 We take a moment to acknowledge all Indigenous and First People of the land and space in which we live and breathe. For our community at Highline College, we recognize that we are on occupied Duwamish, Coast Salish, Muckleshoot, and Puyallup lands. We thank all relations and tribes today as we hold space as a community. With each of us joining from different areas, we invite you to reflect and thank Indigenous and First People of the land and in which you are coming from. Thank you. Next is the introduction of our presenter by today's host, My esteemed Highline colleague, faculty, Dr. Nikki Filler. Nikki. Thank you so much for the introductions and for the land acknowledgement. Welcome everyone to the 21st annual Unity Through Diversity Week, abolition as healing, liberating our community. My name is Nikki Filler and I'm a faculty member in ethnic and gender studies and political science. Before we get started and before we introduce our presenter, Manisha this morning, I wanted to share a few important words about our theme this year that Edmina Fully shared with us yesterday. Abolition as healing and liberating our community. Abolition to end or stop. Healing, meaning to become healthy again. Liberation to free or release. Liberation as a community, to be in a group. When we read this theme it can present itself as paradoxical. But when we reflect and think how we exist in the world, there are many experiences of living in a world of systems that are complex and sometimes self contradictory. We invite you to reflect, listen, and engage in this week's programs and connect with this theme. I want to introduce our Unity Week speaker this morning, Moni Chow. Moni is an interdisciplinary, queer, Chinese and Taiwanese American Seattle based artist and storyteller. Moni's work demonstrates the power of the rich intersections of our identities and the ways in which art in various mediums has been and continues to be a way to challenge, heal and transform the ideologies, practices and institutions that perpetuate systems that harm ourselves and our communities. Through their art and storytelling, Moni shares their personal journey of becoming political or politicization. Understanding the limitations of fixed notions of identity and an ongoing history of solidarities across marginalized peoples and communities towards collective liberation. Moni also received their BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in 2018. They have exhibited at multiple galleries, museums, and pop-ups both nationally and internationally, and currently have worked in collections across the United States. They have been named one of the 100 Changemakers by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2020 and received the 2021 Artist Fellowship from Four Culture. Now without further ado, please join me in welcoming Moni Chow. Hi everyone. I'm so excited to be here. I feel very grateful and honored to have this opportunity to be speaking with you today. Thank you to Highland College, the Unity Week Committee, and to Nikki for the great introduction, your labor and advocacy in having me be here to present some of my own stories. So today in this presentation, I'll walk you through my own narrative in navigating assimilation, my politicization, and the limitations of fixed notions of identity politics with the intentions and goals of building solidarity across marginalized and all oppressed peoples. So all of this has happened for me as an artist and using art for processing, healing, and as a means for liberation. I truly believe that art is at the forefront of the revolution and it can bring massive shifts for change, amplify our stories, our demands, and celebrates our humanity. So I would like to start these slides with a quote from Barbara Smith, a significant black lesbian and socialist activist paving the way for black feminism. The most profound and potentially most radical politics come out directly out of our own identity. So this quote was a part of a black feminist statement that was released in 1977 to address the lack of acknowledgement of the layered oppressions that black and women of color experience and making the struggle against racial sexual heterosexual and class oppression clear. So this personal focus on identity and its intersections will be a theme throughout this entire presentation but more specifically as a beginning and pivotal point for my own practice. Okay, so my name is money child. My identities, as Nikki shared lie as a 1.5 generation immigrant Chinese and Taiwanese American non binary lesbian. And as for my work I am an artist and a storyteller. This was my first language. I grew up surrounded by a total of four different languages spoken in our households. So words have always felt very difficult for me to express my emotions. And so visual art has become the means of my processing my work and my life. These are photos of my grandparents and I know I and yik chow on the left had immigrated here from Hong Kong, and Zhang Mei and Michael Lee from southern Taiwan on the right. Both of these families had brought their children to immigrate to Seattle in the early 70s with none of their children being older than 12 years old. My eye a yik had worked in restaurants since he was 12, making sure he could take care of his six younger siblings when his parents could not. And when immigrating here to the Chinatown International District, which is a neighborhood I'll be referencing a lot as the CID, he ran a total of three of his own restaurants and a convenience store. Upon first arriving in Seattle, my eye a man and my dad and on all lived above and worked at the restaurant China gate, I seen in the top left photo. The bottom left Atlas being their first restaurant and Chow seafood restaurant being the very last one they own before retiring. I was born on the tail end of Chow's family restaurant being eight years old when the restaurant closed in 2004. And these buildings still exist here but with China gate now being a bubble tea shop and a market, and Atlas being a restaurant called fortune garden. But as a young child, I had the common experience of wanting to distance myself from my ethnic backgrounds. I had such a luxury of culturally rich foods and yet I felt so ashamed to bring them to school or avoided friends coming over for dinner. They reflect their parents beliefs and whether it be from non Asian families or Asian families who continue to assimilate to climb the US racial hierarchy. It's not an uncommon experience to be surrounded by xenophobia and anti Asian ideologies, even as a child. The word assimilation wasn't yet a part of my vocabulary. It was clear from media and societal standards that that was what allowed immigrant families and stories to thrive, and to reach their American dream. I didn't want to stand out, because fitting in was the goal, and being American was the goal. But assimilation was falsely put on anyone considered to not even look American, and it had always been a lie. These feelings really contrasted with the time that I spent at the restaurant and environment that was full of deep cultural significance. So being at school and then being at the restaurant really felt like day and night. As a child, I didn't value the restaurant for keeping me rooted to my cultural ties. The restaurant baby meant that I was taught how love can translate as food and even how a community can come together and find compromise through hardship over a shared meal. One of the images Sharon took an illustration of my alma and I sharing congee at our restaurant's countertop created specifically for the city of Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods Project called reimagined Seattle storytelling project. So one morning in 2016. I was taking a bus route that I'd always taken, and yet, when I was looking up at one point while still in the CID, I realized I was stomped on where we were. I remember looking and seeing incredibly bright, unsettling aisles full of products that didn't feel culturally significant at all. It took me a second to realize but I realized that I was in front of a Bartel drugs. And this was a Bartel drugs that was sitting on the very corner of where my family's restaurant used to be. And this is where my idea had established his last business, where he fed and built a community and where I felt validated for the very first time in my life with my identity. The process of my family's labor and history was only seen through my eyes. This moment had introduced me to the term gentrification, being that this was a store that had nothing of cultural significance to the neighborhood, nor had any benefit to the residents who had been here, or already were under threat due to the continued pressure of displacement. The most Asian part of the store was this small neon sign that translates to pharmacy. As you can see the image of my family's restaurant signs faces the same direction as the front of this store. So this emotional reckoning had led me to do my first series addressing identity called through the restaurant. And with the difficulty of not having much documentation of the restaurant I wanted to recreate items that were no longer tangible through just family photos and with a muddled memory. The photo on the left is a photo of my father and I in front of the recreated family signs that I made with MDF wood and our family logo on the right with embroidery on fabric. As an artist I feel really drawn to the processes of creation. As labor becomes a really deep theme throughout my works using embroidery allowed me to use what is sadly reduced as women's craft as a means to meditate on the history and labor of my family's journey and experience here. Stitch by stitch. So, um, thank you. I used to watch my mom folds hundreds of dumplings under the sun in our backyard, carefully folding and freezing them to make sure she had enough for her family, her community and her temple. So in 2017 I had received a grant to take a class by Carmen Montoya and Angelisa venison on glasses social practice at Pilchup glass school, which allowed me the opportunity to explore the importance of what materiality can represent in our art. So these are dumplings created as a part of a series called a day's work of labor and love salon bow. And all of these are made of glass. I really wanted to represent how permanent yet fragile your cultural identity could be, as it's always with you and deeply a part of your being, but it could also be lost and broken if you do not care or tend to it. I created these dumplings both by hot sculpting and kiln casting. And these are processes that require really intimate experiences of, of like very hands on work. And as I was creating these I really felt as though my mama was with me and sculpting along with me, and I felt very honored to be able to do something in a process that felt familiar to me. So I hope to channel the same community based love that she had when exhibiting these works in gallery spaces. So I had slit one of the glass dumplings to hold these little notes of how to make your own salon bar. And in the gallery space I asked for people to feel invited and welcome to come and take some of the recipes with them so that this piece could have a life outside of the gallery space as well. And as I wanted to continue this identity work. I decided to live in the CID near the streets that my father grew up on. So during my time in the neighborhood coven 19 had started as a whisper through the neighborhood. And before the virus reached the states you could tell that the streets of the CID were increasingly more quiet. A lot of mom and pop shops were beginning to report a 70% like drop in business. I work pretty closely with the Wing Luke Museum, which is an Asian Pacific American institution. And they had asked me to amplify the experience and stories and the resurgence of yellow peril and disaster gentrification and are trying to town. Once again. And so in response I created this comic, and I'll be like reading through all of the, all of the slides just in case it isn't legible for you. This piece is a comic on resiliency by money town. Sometimes when things get rough, I try to remember what this neighborhood and community has experienced before. Right now, all of my communities are under threat due to the coronavirus practically bring my city to a halt. The underlying racism of coronavirus had brought back old ideologies of yellow peril, which in turn threatens the lives and businesses that make Seattle's international district so special. The city starts implement plans to contain the virus, but the streets of the neighborhood have been quiet much before the virus reached the United States. I worry for the sake of this neighborhood, especially because it's in a vulnerable place due to gentrification. So we'd be able to bounce back from this. But I remember the resiliency that lives within the streets and the people here. My community keeps me strong. And so does the legacy and stories of all those who come before us. I know we're going to be okay. In 2018, I created a residency for myself at an exhibition space called the vestibule, which is an Airbnb and gallery located in Ballard. And wanting to learn how to collaborate more with community by collecting and sharing stories I stayed in the space for about a month asking folks to drop by and share their stories of food and family with me. All while I would be embroidering their stories into a blanket. So there were a lot of moments and shared moments of deeply intimate stories that were very vulnerable and traumatizing, and also ones that were funnily enough about the disgust for frozen spinach. In this practice, I learned how much shared food had shaped our identities through our family when growing up. Ultimately, I learned that one of my favorite parts of creating art was the end of the cycle. When the audience is witnessing my stories of my a ma for example and viewing it as an invitation to be sharing their own stories of their grandmas with me too. So as you can see people were asked to also write their stories up on the wall and come to view the final piece filled with stories. So the space at the end of the month was covered in written stories and photos and with a beautiful blanket created collectively as a representation of all those intimate moments shared with each other, allowing myself to feel open and inviting people to be vulnerable with me in a space designed for comfort. This all helped shape my collaborative community work. So back in 2017, after the creation of my very first series around learning and understanding gentrification to the experience of my family's restaurant. I wanted to understand it through a larger community perspective. So I had gone to my very first town hall at the Nisei Veterans Hall in Little Saigon to speak and hear about displacement in the neighborhood. And this is where I was first connected with CID coalition and started organizing with a lot of folks in the neighborhood, just to do what I could to protect its histories and its residents. So this is a quote by Asada Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party and engaged through armed struggle in the Black Liberation Army. Asada Shakur says, theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory. So when I started to engage in community work my understandings of political struggle had grown and sharpened. There's a deep importance to engage with their communities just as much as reading history and theory. We can spend our days reading anti-racist and anti-imperialist works, but if we do not engage and provide care for those within our communities, change does not happen. Stepping out of just my personal artwork and into the streets of where these issues were happening. I learned how our political struggles can happen differently for us all. So generally speaking history has always been a really challenging subject for me, especially in academic spaces, but also those histories had never represented anyone who looked like me or our histories. And I felt a lot of shame around the fact that I grew up in Chinatown and yet did not understand or know the histories of Chinatown until I was much older. These neighborhoods were created as a direct result of racism and redlining and were serving as a safe haven for Asian immigrants and laborers. Through the pandemic these neighborhoods were even under more pressure due to disaster gentrification. Students had already been experiencing issues around language access and moving meetings for public comments online and virtually were just another barrier that a lot of folks did not have access to. So in wanting to remind us of our history as a huge reason as why we need to still be fighting against luxury apartments, especially as it continues to displace our elders and their stories. I want to make work addressing this very issue. So this piece is called Chinatowns in America and the racism that built them that was in the form of a takeout menu. And I wanted them to look like the takeout menus that you would find in Chinatown like restaurants. This includes a timeline of the first Chinese immigrants in America to the Exclusion Act of 1882. And that whole timeline is sort of formed as almost like a little menu area where the date is where the prices normally are. So, if we could go to the next slide please. I was living in the CID when the pandemic had started, and white supremacists had been putting stickers onto postboards, the polls and the walls of businesses in the area. They were reported to have been intentionally intimidating residents as they had come across. And I was in a Facebook group where a lot of folks were reporting all of these incidents of coming into contact with these people who were wearing sunglasses and hats. And just intentionally like being very intimidating in their presence around a lot of the residents of the neighborhood. So, this was and still is a very scary time. And I could feel like a huge and deep accumulation of fear in my own body. As someone who felt really personal ties to this neighborhood I wanted to offer, I wanted to offer this neighborhood protection and care just as it always had done for me. So, in response I drew out what my emotions were. This was made as a talisman, a protection charm for the neighborhood in response to the white supremacist threats. It reads Chinatown was built on resilience. We will survive this too. And on the right is to acknowledge all the other neighborhoods that make up the Seattle's Chinatown International District, which is Filipino town, Japan town and little Saigon. Seattle's current CID is the third location if you're not aware. The first being burned in the great Seattle fire. The second was priced out of what is now considered Pioneer Square. And I wanted to remind us that there has always been resiliency in these streets and in our people. So this was one of my favorite projects, mostly because it was deeply community powered. There was a local organization that had donated around 700 posters and community had helped me crowdsource money for stickers and collect staple guns and packing tape. We had a day where everyone came out in the very beginning of the pandemic. In the beginning of lockdown where people had come together to go outside and safely distanced with other people and poster the entire neighborhood. And to be outside in the very beginning of lockdown with people that you love and share a common goal felt really energizing and something that felt really healing for for me. And I'm sure like for a lot of people that I got to share that moment with. So Aaron Shagaki, who is another diasporic artist, taught me how to we pace to also ensure the longevity of these posters. The posters were also put on my website so that anyone can print them off and share and post them. And throughout the pandemic I was shipping these posters to Chinatowns in New York and Toronto, LA and etc. And I had a social fire which is a social justice arts organization had picked up the work to share even more widely, and they took the posters to be projected onto this building in London which was really exciting to see. And I really want to honor all of the labor that had gone into this work, because none of this work would have been possible without. So much support from the community around me. So for the rest of this presentation I'll be referencing an article called everything you know about identity politics is wrong, written by my friend Nikki Chow with the organization song to see a US Pacific Northwest leftist collective of people with ancestral ties to Vietnam. So dissecting the differences between political ethnic and nationality will help us with a deeper understanding of our own positionings both currently and historically. So this information can can be informational to our own work to be in better solidarity with others. So this quote reads understanding our political identity and how our identities are politicized can be instructive in our actions to advance our fight. So I'll start this section off with a piece called paper tigers in theory, which I feel is a representation of me, or a type of self portrait. It was intended with the ideas of dissecting the complexities and layers of my identity, while carving out each piece and carefully studying it, only to put it back in a way that may not be perfect, but also representative of me. So I started with gouache paint onto a watercolor paper, and then attached back onto a wood panel. The title of this work is also a nod to the politicization in my life as well with paper tigers, being a term that Mao used to describe US imperialism and reactionaries, a term for something that may seem menacing but in reality is nothing to be afraid of. So I'll start off with political identity. A political identity is a person or a group of people's relationship to power. And as a side note, representation or diversity politics is often conflated with identity politics, which can be explained simply in a phrase used by the reference art of article diverse faces and same dominant system. The US has plenty of examples to pull from, such as the first Latino man Alejandro Mallorca's as the new Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, and yet overseeing the creation of a network of detention centers, or even having a Vietnamese refugee as the director of ice. So representation is important on some basis. It does nothing to challenge these dangerous structures, including the high rates of incarceration and detainment of people of color. In these situations there is some relative power being shared within a system that does not seek to dispute the injustices within representation politics does not build grassroots power and self determination. In many cases it attempts to weaken silence or extinguish a price people's power identity politics on the other hand seeks to build capacity and power. So going back to political identities. Here's an example. White is a political identity. The US white is conflated with multiple different ethnic backgrounds, but is used to justify superiority, but with the intentions of being anti black and anti indigenous. In the, in the US racialized groups have foreign political identities in response to white oppression with collectivizing power through unifying. For example, black became a political identity in the 60s within the black power movement. And with commentary using the phrase black power at a rally in 1966. Black American is a political identity uniting, uniting Japanese Chinese and Filipino Americans to college students with an explicit anti imperialist agenda, which was coined in 1968. I'm going to be sharing these prints that were made for the sole purpose of questioning our relationships to power, especially within the systemic white gaze on artists of color who are often pigeonholed in our works. So bad luck on the left is created an 18 or in 2018 with a copper edging on Reeves BFK, and it's supposed to replicate the signs that you put up to bring good luck and fortune into your home or into your store. But it actually just says fuck you. The piece on the right is titled it's a sign created in 2019 with fit geography on Reeves BFK and the characters on the lanterns are seen hung on a line. And the characters just trend are the characters are bought Paul which just translate to mean the word bitch. And the next piece is titled the hunter and the prey also created in 2019 with fit geography on Reeves BFK, which has the same concepts. And it's integrated with the teaching principles of Taoism with a snake fighting a crane, and then Chinese characters that just translate to this literally has no meaning. I wanted those who put any assumptions on my work to be able to put that very interaction under critique with an understanding of the structural powers that play in that very moment. In the poster I created last year during a meeting. After the murder of George Floyd in processing my emotions. I wanted to not towards the history of Afro Asian solidarity with yin yang principles decorated with a black panther and a yellow tiger. I especially wanted to create this poster, knowing that there was an Asian man specifically among men who had turned his back on George Floyd. While he was being murdered, and felt that it was really important to talk about where our placement is as Asian Americans in the oppression of black Americans. So this, these posters had gained a lot of traction on the internet, which I had identified the phrase with Richard Aoki holding the sign yellow peril supports black power at a protest in 1969. I was being sent a ton of photos of Asian folks holding these up at multiple rallies across the states which was really cool to see. A lot of Asian idols that I had grown up watching had reposted it as well and so just a flood of emotions during that time. So the first iteration of the poster is the one on the left and then brought forward a lot of critiques that had come forward from both Asian and black folks and calling me to take this work down. And, firstly, it was because of the reclamation of the term yellow peril and not wanting to take a term that felt really harmful to us as Asian Americans to be used on on a poster. Secondly, with Richard Aoki and his complicated history with whether or not he was an FBI informant and thirdly in centering Asian struggle when talking about black liberation. And so I was asked to change this image and I did. And so the one on the left is the one that you can access and see and is up on like my website and my Instagram. And collectively, it did feel as though like communities began to analyze the context for the phrases, like blank identity for black lives. There was a lot more critique around that than showing up and organizing and applying pressure in the streets for black lives. And so while these conversations are deeply important. It definitely felt like it began to be very counterproductive to the movement. I get asked a lot if I regret making this image and I really don't. There was a lot of learning and growth for me as an artist and as an organizer. But ultimately my goal was for people to understand that our struggles as black and Asian Americans are completely intertwined. Our liberation as a group of people does not come without others, and we cannot do any, any kind of solidarity work unless we understand our own relationships of power. So moving on to ethnic identity, which can be defined as cultural ties and kinship around among a group of people. So this can mean like a shared language, cultural dishes, folklore songs and etc. So ethnicity is not bound to borders or blood quantum. But blood quantum, if you're not familiar is being defined as the quantity of like native American blood that an individual possesses. This is often used as a tool by white supremacy to control indigenous nations and peoples. I want to say that ethnicity does not depend on nation states and blood quantum as a colonial construct used to justify white supremacy. And Nikki Chow writes that ethnic groups and identity will predate the creation of nation states and settler colonial states and will continue to outlast them. There's a saying in Taiwan that one is a tarot root if they're from Taiwan, because the root vegetables shape resembles the shape of Taiwan. I retuttle this piece recently for an exhibition at the Bellevue Arts Museum as my forebears in the shape of a tarot root to acknowledge my grandparents journey from Taiwan. And it was created in response to hearing some of the stories that my am I going carried with them but never felt compelled to share as histories of trauma are often uncomfortable to speak of. So it reads, she hid in caves from Japanese soldiers with all of her siblings, and he hid under the protection of guava trees from Japanese fighter pilots. The image in the middle was the official flag for the Republic of Formosa for about officially six months when it wasn't under Chinese or Japanese rule. So this piece was meant to create a soft and comfortable acknowledgement of the very real and very scary experiences that my Taiwanese grandparents and elders experienced. So, nationality is a legal status between a person and a nation. Nationality is rooted in legality and rights to protect colonial states best interests. It's a set of privileges of for who can access rights to land to resources and so power, and even specifically now like around vaccines as well. So citizenship in the US for example is commonly used as a justification for mass displacement. Though we have seen that being a US citizen does not allow everyone the same rights and privileges in law and practice. So the words white and American are often understood as the same. And it's clear that that is no coincidence at all. So that's the encouraged the continued encouragement of assimilation into whiteness that if we as non white non black and non indigenous peoples participate in these anti black and anti indigenous systems, we will have a better place in US racial hierarchy. The model minority myth is a huge factor for the experience of Asian Americans alike propping us up to be the good immigrant while weaponizing our identity against black and indigenous folks. So we, we know from an understanding of representation politics that this racial hierarchy ladder is like completely a lie that we will never be free in an unjust system. And if our success is at the expense of other suffering, why is this something that we continue to strive for assimilation is a lie and to give yourself the permission to reject it and heal from its continued harm on yourself and those around you, it is an act of self love and revolution. So in the spirit of solidarity work, I want to share some of these artworks. My incredible friends and organizer jam Wong once said, our ancestors didn't have the term for mutual aid because it was already inherent in our being and in our culture. People have always taken care of people. And that mutual aid is love. And this was a poster that was created in response to that after an event that Jim was speaking at after the inauguration, or actually after the election of Biden, and wanting to know that like whatever happens, we still take care of each other and mutual aids programs have been popping up everywhere and I created this poster as an income generating projects to help fund some of the mutual aid groundwork that has been happening in the community. And I want to be sharing a couple of like Chinese propaganda posters for solidarity. So these are a couple that I've come across that I'd really like to share. So this first one says, all reactionaries are paper tigers, people of the world unite to defeat the American invaders and they're running dogs. This was created in 1970. This one says resolutely support the anti imperialist struggle of the Asian African and Latin American people. This one was created in 1964. And this last one is says resolutely support the just struggle of black Americans created in 1963 with multilingual translations of oppose racial discrimination in the back. Being inspired by these historical posters, I created this image after the 20 arrests in the Philippines of queer protesters at pride, who are protesting the anti terror bill. This is a bill that was signed into law as of last year that dangerously allows for anyone who engages in any sort of governmental critique to be labeled as a terrorist. The quotes read revolution means protecting the people, the air, the water, revolution is love. And this is by Assad a Shakur. This work was created as an income generating project for on the client Seattle to raise awareness about the anti terror law and support the organizers fighting against it. The propaganda with histories of international solidarity really inspires a deeper understanding of a motivation to continue this legacy of work. So, my work now has become a practice of research and understanding the continued harms and trauma of us imperialism and the militarization of the state, both overseas and on these lands. I continue to try and learn from the community and offer art as a means of amplifying stories and demands to lead us to liberation of all oppressed peoples. I share this information with you in the hopes of collectivizing our knowledge and moving us forward to the abolition of these deeply and racially harmful structures and systems. I use this critical lens to understand that white supremacy is multicultural and multiracial is still white supremacy at its core. And furthermore, when we can understand ourselves through the lens of oppressive systems and our relationships to power, we can do our most effective work. That solidarity can be our most dangerous tool when we work together. So thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you all being here today. That was my presentation. Thank you so much money. That was amazing. So many lessons and knowledge. And thank you so much for sharing your story and making all of these connections for us. So I think we have some time before the 10 minute intermission, and maybe before the intermission we could take a few questions, if that's okay with you money. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay, so one of the questions is, what does gentrification mean. What does gentrification mean to you and how has it been defined by others or share some some knowledge about gentrification how it works. Yeah, so gentrification is a process of displacement that happens within generally like communities of color. And so you can see through a lot of examples specifically in Seattle where I mean a huge example is in the central district, which is a historically black neighborhood. A lot of black residents can't even afford to buy homes in that neighborhood anymore because the rising the rise in rent and amount of money that needs to go into it. So you can think of Uncle I X as an example to within the central district which is a marijuana dispensary, which is owned by a white man, and continues to contribute to the gentrification of that neighborhood so that like black folks cannot live there anymore because they're being priced out of this like historically black neighborhood. So you can see how, like, when there are new stores or shops being put in that do not basically support or advocate for the residents of that neighborhood they are. So we're reaching to gentrification of the neighborhood and pushing out the residents who have been there and have literally been there because of redlining which is a practice of not a practice of like basically not allowing people of color to live in that neighborhood. So, just as like the CID has been a historically like Asian immigrant neighborhood to serve those communities. It's the same with the central district where they do not have like the ability to stay there anymore due to gentrification and displacement and luxury apartments that like, none of the people who have been there could ever afford. So just recently in the CID, our first luxury apartment was built called the Coda apartments, which I believe are like just so much money and just towers over the entire neighborhood. So you can see like a lot of examples of gentrification and actually the Wing Luke Museum had a really good exhibition on redlining and how it's affected the shaping of Seattle and all the demographics within it. Thank you. Okay, a question from one of my students actually. Duncan would like to know what Formosa is. What is the name of a Formosa or the Republic of Formosa was what Taiwan was originally called. And you can see a lot of like Indigenous folks who wear like Formosan like fabric and textures and patterns. It's really cool to see and I definitely recommend looking into it more, especially as like, like Formosan attire like really relates or has a lot of like relationships to a lot of like mung clothing almost and just like in it's like colorful and decorative existence it's really beautiful. So maybe a few more questions before we'll take our intermission. There are a few more questions coming in lots of questions which is great so please continue to use the Q&A to ask questions. Nadine asked what advice do you have for young artists of color that want to get into different modes of art. Yeah, I'm taking that question as like different mediums I guess. I feel very lucky as like a student who got to have the opportunity to work in a lot of different fields but know that like, even though maybe school labs aren't accessible right now that there's a lot of like places where you can do a lot of different practices. I feel very guided by my emotions and how I want to express a lot of like my messages and what I want to share by materiality and so know that like, if you wanted to talk about, for example, like when I mentioned the glass pieces like I hadn't, that was like my second time with sculpture, and I got to get a grant from Pilchuck Glass School which is located in Stanwood, Washington. If you're not familiar like Washington is like kind of like a glass mecca. A lot of people from around the world go to Pilchuck Glass School and they have like three week classes but they also have a lot of scholarships that are open to a lot of students and so Yeah, I know that there are resources out there and that you can connect with those communities to find access. Okay. Maybe one more question before the break and then we have some great questions after that. Nancy asks what does the snake and crane represent again. So you mentioned the meaning of the Chinese characters but maybe we can go back and it's fun. Yeah, so there's a story about the person who was like had founded like some of the teaching principles, which is like a, like, like a Chinese like divination, using like understandings of changes it's called the Book of Changes and basically the story was about how he watched this fight happen between a crane and a snake and watching their movements. So really like informed this, the principles of like Yin and Yang to the way that they fought with like very with like large like wings and then also like this like slithering. I can find the story, maybe on the intermission I can share it but if you look up like symbols, or like the history of like the snake and crane like fighting, you'll be able to find a lot of stories around it. Thank you so much money and thank you to the audience for those questions I think we're going to take the short intermission right now. Welcome back. Hi line family, we are going to continue with some questions from the audience. And please do feel free to continue to ask questions. Things that come up even through these additional conversations that were happening. One question is, well first, they say thank you for sharing, showing us such rich, rich history, while some in the Asian American and Asian American Pacific Islander community have demonstrated true solidarity and advocated for justice, along with the black community. Some have been silent in the face of racial injustice targeting black or African Americans. Do you have any thoughts on how we as multi racial multi ethnic communities can come together to work for common goals without engaging in oppression Olympics. Thank you for this really great answer. I think it's pretty common or great question. I think that it's pretty common for us to hear a lot of sort of like, well think about who is enacting all of this like anti Asian hate. And I, I think that it's really important for us to look at these root causes. Once again, and so the idea of recognizing that like us imperialism is almost this like invisible like non tangible thing that it's really hard for folks to like grasp this concept of understanding that like the US has pitted these groups of people of color against each other. And so, with my own family it's been a really slow process of having these conversations pretty consistently to be talking about how we can critique our experience coming here. And why we have these like ideologies around like the American dream. What does that look like for us, and why were those stories of success not something that we could achieve in our motherland. So, I think in understanding the root causes of these issues or why, why there's already this sort of intended hate towards like, you know, or intended sense of conflict between black folks and Asian folks. We should really talk about that and get to the root cause of that because then we can understand that there are like discrepancies between like, why we would feel this way. And so, can you repeat the question one more time I think I like also went on a rant for God. Oh, I think you're still muted sorry. Yeah, so, so how, how can I think how can Asian Americans, or the API community address anti blackness or address the systemic injustices that black folks are faced and have faced for for a long time. Okay, thank you. I mentioned someplace but yeah if you want to add to it. Yeah, so, again, like recognizing that this is something that isn't between like Asian and black folks that this is something that is being pushed on to both Asian and black folks thinking about how the systems of oppression affect both of our communities. For example, thinking about like the killings that had happened in Atlanta, as like police have, have never been a opportunity or a place of serving protection to the black community but also to the Asian community we can think about, you know, the Asian sex who are not protected or cared for. All of our communities experienced so much trauma and harm from the police state and so recognizing that it's not between these two groups of people but rather like these groups of people experiencing harm and discrimination. And so we have to understand that like are the root of our oppression is from the same source, and that there doesn't, there isn't any way of our liberation coming without black liberation as well. And I think that a lot of the Asian communities. And I think that in terms of these conversations. And it's just something that we have to continue to prop up and and share especially share with our families and the people in our lives. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you money. Hi, I've noticed that your pronouns are they them and Asians as Asians it's hard to explain to parents that part of the LGBTQ experience or identity. What was your, what were your parents reactions that you were lesbian. And how can other Asians be encouraged to step up and be part of the LGBTQ community. Yeah, so I think as Asian American people. We are very like, we don't have access to a lot of stories or situations that aren't the like, regular, like tiger mom story, or outside of like our lunchbox moments, or like being kicked out because we didn't want to be a doctor. And I think that like we have to recognize that we can give our parents some, some grace to and that like I expected that of my family but I told them when I was a child that I was going to be an artist, no matter what and they, they completely supported my entire life in making sure that I could feel like I had resources to, to do that. My mom and dad are, they know that I'm queer, and I've brought partners home and I just kind of just did it without prefacing it all. And I had actually recently just come out to my mom as non binary but I think that may not be something that she can fully comprehend just yet. And she still does the, oh well like I have an exception because like you're my baby and I'm like going to call you she. And so it's, it's just a process and knowing that like, because we've always been shown these stories of like Asian Americans being pigeonholed with that like, I hope that your family can find a different like narrative and find some different modes of healing that and healing in the ways of your identity and sometimes those things just take time and to process and hopefully your parents will get there too. Okay, so another question is, Mommy, can you maybe remind us of the grassroots organizations you mentioned and the ways folks can donate and or resources, these different grassroots, resources for these grassroots community organizations. PS really dope talk today. Thank you. Yeah, I'm happy to share some of the organizations that I work with them and then also some of my favorites so I first started working with CID coalition which is specifically for Seattle's trying to town International District, working against and making sure that our residents, including houseless residents can have resources can focus on anti police solutions and being more community oriented. And that is a part of like a larger group called parasol, P a R I S O L which stands for Pacific rim solidarity network, full of diasporic Chinese and Taiwanese. We have ourselves Chinese misfits, leftist misfits, and also CID coalition is does work within coast to coast, which is a cross Chinatown organization that works with like, again, with the same principles of anti displacement with Chinatowns across Seattle Island. I also am a organizer within on the client Seattle which is a student based student and youth based organization for the liberation of the folks in the Philippines. And then a couple of others that I am closely with, or just like in friends with people who work in these organization organizations that are really cool. This is queer the land, which is about like. Sorry, I'm having a hard time with words this morning but with like, land share and like having community spaces for queer folks and then also trans women of color solidarity network, focusing specifically on black and people of color who are trans. Yeah. Thank you. I hope folks are taking notes and here is including some links in the chat as well. Thank you so much hair you're amazing. Okay. I think we have one last question, but there's still more time of folks. So have questions. Last, if it was not asked before what inspired you to create artwork, such as our artwork like the clash between the messages of the lanterns and the crane and viper. Yeah. So, overall, just like as a young kid, I had a really hard time with words and expressing verbally my emotions and so artwork was always something that I felt compelled to, and something that I could feel like people could understand me in the ways that I would want them to. And then, I guess moving forward in my life like creating artworks around this idea of identity or, you know, not having access to a lot of information or experiences around the Asian American experience. And that kind of also propelled me in that work. There is an article written by Cobina Mercer called black hair and style politics which is this great article I read that really shifted my views, because I was viewing my Asian American identity as something that was split between where I'm not Asian enough or not American enough. And Cobina Mercer talks about how afros and dreadlocks are inherently like this sign of black power, but is not found within like African cultures and that this is a very specifically African American thing. And, and I think that I found something so poetic and really special about that I think about the article a lot, because it was really healing for me to ignore these binaries between between like being Asian and being American where it's. I get to talk about my own experience and if that experience is me, like using Google translate to like use Chinese characters in my works like I'm not going to be ashamed of that because that's my experience. And so my work has been like what really inspires me is just like giving myself validity to be exactly who I am. I really want to heal this idea that like I've had to be something that I never was ever going to be able to achieve as like an Asian American person. And watching people see my work like I really hope that my work becomes like an invitation for people to feel like they have permission to be exactly who they are. I have permission to validate every part of their being, especially like however you bring yourselves to moments like these that every part of that is valid. And so, when I started making works about my identity it was just like I'm having, I'm having fun I'm having fun and validating like every part of me and like me not knowing what the symbols of like a snake and a crane fighting were and using it in my works because I just wanted people to like question why they put me in this position of, of like just making Asian American art even though I do, but I want you to question that. And so, like, I mean, now I'm a huge like practice area of like each thing and I actually have my teaching cards right next to my table, because I was doing readings for myself before this presentation and so my work has inspired like and been driven by trying to allow myself to, to know who I am and to, to learn it in a way that feels very safe and valid no matter what journey or experience it takes to get there was a really long answer but thank you for listening. Okay, so if there are no other questions. Let's see. Maybe for the last time together if anybody wants to. Yeah, questions still open. Thank you, Marie for and hero for including these links. So then I guess we will conclude the presentation today and again thank you money for your wisdom and sharing your story and powerful message. So in the chat feature you'll find a link to our unity week survey. And the feedback is critical enhancing enhancing our programs, and we would greatly appreciate it if you filled that out. And then please join us tomorrow at 1pm for another unity week event featuring Dr for your month work our sheet. We have included the zoom hyperlink in the chat. And also a slide up right now. And then we have a schedule for the full week of programming for the rest of the week. Here in a link that I will post, we can post right now. There we go. Awesome well thank you all for attending please join us tomorrow at 1pm for abolitionist lessons healing organizing towards education for liberation. One more question in the Q amp a thank you Doris. Let me ask out what are some ways you see your various intersecting identities, coming together in your work. Yeah. Let's see, I wish I could. I wish I had more works up onto like this slide as well. But. I think that there is in relationship to like my queerness and where that's coming from actually can I is it possible for me to share a photo of some of a piece of art. Absolutely. Okay, cool. Let me see if I can find it really quick. Shout out to geo to for sharing money's website, Instagram and email contact. I'm sorry I'm taking so long. I'm just trying to find the specific art piece. Just pull it up. Is it okay if I screen share. Yes. So this is the piece that I specifically wanted to talk about. And this one is called you thought power was the answer when vulnerability was the care. And so that piece is like specifically around. As a proclamation of queer love. And you can see sorry this slide show won't stop playing, but it's a vase and the character on top stands for medicine, which I felt like there was so much healing and recognizing my queer identity. The one that keeps propping up also is another one for queer love, and it translates as for true love. And so I found a lot of, I think I found a lot of like fun and excitement with an exploring how like using some of my works. I found a lot of my needs and, and my queerness in those pieces to. Yeah, include like that idea of labor as well, because those were created by the triography which is a process of creating a resist on top of a piece of glass and then altering the glass surface and using that to print with and it's a lot for me to find a lot of healing with queer love with someone who shares a lot of the same same qualities as me and is like also brown. And so I feel like that piece is a good representation of how like multiple parts of my identity come into play as a means of healing for my work. It's a lot of money. And yes, there's so many more great pieces and descriptions of money's work on their website, which is in the chat as well. Okay. Any other questions folks. Okay, alright so everyone please give me another round, give money another round of applause. Thank you so much for being with us today for this unity week abolitionist healing liberating our community. Appreciate you all and thank you to all the attendees as well, and the unity week committee. Thank you all so much. I appreciate you having me be here.