By Benny Poon and Ryan Yee, April 9th 2021
On Thursday, April 8th 2021, Monte Jade West hosted a community town hall to raise awareness, and inspire a call for action against anti-Asian violence and discrimination. The past year saw an overall crime rate decreasing by 7%, yet crimes against the Asian community increased by 150%. Our community endured microaggressions, racial slurs, physical attacks and murders.
The town hall discussion kicked off with an opening from Denise Peck, with a poem titled “I Said Nothing'', by Anuja Doshi Burns. The poem described the discrimination and violence faced by the Asian-American community, and highlighted the importance of speaking out against racism and xenophobia, allyship with other minority groups, and not buying into the model minority myth. Following the poem, Bing Han, Daniel Hu, David Chen & Rebecca Liao, Johnson Wu, Peter Chu, Willa Wan, and Yan Xiao, shared their personal experiences and views with the audience. We learnt that racism has many shapes and forms, and how deeply rooted it is in America. We heard the importance of not hiding in our bubble, but speaking out and educating our friends and allies in our workplace and communities, to change the views on Asians and Asian-Americans.
In all, 49 Monte Jade members participated in the virtual town hall discussion. The participants overwhelmingly found the session to be useful and would like to attend future sessions related to this topic. At the end of the session, we also received a resounding call for action.
Please find the curated list of resources for our members below.
Resources
Recommended Reading:
Harvard Gazette - A Long History of Bigotry Against Asians