Inspired by…
Good afternoon folks... I lost my apple pencil (Melinda’s comment: hey the art still looks great!) It’s been sort of a busy week for us, but we think today’s newsletter is still as interesting/enlightening as usual heh. No prompt today, but if any of you did some reflections on previous prompts, feel free to DM us those thoughts.
Take care! - Jamie and Melinda
News
🏫 Beyond Differences and the Community Youth Center, two non-profits from SF, started the "Stand Up for AAPI Youth During COVID" program. Receiving Kamala Harris' words of support, it launched at the end of August with the goal of creating impact nationally. It gives schools "free toolkits and resources developed by professionals to combat racist language in the classroom and help students understand their peers." I can't imagine what it's like being in middle school right now and receiving any racist remarks or microaggressions related to the coronavirus 😕 Leading up to the 2016 election, Beyond Differences had created a similar program to combat bullying and racism against Muslim-American kids.
🏊🏽 After Dartmouth announced cuts to 5 sports teams, some student-athletes noticed that more than 30 Asian student-athletes were eliminated, which constituted half of all the current Asian student-athletes. There were 934 total student-athletes at Dartmouth in the 2018-19 school year. After more in-depth digging and surveying, hoping to give the athletic directors the benefit of the doubt, and hesitating to detract from #BLM, 13 Asian student-athletes finally decided to write a letter to the Board of Trustees after receiving no explanation from their Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity. One student said, "it was really hard to believe that a reduction of almost 50 percent of the Asian American athletes was an accident."
👩🏻 The live-action version of Mulan, starring Liu Yifei (a popular Chinese actress) was released on Disney Plus this week at $30. It will be free on December 4th. There are calls to boycott the movie over its filming in Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims have been persecuted and forced into camps by the Chinese government, and the lead's support for CCP actions.
💅 Vietnamese nail salon workers face salon closures, difficulties in applying for pandemic aid, and anti-Asian racism during COVID-19.
Stats You May Not Know!
(we learned a lot from this)
Quick Facts
🎖️ 2.5% Asian Americans and 7.6% of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacitic Islanders are military veterans in 2018 (Source).
👩🎓 53.9% of Asian Americans and 24.4% of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacitic Islanders 25+ had bachelor's degrees or higher (Source).
🦜 The top 5 most common languages for Asian Americans are Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, and Hindi. The top 5 most common languages for Pacific Islanders are Samoan, Other Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages, Tongan, Spanish, and Hindi. (Source).
🛍️ AAPI buying power from 2000 to 2016 grew 222% to $891bn (Source).
👯♀️ AAPI Women are majority owners in 43% of AAPI businesses as of 2016 (Source).
🛒 AAPI Women shop at warehouse clubs 26% more than non-Hispanic white women (Source).
👁️ Asian Americans are "37% more likely to own Virtual Reality headsets" (Source).
🦠 Racial Breakdown of COVID-19 Deaths (Source: AAPI Data)
Check out the state by state breakdown on their site.
❗ Poverty Rates
🥑 Food Insecurity
😲 Wage Gap
❗Domestic Violence
📬 Don't Forget to VOTE
✨ S P O T L I G H T ✨
Grace Lee Boggs
Activist, Community Leader, Writer
Source: American Revolutionary (documentary)
One of my favorite quotes from Grace Lee Boggs is: "A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind." (Really relevant right now...) Basically, Grace Lee Boggs was a legend who fought for the human rights of marginalized communities for over seven decades. If you have time, check out this awesome documentary about her from PBS.
Born in Rhode Island in 1915 to Chinese immigrants, Grace later studied at Barnard and Bryn Mawr (PhD in Philosophy 😱). She read tons on Karl Marx, Goerg Hegel, Margaret Meade (stuff that usually goes over my head haha). Even with this education, she struggled to find a job after graduating but eventually started at a $10/week job at UChicago's philosophy library. This is where her activism began—she joined a group protesting poor housing conditions, conditions she also experienced. This was her first direct connection with the Black community, which led to her being a figure in Detroit's Black Power movement and a life of activism. She was a part of the 1941 March of Washington, began advocating for women and people of color, and took leadership in labor and civil rights movements. She adopted Dr. King's nonviolent strategies and worked towards "racial and economic justice through non-confrontational methods." Apparently the FBI was tracking her at some point, given her activities in the Black Power movement.
In 1953, she moved to Detroit for a new job at Correspondence, then married Black auto worker and activist James Boggs. Together, they wrote a book (Revolution And Evolution In The Twentieth Century) and founded Detroit Summer, "a community movement bringing together people of all races, cultures, and ages to rebuild Detroit." Through her life, she's given many talks, written several books, and founded organizations like food cooperatives, community groups, even a charter elementary school in 2013. After James died in 1993, she became even more involved with Detroit's activist communities—she even kept writing a weekly column from age 90-98 (!!) She died at the age of 100 in 2015. I wish I had known about her when she was alive...
This summary definitely doesn't give for enough space to talk about all her work, but overall, her ideas "centered around revolution, [but] her personal philosophies were guided more by human experience...than overthrowing a system." She always thought about how we related to our communities and the larger environments we're a part of, believing that working together in small groups does lead to social change. Anyhow, I shall end her spotlight with another fave quote, a quote I really believe in and feel encouraged by:
"You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility got it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it." - Grace Lee Boggs
Chef's Specials
🏃🏾A children's book on the oldest person to run a marathon—Fauja Singh—was just published! "The true story of Fauja Singh, who broke world records to become the first one-hundred-year-old to run a marathon, shares valuable lessons on the source of his grit, determination to overcome obstacles, and commitment to positive representation of the Sikh community."
👵🏽 This cute cartoon/zine on NPR by Malaka Gharib on how to take care of older people in a pandemic.
🎧 This podcast episode with Moss Perricone, a former writer on The Patriot Act.
Events
Thursday, Sept. 10, 2 pm ET: “Voting Rights and Challenges in the 2020 Election” panel by the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CONGRESSIONAL STUDIES (APAIC)
Thursday, Sept. 10, 8 pm ET: "From Artistry to Activism: Amplifying Black and Asian Voices of Resistance”