GYOPO ON RACISM AS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE
"Protesting Seoul: Resistance in Precarious Times" with Jennifer Jihye Chun and Ju Hui Judy Han at Human Resources, photo by Daniel Lew
Can you tell us a little bit about GYOPO and what you do?
Founded in 2017, GYOPO is a Los-Angeles based non-profit organization comprised of diasporic Korean artists, curators, writers, and art professionals. We are committed to addressing issues around contemporary art, culture, networks, intersectionality, and social justice through impactful programming and community alliances. Through programming, we aim to strike a balance between creating dedicated spaces for those who identify as gyopo (a term that refers to persons of Korean descent who live outside of Korea) and providing public forums for lively, cross-cultural discussions.
GYOPO co-hosts a conversation series “Racism is a Public Health Issue” along with ForFreedoms, LACMA and StopDiscriminAsian. What incited this series?
Earlier this year as Covid-19 was starting to spread, we saw an alarming increase in reports of racist attacks against Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) people. We also started seeing the grim statistics that Black, Latinx, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander and Indigenous communities are the hardest hit by the virus. These horrible responses and outcomes of the virus landing in the US all pointed to systemic racism. This series was our first attempt at unpacking the racial inequities and prejudice at the intersection of the pandemic, art and culture. We got together with our friends StopDiscriminAsian (SDA) and LACMA to program a series of online conversations addressing some of these important topics. We're excited that For Freedoms could join us in co-presenting the second program, a discussion about the impact of police brutality on Black communities in light of Covid-19.
For those who missed the first conversation of the series, what would you consider the most impactful lesson learned in the previous one?
The most important takeaway from the first program as that solidarity with other communities of color is of utmost importance. The only way we're going to get through this crisis is by pushing for racial and economic equity. (You can also watch the video recording of the program.) The second program, which happened on July 21st, highlighted scholars of the current media, medical, and cultural landscapes. They provided a framework for understanding race-related stress and trauma, as it relates to footage that depicts Black suffering which is circulated and weaponized, along with the transformative and radical possibilities of cinema and contemporary art.
What are the ways the Asian community can show up for the Black Community now?
We can show up by centering Black thinkers, activists, artists, writers, comrades, and supporting Black-led organizations financially and with our time. Also closely following directives by Black Lives Matter and Movement 4 Black Lives, and then taking the time to look deep within ourselves to develop a personal game plan for how to integrate action into daily life. The Asian community can show up by researching topics such as police and prison abolition, digesting the information, then translating it (in more ways than just the written word) for the numerous Asian cultures and languages here in the US. When it comes to racial equity, a rising tide lifts all boats—if we defend Black life and dignity then we create more equitable systems that uplift the Asian community as well. There is truly no liberation for Asian Americans without Black liberation.
Viet Thanh Nguyen spoke on the “trap” of being a “model minority” as we saw with Tou Thao, an Asian American officer who remained silent as George Floyd was murdered. Can you explore the ways that the allyship of Asians has a complicated history?
We definitely need to unlearn the model minority myth, which is still not a concept widely understood in American culture at large.
This idea is used as a wedge to pit Asian Americans against other minority groups and to perpetuate the lie that we live in a meritocracy. The systems we have been living within are not fair or humane; they are rigged to uphold white supremacy.
Asian Americans must stop striving for the privileges of whiteness, and come to the harsh reality that this country has also never wanted us to be whole, that we have been used as pawns in a violent game. Assimilation and acceptance as a “good asian immigrant” is a dead end. To get to this realization is a battle— our failing educational system, our biased media, Hollywood, it is all set up to prevent us from truly learning about ourselves, so community education is key.
Most of us Asian Americans never even come across literature that helps us understand how white supremacy has warped our subject positions unless we take ethnic studies courses, which are not available to most high schoolers and some college students. That is one reason it is so important Gavin Newsom must sign AB1460. (It would require the Cal State University system to implement ethnic studies courses at every campus by the 2021-22 school year.) We need ethnic studies in our high schools, as well.
"Radical/Un-Radical K-Pop" with Christan Copeland (AKA Cecee), Patty Ahn, Olivia Campbell, and Michelle Cho at LACE, photo by Jennifer Moo
We believe the allyship of Asian Americans has a complicated history because we are not a monolith. So many different immigrant narratives and socioeconomic backgrounds are loosely tied together by that label. We have Filipino Americans with ancestors who arrived to California in the late 1500s and in Louisiana in the late 1700s, Indentured Indian servants were brought to the colonies here in the 1600s, Chinese Americans who’s ancestors immigrated here in the 1800s, fought in the civil war, were merchants, used as disposable labor for the railroads, Sikhs immigrating in the 1900s. In 1882 Chinese exclusion act and the 1924 Oriental exclusion act banned most immigration from Asia which prevented any large influx of Asian immigrants to the US until the 50s and 60s. Asian immigrants come from so many places and experiences— leaving their homelands ravaged by war (conflicts often caused by US imperialism, for example the Korean War, Laotian Civil War, the Vietnam’s War, the list goes on), arriving with incredible trauma and few resources, but hopes for a new start, others who are have monetary wealth and seek increased opportunities. All of this is to say, that allyship is complicated because for each group within the “Asian American” community, there is different understanding of and relationship to the structural racism that damages Black life.
We have many examples of Asian Americans who unlearned the minority myth and dug out the white supremacy from within themselves, dedicating their lives to anti-racist work. There’s not one example to follow, however, so it’s up to us to learn about the legacy of organizers without our vast community and emulate what we can. Filipino and Chicano grape farmers who organized a labor movement together in the 60s, hand in hand. In the 80s, Asians were scapegoated and blamed for the economic downturn and activists worked to seek justice for Vincent Chin, who was murdered in Detroit. In the 1990s the horrendous murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean American woman was used by the media to increase distrust and misunderstanding between Asian Americans, specifically Korean Americans, and the black community in Los Angeles to distract from the real enemy, the police state. Activists are still working to transform the narrative surrounding the LA uprising to center the concerns of the Black community then, and rid the collective psyche of this idea that it was a black vs. Asian struggle.
How can the community provide allyship to Asian Americans who are victims of xenophobia?
Speak up and step in when you see incidents of anti-Asian xenophobia. Hollaback! offers bystander intervention training and in LA there's a hotline 211 that offers services for victims or witnesses. Also, extending compassion, patience, and help to non-English speaking AAPI folks being targeted is huge.
Are there any other series or projects we should be on the lookout that GYOPO is a part of?
In addition to the "Racism is a Public Health" series, GYOPO is also organizing a program series called "Coalition Building in Action." This series was also responding to the current moment as we look to learn from organizers who are on the ground providing direct aid to multi-ethnic communities, sustaining mutual aid networks, offering professional services in unlearning anti-Blackness in non-Black communities, and are engaging with transformative justice activism, among other endeavors. We want to provide a platform for those already involved in interracial coalition building and solidarity initiatives. (You can watch the video recording of the first program about direct aid.)
What are a few artists and activists that represent the Asian Community that are also involved in the BLM movement such as yourselves?
We're big fans of 18 Million Rising and Ktown for Black Lives. We also deeply respect and appreciate the work of Mia Mingus of the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective. The Asian American Justice + Innovation Lab offers great training on dismantling white supremacy, restorative justice, and community labs.
Follow GYOPO for more of their series on “Racism as a Public Health Issue” and other projects.
