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Today is May 18 2020 and we have here with us on Houston Asian American Archive oral history collection, our guest today is Steven Wu. Thank you so much for your time and joining us during this

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some difficult COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So to start, can you share with us where and when were you born? I was born on July 9

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1992, in State College, Pennsylvania. My parents, they immigrated from China in 1988 to State College to attend Penn State University and I was born there four years later.

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I see. How would you describe the neighborhood you grew up in? Well, I–I only stayed there for a couple years as like a small baby. So I don't really remember much. But from photos and what my parents have talked about is so we–we lived

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on campus. My dad was a graduate student trying to finish his PhD program. And we live, yeah, we live on campus with a bunch of other, I guess, aspiring graduates on

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campus. And I think there was a small, niche, like Chinese community there already. And my friends, my family, my mom and dad became friends with them. And there were a few instances of just me as a kid like on my bicycle,

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small tricycle, riding around with them, with like, the people there and their children. So it was, it was really quiet. It was really small, really

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intimate. That's– that's what I got the most out of it. Great. Do you have any siblings? Yes, I have one little brother. He is in high school right now.

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He's exactly– exactly, but he's 12 years younger than me. And he was born in New Orleans when we moved over there, back in 2004. I see.

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And what kind of family– family values have your parents instilled with you during your upbringing? That's a good question. Um, family upbringing, I think, I think,

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you know, being someone who tries the best to help others, I think, is probably one of the good values my, my family has instilled into me. You know, seeing if, if you are capable of or

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have the ability to, and if you obviously see folks in need, try to be there for them, whether it's, you know, doing something or just an act of kindness, you know, just being there listening and supporting them.

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I think that's something that I've carried from what they've taught me to this day. And it kind of helps me see the world to, yeah, to give any help that I

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can, when I, when I see it. That's great. And did you learn to speak another language due to your family background? So my parents did try to teach me Mandarin.

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And I did actually live briefly in China with my grandparents for about a year and a half when I was really small. And obviously we're there I would only speak Mandarin, but ever since staying here in the States

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for the rest of my life, I haven't been as good at practicing Mandarin. So my level, my speaking proficiency, is–is conversational

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at best. And yeah, I've I picked up a few other languages in terms of like, high school teaching, and also like my spare time also, like not that great, whether it's like Spanish or French, but you know,

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Mandarin is probably like my second best and that's saying that's not saying much. So after Pennsylvania, you moved to New Orleans, right? How long were you there for?

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We were there from 1998. So we moved when I was six. My dad got a job at Tulane University as a professor in marketing.

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And we stayed there until 2005. So about seven years. And I was going to school in New Orleans. Um, this is gonna be an interesting part.

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But when–when I grew up there, my parents wanted me to have obviously a good education. And we lived in the suburbs of New Orleans. And for, to

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them at that point, they believed that Catholic school or private schools would be the best. So as it was interesting as a non-religious family to go attend a Catholic school, so I had

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to learn a lot of these things that I had no idea what they were. Just trying to fit in, essentially. And yeah, I was there doing that until,

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up until, it doesn't end for, in 2005, that's when Hurricane Katrina happens. And we had to evacuate, actually to Houston temporarily.

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And ever since then we moved away from New Orleans and to– to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So that's about like an hour northwest of New Orleans.

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And we, I stayed there for the next four years for high school. I see. That period sounded like a bit of culture shock inside the United States. It was, um, I mean, I think like so when–

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when Katrina hit, I was 13 years old. So I was still a kid. I was still trying to have fun and trying, still trying to figure out who I was. And I think growing up in New Orleans in that part of New Orleans of the suburbs, I didn't have as much

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contact with like other Asian Americans, or other people of color in general, really, that the Catholic school was majority white. And I

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didn't really understand what race meant because I was just surrounded by a bunch of other white people. And it well, I'll say this, the–the only moments that I really understood race was when other kids would

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pointed out to me that I was different. But I didn't really think about it that hard at that time because I was a kid, and they weren't that terrible. But yes, Katrina, I think, really opened my eyes to seek the rest of the

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world and how the world works. Part of me still feels like the government could have done a lot more to help the people in– in New Orleans during the storm and after the storm, and in our family was affected

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by that too, with our home flooding, and we had to evacuate to Houston. And also just seeing how people reacted to all these people coming into Houston at the time, there was a lot of mixed emotions as in as a

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kid, you're feeling all of this from like, you know, your family going through a lot, but also like your– your new school classmates, viewing you like, you know, why are you here? And then just understanding

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that not everything is perfect anymore, and that the real world is, like, quite difficult was definitely an eye opening experience to me. Wow. So how does that experience compared to the current pandemic?

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Ah, that's a good question. I think, um, I think on a personal level, there's similarities with anxiety. So there is anxiety during the storm when the storm goes

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through, you know, you're sitting and you don't know what's happening. And then of course, the aftereffects, let's say if you were flooded or you had damaged your homes, you have to, there's just the stress of trying to fix things.

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And I think for this pandemic, obviously, it's different because I get to stay home. Luckily, and I'm not as affected as other people who are essential workers, but there's still this feeling of

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anxiety, of not knowing when things will get–get back to a state where it's comfortable. And it's been what over three months, almost three months now for this pandemic, and–and for the hurricane

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for Katrina, and also any other hurricanes, that people have gone through that that lasts quite a while in terms of the mental fatigue. The almost—there is a sense of trauma that you do feel afterwards.

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And I think for this pandemic, it's also going to be similar where, even after the pandemic is done, the lasting effects whether it's like financial or mental, it's going to go for–for quite some time.

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So I find that very similar in terms of like anxiety. Um, also, and this is the part where again, we're Katrina was very eye opening. So that I remember as a kid watching on TV as the

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waters were coming through, and people were trying to survive. The media would say, you know, whenever there was like a white family who was trying to find like things to eat in stores, they would just

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describe them as survivors. But if it was, let's say, a black family, they would call them looters. And I think that that racial divide is, was illuminated because of the storm. And I think this pandemic is also

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doing the same thing in terms of characterizing people terribly because of just how they look. And yeah, I find that is another similarity. Um, yeah. Before we cover that, would you mind sharing some of your stories

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during college? You were studying in Geo tech, right? Georgia Tech? So I went to Georgia Tech, and that's in Atlanta. So I went there to study chemical engineering.

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And I think that was my real first exposure to just a bunch of other different people again, growing up like in Louisiana, I didn't see as many other faces. So Atlanta and Georgia Tech was a good experience for that.

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That's also where I got exposed to more social justice work. My real first exposure to what's specifically Asian American advocacy meant, means. So before I grew up in a very privileged life, and parents had

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enough to support me and we didn't have a lot but we had enough to survive. And I never felt personally that the stress from a, from that point, like when I went to college and I met other people, and they

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started to teach or not teach, but yeah, explain more about what our history has been and what our current people go through, especially those who are not as wealthy, or who may not have citizenship, those who have,

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you know, more unfortunate situations. They, that really opened my eyes to see how like our population, if we want to call it Asian American. We go through so many things that other groups go through as well.

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And that, you know, there is there is so much more work that we need to do to make sure that all of us in this community are supported and given a fair opportunity in shape to really succeed.

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Yeah, and what kind of extracurricular activities have you been engaged in back in college? So the first organization I started out with was China Care Club. It is, um, I think it's a nonprofit

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organization that helps orphans in China get medical attention if they need it. And we, you know, we, as a club on campus would raise money through our different events like we

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had this carnival events which would bring in students and families to play games, and then the money that we made over there would be donated to helping one–one orphan that we sponsored to receive medical treatments.

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And so that was the primary goal. One of the other major goals that we had is any Chinese orphans who were adopted in the Atlanta area would hold monthly, like play groups, just so

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that they would still be connected with their cultural heritage, and it was nice to see that the families who adopted these orphans still kept in mind that their cultural heritage was really important.

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And they would, they would bring them every month. It was very consistent. So it was really nice to see how, like our, the club on campus was providing a good

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service to the families in the area. And so from there, I think I met a few other folks on campus who were involved with the Asian American Student Association, or AASA.

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And I think it was really just having a conversation and they say, why don't you join our organization? I was like, Okay, yeah, sure. Why not? Again, at that point, I still didn't

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really know about Asian American advocacy. So with that organization, I was the education chair. We– we were trying, we were trying to

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starts an Asian American Studies program on campus because Georgia Tech never had one. And I think I still remember like, as the first ever education chair, my job was to figure out how to start doing that.

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And I had no idea what I was doing. But it was a good experience overall, again, for me just to learn what–what–what, well, first of all what our history was, and second of

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all, what it took to at least get, let's say faculty and staff to buy into why we need an Asian American Studies program, talking to other professors from other universities who already have it. That was nice as well. So it was a wild experience, but a good one

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overall, and yeah, so those are the two main clubs or organizations that I helped out with campus. Great. Um, yeah, that sounds really encouraging to see that as a young person you are already really aware, to—you know, back then.

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How about your major, can you talk about how you decided on your major back then? Yeah, so I chose chemical engineering, primarily because as a middle school and high school student, I found, like, chemistry of all the

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sciences to be the most interesting. And I felt chemical engineering had the most, I guess, it was the most flexible degree to find, I guess, employments.

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And I might, you know, with the help of my parents and also, friends, teachers, I think chemical engineering was the choice that I made for those reasons. It was not easy to complete that degree to Georgia Tech at

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all. I still have really bad nightmares of what we went through. But I think it helped prepare me from a, from a, like problem solving and just logical approach. Understanding of like, issues to help me with my

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day job, but also within it with everything else that I'm doing too. I think it just helps me understand, like, you know, there's a–there's a–there's a certain pathway you might need to go to, get to, to finish your

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projects or whatever, and versus just, you know, going all over the place. So I think that was a good, that was a good learning experience for me. That being said, so I had that degree.

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I'm actually in the middle of potentially changing my career paths, actually. Wow. So and after you graduated, did you immediately start

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working at Chevron? Yeah. So um, I guess backing up a little bit. I did internships at while I was at Georgia Tech. The first one was with DuPont, in Mobile, Alabama,

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and then my next internship was with Chevron here in Houston for the summer. And then I think after that when I was applying to be a full-time employee, Chevron brought me back–back in Houston, and I

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graduated in the fall of 2013. And then–and then I started at Chevron full time in the spring of 2014. So it was like right after. And how do you balance your full-time job with your other

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jobs like nonprofit? How does the time work? Um, I think the the best answer that I have is just carving out time.

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You—there's only obviously only 24 hours in a day, and you have to figure out number one, what is your priority at that moment in time. And unfortunately for me, everything is priority.

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So I just end up spending a lot more time with everything. And—but it's carving out time really to say like, okay, you know, there's an hour, what can I do within that hour to do these other things?

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And I was like, especially when I first moved to Houston, when I joined different organizations, and really got my hands dirty with these projects. It would be just like, literally thinking, Okay, I only have four more hours before I

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need to go to sleep. What can I do in those four hours to work on the film festival that I was leading or–or this other program that I'm thinking about, and then also mentally preparing for the next day at work?

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So talking about your change of work earlier. If you're comfortable talking, [Yeah!] and why were you thinking about it? So I, I am definitely wanting to change into more of

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a policy position or role that deals with social justice. I think the main focus is that I really would love to work on as immigration, criminal justice.

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And I think, for me, the reason why is when I got exposed in college to Asian American advocacy that led me to say, Hey, you know, I have a full time job in Houston now, that doesn't mean I have to stop doing what

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I just discovered and have found a more of a more–more or less a love for and through friend that I already had in Houston. I got connected with OCA, Greater Houston, which is a nonprofit that serves the

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Asian American community here in Houston and through them again, more exposure and had the more often opportunities to lead on different projects that serve the people here. I think my brain and my heart soon realized that my like passions for

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this outweighed my passions for chemical engineering or engineering overall. And I think it was maybe like a year or year and a half ago where I said, I think I

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need to switch because my expression is like, I'd rather wake up like, in the middle of the night working on advocacy than engineering at this point. And that was telling I was like, Okay, I think–I think I need to

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make a switch now. I see. So what was the like the most defining moment in your nonprofit advocacy work? Um, it's a really good question. I think there were a couple

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if I can mention more than one. So the first one was when I was leading the Houston Asian American Pacific Islander Film Fest or HAAPI Fest, as we call it, which is a program of OCA, Greater

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Houston. It was my–was my second year I think as festival co-director. And we were, we already did the majority of the festival we

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had most of our films already screened to the public. And it was it was already, it was really great. But it was the last night and

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we had our arts night program where different artists like singers, dancers, comedians, etc., would be on stage and they would present their talents to everybody to close up the festival and the last performer,

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invited basically everyone should just come to the front to dance with him. And there was one person who was a little bit more senior. And she was just having a super like she was having the time of her life.

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And I think for me up until that point, I hadn't really enjoyed the festival and understanding what it meant. But to see her, someone who's a little bit older, still like dancing, having so much fun in the middle of a

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crowd, that's majority like younger people. I was like, “Okay, this is– this is why!” You know, this festival is important. This is why I love, you know, doing this, to see that like all quote unquote social

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barriers is being knocked down. And you just enjoying yourself regardless. I think that was–was really beautiful for me. That was one of like the defining moments that I have

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for the festival. I think another defining moments was probably, um, last, not last year, it was 20— it was last year at the beginning of 2019.

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And that so at that point, there's there was a lot of ICE raids, immigration raids going on in the country, and especially in the– in the Southeast Asian community.

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And Houston obviously has a sizable Southeast Asian community and a lot of those people were being affected as well, but not as much attention given to that.

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And other cities, we're holding rallies and to demonstrate this to stop these raids, to stop this these family separations. And I got involved to try and help

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have a host rally in Houston, which we did, but before that, I think meeting some of the people who were incarcerated themselves, they're free, they're not free but they're not in incarceration right now.

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And hearing their stories of why, you know, because of, again, bad circumstances, they, their families had to come to the US because of the war in Southeast Asia. And then they were put into really bad situations here in the US,

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which led them to make decisions that–that cost them their freedom to go to go into either jail or prison. And then after that, because they're not US citizens, they were transferred over to ICE and to

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see the ripple effects of how one decision affected their whole life and their families and their loved ones and hearing those stories, I think also had a huge profound effects on me and understanding

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essentially, how– how our systems in place today, especially when it deals with immigration or criminal justice is really–really not fair. And I think

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we–we hear a lot about it, we read a lot about it. But when you get to sit down and have a conversation with somebody, it puts it into a whole different perspective. Because I think a lot of us, we all make

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mistakes, and some of us are more fortunate than others to either get away with it, or have resources to, you know, put that case away or whatnot. But most people don't and to hear again, more personal

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stories was—it that also helped me make this decision of like, you know—I have invested more energy towards that. And like, things I should have the things that I should be doing. That's another reason why I want to

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make this career change. So that was definitely another defining moment for me. Um, so in your— the HAAPI Film Festival, what kind of progress has been made during your tenure as a co-director in like advancing the equality of the Asian

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Americans? Yeah. So what I think when I joined the film festival, we were still a relatively small film festival in

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Houston, still trying to grow. And it was more, you know, focused on, I mean, it's still focused on presenting works of art from our own people for our own people.

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But I think the one thing that I wanted to do was make the festival a little bit more professional in a sense, and I'm not even sure if that's the right word, but essentially, I wanted to be a place where

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artists can use this festival as a way ofof increasing their of–of bettering their own careers, you know, versus just a place to, you know, show a film for the community. I think I also want to make sure that artists, filmmakers, and actors and

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actresses, when they submit their work, they could use this as a way of, you know, moving their careers forward. So, we essentially kind of implemented a little bit more structure with different positions.

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To make it more concrete, whether it's like operations, or programming or marketing, just to make sure things are more clear. We also increase the number of films we were going to show in different categories. I think before

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we had a lot more documentaries, but I really wanted to showcase more narrative films, you know, more fictional, but these are stories of our own people. Still so real and valid, nonetheless. We had for the first

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time judging so before, we never had any, like awards for the films, but now we want to say, Okay, we have like audience members and judges to give like their critique of the films and then they would get awards at the end of the festival.

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Again, that way, whoever wins can kind of like showcase, hey, I want this, and Houston is an American business got our film festival. That means something. So I think that was another great thing just to show more vote of confidence to

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artists that like, we want to help build your careers too. And I think by doing that, more people were submitting to our festivals. And because of that, we had to like partner up with a lot more organizations.

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And this is the part that's, I think the other cool part where we are the Houston Asian Pacific Islander Film Festival, but there's also a lot of other great organizations in Houston that care about these things that may

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not use, like film and art as a way to communicates their work. But this way they can. So like if we have a film about, let's say like, Filipino food, right, then we can potentially partner up with one of the

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Filipino organizations in Houston to work with us. So it was a way of connecting more of Houston together, through again, the medium of art, which I thought was spectacular. Because at the end of the day, we

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wanted to build this space where people will feel comfortable being like Asian American and just seeing ourselves on the screen. And yeah, just i think–i think the–the expression

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that we were using at that time was like, the taste, the sounds, and sights of Asian American. And so all this like fully comprehensive and–and, yeah, com-comprehensive

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experience for Asian Americans was–was great. Yeah, those are like some of the things that we did. And our–and our attendance group because of that, so that was nice. Um, so who are they attendances?

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Like mo-most of them were Asians, or you got some...? Yeah, I think at the end of the day, it was still majority Asian Americans, which is fine. I think, again, we wanted a space where we wanted ourselves to see

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ourselves. Before actually it was, it was quite hard to get even our own people to attend the festival because either they didn't really care that much, or I don't know what else because like, our festival was free.

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So there was no, there was no cost to even go into. It was free to the public. But we did a good—we tried to do more outreach to our own people of like, hey, you know, these are our stories that I'm sure either

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you or your parents or your children can relate to, you just have a good experience watching. So it was more Asian American in the audience. Great, and speaking about film, like I trust you've

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also followed and tuned in the PBS documentary "Asian Americans" premier earlier, actually, last week. Um, can you share with some of your thoughts after watching that? Um, so yeah, I watched it.

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I watched all five hours. And it was, it was a really good, I think, take on our history, because we've never had any other film that documented our past to the public.

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I think the obviously the Chinese railroad experience that they mentioned was really enlightening. We've read it in books. We've seen it like mentioned, but to see like personal stories of how like

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families and people were surviving back then was really nice. They went down obviously, like the– the whole path of the immigration waves, how policy affected immigration

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waves, and, you know, cut families' ties. And–and– and then kind of relating to like what's happening now. So it was a good bridge to see how our past was connecting to our presence, which I really appreciate it.

00:32:52.060 - 00:33:07.920

I'm glad that they also shared a lot of stories of the different experiences of Asian Americans, whether it's like Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, South Asian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Filipino Americans, etc., etc.

00:33:09.030 - 00:33:18.920

So it was it was trying to show that, you know, our history is– is more than just Chinese Americans. Obviously, there's so many other people who are, who have made so much contributions

00:33:20.290 - 00:33:34.730

and who have, you know, gone through so much in this country as well. The–the things that I think, and I don't, you know, blame, or I don't fault the film because it was only five hours and there's so much to talk about,

00:33:34.730 - 00:33:47.490

you, you literally have to go to an Asian American Studies class programs to understand more, which speaks to what we need to change. But I think if the film has an opportunity to add more in the future,

00:33:48.830 - 00:34:02.730

it will be nice to spend more time on those other communities because I believe the majority of the film was still Chinese American heavy, which is, which I know there's a lot in our history, but there's also a lot in

00:34:02.730 - 00:34:16.910

other people's histories, too, that gets overlooked. And I wish more time would be spent on that as well. And so just as again, showcase that how varied Asian America is.

00:34:16.910 - 00:34:31.200

It's not just one group of people, it's so many other groups of people. And they all go through so many different issues as well. So yeah, I think the biggest thing for me is just making sure that other groups have the opportunity to be presented in the

00:34:31.200 - 00:34:45.690

same light as majority. That's a very good point. And also, in addition to this documentary, in the pop culture, the Hollywood films, we've seen the rise of Asian American

00:34:46.380 - 00:34:59.710

representations, like the “Crazy Rich Asians" and "The Farewell" and also this year, we got the Oscar winning "The Parasites," which is also a foreign language Korean movie.

00:35:00.210 - 00:35:19.100

So, what do you see like the changes of the representation of Asian Americans in our country? Yeah, the– the change, the change in Hollywood and in mainstream media has been great. It's nice to see, you know, more people who look like us

00:35:19.170 - 00:35:31.440

on screen. And also, but also at the same time, I think telling stories that we relate to. So I think "Crazy Rich Asians" was a good film. But I didn't connect to it

00:35:31.510 - 00:35:49.330

as much as I connected to "The Farewell" because "The Farewell" was a story about you know, an Asian—Chinese American in New York, who has family back in China and one other, the grandma was going through her, her illness, and that's something that I related to

00:35:49.380 - 00:36:05.090

because it's similar to you know, what I've experienced personally, and I think I found that to be something that I knew like—it's a real story, but I never imagined that that kind of story would make it on the big screen,

00:36:05.400 - 00:36:22.250

like ever. I was like, “Wow, that's so relatable like to hear them speak like Mandarin, and also English in his or her struggling to speak both languages.” I was like, “Oh, wow, that's– that's very much me!” Um, and also being conflicted of being both, you know, Chinese and

00:36:22.250 - 00:36:37.590

American at the same time like, “What does that even mean?” So I found that to be nicer that more stories that fit what we as Asian Americans want to see versus what Hollywood wants to see I think that is very powerful.

00:36:38.380 - 00:36:52.960

And I found that to be the most illuminating. Um, but this, the critique though is again similar to the PBS film, I think the majority of content is still dominated by certain groups of people, and again there are so many

00:36:52.960 - 00:37:07.450

different experiences I want to see those experiences, also on the screen as well. Just again so that they have their share of time, because their stories are so rich as well. And I want to make sure that, like all

00:37:07.450 - 00:37:22.650

people have that opportunity of like going to the movie theaters with their popcorn with their families, and literally just crying together because they found the film to be so relatable versus in the past, they couldn't they couldn't have made that connection.

00:37:24.150 - 00:37:35.350

So that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking forward to opening the change, but I don't, I don't when I, when I watch “The Farewell.” I watched, I watched it in theaters and I watched it with my friends.

00:37:35.410 - 00:37:49.750

I watched it with other people, but then when I went home to my family. They made my family want to just so that they would like to see this with me as well. And I think they enjoyed it, they had some criticisms as well, which.

00:37:51.170 - 00:38:02.950

Overall I think they'd like to see that. Now our people was on, we're on the screen. Sounded like you will watch it four times! And what were the reactions of the different groups of

00:38:02.950 - 00:38:19.450

people watched this, like, how was your families’ reaction? So I watched it with my cousin's husband's, and my cousin's. My aunt once.

00:38:21.110 - 00:38:33.980

And then I wash it with my own like mom, dad and brother, the second time. So the first one I watched her with, like aunts, and my cousin's husband, they, They actually I was,

00:38:34.510 - 00:38:47.670

I was worried because they, they didn't they don't. There isn't they're not they’re they from–from China, and I didn't know if they could relate to what the main characters experience was, but they did.

00:38:47.850 - 00:39:08.950

So, my cousin's husband also had an experience where he was here in the US, because he was studying here, but he couldn't go back to one of her—his grandparents, I think, to go see his grandparents, when they were having

00:39:08.950 - 00:39:21.820

some kind of illness, or something similar to that. And so that was still relatable to him. And to my aunts, the film really shows the differences between

00:39:21.820 - 00:39:33.420

the two countries which she–she has a lot of thought about. Um, and so that, the way like we had a good conversation about the film because of that, so that was very surprising that they connected with the film

00:39:33.420 - 00:39:50.120

as much as they did. I didn't, I didn't know if they would. To my parents, they–they liked film, but they also felt that—and this is the part where it's a little challenging because we don't

00:39:50.120 - 00:40:03.320

have as much content out there. They felt that this story was from a very specific perspective, which it was, it was from Lulu's perspective. Um, but my parents were saying, look, we, like our family,

00:40:03.320 - 00:40:14.800

we wouldn't do that, we will not lie about our illnesses. So our family members are like, oh, okay, I guess it's not universal. But so that was

00:40:14.800 - 00:40:25.410

a good conversation. And I was like, oh, okay, that's interesting. I didn't know. I don't know. Like, what, why–why are we more honest than other people who know? But it really shows, um, it really showed me

00:40:25.410 - 00:40:39.900

that even like, to my parents, they want no content that reflects more of our people accurately. And I think that's a good comment on how we just need more stories about our people.

00:40:40.900 - 00:40:51.770

Because, you know, one person can only share one perspective. And Lulu Wang is only one director, we need other people to–to share other experiences that relate with us.

00:40:52.090 - 00:41:01.970

So I thought I was like, Oh, well, my parents have really good film critics. This is nice. It was a good conversation. So it was, it was good. It was good.

00:41:03.880 - 00:41:18.070

It's a good conversation in your family, you also are in the film—advocacy industry. So can you talk about “Together Empowering All,” that initiative you founded

00:41:18.610 - 00:41:34.820

inside the OCA Greater Houston? Yeah. So, “TEA Talks”, as we call it “Together Empowering All” was an idea that we had in 2015, I believe. We wanted—so at that time,

00:41:35.400 - 00:41:49.310

I was starting with the film festival. I was doing that for a few months. And I realized that, you know, while it's good to have a space to look to see our own faces and

00:41:49.310 - 00:42:01.870

our content on the screen, I think it also would be nice to have a space for us to talk about these things, to give attention to like conversations, because I don't—at that time, I didn't know many places in Houston

00:42:02.020 - 00:42:15.640

that just had these little forums where people could just talk about their feelings, which I think is very important. And especially as Asian Americans, I don't think we spend as much time talking about how we feel about things.

00:42:16.420 - 00:42:33.640

And so anyways, yeah, I–I with two other members from the OCA board said “Let's create this little series of roundtable discussions on different topics every month.” And just generate conversation of our own from our own people.

00:42:34.050 - 00:42:45.560

And we'll see where it goes. And then from there, we—I think we started with more of a, like a history of Asian American as our first topic. And, you know, the

00:42:45.560 - 00:43:02.350

model minority myth, and, you know, education opportunities. Within the Asian American communities, it was all very specific to the Asian American community, which was great, but then I think after a year of doing that, and building our audience members.

00:43:02.820 - 00:43:17.370

We wanted to expand to have conflicts that tied in other communities because number one of our name is together empowering. No, we should be including other people, and also tying in their experiences with our experiences.

00:43:17.540 - 00:43:36.530

So, you know, we began to talk about, I think. The first one was related to, to the LGBTQIA community, how that is obviously a huge issue within the Asian American community that, still has this, still has problems

00:43:36.550 - 00:43:51.870

with especially for like the older generation of–of recognizing those people, especially if they're their children. So we wanted to provide a space where family members like parents

00:43:51.980 - 00:44:05.560

would talk about how they dealt with, like their children coming out. It was, it was really emotional, as you can imagine. So that was, that was the great, I think to me, again, these are like these very uncomfortable conversations that I wanted to

00:44:05.560 - 00:44:15.160

have that other folks might not have had the opportunity to do. So that was a really good one. We did the, we did one

00:44:15.320 - 00:44:31.110

with like Muslim Americans, obviously, like a large percentage of Asian Americans are Muslim. And we wanted to have a conversation about how–how like their community was doing during these like, during that time. We had one with immigration and DACA

00:44:32.340 - 00:44:43.540

how like a lot of Asian Americans are undocumented. The narrative, obviously in America is, that is more like a Latinx problem. But Asian Americans also fall in that umbrella.

00:44:44.270 - 00:45:00.610

So again, providing more of a space for us to talk about those issues. So I think, yeah, after the year, focus more on Asian Americans, and then we and then when we expanded to talk about issues that affected other people, we–we definitely hit a

00:45:00.610 - 00:45:08.810

lot more heavy–heavy topics, and it got more intense. But I think that was, that was good. Because, again, we don't share these thoughts that

00:45:08.810 - 00:45:21.630

often and in public, and even if we do, I don't know if we're speaking as honestly as we want to. So just wanted to provide a space for us to have these conversations. And then at the end, I think this is the best

00:45:21.850 - 00:45:40.510

part of two talks. We have like this little packet of what the topic is, but also resources and ways of taking action. So if you found the DACA conversation to be good, then there are ways for you to volunteer for

00:45:40.510 - 00:45:54.010

different organizations. There are ways for you to donate money to different organizations. And there's things for you to do individually to make this issue, hopefully go away. And I think, to me, that was, that

00:45:54.010 - 00:46:06.000

was the goal is like, we talked about the issues. But also now there are actual, tangible ways for you to get involved, versus just going back home and thinking about it. But now you have like a resource where you

00:46:06.000 - 00:46:20.560

just say like, Oh, you know, I can spend money or donate money to help somebody cause I can call my representative person to do something. So I'm just providing those resources to people to take action. So that was, that was great.

00:46:21.720 - 00:46:37.960

Yeah, that was wonderful. So you also co-led the civic engagement efforts to turn out more Asian American votes. Can you speak about that? Yeah. So I, so it's actually kind of interesting how this is

00:46:37.960 - 00:46:50.230

all like going one program by another because it's it also shows like, how my–my passion was evolving. So it started with the Film Fest, and then it became TEA talks.

00:46:50.780 - 00:47:03.490

And then I think 2018 was approaching and knowing that the election was going to be very important, especially as a turn-out Asian American voter, I got more involved with that site with OCA.

00:47:03.780 - 00:47:18.060

And it was, it was figuring out, okay, you know, where– where do our populations live in Houston? How, what is, what has been their historic turnout, which is not good?

00:47:18.910 - 00:47:32.050

And, but also with that information, how do we, how do we find different ways of getting them to, you know, go to the ballot? So essentially, you know, whether it's doing phone banking in language, whether it's canvassing with people

00:47:32.050 - 00:47:48.690

who can speak in language, you know, printing material in language as well. It's so, yeah, finding different ways of communicating that voting is important to our populations was very illuminating to me.

00:47:50.350 - 00:48:01.840

I–I knew we like never had a high turnout, but I never knew exactly why. To me, it was like, yeah, why don't we vote as much? I don't, I don't really understand.

00:48:02.220 - 00:48:14.540

But I think talking to the people who worked on this, and also my family too, it helped me understand why. And then with that, you could kind of figure out what to do with it.

00:48:14.540 - 00:48:34.100

So for my family, I think they grew up in China post-communist takeover. And they didn't really have an opportunity to vote that like that was not really a thing. And the whole like

00:48:34.130 - 00:48:49.150

political system was not what they wanted to put it like that. And so when they came here, they never put as much emphasis with political systems because their experience with political systems have been not the best.

00:48:49.640 - 00:48:59.700

So when they come here, it's like, well, let's focus on ourselves. Let's focus on what we can control and not focus on everything else. So like hearing

00:48:59.700 - 00:49:16.580

their stories, hearing other people's stories of why like their families don't vote that helps me figure out, okay, this way I know now how to better communicate with somebody versus just saying vote, vote, vote, vote and expecting them to vote.

00:49:17.180 - 00:49:35.580

But now I'll have a conversation of like, why don't you vote? Let's talk about why, you know, it's different here. And how your vote can affect so many different things, whether it's like education, health care, your, like your job,

00:49:36.430 - 00:49:49.390

and–and the things that you care about. Right? And that to me was, was a very—it was, it was a growing experience for me to–to understand how to better communicate why voting is important to people.

00:49:52.410 - 00:50:04.270

Yeah, and really this year, it's also although successful, encouraging to see Andrew Yang making as far as he could that can be. Yeah, that was surprising. I did not know he would go that far.

00:50:04.420 - 00:50:14.940

I was like, wow, he's–he's really gaining like a lot of support for this I–I was—it was interesting because my parents would keep texting me about Andrew Yang.

00:50:15.660 - 00:50:34.480

Like, wow, this–this guy is really going the distance and he's like, getting more popular. I was like, yeah, I'm surprised too. And you also let another like so many one of them very, very many on your, on your resume that

00:50:34.830 - 00:50:47.740

Texas Data Quality Coalition. Can you describe your involvement? Yeah, so that one was, I think my last project with the OCA formally.

00:50:48.940 - 00:51:07.850

So a little background. I think I was in Chicago or another city for a conference. And this was in 20-2018, we–we–we were noticing that

00:51:08.990 - 00:51:23.280

Massachusetts was recently having this pretty lively battle to expand demographic categories for all their state agencies. At that time, it was very high level.

00:51:23.280 - 00:51:40.640

I think it was like white, black, Asian, Hispanic, that's about it. But they wanted to add the categories below that. So for example, for Asian, they wanted to add like, you know, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Pakistani, Filipino, etc.,

00:51:40.640 - 00:51:54.550

etc. so that whenever they collected data, they would have a more disaggregated viewpoint. And yeah, so that was happening in Massachusetts. And it got me thinking, you know, why– why can't

00:51:54.550 - 00:52:12.010

we start something like that in Texas because we also do a very, very poor job of collecting information of our people. And that led me to just have conversations with people like for Massachusetts or–or California or Washington

00:52:12.010 - 00:52:28.270

state that have done this before and succeeded about, you know, why it's important to have more clear and like granular data of our people, because the one thing that I learned is, when you put us all together under one little

00:52:28.270 - 00:52:44.580

box, our people's experiences get erased, essentially. Because if you have one population that's so much larger versus others, then that number or that–that information gets averaged out almost essentially.

00:52:45.320 - 00:52:58.440

And to me that kind of spoke because I guess it's speaking more to like my engineering background. We have a saying of like, you know, garbage in, garbage out. If you feed a system bad information, you're only

00:52:58.700 - 00:53:16.800

going to get–get bad results. And to me this was, you know, this one was very immoral, but also illogical for, you know, government institutions to not have the best data possible to best serve our

00:53:16.800 - 00:53:33.900

people. And the one area that we found the most alarming, I think was health, on like health, literally, life or death, depending on the situation. And if we don't have the information of our people to show

00:53:34.090 - 00:53:50.510

that, let's say certain populations, like Chinese Americans or Vietnamese Americans have higher rates of stomach cancer, because when you put us all together, that number goes, that number is not as high anymore, and you're not going to

00:53:50.550 - 00:54:04.060

provide resources to address that. And those resources could be more public health facilities. Like the one we have here in Houston hope clinic, they specialize in the Asian American

00:54:04.290 - 00:54:16.320

community and they have people who could speak in language. Well, if we have more data that shows that, again, these people are being affected more, then you could have more facilities that could speak their language, you could have material

00:54:16.320 - 00:54:32.640

translated in language, you can have more targeted approach of communicating this issue to people who may not even know. So that was, that was something that really spurred me to say, “Okay, let's this is an

00:54:32.640 - 00:54:46.200

issue in Texas.” Given also that we have like the lowest rates of insurance, that our Medicare Extension has did not go through. So all this together, what is something that we could do to help make it a little

00:54:46.200 - 00:55:01.370

better? And I thought, okay, let's, let's try to increase the demographic options that we can we could pick that we analyze and that we report. So yeah, that became like a year and a half sprint of

00:55:01.450 - 00:55:16.790

just figuring out what policy meant and how to, like execute policy. Like from–from gaining like partner support to writing like a small little paper to tell the legislatures of like

00:55:16.870 - 00:55:32.920

why this is important to figuring out like how much money this would cost to actually execute, to doing town like not town halls, but like little–little education forums to the, to the people of like, why this is important and why you

00:55:32.920 - 00:55:48.930

should support it. And then it just became like a whole, full project. Yeah. So could you share some of your thoughts on how to get more like younger American, um

00:55:49.410 - 00:56:14.200

Asian Americans like yourself to step up and get more involved in community–community activities? Well, I think for younger people today, they have a really good, they're–they're already really connected with, of course the internet versus like when we were younger.

00:56:14.810 - 00:56:28.930

So I think they–they know how to find things much better. So–so–so that so that's–that's–that's a barrier that's–that's not there anymore. I

00:56:28.930 - 00:56:43.300

think they–they also care about—so because they were because they're more exposed to more information, I think they also understand the issues a lot better. So they at a younger age—I've met a lot

00:56:43.300 - 00:56:56.820

of young people in high school, who care so much about, like social advocacy, way, way more than I did when I was in high school. Like, I only cared about like, how to become more of an adult and they're

00:56:56.820 - 00:57:12.390

caring about like fixing the world, which is amazing. Um, I think that–that passion led them to actually find us, like organizations in Houston to help with their

00:57:12.390 - 00:57:30.400

projects. So, to me that showed that if organizations put out information online or wherever those, those people's young people who want to make change will reach out to you, or they will make their own change themselves,

00:57:30.580 - 00:57:47.890

which I think is also an amazing thing. I think the one thing I would tell a young person who is thinking about this right now, is to just not be afraid because at this point in time, I think this world is showing that like, adults,

00:57:48.440 - 00:58:01.580

sometimes really don't know what they're doing, or most of the time don't know what they're really doing. And their–their ideas are very, like archaic, and it doesn't really fix anything. But the ideas from the

00:58:01.580 - 00:58:16.380

young people are really, I think transformative a lot of times in very creative ways. So yeah, I mean, if you have those ideas, and if you know, if you want to dive into it, you know, don't be afraid.

00:58:17.790 - 00:58:31.070

Find organizations who believe in you to support you, because we're here. And I think for the most part, we want to help support your ideas. Yes, yeah. Those are my thoughts on that.

00:58:31.990 - 00:58:46.770

Yeah. So following on when we were speaking of public health and public policy, like we would like to get some of your responses to our current pandemic. And just to learn more about your life and your

00:58:47.530 - 00:59:03.440

perspectives on this crisis, and can you share with us some of the changes in your life like working from home and being isolation—being isolated from the rest of the world, I guess, how does that change your mindset and your perspectives?

00:59:05.770 - 00:59:24.520

Um, well, I think so far obviously personally, the–the ever constant anxiety of the pandemic has– has–has been in my mind for the past three months. That's not going away, I don't think anytime soon.

00:59:26.230 - 00:59:42.220

But I think for me from a more like, like large picture, I think it really has shown me that our systems are not created—they were not created to

00:59:42.220 - 00:59:56.560

really handle this. And I'm glad we talked about Katrina, and how it connects here because when I was 13, I also realized that the systems in place were not, were not

00:59:56.560 - 01:00:10.020

designed to handle that kind of issue. And I think began to really like, question a lot of those, those systems of like, were they designed poorly? Or were they designed poorly, intentionally because they

01:00:10.020 - 01:00:21.980

don't want us to use it as much? And I think it's very similar to the pandemic. When you hear stories of people who are losing their jobs, especially, let's say here in Texas, and that

01:00:22.070 - 01:00:35.730

our unemployment system and like website are so old, that it takes forever to even, like, keep up, which I think is inexcusable, especially now.

01:00:36.810 - 01:00:53.080

And–and then it gets you thinking like, you know, why–why has that always been so bad? And is it bad on purpose to discourage things and I'm not sure. But those are the things that are coming into my head. How like our, you know, essential workers

01:00:54.050 - 01:01:09.100

are now the most important people helping us, you know, stay alive? Essentially like people who are at grocery stores, the first responder people, the medical professionals, these are the people who are keeping our world

01:01:09.400 - 01:01:20.910

kind of intact. But yet a lot of them are also the ones who are paid the least, have the least benefits, and are risking their lives to make a— make sure that we're still alive.

01:01:23.260 - 01:01:39.940

So yeah, it's an overall question of like, all these systems are still, uh—the systems are not doing what we need them to do, and how can we figure out a way to make them better to serve all over?

01:01:40.100 - 01:01:53.670

Well, you know, just way and I think that's the part where we need to think we—it's hard because we're still living in the pandemic. But those are the things that we need to think about now as well.

01:01:54.370 - 01:02:11.200

That's the reform part after the recovery and I think similar again to like, let's say the hurricane examples, a lot of people were only focusing on recovery, but there are needs to be reformed too, whether it's strengthening our levees, or making sure that homes

01:02:11.350 - 01:02:28.730

aren't built in low, in flood flood areas, right, and making our houses stronger. And also, you know, not having like development people just going into these areas and then building new homes and–and–and

01:02:30.600 - 01:02:42.930

pushing people out, essentially. Those are the things that that we needed to do for reformed hurricanes. And similarly, for this pandemic, we need to think about how to change those systems.

01:02:43.270 - 01:02:55.900

Because I mean, I'm not saying that it would happen again, but I, it could happen again, and we need to be better prepared for when it does happen again, or for if it does happen. Yes.

01:02:58.080 - 01:03:11.270

Yeah, definitely a lot of the bigger picture policy things that need upgrading. And how about technology like you, we are all seeing everything being moved online like we are doing now, and Zoom

01:03:11.270 - 01:03:25.460

and FaceTime and we kind of focus our perspectives and get up on our sources of information from a screen or a gadget. What do you see that will do to our future?

01:03:27.130 - 01:03:40.610

It's going to hurt our eyes and our eyesight, that's for sure. I don't know about you, but I've been getting–getting a lot of like eye fatigue, because they're just always on the screen. Okay, so besides that, I

01:03:43.030 - 01:03:57.350

think it's good. Um, overall, I think one example like telemedicine, a lot of people are now, they don't have to go to like the hospital to get checkups. They could just use a screen to get their diagnoses.

01:03:58.540 - 01:04:09.140

I think– that's–that's awesome. It saves so much time and energy. For me and for a lot of other people who are working in–in–in corporate America, they're realizing that they don't

01:04:09.310 - 01:04:19.720

actually have to go into the office every day. Like you could still get a lot of work done at home or at a coffee shop. And that saves money and time and energy, which is great.

01:04:20.610 - 01:04:38.340

So I think it will make it a little bit more efficient with the way we work. However, I still don't think it's a replacement to actually like interact with people. I think there's still something to be said about having in-person

01:04:38.900 - 01:04:54.090

meetings or in-person just–just talking. Like there's– there's some things that you just can't communicate over. Like the internet, in my opinion, I don't think you can, as you can in person that is just that human connection, if you will, that is

01:04:54.120 - 01:05:10.680

missing. So yeah, I think overall, this is going to be very transformative with like, I mentioned medicine, education as well, business and our jobs, but I–I really hope that—it's—we

01:05:12.630 - 01:05:25.650

still balance that with like, some human interactions. So what do you miss most in this pandemic during, like quarantine? Oh my god, I miss going out and eating with friends.

01:05:27.790 - 01:05:37.810

I miss, I miss hugging people, like, I haven't hugged a person in forever. I'm living here in Houston by myself right now. My family is in Louisiana, so

01:05:37.840 - 01:05:56.860

I haven't seen them or touched them in, for so long. So I'm gonna, I keep, I keep telling friends that once this is over, I'm going to hug all my friends really hard and really tightly not like oh, because it's

01:05:56.860 - 01:06:08.940

something that I took for granted. I think we all took for granted. For so long, but yeah, I think it's gonna be amazing when we, let's say go out to eat dinner with friends and just sitting

01:06:08.940 - 01:06:21.490

there for the first time ever, like not worried about anything except what to eat and what to order. It's gonna be really nice. But that's,

01:06:21.640 - 01:06:38.380

that's what I'm going to look forward to. Yeah, we're also seeing so many creative, like video clips or performances on—I don't know if you do Facebook and for media and just a lot of very heartwarming

01:06:38.380 - 01:06:56.320

messages from the artist community. Have you seen many of those from your friends from HAAPI? Um, I don't think I've seen that from them, specifically. Those folks right now are still very focused

01:06:56.320 - 01:07:09.900

on having a film festival this year. So they're actually going on online, like a lot of other events are moving online. For a film festival that's a little easier because you can have a, you know, computer at

01:07:09.980 - 01:07:21.400

home, you can watch movies there. So it kind of, kind of works out. But in terms of what you, what you asked, like, heartwarming videos, I'm trying to remember if I

01:07:21.400 - 01:07:37.140

saw something that was really adorable, or cute. I think oh, you know, I do remember I think there was um, this family who was celebrating their

01:07:37.140 - 01:07:53.500

child's birthday. And their friends and their children decided to go in their cars and drive around the neighborhood in front of their house to celebrate by honking and waving and throwing presents out the

01:07:53.500 - 01:08:10.440

window. And I was like, wow, like that's so creative. There's still a way to in-person celebrate somebody's life while still being safe and I found that to be so awesome that the kid can still have a good birthday

01:08:10.620 - 01:08:25.740

even–even during like these really terrible times. That was, that gives that gives a lot of hope. It gives a lot of hope. Right. And have you personally engaged in any of the responses to the outbreak?

01:08:27.250 - 01:08:43.720

Um I think the most I've done so far as is donating a little bit money here and there to support getting masks and gloves and supplies. Also to food banks, to that are supporting.

01:08:45.650 - 01:09:03.200

You know, families who—let's say their children were depending on schools for food or they themselves have lost their jobs. And then and they now need to find food themselves. Yeah, I think, I think those are the main, the main

01:09:03.200 - 01:09:19.070

things that I have been doing myself. It is, it is challenging because as much as I want to obviously help in person, volunteer and things, I

01:09:19.070 - 01:09:36.070

also worry that I might be exposing other people to the, to the virus, which is a cha—that—it's such a, it's such a complicated thing to think about because at the same time you want to help but at the same—but the other point like you might be

01:09:36.140 - 01:09:47.550

hurting them just by being there. And that's, I know, like there's precautions you can take, but it's something that I still think about. And so I'm trying

01:09:47.550 - 01:10:02.460

to do as much as I can, that doesn't involve like me physically interacting with another person. So it's promoting something like on my social media of like a cause, or donating myself. I think those are the

01:10:02.520 - 01:10:18.600

least that I can do. That's great to hear. So moving on the slightly more realistic side of—sorry, and as we are in the pandemic, we're also seeing some, yeah, like xenophobia and

01:10:19.120 - 01:10:31.430

targeted, as you also mentioned briefly earlier. So what do you see are the parallels in history that happened to Asian Americans today, for example? Yeah.

01:10:32.510 - 01:10:49.430

So the– the anti-Asian hate crimes have–have definitely spikes because of this virus. Whether it's from our own leaders, public officials, who call it a certain name, which I'm not going to call it that,

01:10:50.130 - 01:11:08.880

cuz it's terrible. Or even just–just people in general who have these feelings that are bubbling up and they're, they're pointing that anger at at, you know, our community. The parallels, I think, are,

01:11:09.490 - 01:11:22.710

are extremely similar to what we've gone through in the past. I think when, like Asian Americans first came to this country to California, for the railroad–railroad workers, especially from China.

01:11:23.700 - 01:11:38.150

A lot of people in California called it, you know, like the yellow peril. They wanted to kick us out because we were taking jobs, because we were doing things that they didn't think we should be doing in this country.

01:11:40.190 - 01:11:52.940

So they like enacted laws to prevent us from coming in the “Chinese Exclusion Act”, for example, in 1882. And then that led to even further like immigration restrictions and the 1900s,

01:11:54.420 - 01:12:07.810

all out of fear that we would be doing something bad to this country. And there were, there were instances where they thought like our people would bring disease or–or

01:12:08.460 - 01:12:24.180

not be able to assimilate to this country and bring bad practices or culture. This othering factor, if you will, and so it's coming back now to what we've, what we're going through.

01:12:26.100 - 01:12:44.520

It's–it's a really easy thing I think, for people to just blame a person for the issues without really thinking about why this thing is a problem in the first place. I don't think they're thinking that no one in China, no one in

01:12:45.050 - 01:12:56.620

Hubei or Wuhan wanted this disease either. No one wants this. It happened. It was bad. And it got worse because of, you know, actions governments took,

01:12:57.600 - 01:13:13.450

but to blame people who look potentially like that would be, is just is terrible. So for me personally like my–my mom is actually from Wuhan and so we have family members from the city.

01:13:14.100 - 01:13:29.410

So when this first started back in January and then it got really bad there I–I was hearing this and so did like a few of my other colleagues or friends or whatnot who have family members in China. But in the US, no one really paid attention to it because it

01:13:30.020 - 01:13:47.840

didn't come here yet. So when– when people were calling it like, you know, the virus from that city name, I knew, I knew that was the start of something really bad because once you associate a virus or like a bad thing with a place or

01:13:47.840 - 01:14:01.200

a region or a people then people are just going to—some people are going to naturally just make that bad connection. And they did. Um, which is why I think it— the rules have changed now

01:14:01.630 - 01:14:14.550

with the WHO that you can't name a virus based upon a location because they know how that can lead to. stereotyping hate

01:14:14.550 - 01:14:26.750

crime and discrimination. But some people did it, did it anyway. And it led to you know what we've seen so far. I'm sure you've seen like the reports of the family in

01:14:26.890 - 01:14:43.110

Midland, Texas where they got slashed in the face. The woman who was taking her trash out in New York City getting acid spilled on her. Though, one of the, one of the more heartbreaking ones that I saw was this little

01:14:43.320 - 01:14:57.620

girl. I think in California and she wrote a letter like a handwritten letter. And it was a letter to her friend saying, hey, you know, we were just online. And you were making fun of the virus and saying that, like

01:14:57.620 - 01:15:08.210

I was the reason why it happened. But you know, that makes me sad. And that makes me sad because you would think that your friend is causing like this pain.

01:15:08.920 - 01:15:25.220

And to me, to see how like children are like going through this as well, like young people who should not be worrying about something like this having to worry about this is really heartbreaking. That being said, I think,

01:15:25.440 - 01:15:48.520

you know, a lot of organizations are doing a lot to try and prevent this or to try and slow, slow this spread and racism essentially. Whether it's like they're holding bystander training, where if you see somebody spewing hate and discrimination

01:15:49.300 - 01:16:04.080

against somebody in the public, you can— there are ways for you to intervene and stop that and support the person who's being attacked. Whether it's—also like supporting, you know, obviously, businesses who have been

01:16:04.080 - 01:16:18.480

discriminated even before the virus came here to, you know, give money to them. Obviously helping our frontline workers who a lot of them, especially in the medical fields are Asian American.

01:16:20.020 - 01:16:34.730

And they're facing a double, a double jeopardy, that one is the virus itself when they're treating people, but then it's when some people, some patients actually don't want them to treat them because they're Asian, even though

01:16:34.730 - 01:16:44.940

they're trying to save their life. So it's like a double–double edged sword, double jeopardy. They are finding ways to support them as well. So,

01:16:46.370 - 01:17:01.970

and also, I think the other big thing is–is coming together with other communities, especially those who are who are marginalized themselves. Knowing that this is just one example of how,

01:17:02.290 - 01:17:13.170

you know, hate crimes have come to this country or come up through this country. And it's only, it's only going to repeat itself moving forward.

01:17:13.300 - 01:17:29.440

Like we've seen examples where, let's say, like, um, like post-911, obviously, like a lot of Muslim Americans and South Asian Americans and Middle Eastern Americans were profiled because of that. The past few years with immigration, from the border, a lot of people who

01:17:29.440 - 01:17:45.690

are Latinx, they've been profiled as well. And now us we are being profiled because of this virus. So as we're understanding how all these different groups of people have been profiled and attacked, that our

01:17:45.690 - 01:18:02.050

histories have been connected, and our futures will be connected, I think that's another positive thing or other groups of people have come together to support us and think like, you know what–what–what this country is doing in terms of hate crimes is terrible.

01:18:03.010 - 01:18:15.010

And that gives me hope that moving forward, you know, less and less of that hate and hate crime will exist and more and more of coming together and solidarity will exist.

01:18:15.910 - 01:18:31.220

So, yeah, moving forward once this pandemic is over and once this hate crime wave slows down. I do hope Asian Americans remember when other groups of people have come to our defense during this time, so that we can do something in return.

01:18:32.400 - 01:18:49.160

Um, yeah. So have you or any of your friends felt scared to go out just to because of the fact that there are hate crimes? Yeah.

01:18:50.420 - 01:19:04.800

So personally, I've actually I have felt more aware of my surroundings. I think especially when Houston said that we had to wear our masks in public,

01:19:05.540 - 01:19:21.580

which only I think for, like Asian Americans put a bigger target on us, because then people are, people might assume we actually have the virus. So I have questioned going out sometimes to even go groceries, because I'm not

01:19:21.580 - 01:19:37.540

sure—I really don't know what's going to happen out there. I've had a few friends who have gotten into like small altercations, where people have like–like, pulled like their kids away from

01:19:37.540 - 01:19:48.590

being too close to them, because they're afraid that they might have a disease or something. Or they called them out saying, like, you know, why are you outside? Like you're Asian, you obviously have the disease.

01:19:50.100 - 01:20:06.000

Terrible. I've actually had to tell my own parents to be careful to when they go out because they still live in Louisiana and they're there by themselves. I'm not sure what's gonna happen there and I can't be there to help

01:20:06.670 - 01:20:23.490

and they're older and I know a lot of the victims of hate crime are usually older and who are more vulnerable to–to–to these attacks so yeah I yes, personally I think I've dealt with it.

01:20:27.620 - 01:20:44.930

If anything, have the Coronavirus inspire you to do something more than you previously wouldn't have, like with you in your daily life have you been doing anything more than before?

01:20:45.260 - 01:21:01.660

Oh yes, I've been cooking more so that's a really good positive before I–I'm guilty of not cooking as much but now I obviously have to cook more which is good because cooking is actually very therapeutic.

01:21:03.920 - 01:21:20.920

And also just experimenting is fun. Not saying that the food is good, but that I'm trying to make it good. Baking, I think, baking has also been something I've been trying to do more. Reading books, I have been

01:21:20.920 - 01:21:36.730

reading more books before the pandemic, but now there's even more time to read books. So it's nice to read that. All yet learning, I guess, trying– trying to learn new skills.

01:21:37.970 - 01:21:53.980

Right now I'm trying to learn Spanish. So again, more time to do that. And also, I guess, just really being appreciative of what I have, like when I go outside for let's say, if I run or I walk because I've

01:21:53.980 - 01:22:08.180

been in inside my home for–forever. It's really nice to just take it in and appreciate, like, what I have right now. So, that's been good. I'm trying to

01:22:08.180 - 01:22:27.330

think what else I more. That's about it so far. And what have you seen that's more prevalent in the inequalities of our societies in this pandemic?

01:22:30.230 - 01:22:48.730

Um, so, yeah, I think I mentioned how, like, our systems have never been really designed to help people, especially like during a crisis. So I think one way to sum that up is

01:22:48.860 - 01:23:02.320

that you know, we– we depend on certain people like during these really bad times, but we can reward them for– for their work.

01:23:03.400 - 01:23:17.900

I think that is that has been the biggest theme of inequality because of this pandemic. These people again, they're risking their lives to work at grocery stores, medical professionals, first time responders, public transit,

01:23:20.630 - 01:23:37.620

restaurants, and they are exposing themselves to a virus. They may be risk be at risk to be fired or furloughed if like their company loses money, and then they don't have enough

01:23:37.670 - 01:23:51.090

to get food to pay their rent. So you see, you see this trickle? You see the stuttering, but you see this like, wave effect of how like this one virus has caused all these issues for our most

01:23:51.090 - 01:24:09.260

vulnerable and realizing that Yeah, our systems are not good enough to help with the People, they have never been. But I think this virus is only just putting a huge spotlight on that, similar to how the virus

01:24:09.720 - 01:24:23.860

itself because of these situations are affecting, you know, black and brown communities and more, more folks from those communities are being exposed to the

01:24:23.860 - 01:24:38.060

virus. And it's almost like this feedback loop of, they don't have a choice. So they have to go out and then they get exposed, but then they don't have the resources to help, you know, get better. And it just, it doesn't end well.

01:24:38.060 - 01:24:57.250

Like it does not end well because of that. And I think you know, Dr. Fauci mentioned that during one of his speeches and that was very true when he when he works, you know, with

01:24:57.640 - 01:25:15.120

the– the age epidemic back in the 1970s. He also mentioned that like these viruses really just put a spotlight on the already existing in inequalities that we face today.

01:25:16.560 - 01:25:34.310

So and it's, it's shown true again today for or for COVID. Great, that's the end of other COVID-19 special collection questions. Moving on to, I guess, more

01:25:34.310 - 01:25:46.240

like future prospects. What kind of advice do you have for younger people interested in advocacy or bringing in bridging the culture and the nation gaps?

01:25:47.950 - 01:26:06.260

Um, I don't, I don't have anything too original, per se, but I think the one thing that I have learned myself is, you know, if you're somebody who's younger who wants to do something to change the world for the better, it may be one or two things,

01:26:07.020 - 01:26:25.230

and focus on that. We have so many issues going on in this world. It's overwhelming. And you probably want to fix everything by tomorrow. But know that you can't. So I would say, you know, focus your time on one or two things, and really make

01:26:25.320 - 01:26:39.260

those projects, issues, whatever you want to call them, your focus because then you'll actually see those things improve because of the work you focus on with that.

01:26:39.260 - 01:26:55.540

And that was one thing that I had an issue with when I first started doing more advocacy in Houston, I was looking at everything all the time, and thinking like, how can we fix everything. It wasn't really like until like last year I realized

01:26:55.890 - 01:27:05.190

I can't do it. No one can. And I think that's a big thing like it's not supposed to be fixed by one person. It's supposed to be fixed like multiple people.

01:27:06.260 - 01:27:21.360

So when you realize that you want to focus on one or two things, find other people who also want to fix those one or two things, and join forces with them. Not only will you have a better product at the end of the day or better results, you also don't have to do as much.

01:27:22.810 - 01:27:35.140

I think a lot of people especially with younger, they feel like they can carry the world on their back, they can do everything, but remember you don't. First of all, you can't, it's not gonna hold you don't have to.

01:27:35.980 - 01:27:51.010

You also should be able to live your life, and enjoy things to do with the time being, because I think we all have passions outside of advocacy if we have any, and it's–it's–it's also it to me it is

01:27:51.140 - 01:28:06.470

also, you know, advocacy in a sense for somebody to just live their life to the fullest. You know, whether it's like, your friends, resting, having a party going camping,

01:28:06.470 - 01:28:19.680

whatever, that's, that is also advocacy in a sense because for a lot of us, we have this pressure of just trying to do everything. And that is our mindset, but if you can enjoy sometimes

01:28:20.330 - 01:28:34.050

for yourself, also take advantage of that as well. No. Yeah, those are those are the things that I would have young people pick up. I guess I

01:28:34.440 - 01:28:52.350

just want to go back a little bit, when you were talking about your upbringing Catholic school being predominantly white classmates and you're like one of the only Asian student there, like grew up and you weren't even aware of that part of your identity and going from that

01:28:52.350 - 01:29:05.590

to Asian advocacy, like what was the kind of triggering moment? Could you describe more on that? Like triggering moment in terms of like when that happened or how I felt

01:29:06.010 - 01:29:18.700

when that happened. Oh, yeah. How did it happen, like what any incident that specifically triggered that moment of reflect? Yeah, I think that really happened in

01:29:18.850 - 01:29:32.230

college, again when I was exposed to the Asian American student association. It really was my friends who were a little bit

01:29:33.360 - 01:29:47.300

more–more either older than me or have way more experience of understanding this like Asian American history. The funny stories they told me like, what has happened to our people before, and that was just like an aha moment, I was

01:29:47.300 - 01:30:01.540

like, wow, I definitely did not know that but now it makes sense, because I was living in my bubble before, whether it was like Catholic school like you said, or even high school when I got exposed to more

01:30:01.540 - 01:30:16.010

Asian Americans, they, they didn't really care about these things. It really wasn't until college where I met people who cared and had the time to talk to me about these kind of things I was like, okay, that's, I didn't know that before,

01:30:16.250 - 01:30:33.890

now I do, I want to help, and you know, how can I help in the best way. So, yeah, to me it was–it was my friends in college who helped me find that. Cool. Can you share, like a

01:30:33.890 - 01:30:55.590

favorite piece of childhood memory? Okay. Okay. Ah, I think, um, so when I lived in New Orleans, we lived

01:30:55.590 - 01:31:10.400

really close to the levees, and I had my bicycle, where I would love to just ride around the neighborhood, and I would like right up, up to the top of levee and then like, really fast going down.

01:31:13.320 - 01:31:33.340

I think, I think just being able to have fun. Like with a bicycle or other like I'd like the scooter to or rollerblade, but just enjoying life as a kid. Being around like the waters, the hills in the streets.

01:31:34.060 - 01:31:49.700

That was really relaxing to me like after school I would just do that for a couple of hours and be exhausted. But it was fun, it was a way for me to relax and I think that's, that's something that I still remember to this day, because I grew up as a

01:31:49.700 - 01:32:01.160

single, single child for the majority of my—up until I was 13, so I had to entertain myself. And that was one way to make to have fun by myself with people.

01:32:01.160 - 01:32:12.590

That's all of my questions, do you have anything else to add? Um, no. Just, just gonna thank you for this opportunity. It was nice to go down memory lane. With all these questions and they're–they're really good questions that made me think

01:32:12.590 - 01:32:22.950

about, like, what I've gone through and kind of like how that shaped who I am today. I always tell like people like you don't, you can't really tell somebody who you are without telling your whole history, because that's who you are today is based upon what you've gone through in your life.

01:32:23.040 - 01:32:34.480

So it'd be nice to do that again! That's wonderful. Thank you so much. So back in, I believe 2016/17, we had the "Nixon in China", from the Houston Grand Opera. And there was a big uproar of and different debates on both sides.

01:32:34.480 - 01:32:45.450

Um, could you please share some perspectives of yours on that? Yeah. So the Houston Grand Opera had the "Nixon in China" play, and it was reported from the Houston Chronicle. That's, you know, they were, they had no Asian actors or actresses in the

01:32:45.480 - 01:32:57.380

play, that they had cultural attire that were inaccurate, and also racist. So that alarmed a lot of us in the community that the opera was doing this.

01:32:57.380 - 01:33:11.450

So we met with them to talk about the issues with their actions, and they– they were, there were willing to listen. And one of the things that came out of that meeting was

01:33:12.120 - 01:33:24.630

hosting this panel with Asia Society to talk about white washing in general, and how it's a problem, but also how we can try and fix it.

01:33:25.710 - 01:33:40.010

So I was on a panel with one of the directors in Houston Grand Opera a, an opera singer himself, And then—I forgot her name. And you mentioned her name of…1

01:33:42.880 - 01:33:57.490

? ...we'll find out. That it was so there was a panel about that. And we talked about how, for the, for the most part, you

01:33:57.490 - 01:34:14.480

know, there–there aren't as many opportunities presented to non-white folks to join opera. I think, you know, for the– for their part, the opera just do they have casting calls, and they just assume that whoever

01:34:14.480 - 01:34:32.340

gets calls in will get it. Sorry, but the whoever, whoever sees it will, you know, will try and interview but without as much intention to say like, Hey, we have this play. And it's about, like non-white people, we

01:34:32.340 - 01:34:48.220

should probably prioritize finding non-white people for these roles to be accurate, especially now that it's 2016 at that time, and we have the resources to do this. So, um, that was the fruitful conversation that we

01:34:48.220 - 01:35:04.380

had that led to Houston Grand Opera to create this Cultural Advisory Committee, the first time they've ever done this before. And I was on that along with like 10 to 12 other folks in the community, just to

01:35:04.640 - 01:35:18.250

think, every month or so, or every quarter or every quarter, talk with Houston Grand Opera about, well, number one, they will present like, hey, in the next year or half year we're about to show these plays.

01:35:19.540 - 01:35:31.510

And this is what we're trying to do to make sure that they're culturally relevant, or they're culturally accurate. Is this good enough? Or what can we do to improve? So it was, it's conversations with them

01:35:31.510 - 01:35:46.170

about, you know, they need to number one, like go into, let's say, the minority communities more and do outreach, right, have many small productions there, which they I think they were already doing with

01:35:46.240 - 01:36:02.450

“HBO Go”, where they bring— or “HGO Go”— where they bring the small, their small cast to different parts of town, usually at schools and showcase that but to do that more, right to do that more and have

01:36:03.700 - 01:36:15.860

more chances for these people who don't have like the money or the resources to participate because it costs money to go into these little programs. So we were thinking of doing like scholarships with them,

01:36:15.860 - 01:36:32.620

we were thinking of–of, you know, translating their flyers and language. All these ways that makes sure that as it's accessible to–to people to join HGO not saying that like, that would increase the number of

01:36:32.620 - 01:36:44.250

people trying, but at least there's no barriers anymore. And that was the biggest thing. We can't fought, you know, HGO to not get enough people, if–if our communities don't want to

01:36:44.250 - 01:36:58.190

go into it. But we can fought the HGO if they don't lower all their barriers. And I think that was the biggest thing for me is like, if you don't have any barriers, then I'm not going to have as big of an issue anymore,

01:36:58.190 - 01:37:13.000

but you do have existing barriers that you can lower and I think that was one of the big things. The– the other thing, the candidate conversations was looking at how a lot of their plays that they recycle

01:37:13.710 - 01:37:29.640

um, are from an older generation and has very bad messages. So “Madame Butterfly”, I think, is one good example where it was from the early 1900s as it's a, you know,

01:37:29.700 - 01:37:48.110

classic play, and HGO has it in their cycle. But it has a lot of pretty terrible, um, I guess themes, given where we are today in society. And they asked that, would we, would it be better to just like cut

01:37:48.190 - 01:37:59.050

those things out? Or not like not even have the play at all, or what, right? And there's this conversation of like, we're going to k-keep it as is because it's

01:37:59.050 - 01:38:11.470

classic. And then the other argument is like, but it's not to what we need today in modern society. Because those things are looked down upon. Some of those things are looked down upon whether there's like, hyper

01:38:11.470 - 01:38:25.240

sexualization or fetishization, or racism... like those things we don't accept anymore in society and we need—I think, I lean more towards that side we're like we should evolve with the times and the content

01:38:25.240 - 01:38:41.840

that we show should probably change for that as well. So if you have, if you want to play “Madame Butterfly”, or something like that, it would be nice to maybe have a remix of it. So that it's– it's more

01:38:41.890 - 01:39:02.570

updated to what we—what is acceptable today. And yeah, so that's–that's still ongoing conversation. I'm not part of that anymore, but I hope like the opera and the industry realizes that and make some changes

01:39:02.570 - 01:39:17.760

because you know, if you keep showing that kind of stuff to the public, in some people's minds, they're going to assume like that is normal, and that it's acceptable. That— and that, to me perpetuates

01:39:19.390 - 01:39:35.950

perception, which is the and that's the big, that's a huge thing the media or like arts does is it shapes perception. And if you have content that shows bad character or bad behavior, people will think

01:39:36.230 - 01:39:52.150

that I could do that too. And then possibly cause like, real pain and damage in the real world because of that. And that's something that I'm hoping we can minimize. Sorry, I didn't lay out the ground for you, but can you share some of the specific

01:39:52.430 - 01:40:06.370

points you find that was not appropriate in the opera? So–so for “Nixon in China”, the specific ones were again, all the Asian characters were not Asian.

01:40:10.700 - 01:40:27.380

The—they were wearing coolie hats, which is, it's accurate in terms of the it was worn, but it was not worn, I don't believe in that time period, slash, it's

01:40:27.420 - 01:40:41.590

overused in the play. And, and, that that is also a racist depiction of what like Chinese people look like back then with the hats, the ponytail and also like the

01:40:41.590 - 01:40:54.720

moustache. I think there was– there was a– there was a hyper sexualization scene with, like an Asian or Chinese woman, which also caused some issues too. So those are the things that were pointed or pointed

01:40:55.070 - 01:41:13.210

out in the Houston Chronicle that, yeah, let us say like, “whoa, okay, we should probably fix some of these things.” Thank you, thank you for sharing your perspectives on that. Yeah, of course. Um, well, that's

01:41:14.450 - 01:41:29.020

the, all of my questions. Uh, do you have anything else to add? Uh, no, just, just another thank you for this opportunity. It was nice to go down memory lane with all these questions, and they're, they're really good questions that, that make

01:41:29.020 - 01:41:43.560

me think about, like, what I've gone through and kind of like how that shapes who I am today. Um, I always tell, like people, like, you don't, you can't really tell

01:41:43.560 - 01:41:55.900

somebody who you are without telling your whole history, because that's, who you are today is based upon what you've gone through in your life. Um, so it was nice to do that again.

01:41:56.290 - 01:41:58.990

Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful, thank you so much.