 Well, thank you for joining us for this very interesting asynchronous panel discussion on Asians and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. We're doing it in this format to recognize that we all are in different time zones and to accommodate the fact that not everybody will be working at the same time or in the same hour, particularly when they're thinking about the overlap between West Coast of America and many Asian countries. So thank you for taking the time to be with us. Let me just start off by asking a very straightforward question. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, what your heritage is. Over to you. Sure. So I am Karin Falonka. I am a first generation imprint, now Filipino-American. And what that really means is that I was born and raised in Philippines, specifically in Manila, and moved to the US in 2000 back in there. I sort of started off actually in Southern California and eventually after much hopping around, ended up in the Bay Area, which is in Northern California of the US. And really what that means is that I am still figuring things out. Even after almost 12 years here, I'm sort of still re-learning my world. And in the most felt sense, what that means is that I left the safety and support of my family, my community, the opportunity and the privilege to be here. My name's Sevi. So just a bit about me. I was born and raised here in the States in a town called St. Pete in Florida. I am an AFI as Korean-American. And yeah, I think throughout my life, I've definitely have grown in different ways in terms of how closely I've identified. And yeah, happy to share more as we talk. Hi, I'm Claudia Lo. I'm a senior design researcher with the Anti-Harrasment Tools team. So I do a lot of qualitative design work and most of it is about our admins and about online kind of governance and that kind of thing. I grew up in Hong Kong, but I'm currently in the States. I originally came here to study in college and then decided to try and stay. So yeah, it's been an interesting kind of journey for me to move from somewhere where I was in like a majority kind of Chinese environment and then immigrating here and then having to kind of adjust to what that's like and how that is. Yeah, I'm Neha. I work in the trust and safety team. I work as the manager for the trust and safety and disinformation team in the foundation. I am based in Bangalore, India right now. And because this is a panel about culture and heritage, talking about my heritage, let's see. I am originally from South India, but then grew up for the most part in the North India. So my mom is from South and my dad, even though he's a Malayali, so people who do not know what Malayalis are, people originating from Kerala are called Malayalis. So my dad is a Malayali, but he was born and brought up in the North. So I kind of, because of this mix, I grew up between the two parts of the country and by default, I grew up speaking both Hindi and Malayalam and also picked up both the cultures. So if some people might be aware, some might not that the culture of North India is in stark contrast with the culture in South India, the languages, the food, the attire and just the day-to-day life, it's just very, very different. But because I grew up living those two lives, maybe, in general, but growing up, I did not realize that those are two different lives. For me, it was just the norm. So I picked up everything by default and even in Khopal, which is again, a very multicultural city. It has a very heavy Mughal influence and Mughal heritage. I picked up speaking Urdu and most of my school friends spoke a lot of different languages. I picked up Marathi from my school friends and then because you study in Convent School in India because we still have those English influence of the British culture. So it's mandatory to speak English and follow that very strict tradition to you kind of pick up that as well. So I think, yeah, I've spent, by default, I've spent so much time around different traditions, different cultures and that just that experience imbibed in me the awareness, the belief of the existence of different way of life and that just made me more respectful towards different sorts of culture. And I think that has played a significant role in shaping me as a person, shaping me who I am today. So, yeah. So I'm actually from Calcutta, the city of Mother Teresa in India, now known as Kolkata. I was born and brought up there, spent a fair bit of my childhood as well as my teenage years, university education over there except for a couple of years that I was abroad, but yeah, most of the time I was there. And then I ventured out of Calcutta on job opportunities to other places in India. And then there came a time where it was like, I thought I needed to do some higher studies and I thought I had seen a bit of India, but I wanted to see how high studies was outside. And frankly speaking, the US was an option, Australia was an option, UK was an option, but Singapore was the cheapest option. So, jokes apart, Singapore at that time presented a very good opportunity in terms of higher education. The National University of Singapore was ranked very well and I actually came to Singapore just before it became, just before the millennium in December, 1999 to study my MBA degree at the National University of Singapore Business School. How has my heritage played a role in my career journey? I think, so having grown up, I can say from sort of grade school, from middle to high school, I was pretty much surrounded by mostly white within the demographic of the town that I lived. And so that was at that point, I think I had just really gravitated towards those predominant careers. And so if I would go to over to my friend's place, maybe his dad was a lawyer or an engineer, or likewise I had friends that might work in the hospital. And I can say for my family were entrepreneurs, my dad had a convenience store that he ran a known as well as a sushi restaurant. And likewise, my mom was a hairstylist for chemo patients. And so it was a very different thing in which I had recognized and saw other people, whereas what my parents were able to do. And I sort of had this idea where having my grandparents and my parents immigrating to the US, so that I then can maybe pursue those different types of things. What's interesting I think is that I've had different perspectives on what that means in different parts of my life. So like earlier on, I felt a bit more entitled to maybe pursue those kind of college degrees and then getting a higher education and then whatever that would be, whether it's an engineer or a doctor, whatever. Whereas I think now I definitely appreciate and see how hardworking my parents have really gone through in order to be a self-starter and not having English as your first language. And I have a greater sense of appreciation for those types of things. And so all of that to say, like I think that my heritage as I've started to see my family immigrate to the US, I just take a pride in terms of how much work that they had to do in order to be self-starters. And then likewise, I'm trying to reflect that as much as I can in my career today. See it's funny because I really hadn't thought about my kind of career journey in these terms until you like brought it up as a question for the panel. So I initially when I went to the US that was, so I'm the first person in my family to spend like significant time here. I have some cousins who grew up in Canada, which a fairly common story I think for, especially for people from Hong Kong and Southern China, but they've actually all since gone back to start careers and families in Hong Kong. So even kind of within my extended family, everyone's kind of converged back. And I'm the one who still kind of like stayed outside. And by outside, I mean like, opposite side of the globe outside. So I'm a little bit distant, but I think over the years I've kind of grown to see things very differently. Like I know we harp about the Asian parents stereotype, but I think a lot of it was when I first studied, because I was studying sort of basically new media all my way through a college in the US and then further into kind of an advanced degree, that I think it was hard to explain what it was I was studying and kind of how it might translate to like, we'll say stability, because I think that's ultimately what they were concerned about that I would be okay. And I think kind of especially since kind of being able to make a career out of the things I studied that communication has gotten a lot better, but there are still always challenges. So it is funny now that the one constant in my life is just like how to work out time zone calculations really, really fast. Like that's honestly like the greatest boon in this kind of cross country journey I've been on is just like being really good at doing GMT plus eight. So like minus seven or eight, which is where I am now on the West coast. I just wanted to raise Claudia that I actually wanted to pursue design, more so graphic design as I didn't really wasn't aware in terms of UX design and for how that role played. But the stereotype very much played out where I think my parents who had sort of experienced the challenges of like being self starters, creating a business, they're like, yeah, I don't think I want you to go through this. So I know for a fact that I've seen people driving nice cars or living nice houses and they tend to have these types of jobs. So I'm gonna push you in that direction. And at least that's my understanding from my parents specific experience. And I did end up pursuing like computer engineering, although I'm starting to find myself like slowly winning back to as much design as I can incorporate into my life. But I wanted to ask you a little bit about the disinformation piece and your work in TNC, trust and safety. I know that disinformation is a problem in India and it's correct me if I'm wrong. It's almost become a problem that has grown simultaneously with the growth in connectivity, the growth in internet use in India. Could you tell us a little bit about that and your experience with that and what you think the challenges are there? Yeah, absolutely. And you're right in the sense that the spread of the disinformation has definitely been a parallel to the spread of the connectivity in general, but there's a huge problem of disinformation in India but because the interest and safety disinformation space we are looking at the disinformation across the world, I can tell you that India is not unique in that sense. The whole world in general is battling with the challenge of disinformation right now. And it has to do with both the volume of the amount of information, volume of the information that's coming on the platform every day. And there are organized groups and entities that have vested interest in supplying a particular kind of information to the people at a rapid pace and also the attention span of the people with the spread in the internet, with the growth of the internet, that attention span of the people has really reduced. We are always on the lookout of catchy information that we may not necessarily read and comprehend but we wanna send it to four more friends instantly because we want to be the first person to supply that piece of information. And that has become the standard mechanism of how in general information is being spread across the world, right? And there's a saying in this information that false information travels five times faster than the actual information. And when it's true, it is wrong information just fastest travel. Travel faster. Travel faster. What kind of role do you think free knowledge projects and the work that we do to play in elevating the histories of Asian Pacific Islander people? I'm thinking a lot about this and this is the politically dicey disclaimer. So obviously being from Hong Kong, I was following the developments of, we'll say summer to the end of 2019 with a lot of interest. And one of the things I actually noticed was a lot of independent photographers, not necessarily attached to any news outlets, but like small photography kind of crews, that kind of thing. People who were trying to document what was going on. A lot of them were posting super high resolution images at really rapidly onto Wikimedia Commons. And all of them were being licensed under some kind of like CC label open source. And I got the sense that a lot of it was about we want to be able to, I mean, A obviously we want to share what's going on with the world, but we also want to do it in a way where as many people are as free to use this as possible. Because one of the big things of that whole movement was that it was very much participatory. There was no centralized leadership. It was very much like, hey, if you want to go and help out by spreading the word, if you want to find out what's going on, if you want to find images or media to use in some way related to what's going on, you can. And no one is, there's no central authority for you that is going to like say, yes, you can do this or no, you can't do this. So I feel in a way, I don't know if it was like as calculated as I seem to be characterizing it, but like I noticed there was a lot of stuff coming up on Commons. And I don't know if it was like a combo of kind of, if it speaks to the degree of trust we've kind of earned from that particular community, or if it speaks to kind of a desire to, put this up on as many places as possible and the perception that, Wikimedia is a safe place and it's also like, it's a global organization, it's not regional, it's very much cares about media points of view and kind of information coming from all over the globe that I think is why I started seeing all of this protest related documentation crop up on Commons. And I know there's been very robust, we'll say discussion about that particular event and how it's played out, especially on the various Chinese language Wikipedia's, which I will not go into, partly because my Chinese reading skills are not super duper great now. So I can't follow it, but yeah, I think there is that feeling that free knowledge, free and open knowledge is really important because it means that people can at the very least remember what happened and remember it, everyone's gonna have a bit of bias, just to be able to refer back to like documents that show this happened, these things occurred, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. So I guess just speaking from a personal experience, like I had said that I grew up in a predominantly white town and I was one, if not a few of, Asians like within the city limits and it wasn't until I had went to college where I had realized that there's, I obviously knew about Chinese and Filipino and Vietnamese, but me as being Asian-American had never been really introduced to other people. And to be honest, like one of the more exciting things was I was able to sort of share food and culture within those types of routes. And I think the other dimension too is I, the only Korean food, and I'm sorry, I'm focusing on food, I'm really hungry, was whatever my mom was able to make with the local groceries that we had, but it wasn't until I had the opportunity to travel to Korea myself to really truly see and understand and taste those things and experience it for myself. So I say all of those things and that I think in terms of free knowledge and the role that I can play for these communities, I think a lot of the time we are very sort of boxed into the geo-locations that we are. And despite, say, identifying as Asian or Asian-American, I think there's definitely opportunity to educate ourselves even more so at an early age. I know that there's some work to start to incorporate Wikipedia into the classrooms. And so this is just something that I wish I had for myself to have maybe learned a little bit more in terms of the culture or something that I might refer to in the context of living in the middle of Florida might be very different than how it's being done across the world. Yeah, and actually just when you were speaking of incorporating kind of free and open knowledge projects like our own into kind of classrooms, something that struck me is that how valuable it is to be able to have information and to be able to contribute to that information in like a language other than whatever the dominant one is around you. Like I didn't know how to type in Cantonese for a really, really long time. Just because anyone who has ever tried to type in various Chinese languages will know that like every input method is a nightmare, every single one of them. And different kind of countries, even if they all speak Mandarin or if it's predominantly, or like another kind of Chinese language, like different countries have their own preferred input method types and it's all kind of a mishmash, but I didn't learn till very, actually like really recently, like a couple of years ago, but just kind of continuing to be able to access that kind of Chinese language information and knowing that like, hey, if I wanted to, like this is a place where I could practice those kind of language skills, even when I'm so far away from where I grew up speaking this language is really valuable to me. And I imagine if that's something kind of like you're trying to learn language as a way to connect, like seeing a robust community, seeing a robust source of information in those languages is really valuable. One question, Deb, that often I get asked coming from India is whether I speak Indian. What do you think about that question? And can you tell us a little bit about why people like us find it funny? Yeah, we find it funny. You know, it's very common when I came to Singapore, I was always asked, do I speak Tamil? Which, Vignesh, obviously you speak, but I don't speak, you know? I speak Bengali as you mentioned, and I also speak Hindi, but I think both of us have one common language, which is, you know, English. Of course, Hindi, you're also able to probably speak a few words and I'm able to converse as well. But the reason why people confuse that is in most countries, you have a country and you have a national language that is associated with the country, but India is such an amalgamation of cultures that we actually have there around 25, or I think now, or more than that, national or languages sort of. So even in our Indian currency, the Indian currency, you will see that at least I think 13 languages are inscribed on that currency, on any Indian currency, you know? So we don't speak the regional languages, which are all properly recognized languages, like you speak Tamil, I speak Bengali. People in the northern part of India would speak more of Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, all of these, where people in the south would speak Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, all of that stuff. Yeah, Kannada, of course. It's a hodgepodge. But one thing that unites us in India is that I think Hindi because of Bollywood films and the entire film industry, which has been a big part of the Indian culture, and the fact that all said and done, the British administration system, which had English as the lingua franca and that sort of continued in India. Could you tell us a little bit about, you know, some interesting facts about Filipino culture and your heritage that might be surprising or interesting for people to learn and hear about? Oh, yeah. I would just say, one of my mind is really coming back to you, Nesh, is this, well, as I said, the immigrant experience is so common throughout, throughout the community, wherever we may be, that really, like, there's not only a term for it, but it's something that even when you return home, there's a sort of label associated. So it's overseas Filipino workers or OFWs, which is something that when you return home, when you fill out the form to come through, you check that you're an overseas Filipino worker. When you go to any government buildings or so on, it is something that you fill out there. And I think it's just, it's important to mention because it's, as I said, such a given and such a common experience for Filipinos all over, that even it's tied to things like our language of instruction in our schools. So as I said, the dialogue is the national language. And yet our language is, our language of instruction in schools from kindergarten on is English. So it's a, it's a, both a, it's certainly a privilege to be able to have the opportunity to be in different places, to work in different places. And it's also just the reality that, as I mentioned, you are leaving perhaps the comfort of your family when you know, often in service of that very same family and community. And I just, yeah. And I think it's something important to hold as well. Is it not strange when people look at you and call you diverse, but not feel strange to you? It feels strange to me. I don't know how you feel about it. No, you're right. It definitely feels a little bit strange because growing up you by default grew, you were surrounded by people who followed different faiths, came from different ethnicities, spoke different languages and were very comfortable switching from one language to another language as they turn to another person and start speaking. So it's very abnormal. And as you explained that the culture again, the North and the South, for example, North India is, they follow, there's a lot of vegetarianism, a lot of religious spiritual practices, people fast for days. And people still get surprised when I tell that I'm from Kerala and beef is one of the staple foods of Kerala and they're like, what if India people eat beef? I'm like, yes. Yeah, they do. They do, yes. So, yeah, I was, so growing up, I thought that this is the norm, this is the way of life that just different kinds of people exist and you are just cognizant and are respectful towards different culture. And very recently, I don't know how recent it is, but when I stepped into like more towards, with my work, I stepped into more international space and the conversations around became more aware of the conversations about diversity, inclusivity. I was like, this is really important, but it's also a little strange for me, new for me because I thought this is very normal. I never trained myself to pay special attention to it and then talk about different aspects of it. So it's definitely new, but in a good sense. And sometimes it does feel, it takes a moment for me to go back and reflect, what was different to identify some differences? I love that, I love that. And I think that the time when I became most aware that I was different was definitely the time when I left India. It was when I noticed that people were noticing me and noticing me out of like a room of people, I would be the one in India. Then I started understanding why it was important to start thinking about highlighting our culture and highlighting. People often are surprised when I say India is the largest vegetarian country in the world, that vegetarianism is quite common in India. My partner who's Irish, he often asks, how can you be vegetarian? It's so boring. And I was like, well, how do you ever come to my country? It's very different there, but I'm not actually vegetarian. I tried it for a period of time and then decided that wasn't for me. What do you wish you saw more of in allyship and advocacy from folks who are not Asian or Pacific Islanders? I'm happy to take this one first. I think kind of jumping, rewinding a little bit to me what I've, the feature I like most about when people, I think express kind of intercommunity solidarity is a kind of good faith, open-hearted and like almost kind of humble approach to really learning and understanding and appreciating the differences between us while also being kind of aware of what similarities of experience there are and kind of similarities in experience might help, our groups kind of face very similar threats and very similar social or systemic pressures. As much as I would love to be able to point to some kind of Pan-Asian solidarity, that's just not the case. It's not the case for even I think within Asian American community, unfortunately. It's certainly not the case kind of broadly within Asia because Asia's a large place. And what I would love to see is that kind of, I would love to see, let's say, in the context of the States, in the context of the kind of, especially the Black Lives Matter movement, I would love to see kind of, and not that there have not been efforts to do this, but like efforts to kind of tie that those kinds of expressions of anti-white supremacy, anti-police brutality, two kind of efforts, whether that's by Asian Americans or by kind of other Asian communities. So I saw a lot of kind of voices that I followed because of the Hong Kong protests, kind of remarking on kind of the Black Lives Matter movement and tying it very explicitly, like, hey, there's a history and a legacy of anti-police movement, sorry, happening right now in Thailand, in Myanmar, in Hong Kong, of course. And we also saw a lot of those protest tactics that Hong Kong protesters had used to kind of defend themselves from things like tear gas or certain other kinds of quote unquote less lethal police movement being used in Portland here, I definitely saw, but again, also to other areas in, as I was saying, like in Thailand and in Bangkok. And that's that kind of thing is very heartening to me that there's like, oh, we face the same problems. Our problems are linked, like you can't view this isolated and also supporting cause A doesn't mean you're diminishing this report for cause B. You have two hands, you can multitask, this is cool, we can do this. And that's the kind of thing that I find kind of invigorating that kind of being able to see ties in what we're trying to do and trying to improve our lives and trying to seek justice, seek equality, kind of even across such vast distances, whether that's between different communities of kind of Asian peoples or within a certain country or even kind of like looking beyond that. Yeah. You know, as much as like I think I'm trying to link in between not only, let's say my own heritage as being Korean and Korean American, as well as like Asian and Pacific Islander, but I think there's also this interface in what you have with non-Asian races, right? This is a bit weird to, let's say, jump on a call with friends or with family and now that we're slowly becoming more vaccinated like meeting up in person, there's an elephant in the room that sometimes it just isn't easy to bring up. It's a simple question of just asking someone how they are. I think goes a long way, to be honest. I think the solidarity feels safe. There's trust in that people have the right intentions. If people mistaken, you know, either where you're from or trying to understand a bit more about you and your heritage, I think that so long as that there's a bit of openness and trust to say that people are simply just trying to learn and grow up as people I think is key. But I just want to ask, like, India is going through such a painful period at the moment. I know that that's a unifying, it's a unifying experience across the country. My sister is a frontline medical doctor in Chennai and she works in the government hospital there and she talks about how these last couple of months, the second wave has been a profound difference. People have experienced it profoundly different to even the first wave and the first lockdown. Can you tell me a little bit about how you personally or the people around you, how are you staying resilient? What are your, are you even staying resilient in the face of this crisis? Yeah. India is definitely going through a very chaotic time with the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. It was hard in the first wave itself and it's really sad to see that we as a country did not prepare ourselves better for the second wave and it was divisive because sometimes everything was being blamed on the central government and central government didn't have the responsibility but even within states there was lack of coordination, there was lack of trust in between where people were blaming each other and they were suffering, but then they were channeling their anger and frustration towards attacking different people and sometimes they were attacks on certain minority communities as well who were blamed for spreading this at a faster rate and that was very, very heartbreaking to see because that was taking the conversation away from the main problem. But in the second phase, one of the things that is very positive that has surfaced is that many people, many people have come to the fore for getting their differences and have started helping each other. There are several examples across India where you can see that there are people who started home kitchens and started cooking food and started supplying it to those who were in need. There are small grocery shop vendors who started supplying groceries for free. There are very small auto rickshaw drivers who converted their autos into these makeshift ambulances to provide services to people who could not get to hospitals on time and that do all in free. And of course, there was a lot of suffering but one thing if I would say has come out as positive is that people have gotten a little bit more aware of that they need to come together to face this challenge and preserve humanity. So once pandemic is over, I would certainly hope that people remember this part of the pandemic where they came together to decide each other for getting their differences and try to help each other. And I'm happy to see that this is surfacing and once you see, I have seen so many of my friends who have taken leaves from their jobs and are starting fundraising campaigns, coordinating things and that's just motivating more and more people to do the same. It has that trickle down effect in a positive way and I hope that this continues even after the search is over. I loved the sheer outpouring of support not with both within India and the diaspora and people just finding ways to help each other based on their own unique skillset. I've seen people put up Instagram videos on how to find the closest oxygen cylinders. I've seen people, as we said, convert their home into small kitchens to distribute food for those who are shielding. It really is. I feel like it's in the hardest times that sometimes the most beautiful virtues of humanity come to the front and it is very reassuring. I have to agree on that. In general, people of Indian origin, like myself and we take comfort in our family, in our community. It's like in India, a baby is always raised by a village. It's not one person raising a baby. So we have, I would say, bonds with not only immediate family like your parents or siblings and so forth but also with uncles, cousins, et cetera and it's very common in India to say, refer to even your new family refer to even your neighbor, an elderly neighbor as an uncle. And I should say that this is not only in India. It is something in Asia. I mean, staying in Singapore where I haven't, a big issue of being in Singapore, when you go to a hawker center to eat and there's an elderly gentleman who is serving the food, you always address that person as an uncle or you say auntie and that's very common. It's in India and it's how you address and that's how we have been brought up. If someone is elderly of your dad's age or so forth you always address them as an uncle and similarly females as aunties and that's very common. So it is this sort of community feeling that you have and when you know that yes, you're not alone. There are people around you. That actually gives you a sense of comfort. And the other thing you mentioned about going off to have a dosa what I enjoy in Singapore is that Singapore being such a multiracial society here you have a large population of Indians who are local Singapore Indians because of their past heritage and migrating from India and so forth. So in Singapore, I don't feel in any way that I miss Indian food or Indian culture or things like that. Yes, I do miss some of the weather. That's a different story. We have all the festivals of India in Singapore and India by the way is very well known for its festivals and all things. So for us, our biggest festival is called the Durga Puja. It is a celebration of Goddess Durga a female deity who conquered evil and you know, brought peace to earth. I mean, evil being all the demons who had taken over earth and she returns every year once for a period of about four or five days to her mother's home which is planet earth. And that's when we on earth celebrate her returning back to earth and celebrate the victory of good over evil. And that's the biggest festival for us Bengalis and it's celebrated in Singapore. It's celebrated all over the world in the Bengali community and it's fantastic, you know, but we miss it a lot. If you ask me that celebration hasn't been happening because of COVID last year and that's something we really, really missed. I totally see. I remember the best Rosu Gulas that I've ever had but during the time of Durga Puja Rosu Gulas being the Indian sweet dumplings that you get as part of Bengali cuisine. First off, that just brings me so much joy because I will say a huge part of Filipino culture is to just have and receive so much joy from making but also sharing in particular. That was also one of my favorites although I tend to, you know, I just enjoy the chicken a lot more. Yeah, because there's something about the way that the sauce like soaks up into the chicken that's like my wildest dreams. And I think that's a part, something that you will see a lot in Filipino cuisine. Very saucy food, sort of almost like stews that are very, very essentially like salt to the max. So vinegar, soy sauce, all of those things and that is, I mean, actually the root of that is really preservation. So of course, before things were able to be cooked and so on, it was or kept warm, we should say. It was just this fantastic way to bring so much flavor but also to preserve food by just adding like, yeah. Vinegar, soy sauce. I think I want to change tack slightly now and ask you a little bit about your experiences as they've related to the last couple of years, particularly as we go through this pandemic. I know I take a lot of comfort and resilience from my culture and my heritage. I was telling Deb who I was interviewing earlier today that like one of the things I did was listen to Indian music when I felt a bit down because it was an instant pick me up to listen to Bollywood songs from my childhood. So what about the ways in which you rely on your culture for that sense of resilience? Well, there's a couple of different things here. I think I want to... So part of why I mentioned what I did earlier about my experience is that in particular the immigrant experience this is something that's truly almost a given for many Filipinos. I mean, definitely not unique in this way. It's one that for Filipinos all over the world and the communities they leave behind, it's almost a given in such a way. And so I think there is a sense of resilience that I find in that knowing that wherever I may be, frankly, there is bound to be a Filipino community, a strong community in many cases. And so I found community there where I can. But in sort of relating at home, there's also this Filipino-rooted concept that frankly just I think guides my life in many ways in that speed. It's called the Ete of Kapwa. And Kapwa is a really a sort of oneness with anyone, with seeing the world as really a global community, seeing the world as interconnected in some way that once again I think just it's what I anchor myself to in the hardest of moments. But purely also just for some joy, so on. I definitely always come back to my food. Like I said, we are somebody who, we are people who enjoy our food very, very much. And cooking some agave for myself is actually something that I think always will lift my spirits somewhat. And truly singing and dancing, it's almost a cliche thing that every Filipino that you know probably does some dancing and singing on the side. Like karaoke is a sport for us, absolutely. So yeah, I would say things. I think as a recent, I've found that having a medium of writing has been very therapeutic and cathartic. I think most of the times, I think this is purely just me as a person. I have a hard time having those conversations just because sometimes I'm maybe not sure. And so writing I think has brought me a lot of comfort to articulate what are the fears that I'm having or maybe anxieties that are coming up and sort of putting a name to the thing definitely helps. And then once that's on paper, I think then they're taking it into the conversation. So it's sort of like a pre-step. So whether that's talking with my family or my therapist, I think it's been a great tool for me to at least do a bit of reflection before I'm ready to maybe engage with others. I am popular media trash. So I... Okay, so confession time. The reason why I have a nice microphone rig is not for work video conferences. It's because I have a K-pop podcast with a friend. And that's why I know how to do all this audio recording. But no, it happens to be a form of popular music I'm really into that I like a lot, which feels likely adequate when I'm talking about it in... Also, it's sort of a AAPI context because it's like, no, I'm not Korean. And I realize the problem with the whole like, Asians are all the same kind of reaction, especially stateside. It's like, no, different groups. I know I look East Asian, but this has nothing to do with my appreciation for it. Except maybe I heard some of these songs that's not a much of a basis, to be honest. Aside from that, one thing I really love doing pre-COVID times was I love to cook. I also love to try out new restaurants and places. So I used to like drag friends out to different restaurants and different locations. And we'd have kind of like cook along like the big dumpling wrapper party because making dumplings. I feel this is a universal constant because every cuisine has a dumpling. This is definitely like a mass assembly line type of food. If you do it by yourself, it's doable. It's a little sad. For a maximum experience, you need like some people mixing the filling. You need some people getting the wrappers ready. You get some people like actually making it. You get some people eating and then you rotate around so everybody takes turns. And I've always found it's very hard to be upset with food in your mouth. So even if it's not like even if it's not always like a place to broach necessarily serious topics or heavy topics, it is I find a fun way of kind of like comparing across cultures, sharing across cultures, sharing within different Asian cultures, like everyone showing up at a potluck of like a thing you know how to make. Like not even like a thing you grew up making, but like you know bringing something of yours that you can share that people can appreciate I think is always really powerful and fun and I miss having people over. So that's definitely something I'm going to be trying to do once more vaccines are in arms and maybe once we can gather again. Yeah. So a couple of things Claudia is ironic is even though I'm Korean I don't think I've ever really listened to K-pop or really followed K-drama so but I would love to listen to the podcast for sure. And then definitely plus one to dumpling partings or like any type of like mass assembly I think there's just different energies when you know you're being handed a plate and you have a fork and knife versus you're making things with your hands. So yeah, I plus one and maybe a WMF dumpling party comes after pandemic. Okay, most importantly Korean dramas on Netflix not going to lie that watching Korean dramas having that virtual party with my friends and family with something that's keeping me safe. It's been more than a month since I left my apartment because we are in very strict lockdown so I can't even step out on the street and because the number of cases are so high earlier I used to go to my rooftop for parking in the evening but that has also not happened for the last one month that I have inside my apartment and it's my friends family and yeah Korean dramas are keeping me safe but that said on a serious note the work work has been a serious driving factor because particularly we work on the trust and safety side where we we see things that are not nice. We see incidences, we see the bad side of things honestly and just being able to do something, being able to increase the level of security for our users for our communities, for the project for the platform, being able to reduce toxic behavior abuse and harassment or being able to contribute just a little towards making internet and thereby the world a little bit safer place. The feeling of being able to do something every day has been a factor that's keeping me going and I hope that this will keep me going in the long run as well. Yeah that's so beautiful though. The work that you do is amazing and I can't imagine how difficult it must be to just go through this in India whilst being in India. Watching it from afar it breaks my heart but being there thank you for everything that you do I really appreciate it and I'm sure everybody else does as well. I hope everybody seeing this today will understand a little bit more about the richness of the Asian experience and the Asian continent. Thank you so much for this opportunity and yeah just so excited to continue this conversation and to share with all.