When Tragedy strikes: a Processing Tool for the asian american community

A step-by-step guide to help Asian Americans process their feelings & figure out how they want to respond when tragic events happen to and within the community.

The Four Pillars of White Supremacy

This chart describes the Four Pillars of White Supremacy, adapted from the book I Bring the Voices of My People by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, and includes specific examples that relate to the Asian American experience.

Building a plan to counter anti-blackness

This handout presents a framework for individuals to build a plan to counter their anti-Blackness and move towards pursuing solidarity. It was originally created with an Asian American audience in mind, though would likely be useful to many others.

Anti-Racism for Asian Americans

This handout describes a three-pronged approach for Asian Americans who want to begin pursuing anti-racism in their lives.

Anti-Racism for Asian American - Chinese

This handout describes a three-pronged approach for Asian Americans who want to begin pursuing anti-racism in their lives, graciously translated into Chinese by Eltice Lin.

Anti-Racism for Asian Brazilians - portuguese

This handout describes a three-pronged approach, originally created for Asian Americans who want to begin pursuing anti-racism in their lives, graciously adapted and translated for Asian Brazilians into Portuguese by Juily Manghirmalani.

13th the movie Guiding questions

This is a set of 23 questions to guide viewers through the movie The 13th by Ava DuVernay. It is followed by two prayers from Kenji Kuramitsu’s A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer, 2017. Because the documentary moves quickly and covers a thorough amount of information, these questions were designed to help students keep track of the topics being covered and take notes. These questions were originally created for a group of Christians.

Setting goals to maintain hope - Brené brown

Dr. Brené Brown’s research shows that people often lost hope because they set poor quality goals. This worksheet breaks down the steps Dr. Brown outlines as needed to set better quality goals to be more in creating the change we seek.

Cultural appropriation: is this a good idea?

Most of us aren’t trying to appropriate another person’s culture, but sometimes it can be confusing to understand what “counts” as appropriation versus appreciation. This handout includes a handy-dandy chart defining appropriation versus appreciation followed by seven clarifying questions to ask yourself in your decision-making process.

Taiwanese American immigrant story questions

These interview questions correspond with the video “Taiwanese American Immigrant History” by Chungchin Chin & Yehru Lee, which can be found here on YouTube. These questions are meant to encourage conversation within the families of those who immigrated from Taiwan to the U.S. in the 1960s & 1970s.

white supremacy in language communication: sports analogy

Based on a framework of comparing different cultural communication styles from around the world to different sports, which is taken from field of teaching English as a Foreign Language, this handout builds on that sports analogy to show how when put under the lens of white supremacy, the communication style of white cultures are upheld as “normal” or “superior” while other communication styles are seen as less than.

When I was a young adult, I began noticing that I felt stifled in certain conversational settings. When I was in predominantly white spaces, even when I tried, I sensed that there was something unseen happening that prevented me from joining in the flow of conversation. But when I was in predominantly Asian American spaces, I had no problems joining the conversation in a carefree and lively manner. When I was earning a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate, I was introduced to this sports analogy of describing different language communication styles and felt like it was explaining my personal conundrum. Even though I was speaking English, I was likely raised with an East Asian communication style, which made it difficult for me to participate freely in conversations conducted in a white American conversation style even though we were technically speaking the same language.

Turning this analogy into a chart clarifies what likely happens in many settings, especially work places, where a white conversational style is seen as the norm, and Americans who speak with a different conversational styles may be punished as being seen as “too quiet” or “too loud” or “not a good cultural fit”.