Let’s start by telling us a little about yourself. What is your story — How did you get involved in organizing?
I grew up outside of Chicago in a town called Libertyville. As the only Filipino in a really white school, the Filipino community was an oasis for me. However, some things were still challenging, as both my Filipino and white communities were relatively conservative. Going to a school [Macalester College] that accepted my queerness was really liberating for me, really exciting. It let me look back on the people that I grew up with, how they came to be with the belief that they have.
So coming out of Macalester, I wanted to figure out how to have conversations with our community members, with our elders, about all these things, about queer issues, imperialism and how that’s impacted our lives coming here to the US. And how we can politicize our Filipino community to not be the model minority. That’s really where my urge to be involved in organizing came from.
Which communities do you serve? What does this community mean to you?
I feel like a community is the people you are accountable to at the end of the day. So the question is, who am I accountable to? I’m definitely accountable to my family, family friends, and the Filipino community. I’m also accountable to everyone here at AAOP. I’m accountable to the people I talk to when I doorknock about the Census — the people that rely on us for information. I make sure my actions are always for the benefit of these communities that I’m serving. I try to make sure I’m not coming from a place of self-promotion and all that.
Why does the Census matter to these communities?
Yeah of course! The Census is a way to show we are here, that we need to be seen and acknowledged as part of the fabric of this society. And I think at the core of that, it’s an acknowledgement of the history and what has brought us here. Know that for a lot of Asian communities, war and US aggression and imperialism is what brought a lot of our communities here to the United States. Being counted and being seen is part of acknowledging that that history exists. The US can’t just ignore black, brown, and Asian people. We exist and we are powerful.
How do you think the Census could help fix the inequalities you see in your communities?
Well we know that the Census is not going to fix it all, right? It’s not going to get rid of white supremacy and it’s not going to get rid of imperialism and all of that. But, it’s the start of getting our communities the resources that we need to fight the fight long term. Whether it’s roads, schools, or jobs. Our folks need to be healthy to be able to keep going and keep fighting the forces that are governing our lives. I think the Census is an intermediate step to a longer fight.
How are the themes of culture, identity, and heritage intertwined with the Census?
Aside from the acknowledgement of our histories and our traumas that I talked about earlier, one thing that’s really important about the Census is that it uses disaggregated data. So you can fill out specific “types” of Asian and show that it’s not monolithic and we’re not the model minority myth. We have a lot of different needs, and a lot of diversity.