#18millionrising

[trascapades]

🎨🇵🇸#ArtIsAWeapon 

#CitiFundsGenocide PROTEST DECEMBER 12, 4PM, Citi Headquarters, 388 Greenwich Street, NYC

Reposted from @lsarsour

Join @mpowerchange @jvpny @adalahjusticeproject @masnewyork @ny4change @undocublack @uscpr @18millionrising and more to hold Citibank accountable. They are the largest financial institution in Israel and have facilitated weapons and military funding. They have been complicit in Haiti and climate catastrophe and the list goes on.

No more business as usual. 

Art by @nataliepbui for @mpowerchange:

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." - Arundathi Roy

#bankingonsolidarity #Gaza #ceasefirenow #FreePalestine

[action]

Art by Natalie Bui courtesy of 18MR

APAHM Spotlight: 18MillionRising

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we sat down with Cayden Mak, Executive Director of @18MR, an organization that works to organize young Asian Americans online with a strong focus on building knowledge and identity. With Cayden living in the Midwest, he didn’t have a strong concept of what it meant – or could mean – to be Asian American, but finding the Internet meant finding a like-minded community that didn’t exist in his hometown. For him, this work is urgent. Let’s dive in.

How does 18MillionRising incorporate the importance of activism within the Asian/Pacific Islander community?

Activism by, for, and in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities is critical because our influence on culture is growing. From entertainment to politics, Asian Americans are becoming more visible. We can use this opportunity to make it clear what we stand for and why, or be manipulated by people who don’t have our best interests at heart for their own agendas. In order to properly defend against that kind of dis-organizing, it’s critical to be visionary in what we want, and our activism is about really about that vision. Now is the time to get organized and get involved.

When discussing the importance and impact of immigration within the Asian/Pacific Islander community, what are some common misconceptions about the community?

I don’t think a lot of people realize just how many ethnic groups, nationalities, and languages are encompassed in the umbrella of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. This plays out in a lot of ways, but I notice that people sometimes don’t have an appreciation for the wide variety of experiences that AAPI new arrivals in the United States have. Whether due to class, faith community, reason for emigrating, or any of many other factors, AAPI immigrants struggle against the systems that other communities of color struggle against. For example, the Cambodian American community has been brutally targeted by Immigration & Customs Enforcement over the past few years, but if you live somewhere without a large Cambodian American community, you might not be aware of it.

It seems cliche to say, but AAPIs are far from the model minority stereotype that you often see in the media. It bears repeating, though, because that stereotype was invented to shame and blame Black communities for their own struggles – it’s shorthand for saying, “If Asian immigrants could do it, why couldn’t you?” which elides how immigration policy has shaped the most visible parts of the Asian American community while erasing the ongoing implicit and explicit rules that have kept Black communities from gaining wealth and power in our society -- starting with the way the Thirteenth Amendment was even written.

Let’s talk about your operating principle of “Co-Conspirators Instead of Allies.” How do the truths of anti-Black racism and settler colonialism affect the Asian/Pacific Islander community?

From the colonization of many of our home countries by Europe and the United States to the way skin color impacted the way those colonizers related to and categorized our homelands, it’s easy to see the way these things have played out for us, historically. It’s also the case that here, in the U.S. and in the present, our communities have an uneasy relationship with both anti-Black racism and settler colonialism.

For example, like the vast majority of Americans, we’re settlers – even if we came here as refugees, we have an important role to play in decolonizing this place and supporting Indigenous sovereignty on Hawai’i and the mainland. Our work is focused on figuring out how to come from a place of strength and power rooted in developing our identities as Asian Americans, so we can work as peers and equals with Black, Indigenous, and other people dedicated to mutual liberation.

We’re so grateful for the work that Cayden and his team at @18MR are doing. What has been your experience growing up Asian American? Use the hashtag #APAHM to share your story.

Collapse

[foreverthesoniag]

Turning to this image by @jessxsnow . ✨Remembering their names: Delaina Ashley Yaun Paul Andre Michels Xiaojie Tan Daoyou Feng Julie Park Hyeon Jeong Park In these moments we must listen to #AAPI community organizers and artists. There are many action items like fundraisers and policy demands being shared so please pay attention, repost them, give if you can, and show up. A new fund has been set up by @advancing_justice_atl with all funds going directly to support the victims in Atlanta and their families. Please help spread the word about this opportunity to be in solidarity.   🔗 Link in @18millionrising bio or at bit.ly/DonateToGeorgiaAAPICommunity   There is also so much knowledge sharing around what happened on Tuesday and for non Asian folks this is a moment to pause and listen. Remember liberation and freedom cannot happen if you leave out sex workers, working class, migrants/undocumented folks. There is a vigil tonight led by Asian massage parlor workers and allies at @RedCanarySong and @ButterflyCSW to grieve those who were killed. Thurs, March 18 at 8PM EST. ASL, Mandarin, and Korean interpreters will be present.  RSVP for the vigil at bit.ly/RCSvigil  ✨ [ on this post I included slides by @apienc @advancing_justice_atl @18millionrising @holliswongwear @redcanarysong ] #stopasianhate https://www.instagram.com/p/CMk-C5YFSvR/?igshid=nl49zgr1nb1m

[hernamewasluna]

Celebrating Asian American resisters Nellie Wong, Genny Lim, Kitty Tsui, Canyon Sam, Nancy Hom and Merle Woo, they explored sexist and racist oppression in the Bay Area, challenged stereotypes of Chinese women as passive and servile. Their pioneering work created new pathways for Asian American feminists and performance artists today. Out lesbians Tsui, Sam, and Woo helped bring visibility to lesbians within the Asian American community and developed a large Asian lesbian following. It's sad and maddening that lesbian erasure is happening, when gender ID > sex, cannibalisation of women only spaces, female linguistics, lesbian stories and lesbian history has occured. Photo courtesy of @18millionrising

[theresidentnews]

Sweater and Jeans: Michael Koras

Jacket, T-shirt, Pants and Sneakers: Valentino

Sweater: Calvin Klein

What lead you to pursue a career in acting? Did you have an “aha” moment when you realized that this is what you wanted to do, or was your desire to act present from the start?

Storytelling. Using it as a medium to illustrate new ideas/places was super powerful to me as a kid and I’ve always been drawn to it. Initially, I wanted to direct. My mother encouraged me to take film classes as a teenager. That’s when I popped in front of the camera on a friend’s short. It was a moment I haven’t forgotten. I was instantly hooked. I also found a responsibility and purpose within in. When I was growing up, people of color often didn’t see characters who looked like us in films and TV, and neither did our families, even though a big part of narrative engagement is imagining yourself in the protagonist’s shoes. But when we watch our reality reflected on TV or in film, our potential becomes limitless. The ability to tell your own story and to be heard is the very thing that moves our culture forward. That is how we can ultimately escape those limited and often inaccurate portrayals minted in the stone age and surpass them.

You’ve played a lot of unique characters throughout your career. Would you say that you bring a piece of yourself to every role you play?  Is there a character with whom you have most identified with, or one that you found most challenging to relate to? 

I try to bring some of myself to the roles I play. I think to be authentic to an experience we’ve not encountered ourselves, pulling from the world around us is key. There are two characters in particular that stand out for me. Hassan Kadam in THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY was a role that didn’t come with the resistance for a person of color to play the protagonist. The story is about a young chef who immigrates to France from India after his mother dies. I think the film encourages folks to go beyond their limits. Hassan was quiet and introverted — not qualities I can readily related to, but the story inspired as well as pushed me. In 90210, I played a character suffering from a terminal illness. Raj was a simple but real portrayal of a young Indian-American guy in California. The response to character was profound. Here was an Indian teenager included in an iconic American brand without typical stereotypes. He wanted to live his last days fearlessly.

Shirt: MSGM

What attracts you most to a role? 

The character and his point of view on the events happening around him. If the role challenges me to think differently or it scares the shit out of me, I’m in. 

A lot of people would consider your breakout role to be The 100 Foot Journey. Was there a definitive moment in your career when you thought, “Yes, I’ve made it”?

I knew it was a big deal, a life changing ride. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Steven Spielberg, Juliet Blake and Oprah Winfrey and everyone at Dreamworks / HARPO put it together. They really supported the film. But that feeling of “I’ve made it” can’t be taken literally. I think making it means something different to everyone. For me, making it might just be the ability to contribute to our business in a way that pushes those in power to think differently; to be courageous storytellers. I think to do that we have to keep making our own stuff, we work together, we unionize. We show folks that our stories have real value and make money. I think making it is the ability to pursue exactly that. The Hundred-Foot Journey opened that door for me.

You’re currently a part of The Resident. What’s it like working on a medical drama? What’s the biggest difference between this character and those who you’ve played in the past?

I was attracted to the role because Devon had a huge journey to embark on. In a series, it’s exciting to play a character that has somewhere to go — a blank canvas in some ways. He starts off as a resident right out of med school. The sky’s the limit for this dude. It may not seem revolutionary for me to play an Indian-American doctor. It might seem ordinary, but that’s exactly why it’s important. Devon is what the American dream looks like, to me. He’s from an immigrant family, graduates top of his class with hopes to heal people and change lives. To me, Devon stands out from other roles because he is so carved into the culture of today’s America — an Indian doctor. Children of immigrant parents occupy medicine in a big way. I want Devon to represent a piece of that. He is sometimes a hero, he’s fallible, he’s impulsive, he’s cocky and when he gets it wrong, people die. The stakes are huge.

Anytime there’s a cab driver on screen, it’s imperative he be played by a South-Asian. But most of America’s TV Doctors are actually non-Indian, and I realized that’s not what a modern American hospital or medical school looks like. In the US, South-Asian doctors outnumber cardiac ICUs and overwhelm medical schools. People say, “what’s wrong with stereotypes? In real life, there’s truth to these stereotypes, and don’t you want the world to feel real on TV?” It is true that some of the leaders in medicine like Atul Gawande, Siddartha Mukerjhee, Sandeep Jauhar are all Indian. So to move the needle, this idea must extend to our heroes as well. That is the only way this works. Yes, Devon is brown and he won’t be hovering in the background without a perspective.

Sweater, Shirt and Pants: Valentino

Coat: Michael Kors

Coat: Michael Kors , Glasses: Timberland

Sweater: Michael Kors, Shoes: Valentino

You’ve recently gotten into directing. Is this something you’ve always wanted to do, or a more recent ambition? 

Always. Directing Fifteen Years Later was a passion I’ve wanted to exercise for a while. It was one of the most awesome experiences I’ve had. Acting and directing at the same time is wild. I loved all of it and tried to be aware of which hat to wear when. I wanted to craft a story from start to finish. This one in particular I could speak to since it was personal for me. The story is based on real events from friends and an experience I had over 15 years ago. It talks about bias and violence in a post-9/11 era. Racially motivated crime towards people of South Asian, Sikh, Arab and Muslim has seen an undeniable resurgence since 45’s presidency. Terlok Singh, a Sikh deli owner from New Jersey, was recently stabbed to death at his store. According to Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, Senior Religion Fellow for the Sikh Coalition, this was the third attack on a Sikh in the last three weeks of the incident.

My hope is that Fifteen Years Later can shine a light on communities who face this type of profiling and violence. It is a look at an epidemic holding our communities under fire. We partnered with Vigilant Love, 18MillionRising, and White People 4 Black Lives and hosted a panel in LA. It sparked a discussion about race, identity, policing and our law enforcement.

You recently had a son! Congratulations! What is it like being a dad? Does this give you a new perspective for future roles? 

100% It is a profound relationship. Children teach us more about ourselves than we could ever know. You reflect, discover, prioritize, problem solve and ultimately learn how to quiet the noise and be present. As a new dad, you’re learning about things you’d otherwise know nothing about. It’s impossible to get too comfortable because the minute you think you have it down, an inevitable curve ball hits you in the face! It’s also why representation is so important. We want our youth to feel embedded in our culture. We want them to feel visible and given our sociopolitical landscape it’s more important now than ever. My hope for him is that he exercises compassion and gratitude, that he understands the difference between strength and weakness, and that he respects the voice of other people.

[tqpannie]

@Regranned from @bradjenkins - Yo! I am going to be on twitter tomorrow helping the incredible humans at @RUNAAPI @18millionrising @apiahf get peeps covered. I promise that I won’t curse. Holler! *** #Repost @runaapi: Fam! Join us tomorrow for a Twitter Townhall with @BradJenkins and our friends from @18millionrising & @apiahf! Over two million uninsured AAPI families were able to get coverage thanks to the ACA! There are still 16 days left to #GetCovered! Join us on twitter TOMORROW to learn how you can get your family and loved ones health care! 🇺🇸💪🏽💯 - #regrann

[sangklp]

RT @18millionrising: Japanese Americans folded thousands of origami cranes to be hung outside a detention center in Texas. "It's important to show solidarity ..because of Japanese Americans' history with unlawful detention and family separation during WWII." https://t.co/p9YPhmN8ji https://www.youtube.com/c/lifesang

[forcommunities]

#Repost @cake_vids ・・・ On July 12, 2017, websites, Internet users, and online communities will come together to sound the alarm about the FCC’s attack on net neutrality. Learn how you can join the protest and spread the word at https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12 (link on our profile). Right now, new FCC Chairman and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai has a plan to destroy net neutrality and give big cable companies immense control over what we see and do online. If they get their way, the FCC will give companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T control over what we can see and do on the Internet, with the power to slow down or block websites and charge apps and sites extra fees to reach an audience. If we lose net neutrality, we could soon face an Internet where some of your favorite websites are forced into a slow lane online, while deep-pocketed companies who can afford expensive new “prioritization” fees have special fast lane access to Internet users – tilting the playing field in their favor. But on July 12th, the ​Internet will come together to stop them​.​ Websites, Internet users, and online communities will stand tall, and sound the alarm about the FCC’s attack on net neutrality. The Battle for the Net campaign will provide tools for everyone to make it super easy for your friends, family, followers to take action. From the SOPA blackout to the Internet Slowdown, we’ve shown time and time again that when the Internet comes together, we can stop censorship and corruption. Now, we have to do it again! Learn more and join the action using the link on our profile. Any questions, send us a message! #battleforthenet #netneutrality

https://twitter.com/18millionrising/status/883400242443374593

[trashposts]

Art by Natalie Bui courtesy of 18MR

APAHM Spotlight: 18MillionRising

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we sat down with Cayden Mark, Executive Director of @18MR, an organization that works to organize young Asian Americans online with a strong focus on building knowledge and identity. With Cayden living in the Midwest, he didn’t have a strong concept of what it meant – or could mean – to be Asian American, but finding the Internet meant finding a like-minded community that didn’t exist in his hometown. For him, this work is urgent. Let’s dive in.

How does 18MillionRising incorporate the importance of activism within the Asian/Pacific Islander community?

Activism by, for, and in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities is critical because our influence on culture is growing. From entertainment to politics, Asian Americans are becoming more visible. We can use this opportunity to make it clear what we stand for and why, or be manipulated by people who don’t have our best interests at heart for their own agendas. In order to properly defend against that kind of dis-organizing, it’s critical to be visionary in what we want, and our activism is about really about that vision. Now is the time to get organized and get involved.

When discussing the importance and impact of immigration within the Asian/Pacific Islander community, what are some common misconceptions about the community?

I don’t think a lot of people realize just how many ethnic groups, nationalities, and languages are encompassed in the umbrella of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. This plays out in a lot of ways, but I notice that people sometimes don’t have an appreciation for the wide variety of experiences that AAPI new arrivals in the United States have. Whether due to class, faith community, reason for emigrating, or any of many other factors, AAPI immigrants struggle against the systems that other communities of color struggle against. For example, the Cambodian American community has been brutally targeted by Immigration & Customs Enforcement over the past few years, but if you live somewhere without a large Cambodian American community, you might not be aware of it.

It seems cliche to say, but AAPIs are far from the model minority stereotype that you often see in the media. It bears repeating, though, because that stereotype was invented to shame and blame Black communities for their own struggles – it’s shorthand for saying, “If Asian immigrants could do it, why couldn’t you?” which elides how immigration policy has shaped the most visible parts of the Asian American community while erasing the ongoing implicit and explicit rules that have kept Black communities from gaining wealth and power in our society -- starting with the way the Thirteenth Amendment was even written.

Let’s talk about your operating principle of “Co-Conspirators Instead of Allies.” How do the truths of anti-Black racism and settler colonialism affect the Asian/Pacific Islander community?

From the colonization of many of our home countries by Europe and the United States to the way skin color impacted the way those colonizers related to and categorized our homelands, it’s easy to see the way these things have played out for us, historically. It’s also the case that here, in the U.S. and in the present, our communities have an uneasy relationship with both anti-Black racism and settler colonialism.

For example, like the vast majority of Americans, we’re settlers – even if we came here as refugees, we have an important role to play in decolonizing this place and supporting Indigenous sovereignty on Hawai’i and the mainland. Our work is focused on figuring out how to come from a place of strength and power rooted in developing our identities as Asian Americans, so we can work as peers and equals with Black, Indigenous, and other people dedicated to mutual liberation.

We’re so grateful for the work that Cayden and his team at @18MR are doing. What has been your experience growing up Asian American? Use the hashtag #APAHM to share your story.

[foreverthesoniag]

Had my last therapy session for the year and oooof……. 💕✨✨ all the love and tender to all of us breaking generational traumas and healing from so much hard shit. Healing is not linear, it be hard and goes in circles, it has us time traveling, and going under and above. What a journey we are on. Sending all the tender tender to folks reflecting of this past year. What glorious and brave and kind you are. Remember to have compassion for yourself, don’t fall in the pressure to measure a “successful year”. You did more than enough by just making it through this on going pandemic. 💕💕 to @18millionrising ( design by @ashluka ) for this sweater. It says “My elders taught me how to pray” tender and brave sentiment Im taking in for next year. #qtpoc #queer #migrant #indigenous #nonbinary #enby #artist #poet #papifemme #whatgloryweare (at California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CXo4J1SPwX2/?utm_medium=tumblr

[thelimitedthings]

Tweeted

76 years ago, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly incarcerated after FDR issued Executive Order 9066. Today let's honor these survivors of incarceration and remember all the communities that continue to have their civil liberties violated today. #dayofremembrance pic.twitter.com/Y4uwDbFkEk

— 18MR.org (@18millionrising) February 19, 2018

[hsupernormal]

Tweeted

How much does your history cost? @amazon and @ebay think they can tell us. Join us and @JACL_DC in letting them know on this #GivingTuesday. #HistoryNotForSale #CyberMonday https://t.co/pKyFftQFel

— 18MR.org (@18millionrising) November 28, 2017

[daiswatching-blog]

In some ways, yesterday’s election results confirm what we already know about the world. We live in a country built from racism, sexism, xenophobia, classism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia. 

[mishthi]

Don’t sleep on this album! Go to VoicesOfOurVote.org to download your FREE copy today - an album with 32 eclectic tracks by AAPI musicians! It’s good, I swear!

[jinjabrew]

HYPHEN IS

Jinja Justice

Video by Jinja

Asian-Americans rally in solidarity for blacklivesmatter

[18mr]

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the United States. We have the potential to expand the Black/White racial binary in order to spark complex discussions and actions to advance racial equity and justice for everyone in the United States. Yet Asian Americans continue to occupy ambiguous, uncertain, and often “wedge” positions in America’s changing racial landscape. Join ChangeLab and 18 Million Rising for a Google hangout, facilitated by writer and activist Deepa Iyer, to discuss how Asian Americans fight for racial equity, express their racial solidarity, and become active participants in twenty-first century movements for justice. 

Panelists: Ruben An, Program Coordinator of Asian Youth in Action, CAAAV Subhash Kateel, Radio Host of Let’s Talk About It! and immigrant rights organizer Karin Wang, Vice President of Programs & Communications, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Los Angeles Moderator: Deepa Iyer

Join us on May 21 at 6pm for this important conversation!