It has been a busy week of community activism.
Last weekend we attended the Filipino-Environmental film Moonrise Film Festival. My partner was a key organizer, with filipinos and a group new to me – Green Empowerment. Their program staff who spent time working on water and power issues in rural Filipino villages was very impressive.
Monday we attended a Mayorial Candidate roundtable with Community of Color delegates from 4 primary groups – Center for Intercultural Organizing, Oregon Action, Latino Network, and the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon-PAC. We’ve been involved with the latter, code named APANO-PAC. Sho Dozono and Sam Adams were invited to meet with about 50 leaders of color. We had simultaneous Spanish language translation, very impressive! The first 3 groups are a part of an innovate City of Portland organizing effort to build stronger relationships with communities of color. Code named: Diversity and Civic Leadership, it is being managed largely by an old friend and organizer Jeri Williams out of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement.
Then Friday was a whirlwind! I was on local community radio, KBOO 90.7 in Portland, for a Hapa Issues roundtable, talking about Mixed Asian American identity with several good friends. Professor Patty Duncan of Portland State moderated. There was a fabulous interview with Kip Fullbeck, who did a wonderful book entitled Part Asian, 100% Hapa, and has Project Hapa online. It is a great compilation of photos and persons self-written racial-cultural-ethnic identities. He collected over 1200! All voluntary. All self-identified.
Afterwards, a brief baby viewing trip to Western States Center, and then the baby and I went to the monthly gathering of YEPOC (Young Environmental Professionals of Color). Mostly API folks there, we made some really nice connections in our first visit.
Finally, this morning, to top it all off, we’re co-organizing a half day API Vote Training at the NW Health Foundation for activists from several of Portland’s Asian communities. I’m doing some relationship building exercises and childcare, but excited to be with a new cohort of organizers. This is being sponsored by APANO-PAC, and we’re working with leaders from the Viet, Cambodian, Filipino, Chinese and Korean communities.
It made me reflect on several other meetings of great activists. I spoke on a panel last week at Portland State about community partnerships for the Social Determinants of Health symposium alongside Bob Bullard (a grandfather of Environmental Justice), another CAER keynoter. And just a few weeks earlier was at the South Los Angeles Library for a Labor/Strategy Center discussion with Fred Ho whose book on Afro-Asian relations is a must read for community organizers. (nudge to www.bigwowo.com for a place to talk more about this?)
