Her answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
SELF: What was your work like before the pandemic?
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago is an organization that works in coalition on things that impact Asian Americans.
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We fight for racial equity broadly, not just for Asian Americans.
We hope that people of all different races are able to live full and meaningful lives.
When did thecoronavirusstart to affect your work and the issues you organize around?
That was kind of a canary in the coal mine for us.
Oftentimes, those cases are just a matter of opportunity and chance.
In Chicago, lots of folks are still mostly at home right now.
That has kept a slight lid on things.
What can you do if you see incidents of bias happening on the train or on the sidewalk?
What are some of the main things bystanders can do?
Some people wont feel comfortable engaging with the person who is being an aggressor.
There are a lot of different factors about whether its safe or not to intervene.
Those are all considerations that we have to make individually.
Our bystander intervention training is really looking to help you assess the situation and also assess your own capacity.
But I wouldnt recommend just going out and recklessly intervening.
What prompted these statements?
This was important to us because were working toward racial equity.
Only fighting for Asian Americans isnt racial equity.
What does that entail?
Were still figuring it out as we go along.
We can have afreezeresponse to these acts in addition to a fight-or-flight response.
Knowing you have different tools for responding can help prevent that freezing.
How does social distancing affect these trainings?
Its really difficult not to be able to do in-person trainings.
What will you actually do when theresa lot of adrenaline going through your body?
Have there been any upsides to making your work virtual?
Folks who wouldnt normally have been able to join our in-person meetings now are able to.
How has your experience at work changed due to the pandemic?
Some of that is actually really good.
Were also grappling with themental health issuesthat are coming along with this pandemic.
Weve been really thinking about how weve seen a lot of antiAsian American sentiment before through American history.
Looking back at that history helps us understand how it informs racism in current times.
And that has not ended after 20 years, more or less.
So we imagine that some of the current anti-Asian sentiment is going to continue for quite a long time.
Theres a bit of tension between what we can do now and what we can build in the long-term.
