SEssion 1
#NotYourAsianSidekick: Mapping a Movement in a Digital Age
Suey Park (www.criticalspontaneity.com, @Suey_Park, www.notyourasiansidekick.com)
Dr. Andrea Smith (Associate Professor, Media & Cultural Studies, UC Riverside)
In the last 20-30 years our movements have become increasingly corporatized with the growth of non-profits. In Asian American organizing spaces, the best interest of the community is often replaced by a cyclical and dependent need for funding. Those funding sources have interfered from non-profits to have the freedom to operate freely as they will only ever be as radical and the corporations whose money funds their affairs. Using digital spaces as an extension of our organizing efforts allows us to change the narrative and base build in new ways. #NotYourAsianSidekick was a signal to stop seeking change through corporate funding and mainstream media and to instead build movements that do not reproduce oppressive structures or leave people behind.
Model Minorities and the Prison Industrial Complex
Traci Ishigo, JACL-Pacific Southwest District, UCI Alum
Stephanie Nitahara, JACL-PSW
Duc Ta, Amity Foundation
David Kupihea, Amity Foundation
Asian, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians are a growing population in the Prison Industrial Complex, and yet many of us still know very little about our incarcerated community members' experiences. This workshop will center the voices of formerly incarcerated community members, in order to expand the current conversations on how mass incarceration impacts our communities and show the need for greater community involvement in transforming the criminal injustice system.
The Game of Life
Seng So, Khmer Girls in Action (www.kgalb.org)
"The Game of Life" is a workshop that is intended to allow participants to understand the life trajectories and experiences of Southeast Asian communities in the US. The workshop will allow participants to understand the real life scenarios of families fleeing war and genocide as well as engage in peer-to-peer discussions around the processes of decision making in times of trauma. "The Game of Life" is aimed at developing a greater understanding of the Southeast Asian experience and history.
Fashion: The Politics of Appropriation
Melissa Gamble (ASUCI Executive Vice President)
Join us as we discuss how power is implicated on bodies through fashion and its production of social beings through consumerist culture. How does cultural appropriation become a process of isolating communities and peoples in order for more privileged groups to gain social being or mobility.
Hair: The Duality of Standards for API Womyn
(UC Santa Barbara)
Within the complexities of Asian American diaspora, the importance of hair is constructed in gendered ways. This workshop will deconstruct the duality of being Asian as well as being American, and the duality of cosmetic standards that come with that identity -- something that is often channeled through a patriarchal construct of hair. Although this workshop will focus specifically on the Korean American community and more importantly, Korean American womyn (and Asian American womyn in general), all are welcome to contribute experiences from their own communities.
Suey Park (www.criticalspontaneity.com, @Suey_Park, www.notyourasiansidekick.com)
Dr. Andrea Smith (Associate Professor, Media & Cultural Studies, UC Riverside)
In the last 20-30 years our movements have become increasingly corporatized with the growth of non-profits. In Asian American organizing spaces, the best interest of the community is often replaced by a cyclical and dependent need for funding. Those funding sources have interfered from non-profits to have the freedom to operate freely as they will only ever be as radical and the corporations whose money funds their affairs. Using digital spaces as an extension of our organizing efforts allows us to change the narrative and base build in new ways. #NotYourAsianSidekick was a signal to stop seeking change through corporate funding and mainstream media and to instead build movements that do not reproduce oppressive structures or leave people behind.
Model Minorities and the Prison Industrial Complex
Traci Ishigo, JACL-Pacific Southwest District, UCI Alum
Stephanie Nitahara, JACL-PSW
Duc Ta, Amity Foundation
David Kupihea, Amity Foundation
Asian, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians are a growing population in the Prison Industrial Complex, and yet many of us still know very little about our incarcerated community members' experiences. This workshop will center the voices of formerly incarcerated community members, in order to expand the current conversations on how mass incarceration impacts our communities and show the need for greater community involvement in transforming the criminal injustice system.
The Game of Life
Seng So, Khmer Girls in Action (www.kgalb.org)
"The Game of Life" is a workshop that is intended to allow participants to understand the life trajectories and experiences of Southeast Asian communities in the US. The workshop will allow participants to understand the real life scenarios of families fleeing war and genocide as well as engage in peer-to-peer discussions around the processes of decision making in times of trauma. "The Game of Life" is aimed at developing a greater understanding of the Southeast Asian experience and history.
Fashion: The Politics of Appropriation
Melissa Gamble (ASUCI Executive Vice President)
Join us as we discuss how power is implicated on bodies through fashion and its production of social beings through consumerist culture. How does cultural appropriation become a process of isolating communities and peoples in order for more privileged groups to gain social being or mobility.
Hair: The Duality of Standards for API Womyn
(UC Santa Barbara)
Within the complexities of Asian American diaspora, the importance of hair is constructed in gendered ways. This workshop will deconstruct the duality of being Asian as well as being American, and the duality of cosmetic standards that come with that identity -- something that is often channeled through a patriarchal construct of hair. Although this workshop will focus specifically on the Korean American community and more importantly, Korean American womyn (and Asian American womyn in general), all are welcome to contribute experiences from their own communities.