Episode 3: This AAPI Heritage Month, "We Will Not Be Used" Transcript

Sonya: Alright we’re goin’.

Alice: Wait! Is this—

Kylie: Okay cool. Vocal exercises. [laughs] Um, just kidding, I’m fine. Okay.

[intro music]

Kylie: Welcome back to Insomniac Librarians! I'm Kylie.

Sonya: And I'm Sonya.

Kylie: And Jenni couldn’t make it for this episode, but today we’re so excited to be hosting a good friend of ours, an incredible educator, activist, economics scholar, and much much more, packaged in five feet two inches of pure funk, Alice Cheng everyone! Everyone say welcome Alice!

Sonya: Welcome Alice!

Alice: Wow, [laughs] thank you for that introduction Kylie. I'm kind of laughing because Kylie gases me up too much and always gets my height wrong because I'm actually five foot eight.

Kylie: Well, that’s not quite… no. [laughs]

Sonya: [laughs]

Alice: It's lovely regardless to be on this podcast, and for those of you who don't know, Kylie, Sonya, Jenni, and I went to the same high school, which is how we know each other. And a little bit about myself—I'm really interested in equity in education and my work throughout college and now revolves around that, and I'm super excited to be here with you and to get into today's essay.

Kylie: Yes, okay. So first of all, how was everyone's week as we enter into—drumroll please—Gemini season.

Kylie: Um, okay, well, for those who may not follow astrology, first of all, you should start, and second of all, Gemini season is a notoriously chaotic time so fasten your seatbelts. Sonya, Alice, how is it hanging?

Sonya: Well as you know Kylie, I just ate an egg today because I accidentally texted you instead of my mom. [laughs]

Kylie: Yeah, I did get that—I was really confused about it, but honestly it sounded good. Um, I'm happy for you to have breakfast at this time of the day, which is to 2:30pm, [laughs] it’s fine, I haven’t really—

Sonya: [laughs] Don’t expose me Kylie!

Kylie: I'm sorry, I—okay, I apologize for that. Um, Alice, how is it hanging over there in five feet eight land?

Alice: Well, speaking of eating things, I only ate some cheese today, which is probably not great.

Kylie: Oh my god.

Alice: Because my mom, she likes these frozen pizzas but she hates cheese—

Kylie: Oh, interesting.

Alice: —so she makes me eat the cheese and she’ll just eat everything else so it's like tomato sauce and bread, I guess.

Kylie: And flatbread.

Sonya: Interesting.

Well that's interesting. I think that's how my dad eats it, and I’m always—but I don’t eat his cheese, I feel like that's a boundary I wouldn't cross, personally.

Sonya: [laughs]

Alice: I mean I like the cheese, and she tells me to eat the cheese, okay, so I'm doing her a favor.

Kylie: Okay, okay.

Sonya: Mutually beneficial, okay.

Alice: I'm doing myself a disservice because I'm lactose intolerant, actually, so everything is just chaotic.

Sonya: Oh whoa.

Kylie: Well, I am glad that you guys are eating. I'm a relatively new dog mom, so if you hear any growling that's either my stomach or my Chihuahua pitbull named Bucky. Being a dog mom is definitely adding an extra layer of stress and chaos to my plans to move in a bit, and I'm also starting a new job that I'm really excited about, so a lot is happening.

Sonya: A lot is happening indeed. But there’s a special reason we have Alice on the pod today, and it’s to join us in celebrating AAPI Heritage Month this May as we’re recording, with a discussion of lawyer and activist Mari Matsuda’s essay, “We Will Not Be Used: Are Asian-Americans the Racial Bourgeoisie?”

Kylie: Some background on the essay—Alice first referenced it to me in um, I think 2019, when we were shopping in Target I believe for some fun, pre-pandemic times! So the essay was originally a speech that Mari Matsuda gave to the Asian Law Caucus in 1990, and it was republished in her book, Where Is Your Body? And Other Essays on Race, Gender, and the Law.

Kylie: So we’re really excited to dig in, especially in this moment of increased awareness of Asian-American struggles, activism, and persistent anti-Asian sentiment in the US. This essay, in my opinion, really strikes at the heart of a lot of what’s been missing in recent Stop Asian Hate dialogue, so I am very excited to discuss!

Kylie: So Alice, I feel like you’re really the expert here, having led just years of incredible activism for ethnic studies at Harvard, and also organizing to support affirmative action in the lawsuit against Harvard using Asian-American students’ faces to try to end affirmative action. Would you care to summarize Mari Matsuda’s piece for our listeners?

Alice: Wow Kylie, you speak too highly of me, gassing me up a lot. Um, it was definitely a group of us working together on these efforts and a lot of collective organizing so it definitely wasn’t just me. But in terms of the summary, in Mari Matsuda’s essay, she addresses The Asian Law Caucus, which was the original public interest law firm serving the Asian-American community.

Alice: In the intro of the essay it states that the Asian Law Caucus “was built up from scratch by young, radical lawyers who carried files in their car trunks and stayed up all night to type their own briefs.” So her essay is about the role of Asian Americans when it comes to social justice, how we as Asian Americans are the “racial bourgeoisie” which means that we have the choice to strive for whiteness or we also have the choice, as she says, to “[refuse] to buy into racial hierarchy, [to refuse] to abandon communities of Black and Brown people, choosing instead to form alliances with them”—so that’s the end quote.

Alice: She gives several historical and current examples and these examples, they speak to the internal work that Asian-Americans need to do to be in solidarity with other people of color to strive for collective liberation. And that’s kind of my take slash summary of it, and Sonya and Kylie, feel free to jump in.

Sonya: Thanks so much Alice, that’s a perfect summary. To give a better sense of Mari’s speech, Iet’s share some of our favorite quotes and excerpts, that really resonated with us!

Alice: Okay, I can start us off then. The first quote is: “Marx wrote of the economic bourgeoisie—the small merchants, the middle class, the baby capitalists—who were deeply confused about their self-interest. The bourgeoisie, he said, often emulate the manners and the ideology of the big-time capitalists. They are the wannabes of capitalism.”—Sorry I said that so weird. [laughs]—”Struggling for riches, often failing, confused about the reasons why, the economic wannabes go to their graves thinking that the big hit is right around the corner.”

Kylie: Thanks Alice. This quote really resonated with me as just a perfect setup for a thoughtful piece on Asian-American identity in the US today, because I really do think many middle and upper middle class Asian families and communities who have, quote, “made it” in America identify very much with the capitalist tradition and with themselves as assuming the identity of the white capitalists.

Kylie: But they don't recognize that that status is conditional, really, on their political submission and they don't realize that the class that they identify with will never actually welcome them in return.

Kylie: Well, I can go ahead and read the next quote. “The role of the racial middle is a critical one. It can reinforce white supremacy if the middle deludes itself into thinking it can be just like white if it tries hard enough. Conversely, the middle can dismantle white supremacy if it refuses to be the middle, if it refuses to buy into racial hierarchy, if it refuses to abandon communities of Black and Brown people, choosing instead to form alliances with them.”

Kylie: So Alice already really alluded to and kind of summarized this, and you know, and this quote, in many ways, and for many Asian American communities, I think there's an extent to which they're welcomed and embraced by whiteness and by white and elitist institutions.

Kylie: And I do think, you know, from my experiences and from our shared experiences really, growing up in kind of this middle class, and in some parts upper middle class, predominantly Asian communities, I think we see a lot of—um, many—Asian families within these spaces and communities kind of choosing those conditional privileges, of joining those institutions, over the solidarity of organizing with poor or less privileged Asians and with Black and Brown and Indigenous folks.

Alice: Yeah. I think that's definitely true, I think also Mari Matsuda certainly critiques Asian-Americans who have decided to be closer to whiteness, but this quote highlights the agency that Asian-Americans have as the racial middle as well.

Alice: I think it shows that Asian-Americans can choose to be more proximate to whiteness or we can choose instead to be in solidarity with Black, Brown, and Indigenous folks. And I'm also thinking about how diverse Asian-Americans are and how our identities, class status, ethnicity, ability, gender and sexuality, etc., and experiences within this Asian-American umbrella also influence our decision on if we want to buy into the racial hierarchy that white supremacy has built or if we want to work in solidarity with other communities pushing for social justice.

Sonya: You both already said kind of the important things about this quote, so my edition is kind of silly, but this reminds me of major and minor triads in music. The middle note, the third from the root, is the one that determines whether that triad is major or minor- without it, you wouldn’t be able to tell. It plays a critical role in the triad, just as Matsuda says the racial middle plays a critical role in white supremacy; don’t overlook its importance.

Kylie: Oh that’s so cool, [British? accent] I had not thought of that, but wow.

Alice: Wow Kylie. [laughs]

Kylie: Oh my God.

Sonya: Alright, so our next quote is: “I remember my mother’s stories of growing up on a sugar plantation on Kauai. She tells of the Portuguese luna or overseer. The luna rode on a big horse and ordered the Japanese and Filipino workers around. The luna in my mother’s stories is a tragic-comic figure. He thinks he is better than the other workers, but he doesn’t realize that the plantation owner considers the luna sub-human, just like the other workers. … cloaked in self-delusion and false pride.”

Kylie: Okay, thank you Sonya. Well not to get abstract, but this quote really made me think almost immediately of computer engineers today, or I think more broadly, like Asian Americans working in tech who make really good salaries and therefore don't really question their working conditions, or how they're still being exploited relative to how much the capitalists that they work under profit from their labor without performing any of that labor themselves, and so to me it kind of seems like a mirage or it’s in many ways the self delusion that Mari Matsuda talks about where the amount of money that they make relative to those who might work under them convinces them that they can safely identify with the capitalist class.

Kylie: But in the future, we already know about, you know, the huge pushes by big tech to make everyone an engineer starting extremely young and we know how anti-union big tech is as well, and I think it's very concerning to think about what could happen in the future when there is a surplus of engineering labor, and there's no unions or organizing because, you know, just for years there's been that comfort fostered among people who work in this space with the white capitalist class when we know that that self-identification only goes one way. But yeah that's really what I thought of immediately with that little excerpt.

Alice: Yeah and Kylie, something you're also making me think about is like—this is also a little abstract—but like how a lot of our educational institutions kind of, like, uphold this idea of success as capitalist success and there's not much, I think, inquiry or questioning about these different working conditions… yeah.

Sonya: That just made me think about how whenever—like especially I remember in high school when people asked you what you wanted to major in or wanted your career to be, people would Immediately judge you if it wasn't something that was STEM mostly—basically anything that wouldn't make you money, or theoretically make you money, right off the bat.

Kylie: Yeah oh my God, I just got—well okay, PTSD is a strong word, I don't want to use that—but [laughs] I just—the memories of being asked about that, and knowing that my answer would be very looked down upon, like I'm so glad I haven't had to deal with that in so many years, but I did get some haunting flashbacks [laughs] from you bringing that up.

Sonya: [laughs]

Kylie: Oh my God, especially—like, with adults and stuff, but also just with like, other kids and like, people our age. Anyway, well, I'm very glad to be done with that.

Sonya: Oh my God, I know. [laughs]

Alice: Okay, so the next quote is: “When Asian-Americans manage to do well, their success is used against others. Internally, it is used to erase the continuing poverty and social dislocation within Asian-American communities. The media is full of stories of Asian-American whiz kids. Their successes are used to erase our problems and to disavow any responsibility for them. The dominant culture doesn’t know about drug abuse in our communities, about our high school dropouts, our AIDS victims.”

Kylie: Okay well, yes to all of this, and also I love the word “whiz kids.”

Kylie: Yeah, so this is very much a summary of how the racists and classist model minority myth really advances white supremacy and I feel actually harms Asians, because, you know, model minority ideation has always pitted a specific high achieving class of Asian Americans really against all other people of color and I think, while doing so, it's really erased the many Asian Americans who don't fit this narrative.

Kylie: And this myth has also erased, really, the generational traumas and those ongoing struggles of, again, the vastly diverse Asian communities, many of whom do not really fit this narrative and are punished for that.

Alice: Thank you Kylie for bringing up the model minority myth. I think also in the essay, Matsuda says that using Asian Americans as the racial bourgeoisie leads to, quote, “suggestions that some segments of the Asian American community need special help are greeted with suspicion and disbelief,” end quote. So like you said, I think it's important to note that Asian Americans are not a monolith, that there is so much diversity within Asian America and to subsume everyone under this model minority myth can be harmful to many Asian Americans too.

Kylie: Yeah, totally, or as the kids say, Alice, um, [laughs] “so true bestie.”

Sonya: [laughs]

Kylie: [laughs] But anyway.

Alice: Don’t ever say—

Kylie: Um.

Alice: Don’t ever say that again.

Kylie: Okay okay okay!

Kylie: Well, specific to the following quote, the model minority myth is also just cruel and dehumanizing, really, especially in the context Mari Matsuda writes about it here, where it's used to belittle or erase struggling people and certainly to erase, you know, the massive historical struggles of Asian people in America.

Kylie: So the excerpt is: “External to our communities, our successes are used to deny racism and to put down other groups. African-Americans and Latinos and poor whites are told, ‘look at those Asians—anyone can make it in this country if they really try.’ The cruelty of telling this to crack babies, to workers displaced by runaway shops, and to families waiting in line at homeless shelters, is not something I want associated with my genealogy. To use that success to discount the hardship facing poor and working people in this country today is a sacrilege to the memory of our ancestors.”

Alice: Yeah I think the previous quote that we looked at and then this quote just work together to show that first, the model minority myth is harmful to Asian Americans internally, and second, the model minority myth is harmful to other groups of people of color too. And so, historically and to this day, Asian Americans have been used as this wedge, a way to pit people of color against each other, and it—it just goes to show that this tool, this model minority myth, is a manufactured tool of white supremacy, and like, it's harmful towards all people of color including Asians themselves.

Sonya: Yeah once you dig into it, you see that really the only winner is white supremacy.

Kylie: Mhm.

Alice: Yeah.

Sonya: The next quote that we picked out from the essay is: “In every field where we have attained a measure of success, we are underrepresented in the real power positions. And yet, we are in danger of being manipulated into opposing affirmative action by those who say affirmative action hurts Asian-Americans. I condemn the voices from our own community that are translating legitimate anger at ceilings on Asian admissions into unthinking opposition to affirmative action floors needed to fight racism.”

Kylie: So now with this excerpt, Matsuda in the 1990s wades into the emerging debates and challenges to affirmative action at the time, and I think she really nails it. Asian Americans who have challenged affirmative action are really hyper-fixated on a specific way that they feel oppressed by it, without thinking of our continuous exclusion from positions of leadership in academic and workplace settings, and so without thinking of how we and all people of color really share in being oppressed and punished by white institutions like the Academy, AKA higher education. So it's just very narrow-minded and we'll definitely talk about this more later since, again, Alice has done some incredible organizing around this issue area specifically.

Alice: Okay, so another quote that we were looking at says: “The problem of displaced anger is also an internal problem for Asian- Americans. You know the story: the Japanese pick on the Okinawans; the Chinese pick on the Filipinos; the Samoans pick on the Laotians. On the plantations we scabbed on each other’s strikes. In Chinatown, we’ve competed over space. There are Asian men who batter Asian women, Asian parents who batter their children. There is homophobia in our communities—tied to a deep fear that we are already so marginalized by white society that any additional difference is intolerable. I’ve heard of straight Asian men say they feel so emasculated by white society, that they cannot tolerate assertive women or sexually ambiguous men. This is a victim’s mentality; the tragic symptom of a community so devoid of self respect that it brings its anger home.”

Kylie: Thanks Alice. Well this really resonated for me—I took a men and masculinities class, um, at USC with a really brilliant professor, and it looked into how men who feel emasculated or disempowered by white supremacy are often pushed by white supremacy to sometimes adopt misogynist or homophobic behaviors just because masculinity is so equated with who you have power over and with channeling that power.

Kylie: So this is not to say that white men aren't abusive and misogynist and racist and all of that, because they are, 100%, but it's just to say that white supremacy can be a really underlying force for pushing some men of color and including Asian men, certainly, to punch down in order to feel masculine.

Alice: Yeah something this quote makes me think of is—so this past semester, I read this piece for a class by this author named Resmaa Menakem, and this makes me think of his explanation of intergenerational trauma—and he's specifically a trauma therapist who focuses on current traumatic impacts of racism in the US—and Menakem frames some deep-seeded trauma that has happened, and has been passed down, as quote, “soul wounds,” and the impacts of white supremacy itself, I think, really are soul wounds, so one way that intergenerational trauma can be passed from generation to generation—or if we're thinking more broadly about community, from person to person—is through these kinds of, like, projections of trauma on those who are close to you.

Alice: And so here, from this quote it seems like Matsuda is framing the soul wounds as coming from white supremacy or patriarchy, where Asian men feel so emasculated by white supremacy and patriarchy that they have to take it out on others within the community. And so the whole thing is just so ugly because you see the oppressed becoming the oppressor and there's clearly a lot of internal community work that needs to be done there as well.

Kylie: Thanks so much for that Alice. Well, this has just been such a fun and thoughtful discussion so far, and it's about to get even better with our Q&A portion with Alice. So just to get started, Alice, since you introduced me to Mari Matsuda and her work, who or what introduced you to her work, and what have you learned from her as an organizer and as an activist yourself?

Alice: Yeah sure. So, I took my first Asian American studies class at Harvard with Professor Patricia Chu, and it was a class called Asian American Literature—or Introduction to Asian American Literature—and it was during my sophomore year at Harvard.

Alice: I remember this, because during my freshman year second semester, I was looking for Asian American studies classes and we had literally none, just—a whole other conversation to be had about the need for ethnic studies and everything. But anyway, so I took this class with Professor Chu, and one of the readings we did was Mari Matsuda’s essays, and so that's how I was introduced to it.

Alice: And at the time, I think it was just—and it still is—super resonant to me. And she was like, in the essay as we've all read, she discusses the need for like, racial coalitions in organizing, and then also just the internal work that needs to be done in the Asian American community, and I found it super resonant at the time, and still now.

Alice: And then, in terms of what I've learned from her as an organizer, I would say that, both from Matsuda and also from my professor in that class, this is kind of sad but I think the first time in a classroom space that I heard “Asian American,” that term, used in reference to a political identity was like, in regards to Professor Chu’s class and in regards to Matsuda’s essay.

Alice: So I think there was just like a real awakening there around how the term “Asian American” is very much a political identity, and as Professor Chu was kind of framing, it's an identity that you step into, an identity where you actively choose to ally yourself with other people of color instead of with whiteness, and I think it just really helped me develop a clear picture of my role and my identity in social justice—so both Professor Chu and Matsuda’s essay.

Kylie: Awesome, thanks Alice.

Sonya: So, something about the three of us—we all went to the same high school, and it was notoriously steeped very much in white supremacy culture, and overall a very competitive, capitalist environment. It was also predominantly Asian, and college admissions were always front of mind. That’s why a lot of the ignorant and misplaced discussions of affirmative actions in wealthier or middle class Asian circles are so painfully familiar for us.

Kylie: But um, Alice specifically really had the chance to organize with other Asian American students at Harvard against an anti-affirmative action case that was using Asian students to be its face. Alice, can you tell us about that experience and just all of your thoughts on what's missing from the dialogue about Asian students and affirmative action today?

Alice: Yeah sure. So I just want to preface this by saying that I'm definitely not the expert on this, um, and there's a lot more to be said about this issue and a lot of people who know a lot more about this, and who have been at the forefront of fighting for affirmative action, and there's a lot of details and nuances.

Alice: But I can speak a little bit about like, just what some of those experiences with the lawsuit has kind of looked like, so one of the organizations in college that I was co-coordinating at the time, worked with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund lawyers to sign on to this amicus brief in support of affirmative action during the, like, time of the lawsuit.

Alice: And so some of my Asian American friends and classmates testified in court to support affirmative action, which I think is a really clear and powerful example of Asian Americans, as Matsuda says, “refusing to buy into racial hierarchy and refusing to abandon communities of Black and Brown people.”

Alice: This is all to say that I think media coverage often amplifies conservative Asian voices against affirmative action, but there are a lot of Asian and Asian American students standing for affirmative action and recognizing the positive impact of affirmative action, historically and currently for Asian Americans. And also just standing and recognizing that Asian Americans are not a monolith.

Alice: I think secondly, there is more that needs to be done than preserving affirmative action. I think it was nice that Harvard wants affirmative action, but if it wants to do more than having a diverse-looking student population, and if it actually wants to think about the inclusion of students from underrepresented backgrounds, it needs to implement an ethnic studies department or sustainable program where ethnic studies scholars are retained and students have adequate resources.

Alice: It needs to divest from prisons and fossil fuels. It needs to be more cognizant and take action, due to the legacies of colonialism and slavery that Harvard and other institutions have been founded upon. So I think there's a ton of work for elite institutions like Harvard to do in that area.

Alice: And third, I think that advocating for affirmative action at Harvard has been interesting because, on one hand, yes affirmative action should exist, but also that's not going to fix all the systemic issues related to education that are going on. At the end of the day, affirmative action is still about respectability politics, about picking the most respectable young people from an underrepresented group and then placing them at an institution that has a lot of pathways that push students into tech, finance, engineering pathways that can potentially be exploitative to those same communities that Harvard is trying to get representation from, so yeah.

Alice: That also frames the question of how respectability—or being respectable—is even defined. But anyway, lots of thoughts and somewhat of a ramble, but yeah. There's definitely more details and nuances that I could get into but I'll keep it at a more general level for now.

Kylie: Well, that's incredible Alice. I'm always in awe of you, and you know as for your thoughts, I completely agree and, you know, I've always personally kind of seen affirmative action as like, the floor, or the minimum, and already like, as you said, pretty insufficient in making the Academy—or higher education and education generally—more diverse and less steeped in whiteness.

Kylie: So affirmative action has always really kind of advanced like, as you said, respectability politics, really, by selecting the most traditionally respectable group of young people from oppressed and marginalized groups are those who best adhere to white supremacist standards of excellence, and so affirmative action in itself, it's never going to fix this systemic and the massive inequities in who has access to quality education or to quality resources in their communities, you know.

Kylie: So for me, the fact that privileged Asians hyper-fixate on that and on affirmative action and their perception of oppression from that rather than those systemic inequities, many of which affect poorer Asian communities or other communities of color, that's just incredibly upsetting to me.

Kylie: Well, um, now let's mix it up a bit. [laughs] Um, I know Alice and I are huge, huge fans of the likes of 88 Rising—

Alice: No we’re not, we are not.

Kylie: Okay, what!

Alice: Nobody listen to Kylie.

Kylie: Oh my God, okay, um.

Sonya: [laughs]

Alice: Only Kylie is!

Kylie: Simu Liu, [laughs] Wong Fu Productions, all of that. So let's talk about #RepresentAsian, ladies. Okay, but um, [laughs] just kidding about liking any of that, um.

[laughter]

Kylie: But yeah, actually let's non-ironically talk for a second about, you know, the dialogue around #RepresentAsian and why it falls short, and you know, why the most visible and famous Asians in Hollywood and media have often been disappointing, so Alice, Sonya, your thoughts?

Alice: Yeah I'm honestly like, pretty disappointed, but unsurprised [laughs] by the response from Asian American celebrities—or Asian/Asian American celebrities. So I think that the popular Asian celebrities have really framed the recent violence against Asian folks as individualized, quote, “hate crimes” end quote, but in actuality violence has existed against Asians for so long with its roots in colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy.

Alice: And violence against Asian Americans and Asians is also structural violence, like lack of affordable housing, gentrification of Chinatowns, violations of labor rights, which I don't think these celebrities talk about or think about—well actually I'm not sure if they think about it.

[laughter]

Alice: But they don't talk about it at least. And so I also find it kind of annoying that all of a sudden, they think they're the experts on anti-Asian violence when there have been so many community organizers and activists who have been doing this work forever. So yeah, I am a little frustrated there about it.

Kylie: Yeah I totally agree with all of that Alice, and I really think, you know, at this time of increased violence targeting Asian people, and especially Asian women, this year, we've seen Asian American celebrities like Simu Liu or like Jeremy Lin and some others become really some of the most visible figures in condemning anti-Asian violence.

Kylie: Personally I’ve really been disappointed by how their criticisms of anti-Asian racism have really, like you kind of talked about, reduced it to individual acts of interpersonal and, quote, “senseless violence” as if they're separate from the persistent crises of white supremacy and imperialism that are going on all around us.

Kylie: And you know, they've exclusively really propped up this concept of Hollywood representation of Asians in media and of hate crime legislation, which you know, as we know, invests more funding into police departments. And they prop those two things up, mostly as solutions, so it's always, you know, been kind of frustrating to navigate the erasure and the depoliticization of Asian American identity.

Kylie: And recently though, it's been very frustrating to watch the most prominent Asian Americans use the visibility that they're receiving today to really, I feel, adhere to respectability and model minority politics and to watch them neglect to use this as an opportunity to build solidarity with other communities of color against white supremacy. And you know, they’re instead individualizing, and so, therefore in my opinion, minimizing anti-Asian racism in the US.

Sonya: I definitely agree. As someone who grew up barely seeing people like me in movies and TV shows, much less in lead roles and also as someone who loves acting, trust me, I understand the importance of representation and seeing our stories being accurately told. But representation itself isn’t going to dismantle white supremacy, it isn’t going to stop imperialism, it isn’t the be-all-end-all. And it’s been so frustrating to see some of the most visible Asian figures kind of just… completely miss the point and, to parrot what you said Kylie, neglect to use this as an opportunity to build solidarity with other communities of color.

Alice: Yeah and to also kind of go back to what Kylie was saying around using this as an opportunity to build solidarity with other communities of color, I think that, yeah, these celebrities have failed to talk about how we need to be building towards a collective liberation in solidarity with other groups. Like where's the dialogue around Black and Asian solidarity, especially in this time where there's a lot of dialogue about policing and kind of dismantling carceral systems of justice.

Alice: And so, with some of these celebrities advocating for increased policing, I feel like they are just really using what Matsuda says, buying into this racial bourgeoisie position and buying into proximity to whiteness by also buying into these carceral forms of punishment and so-called justice.

Sonya: Well, I have just one last question for all of us for right now, to kind of wrap things up—what’s your vision for organized Asian American communities, in solidarity with other communities of color for racial justice, economic justice, gender justice, and of course, looking to Immigrant Heritage Month and Pride Month in June, immigrant justice and queer liberation?

Kylie: Well Sonya, I think my answer to your question kind of lies in your question, where my vision really is for Asian American communities to embrace being, you know, quote, “political” and recognizing the inseparability of our struggle against white supremacy and recognizing the inseparability of that with the struggles of other communities of color, some of whom face much more blatant and violent racism than we do.

Kylie: And so I really envision and really hope for Asian communities to do the work within ourselves and our people challenge anti-Blackness, to challenge misogyny and homophobia, and other violent bigotry and really do that work and that education and organizing and recognizing the privileges that some of us have are incredibly conditional based on our submission and our adherence to white supremacy.

Kylie: And you know, just that real liberation and real joy, real community and solidarity, and all of that, is tied to ending capitalism and ending white supremacy and ending patriarchy and, um, yeah, our condition is broadly inseparable from all of those institutions, and so I really envision a path forward where we recognize that and we work toward that.

Alice: This is such an important question Sonya, I think it's also—yeah, it can be hard to answer too. It kind of reminds me of what Robin D.G. Kelly said in his book Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, where he says that, “What are today's young activists dreaming about? We know what they are fighting against, but what are they fighting for?”

Alice: So I think this question about visioning and dreaming is super important. Like our organizing can't just be centered around ending oppression, it has to also be about what the future is like. And I agree with what Kylie said around how we need to achieve collective liberation in solidarity with other communities and how we need to recognize how all these oppressions are interconnected, which means that we should broaden what we are fighting against and what we are fighting for. And that's the other piece of the puzzle and that's the other thing, like, we need to collectively ask ourselves what we are fighting for and what we are dreaming about.

Kylie: Well, you know, I just really loved our discussion today and really want to thank Alice so much for joining us and for making this AAPI Heritage Month extra special. So everyone say thank you Alice.

Sonya: Thank you Alice!

Alice: You guys are so funny. I totally enjoyed speaking with both of you and your two million followers.

[laughter]

Kylie: Mhm.

Alice It was very exciting.

Alice: But yeah thank you both for your insights as well. It was an honor to be on your podcast.

Sonya: Thank you for that Alice. Well, I'm Sonya.

Kylie: I'm Kylie.

Sonya: And we'll see you next time on Insomniac Librarians.

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