Do you want to work with trans, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pasifika people and communities? Do you have a commitment to social justice? Are you ready to transform, learn concrete community organizing skills, and work to build movements for change? The application for APIENC’s Summer Organizer Program is now open! Applications are due March
The summer after I realized I was trans, I spent a lot of time online. I wanted to learn about other trans people and be seen in my experiences. The internet helped me do so discreetly, during a time when I experienced a lot of scrutiny at home for my gender expression. I read about
On Saturday Sept. 19th 2020, APIENC’s Ecological Justice League (fka TTAC) brought folks together for a fun and creative Writing and Haiku Party! Participants engaged and connected with each other in order to better articulate their connection with and the impacts of the climate crisis through storytelling, haiku, and poetry. Here are some the creations that came out of the event!
LEX & the APIENC family brought so much… so many things, but what i’m most thankful for is the healing that it brought to me when i felt too overwhelmed to know where to start, & i want to share some of my learnings, un-learnings & re-learnings. radical vulnerability, as nerve-wracking as the build-up is,
It all started with the Dragon Fruit Project (DFP) reunion, scheduled to happen on March 21, 2020. Since last December, a volunteer team had been planning for an in-person event to celebrate all those who had contributed to our intergenerational Dragon Fruit oral history project. However, as the date came closer and as COVID-19 spread in the Bay Area, the team decided to indefinitely postpone the event, and to prioritize the safety and health of participants who were planning to attend. Even though we were physically unable to see each other, we decided to offer a Phone Tree as a resource for community members to check in with one another. As the COVID-19 crisis escalated, California officially put into place Shelter-In-Place orders that would drastically change our community’s needs and ways of organizing.
I haven’t always felt comfortable asking for help. Previously, I thought asking for help meant I was not “good enough,” and I thought that struggling on my own was a reflection of true strength. I learned this mindset from my family, who are Brown working class immigrants always battling to survive. I experienced this individualistic culture in my own Indo-Caribbean communities, where asking for support was never seen as an option. I witnessed systems of power silencing the needs of marginalized communities. Different internalized oppressions fueled this mindset, and I never had a space to unlearn these ideas and invite in new values.
To me, APIENC is love — love that the world desperately needs.
As a chronically ill, Việt, queer, nonbinary person, I felt unheard, othered, and silenced for far too long, by nearly everyone in my life in some way. I don’t blame them for that, but it hurt compartmentalizing myself. In that process, it began to be hard to see myself. The self became selves. I was often confused, constantly wondering why my relationship to love and vulnerability was missing something. I felt broken. I struggled to build support systems that held me.
