Event Title: Uprooting and Seeding: Intergenerational Experiences of Living as Asians and Asian-Americans
Join us for a discussion of Minari and Asian American representation!
Dear AAAFSC Members, Allies, and Students:
Please join us on May 3 from 4-5pm, for our final AAAFSC event of the semester; while we will be closing out the semester, we’ll also be celebrating the beginning of AAPI heritage month.
At this event, we’ll be discussing representations of Asian Americans in popular culture, with a particular focus on the recent, award-winning film, Minari. Minari is currently streaming on a variety of platforms. However, if you are unable to watch the film before the event, please consider joining us anyway.
We are hoping to close out this semester by creating a space for an open, free-flowing discussion. We want this meeting to be a space that will allow us to reflect on our ethnic heritage and racial identity as a way to reclaim our strength and resilience and to resist systems of oppression and hate. We also hope to share with each other the complexities of Asian American lives and our day-to-day experiences.
While allies are warmly welcomed to this event, we ask that if you choose to attend, you are mindful of taking a step back and making space for our Asian and Asian American members to discuss and share their experiences first.
We hope to see you there!
Many thanks,
The AAAFSC board: Tamara Bhalla (chair), Aditya Desai (member at large), Soonhee Lee (member at large), Shuyan Sun, (member at large),Christopher Tong (member at large), Fan Yang (secretary)
p.s. There is no required reading or even viewing for the event, but here are a few articles that might be helpful to situating our discussion:
‘Minari’ wins best foreign-language film, but not without controversy. The New York Times, Feb 28, 2021 by Maya Salam and Robert Ito
‘Minari’ is about immigrants who speak Korean. That doesn’t make it ‘foreign.’ Viet Thanh Nguyen, Dec 24, 2020
My “Minari”: On Asian American Immigrant Cinema, LA Review of Books, February 10, 2021 by Hanna Amaris Roh
ONLINE MEETING INFO:
Join us for a discussion of Minari and Asian American representation! Hosted by Tamara Bhalla https://umbc.webex.com/umbc/j.php?MTID=m388f28dae1487b4b8ce67632b9cffbae Monday, May 3, 2021 4:00 pm | 1 hour | (UTC-04:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada) Meeting number: 120 311 5132 Password: MpK6jZMgq22 Join by video system Dial 1203115132@umbc.webex.com You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number. Join by phone +1-202-860-2110 United States Toll (Washington D.C.) Access code: 120 311 5132
On the surge of hate crimes against Asian, Asian-Americans and Pacific-Islanders (AAPI), we want to share updated data and resources with our community.
According to Stop AAPI Hate’s March 2021 national report, 3,795 incidents of discrimination against AAPIs were reported from March 19 to February 28, 2021 via the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center. Below are a few highlights. Visit https://stopaapihate.org/reportsreleases/ for the full national report and other reports.
Verbal harassment (68.1%) and shunning (20.5%) (i.e., the deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans) make up the two largest proportions of the total incidents reported.
Physical assault (11.1%) comprises the third largest category of the total incidents. Civil rights violations — e.g., workplace discrimination, refusal of service, and being barred from transportation — account for 8.5% of the total incidents.
Chinese are the largest ethnic group (42.2%) that report experiencing hate, followed by Koreans (14.8%), Vietnamese (8.5%), and Filipinos (7.9%).
Women report hate incidents 2.3 times more than men.
Businesses are the primary site of discrimination (35.4%), followed by public streets (25.3%), and public parks (9.8%). Online incidents account for 10.8% of the total incidents.
Below is a list of action items and resources to address the current racism pandemic against AAPI.
1. Report Hate Crimes against Asian Americans
https://stopaapihate.org/ (12 languages)
https://www.standagainsthatred.org/report (5 languages)
Local and other reporting sites: https://movementhub.org/get-help/
2. Assistance with legal and social services through the Stop Hate hotline:
(Asian Americans Advancing Justice partnered with Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and their Stop Hate project)
1-844-9-NO-HATE
3. Know your rights
(1) Legal rights to be treated fairly and without discrimination: Federal and State laws and government sites to file a complaint (organized by states)
(2) Your rights if you are stopped by police, immigration agents, or the FBI (Resource provided by American Civil Liberties Union).
4. Bystander Intervention training (against harassment)
https://advancingjustice-aajc.org/events
5. Self-defense and Personal safety training
https://www.impactbayarea.org/online_classes
6. Civic Engagement: Collective justice and shared liberation
https://movementhub.org/make-change/
7. Culture Surge: an artists and culture makers’ coalition for justice, care and connection.
https://www.culturesurge.com/about-us
8. Other action ideas: Host a panel discussion, lead a community safety audit, create a survey for research, create Mud Stencils, hold a Chalk Walk, create a Guerrilla-Style Video about Street Harassment, organize a Protest or March, initiate legislative advocacy, host workshops, host a film screening, host Fund raising
https://www.ihollaback.org/holla-how-tos/
9. Donate
STOP AAPI Hate: https://stopaapihate.org/actnow/
Asian Americans Advancing Justice: https://advancingjustice-aajc.org
AAPI Civic Engagement Fund: https://movementhub.org/donate/
Hollaback https://www.ihollaback.org/
American Civil Liberties Union https://www.aclu.org/
10. Share additional resources with others
https://www.thewechatproject.org/post/stopping-aapi-hate-resources (English/Mandarin)
The current list of resources above in Korean:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dWbBGqptvB0Q-UzKpd7S15mx3A2DG-QZ/edit#
In solidarity and support,