What Can You Do‪?‬ What Can You Do?

This week’s interview is with the founders of Immigrant History Initiative, Kathy Lu and Julia Chang Wang. Their organization’s self described mission is to educate and empower communities through the untold stories of immigrant diasporas in America. They strive to fundamentally change how we learn, talk, and think about race, migration and social justice as a global society by providing comprehensive educational resources, engaging communities, and offering equitable education support. I talk with Julia and Kathy about their own experiences with their racial identities in and outside of the classroom, the recent wave of hate crimes against the Asian community amid the pandemic, current projects underway at IHI, and more.

This week I had the privilege of speaking with David Masami Moriya and Emi Lea Kamemoto, the founders of Strong Asian Lead. Strong Asian Lead is a Media, Marketing, and DEI consultancy for Hollywood studios and the Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora in tv, film, and streaming. They take an educational approach to the industry holding workshops on Diversity Equity, Race, Culture, and Inclusion of Asian and Pacific Islander stories. They also coach creatives in the craft of storytelling and the business of the industry, and connect studios with communities in order to foster a more equitable marketplace. We talk about Asian and Asian-American representation in entertainment and storytelling, what it means to be Asian in Hollywood, the necessity of diversity in entertainment, and the work they are doing to make sure Asian stories are being told with authenticity and complexity, rather than functioning as objects or harmful stereotypes.

This week I speak with members of the Connect-In-Place leadership team. Connect-In-Place is an organization which was founded last summer by two Berkeley students in the throes of the pandemic by two Essentially, Connect-In-Place is a virtual platform where students can take small, interactive classes taught by college students, creating a space where they can connect with peers and receive mentorship while engaging in distance learning. Class topics range across the board, from core academic subjects to extra curricular classes like Bollywood dance and photography. They’ve also dedicated themselves to raising money to provide laptops to students with financial need. Overall, their mission is to provide quality education, community, and mentorship to bridge the opportunity gaps of online learning. Listen to learn more about how Connect-In-Place started, the populations it serves, and the motivation behind their core mission.

Happy belated new year and Welcome back to What Can You Do! We are so happy to be back and sharing new content, starting with this interview with members from a youth movement called Diversify Our Narrative. DON , for short, is a 100% grassroots organization composed of high school/college students throughout the US. They are pushing for more equitable, long-lasting reform within our school districts, especially through the promotion of BIPOC authors in high school English classrooms, in order to foster a more inclusive curriculum and teaching pedagogy that tackles racial equity and educational disparities. We’re joined by members of the DON team, and they’re going to tell us about themselves, their activism, their organization, and more.

This week I interview Mena and Zena Nassiri, two sisters and  high school students from Michigan who founded a non-profit organization called Girls of the Crescent. Girls of the Crescent works to collect books with female muslim main characters before donating them to schools and libraries in order to increase diversity and representation in literature. Throughout our conversation we discuss where the inspiration for their organization came from, why culturally relevant role models and diverse storytelling in fiction is important, and how minority representation in literature and other forms of media can combat negative stereotypes which lead to Islamophobia and other xenophobic rhetoric. 

In this episode I interview Bella An, the Political Director at GENup Collegiate at Berkeley, a nationwide student-led social justice organization centered around youth voice. In our conversation, Bella and I spend most of our time discussing the Yes on Prop 15 campaign, and the Schools and Communities First Youth Coalition which GENup is facilitating. Bella and I discuss what prop 15 is, what it isn’t, how it will impact our communities, what the tax revenue generated by it will be put towards, and ultimately, why people should vote yes.