session 3
Brown Gurlz Do it Well: a workshop on cross-POC solidarity and kinship
Janani Balasubramanian (darkmatter, blackgirldangerous)
This workshop is a creative resistance space focused on cross-POC racisms (e.g. antiblackness, Islamophobia, etc) and how they manifest in our communities. We will begin with exploring our own diaspora stories and how attitudes about other POC impacted our senses of selfhood and relationship to the places we live and move through. We will then move to developing strategies for educating ourselves about cross-POC racisms, while engaging our families (blood and otherwise) and communities in those dialogs. We will focus on material as well as interpersonal changemaking. This workshop will involve writing, sketching, performance, and improv games.
API Identities Caucus: A Space for the Intersections of Our Race Identities
APSA at UC Irvine
Asian American women may have different experiences than Asian American men; queer Asian Americans may experience their racial identity differently from straight Asian Americans; working class Asian Americans face different challenges from middle class Asian Americans. We are all shaped by yet are so much more than simply our racial identity. APSA at UCI will be leading this workshop to explore and better understand how we each live lives of intersectional identities. This workshop will both be an opportunity to learn about intersectionality in AAPI communities, but will also provide brave spaces for speaking and listening to others who share similar intersections.
When Human Isn't Enough: Statelessness and Human Rights Defined by Borders
Elaine Won (UC Davis School of Law, UCI Alum)
In a world dictated by borders, documents, and the ‘law,’ being “merely and nakedly human” is one of the most dangerous and vulnerable states of being. Left ‘outside the system’ with no ‘right’ to basic human necessities and with the pressure to pledge allegiance to war-and-politics-made nation states, how have and do we balance our right to identify, the fight for a more just and equitable society, and day to day survival? This workshop will focus on Zainichi Koreans in Japan and other Korean diaspora, while touching on various “stateless” communities.
API and Latinx Solidarity: Remembering Shared Hxstories
Alejandro Muro (MEChA de UC Irvine)
Julie Vue (Hmong Student Association, Southeast Asian Student Association)
Our workshop seeks to build solidarity between the API community and the Latinx community by using hxstory as resource. In other words, how white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism and neo-liberalism further divides our communities even though the same adversarial forces have consistently hurt our communities BUT still recognizing that our lived realities aren't the same but rather acknowledging the root of the problem.
Out and Greek: The Intersections of AAPI Greek and LGBT Experiences
Vigor Lam (Graduate Student, University of Southern California)
Gar Yeung (ECAASU)
This workshop will explore the intersectionality of Asian American and Pacific Islander Greek issues as well as LGBT issues beginning with a narrative discussion of the facilitators own personal experiences. While discussing dynamics placed by heteronormativity in fraternities, we will directly examine reasons why LGBT students join Greek life and how to create more inclusive spaces within the community through the successes and failures of these experiences. It will focus specifically on the construct of masculinities and how being an out-Greek affects that dynamic within an Asian American interest fraternity. All are welcome to attend!
Janani Balasubramanian (darkmatter, blackgirldangerous)
This workshop is a creative resistance space focused on cross-POC racisms (e.g. antiblackness, Islamophobia, etc) and how they manifest in our communities. We will begin with exploring our own diaspora stories and how attitudes about other POC impacted our senses of selfhood and relationship to the places we live and move through. We will then move to developing strategies for educating ourselves about cross-POC racisms, while engaging our families (blood and otherwise) and communities in those dialogs. We will focus on material as well as interpersonal changemaking. This workshop will involve writing, sketching, performance, and improv games.
API Identities Caucus: A Space for the Intersections of Our Race Identities
APSA at UC Irvine
Asian American women may have different experiences than Asian American men; queer Asian Americans may experience their racial identity differently from straight Asian Americans; working class Asian Americans face different challenges from middle class Asian Americans. We are all shaped by yet are so much more than simply our racial identity. APSA at UCI will be leading this workshop to explore and better understand how we each live lives of intersectional identities. This workshop will both be an opportunity to learn about intersectionality in AAPI communities, but will also provide brave spaces for speaking and listening to others who share similar intersections.
When Human Isn't Enough: Statelessness and Human Rights Defined by Borders
Elaine Won (UC Davis School of Law, UCI Alum)
In a world dictated by borders, documents, and the ‘law,’ being “merely and nakedly human” is one of the most dangerous and vulnerable states of being. Left ‘outside the system’ with no ‘right’ to basic human necessities and with the pressure to pledge allegiance to war-and-politics-made nation states, how have and do we balance our right to identify, the fight for a more just and equitable society, and day to day survival? This workshop will focus on Zainichi Koreans in Japan and other Korean diaspora, while touching on various “stateless” communities.
API and Latinx Solidarity: Remembering Shared Hxstories
Alejandro Muro (MEChA de UC Irvine)
Julie Vue (Hmong Student Association, Southeast Asian Student Association)
Our workshop seeks to build solidarity between the API community and the Latinx community by using hxstory as resource. In other words, how white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism and neo-liberalism further divides our communities even though the same adversarial forces have consistently hurt our communities BUT still recognizing that our lived realities aren't the same but rather acknowledging the root of the problem.
Out and Greek: The Intersections of AAPI Greek and LGBT Experiences
Vigor Lam (Graduate Student, University of Southern California)
Gar Yeung (ECAASU)
This workshop will explore the intersectionality of Asian American and Pacific Islander Greek issues as well as LGBT issues beginning with a narrative discussion of the facilitators own personal experiences. While discussing dynamics placed by heteronormativity in fraternities, we will directly examine reasons why LGBT students join Greek life and how to create more inclusive spaces within the community through the successes and failures of these experiences. It will focus specifically on the construct of masculinities and how being an out-Greek affects that dynamic within an Asian American interest fraternity. All are welcome to attend!