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COVID-19, Racism and Xenophobia: A Discussion on How and Why the Pandemic is Affecting Asian Americans

The COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately harming all people of color in the United States. For Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, one way this harm has manifested is in a rise in hate incidents. These incidents are fueled by both a long history of anti-Asian xenophobia and racism, and stigmatizing references to COVID-19 as a “Chinese virus.”

MAEC and the National Education Association  engaged in a webinar and live conversation where, through interactive dialogue and audience participation, participants  examined the historical and current context of Anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) racism and xenophobia, distinguished between hate incidents and hate crimes, and identified actions we can all take to address bigotry and discrimination.

National Education Association Planning Partners 

  • Hilario Benzon
  • Merwyn Scott
  • Gabriel Tanglao

Moderators

  • Nyla Bell
  • Gabriel Tanglao

Presenters

  • Jason Oliver Chang
  • Michelle Nutter
  • Fred Pinguel
  • Noreen Rodriguez
  • Yan Yii

Downloads

  1. Resources 7-7-2020
  2. Transcript

Nyla: [00:00:00] We recommend that you click on the chat icon at the bottom or top toolbar
on your screen and keep the chat box open at all times. We will be doing a poll of the
audience, so you will see a poll here on your screen. Please click the appropriate response
and I will read out the results when they’re generated.
At a specified time during the seminar, we will be moving into breakout rooms. You’ll be
given a prompt and please follow them when they come up.
And then lastly, but also the very importantly, with the exception of when you’re in a
breakout room, please keep your microphones muted and your video cameras off at all
times. The only people on camera are the speakers and the moderators and our tech team
will mute audio and video as needed.
Next slide. This webinar’s being hosted by MAEC, but we are doing so in partnership with the
National Education Association. So it’s my pleasure to acknowledge their partnership and
participation in planning this webinar. And that includes partners, members, including
Merwyn Scott, Hilario Benzon and Gabriel Tanglao.
Joining us today as part of our webinar support, you’ll see their names in the chat box are
Kate Farbry and Tanner Petry, they are our tech support. If you have an issue, a tech issue,
you can message them directly. Joining us as our chat box moderator is Jessica Lim. she will
be posting webinar links, responding to questions, resources, our evaluation survey into the
chat box when as needed, when the time comes. Handling our Facebook live is Kathleen
Pulupa and joining us as a speaker support and will do the webinar PowerPoints, and to
keeping time is Nikevia Thomas.
Our moderators for today are me, I’m Nyla Bell, I’m senior education equity specialist at
MAEC and my moderator Gabriel Tanglao, who’s the associate director of PDII and Gabriel, I
don’t know what that stands for so if we can clarify that when you get the mic,for the New
Jersey Education Association.
So who are we? We, as MAEC, which stands for Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, our
organization was founded in 1991. As an education nonprofits dedicated to increasing access
to high quality education for culturally, linguistically and economically diverse learners. Our
vision is that one day all students will have equal opportunities to learn and achieve at high
level.
And our mission is to promote excellence and equity and education to achieve social justice.
Next slide.
We run, we at MAEC run several large centers. The largest and oldest of which is our center
for education equity. Our center, CEE, is a project of MAEC and is one of four regional equity
assistance centers funded by the US Department of Education under title four, the civil rights
act of 1964.
We work in partnership with WestEd and AIR to improve and sustain a systemic capacity of
public education to increase outcomes for students, regardless of their race, gender,
religion, and national origin. And our region is the Northeast. And you can see the state’s
posted in the map and the image.
So a bit about our, the purpose of today’s webinar and our goals. This webinar was
conceived in response to, the rise in hate incidents against Asian and Asian Americans, as we
go the COVID pandemic. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately
harming all people of color in the United States. For Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,
one way this harm has manifested is in a rise in hate incidents. These incidents are fueled by
both a long history of anti-Asian, xenophobia and racism, and by stigmatizing references to
COVID-19 as a quote, China virus or Chinese virus.
So today we will examine historical and cultural and current context of Asian American or
anti Asian American and Pacific Islander racism and xenophobia. Distinguish between hate
incidents and hate crimes and identify actions we can all take, particularly as educators to
address bigotry and discrimination. In doing so we hope to identify and understand hate
incidents against Asian-Americans, raise educator awareness and deepen educators’
understanding of anti-Asian xenophobia and racism and help build the capacity of educators
to address anti-Asian xenophobia and racism in school.
Next slide. So a couple of important notes, as we move through this webinar, we recognize
that our audience is diverse in it’s understanding, experiences, beliefs, and opinions on race
and racism. We want to acknowledge that discussing this topic might be difficult for some,
with varying levels and diverse comforts engaging in this issue. And we hope that you
embrace the discomfort you experienced and grow and learn from the dialogue.
Lastly, this is one of a series of MAEC online events on the topic of race, racism, and other
forms of social inequality. Particularly as they pertain to the current moment of uprising,
protest, and COVID-19
It’s my honor to welcome today’s speakers, who would include. Dr. Jason Oliver, I’m sorry.
Dr. Jason Oliver Chang. He is an associate professor of history and Asian American studies
and director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute at the University of
Connecticut.
Also with us is Michelle Nutter. She is among many things, an education and outreach
program manager and civil rights outreach specialist with the Pennsylvania office of the
Attorney General. Also with us is Fred Pinguel. Fred is the Executive Director of the
Philadelphia Student Union and former organizer with Filipino Advocates for Justice.
Also with us is Dr. Noreen Rodriguez. She is an assistant professor at the School of Education
at Iowa State University. And last, but definitely not least is Yan Yii. Yan Yii is a fifth grade
teacher in Canton, Massachusetts, and the president of the Canton teachers association.
Okay. So next up is a poll question, I mentioned earlier that we will be asking you a poll. We
want to know who you are and what kind of role you play in schooling. In a moment, a poll
will come up on screen. Please take a second to fill it out. And we’ll wait about a minute to
give folks a chance to respond.
And I can’t see from my end, whether or not the poll question comes up on screen, so Kate
I’m going to need you to let me know.
Kate: [00:07:25] Sure. I’m just gonna, there’s still a lot of people responding, so I’ll wait until
it slows down.
[silence]
Okay. I just shared it. Can you see it?
Nyla: [00:08:00] I cannot, I cannot see it. Do you mind reading out the responses?
Kate: [00:08:04] Nope, so we’ve got, an equal number or percentage of pre-K elementary
teachers, district leaders and staff and parents and guardians. It’s about 14%. It’s multiple
choice. So you could be more than one.
We’ve got a few, counselors and psychologists, we’ve got some SEA staff, a few students, so
there’s at least, you know, one to two people in each category. But the district leader, staff,
parent, guardians and teachers are the ones from the top there.
Nyla: [00:08:40] Okay. Okay.
And if you are in other categories, we encourage you to post, put your role into the chat box.
I see that some folks have started doing that already. And so at this point I was going to turn,
this past the proverbial mic over to my wonderful moderator, co-moderator Gabriel.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:09:03] Thank you. Nyla and greetings everybody. Good afternoon,
depending on where you are in the country. My name is Gabriel Tanglao, I’m a Filipino
brother, so bringing that energy in to this space. And I’m really appreciating the diversity of
job categories that are present in this community that we have here.
So the next thing that we wanted to ask you to start to chat storm, meaning, just share some
of this information in the chat. We wanted to get a sense of where you are geographically
located. So whether it’s the city, county or state that you wanted to share in the chat, please
do that now. So we get a sense of where everybody is in terms of geography.
One of the things that we wanted to also do is that we wanted to do a land
acknowledgement that regardless of where you are across this country, that these are
indigenous lands, prior to colonization. And were cultivated by indigenous people for
thousands of years. And we wanted to make sure to name that before we begin our
conversation today and just as an additional resource, as I see people that are chiming into
the chat, I’m going to drop in a link to a website that will allow you to identify what
particular tribes exist in your area. And that’s just something we wanted to do.
So we’re seeing a range of different locations. So very grateful to those of you who are
participating in our chat. We’re also going to invite you to add one more thing into the chat,
but this one is going to be a different type of check-in. So the question that we’d like you to
respond to in the chat is to briefly describe your level of comfort in discussing the topic of
race.
So I’ll reframe that. How comfortable, are you with this talking about issues of race, and we
invite you to consider dropping in some of your feedback in the chat. And we welcome any
type of feedback that you have to offer. So, with that, we are going to begin to lead into our
presentation and I’ll be handing it off in about 30 seconds, but I wanted to make sure that
you all have clarity that in the chat, even as the presentations are going on, please continue
to offer any thoughts on how comfortable you are with talking about race.
And with that, I’m going to kick it over to our first presenter. Michelle, I’m super excited to
hear you set the stage for the framing of our conversation today. And, Michelle we’ll get you
prepared to begin your presentation. For now we’ll ask for the next slide. Meanwhile, the
participants, you are absolutely welcome to continue the dialogue in the chat.
Michelle Nutter: [00:12:00] Awesome. Thank you, Gabriel. It’s my honor to be with you all
here today. I was asked to kind of set the context as Gabriel said, and to talk about what we
have seen since COVID-19 has hit our country and hit the world. And set the stage to discuss
what those bias incidents and hate crimes have looked like. And then we’ll go a little bit
deeper and examine what allowed those things to happen. What in our past history has
made it possible for these continued expressions of hate and bias to continue.
Next slide, please. We’re gonna start with a video, it’s about six minutes in length from the
Today’s show. Just in case any of you are not familiar with the rise in anti Asian-American,
Pacific Islander incidents, since Covid, we wanted to give you this as a way to show context.
So if we could go ahead and show that video, please.
[silence]
Nikevia are we able to show the video? Or should I just continue on?
Nikevia: [00:13:47] Oh, sorry. I’m showing it, but let me make some adjustments. Hold on.
[silence]
External Video: [00:13:58] With an unexpected side effect of this coronavirus crisis, Asian
Americans becoming targets of discrimination. The FBI recently issued a warning about a
potential spike in hate crimes. And just this week, the NYPD launched a social media
campaign to raise awareness. Tweeting Hate is an ugly word, and it has no place in our
vocabulary.
A growing number of celebrities are also speaking out, including actor, John Cho, who
penned an Op-Ed for the LA times. NBC news investigative and consumer correspondent,
Vicky Nyugen is here with more. And Vicky this is a really, really troubling trend.
It is. And I will say it is personal for me too, Hoda. And the numbers really back it up one
Asian advocacy group says it has received more than 1500 reports of COVID related hate
incidents, since mid January. People are saying they’d been harassed online, spit on, yelled
at, even physically attacked. But as more people speak up to fight back against the hate
there is hope we can stop it from spreading.
Dr. Chen Fu is on the front lines, in the battle against COVID-19 as a Chinese American
doctor, he feels both celebrated and vilified.
I feel an animosity that I’ve never felt before.
On his commute to the hospital, Dr. Fu says he was approached by a stranger.
You dirty Chinese. And he just kept saying that over and over again. I’ve never felt anything
like it.
This, just one of many incidents across the country. Now being reported. Asian Americans
targeted for their race in Texas. This person yelling at a Vietnamese restaurant owner. And
this man and his two children stabbed at a Sam’s club. The suspect, according to the FBI
thought the family was Chinese and infecting people with the Coronavirus. In Minnesota,
this note, the tenants claim was posted on their door reading, we’re watching you take the
Chinese virus back to China .In New York City in just a month police say they’ve investigated
11 hate crimes against Asian-Americans compared to three in all of last year.
OCA Asian Pacific American advocates, a nonprofit group that tracks discrimination against
Asian Americans says it is received more than 1500 COVID-19 related reports of hate
incidents since January.
We have seen everything from cashiers who will tell somebody I’m not going to serve you
because I don’t want to catch coronavirus. We’ve also seen patients who have gone into
health clinics who say, I don’t want you as a nurse. I want somebody else to help me.
Because the nurse was Asian American?
Exactly.
From mid to late March, President Trump repeatedly referred to the Coronavirus as the
Chinese virus.
The Chinese virus, the fight against the Chinese virus. It comes from China. It’s not racist at
al, no.
This photo of his speech with the word Chinese replacing Corona went viral on social media.
I have never seen the Asian American community this scared. They’re in fear for their life.
Jene Wu is a state representative in Texas. Why not call it the Chinese virus?
Because it could create harm and has created harm.
Now, many are calling for people to rise above the hate. New York mayor, Bill Be Blasio.
We will not tolerate any discrimination. We will not tolerate any hate crimes.
Black, Hispanic, and Asian congressional leaders uniting to condemn racism.
It’s important for us to negate the hate come, together as Americans.
And celebrities, urging fans to stand up for each other. Actor Daniel Dae, Kim, please, please
stop the prejudice and senseless violence against Asian people.
Social media campaigns #washthehate #racismisavirus, and #IamnotCOVID19 are spreading.
Namaste, Let’s wash the hate.
Also spotlighting the growing discrimination, multiple Op-Eds, including mine. While there’s
more work ahead, some things have changed. After repeatedly calling it the Chinese virus,
president Trump appears to have stopped. And tweeted in part, it is very important that we
totally protect our Asian American community in the United States and all around the world.
They are amazing people and the spreading of the virus is not their fault. And in some of the
racist attacks, people stepped in to help. Zach Owens risked his life to save the family
attacked in Texas.
And for Dr. Fu. A stranger jumped in.
He defended me and said, no, you can’t do this. That guy was my hero. And this is not just
happening with adults. Just this week an Asian mom posted this to her Instagram, a student
in her daughter’s second grade class said he didn’t like China or Chinese people because they
started this quarantine. She encouraged her daughter to put her feelings on paper. And the
result was this letter, it reads in part, this made me feel sad because he was my friend and
I’m Chinese. It’s wrong, because he doesn’t know what he’s saying. But it ends on a
compassionate note, thank you for being my friend. And it really is so important Hoda for
kids to speak with, for parents to speak with our kids about this kind of discrimination.
I mean, it’s so jarring, but to think of a second grader who’s being mocked by another
classmate is just so disturbing. And I was just, I mean, this whole thing makes me so sick, but
if you are put in a position, like some of these folks have been, what’s the best thing for you
to do?
Well safety far. So you really do want to try to remove yourself from the situation of course,
report the incident if can. Both law enforcement and these advocacy groups say they take it
very seriously. They will investigate, and talk about it. Lean into your family and your friends
for support. Sometimes you feel embarrassed or ashamed. Like it’s something you did to
bring it on, but that’s not the case. And you’ve got to put these messages out there and it
reminds us all. We’re all in this together.
Wow. What a really eyeopening report. All right. Thank you so much, Vicky.
Michelle Nutter: [00:19:58] We’re gonna switch back to the power point… Okay, we’ll be
putting the PowerPoint back up on the screen. It’s really difficult to watch that story, to hear
the types of incidents that have been happening. On this slide, we’ve put some additional
incidents that have taken place since that particular clip was filmed back in April. And I
would be remiss if I didn’t point out that while, there was a, a particular moment where folks
at the white house we’re not using the term, just this weekend over the, 4th of July
weekend, we have again been seeing, the president referring to coronavirus as the Chinese
virus and other officials in his cabinet. And, speaking out using that term as well. Next slide,
please.
So I just want to take a second and, give some information about the difference between a
bias incident and a hate crime. A bias incident is an act of prejudice that is not a crime. It
doesn’t involve violence, threat or property damage. While a hate crime is a criminal act or
crime motivated in whole or part by a hatred against a person’s protected class.
I think it’s important for us to understand the difference between the two. Because knowing
what type of incident it is, helps to streamline the reporting process. And in my last slide
with you today in just a minute, I’ll go over what that reporting process looks like. But more
importantly, knowing the type of incident it is helps a victim to understand what legal
remedies are available to them. But I definitely want to just take a moment to caution all of
us that we don’t undervalue the importance of intervention and response, regardless of
what type of incident it is. We all have an obligation to stand up and speak up whenever we
hear biased remarks.
This is our goal, especially for those of us who are educators and judging by the poll and the
chatbox comments, a lot of us are in education. So we have a duty to provide a safe and
supportive school climate for all of our students. You know, the first amendment does give
people freedom of speech and it allows people to say things that are offensive. That are
untrue or based on stereotypes are based on bias. And while that’s not illegal, we still have
an obligation to speak up when we hear it.
And as I said, especially in the school setting, going back to the 1969 Tinker Supreme court
decision, schools were given some guidance by the Supreme court that students don’t
abandon their right to free speech at the school house door. However schools can limit or
quash speech if it interferes with a student’s education, creates a threatening environment
or substantially disrupts the orderly operation of this school. And further federal and state
civil rights laws and statutes also create an obligation for educators to eliminate harassment
and end hostile environments. Next slide please.
As I said, a hate crime is a crime that is based in whole or in part on the perpetrators bias,
hatred, animus against the individual and then that makes it a hate crime. The term hate
might be a little misleading, because you might think that hate means that then it’s rage or
anger, or, you know, that kind of thing. But in this context, hate really does refer to bias
against a person or a group of people with specific characteristics that are defined by law.
Next slide, please.
As you can see by this graphic, which shows, the United States and its territories, this is
where, you can look to see, does your state have a hate crime statute? Does it require data
collection on hate crimes or not? And so the States and territories that are in blue have both
a hate crime statute and require data collection on hate crimes. States in gray have a hate
crime law, but don’t require collection of data. And the red States, the four red States there
do not have either a hate crime statute nor do they require police departments to collect
information on hate crimes. Next slide please.
I just really want to take a second to think about whether we’re talking about a hate crime or
bias incident. Hate sends a message. It sends a message across the entire community. And as
we’re seeing across the country, across the world. Hate crimes, bias incidents they target the
initial individual, the person that they target with that activity. But it also significantly,
negatively impacts people who are similarly situated that they may think well, if that
happened to him, if that happened to her, it could happen to me next. And it then impacts
the greater community.
Sometimes I hear people say, well, aren’t all crimes, hate crimes? Hate crimes are different
from other crimes in the way that it affects the victims and the community hate crimes are
especially brutal, they leave the victims traumatized and terrified. It creates a community
situation where people may be tempted to repeat the actions or escalate the actions or
retaliate to the actions. And so it really is this very broad response that happens anytime we
see a hate incident, whether it’s a bias incident or a hate crime occur. And next slide, please.
And finally I’d mentioned this earlier. What do we do if we witness or experience an act of
bias or hate? Well, we need to report it. It is really, really important. And you can see I have
hate crimes, bias incidents and acts of discrimination to give you an understanding of who to
report it to. If it’s a hate crime, if you are in danger or you witnessed someone else in
danger, call 9-1-1 to get a response immediately. And collect and retain evidence and report
to civil rights organizations as well. Both the MAEC website, as well as our co-sponsor the
National Education Associations EdJustice Project have put together lists of resources that
identify federal, state, and in some cases, local agencies that you can report to. As well as
civil rights organizations that you can report to as well.
I hope that that has provided some context for you. And we’re going to go ahead and pass
the mic to Dr. Noreen Rodriguez. Excuse me. Noreen.
Noreen Rodriguez: [00:28:12] Thank you everyone. I’m Noreen Naseem Rodriguez, and I’ll
be talking briefly about anti-Asian xenophobia and racism in classroom pedagogy in schools.
I could spend an entire academic semester discussing these topics, but I’m going to do my
best to give you a quick overview today in about 10 minutes.
I was a bilingual elementary educator in Texas for nine years before I became a teacher
educator so I’m thrilled to see so many early childhood and elementary folks present. Next
slide please.
In 2020, we’ve seen an uptick in anti-Asian racism across American society that’s
predominantly been affecting Chinese and East Asian Americans and some Southeast Asian
Americans as well. While hundreds of incidents against adults have been reported through
organizations and websites like Stop AAPI Hate, incidents against school age youth are
harder to track. Particularly given that many schools began to shut down after COVID-19
began to spread in March.
In one example, a friend told me that in February, her Korean American friends elementary
age son was accused of having COVID and was punched by another peer in their Seattle
school. Many personal attack accounts of similar attacks can be found on social media.
However, anti-Asian racism is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the racism that occurs in
schools often reflects the racism found in broader society, which you’ve seen modeled in the
adults who surround them and in the media they consume.
So let’s just consider a few common examples that I recall from my own childhood in the
1980s. There are several ways in which Asians and Asian Americans are a centralized in US
society. So first this idea that we speak Ching Chong, this reduces all Asian languages to
nonsensical jibberish and is a pervasive stereotype.
Second, there’s the notion that all Asians are exotic foreigners rather than US born and that
they don’t speak English fluently or without an accent. We often see this manifested in the
question, where are you from? This is a question that my own high school history teacher
asked me and not anyone else in the class. After she asked me this, she asked my
Vietnamese American friend if her family ate dogs. This is the third way in which Asians and
Asian Americans are a centralized. We’re viewed as uncivilized barbarians who eat stinky
and disgusting foods.
Many Asian Americans recall what is known as a lunchbox moment in which they brought to
school, a favorite ethnic dish from home when that was made with love and care only to
have their peers make fun of it. I have a link to a short video about these experiences and
our resource document I’ll share with you after I’m finished talking. And that will also go out
with the slideshow after the talk today.
And then lastly, we often see Asians and Asian Americans identified in particular ways.
They’re quiet, obedient nerds. Women can often be viewed as exotic and hypersexual while
men are viewed as impotent and asexual.
So all of these stereotypes have historic roots and continue to be perpetuated in popular
media today. After the September 11th attacks, we saw a surge in racist harassment, and
violence against Southeast Asian Americans. Particularly those who are Muslim or perceived
to be Muslim. This happened with adults and also occurred to a significant degree in schools.
Elementary children, as well as secondary children have been called racist or have been
called terrorists, excuse me, and attacked on school buses and in classrooms. And that again
was a direct reflection of the racial discrimination and violence in broader society.
Much of this is a result of the general lack of knowledge of Asian countries, geography and
Asian American history, which we’ll talk more about in a moment. What’s important to
remember is that these acts of anti-Asian racism are often under reported. And when they
are reported, maybe classified as bullying or harmless jokes, rather than recognized as
harmful and violent acts. Next slide, please.
So while today we’re focusing on anti-Asian racism in schools, in response to COVID-19. We
need to consider that there are multiple ways that Asian American students, communities,
experiences and historys are rendered invisible across preschool through 12th grade. First,
there’s an intense lack of representation in the curriculum. Asian-Americans are the least
represented group in history curriculum. While people usually recall learning about a
handful of black and indigenous historical figures in school, they can rarely name any famous
Asian Americans who weren’t entertainers or athletes. As a social studies educator, I can say
with certainty that we need far more representation of black indigenous and people of color
across the curriculum and the resource document I’ll share has a few starting points for you
to diversify your classroom libraries. And parents there’s also lots of resources for you as
well.
But we don’t need to just focus on different ethnic racial groups in isolation. It’s also
important that we teach and learn about cross-racial solidarity in examples that fully
demonstrate the pursuit of liberty and justice for all. As Martin Luther King famously said, no
one is free until we are all free. But it’s hard to teach what we don’t know. Asian Americans
make up less than 3% of the national teaching force. The lack of information about AsianAmericans also results in stereotypes and cultural assumptions that guide the ways
educators interact with and assess students. For example, Asian Americans are
underrepresented in special education programs and often receive services much later than
their peers. At the same time Asian Americans are overrepresented in gifted and talented
programs. These are consequences of the model minority myth, which several folks had
mentioned in the chatbox, which negatively affects Asian Americans by masking the
struggles they may face while at the same time pitting them against black and brown
communities in ways that sustain meritocracy and the poor white supremacy.
Moreover, as Asian families may be viewed as not needing the same level of support. They
may not have school communication provided to them in their home languages. I’ve only got
a few minutes left, but let’s consider what teaching against anti-Asian racism might look like.
Let’s see, next slide please. For the elementary educators and school leaders in the
audience, it can look simply like expanding existing lessons about school segregation and
immigration. Often school segregation is taught solely through the story of Ruby Bridges,
this relegates school segregation along the black, white binary. Instead in addition to
consider other groups who are not allowed in so-called white schools by including stories of
Mexican American and Asian American segregation. And I’ve listed a few major court cases
on the right there.
Similarly expand content about immigration beyond immigrants from Europe.
Unfortunately, many elementary teachers begin and end at Ellis Island. Considering Filipinos
came to what would become the United States in 1587 and Asian immigration began at a
large scale in 1965. There’s so much history that could and should be included, but isn’t.
Let’s change that.
For secondary educators, please take up this history in your courses rather than teaching
about the Chinese in the 18 hundreds in a single day, or as an add on lesson to lessons about
the gold rush of the railroad. Spend time examining the wealth of primary sources from that
time period to discuss stereotypes, xenophobia and labor. Similarly, Japanese American
incarceration during World War II, merit significant conversation. And can we come to
compelling discussion around what it means to be an American and how the government
perpetrates racism and xenophobia in ways we continue to see today. And again, focus on
the 1965 immigration and nationality act. It’s responsible for much of the ethno-racial
diversity we see in the US today, but is rarely given enough context and instructional time.
Lastly, when you teach the civil rights movement, explore how the black communities work
inspired asian-Americans. This term isn’t just a category, but a name created to show a
shared sociopolitical identity and make sure that you share examples of cross racial
solidarity over time, not just during one particular moment. Next slide please.
To summarize, you can’t teach with a critical lens if you don’t have one yourself. So making
these changes to your pedagogy requires work. Here’s some starting points. First explore the
history of Asian immigration. Early Asian immigrants were viewed as an exploitable labor
force. They’re routinely subjected to discrimination and racism and were not allowed to
become citizens. This meant that they could not own land or vote.
Second disrupt the model minority myth, the stereotype about Asian intelligence and being
able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps without relying on social services was created
to pit Asian-Americans against black Americans and Latinex. Don’t let the stereotype
influence how you perceive your Asian American students and their families. And if you
notice it among your students, discuss it. And if you don’t know much about it, there’s a
great video in your resource list that helps explain it.
Third teach about racialization and racial solidarity in the past and present because
obviously we do not live in a post racial society. Race isn’t static, and fixed it changes over
time .While it is a social construct, it has real world implications that result in
disenfranchisement and dehumanization. If we truly believe in the US as a pluralist
democracy, we need to show solidarity against depression and act in ways that demonstrate
collective interests for just futures.
Fourth create regular opportunities to discuss racism and white supremacy. Particularly in
our current moment. Racism is a fundamental part of US society and history, just think about
who was first eligible to be a citizen and the ongoing fight to ensure that all members of our
democracy can exert their full rights as citizens. We need to be unafraid of discussing racism
and white supremacy with all students, not just students of color, as it affects all of our lives.
Next slide please.
Finally, it’s important to remember that blackness is heterogeneous. There are people who
are both black and Asian, people can be mixed race, and we can’t disregard that reality, and
the complexity that comes with that. While Asian Americans are facing a great deal of racism
today in our own communities, anti-blackness is often present and it needs to be discussed
and disrupted. There are several great webinars this summer that aim to support Asian
American educators in this work. Next slide please.
Thank you. I know that was really quick. Please contact me if you have any questions and I’ll
hand it over to Dr. Jason Oliver Chang, and I’ll put the resource link in the chat box.
Dr. Jason Oliver Chang: [00:38:09] Hello everyone. Can you hear me?
Someone just make a note in the chat if they can hear me. Oh, good. Okay, cool. Alright,
wow. Thank you professor Rodriguez it was amazing, and everyone Michelle’s presentation
as well. I’m so grateful to be here with y’all. My name is Jason Oliver Chang. I’m a professor
at UConn and a Director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute. And I lived on a
Mohegan, Mashantucket, Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Paugussetts Golden Hill, Narraganset,
Nipmuck and Quiripi land. And what I wanted to do today was to share a little bit of the
background for what I’ve been calling anti Asian pathogen racism. And, I entitled this part of
the presentation Anti-Asian Racism in the Forever Time of Anti-Blackness, as a way of lifting
up the, our current context around the national and global social movement for black lives.
And, that these are two strains of racism that have always existed together.
And so it’s important to realize that anti-Asian politics have been a part of, and based on
anti-blackness, because the founding of the colonial settler state of the United States was
based on enslaved Africans and indigenous genocide. And so in my academic field, we think
of stereotypes as a common term for what we call racial formations, which is a specific way
to specify the language, images and rationale embedded in those stereotypes. And so to
recognize that US-Asian racial formations are rooted in the history of us imperialism,
imperial warfare in the Pacific and mass labor migration to the US in the second half of the
19th century following the emancipation of enslaved Africans.
So we can see these parallels throughout history, in the sense that the first anti-Asian
immigration laws coincided with the writing of new rules of Jim Crow segregation and the
second half of the 19th century. And, also we have to recognize that black political power
that was developed in the civil rights era was mobilized to advocate for the entry of
Southeast Asians, Asian refugees after the Vietnam war.
So the rise of the largest social mobilization for racial justice and the Black Lives Matter
movement during a time of a global pandemic and anti-Asian racism may seem incredibly
unlikely. But our racial worlds have always been interlinked and it’s up to us to maintain that
awareness and to make those connections. So the fear of foreigners is a perennial concern
within a white supremacist society. Because this type of xenophobia has a number of
political uses. Anti-Asian xenophobia has always been used to reorder the racial hierarchy, to
certify the claims of a white ruling class. And this, it becomes more and more important, as
the, or more useful as the US becomes more and more diverse.
And so when we see this, our current pattern we to think of it in a context of of increased
diversity and challenges to white hegemony or white power. And, and so we can look at this
from a number of different angles, including, historically. Can I get the next slide please?
So, I’ve assembled a couple images of anti Asian pathogen racism from history just to show a
certain continuity. And these come from popular, the first two, the 1982, the Wasp cover
and the 19, or the 1886, cartoon image of the yellow peril octopus. Both represent disease
as the defining characteristic of Chinese immigration. And then I also included an image
from a work in Mexico to show that, pathogen racism is not only a part of a white settler
societies, but that is quite common elsewhere. In fact, anti-Asian immigration laws were the
gold standard of immigration laws across the world, from the 1880s to the 1930s.
And so, just to show that there’s, that all societies, you know, can and do use these forms of
difference and racialization. And it’s important to recognize the political value that they
create for dominant societies. Right? So, if we could go to the next slide?
Right, so here we see, you know, we often, you know pay attention to the, you know, as
professor Rodriguez was pointing out, that we often look at the 1880s as an important
milestone in Asian American racialization. And indeed that’s true. And it’s significant to see
that these continue through the 20th century and while it’s less known, there were two
other Corona viruses that came out of Eastern Asia, in the fifties and sixties. In 1957 there
was the Asian flu. And in 1968, there was what was called the Hong Kong flu. And, it’s
striking to look at the historical record and to see that these, the same discourse, the same,
basically the same language being used today around coronavirus is taken almost exactly out
of pages from 60 years ago.
So, and then another image here from 2003, surrounding the SARS epidemic. And so I
wanted to ask folks, did any of these images strike you as particularly powerful? We can
invite you to respond in the chat. And how did, what do you make of these images?
Yeah, I think it’s interesting to see, to share these with students because there is a way that
the visual language kind of encapsulates a lot of the ideas of racism and communicates them
quite effectively. Yeah.
So I wanted to also point out that the anti Asian racism has, or it really, any racism that is
connected with disease has four really important impacts. One is that, if it’s related to
doctors and officials, they really miss the epidemiological dynamics of the disease and they
can prolong the course of the disease, which I think, you know, we’ve seen with the
mishandling of the disease by the administration. Second we have added violence, and
victim blaming. And which leads to targeted people not seeking, help if they need it. And
three, whites often believe themselves to be immune and ignore preventative protocols. Or
don’t Institute protocols when needed. And this can, again, prolong the disease and make it
even more impactful, more deadly. And forth scapegoating a population leaves underlying
vulnerabilities completely unchanged. Right. So, and it diverts attention and resources away
from actually solving real epidemiological problems.
And so at this point, you know, I wanted to draw an intersection with the BLM movement, to
underscore that the historic inequality is created from black racialization have increased
their vulnerability.To the exposure of the chrona virus. And so at this time where we see
both anti-Asian racism and increased black death, by the hands of police, as well as from the
virus, these are conditions that we have to consider them at the same time.
So I wanted to offer a couple takeaways, and I know that my time is running low. So I’ll go
quickly. One that racism is more than prejudice. This is not just about mean people and nice
people. That racism is historically produced as professor Rodriguez was pointing out.
And that, you know, this is, while we do want to maintain attention to language, we also
need to be attentive to material conditions and opportunities, such as the recent, ICE rules,
immigration, customs enforcement rules around, college students and online classes.
So, in that vein, you know what we need to realize about racialization is that stereotypes are
formed and take hold of people’s imaginations when they’re reinforced by state action.
Okay. And this history serves as an important reference point. And in order to address this,
it’s not just about addressing the language. But we do, if we don’t recognize the history of
the formation of these stereotypes and we naturalize them and make them seem
permanent or natural.
Another point just to echo a professor Rodriguez, that really when we think about racial
formations, we have to consider them as relational, not solitary development. Racial
formations never happened in a vacuum. I often try to, when I teach this, I often teach it as a
racist, racial formations are constellation in which we have multiple points, in a hierarchy.
And this is, this leads me to the last point here about the fact that Asian racial formations
really revolve around these kind of polemic binary between a yellow peril and the model
minority. And so in, which is really stark for this generation because they experience a
transformation from crazy rich to crazy sick, and they’re, in the public’s eyes. And, this is
something to be attentive of for the mental health of Asian Americans. As they, or Asian
American students, as they really try to make sense of this dramatic landscape.
So, I know I’m running out of time, but let’s see, I did want to say here, that, you know, when
we often talk about anti-Asian racialization, we often focus on just how they’re treated. But
really Asian Americans have fought back continuously throughout these times. And they’ve
been engaged in other political struggles that link them to their homelands and highlight the
ways that Asian American communities have been involved in international political
movements for human rights, decolonization and antiwar. And many of these movements
signified independence, dignity, and democracy. And so, you know, there’s a couple other
ways that we can identify, sort of unconventional, Asian-American responses, you know, not
just to either be a yellow peril or a model minority, but that Asians have formed numerous
interracial coalitions throughout history and today. Including the 1903 Japanese and
Mexican labor association, Filipinos and Mexicans have formed numerous political and social
organizations together. And these are regular folk that are making sense of their world
together. Right? So, these experiences show that Asian Americans can’t earn their belonging,
because the basis of exclusion is on white supremacy. Not on contributions, right. So whites
weren’t citizens because they earned it. But because they were assigned themselves the
status of natural born Americans. And Asian Americans express a broad range of political
expressions on this issue.
So in that way, I tend to teach, I tend not to teach assimilation. Assimilation is a poor
concept to teach our students about belonging, because many already know about the false
promise of acceptance. And this is important to discover student experiences with this false
promise. If they do feel it’s true, then to explore why others don’t. And this background is
important to understand that anti-Asian racism occurs in a multiracial and deeply stratified
society. And racism, whether it’s anti Asian or anti-black is strongest when it’s practiced by
people of color. It reaffirms the white dominant interpretation of society. And this includes
the practice of anti-Asian racism, pathogen racism from people of color, as well as anti-black
attitudes from Asian Americans. And racism from people of color is a symptom of struggles
for belonging in white supremacist society.
And there’s a couple of ways to address this. Address anti-blackness and colorism and in
Asian American communities is by looking at their countries of origin and the racial politics
there. We can also explore what a society would look like without police. And addressing
anti-Asian and anti-black violence, as a speculative future. So with that, I’m going to leave a
couple of links here to some resources that I’ve been a part of, to teach on anti-Asian racism.
So hopefully that was, know it was a little abrupt there at the end, but, I hope that was
useful and look forward to the conversation.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:52:50] Thank you so much to our three presenters, Jason, Noreen and
Michelle, just incredibly rich dialogue unfolding before us. And before we transitioned to the
panel, this is actually an opportunity for our participants to begin to process and unpack this
in small groups, which we will be moving you all to in a moment.
But before we do that, we wanted to just first set the stage with some community
agreements. Prior to going into these small groups, which we’ll manage on our end with the
technology. We’re going to invite you to honor these community agreements and create a
space where you can hold each other accountable to these agreements. To be curious, open
and respectful. To honor confidentiality. And what we mean by that is, as you unpack,
what’s said here stays here, but what’s learned here leaves here. We want to make sure that
although we may have the best intent with our words and actions, that we are all
responsible for the impact of our words and actions. So knowing the difference between
intent and impact. Also in these small group dialogues you’ll be in groups of about four or
five people. So we invite you to make space and take space. So if you’re a person that
generally dominates conversation, we invite you to be self aware enough to make space for
other voices to enter. And if you are a person that’s generally reflective, we invite you to
take space and offer your best thinking to the group.
We also want to invite you to expect and accept non closure. We’re going to have about 10
minutes to share and unpack in these small groups, which isn’t nearly enough time to start
to unpack the richness of this dialogue, but please make sure that you’re not going to
necessarily get to a closure. This is only a processing moment for our community here in this
group.
So the discussion prompts when to plant this seed, as we go to our community agreement
affirmation, is what resonated with you most in this moment? Obviously, so many points
were made by our three speakers who set the stage, but what is one thing that’s really
resonating with you? That’s sticking with you? That you’re curious about? You’re going to be
sharing that in dialogue, in your small groups in a moment. So I’m going to pause there and
just invite you all to reflect on the community agreements. Be prepared to share your
thoughts on what resonated with you. And I’m going to also invite Nyla to offer some further
context before you go into your groups.
And Nyla, just, I think you might be on mute cause we can’t hear you, your audio.
Nyla: [00:55:50] Sorry. Can you hear me now?
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:55:52] Yes.
Nyla: [00:55:53] Okay. I just wanted to add onto what Gabriel said in terms of [inauble],
sorry about that, we will not be facilitating your breakout rooms so that, so we are trusting
that you will honor the community agreements and be respectful of each other. This is a bit
of a risk on our end to not be there. And we won’t know what’s being said. We will ask you,
give you an opportunity to sort of share out things that stand with you that stood out from
you or questions you have as a result of breakout rooms. But we just wanted to reiterate
that, when you speak in community, you will have most of those breakout rooms will be
private with just audience members.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:56:38] Thank you. Nyla and just, again the community agreements. If
you need to feel free to take a screenshot or a picture, just so you have that present with
you. Again, these are going to only be about 10 minutes as we transition to the breakout
groups. But, please share your thinking and take some time to process a lot of the incredible
resources and wisdom that was shared earlier.
So what resonated most with you? And we’re going to invite our wonderful tech folks to
begin to set up the breakout groups. Again, you’ll be in groups of four to five.
Nyla: [00:57:17] In the chat bot.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:57:21] Got it.
Nyla: [00:57:27] Okay. I see folks are coming back in.
Gabriel, do you need a signal when a startup, once everyone is back in.
Unknown Speaker: [00:57:40] This has been a really great webinar. I just want to thank you
guys in advance. I was just sharing with my breakout roommate that I have a niece that’s
Cambodian and black. And she’s been going through a lot of depression because of bullying
from a lot of school. Mainly her school is Caucasian. And she’s been going through a lot of
depression because of teasing bullying. So this is very helpful for me. But she lives in the
state of Michigan and I live in Chicago.
Nyla: [00:58:08] Thank you for sharing. That’s a really powerful, unfortunately we won’t
have time for everyone to speak out verbally. There are some of the seats, some of the
discussions in a small breakout room, but, that was, thank you. And also, please remember
to complete the survey at the end of this.
Gabriel Tanglao: [00:58:26] Definitely. And I, I see that everybody has joined back in. So I
wanted to welcome everybody back from the small group breakout conversations. Hopefully
they were also rich dialogues.
What we’re going to invite you to do. And I know that chat storm really fills the chat with a
lot of content, so it’s difficult to navigate through it. But what we’re going to invite you to do
is to just drop in the chat, something that resonated with you from that conversation. So it
could be something that you share. It could be something that someone else shared, or if
you have a curiosity and a question that is alive for you right now. Please share that in the
chat. And I’m going to lift some of those up before we go to our panelists and continue this
dialogue. So again, if there’s something that resonated with you from the small group
conversation, whether it’s a question, a thought or something that you heard from
someone. Please feel free to share that. And we’re going to lift some of those statements
up.
I see Lily teaching children, the true history of our country early on. Some of this being used
as another way to divide us. Thank you, Susan, for sharing that. And Shea, it’s great to have
these sessions. And they are, there are many layers to this. And a question that’s being
raised as well, and we’re gonna share and collect some of those questions to actually share
with the panelists. But just a couple of more things I want to lift up. I see I work in education
globally, why aren’t these important topics we discussed part of the national curriculum?
Right. Thinking globally, but acting locally. So thank you for that.
And there was a group that discussed that hate sends a powerful message. Yeah. It’s
definitely important to ground ourselves in the understanding of our history and at the root
of it, of hate can be used to continue power structures. And just something that Cindy is
mentioning, this was so informative and everyone brings good info to the table. So with that,
those are a couple of comments. But I want to leave enough space for the panelists. Feel
free to engage in the chat, continue to add any comments, thoughts, or questions. And
we’re going to do our best to continue to lift those up.
And with that, we’re going to transition to our panel. Which includes our incredible
presenters at the top of this, but also includes two incredible folks, Yan Yii and Fred. We’re
actually gonna give you the stage first, before we go into the panel discussion to allow you
to share back some of the, either questions or thoughts of what resonated most with you
from the presentations.
And, I think fred, if you don’t mind, we’ll invite you to share first and then Yan Yii after Fred
shares, we’d love to hear your thoughts on any feedback from the presentations earlier. So
Fred, would you like to unmute yourself and share?
Fred Pinguel: [01:01:36] Sure. Thanks Gabriel and hi everyone again, my name’s Fred I’m
with the Philadelphia student union and formerly the Philippino advocates for justice. So I’m
actually really happy to be here. I’ve learned a lot, through my fellow presenters. Because
my role is I’m not an educator, not formally. I work in the capacity typically to do leadership
development and youth organizing, inside schools and have had an opportunity to work with
an organiation, the organization I work with right now is predominantly black. And I worked
with them many years ago and also have worked in API server reading organization. So it’s
been really great to just listen to the presenters and in the chat, just try to tease out some of
the nuances of this very complicated situation.
I think the only thing that I would want to add, is how important it is to just be very tender
and careful in addressing issues of bias incidents, with students and with young people.
Because especially in contexts that include a really diverse group of students, racially,
ethnically, immigration status there is in the desire to make sure that one group of young
people feel protected and taken care of, unfortunately, because of the way that, you know,
punitive systems exist in schools, that usually means that another group of young people
may be implicated, whether that’s through school police, suspension, and other types of
punishment that we’ve seen and understand can really impact the experience of young
people and contributes to the school to prison pipeline.
So an example that I’ll draw from specifically is that when I worked, a few years ago with the
Philadelphia student union, there was a bias violence incident, in one of our high schools
where some native born and African American students, get into a fight and attacked some,
immigrant API students. And that led into, that led to a lot of development for the young
people that were involved. But unfortunately, one of the immediate responses of the district
was to criminalize the young people who were, criminalized young people who are
involvedin this melee. And so, especially in this, in this current moment where we’re all in
investigating the role of policing and the role of policing and maintaining white supremacy as
educators and as practitioners, it’s just really important to think about our role in that,
when we’re trying to address and protect young people, young API people from bias
violence.
Gabriel Tanglao: [01:04:26] Thank you so much, Fred. Yan did you want to unmute yourself
and share some of your thoughts? Reflect on either the presentation or some of the
comments that Fred shared?
Yan Yii: [01:04:38] Absolutely. Hi, my name’s Yan Yii, I’m a fifth grade teacher in Canton,
Massachusetts. And I’m also the president of the Canton teacher’s association. You know, all
of this just makes me think of a student I had last year who had come from China and did
not speak English very well. And at the beginning of the school year, he really experienced
the students being not so nice to him. And he couldn’t even like his English was so limited he
couldn’t even vocalize what it was that was bothering him. And he spent the rest of the year,
pretty much trying to be as not Asian as possible. Until I started bringing books into the
classroom, I really made it, important for him to celebrate who he is.
And I find that that’s really what we see with a lot of our Asian Pacific Islander students is
this model minority myth where we tried to be as white as possible. And what we don’t
understand and what John Cho said in this editorial was that we will only be as accepted
until there’s some reason to not accept us. We will, we will. The closest we’ll get to be at
being white as being white adjacent, but there will always be a ceiling that we cannot break
through.
So I’m looking at one of the comments and it said, you know, why do people say it’s fine, it
doesn’t bother me. And why do we need to not do that? It’s because it’s part of the model
minority myth. That you know, the women are to be demure. The men are asexual, they’re
not viewed as being people that women would find attractive. That is all part of this model
minority myth to keep us down. And we need to help our students celebrate who they are.
Or they’re going to start being as whitewashed as they possibly can, because they think that
it makes them more accepted among their peers.
Gabriel Tanglao: [01:06:39] Thank you so much for that. I wanted to make sure that folks
know, how this flow of the panel is going to go. And we’re going to invite our panelists to
respond to some questions that Jessica is going to lift up that came from some of the chat.
And as co-moderators, what we’re going to do is identify which of our wonderful panelists is
going to chime in to which questions based on the raise hand feature. So that’s something
that we’re going to be doing. But Jessica, I’d like to invite your voice into the space to lift up
any questions from our participants. And then our panelists who want to share.
Jessica: [01:07:17] Thank you, Gabriel. So it’s awesome, the chat as pose a lot of very deep,
powerful questions. Let’s jump right into it.
Why does the burden of educating with this kind of integrity fall on individual teachers
instead of being part of our national curriculum?
Gabriel Tanglao: [01:07:46] Noreen, we see your hand. If you’d like to chime in.
Noreen Rodriguez: [01:07:51] So I’ll say the short version that, I could lecture on for much
longer than like the minute or two I’m going to give it. But the school systems weren’t made
for us, they weren’t made by people who look like us. And we weren’t meant to succeed in
them, so they were never structured to attend to these issues. And it’s frustrating, but that’s
why we really have to kind of re-envision. And a lot of folks argued just straight up dismantle
of the current systems, because they’re not meant to support us anyway. And that’s, I’ll
leave it at that. But if you want to learn more, I highly suggest that you read, We Want to Do
More Than Survive, a book by Dr. Bettina Love. It will lay it all out for you. And it’s so
beautifully done.
Dr. Jason Oliver Chang: [01:08:30] I’d like to add something. Yeah so, you know, I think one
of the challenges is that there’s a national story that needs to be retold. But then, you know,
politics are always local and, you know, there’s a way that it’s, that our own communities
need to recover their pasts and their stories.
And, you know, one way to do that might be to reimagine the structure in which we develop
curriculum. You know where does professional development come from? What are the roles
of parents in professional development for teachers? You know, when we think about what
needs to change, you know, I think it’s more than just the outcome, but the process. And so I
think there’s really both, you know, attention to a larger kind of shared national story, but
then also the complexity and diversity of our local context.
Nyla: [01:09:51] Thank you. I’m going to jumping in. Are there any other responses to that
question? And I’m jumping in because we’re near the end of our time together, so we’ll need
to wrap up soon and put the closing slides up in a few minutes, but we do have, we can
squeeze in at least one more question and thank you, Jason for your response and Noreen.
One that, there was a lot of earlier in their conversation and the chat box around the
question, I think it was one of the first questions posted. Is it offensive to ask where
someone is from, if I have a genuine interest in getting to know them? And there’s a lot of
back and forth about that, would any of you care to respond to that question and debate?
Yan?
Yan Yii: [01:10:46] I hope it’s okay. I would say it’s all about the context and how you ask.
Cause I did, I was reading the chat earlier and I saw some people were saying, well, you
know, there’s the stigma of where are you from, meaning you don’t belong here. I think that
the hardest part is making that assumption about where someone’s from. And, you know,
like, I think most especially East Asian people will get, are you Chinese? Let me say
something in Chinese. That’s way more offensive to just be like Niihau. And you’re like, well,
I actually don’t speak Mandarin. So can you let, can we have a conversation about that?
I think you should be using it as an opportunity to educate people. And if they ask where
you’re from, you could clarify that question, but it’s much easier to say something like what’s
your ethnic, you know, I’m so curious, what’s your ethnicity. And, and don’t pose it as an
accusation and more look at it as a learning opportunity. But I think that’s what Brian was
trying to say earlier that he wanted it to be like, like he’s, he’s genuinely curious. I don’t think
there’s anything wrong with asking that question. I think it’s how you ask and how you
phrase the question. And what you can offer to that conversation as well.
But I also think it’s important to think about why when you ask it a non person of color,
what, where they’re from that they’ll say, well, I’m from Massachusetts and you know, what
you don’t want to do is perpetuate that, yes, but where are you from. Right, and you’re like.
And there’s a great video of if you look it up on YouTube about microaggressions and it’s an
Asian woman and they white male. And he keeps asking her where she’s from, where’s she
from? And she’s like, do you mean before I was born? Whereas like, all you really have to do
is ask what is, what is your ethnicity, I’m so curious. and I’d like to learn more.
Fred Pinguel: [01:12:47] I also just want to add very quickly if people want to just, think
about, like, why are you asking where people are from like? are you is it a question that
everybody’s answering at that time? Or is it like that, or is it particularly being addressed to
certain people who look a certain way? I think that that’s really important to do that kind of
self criticism as well, because there is a tendency for, you know, and it’s not, it’s not
necessarily a bad intention, but if you find that you are more interested in this particular line
of questioning when addressing API folks, or maybe Latinex people or just people who look,
who aren’t white, then I think that, that might be worthwhile to investigate as well.
Nyla: [01:13:44] Thank you.
Dr. Jason Oliver Chang: [01:13:45] One of the things, in the text box was out of the chat was
that you could ask someone their, you know, their relationship to that question. How have
they, have they been targeted by that question or hurt by it and identify with those
experiences. But I think, you know, just to echo what Fred is saying and really questioning
how is that questioning relevant? And what is the context for that? And then you’re also,
you know, I think it’s wise to develop a kind of repertoire of responses, you know. I can’t
count the number of times I’ve been caught off guard and really wished I had a one liner
ready to go, to respond to things. But also, you know, I believe in using these things tactically
to reverse the power structure. And to ask white people where they’re from.
Nyla: [01:14:50] Yan I see you have your hand.
Yan Yii: [01:14:59] Sorry, I forgot to put my hand down.
Nyla: [01:15:01] Oh, [ chuckles] and Noreen, did you have your, I saw you had your hand up.
Just took it down.
Noreen Rodriguez: [01:15:07] I think other folks covered it.
Nyla: [01:15:10] Okay. I think it’s time for us to close up. It’s, there’s so much more we can
talk about this can go on for a lot longer. There’s a lot of rich information shared and, thank
you all for joining us. Gabriel, is there anything you wanted to say before I close out?
Dr. Jason Oliver Chang: [01:15:28] Just the deep gratitude to all of our speakers today to
your organization and all the participants. I’m just glad to be part of the dialogue. So thank
you all.
Nyla: [01:15:40] Thank you. Can you go to the next slide? So, again, thank you all for joining
us today. this was an awesome conversation. We will have, there’s been a number of
questions about whether or not this will be available for viewing after it’s over. And we will
post it probably within, Kate, correct me if I’m wrong a week or so. So you can go back in and
see the slides and listen to the discussion. Again for reference and it will be posted on our
website.
Thank you so much again, to our co-sponsors and cohost at NEA. It’s been a pleasure
working with you. This was our first partnership and I hope there are more to come. Thank
you, especially to my co-moderator Gabriel Tanglao. He was, you’re awesome. And kind and
gentle and awesome, so I especially look forward to future opportunities to work with you.
Next slide. And thank you of course to our wonderful speakers who shared such rich and
important information, Dr. Jason Oliver Chang, Michelle Nutter, Fred Pinguel, Dr. Noreen
Rodriguez and Yan Yii. Thank you so much, again, and, hopefully we’ll have schedule a
debrief after.
Before you leave, please, next slide. Before you go, please take a moment to complete our
survey, we depend on your responses to inform future online events. We are especially
interested in how you experienced the breakout session. So in the, there’s no question in the
survey specifically to that, but if you can give us feedback on that experience and the open
ended questions, that will be great. You can access to survey to the link posted in the chat
box and, or you can use your camera, and take a picture of the QR code posted again.
Thank you so much. We will have, more events coming up, please stay tuned, check your
inbox, and you should be on our mailing list. And until next time.

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