Welcome to the first ever episode of At the Moment! Hosted by Sylvia Peng and Janrey Serapio, “At the Moment” is a podcast where we explore Asian American as a term, identity, and political movement.
We're kicking off our launch with a look back at 2 key topics in 2020: BIPOC racial justice and COVID-19. In part 1, we're sitting down with Kabzuag Vaj, a Hmong American activist and founder of Freedom, Inc to talk about a historic year of reckoning with police brutality, anti-Blackness, and anti-Asian hate.
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Janrey Serapio 00:00
Before we get into it, we'd like to preface that this episode contains details of assault, police brutality and adult language. Listener discretion advised.
Sylvia Peng 00:10
I'm Sylvia Peng.
Janrey Serapio 00:12
I'm Janrey Serapio.
Sylvia Peng 00:13
You're listening to At The Moment.
Janrey Serapio 00:16
By AZI Media.
Sylvia Peng 00:21
Hello, everyone. Thank you all so much for tuning in for the very first episode of At The Moment.
Janrey Serapio 00:27
Hey! We're finally launching!
Sylvia Peng 00:28
Yes! I think for me, it's been almost six months since I first joined.
Janrey Serapio 00:33
It feels like it's been a really long time coming.
Sylvia Peng 00:36
We don't want this to be just a podcast, but have it become a space where we can have deeper,
Janrey Serapio 00:41
More analytical,
Sylvia Peng 00:42
Often messy,
Janrey Serapio 00:43
And absolutely unnecessary conversations about Asian American politics through storytelling.
Janrey Serapio 00:56
For some context, Syl is actually my college bestie. We've known each other for four years. And we've always been super interested in Asian American news and politics.
Sylvia Peng 01:06
Yeah, those 3 AM political rambles.
Janrey Serapio 01:08
They finally found a place.
Sylvia Peng 01:10
Exactly. And we're gonna kick off this year by revisiting the original political intent of the Asian American identity. We'll be talking to an activist who works around that intent today, and unpack a lot of the important conversations we had in 2020.
Janrey Serapio 01:27
Right, so let's backtrack a bit. 2020 has been kind of chaotic.
Sylvia Peng 01:31
From the pandemic, rise of anti Asian hate crimes to George Floyd and that Asian American police officer who stood complicitly.
Janrey Serapio 01:38
In 2020 Asian Americans were faced with a lot of racially charged moments. But, one of the main takeaways I gathered from the year of quarantine is that Asian Americans have a lot of reckoning to do.
Sylvia Peng 01:49
We sure do.
Janrey Serapio 01:50
We thought we'd take the Asian American identity and fully put it into question. Rethink what this identity is, and look at it as more of a politics, a movement, or even a call to action.
Sylvia Peng 02:04
Exactly. And this may sound a little confusing at first, but the reason why we like to define Asian American as a political term, instead of just an identity, is that the history of how this term was first created has very deep ties to the fact that Asian American is actually an imagined identity. It's not quite real.
Janrey Serapio 02:25
This is starting to sound like a political science class, Syl.
Sylvia Peng 02:28
Alright, well, for example, when we look at Asian Americans, we often think of them as simply people who are descendants of Asia living in America. But Asia holds more than 58.8% of the world's population. So we're pretty much saying that more than half of the world has enough similarities for their descendants to be reduced down to one simple racial category
Janrey Serapio 02:51
For example, Syl and I's families do not speak the same language, eat the same food practices the same religion, and we're not even from the same landmass. I am Filipino American and Southeast Asian, proudly. And Syl is from Taiwan.
Sylvia Peng 03:04
And more accurately, born in Taiwan, and now consider myself as Asian American, among many of my other identities. So if we continue to use Asian continent to define Asian American, then the descendants of people from Lebanon, Turkey, and parts of Russia are also considered Asian American. This may not be what you think when you hear Asian American. So I think all this is to show that this term is an imagined identity. It evolves and molds and shifts according to the invention of a society.
Janrey Serapio 03:37
Right. So Syl, if this whole identity is BS, why are we making this podcast?
Sylvia Peng 03:42
Yeah, so Asian American political identity actually does have a much more precise origin. Beginning in 1965, San Francisco, some racist college administrators and professors caused a historical moment of protest.
1968 Strike Footage 04:08
We're gonna ask people to come out of classes. People are going to come out of class and the school will be closed down. This school's on strike! He won't meet with us until he meets with those demands!
Sylvia Peng 04:27
If you went to San Francisco State College in the late 1960s, less than 25% of the students would be people of color. And that's not really a surprise for the 60s, except for the fact that over 50% of SFC youth were people of color.
Janrey Serapio 04:43
Right. And in the 60s, San Francisco was pretty heavily segregated, which reflected in the school system. This probably accounted for why there are more white students that were attending the University over people of color that were attending.
Sylvia Peng 04:55
And on top of that, the history courses at the university didn't truly reflect the lived experience of POC students. In terms of Asian American course offerings, Mandarin Chinese classes were the only courses offered at the time.
Janrey Serapio 05:09
I'm just trying to imagine my little Filipino self going to these Mandarin Chinese classes to learn Mandarin and find belonging.
1968 Strike Participant 05:17
We felt that studying our own history was important to understand who we were in this country, not just where we came from, whether it's China, the Philippines or Japan.
Janrey Serapio 05:27
So the Black Student Union then pushed the administration to create an Institute of Black Studies. This Institute would live within the university where Black professors would teach and engage students in the first ever institutionalized classes on Black history and politics.
Sylvia Peng 05:40
And instead of the Institute, the admin just gave them some classes and two non-tenured professors.
Janrey Serapio 05:46
And non-tenure basically means that these professors are in temporary contracted positions that are often underpaid. So, their future the college is basically up to the same administration that refused to give the Black students what they wanted.
Sylvia Peng 05:57
The Black Student Union knew that these temporary measures could be taken away at any time. So, they started recruiting other students of color to form a coalition called the Third World Liberation Front.
1968 Strike Participant 06:08
Black students joined with other people of color in the Third World Liberation Front. Together, they issued a set of demands. They demanded the power to change the class and racist nature of education.
Janrey Serapio 06:19
The Third World Liberation Front had 15 demands, and they refused to end the strike unless they're met.
1968 Strike Participant 06:25
The education that the Third World people need is one that sees the dignity and the worth and the pride of the people from which they come.
Janrey Serapio 06:32
Now, the Third World can kind of come off as a bit of a derogatory term. But they named themselves this for a very specific reason.
1968 Strike Participant 06:40
Racism is continuing as the mainstay of keeping Third World people poor, not just in this country, but around the world.
Sylvia Peng 06:51
So originally, the term was created by Western and European countries to describe countries with lesser resources, as, you know, third class countries, developing countries, the third world. However, people who lived in these countries decided to subvert the term and make it a unifier of the don't haves of this world to really make the claim that this inequality you see is not the result of inefficiencies or deficiencies of their countries. But instead, the consequence of hundreds of years of colonial influence and the violence and the massacres that occurred. And by branding themselves with the term, it acts as a constant reminder to the world that the historical injustices still remain unresolved.
Janrey Serapio 07:43
Right, and when you apply that concept to the situation here in San Francisco, it kind of explains that the low admission rates of POCs to the university is not because POC students are inherently less intelligent than white students, but literally because of racism.
Sylvia Peng 07:57
Exactly. And even with those shared struggles, the whole process of uniting the POC students was actually not very easy. Interestingly enough, when the Black students approached the Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action, these Chinese students were reluctant, because they felt like they could not really relate to Black students struggles. But then, the Black Student Union leadership pointed out to them that the institutional barriers that barred Chinese students and students of immigrants from entering the college are from the same racist system that kept Black students out of campus walls.
Janrey Serapio 08:32
The Black Student Union went in, going all around San Francisco to talk and connect with students and youths of color to form the Third World Liberation Front. This included that Chicanx, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and even the Native communities.
Sylvia Peng 08:46
And don't forget the anti-Vietnam War progressive white students.
Janrey Serapio 08:49
Yep, our white allies. On November sixth 1968, the Third World Liberation Front went on strike.
1968 Strike Participant 09:01
The strike continued for five long months. At its height, the campus was essentially closed down with over 80% of the college not attending class and supporting the strike. The so called silent majority was not very silent. It was out on strike.
Sylvia Peng 09:18
Prior to this time in history, Asian American didn't even exist. Most people in mainstream society called us orientals, which is a capture all term that stems from the colonial history of white people literally not bothering differentiating the nuances of all countries East of Europe.
Janrey Serapio 09:38
Now even though we're talking about the term as if it's past tense, I literally saw oriental rugs on sale at Lord and Taylor the other day, and I lowkey almost bought one.
Sylvia Peng 09:48
Janrey!
Janrey Serapio 09:48
Sorry!
Sylvia Peng 09:51
Well, meanwhile, most Asian people in the US just identified with their ethnic identity. Filipinos are Filipinos Chinese people were Chinese, and so on. So this was really the moment when Asian American as a term was formalized, as a rallying call for liberation and justice.
Janrey Serapio 10:09
Hmm. And I thought it was interesting that Filipino Americans didn't even see any side of the East Asians that they were protesting with. They saw that their struggles aligned better with the Latinx community, which honestly makes a lot of sense to me as a Filipino because like one, I am definitely browner than most East Asians, and two, our culture and traditions that have closer ties to the Latinx community anyways, because of shared histories of colonization.
Sylvia Peng 10:31
And like how you put that Janrey. And I think the point for us as Asian Americans is that historically, we haven't related to one another through identity, but instead by politics. And really, we don't need to share a common identity or experience to be effective.
Janrey Serapio 10:46
And we should also probably stop looking for that as a justification for us to take action for racial justice. This was all a bit of a political strategy, how this term has started.
Sylvia Peng 10:55
Yeah, that's right. So knowing what we know now about how the term Asian American began, what does it mean for us now?
Janrey Serapio 11:03
We'll get into it after this break.
Ad Break: Cynthia Liu 11:09
Hi, I'm Cynthia. My pronouns are she her hers, and I'm one of the co-founders of AZI Media. Two years ago, I started working on a documentary series on Asian Americans in the Midwest. And while doing the research, I realized how underreported this experience is within the Asian American narrative as a whole. That project led me to dig into more undercovered stories within this identity. If this is the kind of work you want to support, subscribe to At the Moment. Leave us review on Apple podcasts, or recommend us to a friend or family member. Thanks.
Janrey Serapio 11:58
Knowing what we know of its origin, is the term enough? Is it not enough? What are its constraints now? And how has it served or not served Asian Americans?
Sylvia Peng 12:11
And to begin to answer these questions, we brought on Hmong American organizer and activist Kabzuag Vaj.
Kabzuag Vaj 12:18
Kabzuag Vaj, a co executive director of freedom.
Janrey Serapio 12:22
Freedom, Inc, is a Black and Southeast Asian nonprofit organization, based in Madison, Wisconsin, that works with low to no income communities of color. Being a Southeast Asian refugee, the Asian American identity for Kabzuag is more political than it is cultural.
Kabzuag Vaj 12:36
As a Hmong person who was born in Laos and lived about six years in the refugee camp and then was resettled here, I never really considered myself Asian American. I actually consider myself more Hmong. But that's not to say that I don't align myself with Asian American politics and movements. I think that it's correct to align ourselves politically as Asian Americans, but we need to further define Asian America.
Janrey Serapio 13:03
On defining what Asian American is, Kabzuag had some points that I, as a Southeast Asian, was like, yes.
Kabzuag Vaj 13:11
And so I think that two things I want people to think about when they think about the term Asian American, that we're not monolithic, number one. Number two, that we have different narratives in history, and that we really should be looking at our demographics and our data and how oppression continues to impact our communities, specifically around Southeast Asians and our resettlement, our failed resettlement in this country. And the fact that if you look at statistics and data, we are actually Cambodian, Vietnamese, Hmong, and Lao folks and other ethnic groups that came, because of the American war in Southeast Asia. I feel as a Southeast Asian person, it's important that the Southeast Asian narrative and experience in this country, because it's fairly new and because that put our families into the pipeline of incarceration and then deportation, that's just one of the examples of how we are different. People must see Southeast Asian experiences, and get the Southeast Asian experience not only in terms of where resources should be diverted to, but also without looking in depth into what's happening.
Sylvia Peng 14:23
And Kabzuag herself is Hmong refugee. Hmong people are a Southeast Asia nomadic farming community, who live across several countries, including China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.
Janrey Serapio 14:34
And Hmong people were really left out of our history books. In typical fashion. The war that eventually brought many Hmong people over to the US was called, get this, the Secret War.
Sylvia Peng 14:46
So secretive that I didn't even learn about Hmong people until college, when I went out of my way to learn about it.
Janrey Serapio 14:52
The Secret War was a proxy war fought in Laos between the CIA and communist forces during the Vietnam War. Hmong people were recruited by the CIA to fight against Vietnamese and Lao communist insurgents.
Sylvia Peng 15:03
But when the communists won and took over Laos in 1975, the US immediately cut off aid and left their Hmong recruits stranded in an enemy country.
Janrey Serapio 15:13
To escape persecution from the Lao government, many Hmong stayed in refugee camps in Thailand and Vietnam, before finally escaping to the US as refugees and settling mostly in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
Kabzuag Vaj 15:26
I came to this country as a refugee kid, and was resettled in the Midwest. And so I think growing up, not really seeing anything that fit my need or fit the communities that I wanted to grow up in, there wasn't a lot of opportunities. In addition to that, growing up in a very traditional Hmong household, I think that I learned about gender inequities fairly early on. And that's not to say that other communities don't have their own share of gender inequalities. It's just that was my lived experience. And as a mom, daughter, Hmong girl growing up, we grew up pretty poor, and not being able to get a lot of opportunities to leave the neighborhood. I really wasn't sure other than the university that was a couple blocks away from my home, what was truly out there. I got an opportunity to go study abroad in Thailand, and when I came back, I realized how big the world was. And I wonder, for the kids who grew up like me, if they could see outside of our neighborhood, what that would do for them. Because it did so much for me.
Sylvia Peng 16:32
That lived experience eventually became a realization for Kabzuag, that she was being marginalized in her new community. But it was a trip to Thailand where she gained a deeper understanding of her Hmong identity.
Kabzuag Vaj 16:46
You know, prior to going to Thailand, I understood racism in this country, and discrimination in this country, and identified probably as a person of color, but really didn't understand what it means to be a Hmong person in the world. And when I went to Thailand, it gave me a different perspective. And that perspective was no matter where I went as a Hmong person, I was a minority. I was a minority in Thailand. And I was a minority in the US. I was in Chiangmai, and I saw that many of the stores were selling Hmong products. But Hmong people could not sell, or didn't have money to buy a storefront to sell, so they would sell on the streets. And so it really opened up my eyes to what capitalism really looks like. And also, how Hmong people live throughout the world. And so when I came back, I saw that a few of the young folks that I grew up with, they were still hanging out in the parking lot of our apartment complexes. And I thought if I could show them what I had seen, and if I could show them and open up opportunities that were given to me to them, like would that change their lives? Would it impact them in the way that it impacted me?
Janrey Serapio 17:58
Would it impact them? That was a turning point for Kabzuag.
Kabzuag Vaj 18:03
And so basically, this started a weekly group gathering every Tuesday or Thursday, if they could come. And basically, I would just teach them everything that I knew. And so after a year of just giving them some basic political education, it changed their whole outlook in life. Many of them didn't have a place to live. Many of them couldn't see beyond the next day. And it changed them. And I could see many of them had gone back to school. Many got their GED. Many wanted to do different things with their lives. And so I took that model and basically said, if I can change their lives, then let's change their brothers and sisters lives. Let's keep doing this to see what it can do for our community. And so that was the beginning of Freedom Inc.
Sylvia Peng 18:55
Her work began in 2000. 26 year old Kabzuag Vaj saw the need for a safe space in Madison, Wisconsin for young women to talk about the challenges they faced. She created the Asian Freedom Project and mobilized Southeast Asian teens in her neighborhood around the issues of racial profiling, welfare reform, and gender justice. And in 2003, Asian Freedom Project became Freedom Inc, and expanded their work to include Black and Southeast Asian Youth, women, gender non-conforming and LGBTQ individuals.
Janrey Serapio 19:31
Kabzuag's work was so incredible that she was recognized as a champion of change at the White House during Domestic Violence Awareness Month in 2011. She was even named one of 20 women of color and politics to watch in 2020. What a badass.
Sylvia Peng 19:45
Being an organization that works at the intersection of Black, Asian Hmong American and LGBTQ plus communities, Freedom Inc found itself leading a lot of the important conversations about race in the summer of 2020.
News Reporter 19:59
Good evening, everyone. We're coming on the air with the latest on the wave of protests and unrest taking place at this hour across the country. Outrage at the death of George Floyd, an African American man, while in police custody in Minneapolis nearly a week ago.
Janrey Serapio 20:13
On May 25 2020, a convenience store employee called 911 and told the police that the 46 year old Black American man, George Floyd, had bought cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. Within 17 minutes of the first police car showing up at the scene, Floyd was dead. There were four officers at the scene. And one of them was Hmong American.
Sylvia Peng 20:35
Tou Thao turned away from Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes. Nine minutes!
Janrey Serapio 20:43
And those nine minutes of complicity in Floyd's murder sparked national conversation among the Asian American community, and specifically the Hmong American community.
2020 George Floyd Protestor 20:53
I'm out here today, because we keep us safe. And as an Asian American woman, I feel like it's very important that when we say we keep us safe, the we that we're talking about are other people of color.
Sylvia Peng 21:03
In Asian America, the reactions were mixed, to say the least. Many non-Hmong Asians try to disassociate Hmong Americans from Asian Americans, while others were claiming Hmong as Asian Americans for the first time. And some were just learning that Hmong people existed, period.
Janrey Serapio 21:20
But for Hmong Americans, it was also pretty mixed. When Hmong refugees arrived in the US, many were sent to live in Black and brown communities which were often underfunded, low income and heavily policed. For Hmong Americans, this meant there were and there still are shared lived and historical experiences there.
Sylvia Peng 21:38
But it also meant that people of color who lived in these communities were often pitted against one another for the limited resources. And over the years, it's fed into this anti-Black, stereotypical narrative that many Hmong Americans hold that Black people deliberately targeted them.
Janrey Serapio 21:56
Asian American politics is messy, y'all.
Sylvia Peng 21:59
Super messy. And Kabzuag saw all this unfold and wanted to confront it head on.
Janrey Serapio 22:06
Yeah so Kabzuag, I think you touched on an important point on how delicate Asian American solidarity is. How do we have this collective term, without erasing the unique historical injustices that people in the Hmong communities have faced, while other more prosperous Asians have not? We need to look at how the segregated data means the fight is different for others, even though we are technically all Asian American. And because of the difference in history, our relationships with the Black community look different as well. So on May 25th 2020, where were you at the time? What was Freedom Inc working on? And how did you react?
Kabzuag Vaj 22:41
When George Floyd was murdered, we were in Freedom, Inc. And we were preparing to address the anti-Asian hate. The two things that intersected was while in the midst of trying to address anti-Asian hate against our own communities, we then were forced to look at the killing of George Floyd and our historical stance, if you want to call it that, of Asian Americans. And Tou Thao was such a painful example of how Asian Americans have shown up for Black lives. And that we think that just because we weren't the one with our knee on his neck, and that we were silent bystanders, and we didn't actively participate in the violence against Black people that therefore, Tou Tao should not be prosecuted should not be arrested. And in fact, he was just part of the circumstance? That was a great moment for us as Asian Americans to say, what side of history are we going to be on? Do we continuously say, we were not part of the problem? Because we did not have our knee on his neck? Or do we say we have been complicit to white supremacy and have contributed to the anti-Blackness and the harm of Black people in this country by looking away and by standing by silently.
Sylvia Peng 23:59
No, yeah, I think that's so true. And I feel like, you know, a lot of people end up doing this like, either or conversation where it's like, oh, if you focus on Black Lives Matter, then you're like, ignoring all the hate crimes happening to Asian Americans. I think like, what you're saying is like, it doesn't have to be that way. And in fact, you should look at it together, because the same hate that allows, you know, all people who vaguely looked East Asian or during whatever to be categorized as one ethnic group as Chinese, it's the same racism that, you know, profiles, Black people, and it's all interconnected. And the violence is like, created in this web, in this system of just violence. But yeah, I kind of want to ask, did you talk to your family members, your community members about all these things, and what was the reaction on the ground when you did have these conversations with your community?
Kabzuag Vaj 24:50
The killing of George Floyd isn't the first time Asian Americans or America has witnessed the killing of Black people. And so I think that my work in building a solidarity amongst Black and Southeast Asian folks go way back. I think it even goes back to the time where we came as kids, and were resettled in these heavily populated Black communities where my mother and them would trade vegetables and cucumbers for Black grandmothers to teach us how to make snacks and meals while they were away from for work. And so at Freedom, Inc, when George Floyd was murdered, we had come together and were ready to participate in the liberation movement. We were as Southeast Asians, willing to put our bodies on the line. We knew that it had to be more than performative actions, that we actually had to take action. And so I say that to say, I've been working with my own mother, who is 77 years old, always correcting her or making sure that she received the right political education. We do that not only with my mother, but we have elders groups at Freedom Inc, Cambodian, Hmong, and we're always doing anti-Blackness conversations, dismantling anti-Blackness, you know, dismantling patriarchy. So it's an ongoing conversation.
Sylvia Peng 26:04
Thank you for the work that you do. And I think it's really inspiring for all of us to continue to have these conversations with our families, even if it gets really tough. And we feel like we're hitting the wall sometimes. Because I think this summer really taught us that racism is really ingrained in every aspect of our lives. And if we do have the power, we have to do something to make change happen. Kabzuag, I guess, from your experience, as someone who's been doing this for a long time, what is beyond solidarity? What is the true genuine coalition? And what does it look like?
Kabzuag Vaj 26:39
I can tell you, you need to go beyond family. You need to go beyond allyship. So my biggest lesson and for young Asian American folks or for Asian American folks listening is, Black people don't need us to save them. They've been saving themselves and been saving everybody for a long time. And so we have benefited from their struggle in this country for so long. And so this time around, this was the pivotal moment for me. We were marching back to the Capitol, in Madison, and around the corner, you know, I was in security team. And someone, some white allies came up and said, hey, there's a white man. He's heavily armed. He's got a long weapon, and it looks like he's carrying another pistol. And then I'm like, oh my God, you know, let's ask the police to help. And I mean, as an abolitionist organization, we already know that the police don't really care. But I was in my headset, like, as an Asian person, I was still thinking the police are supposed to help you. But in reality, and in analysis, I'm like, they don't help you because they don't help Black people either. So long story short, the police didn't do anything. And in my head, I was thinking, if we get shot, will the volunteers who've helped to come and manage this rally then blame, like Freedom Inc, or blame me or blame who? And then I thought to myself, like, they actually need to know that as Asian Americans, you're out here because your liberation is tied to Black liberation. Putting your body on the line also means that there has to be a fight in it for you. Because at the end of the day, if you're volunteering, and you get shot, you're going to be really upset. You're coming, because you fully understand that your liberation is tied to Black liberation, number one. Number two, what's the fight for you? What is the injustice for you that you're feeling? What is your fight? And tying that so that when you're showing up, you're showing up for yourself too. That too really mattered. And so, that's my biggest lesson this year. What's in this fight for you? If Black people win the defund fight and campaign, do you know what that means for poor Asian American children all over the US? It means more resources. It means more resources going to those who need medical assistance and medical care. It means more resources go into community gardens. That's how I started looking at this. It's like it's our fight to.
Sylvia Peng 29:12
What is the relationship between Asian Americans and the Black Lives Matter uprising and the discontent that's coming out? I think a lot of times my conversations with some older people in my community is that they don't see that connection. And like how have you been, I guess, having conversations with them about it?
Kabzuag Vaj 29:32
I think that there's so much work to be done. I almost feel like it's easier to talk to Hmong elders. Once they understood oppression, because they know their lived history of being refugees and, you know, moving from country to country and being oppressed. It was a lot easier for them to say, do you now understand why people burnt Target down? Do you now understand why people are saying fuck the glass down State Street you know, Black lives are dying. Because they look at them, and they say, yeah, when we were occupied by the French, and they were taxing us without representation, like we had uprisings and Hmong people burnt down properties. And so they understood that. But it's the younger people who don't have a narrative to go back to to understand, that it makes easy for them to say, but why did they do that to Target? Target didn't do nothing to them? You know? I know! And you're like, what are you talking about? Bricks don't cry. George Floyd cried for his ancestors, cried for his mama in front of the world. Why are you still talking about the bricks and mortar?
Janrey Serapio 30:57
I found that point to be so compelling, like, because the older Hmong American generation had that lived experience of being oppressed and of fighting against injustice in their motherlands, it's actually easier for them to understand why Black activists threw bricks at, well, brick and mortar stores like Target.
Sylvia Peng 31:13
Yeah, I agree. And it's like the millennials, the more privileged Asian and non-Black communities that are crying for Target. But when you ask what did Target do to deserve this looting? You should really be asking, what systems and government oppression and oversight really brought on these uprisings?
Janrey Serapio 31:33
When the government fails in a democratic society, an uprising is a way to communicate that. Our parents might have participated in similar uprisings in their home countries, because their own governments were oppressive. And so the protests in 2020, where Black and brown folks are fighting for rights and racial equality in the US, it's basically the same sentiment. It's another way to fight for liberation.
Kabzuag Vaj 31:56
I think one of the things maybe to inspire the younger generation to really think about Asian American as a political identity, is not to forget that the histories and stories of queer Asian Americans who paved the way for us. For example, Helen Xia, she really brought to light the injustice that Vincent Chin went through for a younger Asian American generation, to really think about what gender justice looks like outside of just the lens of racial justice and the Asian American narrative. And so, these are things that I think have been really helpful for me to be inclusive of all of the different injustices that are out there. And so as somebody who is Southeast Asian, Hmong, a woman, someone who has dedicated her whole life to ending gender inequities and gender-based violence, I think that we need to move forward in thinking about Asian American as a political identity, but through the lens of those who are most impacted in our communities.
Janrey Serapio 33:07
We'll be right back.
Ad Break: Niveda Tennety 33:17
Hey there, I'm Niveda. I use she/her pronouns, and I'm the community engagement director at AZI Media. In college, my research and academic interests have been at the intersection of climate justice and intersectionality studies. Through these experiences, I realized how important it is to center the voices of people that have historically been kept out of the mainstream. This is what we're striving to do at AZI. If you want to support our mission and stay in the loop, follow us on Instagram and Twitter at AZI Media. That's AZI dot Media, and join our mailing list at AZI dot Media forward slash newsletter to stay updated with upcoming AZI projects. Thanks for your support.
Sylvia Peng 34:05
Talking with Kabzuag for me really emphasized the fact that Asian American as an identity is political. And as more of us young people group ourselves under this identity, it's very important for us to not forget why the term exists anyways, and why this umbrella identity matters. So going way back to the San Francisco events and the history of what happened there. It showed us that there is power in organizing what are innately different groups of communities under the Asian American identity. It's the whole logic of strength in numbers, right?
Janrey Serapio 34:38
Right. And I think really, what we want to double down and do with this podcast is figure out if we could harness the power of the original intent around Asian American as a term. If we think about the original 15 demands of the Third World Liberation Front way back in 1968, which we've linked in our show notes, by the way. They're actually demanding real autonomy and control over the institution. So not just what they can learn, but also literally a seat in demanding admissions and financial aid.
Sylvia Peng 35:03
The protests went on for five whole months, and the classroom attendance dropped by more than 50%, which was super impactful. However, even though they were able to cause this much of a stir, the results were actually quite disappointing. They got the first ethnic studies college, sure, but not the autonomy and control over admissions and financial aid. What this means is that the school used representation to try to fix a problem of injustice. It wasn't all about the classes. It was actually about the historical exclusion of POC folks, leading to the economic and social inequality we see today. The results of this five month long protest was a compromise and quite a dangerous one.
Janrey Serapio 35:45
Yeah, and I think a consequence of that is when we're not remembering that the identities started as a political movement, we really only think about Asian American as a matter of representation. So, our minds go to weird things like AAPI Arts and Asian American History Month and even Kamala Harris, but really all of that is not what those protesters asked for. Because it just says that representation was all they needed. But nah. The original tenant of the demand was a true desire for justice, equity, and change. And all of that is gone, because they got representation.
Sylvia Peng 36:17
And now more than ever, I think we really need to refer back to the original intent, like you mentioned, Janrey, looking for ways to achieve justice and getting our power back and creating a society where people's freedoms and their autonomy aren't left unaddressed just because they got quote on quote, representation. And all of this is probably why rit equires us to take out this old political movement out of the closet, dust off the rust and get it churning again. Yeah, this is a horrible analogy.
Janrey Serapio 36:49
No, girl, I get it.
Sylvia Peng 36:52
Okay, so pretty much what I'm saying is, I think this is what we'll be trying to do with this pod, using news to reevaluate what are the tactics, strategies and goals behind renewing this new political movement? And how can we make it make sense right now?
Janrey Serapio 37:09
Agreed.
Sylvia Peng 37:09
Okay, but I want us to end our first ever podcast episode on a reflection of how the year in 1987 ended. So after those five months of protest, in an effort to appease the claim for more diversity, the white president of the San Francisco State College at the time was actually replaced by a Japanese American man named Samuel Hayakawa. Hayakawa was basically your typical model minority figure. He cracked down violently on all the protesters, threatened them with a bunch of shit, and argued that Asian American protesters had no stake in the strikes because he believed this to be a Black issue. But the Asian Americans protestors stayed unphased. They fought back and said no, we still stand with the Black community, the Chicanx, and Latinx, and Native American community as people who were collectively, systematically oppressed by racism, and thus fortified an interracial solidarity.
Janrey Serapio 38:08
Yeah, and I just want to note that Hayakawa was actually sponsored by none other than Ronald Reagan. Ugh. Ronald fucking Reagan. But what we want to say is, don't be a Samuel Hayakawa. And don't settle for Asian American representation. Dig a little deeper with us on ATM for the rest of the season.
Sylvia Peng 38:27
To continue this discussion, join us next week for an episode on the impacts of COVID-19 on Asian Americans.
Sylvia Peng 38:38
And that's a wrap. You can read our source materials, stay updated on this story, or email us at AZI dot Media. That's AZI dot Media, and follow us on Instagram and Twitter at AZI Media. If you liked today's episode, please leave a five star review on Apple podcasts and share with your friends. It's the best way to show your support and get it out to more listeners.
Janrey Serapio 39:04
This episode was produced by Stacey Wong and edited by Cynthia Liu. Story research and reporting by Alina Panek and Niveda Tennety. Our theme music is by Satoru Ono. Cover art by Susu Schwaber. And special thanks to Alice Liu, Tiffany Huang, Priyanka Bansal and Aye Min Thant. I'm Janrey Serapio.
Sylvia Peng 39:21
And I'm Sylvia Peng.
Janrey Serapio 39:24
Thank you all for listening.
Sylvia Peng 39:25
See you next Tuesday for part two!