On today’s episode of the Arizona Equals Conversation, we talk with Dawn Shim and Hayden Nguyen, two leading members of Support Equality Arizona Schools, a student activist group based in Chandler. There’s a good chance you’ve heard about them in the news, for their protest at Chandler City Hall, the walkouts they led last Fall, or their recent demonstration at the state capitol. Here’s a statement of their mission and vision (written by Hayden): Our vision lies in the belief that we should all be treated equally, despite our race, gender, or sexuality. Our mission is to achieve this vision through a grassroots, student-led effort made up of people who are afflicted by discrimination and allies. By emphasizing student involvement, we hope to make our voices heard even as non-voters. By meeting with local officials, we seek the best way to draw attention to the issues which we view as important to us. By protesting, we can show solidarity with those who have experienced discrimination and lend an audience to those who have been impacted in our community. Through our organizing, we hope to turn hate and apathy into action. Full Episode Transcript Jeanne Woodbury From Equality Arizona, you're listening to the Arizona Equals Conversation, an ongoing interview series featuring the stories of queer people living in Arizona. I'm your host, Jeanne Woodbury. In this week's episode, I got to talk with Dawn and Hayden, two students from the East Valley who are leading members of a group called Support Equality Arizona Schools. Now, like I almost always do, I forgot to ask them to introduce themselves until we had our entire conversation. So to make it easier to keep track, I'm going to play a short clip right now of each of them introducing themselves. Dawn Shim Okay, cool. Hi, my name is Dawn. I'm 17. I use they/she pronouns and I'm with Support Equality Arizona Schools. Hayden Nguyen Hi, my name is Hayden. I'm also 17. I use he/him pronouns and I'm with Support Equality Arizona Schools. Jeanne Woodbury There's a good chance you've heard about their group in the news because they're doing really amazing work. But one of the problems for student organizers is that when you do great work, people want to turn you into a figurehead at best, and as they say later, a sock puppet at worst. So I was really excited for the opportunity to sit down with them and talk not just about the work they're doing, but how they got into the work and how they think about the work. This is one of the most fun conversations I've had, coming from my own personal experience, and just getting to listen to both of these amazing people talk. So I'm just going to roll the tape and I hope you enjoy the interview. Thanks for listening. (beep) (typing) (upbeat music) Jeanne Woodbury Well, I really like the business cards. I think you must've given me one at the Christmas party. Dawn Shim Yeah, I think so. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, but it's a fun design. Hayden Nguyen Thank you, I made them. Dawn Shim Yeah. Jeanne Woodbury Oh cool, so you do design work? Hayden Nguyen That's a, I would refrain from saying that just 'cause I'm solely on Canva. Dawn Shim Condemned to design. Hayden Nguyen I'm on Canva, I'm not on any real design software. Jeanne Woodbury Well, I mean, Canva's real design software, but I know what you mean. Hayden Nguyen Yeah. Jeanne Woodbury I like the idea of a design curse. It's like your curse to do design. Hayden Nguyen Yeah, that's exactly what activism is. Dawn Shim Like the design basement, like you're confined in a basement and you can only do design. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah. Yeah, online activism is just — Hayden Nguyen Instagram graphics. Jeanne Woodbury — being thrown into a basement and forced to make Canva designs. Dawn Shim And then sometimes it gets worse and you like, have to go into TikTok. It's like, everything just like keeps getting worse. Jeanne Woodbury Do you, are you on TikTok? Like, do you do Support Equals Arizona Schools stuff? Dawn Shim We should be. We were for a period of time. Hayden Nguyen We made five reels. Jeanne Woodbury Okay. Hayden Nguyen Five reels total. Jeanne Woodbury And did they perform well? 'Cause that's the thing I really — it feels like a lottery. Hayden Nguyen It is a lottery. It's okay, with the most recent one. Dawn Shim We posted a reel just yesterday and we got like, how much did we get? Hayden Nguyen We got a lot of engagement. We got about 1600 views, but like — Dawn Shim We did? Hayden Nguyen Yeah, but… Dawn Shim That's huge. Hayden Nguyen But that doesn't like translate to likes. Dawn Shim Oh yeah. Jeanne Woodbury Right. Hayden Nguyen It's like different. Jeanne Woodbury Do you feel like getting the views though connects to people at least? Hayden Nguyen Yeah, I think so. I think the way that the algorithm works, Reels are just like more advertised, so more people see it. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah. Dawn Shim They're trying to push it because of like TikTok’s commercial success and whatnot. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah, I think they definitely amplify Reels on Instagram for that reason. Hayden Nguyen Yeah, we always get more impression, not as much like shares, likes, all that, like as opposed to what… Jeanne Woodbury I found if you like have a multi-image video post and you have a mix of photos and videos, I think they amplify that more. Dawn Shim Oh do they? Hayden Nguyen I gotta write that down. Jeanne Woodbury But it's a whole thing. I don't know, chasing the social media algorithm… Hayden Nguyen It’s kind of like — Jeanne Woodbury …sucks. Dawn Shim Yeah. Jeanne Woodbury Like, I feel like I've been doing that in one way or another for like 10 years. Dawn Shim Oh my God. Jeanne Woodbury And it's just — Hayden Nguyen And I need to not be sucked into that. Jeanne Woodbury It's not really worth it. Hayden Nguyen I imagine, yeah. Jeanne Woodbury It's not really worth it. But I guess I kind of started doing that when I was like a student activist. And I don't know, like 2009, 2010, social media felt fun and new and exciting. Dawn Shim Oh yeah. Jeanne Woodbury And now social media is just like — Dawn Shim It's a curse. Jeanne Woodbury — You have to be there. It's the curse of the activism basement. Hayden Nguyen Right, the activism basement. Yeah, the walls, the project walls. And we're like, we're perpetually sitting there. Jeanne Woodbury Yeah. Hayden Nguyen That's the thing. I mean, that's like, I try to come out with a post every couple of days, but it's like, sometimes you just don't got anything to say. Dawn Shim Oh, and I feel so bad 'cause I'm like, very inept at Canva. Like I just cannot do it. Hayden Nguyen Yeah, I'm grinding it out. Jeanne Woodbury What do you post for? I think that's a big question I've been wondering. I think people mostly assume, and they assumed the same thing when I was a student, is that young people are tech savvy and they're making everything happen online. I don't think that was true for me and I don't know that that's true for you either. Hayden Nguyen I think what we post for is a few things. I feel like we post for events, stuff like that. I recently did an infographic for the first time, which was like kind of interesting. But other than that, we do just post photos of like, us at events, which I think is like, I don't know if that makes us more of like a personable… Dawn Shim I think older people like to see that. It's like, oh, look at the kids. Hayden Nguyen Look at the kids. Dawn Shim They're doing things. They're doing the work. And they love that. I think like the other way that that translates is like, you know, Twitter, where it's like kids are coming out with like fun, snappy responses to weird, creepy bigots. Jeanne Woodbury Oh right, yeah. Dawn Shim People love that. Jeanne Woodbury Like the Greta Thunberg thing with Andrew Tate. Hayden Nguyen That's awesome by the way. Jeanne Woodbury That was so fun. I've got to include a link for that in the show notes for people who have no idea the words we just said. Dawn Shim I think also like, it was like an Arizona thing. Like some Arizona Republican posted something and then one of the Maricopa Dems just posted, "F**k off." That was funny. Hayden Nguyen Yeah, yeah. Dawn Shim I don't think they were like authorized to do that, but it was still very funny. It went around in all of our social circles and we were like, "Look at them!" Hayden Nguyen Because now we're at the point in the social media lifespan where we're not just ironic, I think we're post-ironic. Dawn Shim (chuckles) post-ironic. Hayden Nguyen Where you’re just trying to be like a brand and a person at the same time and you have to balance those two things or else you're too weird or you're too personable. Dawn Shim Yeah, we mix it up sometimes. We do memes. I think people like it. I don't know. I think… Hayden Nguyen Sometimes I let Dawn use the account. Dawn Shim (laughs) Sometimes I’m allowed. Jeanne Woodbury Well, Dawn, you said a really interesting thing about like the old people like to see the kids out doing things. Like, do you feel that that, that helps your work or do you get stuck in a trap of like “the kids will save us” mentality? Dawn Shim Well, I do think it's like helpful in a sense because these old, older, like people who have like resources and the means to do so, they like can push our like things out to people who have like financial resources and like media resources and who like generally know more about this field than we do just coming in as young people who are just genuinely interested in it. I guess the other part of it is the fact that they like see us as "oh you're so brave" like you're so like special for doing this like I never did it when I was your age is something that we hear so often and it's kind of like discouraging I think in a way because it's like you never had to do it because well I guess like they weren't really seeing these issues as head-on as
