Cities, elected officials, and advocacy groups rally around a day to fight hate in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community and honor the legacy of Vincent Chin
Today — May 18, 2019 — marks the first-ever Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Day Against Bullying and Hate. This day is led by Act To Change, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending bullying in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. May 18 is also the birthday of Vincent Chin, who was brutally murdered in 1982, catalyzing a national Asian American movement. Cities and other municipalities across the country have officially declared this day. Act To Change is also partnering with elected officials, influencers, and other nonprofit organizations to spread the word and reaffirm a commitment to standing up to hate and bullying.
“We’re seeing an increasingly anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and xenophobic political climate, and kids are facing hate both in and outside the classroom,” says Act To Change Chairman and Co-Founder Maulik Pancholy. “That’s why this inaugural AAPI Day Against Bullying and Hate is so important in highlighting the urgency to act to change this.”
Supporters of AAPI Day Against Bullying and Hate include:
Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC
Boston City Council
City of Hoboken, New Jersey
City of Miami, Florida
City of Seattle, Washington
City of San Francisco, California
City of Torrance, California
Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
Congressman Frank Pallone
County of Burlington, New Jersey
County of Passaic, New Jersey
Georgia State Representative Sam Park
Governor Phil Murphy
Japanese American Citizens League
Los Angeles City Council
Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago
National Council of Asian Pacific Americans
New York City Council Members Margaret Chin and Peter Koo
OCA — Asian Pacific American Advocates
Senator Bob Menendez
Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
State of New Jersey Senate and General Assembly
To join the conversation on social media, use #DayAgainstBullying and #ActToChange. Through its website ActToChange.org, Act To Change offers anti-bullying and anti-hate resources including in multiple Asian languages.
Pancholy states, “This day is part of a larger movement of uplifting communities across the country, promoting a culture of tolerance and safety, and celebrating our differences.”
This post was originally published on The Mash-Up Americans. The Mash-Up Americans explores culture, race, and identity in America and what makes us who we are. Check out The Mash-Up Americans website, subscribe to their podcast, and sign up for their weekly newsletter.
Compassion is contagious.
Every day we celebrate the raucous diversity that is Mash-Up America. One of our greatest joys is meeting people whose stories are foreign to us, whose cultures and traditions we know nothing about, and learning from them and sharing our own.But it takes strength to celebrate our differences, and sometimes, being mashy can be tough, especially for a kid. Bullying is real. Even years later, you can find yourself vulnerable to the same anger and fear you felt as a child. Our Sikh-American Mash-Up Rupinder Singh shares with us what happened when he faced his childhood nemesis, and the choice he made. [Editor’s note: It was a good one.] Oh, and have you seen Rupinder’s best tips for turning anger into hope?
Without warning, a routine trip to the bank threw me back to my childhood, and dropped me at an emotional crossroads.
Growing up, I was smaller than most boys my age. I was shy, introverted, and a bit nerdy. As a child of immigrants, I was constantly playing catch up with my peers in terms of understanding western culture, having to figure out for myself what that even was. I had brown skin, long hair, and wore a patka, a Sikh article of faith worn by children to cover our hair. Needless to say, I stood out.
The author and his patka.
My appearance didn’t do me a lot of favors at school. I dreaded walking the hallways, because that was when other students, at best, would call me all kinds of names as I passed by them, or at worst, would grab at my turban and sometimes even try to pull it off. Given my size, I would try to silently ignore these kids instead of confront them, but that wasn’t entirely successful. I could only block so many hands, and my resolve could only be so strong in the face of constant harassment. I remember one day in the ninth grade when, in the midst of going through this torment in the middle of a class, I simply broke down and wept in front of my tormentors, who then lost interest in continuing to toy with their prey.
Fast forward to me as a grown man, walking into the bank for a simple errand. When it was my turn in line, I approached the teller. The instant I saw his name tag, I knew who he was. Let’s call him “Joe.”
I had a flashback to Joe grabbing my patka, and laughing. I remembered the shame and powerlessness I felt when he mocked me in front of my classmates. Joe never let an opportunity to bully me pass him by. As a kid, I was resigned to the fact that he would humiliate me any time he got a chance. And he did, every time. In fact, on his last day in our school, he made it a point to find me so he could grab my turban one last time. Shaming me was that important to him.
Now I stood in front of him in the bank, and he was serving me. I was taller than him. I wore a man’s full turban now, a beard and mustache.
As he helped me with my transaction, I could feel myself filling with anger. I looked him straight in the eye.
I wanted to say something, but I also was curious to see if he would recognize me and say something first. Would he apologize for what he did to me as a teen? Would he laugh it off? Perhaps he thought so little of what he did to that boy so many years ago, that he wouldn’t even remember. The thought made me more furious, and as Joe began stamping deposit slips, I felt my temperature rising.
I wanted Joe to know that despite how demeaned and humiliated I felt because of his actions back in school, I stood before him that day with my identity intact. He, and all the others like him, did not break me.
And I admit: There was also a part of me that wanted to dare him to touch my turban now. I wanted him to try so I could grab him and pull him over the counter by the collar, and humiliate him as he did to me all those many years.
However, as the minutes flew by, I did nothing and said nothing. I politely completed my transaction with him and left. I could have caused a confrontation, but what would that have even meant to him? I would have been the crazy guy with a turban who attacked him randomly in the bank and had to be thrown out by security. And what would it have meant to me? It would have changed nothing about our past. Even as I write this now, I can feel that anger welling up inside me. Joe’s bullying is probably not something he’s needed to come to terms with in his life, but for me, that damage was done, and indeed, it clearly lingers.
Whenever I see a Sikh child in this country, especially one wearing a patka as I did, I wonder about what that child might be going through in school. Is there a Joe in that child’s life? Are they facing what I did when I was their age? It’s enough to dampen my eyes.
Selfie-ing and campaigning against bullying in the nation’s capitol.
And yet, I’m actually thankful that I went through the bullying. When as a child, I felt threatened to go to school, faced all kinds of abuse and yet still maintained my religious articles of faith without question, I know that today there is nothing I can’t face. Those experiences have made me a stronger, more confident Sikh, and a stronger, more compassionate man.
I can’t change the past. But I’ve learned to accept my own experiences and be constructive. I free myself from my anger by advocating for anti-bullying policies and laws, educating teachers and school administrators about Sikh children and the issues we face in their schools, and mentoring Sikh youth. I have found allies in these issues, and I hope that many find an ally in me. In some ways, my anger has empowered me to do what I couldn’t as a child, and has given me hope that together, we’re creating a safer, kinder world for our kids.
Love wins. We promise.
This post was originally published on The Mash-Up Americans. The Mash-Up Americans explores culture, race, and identity in America and what makes us who we are. Check out The Mash-Up Americans website, subscribe to their podcast, and sign up for their weekly newsletter.
“As a transracial adoptee, I suffered a double layer of bullying because I was Asian, especially as an Asian in an all-white background….Being constantly bullied as a child into young adulthood didn’t give me the confidence to dare to stand out and be different as it stripped away my sense of self. Without a mirror image of myself in the media, I had to create my own narrative as a child. As an adult, this helped me stand in my own truth: to be brave and unapologetically Asian.”
Amazin LeThi, the founder of the Amazin LeThi Foundation which is an international charity organization to end LGBTQ bullying and HIV/AIDS discrimination in the Asian community, wrote in her blog posted on Act To Change. As the first Asian Athlete Ally Ambassador and a fearless fighter for anti-bullying in Asian LGBTQ community, LeThi has come a long way and realized how Asians stereotypes portrayed in media, the lack of exposure of Asians in media, and the short of support systems and a mirror image deepen the stigma for Asian LGBTQ community.
“Asian youth are bullied the most out of all ethnic groups, yet nobody talks about it. In the U.S., I’ve never felt so invisible, because we (Asians) are portrayed as this non-threatening, invisible model minority community that ‘nothing have ever happened to us,’” LeThi said when asked about what makes Asians anti-bullying issues so important and urgent. The invisibility of Asian community in day-to-day conversations and those in politics and media frustrated LeThi. Therefore, she decided to collaborate with the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). When Act To Change, a public awareness campaign working to address AAPI community bullying problems, was launched last year in October, she came on board as a supporting partner to share her stories with oppressed Asians.
“What lots of people don’t realize is that if you’re Asian LGBTQ, you’re suffered from racism and homophobia,” she said. These two layers, sexuality and racial minority, put Asian under double pressures. For example, Asian men are desexualized and demasculinized, while Asian women are seen as subservient. Then there comes the more known stereotypes people have on LGBTQ community. When one multiply those discriminations, Asian LGBTQ people are very susceptible to be bullied. What’s more? “Because of the racial stereotype”, LeThi said, “Asian LGBTQ are the victims of bullying within the LGBTQ community. They are not fully respected nor treated equally even in the community they belong to.”
“When I think of Act To Change and the issue of bullying in the Asian community, talking about coming out is not enough. We need to talk about the intersection as well because it’s so much about our culture, who we are as a person, how the media portrays Asian people, and how people see us.” — Amazin LeThi
When talking about other Asian cultures, LeThi said, “Because we are brought up to think about what kind of job we are going to have and if it is going to be a good job at the end of life to be able to support the family, the idea of coming out obviously brings on a lot of shame and pressure from our own community that encourages people to conform.” Because she sees Asians are conformists and such picture can be changed, LeThi wants to use more digital platforms to share the stories of Asians who can be the mirror images for those suffering from bullying or their intersectional identities. “We need to speak up,” as LeThi mentioned more than 3 times during the interview.
The problem that causes bullying can also be seen in Asian athlete community. Many Asians youth love to go into sports. However, due to the stereotype that “Asians are weak,” many have been discouraged and more so for Asian LGBTQ. LeThi said that we need more Asian athletes to come out or, at the very least, to publicly become an ally. “We need the support from both inside and outside of the Asian community,” she said.
Syeda Raza is currently a college student and E3! Ambassador through the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
For many students in America, bullying is a daily reality that contributes to them feeling stressed, unsafe, and distracted from learning. Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students, as well as Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian (MASSA) students, can be bullied based on their religion, appearance, immigration status, language skills, and more. In honor of National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, we are highlighting the voice of Syeda Raza, who recounts her experience growing up Muslim in America:
“During the 23 years that my family has lived in America, my parents and I never faced verbal abuse or harassment until recently. I remember my dad coming home angry one day. When I asked about what happened, he responded with a pain in his voice that a lady asked him if he was Muslim. He said yes to the woman, only to see her start ranting about how Muslims are invading and destroying this country. She insulted him about his faith, nationality, and immigrant background. My dad tried to be respectful to the woman and tell her how this country is his family’s home. He also told her he immigrated here to give his daughter the best chance at life. But it was clear that these words meant nothing to her.
“What disturbs me even more is how the current climate is affecting young children. As an educator, it hurts me to hear a sixth grade student say that she didn’t think she could be the first American Muslim president because she thought too many people hated Muslims. I believe children and adolescents are constantly accepting the information they hear and read through various forms of media.
“Educators need to support their Muslim students in a time when people are judging and blaming the Muslim community. My favorite teachers were always those who respected my Muslim identity and encouraged open discussions in the classroom. As an educator, my students deserve a classroom culture where their diverse experiences and backgrounds are valued. This is exactly the kind of mindset that needs to extend beyond the classroom doors and into other spaces.”
To learn more about what schools and communities can do to help protect children from different ethnicities and faiths against bullying, please visit StopBullying.gov Who is at Risk and Consideration for Specific Groups sections. Additionally, you may want to read the AAPI Bullying Prevention Task Force Report, developed by the Asian American and Pacific Islander Bullying Prevention Task Force.
This blog post is part of ActToChange.org’s features of voices against bullying. “Act To Change” is a public awareness campaign to address bullying, including in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. For more information, visit www.ActToChange.org.
Among those who have taken the #ActToChange pledge are: Forrest Wheeler, actor (ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat); Hudson Yang, actor (ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat); Albert Tsai, actor (ABC’s Dr. Ken); Parvesh Cheena, actor/comedian (My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend); Jon Jon Briones, actor/singer (Miss Saigon); Ai Goeku Cheung, actor/singer (Miss Saigon); Deedee Magno Hall, actor/singer (Steven Universe, Miss Saigon); DAN aka DAN, alternative hip hop artist; The Filharmonic, a capella sensation (Pitch Perfect 2 and NBC’s Sing Off); Jennie Kwan, actor/singer (Avenue Q, Avatar: The Last Airbender); Megan Lee, actor/singer (Nickelodeon’s Make it Pop); The Poreotics (MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew); AJ Rafael, singer/songwriter, YouTube star; SETI X, rapper; Beau Sia, Tony Award-winning spoken word artist (Def Poetry Jam); Sam Futerman, actor/filmmaker (Twinsters); Perry & Danielle, singing duo; Minji Chang, Kollaboration Executive Director/actor; Mike Bow, actor (The Maze Runner, Comfort); Matt Almodiel, singer; and Lance Lim, actor (Independence Day, School of Rock).
This week during Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, join #ActToChange and take a stand against bullying!
Every day, kids of all ages experience bullying in schools across the country. In the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, this problem is often compounded by cultural, religious, and linguistic barriers that can make it harder for AAPI youth to seek and receive help. Anecdotal evidence has shown that certain AAPI groups – including South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Micronesian, LGBT, immigrant, and limited English proficient youth – are more likely to be the targets of bullying. And in some areas, bullying of AAPI students can be shockingly common.
Identify barriers to reporting bullying and harassment
Understand obstacles to full and equal access to remedial and support resources
Analyze data on bullying and harassment in the AAPI community
Improve the federal government’s outreach and resources
Today, during the fifth annual Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Summit, I’m proud to announce the release of a report highlighting the experiences of AAPI students facing bullying around the country. The Summit will convene federal officials and community members to discuss strategies to combat bullying particularly in high-risk populations, including Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian students.
Over the last two years, the AAPI Task Force conducted nationwide outreach to students, families, community members, advocacy groups, and community-based organizations. The AAPI Task Force hosted 29 listening sessions across the country, and conducted an informational survey that collected responses from 30 community-based organizations.
Through its outreach, the AAPI Task Force has gained key insights:
Students from all AAPI communities are subjected to bullying and harassment of all types.
AAPI students are bullied by a range of other students, including other AAPI students and students of other backgrounds.
Circumstances of bullying often include, but are not limited to: limited English proficiency, cultural stereotypes, national origin and immigrant generation, and religion and religious attire.
Many AAPI students and parents are not aware of resources and avenues of remediation available at the local, state, and federal levels.
The work of the AAPI Task Force has shed light on the important need to address bullying in the AAPI community and strategies to tailor outreach to this community. As we close out the AAPI Task Force’s work, let us recommit ourselves to continue working toward achieving real solutions to preventing and ending bullying for all.
Dour Thor is the Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which is housed within the U.S. Department of Education. This post is cross-posted from the White House Blog.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Educational Opportunities Section, and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders issued a fact sheet that includes examples of forms of discrimination that members of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) and Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian (MASSA) communities commonly face.
The fact sheet in English PDF and in other languages about combating discrimination against Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) and Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian (MASSA) students.
Unfortunately, these are considered legitimate defenses to bullying in our society. Bullying is pervasive in communities across the country; however, bullying in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities can stem from an entirely different motive. Subtle microaggressions stemming from anti-immigrant sentiments or white privilege can quickly stem into physical, sexual, or emotional bullying. Bullying of children in the AAPI community, no matter the perpetrator, can substantially impact the well-being of children and their views about their place in society and sense of belonging.
I was lucky in my childhood – I wasn’t bullied, but plenty of my peers were. As my generation was becoming known for the use of social media, the internet was becoming the new venue for online harassment, on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Formspring. In Iowa, the development of technology was not reflected in our legal system. If a complaint of cyberbullying was brought to school officials, the administration had no legal jurisdiction to protect the victim or punish the perpetrator, because the bullying occurred online and outside of school property. This created a huge gap in the frequency of bullying and the extent to which school administrators could protect their students’ emotional and educational well-being. Through my involvement in the Iowa Youth Congress, a mock congress of high school students, we proposed a bill in the Iowa State Legislature that would close this gap and protect students from being bullied online.
In the summer of 2015, I was an Advocacy Intern at the Hindu American Foundation. Dr. Murali Balaji, our Director of Education and Curriculum Reform, approached me with a project, analyzing bullying among Hindu students across the nation. While conducting this research, I reflected on my high school work on bullying. I realized that my experiences helped me empathize and work with other victims of bullying. By talking to friends and victims of bullying across Iowa, I learned that those defenses to bullying, the “boys will be boys”, are a part of a rhetoric that works against our youth and it defends harassment as an inherent part of our society. That facet of our society is incredibly detrimental to our children. Bullying leads to worse performance in school, and has mental and emotional effects that can even lead to self-harm or suicide. Treating bullying as normal perpetuates a system that normalizes harassment. Breaking down this system is integral to boost the well-being of children who are bullied, especially minority and AAPI children. Working for legislation and conducting research and reports on bullying, are all work that contributes to awareness of bullying, and recognizes that it should not be tolerated by our society. Campaigns like Act To Change play an integral role in empowering youth, educators, and lawmakers to treat bullying as a serious problem. That’s why we can no longer sit on the sidelines: we have to Act to Change.
Aditi Dinakar is a rising Junior at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. She is studying Marketing and Health Administration and Policy. She hopes to work in government affairs, advocacy, and public policy arena. Last summer, she was an intern for the Hindu American Foundation, where she worked on the intersection of faith and bullying among Hindus in America. Aditi is passionate about women’s rights, Asian American rights and representation, and new ice cream flavors.
Hindu American students continue to be bullied and feel socially ostracized for their religious beliefs, according to results of Hindu American Foundation’s nationwide survey of middle and high school students. Download the report here.
This blog post is part of ActToChange.org’s features of voices against bullying. “Act To Change” is a public awareness campaign to address bullying, including in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. For more information, visit www.ActToChange.org
Kids. They pick on each other for such ridiculous things. One of my most distinct memories from 5th grade is my classmates snickering about how much I clicked my pen, and commenting about how it made me “gay” (a word en vogue at the time as something bad that none of us really understood). Although it’s almost funny in retrospect, it was quite troubling at the time, and led me to go home in tears. I had to buy a new pen to stop my classmates from teasing me with a slur I didn’t even understand. While this was a minor trifle, easily solved, a lot of the other bullying I faced in middle school was more insidious and damaging – not to mention much more difficult to “solve”. I’m a Hindu American, and I grew up in Texas with textbooks that represented my religion in a way that inspired an inaccurate, misogynistic, exclusivist understanding of Hinduism. The kids in class asked what caste I was, why I worshipped cows, and confidently told me that I was going to hell. I could throw away a malfunctioning pen, but the impact that the snickering, insolent questions, and sarcasm from my teachers had on my understanding of who I was and what I believed was something that actually shook my sense of self. That took far more work to repair. I understood my faith to be grounded in pluralism (a step beyond tolerance), and the basis for my moral values (essentially, who I was). To be told that Hinduism was actually the source of discrimination, that it didn’t value me highly as a woman, and that its ancient practices were too weird to accept in our modern American classroom made me feel small and almost deserving of the thinly veiled disdain I received from even my friends. Bullying is a terrible thing in every form, but when attacks come at who a person is… the wounds cut deeply, and infection is a great threat. This experience isn’t mine alone, and not just one faced by Hindus; it’s one that so many Asian Americans face, and why the Act To Change campaign is such an important movement towards empowerment.
As an adult, the only balm I’ve found is in remembering that a textbook, a teacher, or a confused friend can’t define who I am, or what my faith is. I define my narrative. The prouder I am of that, the easier it is for my siblings, for my nephews and nieces, for the kids I’ve mentored, to own who they are as well.
Hindu American students continue to be bullied and feel socially ostracized for their religious beliefs, according to results of Hindu American Foundation’s nationwide survey of middle and high school students. Download the report here.
Kavita Pallod is a graduate of the University of Texas and a current doctoral student pursuing her Psy.D in Clinical Psychology at Rutgers University. She is an Executive Council Member of the Hindu American Foundation, a participating member of Act to Change. She hopes to use her passion for her faith and her former teaching background to create fair, accurate, representative resources on Hinduism for teachers to use in their classrooms. She is also invested in mental health, and bridging the gap between the Hindu American community and mental health resources.
This blog post is part of ActToChange.org’s features of voices against bullying. “Act To Change” is a public awareness campaign to address bullying, including in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. For more information, visit www.ActToChange.org