what community? · 08.07.25, 2:16am
So today we met with Gloria Caoile, who is this AWESOME and incredibly FIERCE woman who was the former executive director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). She’s an amazing person who really stressed to us the importance of working on things that we’re passionate about, and following our passions. I really love how fiery and strong-willed she is, and it was very inspiring.
However, she brought up another issue that has been common among a lot of the board members of APIAVote or community leaders in general: Organizing in your local community is needed before you can organize and advocate on a national level. To have local community down-and-dirty understanding is key before you can be an effective leader nationally.
As a note, what is written below isn’t a pity party, this is just how I feel, and my observations—and maybe there is data and work being done that could dispel my concerns and frustrations.
In the interest of me saving time, I’m just going to copy what I wrote to a friend in an email, Leo to be specific:
I don’t know how to word it, but it’s been bugging me for a long while. A lot of the people I’ve been meeting, like Gloria Caoile and Lisa Hasegawa, always stress the importance of being active in your local communities organizations and getting experience there, or the importance of field work and etcetera. And then most of the people on the executive board of APIAVote all started very locally before they started to work nationally. Or at least grew up where there was a strong AAPI, or Filipino/whatever ethnic population or their families were active in their communities.
It’s hard for me to process this because I did not grow up with a strong community base at all. Even if OCA South Florida is strong and whatever, my parents were in no way involved in that community (and my mom even told me friends were useless and you can only depend on your family…and even then I saw family drama that contradicted that). I never did anything Chinese-related with people outside my family, other than restaurant employees. Honestly, I didn’t even know there was an OCA chapter in South Florida until I went to UF and read it somewhere.
So now that I’m here, although I am learning a lot and having a good time (for the most part), the question I have is—how can I get active locally? I’m confused because most of the examples laid before me were people who were active in already somewhat developed communities that they grew up in—and if I really want to go back to where I’m from, I don’t have that. I moved around a lot when I was little, and even though I stayed within one county once I was in Florida (until 2 weeks before college), we moved so much within that county that I never developed an attachment anywhere. Before that I lived in Maryland until I was six, and me and my siblings were like the only Asian kids in the school, if not the whole town.
Even my coworker, Claire who is from Michigan, was somewhat involved with APIAVote’s Michigan chapter—but APIAVote didn’t even consider Florida a strategic state until recently (at least to my knowledge) and they have no contacts there.
So I’m confused and a little discouraged too. Often when I meet people, it’s like “oh—Florida…there isn’t anything there.” Or if there is, it isn’t anywhere near where I’m from. I’ve met like…one Gator, and she was mostly organizing with the environmental movement. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I would like to have that experience—but I don’t know where to get it. I’m so caught up with and already committed to stuff on campus, but more and more I’m not as interested in the campus movement so much as whatever is going on elsewhere. Not because I don’t care anymore, but because I’m really CURIOUS. Even the student conference/university-to-university bubble is kind of closed off from the rest of the world. Or maybe it just seems that way to me.
I don’t know if my perspective is skewed, or if I just haven’t been keeping up with what’s up and around. So I just wanted to ask. Though I’m not sure if it’s a clear question, or if you can offer an answer.
Then from a chat with another friend, I said:
I think a lot of people take their community for granted. At least those who are from like San Francisco, or LA, or other areas with high percentages of Asians. This is why I felt it difficult to talk about it to people from these areas, because I didn’t think they would really understand. Even Claire, from Michigan, grew up in a relatively strong Filipino community and worked with APIAVote Michigan at one point.
The South is just a completely different story. Again, I can only state this through my personal and limited experiences, and I make no claim on representing the whole Southern region.
But Florida from what I can tell, is incredibly complex. Being from “South Florida” is completely different from being from “Florida”. And even within South Florida, there is being really South Florida, and just Southern Florida.
I can lay claim to being from South Florida, because I am in the southern end—but Miami is like SOUTH SOUTH Florida where it’s practically Cuba/Puerto Rico. If you go up to northern Florida, or into the panhandle, you might as well be in Georgia—its white suburbia or Hicksville, USA. & nearing Pensacola you’ll see people with plots of land they’ve had in their family forever and graves in their front yards.
So even if there was a movement in Miami, people in other parts of Florida may not know about it at all—may not even feel the dying remnants of the current. Each area can be very separate from others. Plus the South in general isn’t very progressive or politically active.
So when we go to college, thats where a lot of us found our community. Where there was finally enough of us to HAVE a community, this is where we developed our identity.
But in a way, we are so stunted in our growth—in our awareness of these issues not just nationally, but our awareness of our racial identity and development as well. When you’re growing up in areas where there are so few Asians, or any ethnic group for that matter, racial issues and identity are not addressed, and the environment isn’t conducive to that dialogue. Kshama mentioned her 16 year old cousin in New York, who has a much stronger knowledge and background in race theory than some people do after graduating from our college—just because of where she grew up.
But here, we may or may not know about a lot of issues people from urban areas, or highly concentrated ethnic areas would already know. We are never in environments where we COULD learn about that, and we don’t have those opportunities. Even if we became interested in college, the resources we have are still so slim and often distant and hard to find.
PLUS—it’s bizarre that even though I went to an almost 50% black high school, I still didn’t know much about the Black Power movement or ANYTHING, and the black students there didn’t seem very empowered at all. They were mostly placed in the magnet program that was for people who weren’t “smart” enough to make it into the others. Although the school should have been separated by magnet, I can honestly say that for the most part—it was practically racial segregation. The black kids really did all sit together in the cafeteria, and hardly anyone else went in because they took over the cafeteria.
So basically, I feel like a minority within a minority. Most of the leaders I’ve met are all from the typical areas where Asians are, like Bay Area, etc etc. While that is expected, it’s a little disconcerting for me. Yeah—I feel like a minority based on my region! It sounds so ridiculous, but it’s true. I knew it was an issue before, but I realize more than ever how the Southeast US is left out of the national Asian American dialogue—how most of it centers on what’s happening in the Northeast or West Coast.
It’s to the point where it is difficult for me to bring up anything to do with Florida in a conversation! The reactions I’ve gotten to this point are brief and uninterested. No one questions further, and no one seems interested in what is going on, and instead asks more questions to other people about wherever they are from because there’s always a shit-ton more going on there! Granted there isn’t much, but there is some movement and some push for resources on my campus at least. But I don’t think many people here even know that because the discussions so far are so centered in high resource, high population areas. The most exposure that I’ve seen is after Hurricane Katrina, when attention was brought to the Vietnamese communities in need there.
I don’t think the issue of certain areas being left out of national dialogue is discussed very often. And I can see how anyone from those areas can be deterred from working at a national level, when there is barely any representation as it is. The only experience I have with communities, and “activism” is through my campus. And yet my experiences do not seem to be considered valid or genuine because it isn’t the “real world”. But where else can I get this experience? Where are the opportunities in Florida for experience in Asian American outreach or field work?
I know in the end it’s a numbers game, and numbers are all that really matters to the government and representatives. I know that I can’t expect a HUGE amount of AAPI representation from the Southeast when our population is so small. My data is not clear, but I find it bizarre that so often we use Southeast Asians as a tool to dispel the model minority myth: “Look at these low achieving Asians…See! Not all of us are successful!” and yet so many Southeast Asians live in the Southeast & Midwest and many of the communities that they are basing this data on aren’t even included in the discussion—or are unaware that it is even happening.
Plus, I only see ONE organization (SEARAC) dedicated to actually helping this population specifically, despite our ENTIRE community spewing the statistics.
I know this is a very skeptical and negative way to view it, and maybe there will be something in existence to prove otherwise—but it’s almost as if we’re using the misfortunes of low-achieving Asians to make strides nationally, but still on a level where only areas with high Asian-density would benefit.
I can bring up that new Minority Serving Institution (MSI) designation for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. $10 million dollars can go to four universities that have 10% Asian population and 50% of total student population with financial need. How many schools would actually be able to use that? And in my opinion, the schools with the highest need of funding for AAPI programs would be ones with low populations. Maybe I’m focusing too much on the minorities of this (because obviously schools with low populations of Asians can’t be AAPI-serving), but if I see that funding go towards schools with programs that are already very strong AAPI programs, that’s pretty ridiculous.
I’m starting to get frustrated with this on a national level. Because while it’s good to be pushing issues like Filipino war veterans equity and whatnot, and addressing the “major” issues that affect the “majority” of the AAPI population that just so happens to be massed in California and select urban areas, what about everyone else?
I think the people who face the most disparities and identity frustrations are in the areas where the populations are low, but there is so little funding and attention to those areas—and if you think about the total population of those little places combined, that’s a lot of people with their needs not being met. Or they grow up not even developing their identity at all, or not until they go to college—like me. I didn’t even know my needs weren’t being met! I didn’t know anything about anything at all!
I don’t even know what tangent I went on anymore.
I feel like my experiences have lost validity, like they don’t count or aren’t important. I was talking to Lovely about it, and she was kind of assessing what I said. I need to have affirmation that I’m not doing what I do, for nothing, and that I am getting real experience. I’m minoring in non-profits (hopefully) for goodness sakes! I don’t want to be one of those people anywhere or on the Hill trying to speak for a people I don’t know. It would be like a social worker misunderstanding cultural differences and separating a family based on 1950s idealogical-television-family standards. And I would never lay claim to being able to speak for all AAPIs in the Southeast region of the United States. I can’t represent that. That was an issue with me before—who am I to represent this community, when all I have is experience on the university level? Now that it has been called into even more question in my mind, I just feel so lost.
What counts as community? Where is it in the South? What’s being done there? Why isn’t it being brought to attention?
I’m starting to feel that media representation is the least of the worries I would have about AAPIs. That seems so superficial when you consider the lack of resources, support, and attention given to minority communities in the South. Has anything really changed since the Civil War? Because the rest of the country seems to be progressing again at a much quicker pace.
♥tell me ♥
life advices 01 · 08.07.21, 3:46pm
A collection of life advices from the older and wiser of DC
- It’s okay to be searching and not know what direction you’re heading way off in the distance, as long as you know what the next step is.
- Don’t regret anything you’ve done unless you didn’t put your heart & 100% into it, or unless you feel like you didn’t learn or get anything out of it.
- At the end of the day, the person you have to be living with is yourself, so do everything by your values. Your actions should match who you are as a person and not someone else.
- Don’t compare your actions to those whose values are different from yours, because you aren’t that type of person and you’ll be unhappy when you come up “short”.
- Nerd is Good.
- Finding balance in your life is really very simple. It’s about designating time for what is most important to you and committing to it.
- Do the things that make you happy and that you enjoy—that is the surest way to success because you’ll get more out of each hour that you devote to it.
- Don’t go out there and try to change the world, when you don’t even know what is going on in your own community.
- Plenty of people jump around in their life, from job to job trying to find out what they want or like or what makes them happy, even 10 years later. It’s normal.
- Organizing and building a coalition is about listening to each others stories—really listening, and trying to understand. If you cannot understand each other, then you can’t work together towards something and move forward.
- Breaking bread with someone is symbolic, and a great way to get to know someone, who they are as a person.
- “I want to know your stories, your past, what you cared about before and what you care about now. Not what you’re going to do, but what makes you tick, what motivates you. How you form your decisions and make your choices in your life.” (Vida Benavides, not a direct quote)
———-
My Life Values Reassessed:- Do what makes me happy.
- Don’t care about money or prestige, but whether I love what I do and I do what I love.
- Wander around and slowly figure things out at my own pace.
- Always give 100% to what you’re doing.
♥tell me ♥
a real whirlwind of change · 08.07.20, 12:05pm
College years are truly a whirlwind of change. My life before college seems so stagnant now, so bland and myopic.
More and more I feel so blessed to be where I am today. And while I neither have or need a religion or deity to go to or thank, I know I am still so lucky, and my life has been showered with opportunities and gifts and beautiful people.
Would I have thought a year, or two years ago that I would be in Washington, DC? Working at a non-profit with stellar & inspiring leadership, or traipsing around town and going on trips to New York City and Philadelphia with fellow interns (who all motivate me to be a better person, student, sister, daughter, and friend)?
No. This summer has surpassed my wildest dreams, gone beyond my imagination and has been so fulfilling. Despite the little things that have held me back from time to time, I have tried to take advantage of every night and weekend I have free—to experience all I can before these 10 or 11 weeks are through.
I sacrificed a lot for this experience, and took a lot of risks. While I did my research on the program I wanted—it was a leap of faith. I thought—I’m going to trust that this summer will change my life, the way I think, inspire me, motivate me, and make me a better person. A person with stronger & clearer goals and a foundation to formulate opinions that can be challenged—and hold strong or be changed by valid arguments.
Has all of that happened? In a way, it has. While I had that wish—it was not an expectation. I came into this kind of blind—I had vague ideas, but nothing concrete, and I still believe that having no high expectations was the best way to enter this chapter of my life.
Why set yourself up for disappointment? While this experience like any other has not been perfect, it’s been perfect for me.
It allows me the time to roam, explore, and hop from place to place and from people to people like I have always done. I don’t like being tied down for too long, and I have yet to feel that at all. :)
I have been motivated by my peers to focus more academically, to read more, to learn more about anything and everything. I’ve been given a variety of career options, and exposed to a lot of issues I’ve never heard of before.
To every person who has influenced me this summer so far, who has guided me, pushed me, helped me, moved me, I give thanks.
♥tell me ♥
Priceless Moment in Dupont Circle · 08.07.02, 12:24am
Today after my mid-internship review and toolkit meeting, I had dinner with Clara and Steven at Kramer Books’ Cafe, and it was really yummy! The waiter was cute too. It was kind of pricey though, so I rated to Steven that I would go again but only for a special occasion (and if I was guaranteed the same cute waiter, haha!)
But in any case, it was really cool to walk out onto Dupont Circle and hear this really great upbeat big band music reverberating around us. It turned out that right outside the Metro station there was this big group of street musicians—- it was so cool! There were a bunch of couples dancing, and this one guy with the band pulling people in to participate, with a huge circle of bystanders watching and tapping their feet. It made me so happy to see it. I mean, I always see street musicians around here—which rarely if ever happens where I come from, but this looked like so much fun! Most of the time it’s a lone person on a violin/guitar/and on some special occasions an erhu or steel drums. We watched for a little bit, and I took some pictures, but it was getting late so we didn’t stay long.
I just felt as if I had experienced something that is classic DC, something filled with character and the spirit of the people involved, and it was beautiful. :)
Of course I will ignore the racial notes I took on the scene (kind of a reflex for me) so I can savor a moment in it’s beauty. Most of the musicians were black, and most of the dancers were white.
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Darling, DC · 08.06.19, 11:07am
Washington DC so far has been fabulous!
Places I’ve visited:
- Museum of the American Indian: Questionable naming of the museum. It looks fairly new with a lot of multimedia incorporated in the exhibits. It didn’t really tell me much about Native American culture per say, but there was some interesting stuff.
- Museum of Natural History: I saw the Hope Diamond and many other precious gems/jewelry. Other than that, most of the exhibits were targeted towards children. There were a LOT of children. The Atrium Cafe of course was a rip off. Not my favorite museum, but not bad. I like the one in New York better though.
- Freer Gallery of Asian Art: Pretty awesome! They have a lot of free movie screenings or film festivals. Tonight I’m going to a concert there with pianist Xiayin Wang performing there. The artwork there was amazing.
- National Museum of African Art – probably my FAVORITE museum so far. There was an exhibit by El Anatsui, and it was simply breathtaking. He uses found materials like old bottle caps or rusted metal, and creates these fabulous pieces that look like kente fabric draped against the wall or mountains of gold. It was beautiful. Period.
- Library of Congress – I almost cried when I saw Thomas Jefferson’s Library. He’s my absolute favorite president since elementary school, so it was like a dream come true to be literally centimeters from some of his old books, separated only by a pane of glass. We took a picture with his copies of Shakespeare. =P
There were a lot of other cool exhibits there too. It’s practically a museum. That’s the main Jefferson building, but in the one that is more used for research and built more recently is the Madison building. Me and a few of my roomies got a NATIONAL LIBRARY CARD with our photos on them and everything! Baller! :) - National Portrait Gallery – We went late in the day after going to the Pride Festival. It definitely warrants another visit. I saw the hall of presidents, an exhibit on movie posters as portraiture called Ballyhoo!, and lots of others. It was great! I didn’t get to see everything though, so I’m definitely going again. There was also a cool exhibit called Recognize! that had renaissance inspired portraits of famous hip hop artists like LL Cool J. (hotness)
Cool Events:
- Fish Fest 2008: I was a volunteer there because my supervisor is friends with the event planner and he needed some help. He turned out to be the the former program coordinator for my Internship program at OCA. His name is Keith and he was super helpful and gave us all a lot of good tips on where to get good food (especially asian food) and etc.
Fish Fest itself was FREAKIN AWESOME. It’s the 2nd largest food festival on Capitol Hill, and they had all the fish donated from various organizations who support the sustainable seafood movement. So it was all quality seafood cooked by some of the top chefs in DC. It was all FREE too. I ate a lot. This one table had the BEST crab cakes I’ve ever had in my life!! - Pride Festival: It was fun! There was a group of around 8 of us going. Super hot outside, but it was cool just walking around checking things out. This one group had a promotion where if you stripped in this makeshift changing room some guy held up for you, and into mens underwear/bathing suit, you could keep the underwear. A lot of guys did it! Some of them were pretty ripped too. Eye-candy! There was a ton of great food stands too. I had me some funnel cake with my roomie Lovely. DELICIOUS!
We also passed by the Newseum, though we didn’t go in yet. I want to go there later on, after I get my stipend (since it’s not free) but they had these guys in GIANT-HEADED Thomas Jefferson/Abe Lincoln/G. Washington costumes. There’s a picture on facebook =P
-Another cool thing was that it was held really close to Capitol Hill, on Pennsylvania Ave, and you could see the Capitol building as a background to the stage. :)My Housemates:
Jeany moved in yesterday afternoon, so now we finally have all seven of us moved in! I like everyone so far, we’re a fun group. Sometimes its hard to get some alone time in the house, but it’s entertaining to always get sucked into some conversation—with all of us stuffed into one person’s room. The room I share with Lovely gets pretty popular since its the largest one.
I think I’m lucky that I’m rooming with Lovely because we both like to stay clean and try to be considerate of each other. Also we share a lot of the same opinions of what goes on in the house. Sometimes the others get really messy and don’t do their dishes for a long time. Or stuff the trash with giant boxes so you can’t fit anything else in. Or never help clean anything, period. There are a few pet peeves of mine that are getting their buttons pushed, like girls leaving their hair in the shower, but other than that it’s been a good living experience. We’ll have a house meeting soon to discuss ground rules, so hopefully we can avoid any drama.My job:
AWESOME. MY supervisor Alvina is only 25, so she’s real young and chill. Plus I don’t start until 10am & work until 6pm, so I don’t have to compete with anyone for the bathroom in the morning. It’s actually lucky that all of us girls upstairs start work at different times, in half-hour increments.My fellow interns at APIAVote are super fun! I love Claire, we get along real well and went shopping together at Pentagon City mall together. She’s HILARIOUS. Olivia is really sweet too, and even lent me pants one day when we rushed to a last minute event and I didn’t have my business casual clothes with me.
Last Friday instead of working at the office, we all went to Busboys & Poets Cafe on U Street! It’s a really nice place, with good food and they hold a lot of events like Open Mic nights or spoken word performances. They also have small bookstore area with a very eclectic selection. There were metro problems that day, so me and my supervisor were like an hour late. But we grabbed lunch and ended up working at her apartment 3 blocks away. It was barely a workday. We even got ice cream and went to CVS together.
Right now I’m working on state profiles with APA demographics, and I will soon be conducting an online APA youth survey on what issues APA youth are most concerned with. Then I have to write a report on it. I’m also in charge of our online outreach efforts, like through Facebook & Myspace and on the website. Theres a lot of little projects, but they all sound really interesting.
I’m also working on projects for OCA, the organization through which I got my placement—and I’ll be doing a group presentation at our national convention. EXCITING!My supervisor is going to pay for a training session for us, and its about online/offline political organizing. There are various workshops and receptions EVERY week, and most of them are free. I don’t think I can go a week without going to at least 2 events, so it’s all incredible! I’m so blessed to be here.
Theres so much going on I can’t possibly record it all. But for the sake of jogging my memory a few years down:
*Dept of Energy: “Whats your citizenship?” ?!?
*Blackout! Huddled in Jeany’s room lit by the parking lot of Lord & Taylors
*JUMP! @ the Library of Congress
*Greek food with Viraj at Athenas Palace (or whatever it was called)
*Tangysweet
*Second Story Bookstore, used books 20% off!
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