to me about "The Great Wall". First of all, I'm part Manchurian, so the Great Wall was actual

ly built to keep me out, so thanks guys. (laughing) But what's really interesting to me about that story is that I don't think the Matt Damon casting call was made by White people. I think it was made by (cross-talking) Chinese film studios, right? - Yeah. - And so we have this really interesting situation now where China is a rising economic power, and as such, has more and more, is desperately trying to accumulate more soft power, and that really complicates, like, everything we've been trying

to accomplish here in a way that is not necessarily good, right? Like, I think we're starting to see more Chinese, specifically representation in movies, literally just to sell more movie tickets in China, which as an Asian American, that doesn't really help me with anything, right? Like, that's, it's a very, very different thing, and so I think, like, particularly as a Chinese American, I feel like I have a stronger obligation to try to figure out how to tie that back into the movement, becaus

e I think the obligations are shifting from us being kind of like an underdog to suddenly being, like, the group in the movement that's, like, doing really well, but also impossibly trying to leave, right? - Yeah, I just wanted to add, that one story that I, or one, like, sorta TV show that I really like that I think really complicated the Asian American narrative was "The Night Of", which, what's his name? - Riz Ahmed. - Riz, (mumbling). Riz Ahmed was in. (cross-talking) I know. And I thought t

hat was like a really interesting way in which the narrative of sort of, you know, criminal justice, and what it means to be Muslim and South Asian, and living Jackson Heights, and, you know, be in New York City, that was a really, I think for me, is one of the top shows of 2016. I do think also that we definitely, or, you know, other sort of Asian American TV shows really can learn from other shows. So for example, another show that I really like is "Jane the Virgin", and one of the things that

I think was really amazing about "Jane the Virgin" is that the grandmother character is undocumented, and they have, like, a lot of episodes around sort of talking about immigration reform, talking about, like, undocumented folks, and I have yet to really see that in Asian American media, and so, even though, you know, like the Aziz Ansari's episode around parents was, you know, amazing. I really felt it. - Yeah. - I also was like, you know, this is still sort of an upwardly mobile narrative, y

ou know? And so how do we sort of like deconstruct stories like, you know, what his parents episode in the Aziz show, or whether it's like, you know, Eddie Huang in "Fresh Off the Boat"? Like there's so many more Asian American stories that could be told to continue to complicate the narrative. (female speaking faintly) - So 18 Million and Rising actually did a petition to, a comical petition to call Matt Damon home. (laughing) Mark is actually in the audience who is with me at 18 Million and Ri

sing. You can ask him all the questions. But the petition was sort of comical, but it was really rooted in the fact that we, I mean, we don't want Matt Damon, right? We need better representation, and I think this really makes me think about what representation means and what it could look like, because I don't think that all representation is good representation for Asian Americans, right? Especially when it comes to some of the more mainstream YouTubers who have definitely participated in anti

-Black racism, and I think that we need to be accountable, right? Especially if our representation oppresses other communities. I think that that's something that we really need to think hard about. Is it worth it? Is there something we can do better on? So for example, Wong Fu Production, right? Brian Hicks and also Eddie Huang, they have explicitly anti-Black in a lot of their shows, and they've definitely profited off of that. So how do we be accountable to our own communities, and other comm

unities of color, while also respecting and put our faces out there? - Great. I mean, I'd love for now the conversation to shift to explicitly talk about activism, 'cause I wanna take advantage of all of your different experiences, all of your different work, and really talk to, I'm sure, a crowd that's full of energy for the present moment, and putting some pen to paper. I just really wanna capitalize on that. So I wanna talk about different kinds of activism, whether it's small, every day acti

ons, like having that conversation, that hard conversation with parents, et cetera, to larger scale initiatives and campaigns, but also in terms of where we can locate activist actions, whether in the mass media, in digital spaces, in really achievable kind of moments that all of us can participate in. So Thanu, with this past month has been particularly critical for immigrant rights. You're one of the organizers behind the, I feel like I'm beaming while I'm saying this to you, you're one of the

organizers behind a huge 30,000 people protest that took place two weeks ago at Battery Park, and in mobilizing people to head to JFK. The turnout was obviously tremendous. The energy was tremendous, and people were ready to use not only their voice, but their physical bodies toward immigrant rights, which, you know, is super important. So how do we bridge online and offline activism? You know, these protests came together beautifully, and super quickly, and seemingly organically. What's the im

pact of protesting and go out into the streets, in terms of activism? - Yeah, that's a good question. So the New York Times wrote this article, that like everything the New York Times does annoys me sometimes, but they wrote this article being like, oh, these organic protests that came out of nowhere, and I'm like, actually, there was like a lot, like a lot of people behind that. Let's be real. Like it was not just like, but we really utilized, like, online tools, right? It was like people blast

ing social media, like, you know, dozens of activists being like, get to JFK now! We need bodies at JFK now. So I do think that there's a way in which there's a real connection between, like, social media and offline tools, because we're utilizing social media to amplify our message, right? And so I think that we are in a very interesting moment where people, particularly allies, really wanna show up. So for me, myself, I was, like me and a lot of folks were not US citizens. We were advised not

to go to JFK. So I, even though I was like on my computer being like, everybody has to go to the JFK now, fight the people, I was on my couch. I was not at JFK, because, like, I was scared, you know? And a lot of people I knew were scared as well, and so it was really interesting that that first major protest at JFK, the, like, thousands of allies, that people who were US citizens could be there, and I think that that's, like, a really, that was, like, a really important moment. And I think that

what's sort of interesting about this particular moment, and how it is that we can use online spaces, is to really talk, like, to really talk about the narrative, and to continue to complicate the narrative. So when the Executive Order around the travel ban went into place on Friday, like, it was literally within a span of two hours that people were being detained. So I had friends coming in from Sudan, from Iran, who were being detained, and, you know, some of them were legal permanent residen

ts, right? And so one of the things that I really wanted to use the online space to push back on was this idea that there should be outrage because people who are documented were being stopped, right? 'Cause actually, what this particular moment does, it allows us to really push with solidarity between people, regardless of their immigration status. So if you are outraged because visa holders and legal permanent residents were being detained, you should be just as outreached that ICE raids right

now over the last week have detained and arrested over 700 people, and are going to get worse. And so this is really like a moment in us to all come together in that way, and I think that's where we're tryin' to really, that's the importance of, like, you know, journalists, and artists, to really pull that narrative together at the same time as we continue to need people on the ground. But you know, and at the same time, it's really great that so many, like, allies are coming out, but it's real

ly important also to center the voices of those who are most affected. So, you know, undocumented voices, Muslim voices, you know, non-citizens, those are the voices that really need to be centered in this time, because those are the people most affected, but are also part of this movement to create mobilizations that are beyond this concept of legal citizenship, right? That's where this idea of like cultural citizenship as empowerment is really important. - I also wanna talk about how to put pr

essure on cultural issues, of which we have many, to be political ones. And I mean that political in big P and also little P, in terms of kind of getting people to participate, and this is kinda for the group, whoever, you know, would like to, yeah. How do you put pressure on cultural issues to be political ones? Or are there strategies that you guys have used in your own work? - I think that there's, I think what, I forgot who mentioned it earlier, but the phrase, cultural imaginaries, is reall

y crucial here, because I think, like, one thing that I've often felt is kind of missing from all of the conversation around like Asian American culture has been like, what is the positive, like, definition of what Asian American identity should look like, right? We know what it doesn't look like. We know what it probably shouldn't look like. We know what it kinda looks like now, but what are we aspiring to, and what are we building? And I think that's part of the, like, you know, calling our pe

ople out when they're being anti-Black is part of building towards, like, okay, this is what, like, a positive Asian American identity should look like, and I think that is the work that only culture can do, right? No amount of policy writing is gonna be like, this is the type of person you should grow up to be, but showing positive role models, showing different types of role models in the media allows people to sort of imagine themselves as like, okay, when I grow up, I'm gonna be fly like tha

t, right? And then that like kinda helps people imagine what they're gonna get to by themselves and also as a group, and I think that's super important. - Though, just really, it's really hard to move people, period, right? And so when I was with 18 Million Rising, we worked on a lot of online campaigns that moved people through action via petitions, letter writing campaigns to your representatives, and basically, educating folks about cultural issues that are linked to Asian Americans or other

communities of color. And so we did a lot of work that focused on media representation. Like the Make Mulan Right Petition to Disney, and also, I guess, asking California Governor, Jerry Brown, to pass AB17-26, which would disaggregate data for Asian Pacific Americans in that state. And I think at the most fundamental level, the first step to moving someone to action is really understanding who your target audience is, especially if you're doing online work, right? Related to culture, and what t

hey will respond to. So more specifically, I'm thinking about the ways that you frame a campaign, do AB testing on social media platforms, like Facebook, or tweet the message to resinate with specific segments of your audience. So I guess shifting from online work to more on the ground work that I do with evictions, and displacement, and how to move people on the ground, I think it's really different, right? And I think that one of the things that move people to action is really trying to unders

tand how to meet people where they're at, right? So trying to figure, especially those who are low-income, immigrant, and unlimited English proficient, right? You need to figure out what skills they already have, how it can be further developed, and also, how you can support them in that effort, and I think that's something that we can do better at, both connecting what happens online, and on the ground, and those efforts. - Yeah, I mean, I think the cultural piece is really interesting, because

so many celebrities right now are making political statements, and the hope is that that really moves people to action, but we're in this weird place, I feel like, because, you know, Hilary's campaign was like really star studded, right? Like she had like-- (laughing) Like she had Beyoncé, like how did, you know, like how can you lose if you have Beyoncé? You know, and I think there's this difference, and I think there's this divide, because the cultural activism is so important, and it's, of c

ourse, so important for celebrities to come out, and kind of, you know, endorse and support social causes. But at the same time, like, it's somehow disconnected from building political power, and I think we're in this weird place where pop culture has almost surpassed, you know, where our political system is, right? Like young women are critical of Hilary, 'cause they were like, we're ready for Laverne Cox to be president, right? I mean, it's like we have, like, you know, people have such a, lik

e, complex and interesting kind of, you know, relationship to identity, and gender, and race, all of this stuff, and, you know, for all of its faults, I think TV's more diverse than it's ever been, right? And so pop culture and celebrities are progressive, right? But then, like, Donal Trump still became president, and I think that contradiction is one of the most baffling things of our time. - [Christina] Mm-hmm, he's also a celebrity too, (laughing drowns out speaker). - One example I would giv

e of sort of the ways in which culture sort of shifted, the movement has shifted politics. Actually, during the, like, during the Bush era, was actually the undocumented youth movement, and the DREAMer movement. So in 2001, there was a piece of legislation called the Dream Act that was introduced. It would've provided basically like path of citizenship if you had come to the US under the age of 16, and you were undocumented. That didn't pass. There was a lot of the use of, like, online spaces by

a lot of undocumented youth, including Asian American youth. So like, for example, there is one group called Raise, which stands for Revolutionary Asian American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast, and they're like a pan-Asian undocu youth group on the East Coast. There's another group called Aspire on the West Coast. There was like blogs, like Ask Angie blog, or, and the Youth Leadership Council, like all of these sort of spaces. These safe spaces essentially, for these particular communities

, really helped to birth this cultural movement, for them to be able top push for their rights, first, centered through them, and then sort of pushing the narrative outward, and getting other people involved. - I also wanna talk about solidarity, and our efforts as Asian Americans in kind of showing our solidarity. We occupy their interesting non-White position, right? Our oppression is obviously much different historically, culturally, even what Black people, and what Latin-X people face, and w

e benefit in a lot of ways from being an other kind of minority. So how do we use that position to establish solidarity for our Black and Brown brothers and sisters, not only within our Asian American communities, but also, you know, outside of our communities as well? 'cause we (mumbling), you know, as a lot of us know, you know, there's a lot of racism even within those Asian communities, so I'd love to kind of talk about that too. - So the organization that I work most closely with in Wiscons

in is called Freedom Inc, and it's a Black and Hmong organization. So I think that, just like it's not an easy solution, but an easy way of thinking through this problem is thinking about making that explicit in our organizing work, and to think about how when we do this Asian American, it's like really important to have Asian American organizations and activate Asian Americans through that identification, but that, like, just making explicit alliances, and thinking through when you are planning

actions, or thinking through your strategies. If you do that, literally, hand in hand with an organization that's focusing on another community, I think that that's really important. And I know we're talking about the use of media, and pop culture as like a hopeful, in a hopeful way to try to think about how we can change, like, narratives, mainstream narratives, but I just that that work on the ground is where it starts. And I'm not, I just think that if we're not having those tough conversati

ons in our communities where literally like a Hmong person is talking to a Black person about the kinds of oppression that they both are facing, and how they can both support each other, then there's really no hope of, like, moving into the level of pop culture. So I guess that, yeah, that's just one of the first things on the list maybe. - I feel like that type of coalition work that Thanu does is like extremely important, and more important now than ever, because we're in a situation where the

re's like so much stuff on fire, right? Everything is constantly on fire, and, like, I think trying to build, like, these groups that lasts for forever, and are base around very rigid things, like identity, not that identity's particularly rigid, but, you know, like that are rigid, really does us a disservice when we have to, like, react nimbly, and with agility, right? And, like, what makes the JFK protest really successful, and make, like, all the work that you do really awesome, is that it br

ings together all these groups when it's needed, right? And then therefore, like, as the ally, what you need to do is show up at those times, but to do the coordinating work of pulling out, why is this an issue for everyone, right? I see that as translation work, and I think that, like, that's something that we all do within our communities, whether it's literally translating a news article for our parents, or, like, trying to get them to understand why these issues affect them. - Yeah, I think

we really need to reflect also on this presidential election. Like, you know, something that comes to mind, during Donald Trump's campaign there was this, like, hindutva BJP group in, this Indian American group in New Jersey that, like, threw him, like, a campaign party, and they had this Bollywood dancers there, and the Bollywood dancers enacted this like, some bizarre, like, basically like Islamophobic performance. And so we also have to, like, think through, I mean, I'll talk about the South

Asian community, like the ways in which, like, we're all divided in the South Asian community between like Hindus, and Buddhists, and Muslim. Like, what is that, what does that look like in a space where, you know, there are people in Asian American communities who are supporting Trump, for example? And so when I think about solidarity, some of that work is exactly what Christina was doing, which is, like, you know, you've gotta talk to your, you've gotta talk to your fam. Like, I know, I'm Sri

Lankan, I'm Sinhalese, and Buddhist. I know a lot of Sinhalese, Buddhist, Sri Lankas who voted for Trump. And like my friends were Sinhalese and Buddhist, but they truly, like engaging with their parents, like, all the time in order to sort of, like, as part of that solidarity work. But yeah, I mean, like I said before, I think that this is a really particular moment for people to be in solidarity across immigration statuses, and I also think, you know, particularly in regards to the Muslim ban,

you know, there are countries in the Middle East that were impacted, North Africa, and East Africa, and so, like the Muslim ban is very much a Black Lives Matter issue, and so we shouldn't also forget that. And so, but there is a real point of solidarity there as well, to really talk about all of these issues. And I always wanted to, the point about sanctuary cities, like, you know, I think New York City really loves to talk about how they're a sanctuary, you know? But, like, right now, we real

ly need more than words, and so to really be a sanctuary city, this requires that people in New York City really be in solidarity with each other, because what is a sanctuary city when NYPD is enacting broken windows policy that impact Black communities every day? That is not a sanctuary city. So New York City can't be like, oh, we have all this language acts, and we promise we're gonna protect all these undocumented immigrants, but still, like, there's all of this room now for people to be cate

gorized as criminals. Mayor Bill de Blasio just like week said, that he would actually maybe be okay with expanding the list of criminal offenses that were allowed for deportation, and that list is already at 170, like, ways in which one can be considered a criminal. So what does is mean when de Blasio is using sanctuary city as a way to, you know, push forward his mayoral campaign, and at the same time, ICE is arresting and detaining people across New York and across the country. - So I guess f

or me, solidarity as an East Asian second gen woman, it's taking action, and I think that action is going to be different for everyone in this room, right? One way I think that we could, I guess what solidarity looks like, is by really holding folks in our own communities accountable for perpetuating anti-Black racism, or for other things that we can do in the capacity that we have, right? As folks who have institutional access with educational privilege. So these are the things that we can do i

ntimately at home, but I think, at the same time, we need, we can also do a better job connecting what happens online to on the ground movement, right? And also conversations at home, what kind of conversations have we had with our aunties, with our mother, with our grandparents about what's happening in the world around us? When was the last time that we really sat down with them at the dinner table to have a typical conversation? Did we get through to them, and can we pick off from where we le

ft off? Another thing that I can think of that is sort of actionable is being supportive of folks in your local community, right? By thinking of New York City, how can we support immigrant and refugee folks here, right? So how do you support your local street vendors? How do you support the taxi drivers? Are you doing it consciously, and what are some other ways that you can actively support folks who are most marginalized, right? Are you able to participate in deescalation trainings, and in int

ervention trainings, or can you share that information? So I guess there are a lot of different actionable ways that solidarity can take place. It really depends on what your capacity is, and what you're comfortable with. - And then last question before we kind of open up to the audience, in case you guys have questions, is about media possibilities outside of the mainstream, because I want us to start thinking about, you know, outside of this talk, how might we, what actions can we take, or wha

t's tangible, in terms of next steps, right? Like, so, you know, what are some alternative sites for us to start building or adding to, you know, activist movements? In a lot of ways, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. That energy and that momentum is already there, it's just about tapping in, and in a lot of ways, a lot of people get daunted by the huge task of trying to take on, feel like they're alone in taking on an issue, or they might be in silo. So how do we capitalize on this energy, a

nd start thinking about different ways into the conversation about activism, specifically Asian American activism, but also activism at large? - I think we're lucky enough to live in a moment where this is not entirely true, but, like mainstream media, largely at this point, is heavily influenceable by social media, right? You do something that makes big enough of a bubble on social media, the news will come to follow it. So part of it is like, and I kinda wanted to mention this with regards to

the last question too, right? If you are somebody with privilege, with skills, with rarefied skills, like being very good at social media, or tech talent, or et cetera, like use the crap out of that. This is the time when we need everyone to bring whatever they have to the table, right? So if your adept at being in an online space, and organizing an online space, use those skills, right? And try to, like, take up space, and then share it with the people who it needs to be shared with, but, like,

take that space for yourself, and then the mainstream media hopefully will, in both situations, come to cover that. - Yeah. (clearing throat) I don't think I'm the mainstream media, maybe I am. (laughing) We are independently owned. But one thing, you know, tremendous tool that I think social media has had is between, you know, outside of these like, you know, really scaling movements offline, and like, you know, I mean, I kept being like, how did all these women even hear about this march? And

it's like, they heard about it through email, and social media, and, you know, through listeners, and things like that. But what happens online, is you actually have the opportunity to sustain momentum between these kind of like big spark moments, right? So and the way that that's really translated into my newsroom, is I have five dedicated reporters to the movement, specifically, which I feel very lucky for, but basically, when there isn't a big moment, they're embedding with, like Thanu's in

contact with my reporters all the time. You know, I actually have embedded them in the movement, so that even during the down time, we are actually collecting information, and learning about the strategy, and reporting on the things that are happening in between the big platforms, which is obviously gonna get the front page of the New York Times, and, you know, the kind of more media, big media moments, and kind of really using online storytelling to sustain the moment in the down time, so peopl

e don't forget that the struggle continues. It may not just always be as sexy as a protest. It may be, you know, a DA race. It may be, you know, something a little bit, you know, or kind of like just really keeping track of the resistance. Like, I like to say, you know, yesterday's a resistance. Nordstrom drops Ivanka Trump, right? Like, this movement is like so much beyond, like, just, you know, the kind of protesting, which is obviously so important, and I think online tools and online storyte

lling really allows us to continue in assisting that momentum. - I think that if we want to survive, we need to be as creative with our digital activism as we can, and to really imagine the possibilities of telling our stories in ways that they would never allow us to, right? So as part of my work with 18 Million Rising, I did a lot of work on platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, but I think right now the question is, how do we make what we already have accessible to those who d

on't have access, or the language capacity? And I think that, right? This is, it's important to really think about how our work is articulated, and practiced in ways that is accessible to those who are most marginalized in our communities, or what are we doing to translate the resources, knowledge, and skills that we already have? And this is one thing that I've been thinking about a lot, is to start sort of an online collective of translators and interpreters who can organize, right? Around lan

guage justice in order for us to have a more robust and inclusive social justice analysis in our movements. I think that's something that we can definitely do with our media activism. - I think it's an interesting time for mainstream media, because, like, they really have to make a choice, right? So, you know, institutions like CNN, and what not, like if they're doing the kind of reporting where now they're like, okay, and now we have to, you know, interview this person from the KKK, because tha

t's objective, like, I'm sorry, like, no. You need to make decisions, and, like, I think that's what my role is as like sort of someone who is embedded in communications and media within the immigrants rights movement, is to really steer mainstream media to not do that. Like Samhita was saying, like, objectivity is dead, like pick your story, and like, tell the stories of people within these communities. And one shout out to Mic, like one of your amazing reports, Jamelia, she wrote the story, or

she what? I don't actually know if she wrote the story, was asking me about, you know, like there's been a lot of this whole like, well, I'm Muslim too kind of rallies that are happening, and so there was this, an article that she wrote basically that sort of like deconstructed how that can be, you know, problematic, and I think that kind of media is, like, really important too to really, at the same time as we're tryin' to mobilize all of these people, a lot of people are really new to activis

m. They're just being activated now, and so it's really, really important to have media voices that are actually helping to, people to steer in the right direction, because it's beyond this like, all of us being on the streets. We also have to have an analysis of why it is that we're on the streets, and who it is that you are supporting. - I think it's kind of important, because there's so much going on to also not feel like every project needs to do everything, right? Like, we've just articulat

ed so many different types of media. Media for education, media for representation, media for, like, gathering and organizing, media for helping people find each other, media for helping people find themselves, and, like, no one project can do all of that for everyone, and so I think, like, it's extra important, even though I think there's a lot of pressure to try to be that, because the need is so great, to pick your niche, and, like, stand your ground, and sort of like be prepared to not expan

d beyond the scope, and to trust that there are other people doing the work, and to work with those other people, rather than just tryin' to, like, expand indefinitely. - I think there's also, like, a lot of fear about taking that first step. Like, there's a lot of hesitancy, and a lot of fear involved with, you know, I don't know what's out there. I'm not sure how to get involved. I don't wanna kind of be, you know, odd man out, or, you know, perhaps I'll get in the second wave, or the second s

tep, and I think it's also critical to take that first step, you know, whatever that first step might be, and just kind of learn on the go, which a lot of us are learning on the fly. - Awesome. My question was, we've hear so many, like, amazing things from you guys, but how do you translate that to, like, your White friends, your White colleagues? I work at a mainstream media company, and I find it important that I have a seat at the table, but at the same time, I find myself compromising my int

egrity and my beliefs in order to sometimes translate things that are, like, palatable for them to understand, so it's a constant struggle. Do you guys have any advice on that? (laughing) (cross-talking) - Oh my God! - Yeah. I mean, I think that is the role of the translator, right? This is an important way to be an ally. Like, I get mad, 'cause in my profession, like, people in tech right now are like really misusing the word empathy, and they're like, everything should be empathetic. Empathy i

s so important, and it is, but empathy literally means to be in pain with someone, right? Like, it is not an easy thing, and I think as a translator, you're translating from something to something, and being that bridge, I think, like, I feel it especially as like a first generation immigrant, but, like, being that bridge, you're holding those two sides together, and that takes a toll on you, right? So I think just like first and foremost, seeing it as work, and not just, like, I think framing i

t as like betraying your values because you're doing that work is maybe, like, a slightly unhelpful way to do it, but to see that this is part of the work. That, like, going and having these difficult conversations, which impact you, and change the way that you think in ways that you may not be comfortable with is part of the work, but, like, that is one very important thing that people have to do, right? - Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of White guilt right now. Let's just be real. I don't know. I

mean, I think like White folks really need to talk to other White folks about what it means to be an ally in this moment, and what allyship really looks like. And an example is, like, actually, the day of the JFK protest when I was at home, one of the people that I called was a lawyer who was at JFK. I was like, who's there, and like, can we please make sure that, like, the leads are, like, groups like, Desis Rising Up & Moving, and African Communities Together, and Arab Association of New York

? And, you know, this particular individual got like really, really angry, and was like, I am at JFK! I'm here putting my body on the line! Where are you, Thanu? And I was like, well, (laughing) you know, and it was just like, it was just really just like a horrifying moment for me. That's actually how that day started for me was that conversation. And so, like, I do think that, like, and, you know, later she felt bad, and she was like, oh my God, I'm sorry. I forgot about your situation. I didn

't know that you had people that were affected. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, you know, there are people, like, it's like for communities of color, and, you know, people who are not from this country, and we're all connected to each other, and I felt like that was like a very key moment to me as someone who was, like, tryin' to be an ally, but really didn't not know, like was centering themselves, and not communities of color who were affected, and so, but I actually, like, shockingly kept,

like, extremely calm, and like did in that moment. Like, hung up on her, then waited for her to call me back to apologize, and then was like, listen, like I'm not gonna get into with you, like let's just make sure that YXZ organizations are the ones involved, and she was like, okay, and I'm like, all right. You know, so, like, that's gonna continue to happen, and it's a lot of work. It's gonna be like a lot of work moving forward to really ensure that folks understand what it means to be an ally

, and not just White folks, like including, like, people of color who are not affected. - Yeah, I mean, I just brought it out, I think. In the workplace, it's a little bit more complicated, because sometimes it's like your boss that says something that's really problematic, and you're like, well, like how do I call you out, right? And like, how do I call you in, right? And there's like all these different kind of vulnerabilities, I think, in the workplace that make today complicated, especially

in the media environment. I always say, you know, like my reporters that are Black, and have to report on police shootings every day have to take on an additional emotional toll that other writers in the newsroom don't have to take, and that's not in their HR contract, right? That's something that I know as their manager, and try to like hold and create space for them so that they can process, or even the night of the election when we all had to come back to the newsroom, 'cause we thought, 'cau

se everything changed, and I was like, all right guys, roll up your sleeves, and it's like a lot of my writers are young, queer people of color who are, you know, grappling with a lot of deep emotion in this moment, and I was like, you have to roll up your sleeves and work. Like it's a do or die moment. This is the biggest news story of the year, guys, you know? And I think that a lot of work places haven't actually evolved very much on how to hold a diverse staff, in terms of the different thin

gs you bring to the table, and so I'd say for tactics, like one thing, you know, we have in our, like we have a Slack channel that's like for people of color, right? And I think, and that's like really important, in terms of like building community in the office of like kind of identifying other people that can be your ally, so that when you do have a freak out moment, you can go talk to them, and be like, okay, this crazy thing happened, but like, it's my boss, and I don't know if I can like ta

lk to this person about it. So that's one of them. And then I think the other is like trying to have some of those difficult conversations. I mean, I think when I was younger, it was much harder, and now that I'm in a position of leadership, like I can do that, and everyone's like, whoa, Samhita's mad, and I'm like, yeah! (laughing) You better watch yourself. But, you know, to like kind of have those, like be courageous, and kind of give people the benefit of the doubt, and hope that they, you k

now, obviously, first and foremost, you have to consider your own safety, and like your position in the company, but like, you know, I think giving people a way, like pointing it out, or finding ways to kind of have that conversation, you'd actually be surprised of how people might hear you. (male mumbling) - [Male] Why you-- (female speaking faintly) - Why you think like Mindy dated White guys, (laughing) personally? And the second one is like, I really don't like to call people as like White,

Black, Asian, so how, what could be the word, or like how to go beyond that? - So I'm like obsessed with Mindy Kaling. I've written about her so much, 'cause we're the same age, and we're both Bengalian, and we're both from the East Coast, and we're both writers, and there's a lot happening here, and might have certain history with dating White men. So I-- (laughing) So I like love her, and I hate her, and I think that what's so fascinating about her is, so as we talk about kind of like how we b

uild coalition within our own community, I think one of the most pervasive and toxic narratives that's proliferated in the Asian American immigrant community is this idea of pulling yourself up by your boot straps, right? And that you are part of the American dream, and I feel like Mindy buys into that hook, line, and sinker. If you see any interviews with her, she gets really upset if you ask her why, like what it's like to be a ground breaking South Asian woman, and she'll always say, like I d

on't want it. She's like, I just wanna be a comedian, like I don't wanna be a South Asian woman. And she's slowly like started to embrace it, because I think she's been criticized about it so much, and, you know, I'm always very wary of criticizing her too much, 'cause she really is like the first one, you know? And I think that she has made some decisions around, you know, casting choices. Like her cast has evolved, and gotten a little bit more diverse, but not really, and, you know, and I thin

k, definitely, her dating choices are questionable, but I also that, you know, I think Mindy reflects a real South Asian experience. Like, I grew up with people like Mindy, right? And I don't know if you know her brother, like I'm like real obsessed with Mindy. Her brother is like, he's like this like super crazy Republican who wrote a book about how affirmative action is bad for Asians, and like I think that this weird social experiment. I could go on, or if you wanna talk after of like how he

proved his theory. So, you know, she comes from, and I think does articulate a South Asian American experience that we may not want to identify with, but it's a very real one, you know? And I think that's part of why. So like, she may subconsciously or consciously be making this decision to like, you know, only like, whatever. Like, yeah, they're all White. They're also like hot so I could see her being like, you know, like I just I'm gonna like make out with the hot guys, you know, like whateve

r, you know? But it a kind of experience that is real, and that I think, you know, we can debunk, but also like a lot of people relate to, and that's probably why she did it. - I'm wondering if it's okay to sort of expand this conversation out to other arts, not just media, as a major thing, and I don't know if I'm the only Asian American arts organization here that's not into media directly. Is there another one here? (female speaking faintly) Okay, we need activism crucially at this time, beca

use, you know, if you are an Asian American organization, as I have been for decades now, you know that the city is about to finalize a law, which is going to affect for the next 10 years, how funding is distributed in New York City. All of our community organizations have been getting peanuts, peanuts, while the major institutions in New York City get 80, 85% of the money for as long as I can remember. This can change now if we can get Asian American activism to realize that we want a change in

this law to finally get some equity for our community, and our organizations, whether it's dance, visual arts, video, all kinds of the arts, and this, I think, if it sounds like your organizations are not directly Asian American, but you're a part of an organization. If you are directly an Asian American organization, then you apply for the same funding where I do, and maybe you're affected by how you are funded by in that way, and so in April, a group of us who have written a contrary peoples

plan. So the city is putting out a comprehensive cultural plan, and we are putting out a peoples cultural plan, and we need to distribute that throughout the city between April and July, because in July, the city will make a decision as to what's going to happen. On Monday, there will be a hearing. I think it's Monday or Tuesday in the City Hall about this. You can go and testify. Anybody who wants to hear more about this, you know, I'm always shocked to see that so many people like this, who wa

nt to be activists, and want to care about how we're perceived, and you don't know about this law, and about six months of the effort of the city to try to get to us, and review, and get your opinion. You don't know about it, because they're failing at that, and purposely so, 'cause they don't want you to know. They don't want you to know. - [Panelist] Do you want us to respond, or? - If you can respond to that, I'd love to hear your response. - I mean, so I'm an artist and a musician separately

from this stuff. I mean, I do think that like, I actually just came, before this, I was at the Hemispheric Institute, and there was an entire discussion of all sorts of cultural activists and artists around how to plug into the resistance, as I like to call it. And, you know, I think that there's, like it's true. I think in times, particularly of crisis, the arts often like fall to the side, and it's really, really important to really include the arts because the arts can really help to elevate

these movements, and sort of, you know, shift the narratives, right? So I mean, I don't have a direct, like that's real. You know, arts institutions are, you know, always sort of, particularly the smaller ones are always, you know, at risk, but I think that this is a really important time for arts organizations to really be doing this work, and, you know, organizations like mine, like arts is such an important part of that, right? So we work with organizations like CultureStrike, for example, w

hich is like an immigrant rights, arts, and culture organization that really helps to like uplift the movement, that's all I would say. - [Female] Hi, I think someone might have briefly mentioned this, but I wanted to see if anyone had anything to add. Nowadays, it's almost eccentric when we encounter, someone who doesn't use or engage in social media, we can without a doubt acknowledge the incredible influence of social media. However, what I see is, there seems to be like a divide between soci

al media enthusiasts and social media activists, and there seems to be a large population of people who just sit back, and click like, or retweet a political post, but then forget about it in real life. My question is, how do we make sure the changes we fight for thrive long-term without becoming repetitive or old, and how do we achieve this virality while also being taken seriously? - I know this talk is called Asian American, but there's actually, because of globalization, and et cetera, there

's a lot of Asian populations throughout the world, through immigration particularly, especially, let's just use English countries for the sake of simplicity. Do you envision a future where there can be a transnational identity of Asians throughout like Australia, UK, et cetera? - [Rachel] There's more. Hold your thoughts. - My question's more on the production side of media, and this kind of relates to Mindy Kaling's original work, kind of a come up overall, but in kind of the frame of these di

versity-based initiatives, and getting people of color in writing rooms. And on the production side, I think there's also a concern among filmmakers and among producers to be pigeonholed as that kind of label. And, you know, when I see a lot of Asian American film festivals that I can submit to, there's kind of a small concern I suppose on where that kind of places my product, and how that is labeled. So I was just wondering if any of you have some insightful things to say about that line of whe

re the support ends, or not ends, but where the support, and I suppose, the normalization of the product, kind of where that lies? - [Nario] Hi, my question is about, ethnic media in relation to Asian American media. I think there's been a lot of rumors spreading, within our immigrant communities. So I'm undocumented, I'm from (mumbling), so thanks for the shout out Thanu. I think recently there was a supposed ICE raid in Jackson Heights, and that set a lot of fears, and a lot of tremors in immi

grant communities. So how, know, what are ways we can combat that by using, like, social media more consciously, and what are ways where we can discuss these issues, and like, you know, down play these rumors with other communities? 'Cause like, you know, in the Filipino community, my grandparents watch a lot of, like, I don't know if anyone's Filipino here, like the TFC, right? But people, but they always get like misinformation wrong, 'cause they're broadcasting from like Philippines, and hear

ing stuff all the way here in New York City. So like, you know, what are ways that Mic or 18 Million Rising are working with ethnic-media, and bridging the gap between like Asian immigrants and Asian American's? - [Kiran] So really briefly, if we could kind of-- - So each question? - Can I response to that question first? - Yeah. - Yeah so, I mean, so what's you name? (audience member speaking faintly) Darrel? - Nario. - Nario. So what Mario is referring to is that over the last couple of days,

like if you, I don't if you've seen on your social media feeds, like, there's a lot of rumors about like ICE check points, or like ICE raids, and ICE Up, you know, the Seven train in Jackson Heights, or whatnot, and so, and a lot of them are unverified reports. So it's put a pre-fold, right? So there are ICE arrest and detentions happening. There are also a lot of rumors, because people are scared and panic. And there's also, the Attorney General's Office just released a statement saying, that t

here's actually scammers that are posing as ICE agents, and who are basically tryin' to swindle people out of money. So we had organizers today, basically, literary driving down Flatbush Avenue, because there was rumors that there was ICE agents in Crown Heights and in Flatbush. And so, and I work very closely with the ethnic media. So with, you know, media organizations from Latino to Asian in their specific languages, and one of the difficulties often times for those particular, you know, pape

rs is that, they often don't have like a good source of information, and so we're really tryin' to figure out how best to combat this, so we're really tryin' to like, you know, make sure that rumors, that we're shutting down rumors at the same time as we're tryin' to like verify facts. So what I'm tryin' to do is really work with the, like I, for example, like every couple of weeks will have like a ethnic media specific press conference to make sure that people have the right information, but it

's like a really, it's a really tricky time, but the one thing that I've been telling people, that if you do not, like because the problem is people keep sharing these things, and nobody knows the source of this information, but what I have told people, stop sharing it. Unless you have like a time stamped documentation that there is an ICE agent somewhere, you need to be giving that to an immigrant rights organization, or a lawyer. You should not be sharing that on social media, because you are

actually causing so much anxiety and stress, and like making people sick, because this has like real impacts for people's lives. And then for, on that question, like, I mean, when I was talking about like struggling as Asian American, like absolutely, like I do see myself within an Asian American framework, but at the same time, like, because like I came to the US for college when I was 18, and I have family in Canada, Australia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, which is where I grew up, like I do kind of c

onsider myself to be a little bit more transnational, at the same time as I recognize that there's a lot of like complications and privileges with that. - I can answer the question about submitting to Asian American film festivals, and that leading to pigeonholing as like a minority film. So I think that it's important to notice, to realize that Asian American film festivals come from the arts world, and are a really separate have of, create a very separate cultural space from mainstream media,

and that they were created specifically for that purpose of identifying Asian American films and supporting Asian American film makers. So I would say, that yes, it's a risk, but if you submit yourself to an Asian American film festival, that'll it'll be pigeonholed, but that it's not meant to, that there isn't a long tradition of those films actually like then crossing over, right? People don't submit their films to Asian American film festivals, and then find distribution so that they can go i

nto like mainstream theaters. It's actually, but it is a great training ground, and the networking opportunities, and like learning to be part of filmmaking cultures is all really important, so I think that space is important, but it's not the same thing as trying to join like the mainstream media world, but it also doesn't mean that the people who are part of the film festival world will never be part of mainstream media, because that happens as well. Like, there are definitely breakout stars w

ho have no problem with their careers after that, but I just think that it's important to recognize that it is a separate space from like a path to distribution in like Hollywood theaters. - I wanna touch on the first question. I feel like I would be extremely remise as an internet dweller, if I, like I feel really strongly that I think the fine like sort of dividing everything into online versus offline is kind of an unhelpful mode, from my perspective, because I think, you know, like all of us

are here in the same room offline. Where many of us are also online literally at the same time, right? We all carry, most of us, these like online going devices in our pockets, and so I don't think that there are, like the JFK riot, like, protest was something that happened online and offline at the same time. So I think like trying to draw this hard line between like, oh, these people are just retweeting, but just retweeting gets real bodies there, right? And so I don't think it's helpful to d

raw that strict line. That said, I think it is helpful to say, that online doesn't necessarily equal social media, and my, like, obsession as of late has been like, how the user takes some of these conversations off of social media, and like go into sort of more closed online spaces where you can really organize with people without broadcasting to the whole world, right? And that's kind of the like coalition building, and the organizing that traditionally has happened in offline spaces, but ther

e's no reason why that can't happen online, right? The internet is just a tool for us to use. There's no reason why like things have to be fundamentally different there in most ways. - So thank you guys so much for coming out, and, you know, perhaps the panel, so be around for like five, 10 minutes if you have any further questions, but thank you guys. - Thank you. (audience applauding)