"Stand with One. Stand with All." - Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Panel
This year’s celebration for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month comes during a time when we face a global pandemic that has brought with it a particularly adverse impact on the Asian community and represents an opportunity to promote unity and inclusiveness for the benefit of all. Moderated by HuffPost Asian Voices' Curtis Wong, we held a panel featuring: actor Tamlyn Tomita; John C. Yang of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC; and Dr. Karen Eng of CSMI.
Video Transcript
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CURTIS M. WONG: Hello, everyone, and welcome to BUILD. My name is Curtis Wong, and I'm a senior reporter at "HuffPost Asian Voices." I'm so excited to be talking to leaders in the Asian American community during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month today. This year, we're celebrating stand with one, stand with all, a time when we recognize the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States.
I'm here today with some great guests. First, we have Dr. Karen Eng.
KAREN ENG: Hi. Yes, thanks, Curtis. I'm Karen Eng. I am the president and CEO of CSMI, which is a Chicago-based engineering company. And I'm also the chair of the board for National ACE, which is the Asian American Chamber of Commerce and Entrepreneurship. Thanks.
CURTIS M. WONG: We also have John C. Yang.
JOHN C. YANG: Right. Thank you very much. My name's John Yang. I am the president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, AAJC. Our mission is to advance the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and to promote a fair and equitable society for all. We're an organization based in Washington, DC.
CURTIS M. WONG: And last but certainly not least, we have Tamlyn Tomita.
TAMLYN TOMITA: Hi. I'm Tamlyn Tomita, and I'm a Los Angeles-based actor here. Welcome. Just welcoming you all to this panel here supported by BUILD, and welcome to all of you who are participating and listening in.
CURTIS M. WONG: So happy Asian month this month. Tell me, what has this meant to you historically in the past, and what does it mean to you now?
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TAMLYN TOMITA: Awkward pauses. Actually, Curtis, may I just speak it? You know what? It's we are an evolving community amongst other communities here in this great nation of ours. And it's always-- it always causes me a little bit of laughter and a little bit of pause. It's like are we Asian American Pacific Islander Month, or are we Asian Pacific American Month, or are we Asian Pacific Islander American Month? So I'd just like to wish happy Asian American Pacific Islander Month, which is the official United States government designation, to all Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander descent.
And as old as I am, having seen the evolution of this particular month of May start from Asian American Day to Asian American Week to Asian American Pacific Islander Week, it's been a growing evolution. And now we're here 2020 celebrating the achievements, the accomplishments of Asian Americans here in the United States as well as Pacific Islanders.
But it's been a real special honor and privilege to be a storyteller of these stories specific to the Asian American and Pacific Islander experience and to be on a panel with such distinguished guests, intellectuals, academics, and much smarter people than I. I'd really like to thank and welcome everybody to this little chat talk we're going to have, this coffee klatsch.
JOHN C. YANG: Well, thanks, Tamlyn. And certainly you are underestimating yourself and being too modest.
For me, this month is always a time of celebration. It's also a time of reflection to celebrate our heritage and, really, the diversity of our heritage, remembering that Asian Americans represent over 50 different ethnicities, over a hundred different languages, and how we come together during this month and what it means to be different yet alike.
Obviously this month is a little bit different because of COVID-19, and part of it for me is thinking about how resilient our community is, how our community is bonding together over this time, coming together to support each other and support the American community as a whole, even while we face a number of challenges, both in our community and the country.
KAREN ENG: Well, that's definitely true. I always am counting the days. So usually on May 1 when we first start celebrating, there's always a big celebration here in Chicago that we get together. And it's enough time that we've just gotten over all the celebrations for lunar new year, the beginning of the year, and we're ready to go celebrate again.
So welcome to day 12 of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We've been seeing a lot of each other, mainly because of the shelter in place or stay at home on these Zooms. So I feel like I've been engaged since the end of March until now. So now that we're celebrating, it's all kind of culminating together. So hopefully we'll close out at the end of the month and be able to see each other in person.
CURTIS M. WONG: Now, so resilience is something that you've all sort of experienced and shared. What are some ways the community is sort of being resilient this year specifically amid the coronavirus pandemic?
KAREN ENG: I think from a small-business standpoint, you know, they say that the small businesses are the backbone of the United States, and there was a huge effort to try and make sure that the businesses didn't shut down or that we were accommodating for this lull and break because people couldn't go to places or people couldn't travel and things like that. So we've seen a lot of collaboration, of making sure the resources are pulled together so that we are clear on the message that the government is sending to us with the CARES Act and supporting other businesses and getting enough PPE to the front-line workers and things like that.
So people are calling upon their networks and their resources to try and make sure that we're safe, that we're healthy, and that we're doing the right thing. So certainly I think that's right. I think the theme of even this talk really reflects that, the stand for one, stand for all, this notion that we're all in it together. What I think about when I think about resilience is certainly the restaurants and the restaurant workers that Karen is talking about.
You know, you think about the Asian American community in particular. We have about 600,000 Asian immigrants that are part of that food industry-- part of that food-service industry. We have another 160,000 Asian immigrants that are grocery workers. And, you know, we always talk about the doctors and nurses. Absolutely we should talk about that. We should also talk about Asian Americans that are maintenance workers, people that work as janitors at the hospitals, at the different places that are on the front lines.
And I think that's part of that resilience of how we all pull together. Certainly the PPEs and the donations of PPEs are a part of it. The donations by Asian restaurants to the hospitals that we've all seen in articles is another part of that really vibrant community that we see in trying to make all of us pull together in a positive way.
TAMLYN TOMITA: Absolutely. I'd like to echo Dr. Eng and John's statements in that when we see the smaller communities, the restaurants, the health-care workers, the sanitation workers, the delivery drivers, the package deliverers, all these persons are now deemed essential, and it kind of covers the whole range vocations, occupations, specialities in the jobs and careers that they hold.
Asian Americans are resilient in the fact that they can be deemed the model minority, but also you can see them in the lower classes. But just as essential, the farmers, the restaurant workers, the cleanup or the sanitation crews. I'd like to expand upon that whole idea that we as one community deemed Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are just a small segment of this great country, and we are aligning with each other for each other.
This whole notion of stand with all-- stand with one, stand with all, stand by one. Stand by all so that we can really recognize the differences of each other as individuals, recognize the differences of our communities-- what kind of-- what kind of preference we like in terms of rice and curry or spices. But then also notice the comparative-- we do all like rice and the magic that we can do with all of the staples that we all collectively eat as food.
It's the consistency and the contrasting and the comparisons that really is the foundation of our resilience. We're able to see that interconnectedness. We're able to see the intersectionality of all our communities. And during this month of May, we're all specifically spotlighting our Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. And we're all still trying to work it out together under our own umbrella so that we can really shout it out to the rest of the nation but also to the world as to we are Americans with these kinds of faces.
CURTIS M. WONG: Now, Tamlyn, you mentioned this sort of-- the notion of the model minority. I know this is something that's been discussed over and over and over across the years. Do we think-- do we think of this as fact, or do we think that as fiction, that sort of idea?
TAMLYN TOMITA: It's half fact and half fiction because that's only half the story, right? We do have those who have grown up with parents who's like, why didn't you be a doctor? Why don't you be a nurse? Why didn't you be a lawyer? Sure, we have that, but it's not limited to only Americans of Asian descent. I'm sure that Americans of all kinds of colors and creeds have that ringing from their parents-- you know, it's like it's echoing in the chambers with their parents voices.
But it's only half the story. And because we do come from mother countries that may actually value excellence beyond the norms of having a comfortable roof and delicious-- it's a very complex and complicated issue. But I will always want to wring out the stories of the folks who don't aspire to-- who don't aspire to become doctors and lawyers and other white collar.
I will always champion the blue-collar workers. I will always champion the farm workers because they are the ones who provide us food. It's just like they're not-- they are finally not being taken for granted, and we're just all part of this very complex and complicated fabric. Model minority is one aspect, but let's not forget all the rest.
CURTIS M. WONG: Now, of course you touch on some of these issues in your fabulous new PBS documentary "Asian Americans." First off, tell us, how did you get involved with this project, and what were you most hoping audiences take away from it?
TAMLYN TOMITA: Thank you. Thank you, Curtis, for forward for noting that it's mine, but I'm just one of two narrators, one alongside the wonderful Daniel Dae Kim. But that-- this documentary is spearheaded by the very esteemed and hero of mine, Renee Tajima-Pena, who really sparked the notion of the title of Asian American movement with her documentary "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" in 1982 and started to recognize the need for allyship amongst our own community as Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans alongside Latino Americans, alongside African Americans.
And I'm just a small, small, small, small part, but I'd like to really turn it back to Dr. Eng and John for their comments as to what, you know, this notion of model minority but also the embracing of--
CURTIS M. WONG: Me too.
TAMLYN TOMITA: --this documentary. So thank you.
JOHN C. YANG: Great. Thank you. And going back to this model minority talk, I appreciate what you said, Tamlyn, because it is-- I regard it-- there's definitely elements of truth, but I also regard it as a fiction, especially with respect to how some people have tried to use it, and that is to pit us as Asian Americans against African Americans or against Latinx or against Native Americans, this notion somehow of, well, look. This community of color is successful. How is it that you guys are not?
And we all know that that's just not true. Certainly within the Asian American community it is, as Tamlyn has described, there's a certain barbell is how I describe it. There are those that do well in our community that are the doctors, the lawyers, the nurses, but there are certainly those that are not doing well, that are challenged economically, that don't have the educational attainment, and they're just as important.
But that's also true of all of the communities of color. And so to suggest somehow that we are doing better, we are a model, really is not part of the narrative that all of us should be buying into.
KAREN ENG: As the doctor in the group because [INAUDIBLE] being a doctor.
JOHN C. YANG: No offense, doctors. That's right. That's [INAUDIBLE].
TAMLYN TOMITA: No offense.
KAREN ENG: Tamlyn, I wanted to be an anchorwoman because I watched Connie Chung growing up, and I really wanted to do what she did. And my dad said, you need to be a doctor, so that's what I became.
But, I mean, we go back and forth on this model minority amongst ourselves. But what I do enjoy the most at this particular time that we're starting to recognize-- and you brought it up-- is that we are doing these collaboration between the other groups within the nation.
So with National ACE, we have this partnership and collaboration with the US Hispanic Chamber, the US Black Chamber, and the LGBT Chamber. And we are coming together collectively to write letters to Congress about racism and bullying and policy and things like that, and it's gathering us all together with our diversity to create one voice on something that's very important for the United States to work most efficiently and happily and collaboratively.
CURTIS M. WONG: Now, of course, we're only, you know, sort of a few months into the sort of coronavirus pandemic, and hopefully it won't be that much longer. What are some other focuses the community should be thinking about right now?
JOHN C. YANG: If I could start, first thing that comes to my mind would be census. The census is something that happens every 10 years, and that really establishes who we are as an American community. The Asian American community is the fastest growing. Since the 2000 census, we've grown by approximately 78%, and we expect that growth rate to continue with respect to the 2020 census.
But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, how we get people counted has become a challenge, and certainly I think all of our communities-- and it's wonderful to see whether it's the business community, the entertainment community, how all of us collaborate together to ensure that our community gets counted is so important.
For our organization, we try to offer resources. We have a website that's called countusin2020.org. That gives people resources in three different Asian and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander languages about how important the census is. You know, we have a hotline so that people can call for information.
The other piece that I would want us to think about is voting and elections. You know, certainly that's something that we should all be aware of. We need to participate in. You know, the Asian American community as a growing community is also growing politically. We have 20 members of Congress right now, and our hope is to keep on increasing those numbers.
It's not just about the Asian faces. It's about how all of us are represented, all of our issues are represented, and making sure that that happens through exercising our right to vote. Even during a pandemic, it is certainly important to us.
KAREN ENG: And so I think part of that also is working closely with legislative policy to make sure that everybody is included on some of the policies that are going through. I know that there was a big push on the different questions within the census and how we're getting-- how we're also reporting because of immigration status and things like that. So that census is very, very important, and communication of how we as a community display to other people, but also universally how the US government conveyed that information to make sure that it's a safe questionnaire that we're all filling out.
JOHN C. YANG: And if I could jump in on that, there is no citizenship question. That was one of the concerns--
TAMLYN TOMITA: [INAUDIBLE]
JOHN C. YANG: --all of us had. And my organization sued, and we were victorious in making sure that there was no question because, again, for all of us, the Asian American community is over 90% immigrant or children of immigrants. So anytime you have a question that goes to immigration status, we knew it causes fear in our community. So it was important to get out the right message about what this census is and what the census is not. It's not for immigration enforcement. It's for making sure that we get the resources out to our communities for roads, schools, and hospitals.
TAMLYN TOMITA: So I'd just like to jump in and echo both Dr. Eng and John's statements again because it is-- it's about being counted. It's #BeSeenBeCounted and #Vote2020. These are two governmental issues-- these are collective issues that we as citizens of this nation need to wrap our heads around in doing because it recognizes us as individuals as a part of the fabric of this country. We cannot be counted unless we are seen. And those moneys, those resources from filling out very-- it's a very short census, right? It's five minutes to ten minutes. I filled it out way back in--
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TAMLYN TOMITA: And you can do it online, and there is no immigration question. It is against the law for any of that information on that census to be used against you. It is for you to be counted amongst your neighborhood in your community to make sure that your hospitals are well funded, to make sure your fire stations are well funded, to make sure your hospitals are well funded. And especially at this time, I'm very lucky to be living in the city of Los Angeles. And our mayor has said that we're able to get testing for anybody who wants COVID-19 testing, and it's because of the strength of the city and it's about the city census numbers. But we can go into our numbers per neighborhood. So that's a part of the nitty-gritty of filling out the census.
Voting-- voting. We have a special election today in California in one of the counties here, and it's important to make sure our voices are heard. The vote-by-mail discussion is still being wrestled with amongst the states. And we need to make sure and ensure that our voices are counted, especially during the time of elections in November.
So it's about researching. It's about asking questions. There's no such thing as a dumb question and asking why do we need to do this and how do we do this as American citizens? So the census and voting and going on to Twitter and looking up all the hashtags pertaining to Asian Pacific-- Asian American Pacific Islander Month and hate is a virus, racism is a virus, all American-- these are all things we could all do as individuals, as families, as groups, as those communities.
CURTIS M. WONG: Now what are some small steps you think everybody can take to sort of stand up more with the community as a whole?
KAREN ENG: I think there's a lot of efforts going on grassroots-wise. So here in Chicago, I've been watching a lot of the community organizations make sure that they're continuing the senior care that they're providing. I think that there's child care that still is being provided because some of the essential workers are there, and the children are out of school. We're watching a lot of people make the boxes to give to people that are not able to go to the grocery store or get those Asian vegetables and ingredients that they they're used to cooking.
So there's a handful of things to do, not only by yourself but with your family. So it's kind of an opportunity too to show your community service, work with your children, or even bring and lug in your mom or your grandma or somebody like that to help with the initiative.
JOHN C. YANG: Certainly one thing that I do think about is we need to talk about the racism against the Asian American community right now, and it's an unfortunate aspect. There's a lot of fear in the community, and think about the little steps that can be taken. What are the things that our organization as well as a number of organizations offering is what's called bystander-intervention training to give someone that sees an act of hate being committed some tools to de-escalate the situation.
You know, one thing is we're not asking people to be superheroes. We're not asking people to put themselves in harm's way, but oftentimes there's little things that you can do. Just simply drop your keys to distract from the situation. Go up to the victim and ask her or him, hey, are you OK? Can I do something for you? You don't need to engage with the aggressor at all, but just focusing on the victim, focusing on her or his mental well-being, focusing on getting them into a safer space can go a long way to reducing some of that mental trauma.
So it's offering little tools like that-- quote, unquote "little." Certainly, as we talked about, things like making sure you respond to the census, things like voting. And then it is that community service, showing how we can show up for one another through all of these different means. Little gestures got a long way in that respect.
TAMLYN TOMITA: Little gestures are really powerful, especially when you're alone outside walking, especially if you're a woman of color, especially at this time. But they are-- we are responsible for our own actions. But also we have to realize we're not responsible for fixing those who are perhaps ignorant and uneducated in hurling insults, especially at this time. #HateIsAVirus. #RacismIsAVirus.
We could go onto Twitter. We can ask the kids as to what the discussions are on Twitter and start talking about it amongst ourselves. What can we do to rectify these kinds of behaviors that we might be witnesses to?
We must be able to take care of ourselves first. I did not want to engage at the voting booths way back in March when I took my mom voting because when the news about COVID-19 was coming out, my mom and I went to her polling place, and I recognized five people take visible three steps away from her because we're talking in a mix of Japanese, Filipino, English because that's how the pidgin of our language-- of our family's language is. And because we look the way we do and we're happy-- it just broke my heart, but I did not want to engage because I'm trying to protect my mother.
And I can beat the crap out of somebody, but I'm not going to be able to beat the crap out of two people for it. But that's all in all. But it's very important to remain calm. If you need to not engage, that's perfectly fine as well. That's a small gesture, especially if you don't feel safe.
And the notion that when you're attacked physically, it takes six or seven seconds-- this is what I learned from martial arts, from the esteemed actor and mentor Ty Ma. It takes six or seven seconds to react physically.
Can you imagine? That probably takes the same amount of time when you're hurled an insult. So it's that reaction time. It's like, did something-- did I hear what I just heard? And we're all-- we're all experiencing that or all witnessing that. We're all reading that.
And again, it's not our job to fix those people. Just recognize that they're assholes, but just know that we can collectively bond together and say we are Americans. We are a part of this country. We're all in this together.
CURTIS M. WONG: So unfortunately we're running out of time, and it's such a shame because I could keep on talking to you guys for another hour, honestly. But sort of in closing, I just wanted to think about, you know, what are you most hopeful Asian Americans take away from our celebrations this month in particular as compared to previous years?
KAREN ENG: I think that this year especially, despite that we're not physically close to one another, I think that the support and collaboration of the community has been bigger than it has in previous years. I think that it's given us a time to realign. Instead of reacting to situations, you have the time right now to just stay still and, you know, pivot your thought process or your business model or the time that you're spending day to day and just become stronger, I guess, within yourself so that you can be a better person to everybody else out there, regardless if you're Asian American or Pacific Islander or not.
JOHN C. YANG: I think that's right. It's an opportunity to show community, and it's interesting because typically we would be going to events in our local neighborhoods or within our region, so to speak. Now we have this opportunity-- sometimes it might be considered a burden-- to be present all across the country celebrating together in different places, different events. Overall, that's a good thing because we're connecting in a different way.
But we should also use this opportunity think about connecting again with our other communities of color, both to let them know sort of how we're all interacting during this time, to show that solidarity, to show that our alliance because we are all in it together. We're facing different disparities, but there's a common thread through all of this. And if we can all stand together and stand with each other, it really starts to make a huge difference in believing that we are going to get through this in a better place than we were before.
TAMLYN TOMITA: Absolutely. I think the stay-at-home orders and this time to reflect, as Dr. Eng was saying, to be introspective is the metaphor or the analogy of a growing tree, that until this time, we would always be growing upward and outward, but because we're all staying at home, we're all spending more time with our families and with ourselves that perhaps we'd like to think that our roots are getting stronger by going deeper, going more down into the roots than the foundations that we can claim as all our own.
So in this time, it is very reflective. It is very, very introspective but with always a forward-looking or progressive kind of outlook.
CURTIS M. WONG: Well, thank you so much all for being here today. You know, one of the things that always excites me most about this community is just its vibrancy and its diversity. And I think all of you have said such wonderful things, and it's been such a wonderful example of that.
KAREN ENG: Thanks, Curtis.
TAMLYN TOMITA: Thank you, Curtis.
KAREN ENG: John!
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