While speaking to her Korean mom about anti-Asian violence amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Phyllis must also confront her family's prejudice. And racial justice attorney and activist Manjusha Kulkarni offers advice for talking with parents about challenging racial discrimination.
Phylllis writes about parenting, race and diversity, and being raised by an immigrant family on her blog, The Napkin Hoarder.
Featured Expert:
Manjusha P. Kulkarni (Manju) is Executive Director of AAPI Equity Alliance (AAPI Equity), which serves and represents the 1.5 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County. In March 2020, Manju co-founded Stop AAPI Hate, the nation’s leading aggregator of COVID-19-related hate incidents against AAPIs. Stop AAPI Hate analyzes data to better understand what is happening, where, and to whom, and uses this information to advocate for resources and solutions, including the passage of local, state, and national policies that strengthen human rights and civil rights protections, dismantle systemic racism, and address root causes of discrimination and bigotry. They also work on narrative change to impact how racism is understood and shift attitudes in the general public to acknowledge anti-AAPI hate as a long-standing problem. In 2021, Manju was recognized by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential individuals and by Bloomberg/Business Week as one of the 50 individuals “with the ability to move markets or shape ideas and policies,” along with the co-founders of Stop AAPI Hate, Cynthia Choi and Russell Jeung. They also won the 2021 Webby Social Movement of the Year. Manju is a member of the LA City Ethics Commission and was recently appointed to the California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board by CA Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. She holds a BA degree from Duke University and a JD degree from Boston University School of Law.
If you liked this show listen to When Our Parents Don't See Their Bias and OG Check-in: Even a Pro Finds it Hard to Talk about Racism with Dad.
We’d love to hear your stories of triumph and frustration so send us a detailed voice memo to virginia@lwcstudios.com. You might be on a future episode! Let’s connect on Twitter and Instagram at @TalkToMamiPapi and email us at hello@talktomamipapi.com. And follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi, everybody. Phyllis is with us today. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Phyllis has been having conversations with her Korean mom about the rise of anti Asian violence. These conversations are difficult for several reasons, but confronting her own family's biases makes them really challenging for Phyllis. Let's get into it.
Phyllis: I'm Phyllis Myubg. Right now, my role is that I am a pastor at a church right outside of Boston, Massachusetts. I'm a Korean American. I've grown up on the west coast and growing up, I called my parents, mommy and appa. I had come home from school when I was in middle school and these kids had been throwing rocks and calling me all sorts of kind of derogatory names. I was really upset and I couldn't understand why that happened. And I remember my parents sitting me down and talking to me about how not that long ago, during world war II, the Japanese Americans were interned. And they just wanted me to understand and realize that people are going to look at me differently because of the way that I looked.
Phyllis: For me, that was an eye opening experience, because they also said, "Just keep working hard and don't make such a fuss." But I wanted to make a big fuss. I was so angry and it felt like this outrageous injustice that happened to me. I'm in my mid forties and so as an adult, my conversations with my mom now can be more nuanced. One specific instance is right after the shootings in Atlanta, the women at the spas in Atlanta, I called my mom right away and I just said to her, "Hey, did you hear what happened? I just wanted to make sure that you were safe."
Phyllis: I was feeling scared during the pandemic. I couldn't take off my Asianness and walk out the door. And people said to me, "Are you the one who brought the virus over?" They said stuff like that to me. And so I was already feeling on edge, but I didn't want to broach that with my mom. I didn't want to say, "Hey mom, you better be careful, because people are thinking Chinese people are the ones who brought the virus over and so they're going to be looking at you differently." I think she probably innately knew that, but I think the repeated attacks on the west coast and she lives over on the west coast and in New York, especially on elderly Asian Americans, I think it was unexpected to her. And I think it was a surprise to her that it would get to that kind of level.
Phyllis: And there's a complexity to it, because we had to revisit the whole idea of our own racism that we have especially towards Black people and anyone with dark skin basically. That was hard, to be able to try to engage in that kind of conversation, because we started talking about the LA riots in the '90s with Rodney King and all of that kind of stuff. And so that has just left a huge scar, I think, in the Korean American community. A lot of the business owners, who are my parents' friends, I can understand why they have that fear and apprehension, and why the racism is still very much present there.
Phyllis: And then I think another mix of that is the whole idea of the model minority myth. The biggest thing for my mom always has been, because I tend to be extra passionate, especially about justice issues. "Don't say things that are going to make it obvious what you think, and you just need to keep your head down, so that we can continue to succeed.” Even if it is at the expense of other ethnicities and other people. And at the end of the day, I was just like, oh, I don't know if she's had any friends or we have anyone that's close to us that's Black or who's Latina or who ... I think that makes a big difference, because I wonder if my parents did, maybe they would look at things differently.
Phyllis: The obvious, I think, statement that comes out is, we came with nothing, but then we were able to ... now we're here. How come they can't do the same? So then I have to go and explain power dynamics and how that works. Just honestly, I don't think I'm always successful. There are days where I think my mom definitely gets it and she's just like, "Oh man, this is really terrible." And then there are other days where it's like, oh, all the stereotypes and those racist attitudes just come out again. I'm just like, oh man, I guess we haven't made any progress.
Lantigua: As it is for Phyllis, for many first gens, speaking about race and racism with our family can be messy and difficult, but these conversations are so necessary. How can we talk about race based discrimination, even racial violence, when in many instances our families have experienced those things? How can we do so, while acknowledging that our own biases can impact other communities of color in the United States? To help us figure it out, I called in an expert.
Manju Kulkarni:
My name is Manju Kulkarni. I am Executive Director of AAPI Equity Alliance. We're a coalition of over 40 community based organizations that serve and represent the 1.5 million AAPIs in Los Angeles County and a couple years ago, we formed Stop AAPI Hate with collaborative partners in the Bay Area, from Chinese For Affirmative Action and San Francisco State University.
Lantigua: What did you hear as you listened to Phyllis's story?
Kulkarni: A lot of Phyllis's story really resonated with me and what we've heard from our community members. So I'll say that three things really jumped out at me. One is sort of that cultural sensibility, put your head down and continue to work hard. This idea of the nail that sticks out, gets hammered. I think also ideas related to the struggles our parents had, perhaps economically, and they just needed to put food on the table.
Kulkarni: And when you have to do that, you may not have the luxury of thinking about ways in which racism impacts you and what you do about it. And then the third is, for a lot of families, they see this as the price of immigration, the racism that they experience. So don't challenge it, because this is inevitable and this is part of that price that we pay for coming over here.
Lantigua:: To me, it's such a weird place to be, because while many cultures believe that if you are a nail that's sticking out, you're going to get hammered, the American ethos is more like only the squeaky wheel gets the oil. You're supposed to stand out. You're supposed to be different. You're supposed to make yourself seem special, but that is in direct contrast to what your parents want sometimes. But you were so good about encapsulating those three prongs of complication. Is this getting better? Is it getting worse? Has the rise in anti Asian hatred make things untenable for some communities?
Kulkarni: Right. Well, first off, I just want to reflect back what you said, Juleyka is so important. It is in exact contrast to the ways in which American society works, which is show off. But also, you have to challenge things when they're unfair and unjust. So that's actually an important component. And so I think what we're seeing right now in the U.S. is the latest iteration of anti-Asian hate. It's happened before.
Kulkarni: And many, many times it's from policies and not simply from individual actions. In fact, for a whole 50 year period, people from Asia were not even allowed to come to the United States. So, and knowing about the Japanese American incarceration, knowing about the killing of Vincent Chin 40 years ago, where there's no real penalty on the perpetrators that beat him to death. They served no jail time and only had a $3,000 fine. So we know it's happened many times throughout American history. And so what we have now is 11,000 individuals have reported to us that hate that they've experienced, but we also know from the PEW Research Center, this is up to 45% of our community, which is more like eight to 10 million individuals.
Lantigua: It's absolutely staggering. So I want to dig a little bit deeper on this, because there is a misperception that only white people are the ones perpetrating anti Asian violence. And that's simply not the case.
Kulkarni: Actually, what we've heard too often is the misperception that African Americans are committing it and it's actually everyone. So we have people who are white, who've committed the hate, African American, Latinx, all communities. And this really sort of informs our thinking, that this is how white supremacy works. It's not just white communities against people of color, it's even people of color against each other.
Lantigua: So it just permeates other communities. What are some of the prevailing theories or ideas about why so many different types of people focus on Asian Americans?
Kulkarni: Well, I think what we have recently is the emergence of COVID. It was a pandemic, something we had never seen sort of in a hundred years. And the likely origins of the disease or virus were China. But the problem is one, we know that viruses are part of the human condition. In fact, the virus that came to the United States was not from China, but from Italy. We even know that the so-called Spanish flu in the 1900s actually came from Kansas. It was an American flu, but America hid it and the Spanish were open about it. So then everybody started calling it the Spanish flu.
Kulkarni: When we see the idea of the perpetual foreigner, which is used against our communities, that is against Asian Americans. The idea is, the disease came from China, you're not American, so you brought the disease on us. So you see that linkage and part of the Yellow Peril and the Dusky Peril were that we're not clean, we're unhygienic. And so that's why we're bringing diseases essentially to white people.
Lantigua: Oh my God. I mean, history repeats itself, but sometimes it's more like it copied and pasted itself.
Kulkarni: Exactly.
Lantigua: So let's talk about Phyllis, because Phyllis is caught up in a place that is very familiar to first gens, which is that they respect, love, value who they are, who they come from, where they come from. But at the same time, they're trying to not just live, not just exist, but excel and thrive in their society. In a place that for all intents and purposes is home to them, versus their parents who might refer to home, to back home in the home country. So how can someone like Phyllis begin the conversation with her mom about the need to actually not conform, and not fit in, and not try to blend, because that just actually reinforces the negative attitudes towards Asian Americans?
Kulkarni: Part of thriving and succeeding means challenging the racial animus, the misconceptions, the anti-immigrant sentiment. And when we start to have these conversations, we can come from a place of understanding. Talk to our parents about what their struggles were and then point out one, it's happened before. And two, is that it's based on these ideas of us as always being the foreigner. And then another troubling framework is the model minority. And Phyllis described that, right?
Lantigua: Yep.
Kulkarni: And talking about why that's harmful, because it's harmful to our communities and it's harmful to other communities. So especially with that one, it's created this wedge between us and African American sisters and brothers. That term was coined in 1966 by a Berkeley professor who was saying that African Americans were a problem because they didn't do well economically, but Asians were a model because they did. And then he also said African Americans were a problem because they challenged their secondary status. Can you imagine that? And that we were a model because we didn't.
Kulkarni: So when you unpack all of that, you realize it's wrong. It's inaccurate. The reason that a lot of African Americans didn't do well, was because of the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, current day racism. A lot of Asian Americans don't do well economically either. And haven't, because they were refugees, because they came from countries where there was American imperialism that really ravaged their countries. The other is, we have stood up. Just like African Americans, we've stood up to the incarceration of Japanese Americans, to the killing of Vincent Chin. So it's not true to say that we've kept our mouth shut and we're seeing that in present day life in America today.
Lantigua: Okay. But trying to talk to your mom or your dad about institutionalized racist violence is a lot. What are some of the key conversational points that you think we need to make as we approach these conversations, to also avoid just saying things like, "Well, you're just racist too," which I know sometimes comes out of frustration. I have definitely said it to my mother out of frustration, when the more theoretical, broader scope conversations simply don't work and I'm just out of ideas.
Kulkarni: I would say that, that's where I hope the data and the stories that we've assembled at Stop AAPI Hate come into play, because it's about connecting the dots. Connecting the dots. She herself, Phyllis had experienced it, as a child. She'd experienced it recently, where people blamed her for COVID and that's what we see. In the 11,000 incidents there's a commonality. You see the patterns, you see the trends and then you can say to your parents, "Look, this is not a one off. This is something that's happening across the board."
Kulkarni: I think we also need to talk about that solidarity piece. I'll tell you for myself, my family came to the United States in 1971. I came with them as a two year old. And why were we allowed in the U.S., because of Civil Rights leaders. African American Civil Rights leaders. After getting passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of '65. They didn't just rest on their laurels. They said, "Our immigration laws are also very racist. So we need to change that."
Kulkarni: And because they shepherded it through, families like mine could come. I need to pay it forward, because they were the ones that enabled me and my family to come to the U.S. Immigration enforcement works not just against Latinx communities. It works against Asian communities. Police violence is not just aimed at African Americans. Voter suppression and voter nullification is against all people of color.
Lantigua: Yeah. Not to be cheesy, but Martin Luther King got it right. "A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." And I feel like so many communities think that they're separate and apart from the rest of the struggle, in so many instances. And so I deeply appreciate the context that you've given us for that.
Kulkarni: Thank you so much. Really appreciate the opportunity.
Lantigua: All right. Here's what we learned from Manju. Provide historical context. When speaking about institutional racism and race based violence, refer to the past and point out how incidents today are very similar. In fact, they're repeating historical patterns. Discredit false narratives. Unpack the myths around the model minority and the perpetual foreigner. These are tropes at this point.
Lantigua: Talk about them and how they've been weaponized against Asian Americans and other Black and Brown communities in the U.S. And remember, connect the dots, use data and stories to point out patterns and similarities in instances of violence and discrimination. Doing this can make abstract concepts like institutional racism, feel concrete, digestible, and preventable.
Lantigua: Thank you for listening. Mil gracias. ありがとうございました Merci. How to talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer. Kojin Tashiro is our mixer. Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead. I’m the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @Talktomamipapi. Bye everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “Telling Mom She’s Also Biased”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything,
LWC Studios., June 27, 2022. TalkToMamiPapi.com.