September 22, 2025 • 61 mins
Chatting with keynote speaker, activist, and award-winning author Michelle Mijung Kim on what it means to build courage in speaking out in today's political climate.
She was a previous guest of mine in 2020 when we discussed what the DEI landscape looked like in the aftermath of George Floyd, and why Asian communities must stand in solidarity with the Black community. Since 2020, she has released her critically acclaimed debut book, “The Wake Up.” She has since sunsetted her company Awaken, focusing on DEI education for high-tech companies. She has been a prolific keynote speaker, and recently launched her new podcast, “I Feel That Way, Too.”
We caught up about the challenges and backlash she faced when she spoke up about her support for Palestine, and how that allowed her to build her courage further to stay true to her values. We spoke about navigating difficult conversations with our Asian communities relating to the current state of the US. Michelle goes in-depth about her process of unlearning beliefs and values that she was taught as a queer Korean immigrant growing up in America, and how recognizing her identities has shaped her determination to remain unapologetically authentic and build deepening relationships with her community.
Watch and listen for more here!
Bio:
https://www.michellemijungkim.com/about
For more on Michelle Mijung Kim:
IG: MichelleKimKim
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjmichellekim/
Website: https://www.michellemijungkim.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey everyone, this is Randy Kim from the Bund Me Chronicles
podcast and I am so excited to have this guest on.
She was a guest several years back.
This is in 2020, which feels like a lifetime ago, and we're
halfway through this decade. And Michelle Kim was on my show
(00:24):
five years ago and it was duringthe George Floyd and Brianna
Taylor murder. She had written an op-ed about
the importance of Asian Americansolidarity with the black
community during the protests. And Michelle was then ACEO of
the company Awakened that provided DEI education for tech
companies. You know, ever since, you know,
(00:47):
I've been following your journey.
You have since published an award-winning book, The Wake Up.
You've done many keynotes on DEI, social and racial justice.
You currently have a new podcastthat you host and produce called
I Feel That Way Too. And in your podcast, you shared
many of the challenges that you've experienced in these past
(01:07):
few years, along with your activism and supporting
Palestinian liberation and fighting against fascism.
So with that said, it is great to have another conversation
with you and thank you for beingon my show.
Thank you so much for having me,Randy.
It's always a pleasure and I'm really excited to be in
conversation with you today. Thank you.
(01:27):
And so first of all, how are youholding up this year while we
have a few months left of 2025? Yeah, I mean, like you were
saying it, time just feels so disorienting in many ways.
I think since 2020, I don't knowthat I've had a very linear
relationship with time. So the fact that this year is
(01:50):
almost over is baffling to me. I feel like I've been stuck in
this loop of, you know, talking about multiple genocides that's
happening. And I think part of it is all
these different crises that we've experienced kind of makes
the time sense of time for me very fuzzy.
It just seems like it's one thing after another.
(02:12):
So I'm doing the best that I canto stay grounded.
But also there are days where I feel really exhausted and very,
very much stewing in my own despair and disappointment in
the world. And then there are days where I
remain hopeful and activated to do more in the community.
(02:33):
So it's just been a tumultuous year, to say the least.
Yeah, I think when I look back in this year so far, it feels
like it's one onslaught after another.
And, you know, I mean, I've had to deal with, you know, grief
and personal loss and and sometimes just trying to be
present. And also like sometimes I still
(02:56):
have a lot of guilt whenever I go on a trip or, you know, spend
fun time for myself as a level of self-care.
But then I also like we, we havethese horrible things that are
happening that, that put our community members and people
abroad in jeopardy. So how do you, like, navigate
between, like, trying to wrestlewith self-care and finding
(03:20):
abundance and joy in all of the all of the misery that's been
happening with this Trump administration and beyond that?
Yeah, that's such a good question.
And it's never easy to wrap whatever I'm doing to find joy
and grounding as self-care that's dissociated from what's
(03:42):
happening in the world. And I think so often our world,
our society sells self-care as something that is desperate from
the tragedies and the traumas ofthe world.
And I often try to go back to the original intention of of the
term self-care as used by AudreyLorde, who talked about
(04:05):
self-care not as a self indulgence, but as an act of
self preservation in the contextof multiple systems of
oppression that's operating to quite literally kill
marginalized people. So when I think about that
context, I feel more grounded inmy pursuit of joy and rest,
(04:31):
knowing that I must care for myself in a system that refuses
to. And that act in and of itself is
intentional and purposeful in our collective movement work for
liberation. But it's not, I get it in
theory, but when I'm, you know, stepping away from the work and
(04:54):
off my social media feed and notlooking at the news and trying
to care for myself in, you know,different ways, sometimes it
does feel frivolous given how much violence there is that
people are navigating. And I think I have.
That's why I have an incredible group of friends who also feel
(05:15):
similarly, who remind me that itis still necessary that we take
the time to refuel ourselves so that we can keep the journey
going. Yeah, no, thank you for naming
that because I I've read Trisha Hersey's from the nap ministry
and and she shares a lot of her own wisdom, especially knowing
(05:37):
that it's meant for the black community that have had to
wrestle with centuries of oppression.
And what does it mean to fight against through rust as a
resistance form? And I think about like the
conversation sometimes I have with some of my close friends
who are in the activism work, specifically in the pro
(05:58):
Palestine. And I sometimes feel like we're
we're like yelling at each otheron our phones, Like what is
going on? How the freak is this happening
or what's going on with ice and like around my neighborhoods?
And so it's so it is like, how do we try to like, you know,
navigate between, you know, bothlike having a love of sanity so
(06:19):
it doesn't kill us eventually, but also how do we show
sensitivity and care to the people that are going through
this and knowing that this is a privilege that we are afforded
right now? And and I think that's something
that really holds up pretty muchevery day in my thought.
And I wonder, like for you, like, what does it mean to be a
(06:41):
queer Korean American woman in America right now?
You know, I think in many ways this time has illuminated a lot
of my privileges that I'm holding, that I'm having to
wrestle with how I should use those privileges.
(07:04):
So even though I am a person of color, the fact that I am a
light skinned East Asian person Shields me in many ways from
these ICE raids. Even though I am an immigrant, I
still hold US citizenship by naturalization and though I my
political advocacy work and public sort of persona puts me
(07:28):
at more risk than other white, you know, US born citizens, It
still when it comes to the levelof threat that black and brown
communities are facing or Latinaimmigrants are facing today or
undocumented immigrants are facing.
I am so far removed from that reality that I have to really
(07:53):
remind myself that it is a responsibility that I need to be
real about to show up for these movements with the privileges
that I have. And I think that, you know, all
the discourse that's happening and the conversations nationally
that's happening around immigrants do have an impact on
(08:16):
my existence every single day. And, you know, the the recent
raid of the Hyundai factory where almost 300 Korean people
were deported in a raid and werecompletely mistreated.
And more stories are coming out now where they are documenting
the daily harassment and the dehumanization that they had to
(08:39):
experience. So that one hit close to home
because my dad was undocumented for a long time.
And I'm yet again having to, youknow, connect the dots between
all of our struggles. I think so often Asian, East
Asian communities are seen as this model minority, right, that
(08:59):
we've talked about this since 2020 and beyond.
And I think this was a pivotal moment for people like my
parents to really understand theimmigration issues that are so
often casted as an issue for Latino people or Black and brown
communities is actually our struggle too.
(09:22):
So in some ways, I am hopeful that this tragic and horrendous
violence that were was committedagainst Korean American or
Korean immigrants would be a starting place for some Korean
people who have never thought about any of these social issues
as their own. So I'm just reckoning with a lot
(09:44):
of these different identity markers that I hold, what I'm
seeing in my communities and thediscourse that's happening
nationally, and trying to place myself both as a marginalized
person, but also as somebody whoholds immense privileges so that
I could be a part of this movement in a really honest and
(10:05):
way that is holding integrity. Yeah, I think you bring up a
really important point about, you know, what does the Asian
American experience mean in the Trump era?
Trump 2.0 And like as a Vietnamese Cambodian person,
like the Vietnamese community especially has been really
dealing with trying to figure out the political divisions,
(10:30):
which I'm sure that you're familiar with from the Korean
experience. And, you know, in Orange County,
Viet, the Vietnamese community is notoriously Republican for so
many years and it still holds a lot of that bash then pretty
strongly. And I, you know, and sometimes
when I, I think, I think like one Vietnamese tut event, one
(10:51):
older Vietnamese guy was wearingthe AOI, which is the
traditional outfit with the, with the, with the big US flag
all over it. And I was like, oh, gosh.
And, and I think about like what, how do we have these very
serious conversations? I mean, there's language
barriers that, you know, unfortunately get in the way of
(11:11):
it. The media that they consume in
their native language also playsa big part of it.
It it makes me wonder how are they reacting to the
deportations that are happening?Like, I was just reading like a
Cambodian content creator who was had very Trumpy vibes about
(11:31):
him, but yet all of a sudden he starts speaking out that, you
know, we should not be deportingCambodian people, which has been
happening for quite a while. And so it's like, how do we get
people to come to their senses, I guess?
And what dialogue can we start with?
Because it is baffling. And sometimes I feel like I've
given up. And it's like, you know what?
(11:52):
Like fuck around and find out, you know?
Yeah, I mean, it's a really sad thing to see our own communities
who obviously face different experiences and marginalization
and oppression, siding with the powerful and the systems that
(12:12):
actually don't protect them. I think at least in my family
and my community, it's taken a lot of time and and real sort of
listening and understanding of where they are coming from.
And I know sometimes, you know, meeting people where they are is
(12:33):
almost it almost sounds so naiveand both side ISM.
So I'm like cautiously approaching this subject with a
lot of community organizers and circles where, you know, it's
not that we are trying to give credence to some of the beliefs
that some people hold. But when it comes to especially
those people who have marginalized identities and
(12:54):
experiences and historical trauma, I think it's really
important for us to bridge and try to bridge because that's the
work that is needed ahead of us.So during the George Floyd
uprising, the conversations thatI was having with a lot of Asian
American communities and the older generation of folks
(13:14):
especially was really digging into not only their anti
blackness, but to connect them to the history of their own
countries and their own ethnicity and mirroring what
they had to experience and and flee to what is happening in the
(13:35):
US. Because the fact is many of our
elders have experiences with government propaganda and
repression and the military oppression from their home
countries. And when I started drawing those
parallels with my dad, for example, it was more effective
(13:55):
than any other conversation thatI had with him where I was kind
of morally policing him on what believe in what to say, but
rather really trying to understand his fears and his
need to and his instincts to survive in this country where
it's so often is sold to us and packaged to many immigrants as a
(14:21):
privilege to be considered a model citizen right?
To be proximate to whiteness in any shape or form is preferred
to our proximity to, say, blackness and black community.
And I think it's important for us to really interrogate where
(14:41):
those beliefs come from for our parents and for our community
members, and to start to shake those beliefs in ways that will
help them to open up to different perspectives.
And knowing that they're at whatever we are doing for the
collective is actually going to be more beneficial for them than
(15:03):
us siding with the upper class, ruling class and the powerful.
Yeah, I have been thinking aboutthis a lot too.
And I think you also bring a really good point here because
like, like, like with the, the ending of the Vietnam War, which
led a lot of refugees then to the US and then other places in
(15:26):
the diaspora and after the Korean War.
And you know what the, what the number of adoptees and also the,
the mass migration that have happened.
I also think about how the Republicans especially are
really good at capitalizing on their trauma and they know how
to like get the buzzword like like in like in the Vietnamese
(15:47):
community, the word communism islike a red flag.
It just all of a sudden sends upcrazy signals.
And and I've actually had to unlearn a lot of the things that
I was taught, both in the American education, but also
within my own South Vietnamese community.
And I know this is going to get me in a lot hot bubble about
this, but you know, I like have had to think about the legacy of
(16:11):
Ho Chi Minh and in the South Vietnamese refugees.
He is a four letter word. But then, you know, you go to
Vietnam, which I did last year, It's a very different narrative.
And and that's also making me wonder.
Ho Chi Minh was a guy who was against imperialism and he, you
know, was a person that really wanted Vietnam unified.
(16:36):
Whether people agree with the methods or not, whatever means
to be debated. But I think that that also I've
had to unlearn a lot of what hashappened.
Also thinking about the US and South Vietnam's harm, you know,
we forget about the Malay massacre or what happened in
Korea with the massacre that happened, you know.
So I think that is something that really tells me what how do
(17:00):
we make the messaging work? Because the Republicans have
been capitalizing it forever. Absolutely, and I think that's
one of the patterns that I talked about in the last
newsletter I sent where so oftenour traumas become the tools of
oppression when used and Co opted and and weaponized by the
(17:25):
privileged and that are trying to uphold the systems of
oppression. Right.
I think that is really common pattern that we all have to
recognize, whether it is the Korean American working classes,
trauma around poverty and you know, disempowerment and using
(17:49):
that to perpetuate anti blackness in the community, or
it is the Co opting of, you know, misogyny and sexism in a
way that makes assist people be afraid of trans people.
There's a lot of weaponizing of trauma, right?
Like they are in that narrative,they are weaponizing people's
(18:13):
fear of sexual violence and their experiences and trauma of
sexual violence to weaponize andto vilify trans communities,
right? So I think in many ways part of
our healing work is liberation work.
And this is precisely why. Because when we are not in touch
with our own fears, when we are not in touch with our own
(18:36):
personal traumas and historical wounds, then it becomes really
susceptible for those things to be Co opted and weaponized by
the people in power who are upholding systems of oppression.
And I think that's what's happening with what's happened,
the genocide in Palestine and the weaponization of Jewish
safety in and using that as the justification for committing
(19:00):
these war crimes and genocide and Palestine by the Israeli, by
Israel. So I think it's happening all
around us. And I think the only way that we
get out of this loop is by supporting people to get in
touch with their own healing needs and creating real spaces
(19:20):
and resources for it. And also being really discerning
when it comes to the policies that are being put forth that
that masquerades as a healing tool when it's actually a weapon
that is destructing so many of our communities without us even
realizing it. And to kind of make a pivot like
(19:44):
over the years prior to 2023, you have let the work on DI in
the tech industry through your company Awaken, wrote a memoir,
done keynote and fireside chats at various organizations and
institutions while doing a lot of the activism work on the
ground during the Trump administration and specifically
during COVID. What has that experience been
(20:04):
like for you in responding to events that were happening in
the wake of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor's murder, the
anti Asian violence and how it in some ways deepened the work
that you've been doing? You know, that was a really
hectic and exhausting traumatizing time for I think a
lot of people, both because of the pandemic and because of all
(20:28):
these intersecting political traumas that people were
experiencing, whether it was therise of anti Asian hate crimes
or the, you know, continued murders of black bodies by the
police. And I think that's when I really
started to talk about my Asian American identity.
(20:50):
Before that, I don't think I wasleading any of my work with my
Asian American lens, to be honest with you.
But when it came to addressing the rampant rise in anti
blackness in the Asian community, I thought that was in
many ways by one of my priorities in terms of my
(21:14):
contribution to the movement work.
So I think that time was really pivotal in me understanding my
role in this movement work and also really understanding how
how widespread anti blackness isin our community.
Even though I knew that it existed, I didn't know just how
(21:38):
deep, deeply rooted it was in our community.
So in some ways, I think I got to be a lot more authentic in
the way that I talked about thiswork because I was leading from
a position of my own experiencesand my own knowledge of what I
was taught. And I think that it also
(22:03):
solidified the importance of connecting what was happening in
the world to what was happening inside companies.
So prior to that time, I think Idid talk about politics, but it
was all in the frame of how do we make these issues relevant
(22:24):
for the workplace. Whereas I think with the George
Floyd uprising and learning fromso many Black leaders, I think I
became a lot bolder in talking about current events and
political issues that didn't seem quote, UN quote, relevant
to the workplace, but talking about them and connecting them
(22:45):
nonetheless, because they are all connected, right?
It's not, it's not important just in this context of, oh,
people are thinking about these political issues at work.
So we need to make space for them.
It was more that all of the patterns that are happening
outside of the workplace exist in the workplace and we are
(23:07):
constantly perpetuating these different cycles of violence
everywhere we are. And all of these events are
connected, right? The murder of George Floyd is
connected to the over policing of Black people in the
workplace. It is connected to the
criminalization of black and brown people in the workplace
and on the street. So I think that was a really
(23:27):
important time of my life where I got to be and I got to clarify
what I wanted to talk about and also how I wanted to exist in
this work with all of my identities.
In the last few years we have seen the government and cultural
(23:49):
pushback on DEI. It started with, I mean, quote
me on you can you know, push back on this.
But I believe it was Governor Ron DeSantis from Florida.
And I mean he was obviously the bad honcho in this, in this anti
DEI movement. And also like the push back on
what is going on in Palestine and with the ICE deportations.
(24:10):
How did it all affect the work that you were doing with Awaken?
Well, so after 2020, I started being becoming really burnt out
and I was also struggling with my own personal mental health
challenges. I was experiencing the worst
case of depression that I had experienced during that time and
(24:33):
anxiety. So I actually ended up
sunsetting the company. I don't know if you knew about
that, but I I only announced it formally this year because I
think I still had a lot of issues around letting go of the
thing that I knew worked both financially and for my
(24:53):
professional career. But it got to a point where I
had to choose the work or me. And this is a classic case of me
pretending to be a martyr and keep doing the work even at the
expense of my own health and Wellness.
And I, that was a terrible mistake that I made and very
(25:14):
antithetical to the work that we're all trying to do.
But I sunset the company becauseI was so depressed and burnt
out. And I started doing work on my
own without a team, which was both challenging but also
liberating because when I was running the company, I had to
constantly stress out about making sure that we have enough
(25:36):
money in the bank account for payroll with all the employees
that we had. But when it was just me, I could
take more risks with what I wanted to say.
I could really represent me and myself, which was liberating.
And so I think that allowed me to be a lot more vocal when it
came to my advocacy for Palestine.
(25:59):
And, you know, I also felt a lotof guilt around coming to this
issue so late. I started speaking out for
Palestine just after the October7th incident.
And that I knew that, you know, this occupation and the this
(26:25):
historical oppression of Palestinians and their land had
been going on. I just didn't think that it was
an issue that I should really care about, to be frank with
you. I knew my friends in college who
used to be very active organizers on that front, but I
just thought it wasn't an issue that I should really dedicate my
(26:48):
time to. And so when it came to really
understanding about what was going on in 2023, I felt a lot
of urgency and guilt around how I should have been doing more up
until that point. So my career kind of pivoted
pretty quickly because I saw this issue as being one of the
(27:10):
most important issues of our time.
And so I ended up dedicating a lot of my time away from
awakening after I had sunset that business to my personal
activism work. I remembered in your new podcast
that you mentioned how after October 7th, which is now two
(27:30):
years ago, but the genocide happening in Palestine, you had
to seriously reflect on what validation and acceptance meant
for you, especially as a queer Korean American woman.
Like, you know, like with being in part of an Asian family,
myself and I think about the common Asian immigrant
(27:51):
narratives and we think about how hard we have to work to be
loved by our families to to be accepted by our our white peers,
to subconsciously break a traumatic cycle and having to
navigate in white lit spaces without guidance.
And how do these experiences change or help you unlearn
certain values and beliefs that you are no longer aligned with?
(28:15):
Yeah, that's a good question. And thank you for listening to
my podcast. I really appreciate that.
I hope you liked it. I did.
I love it. The so this is really important
for I think this. So the last couple of years for
me has been an incredible a couple of years of
(28:38):
transformation and healing, but also a lot of painful work
behind the scenes. And I only started really
talking about it in recent months after I've had a chance
to really process it. But, you know, I grew up in
Korea and moved to the States and was told by many people that
(28:59):
in order for me to succeed in this country, in order for me to
make money, I need to assimilateas quickly as possible.
And I'm sure this is a narrativethat's very common for other
children of immigrants or immigrants themselves.
So when I came to the States as a teenager, you know, I was told
to adopt an English name insteadof using my Korean name, me
Jung. I was told I need to adopt an
(29:20):
English name to be remembered tohave a higher likelihood of
getting callbacks for interviews, which has been
proven time and time again. As you know, a true statistic,
right? You get you're more likely to
get callbacks for interviews if you have an English sounding
name or American sounding name quote UN quote.
I was told I need to lose my Korean accent.
(29:41):
I needed to learn English and assimilate and dress more like a
Korean American, not Korean Korean.
And so I designed every part of my identity and my life to fit
into the standards of whiteness.And it worked.
I learned English quickly by notwatching K dramas that I loved,
(30:02):
not listening to Korean music that I loved.
And it was so ingrained in me that in order for me to succeed,
I need to fit in, I need to assimilate, and I need to speak
the language that people want meto speak.
And that translated all the way into my professional career.
Even when I was doing social justice work, even as I was
running this DEI company, I was doing the best that I can to
(30:24):
bridge social justice principleswith what would be heard and
accepted in the corporate arena.And I think part of it, what I
why I was so successful in the DEI work and in my Awaken
company work, is because I was able to balance this criticality
(30:47):
with the compassion and understanding in a way that was
still edgy enough, but palatableenough for me to not get kicked
out of these corporate arenas. And that's a, you know, it's a,
it's both a science and an art to say the things that I want to
say without getting kicked out. So I was always doing this
(31:08):
balancing act. But when I started talking about
Palestine, I hadn't realized howthat would be the single most
controversial issue that would get me kicked out no matter how
I said it. And I think I had, I think I had
(31:30):
reached a point where I was donetrying to play this game of how
to push the envelope without getting kicked out when it came
to this issue that I saw as one of the most urgent and
generation defining events of our lifetime.
(31:52):
And so when I started talking about Palestine, I, I pretty
immediately started getting my contracts cancelled that were
already signed. I started being ghosted by
prospects that were in the finalstages of talking about our
contracts and one time I pretty directly got let go from a by a
(32:19):
client who said they are they are not able to work with me
because I posted about Palestineon my social media.
So for the first time in my life, I felt as though there was
nothing I could do to prove my worthiness to these institutions
(32:39):
that I worked so hard to be respected by.
And I had to really reconcile myown sense of self and worth,
irrespective of what these institutions thought of me and
how they valued or didn't value me.
(33:00):
Which was actually a really hardlesson for me to internalize.
Yes, theoretically I know that Iam a worthy person regardless of
what job I get, regardless of how much I get paid for my
engagements. But in reality, when my bank
account started, you know, depleting itself without an
income when people that when I when I used to get lots of
(33:24):
emails about inquiries for speaking engagements and
workshops and none of that started coming again.
I think I had to really sit withmyself and my own sense of
relevance, my own sense of senseof self and worthiness in a way
that I had never done before. So it took a lot of, you know,
(33:45):
internal healing work and also the simultaneously feeling guilt
and shame for even thinking about my own loss when people
were literally getting killed and murdered in Palestine,
right? So there were so many emotions
that I was trying to make sense of and trying to figure out the
kinds of repercussions that I was facing and how I was going
(34:10):
to recover from them financiallygiven, you know, you still need
to make a living in this capitalist system.
But, you know, at the end of theday, I had the privilege of
having enough savings for me to keep taking those risks and to
not have to cower to the demandsof these institutions that told
me that I need to stop talking about Palestine if I wanted to
(34:32):
get hired. And I don't regret that choice.
And I recognize that that was able to happen because of the
privileges that I have. I think that's also very
important to note because I remembered like I'm from my own
experience, like even though I don't have the kind of platform
that you have, but I will say that I was very worried about
(34:55):
what I was going to say. I remember my employer was like
looking through my Instagram stories mysteriously.
And I was like starting to put them on, starting to put my
views on close friends, which also felt like it felt like I
was cowarding out. And it bothered me a lot because
I'm a very pretty outspoken person.
(35:16):
And I just felt like, gosh, you know, employers are probably
going to start, you know, blacklisting means like, do I
have the, do I have the flexibility, the financial
flexibility to continue this work?
And also like I had, you know, previously worked for a Jewish
LED organization many years ago.So there's people in my
(35:37):
connections that I was also veryconcerned about.
And also the other part and the also the other part that I've
also recognized is that I didn'tfeel like I had the the
sophistication of being able to make a very good case online.
Because I think what I learned from five years ago when the
(35:57):
George Floyd murder happened, I just remembered I was pointing
out about Officer Tao among police officer who was clearly
an accomplice and Floyd's murderand a former friend who was
Hmong literally was very upset at me.
You know, he felt like I was punching down on his community.
(36:18):
Fair enough. You know, the Hmong community
has always been invincible and invisible within the Asian
American narrative. But it LED into a free for all
from all sides of my friends andand took up a good day.
And I was like, and I was prettytraumatized from that experience
because I was like, like, I don't want my friends getting
(36:38):
hurt in this melee. I don't know if I have the
ability to help to moderate my own content.
And so I felt like I was cowarding out taking the easy
way I was like, and I think as time went on, it's like, I've
got to try to say something. And I just like as a person
whose, whose family have dealt with genocide, how can I like be
(37:01):
this quiet on it? And, and I think that is
something for all of us to reckon with.
So like, how do you find to support, how do you find the
courage to be able to speak out knowing that it will cost you
substantial income, friendships,partnerships and your own
reputation? I don't get touched up on that,
(37:23):
but I'm very curious if you can kind of expand on like what it
took for you to feel that you are in a safe situation where
you can freely speak out and join activists.
Oh my goodness. First of all, thank you for
sharing some of your internal monologue because I think you're
(37:48):
not alone in feeling all of those things.
Both the worry about the repercussions, but also the
shame and the guilt for not saying more, doing more.
I feel it too. I feel it all the time.
And I think we all have different thresholds that we're
navigating when it comes to the level of risk that we're willing
to take or we're able to take on.
(38:12):
What I constantly talk about online is how it's incumbent
upon us to actually be honest about those lines and the
thresholds. Because I think the fact is many
of us are able to take more risks than we are currently
taking. And we are not able to do so
(38:34):
because we haven't actually faced our fears and the risks
and asked ourselves the conditions that we would need to
be able to make those risks happen.
And that goes for me too. I very clearly remember the
first time I was asked to partake in a pretty risky direct
(38:58):
action that was going to result in a mass arrest.
And I was scared and I hesitated.
And I also very harshly judged myself for hesitating.
Like I am one of the more privileged people in our society
(39:19):
today. I have the class privilege of
having enough savings to not be,not have to, you know, work
without the clients coming. I have a citizenship.
I am a light skinned East Asian person.
And yet I was hesitant to take action that would get me
(39:47):
arrested or be I get myself placed in a situation where I
could be physically assaulted bycops.
And I had to really sit with myself and think about why.
And I think it's a very human thing when we are not practiced
in certain ways to feel fearful,whether it is the financial
(40:12):
vulnerability, whether it is a physical vulnerability or social
vulnerability, where we are fearing losing connections with
one another. So we all may be susceptible to
different types of fears based on our individual traumas.
For me, because I grew up low income in the in the states
because I witnessed my dad goingbankrupt twice and I had to work
(40:39):
ever since I was a 14 year old, The financial vulnerability is
something that I fear a lot. So when I thought about getting
arrested, having a record, a criminal record on my file and
how that might impact my being able to get a job in the future.
I think I was just playing out some of these worst case
(41:01):
scenarios in my head that made me feel really small and feel
like a coward. But talking about those fears
with someone else, with a friendwho was equally scared, is
actually what got me to be more courageous.
It wasn't seeing a very practiced veteran organizer who
(41:22):
was organizing the thing, who seemed just fearless about
getting arrested, getting beatenby cops because they've been
there many times. That didn't make me feel more
courageous, if anything I felt like I don't think I could be
that person. I'm not that fearless, I have
tons of fears. But rather, it was my friend who
(41:45):
had also never been arrested, who we who were, who was talking
to me the night before the action and said, I am scared
too, but I want to do this with you and me knowing that there
was another person who felt exactly the same way, who shared
some of my identities and who also was trying to practice
(42:07):
living in alignment with their values.
And I just want to also preface that being a part of direct
action isn't the only way that you can show your advocacy and
support. And there are many, many
different lanes that we can all take part in.
But this in particular was an area that I always wanted to
challenge myself to be a part of.
And for me, being with the person who was just as scared,
(42:27):
who was saying to me, I feel that way too, that's what helped
me to feel more courageous, thatwe can be scared together and we
can practice courage together inthis way.
So I think there are so many different ways that we can
practice courage with each other.
But I think it does start with us facing our own fears and
being vulnerable enough to sharewhat they are and being in the
(42:51):
space together, Co witnessing the fears and vulnerabilities
and the the need for healing that come up and meeting them
with gentleness and compassion. And also with clarity around
what our values are. And really thinking about what
are the conditions that I need to be able to do this.
What I needed was I needed to know that there would be actual
(43:15):
infrastructure for jail support or and that there would be
lawyers who who would advocate for us that I have people and
savings that could bail me out. Those are the things that I
needed to know before I was ableto practice courage in ways that
I had never done before. So I think there are many
(43:36):
concrete things that we can do to be able to be more
courageous. And I love this quote by Mia
Mingus that I always say who talks about how we can only
truly practice courage when we are afraid.
So when we are afraid, I now tryto practice thinking about that
as an opportunity for me to be courageous.
(43:58):
And thinking about all the ways in which that I can build my
life around the kind of safety Nets that I can build with my
community that's not afforded tome by the systems.
And choosing to make time and space to create those safety
Nets consciously in order for meto be more free and living a lie
(44:23):
in alignment with my values. Because a lot of people aren't
able to be courageous because they don't have the safety net,
right? They don't have the community,
they don't have the safety net of financial savings.
They don't have the privileges of being a documented person.
And so if we can be more honest about the conditions that we
need to create and actually put effort towards creating those
(44:43):
conditions so that we can take more risks that allow us to live
in alignment with our values, I think we can practice courage as
a collective. And that will help move the
needle towards our collective liberation.
And I'm very excited about talking about this because I am
very close to talking about thisframework around courage,
(45:05):
because I've been studying courage for a very long time.
And I've been trying to codify what it is that enables some
people to be more courageous in various contexts, whether it's
speaking up in their own lives at work or participating in
direct actions or risking arrestor getting beat up by cops.
And what enables some people to not do that?
(45:25):
So stay tuned. Yeah, no, this is great.
And I really appreciate you justgoing into this deep dive and
also like really modeling what what courage can look like in
being able to try to speak out what is it required?
What do we need to get us to that level?
I mean it's not just for Palestine, but also where people
(45:49):
who are protesting cuz I look atKoreas protests, I mean gosh,
they're very good at protests and.
Yeah, Koreans, we are very good at they're.
Very good at it. And I'm just like, gosh, you
know, it feels like the protest that we see here.
And I don't do this to be dismissive of the work and the
courage that it takes for peopleto actually show up.
(46:11):
But I feel like, could we actually do more?
You know, how do we actually scare the bejesus out of these
lawmakers and these, you know, capitalistic demons are just,
like, circling around and just like clawing at us.
And so it's like, what can we doto create more safety Nets?
And I'm really glad that you bring that up.
(46:33):
I also think about like, you know, celebrity culture, how it
should be dying. You know, as much as I am guilty
of like, my own standing of certain celebrities, I actually
just decided to like, cancel outChris Martin Coldplay because I
was like, OK, this guy was playing respectability politics
about Charlie Craig. I'm like, OK, you know what?
That is it. I am, you know, I've already had
to cancel out Radiohead out of my playlist a while ago.
(46:56):
And it's like, but I think that when we look at celebrities who
are actually trying, who are actually now speaking out, I
think that really tells you thatthat the activism in the digital
spaces have been slowly working.And we saw that at the Emmys.
And like, I don't want to say that we should feel bad for
(47:16):
celebrities. We're not speaking out because I
feel like there's a substantial privilege.
But it's also like it also tellsyou the system that they are
also a part of and, and how theyare very much just one of the
many, one of the many engines that run the system.
I mean, you got directors, you got executives, you have so many
(47:39):
people that can influence the media, as we saw with Paramount
and CBS. I'm I'm and also like what other
media, traditional media outletsand what that looks like.
So, yeah, I think it's kind of like my roundabout way of saying
that is that, yes, like how do we try to divest away from the
traditional outlets that have that actually harmed our
(48:01):
communities and also corporations like, you know,
whether it's Starbucks or Target, What does it look like
when we have to divest to think about our own practices?
Yeah. I mean, I think people, you
know, this time really challenges people in thinking
about what trade-offs they're willing to make in order to live
(48:26):
in alignment with their values. And this is like a core chapter
of my book that I talk about allthe time because it's the most
challenging part of the work is reckoning with the fact that
because we are embedded in a capitalist white supremacist
system, in order for us to buildsomething new, in order for us
(48:47):
to reject the oppressive patterns, sometimes it's going
to require us to give up something that we don't want to
that. I think most people that I have
done workshops with in corporateAmerica, in tech in particular,
when I talk to executives about this idea of trade off, they
(49:12):
start to get really challenged by the idea.
Right? Because we have so long sold
this idea of DEI as this rainbowand sunshine type of initiative
where we're just being nice to one another rather than an issue
that requires systemic change and trade-offs to be made in
(49:33):
order to come to fruition. We can't just hire a bunch of
different people and expect equity to happen, right?
Like we need to actually deliberately talk about how this
going is going to require us to give up on maximizing our profit
at the expense of exploitation. It's going to require us to not
(49:54):
drink our favorite Frappuccino at Starbucks in order to
maintain the boycott. It's going to require us to not
use certain search engines that we are so accustomed to using.
We have to look at our 401K. We have to look at our, you
know, portfolio of investments that we may not have ever looked
(50:18):
at because it's automated, because it's all baked into our
daily lives, right. So I think there is just so many
things that we have to reckon with when we start to peel back
the layers of how embedded we all are in the systems and how
(50:39):
it requires us to be really honest about asking ourselves
some of these questions when it comes to personal sacrifice and
trade off, and also reminding ourselves of what there is to
gain from it. It's not just about trading off
things that we want to keep, right?
It's also we're doing that in order to realize this vision,
(51:02):
this reality of collective liberation, to live into the
kind of reality where we have the safety Nets that we deserve
from one another and that we cancreate systems that actually
serve us. That's what's at stake.
So when we start to ground ourselves in the ultimate vision
(51:23):
of the future that we want to build, I think those tradeoffs
hopefully become a little bit easier for us to make and reckon
with. And when it comes to celebrity
culture or expecting celebritiesto speak out, I mean, I wish
people with multiple digit millions of followers would say
(51:43):
something about the genocide in Palestine.
But in lieu of that, we can talkto each other.
And, you know, unfortunate, the unfortunate and disappointing
thing is like many people are not even doing that right.
Many people are shying away fromhaving conversations that create
conflict in their own relationships.
(52:03):
So I think before we, I mean, atthe same time we're criticizing
people with like big platforms. I think I'm all for pressure
campaigns and at the same time, let us also do the work that we
can in our own circles of influence so that we can have
create these opportunities for resilient connections and
(52:25):
relationships. That's the foundation of the
kind of community and work, a world that we want to live in.
I want you to share more about your podcast, which is called I
feel that way too. And I know you've just gave us a
quick introduction of how that became the genesis in creating
the podcast. But what has this journey been
like for you to start a podcast and and what have you or what
(52:52):
are you hoping to see in the long run with your show?
Yeah, this is probably one of the most challenging projects
that I've ever created. It took me 6 months to write my
book. It took me a year and a half to
produce this podcast. So that just tells you how much
effort, time, love went into this project.
(53:17):
And I'm so grateful for my friends who helped put to put
this put this project together and Asian American Futures for
making this happen. But you know, this opportunity
came about when I had lost over 90% of my income and almost all
of my speaking engagements were cancelled.
(53:38):
And you know, I'm a communicator.
That's what I do for a living. I whether that is through my
writing, through being on stage,that's what makes me feel alive
and the most in alignment with my vision of my life's work.
(53:58):
And so when all of those opportunities were taken away,
this podcast almost felt like myway of creating my own stage
where I get to dictate what I talk about and how I talk about
it. And I didn't know if people were
going to listen to it. I had no idea.
I've never done a podcast before.
I've only been interviewed by podcasters.
(54:18):
I've never been on the other side.
So it was such a beautiful experience of complete taking,
complete ownership of what I wanted to say without filters,
but also with the kind of vulnerability I'd never really
shown publicly. I mean, I went so deep into my
(54:39):
personal life, my personal experiences, and connecting my
personal healing work to our collective liberation work.
And you know, this podcast for me is really about courage and
community and being able to talkabout issues that often make
(55:00):
people feel isolated in a way that helps to create a sense of
belonging and community and a practice ground for us to be
able to be more courageous in our own lives and seeing that
all of our experiences are not so isolated.
So this podcast for me is truly me saying to my community, I
(55:25):
feel that way too. Whether it's feeling scared to
speak out about something or feeling conflicted about a
friendship where there is political disagreements, or
whether it's about talking aboutyour relationship to your
parents, that may not be perfect.
And so this has been a healing journey for me, and I am so
(55:48):
grateful that so many people whohave listened to the podcast
have resonated with it and are also feeling less alone as a
result of it. Yeah, I think that's incredible.
And and also like these days, how have you been in terms of
being able to find the work and the income that you that you
that you need to? It's kind of a hard question.
(56:09):
I hate asking this question too,because it feels very invasive,
but also like, but because you've had to like in a way,
make such a pivot away from these companies and partners and
even friends and associates thatyou felt that were a lot that
were once aligned with you. Like how has it been trying to
(56:29):
find different people who are aligned with your values that
help you to, you know, be able to achieve like financial
flexibility so you can continue the work that you do?
Honestly, it's been, it's been achallenge.
Let me be honest with you. I the podcast, I mean, as you
know, it's not something that you really make money off of
(56:50):
unless you are able to get a lotof like advertisements, which we
have none of. I'm just fortunate that I didn't
have to shell out my own money to produce it because it was
funded, but I didn't see like a dollar or cent for myself.
But it was a project that I'm so, so, so proud and grateful to
(57:11):
have created. I am getting a little bit more
inquiries recently because I think the tide is turning where
more people are realizing, oh shit, there is a genocide and
people who have been weary of hiring anyone who talked about
(57:32):
Palestine, I think are maybe starting to turn around.
I don't know. I'm not sure it's I haven't
recovered financially to the point where I was, you know how
I was doing back in 2021-2022. But I am hopeful that my
advocacy and my doing the best that I can to stay true to my
(57:55):
values that I believe have been consistent with the work that I
was doing before helps me to find the right communities for
me to do my work in. That's my hope that, you know,
it may not be, I may not ever beable to go back to the kind of,
you know, income that I was making before.
(58:16):
Who knows? But what I am hopeful is that
with this new sense of alignmentthat I have within myself, I am
able to find the people that really see my work and see me as
someone who can bring hopefully some value to their lives.
And I'm excited about that prospect of being able to work
(58:39):
in more alignment. That's awesome man.
What do you have going on for the rest of this year and into
the short term future? I am hoping to somehow fund the
next season of the podcast. And I also started writing a
newsletter to keep building the sense of community that I want
(59:02):
for myself. So for anyone who's listening,
you can subscribe to my newsletter.
And if you want to be a financial supporter, you can.
But it's it's open and free for everyone, regardless of whether
you can donate. And I am working on this new
framework around courage. I think this is a really timely
(59:26):
thing for me to be studying and talking about, and I don't have
any plans to write a book yet, but it is percolating.
So the next sort of era of my work, I think, is gonna be
around courage and community. That is wonderful and I can't
wait to see more of your episodes.
(59:47):
And also, I hope that people do get to tune in and also to
follow you on Instagram and on LinkedIn, because I feel that
there's so much wisdom and courage.
And also, and also like different, like, I feel like I
have learned a lot of different leaders because of your, your
social media. Like I've learned about Doctor
Killick cadet, you know, from change cadet, you know, and I, I
(01:00:11):
was like, gosh, there are so many people that I have learned
from or been exposed to because of your work.
And I think that is a really important platform.
This is why I have such a profound respect for your work.
And the last question I have is.If you had to go back in time to
October 8th 2023, what would yousay to your past self?
(01:00:37):
Oh, I would say you are on the right track and I would say I am
really proud of you for speakingyour truth even when you know it
(01:00:57):
is not a popular one. Thank you so much for sharing
and. And I'll probably tell her
actually, to save money. That too, I think that that's
always nice because, you know, inflation and I'll be happy to
deal with that. But yeah, I, I just want to say,
you know, thank you so much for being on my show.
It is so great to reconnect withyou after all these years and to
(01:01:18):
really see the the evolution of you and also seeing how that has
continued to transform and it's been such A to watch you along
the way. Thank you so much for your kind
words. That's really, that's really
kind. I'm gonna receive that.
Hey everyone, this is Randy Kim from the Bund Me Chronicles
podcast and I am so excited to have this guest on.
She was a guest several years back.
This is in 2020, which feels like a lifetime ago, and we're
halfway through this decade. And Michelle Kim was on my show
(00:24):
five years ago and it was duringthe George Floyd and Brianna
Taylor murder. She had written an op-ed about
the importance of Asian Americansolidarity with the black
community during the protests. And Michelle was then ACEO of
the company Awakened that provided DEI education for tech
companies. You know, ever since, you know,
(00:47):
I've been following your journey.
You have since published an award-winning book, The Wake Up.
You've done many keynotes on DEI, social and racial justice.
You currently have a new podcastthat you host and produce called
I Feel That Way Too. And in your podcast, you shared
many of the challenges that you've experienced in these past
(01:07):
few years, along with your activism and supporting
Palestinian liberation and fighting against fascism.
So with that said, it is great to have another conversation
with you and thank you for beingon my show.
Thank you so much for having me,Randy.
It's always a pleasure and I'm really excited to be in
conversation with you today. Thank you.
(01:27):
And so first of all, how are youholding up this year while we
have a few months left of 2025? Yeah, I mean, like you were
saying it, time just feels so disorienting in many ways.
I think since 2020, I don't knowthat I've had a very linear
relationship with time. So the fact that this year is
(01:50):
almost over is baffling to me. I feel like I've been stuck in
this loop of, you know, talking about multiple genocides that's
happening. And I think part of it is all
these different crises that we've experienced kind of makes
the time sense of time for me very fuzzy.
It just seems like it's one thing after another.
(02:12):
So I'm doing the best that I canto stay grounded.
But also there are days where I feel really exhausted and very,
very much stewing in my own despair and disappointment in
the world. And then there are days where I
remain hopeful and activated to do more in the community.
(02:33):
So it's just been a tumultuous year, to say the least.
Yeah, I think when I look back in this year so far, it feels
like it's one onslaught after another.
And, you know, I mean, I've had to deal with, you know, grief
and personal loss and and sometimes just trying to be
present. And also like sometimes I still
(02:56):
have a lot of guilt whenever I go on a trip or, you know, spend
fun time for myself as a level of self-care.
But then I also like we, we havethese horrible things that are
happening that, that put our community members and people
abroad in jeopardy. So how do you, like, navigate
between, like, trying to wrestlewith self-care and finding
(03:20):
abundance and joy in all of the all of the misery that's been
happening with this Trump administration and beyond that?
Yeah, that's such a good question.
And it's never easy to wrap whatever I'm doing to find joy
and grounding as self-care that's dissociated from what's
(03:42):
happening in the world. And I think so often our world,
our society sells self-care as something that is desperate from
the tragedies and the traumas ofthe world.
And I often try to go back to the original intention of of the
term self-care as used by AudreyLorde, who talked about
(04:05):
self-care not as a self indulgence, but as an act of
self preservation in the contextof multiple systems of
oppression that's operating to quite literally kill
marginalized people. So when I think about that
context, I feel more grounded inmy pursuit of joy and rest,
(04:31):
knowing that I must care for myself in a system that refuses
to. And that act in and of itself is
intentional and purposeful in our collective movement work for
liberation. But it's not, I get it in
theory, but when I'm, you know, stepping away from the work and
(04:54):
off my social media feed and notlooking at the news and trying
to care for myself in, you know,different ways, sometimes it
does feel frivolous given how much violence there is that
people are navigating. And I think I have.
That's why I have an incredible group of friends who also feel
(05:15):
similarly, who remind me that itis still necessary that we take
the time to refuel ourselves so that we can keep the journey
going. Yeah, no, thank you for naming
that because I I've read Trisha Hersey's from the nap ministry
and and she shares a lot of her own wisdom, especially knowing
(05:37):
that it's meant for the black community that have had to
wrestle with centuries of oppression.
And what does it mean to fight against through rust as a
resistance form? And I think about like the
conversation sometimes I have with some of my close friends
who are in the activism work, specifically in the pro
(05:58):
Palestine. And I sometimes feel like we're
we're like yelling at each otheron our phones, Like what is
going on? How the freak is this happening
or what's going on with ice and like around my neighborhoods?
And so it's so it is like, how do we try to like, you know,
navigate between, you know, bothlike having a love of sanity so
(06:19):
it doesn't kill us eventually, but also how do we show
sensitivity and care to the people that are going through
this and knowing that this is a privilege that we are afforded
right now? And and I think that's something
that really holds up pretty muchevery day in my thought.
And I wonder, like for you, like, what does it mean to be a
(06:41):
queer Korean American woman in America right now?
You know, I think in many ways this time has illuminated a lot
of my privileges that I'm holding, that I'm having to
wrestle with how I should use those privileges.
(07:04):
So even though I am a person of color, the fact that I am a
light skinned East Asian person Shields me in many ways from
these ICE raids. Even though I am an immigrant, I
still hold US citizenship by naturalization and though I my
political advocacy work and public sort of persona puts me
(07:28):
at more risk than other white, you know, US born citizens, It
still when it comes to the levelof threat that black and brown
communities are facing or Latinaimmigrants are facing today or
undocumented immigrants are facing.
I am so far removed from that reality that I have to really
(07:53):
remind myself that it is a responsibility that I need to be
real about to show up for these movements with the privileges
that I have. And I think that, you know, all
the discourse that's happening and the conversations nationally
that's happening around immigrants do have an impact on
(08:16):
my existence every single day. And, you know, the the recent
raid of the Hyundai factory where almost 300 Korean people
were deported in a raid and werecompletely mistreated.
And more stories are coming out now where they are documenting
the daily harassment and the dehumanization that they had to
(08:39):
experience. So that one hit close to home
because my dad was undocumented for a long time.
And I'm yet again having to, youknow, connect the dots between
all of our struggles. I think so often Asian, East
Asian communities are seen as this model minority, right, that
(08:59):
we've talked about this since 2020 and beyond.
And I think this was a pivotal moment for people like my
parents to really understand theimmigration issues that are so
often casted as an issue for Latino people or Black and brown
communities is actually our struggle too.
(09:22):
So in some ways, I am hopeful that this tragic and horrendous
violence that were was committedagainst Korean American or
Korean immigrants would be a starting place for some Korean
people who have never thought about any of these social issues
as their own. So I'm just reckoning with a lot
(09:44):
of these different identity markers that I hold, what I'm
seeing in my communities and thediscourse that's happening
nationally, and trying to place myself both as a marginalized
person, but also as somebody whoholds immense privileges so that
I could be a part of this movement in a really honest and
(10:05):
way that is holding integrity. Yeah, I think you bring up a
really important point about, you know, what does the Asian
American experience mean in the Trump era?
Trump 2.0 And like as a Vietnamese Cambodian person,
like the Vietnamese community especially has been really
dealing with trying to figure out the political divisions,
(10:30):
which I'm sure that you're familiar with from the Korean
experience. And, you know, in Orange County,
Viet, the Vietnamese community is notoriously Republican for so
many years and it still holds a lot of that bash then pretty
strongly. And I, you know, and sometimes
when I, I think, I think like one Vietnamese tut event, one
(10:51):
older Vietnamese guy was wearingthe AOI, which is the
traditional outfit with the, with the, with the big US flag
all over it. And I was like, oh, gosh.
And, and I think about like what, how do we have these very
serious conversations? I mean, there's language
barriers that, you know, unfortunately get in the way of
(11:11):
it. The media that they consume in
their native language also playsa big part of it.
It it makes me wonder how are they reacting to the
deportations that are happening?Like, I was just reading like a
Cambodian content creator who was had very Trumpy vibes about
(11:31):
him, but yet all of a sudden he starts speaking out that, you
know, we should not be deportingCambodian people, which has been
happening for quite a while. And so it's like, how do we get
people to come to their senses, I guess?
And what dialogue can we start with?
Because it is baffling. And sometimes I feel like I've
given up. And it's like, you know what?
(11:52):
Like fuck around and find out, you know?
Yeah, I mean, it's a really sad thing to see our own communities
who obviously face different experiences and marginalization
and oppression, siding with the powerful and the systems that
(12:12):
actually don't protect them. I think at least in my family
and my community, it's taken a lot of time and and real sort of
listening and understanding of where they are coming from.
And I know sometimes, you know, meeting people where they are is
(12:33):
almost it almost sounds so naiveand both side ISM.
So I'm like cautiously approaching this subject with a
lot of community organizers and circles where, you know, it's
not that we are trying to give credence to some of the beliefs
that some people hold. But when it comes to especially
those people who have marginalized identities and
(12:54):
experiences and historical trauma, I think it's really
important for us to bridge and try to bridge because that's the
work that is needed ahead of us.So during the George Floyd
uprising, the conversations thatI was having with a lot of Asian
American communities and the older generation of folks
(13:14):
especially was really digging into not only their anti
blackness, but to connect them to the history of their own
countries and their own ethnicity and mirroring what
they had to experience and and flee to what is happening in the
(13:35):
US. Because the fact is many of our
elders have experiences with government propaganda and
repression and the military oppression from their home
countries. And when I started drawing those
parallels with my dad, for example, it was more effective
(13:55):
than any other conversation thatI had with him where I was kind
of morally policing him on what believe in what to say, but
rather really trying to understand his fears and his
need to and his instincts to survive in this country where
it's so often is sold to us and packaged to many immigrants as a
(14:21):
privilege to be considered a model citizen right?
To be proximate to whiteness in any shape or form is preferred
to our proximity to, say, blackness and black community.
And I think it's important for us to really interrogate where
(14:41):
those beliefs come from for our parents and for our community
members, and to start to shake those beliefs in ways that will
help them to open up to different perspectives.
And knowing that they're at whatever we are doing for the
collective is actually going to be more beneficial for them than
(15:03):
us siding with the upper class, ruling class and the powerful.
Yeah, I have been thinking aboutthis a lot too.
And I think you also bring a really good point here because
like, like, like with the, the ending of the Vietnam War, which
led a lot of refugees then to the US and then other places in
(15:26):
the diaspora and after the Korean War.
And you know what the, what the number of adoptees and also the,
the mass migration that have happened.
I also think about how the Republicans especially are
really good at capitalizing on their trauma and they know how
to like get the buzzword like like in like in the Vietnamese
(15:47):
community, the word communism islike a red flag.
It just all of a sudden sends upcrazy signals.
And and I've actually had to unlearn a lot of the things that
I was taught, both in the American education, but also
within my own South Vietnamese community.
And I know this is going to get me in a lot hot bubble about
this, but you know, I like have had to think about the legacy of
(16:11):
Ho Chi Minh and in the South Vietnamese refugees.
He is a four letter word. But then, you know, you go to
Vietnam, which I did last year, It's a very different narrative.
And and that's also making me wonder.
Ho Chi Minh was a guy who was against imperialism and he, you
know, was a person that really wanted Vietnam unified.
(16:36):
Whether people agree with the methods or not, whatever means
to be debated. But I think that that also I've
had to unlearn a lot of what hashappened.
Also thinking about the US and South Vietnam's harm, you know,
we forget about the Malay massacre or what happened in
Korea with the massacre that happened, you know.
So I think that is something that really tells me what how do
(17:00):
we make the messaging work? Because the Republicans have
been capitalizing it forever. Absolutely, and I think that's
one of the patterns that I talked about in the last
newsletter I sent where so oftenour traumas become the tools of
oppression when used and Co opted and and weaponized by the
(17:25):
privileged and that are trying to uphold the systems of
oppression. Right.
I think that is really common pattern that we all have to
recognize, whether it is the Korean American working classes,
trauma around poverty and you know, disempowerment and using
(17:49):
that to perpetuate anti blackness in the community, or
it is the Co opting of, you know, misogyny and sexism in a
way that makes assist people be afraid of trans people.
There's a lot of weaponizing of trauma, right?
Like they are in that narrative,they are weaponizing people's
(18:13):
fear of sexual violence and their experiences and trauma of
sexual violence to weaponize andto vilify trans communities,
right? So I think in many ways part of
our healing work is liberation work.
And this is precisely why. Because when we are not in touch
with our own fears, when we are not in touch with our own
(18:36):
personal traumas and historical wounds, then it becomes really
susceptible for those things to be Co opted and weaponized by
the people in power who are upholding systems of oppression.
And I think that's what's happening with what's happened,
the genocide in Palestine and the weaponization of Jewish
safety in and using that as the justification for committing
(19:00):
these war crimes and genocide and Palestine by the Israeli, by
Israel. So I think it's happening all
around us. And I think the only way that we
get out of this loop is by supporting people to get in
touch with their own healing needs and creating real spaces
(19:20):
and resources for it. And also being really discerning
when it comes to the policies that are being put forth that
that masquerades as a healing tool when it's actually a weapon
that is destructing so many of our communities without us even
realizing it. And to kind of make a pivot like
(19:44):
over the years prior to 2023, you have let the work on DI in
the tech industry through your company Awaken, wrote a memoir,
done keynote and fireside chats at various organizations and
institutions while doing a lot of the activism work on the
ground during the Trump administration and specifically
during COVID. What has that experience been
(20:04):
like for you in responding to events that were happening in
the wake of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor's murder, the
anti Asian violence and how it in some ways deepened the work
that you've been doing? You know, that was a really
hectic and exhausting traumatizing time for I think a
lot of people, both because of the pandemic and because of all
(20:28):
these intersecting political traumas that people were
experiencing, whether it was therise of anti Asian hate crimes
or the, you know, continued murders of black bodies by the
police. And I think that's when I really
started to talk about my Asian American identity.
(20:50):
Before that, I don't think I wasleading any of my work with my
Asian American lens, to be honest with you.
But when it came to addressing the rampant rise in anti
blackness in the Asian community, I thought that was in
many ways by one of my priorities in terms of my
(21:14):
contribution to the movement work.
So I think that time was really pivotal in me understanding my
role in this movement work and also really understanding how
how widespread anti blackness isin our community.
Even though I knew that it existed, I didn't know just how
(21:38):
deep, deeply rooted it was in our community.
So in some ways, I think I got to be a lot more authentic in
the way that I talked about thiswork because I was leading from
a position of my own experiencesand my own knowledge of what I
was taught. And I think that it also
(22:03):
solidified the importance of connecting what was happening in
the world to what was happening inside companies.
So prior to that time, I think Idid talk about politics, but it
was all in the frame of how do we make these issues relevant
(22:24):
for the workplace. Whereas I think with the George
Floyd uprising and learning fromso many Black leaders, I think I
became a lot bolder in talking about current events and
political issues that didn't seem quote, UN quote, relevant
to the workplace, but talking about them and connecting them
(22:45):
nonetheless, because they are all connected, right?
It's not, it's not important just in this context of, oh,
people are thinking about these political issues at work.
So we need to make space for them.
It was more that all of the patterns that are happening
outside of the workplace exist in the workplace and we are
(23:07):
constantly perpetuating these different cycles of violence
everywhere we are. And all of these events are
connected, right? The murder of George Floyd is
connected to the over policing of Black people in the
workplace. It is connected to the
criminalization of black and brown people in the workplace
and on the street. So I think that was a really
(23:27):
important time of my life where I got to be and I got to clarify
what I wanted to talk about and also how I wanted to exist in
this work with all of my identities.
In the last few years we have seen the government and cultural
(23:49):
pushback on DEI. It started with, I mean, quote
me on you can you know, push back on this.
But I believe it was Governor Ron DeSantis from Florida.
And I mean he was obviously the bad honcho in this, in this anti
DEI movement. And also like the push back on
what is going on in Palestine and with the ICE deportations.
(24:10):
How did it all affect the work that you were doing with Awaken?
Well, so after 2020, I started being becoming really burnt out
and I was also struggling with my own personal mental health
challenges. I was experiencing the worst
case of depression that I had experienced during that time and
(24:33):
anxiety. So I actually ended up
sunsetting the company. I don't know if you knew about
that, but I I only announced it formally this year because I
think I still had a lot of issues around letting go of the
thing that I knew worked both financially and for my
(24:53):
professional career. But it got to a point where I
had to choose the work or me. And this is a classic case of me
pretending to be a martyr and keep doing the work even at the
expense of my own health and Wellness.
And I, that was a terrible mistake that I made and very
(25:14):
antithetical to the work that we're all trying to do.
But I sunset the company becauseI was so depressed and burnt
out. And I started doing work on my
own without a team, which was both challenging but also
liberating because when I was running the company, I had to
constantly stress out about making sure that we have enough
(25:36):
money in the bank account for payroll with all the employees
that we had. But when it was just me, I could
take more risks with what I wanted to say.
I could really represent me and myself, which was liberating.
And so I think that allowed me to be a lot more vocal when it
came to my advocacy for Palestine.
(25:59):
And, you know, I also felt a lotof guilt around coming to this
issue so late. I started speaking out for
Palestine just after the October7th incident.
And that I knew that, you know, this occupation and the this
(26:25):
historical oppression of Palestinians and their land had
been going on. I just didn't think that it was
an issue that I should really care about, to be frank with
you. I knew my friends in college who
used to be very active organizers on that front, but I
just thought it wasn't an issue that I should really dedicate my
(26:48):
time to. And so when it came to really
understanding about what was going on in 2023, I felt a lot
of urgency and guilt around how I should have been doing more up
until that point. So my career kind of pivoted
pretty quickly because I saw this issue as being one of the
(27:10):
most important issues of our time.
And so I ended up dedicating a lot of my time away from
awakening after I had sunset that business to my personal
activism work. I remembered in your new podcast
that you mentioned how after October 7th, which is now two
(27:30):
years ago, but the genocide happening in Palestine, you had
to seriously reflect on what validation and acceptance meant
for you, especially as a queer Korean American woman.
Like, you know, like with being in part of an Asian family,
myself and I think about the common Asian immigrant
(27:51):
narratives and we think about how hard we have to work to be
loved by our families to to be accepted by our our white peers,
to subconsciously break a traumatic cycle and having to
navigate in white lit spaces without guidance.
And how do these experiences change or help you unlearn
certain values and beliefs that you are no longer aligned with?
(28:15):
Yeah, that's a good question. And thank you for listening to
my podcast. I really appreciate that.
I hope you liked it. I did.
I love it. The so this is really important
for I think this. So the last couple of years for
me has been an incredible a couple of years of
(28:38):
transformation and healing, but also a lot of painful work
behind the scenes. And I only started really
talking about it in recent months after I've had a chance
to really process it. But, you know, I grew up in
Korea and moved to the States and was told by many people that
(28:59):
in order for me to succeed in this country, in order for me to
make money, I need to assimilateas quickly as possible.
And I'm sure this is a narrativethat's very common for other
children of immigrants or immigrants themselves.
So when I came to the States as a teenager, you know, I was told
to adopt an English name insteadof using my Korean name, me
Jung. I was told I need to adopt an
(29:20):
English name to be remembered tohave a higher likelihood of
getting callbacks for interviews, which has been
proven time and time again. As you know, a true statistic,
right? You get you're more likely to
get callbacks for interviews if you have an English sounding
name or American sounding name quote UN quote.
I was told I need to lose my Korean accent.
(29:41):
I needed to learn English and assimilate and dress more like a
Korean American, not Korean Korean.
And so I designed every part of my identity and my life to fit
into the standards of whiteness.And it worked.
I learned English quickly by notwatching K dramas that I loved,
(30:02):
not listening to Korean music that I loved.
And it was so ingrained in me that in order for me to succeed,
I need to fit in, I need to assimilate, and I need to speak
the language that people want meto speak.
And that translated all the way into my professional career.
Even when I was doing social justice work, even as I was
running this DEI company, I was doing the best that I can to
(30:24):
bridge social justice principleswith what would be heard and
accepted in the corporate arena.And I think part of it, what I
why I was so successful in the DEI work and in my Awaken
company work, is because I was able to balance this criticality
(30:47):
with the compassion and understanding in a way that was
still edgy enough, but palatableenough for me to not get kicked
out of these corporate arenas. And that's a, you know, it's a,
it's both a science and an art to say the things that I want to
say without getting kicked out. So I was always doing this
(31:08):
balancing act. But when I started talking about
Palestine, I hadn't realized howthat would be the single most
controversial issue that would get me kicked out no matter how
I said it. And I think I had, I think I had
(31:30):
reached a point where I was donetrying to play this game of how
to push the envelope without getting kicked out when it came
to this issue that I saw as one of the most urgent and
generation defining events of our lifetime.
(31:52):
And so when I started talking about Palestine, I, I pretty
immediately started getting my contracts cancelled that were
already signed. I started being ghosted by
prospects that were in the finalstages of talking about our
contracts and one time I pretty directly got let go from a by a
(32:19):
client who said they are they are not able to work with me
because I posted about Palestineon my social media.
So for the first time in my life, I felt as though there was
nothing I could do to prove my worthiness to these institutions
(32:39):
that I worked so hard to be respected by.
And I had to really reconcile myown sense of self and worth,
irrespective of what these institutions thought of me and
how they valued or didn't value me.
(33:00):
Which was actually a really hardlesson for me to internalize.
Yes, theoretically I know that Iam a worthy person regardless of
what job I get, regardless of how much I get paid for my
engagements. But in reality, when my bank
account started, you know, depleting itself without an
income when people that when I when I used to get lots of
(33:24):
emails about inquiries for speaking engagements and
workshops and none of that started coming again.
I think I had to really sit withmyself and my own sense of
relevance, my own sense of senseof self and worthiness in a way
that I had never done before. So it took a lot of, you know,
(33:45):
internal healing work and also the simultaneously feeling guilt
and shame for even thinking about my own loss when people
were literally getting killed and murdered in Palestine,
right? So there were so many emotions
that I was trying to make sense of and trying to figure out the
kinds of repercussions that I was facing and how I was going
(34:10):
to recover from them financiallygiven, you know, you still need
to make a living in this capitalist system.
But, you know, at the end of theday, I had the privilege of
having enough savings for me to keep taking those risks and to
not have to cower to the demandsof these institutions that told
me that I need to stop talking about Palestine if I wanted to
(34:32):
get hired. And I don't regret that choice.
And I recognize that that was able to happen because of the
privileges that I have. I think that's also very
important to note because I remembered like I'm from my own
experience, like even though I don't have the kind of platform
that you have, but I will say that I was very worried about
(34:55):
what I was going to say. I remember my employer was like
looking through my Instagram stories mysteriously.
And I was like starting to put them on, starting to put my
views on close friends, which also felt like it felt like I
was cowarding out. And it bothered me a lot because
I'm a very pretty outspoken person.
(35:16):
And I just felt like, gosh, you know, employers are probably
going to start, you know, blacklisting means like, do I
have the, do I have the flexibility, the financial
flexibility to continue this work?
And also like I had, you know, previously worked for a Jewish
LED organization many years ago.So there's people in my
(35:37):
connections that I was also veryconcerned about.
And also the other part and the also the other part that I've
also recognized is that I didn'tfeel like I had the the
sophistication of being able to make a very good case online.
Because I think what I learned from five years ago when the
(35:57):
George Floyd murder happened, I just remembered I was pointing
out about Officer Tao among police officer who was clearly
an accomplice and Floyd's murderand a former friend who was
Hmong literally was very upset at me.
You know, he felt like I was punching down on his community.
(36:18):
Fair enough. You know, the Hmong community
has always been invincible and invisible within the Asian
American narrative. But it LED into a free for all
from all sides of my friends andand took up a good day.
And I was like, and I was prettytraumatized from that experience
because I was like, like, I don't want my friends getting
(36:38):
hurt in this melee. I don't know if I have the
ability to help to moderate my own content.
And so I felt like I was cowarding out taking the easy
way I was like, and I think as time went on, it's like, I've
got to try to say something. And I just like as a person
whose, whose family have dealt with genocide, how can I like be
(37:01):
this quiet on it? And, and I think that is
something for all of us to reckon with.
So like, how do you find to support, how do you find the
courage to be able to speak out knowing that it will cost you
substantial income, friendships,partnerships and your own
reputation? I don't get touched up on that,
(37:23):
but I'm very curious if you can kind of expand on like what it
took for you to feel that you are in a safe situation where
you can freely speak out and join activists.
Oh my goodness. First of all, thank you for
sharing some of your internal monologue because I think you're
(37:48):
not alone in feeling all of those things.
Both the worry about the repercussions, but also the
shame and the guilt for not saying more, doing more.
I feel it too. I feel it all the time.
And I think we all have different thresholds that we're
navigating when it comes to the level of risk that we're willing
to take or we're able to take on.
(38:12):
What I constantly talk about online is how it's incumbent
upon us to actually be honest about those lines and the
thresholds. Because I think the fact is many
of us are able to take more risks than we are currently
taking. And we are not able to do so
(38:34):
because we haven't actually faced our fears and the risks
and asked ourselves the conditions that we would need to
be able to make those risks happen.
And that goes for me too. I very clearly remember the
first time I was asked to partake in a pretty risky direct
(38:58):
action that was going to result in a mass arrest.
And I was scared and I hesitated.
And I also very harshly judged myself for hesitating.
Like I am one of the more privileged people in our society
(39:19):
today. I have the class privilege of
having enough savings to not be,not have to, you know, work
without the clients coming. I have a citizenship.
I am a light skinned East Asian person.
And yet I was hesitant to take action that would get me
(39:47):
arrested or be I get myself placed in a situation where I
could be physically assaulted bycops.
And I had to really sit with myself and think about why.
And I think it's a very human thing when we are not practiced
in certain ways to feel fearful,whether it is the financial
(40:12):
vulnerability, whether it is a physical vulnerability or social
vulnerability, where we are fearing losing connections with
one another. So we all may be susceptible to
different types of fears based on our individual traumas.
For me, because I grew up low income in the in the states
because I witnessed my dad goingbankrupt twice and I had to work
(40:39):
ever since I was a 14 year old, The financial vulnerability is
something that I fear a lot. So when I thought about getting
arrested, having a record, a criminal record on my file and
how that might impact my being able to get a job in the future.
I think I was just playing out some of these worst case
(41:01):
scenarios in my head that made me feel really small and feel
like a coward. But talking about those fears
with someone else, with a friendwho was equally scared, is
actually what got me to be more courageous.
It wasn't seeing a very practiced veteran organizer who
(41:22):
was organizing the thing, who seemed just fearless about
getting arrested, getting beatenby cops because they've been
there many times. That didn't make me feel more
courageous, if anything I felt like I don't think I could be
that person. I'm not that fearless, I have
tons of fears. But rather, it was my friend who
(41:45):
had also never been arrested, who we who were, who was talking
to me the night before the action and said, I am scared
too, but I want to do this with you and me knowing that there
was another person who felt exactly the same way, who shared
some of my identities and who also was trying to practice
(42:07):
living in alignment with their values.
And I just want to also preface that being a part of direct
action isn't the only way that you can show your advocacy and
support. And there are many, many
different lanes that we can all take part in.
But this in particular was an area that I always wanted to
challenge myself to be a part of.
And for me, being with the person who was just as scared,
(42:27):
who was saying to me, I feel that way too, that's what helped
me to feel more courageous, thatwe can be scared together and we
can practice courage together inthis way.
So I think there are so many different ways that we can
practice courage with each other.
But I think it does start with us facing our own fears and
being vulnerable enough to sharewhat they are and being in the
(42:51):
space together, Co witnessing the fears and vulnerabilities
and the the need for healing that come up and meeting them
with gentleness and compassion. And also with clarity around
what our values are. And really thinking about what
are the conditions that I need to be able to do this.
What I needed was I needed to know that there would be actual
(43:15):
infrastructure for jail support or and that there would be
lawyers who who would advocate for us that I have people and
savings that could bail me out. Those are the things that I
needed to know before I was ableto practice courage in ways that
I had never done before. So I think there are many
(43:36):
concrete things that we can do to be able to be more
courageous. And I love this quote by Mia
Mingus that I always say who talks about how we can only
truly practice courage when we are afraid.
So when we are afraid, I now tryto practice thinking about that
as an opportunity for me to be courageous.
(43:58):
And thinking about all the ways in which that I can build my
life around the kind of safety Nets that I can build with my
community that's not afforded tome by the systems.
And choosing to make time and space to create those safety
Nets consciously in order for meto be more free and living a lie
(44:23):
in alignment with my values. Because a lot of people aren't
able to be courageous because they don't have the safety net,
right? They don't have the community,
they don't have the safety net of financial savings.
They don't have the privileges of being a documented person.
And so if we can be more honest about the conditions that we
need to create and actually put effort towards creating those
(44:43):
conditions so that we can take more risks that allow us to live
in alignment with our values, I think we can practice courage as
a collective. And that will help move the
needle towards our collective liberation.
And I'm very excited about talking about this because I am
very close to talking about thisframework around courage,
(45:05):
because I've been studying courage for a very long time.
And I've been trying to codify what it is that enables some
people to be more courageous in various contexts, whether it's
speaking up in their own lives at work or participating in
direct actions or risking arrestor getting beat up by cops.
And what enables some people to not do that?
(45:25):
So stay tuned. Yeah, no, this is great.
And I really appreciate you justgoing into this deep dive and
also like really modeling what what courage can look like in
being able to try to speak out what is it required?
What do we need to get us to that level?
I mean it's not just for Palestine, but also where people
(45:49):
who are protesting cuz I look atKoreas protests, I mean gosh,
they're very good at protests and.
Yeah, Koreans, we are very good at they're.
Very good at it. And I'm just like, gosh, you
know, it feels like the protest that we see here.
And I don't do this to be dismissive of the work and the
courage that it takes for peopleto actually show up.
(46:11):
But I feel like, could we actually do more?
You know, how do we actually scare the bejesus out of these
lawmakers and these, you know, capitalistic demons are just,
like, circling around and just like clawing at us.
And so it's like, what can we doto create more safety Nets?
And I'm really glad that you bring that up.
(46:33):
I also think about like, you know, celebrity culture, how it
should be dying. You know, as much as I am guilty
of like, my own standing of certain celebrities, I actually
just decided to like, cancel outChris Martin Coldplay because I
was like, OK, this guy was playing respectability politics
about Charlie Craig. I'm like, OK, you know what?
That is it. I am, you know, I've already had
to cancel out Radiohead out of my playlist a while ago.
(46:56):
And it's like, but I think that when we look at celebrities who
are actually trying, who are actually now speaking out, I
think that really tells you thatthat the activism in the digital
spaces have been slowly working.And we saw that at the Emmys.
And like, I don't want to say that we should feel bad for
(47:16):
celebrities. We're not speaking out because I
feel like there's a substantial privilege.
But it's also like it also tellsyou the system that they are
also a part of and, and how theyare very much just one of the
many, one of the many engines that run the system.
I mean, you got directors, you got executives, you have so many
(47:39):
people that can influence the media, as we saw with Paramount
and CBS. I'm I'm and also like what other
media, traditional media outletsand what that looks like.
So, yeah, I think it's kind of like my roundabout way of saying
that is that, yes, like how do we try to divest away from the
traditional outlets that have that actually harmed our
(48:01):
communities and also corporations like, you know,
whether it's Starbucks or Target, What does it look like
when we have to divest to think about our own practices?
Yeah. I mean, I think people, you
know, this time really challenges people in thinking
about what trade-offs they're willing to make in order to live
(48:26):
in alignment with their values. And this is like a core chapter
of my book that I talk about allthe time because it's the most
challenging part of the work is reckoning with the fact that
because we are embedded in a capitalist white supremacist
system, in order for us to buildsomething new, in order for us
(48:47):
to reject the oppressive patterns, sometimes it's going
to require us to give up something that we don't want to
that. I think most people that I have
done workshops with in corporateAmerica, in tech in particular,
when I talk to executives about this idea of trade off, they
(49:12):
start to get really challenged by the idea.
Right? Because we have so long sold
this idea of DEI as this rainbowand sunshine type of initiative
where we're just being nice to one another rather than an issue
that requires systemic change and trade-offs to be made in
(49:33):
order to come to fruition. We can't just hire a bunch of
different people and expect equity to happen, right?
Like we need to actually deliberately talk about how this
going is going to require us to give up on maximizing our profit
at the expense of exploitation. It's going to require us to not
(49:54):
drink our favorite Frappuccino at Starbucks in order to
maintain the boycott. It's going to require us to not
use certain search engines that we are so accustomed to using.
We have to look at our 401K. We have to look at our, you
know, portfolio of investments that we may not have ever looked
(50:18):
at because it's automated, because it's all baked into our
daily lives, right. So I think there is just so many
things that we have to reckon with when we start to peel back
the layers of how embedded we all are in the systems and how
(50:39):
it requires us to be really honest about asking ourselves
some of these questions when it comes to personal sacrifice and
trade off, and also reminding ourselves of what there is to
gain from it. It's not just about trading off
things that we want to keep, right?
It's also we're doing that in order to realize this vision,
(51:02):
this reality of collective liberation, to live into the
kind of reality where we have the safety Nets that we deserve
from one another and that we cancreate systems that actually
serve us. That's what's at stake.
So when we start to ground ourselves in the ultimate vision
(51:23):
of the future that we want to build, I think those tradeoffs
hopefully become a little bit easier for us to make and reckon
with. And when it comes to celebrity
culture or expecting celebritiesto speak out, I mean, I wish
people with multiple digit millions of followers would say
(51:43):
something about the genocide in Palestine.
But in lieu of that, we can talkto each other.
And, you know, unfortunate, the unfortunate and disappointing
thing is like many people are not even doing that right.
Many people are shying away fromhaving conversations that create
conflict in their own relationships.
(52:03):
So I think before we, I mean, atthe same time we're criticizing
people with like big platforms. I think I'm all for pressure
campaigns and at the same time, let us also do the work that we
can in our own circles of influence so that we can have
create these opportunities for resilient connections and
(52:25):
relationships. That's the foundation of the
kind of community and work, a world that we want to live in.
I want you to share more about your podcast, which is called I
feel that way too. And I know you've just gave us a
quick introduction of how that became the genesis in creating
the podcast. But what has this journey been
like for you to start a podcast and and what have you or what
(52:52):
are you hoping to see in the long run with your show?
Yeah, this is probably one of the most challenging projects
that I've ever created. It took me 6 months to write my
book. It took me a year and a half to
produce this podcast. So that just tells you how much
effort, time, love went into this project.
(53:17):
And I'm so grateful for my friends who helped put to put
this put this project together and Asian American Futures for
making this happen. But you know, this opportunity
came about when I had lost over 90% of my income and almost all
of my speaking engagements were cancelled.
(53:38):
And you know, I'm a communicator.
That's what I do for a living. I whether that is through my
writing, through being on stage,that's what makes me feel alive
and the most in alignment with my vision of my life's work.
(53:58):
And so when all of those opportunities were taken away,
this podcast almost felt like myway of creating my own stage
where I get to dictate what I talk about and how I talk about
it. And I didn't know if people were
going to listen to it. I had no idea.
I've never done a podcast before.
I've only been interviewed by podcasters.
(54:18):
I've never been on the other side.
So it was such a beautiful experience of complete taking,
complete ownership of what I wanted to say without filters,
but also with the kind of vulnerability I'd never really
shown publicly. I mean, I went so deep into my
(54:39):
personal life, my personal experiences, and connecting my
personal healing work to our collective liberation work.
And you know, this podcast for me is really about courage and
community and being able to talkabout issues that often make
(55:00):
people feel isolated in a way that helps to create a sense of
belonging and community and a practice ground for us to be
able to be more courageous in our own lives and seeing that
all of our experiences are not so isolated.
So this podcast for me is truly me saying to my community, I
(55:25):
feel that way too. Whether it's feeling scared to
speak out about something or feeling conflicted about a
friendship where there is political disagreements, or
whether it's about talking aboutyour relationship to your
parents, that may not be perfect.
And so this has been a healing journey for me, and I am so
(55:48):
grateful that so many people whohave listened to the podcast
have resonated with it and are also feeling less alone as a
result of it. Yeah, I think that's incredible.
And and also like these days, how have you been in terms of
being able to find the work and the income that you that you
that you need to? It's kind of a hard question.
(56:09):
I hate asking this question too,because it feels very invasive,
but also like, but because you've had to like in a way,
make such a pivot away from these companies and partners and
even friends and associates thatyou felt that were a lot that
were once aligned with you. Like how has it been trying to
(56:29):
find different people who are aligned with your values that
help you to, you know, be able to achieve like financial
flexibility so you can continue the work that you do?
Honestly, it's been, it's been achallenge.
Let me be honest with you. I the podcast, I mean, as you
know, it's not something that you really make money off of
(56:50):
unless you are able to get a lotof like advertisements, which we
have none of. I'm just fortunate that I didn't
have to shell out my own money to produce it because it was
funded, but I didn't see like a dollar or cent for myself.
But it was a project that I'm so, so, so proud and grateful to
(57:11):
have created. I am getting a little bit more
inquiries recently because I think the tide is turning where
more people are realizing, oh shit, there is a genocide and
people who have been weary of hiring anyone who talked about
(57:32):
Palestine, I think are maybe starting to turn around.
I don't know. I'm not sure it's I haven't
recovered financially to the point where I was, you know how
I was doing back in 2021-2022. But I am hopeful that my
advocacy and my doing the best that I can to stay true to my
(57:55):
values that I believe have been consistent with the work that I
was doing before helps me to find the right communities for
me to do my work in. That's my hope that, you know,
it may not be, I may not ever beable to go back to the kind of,
you know, income that I was making before.
(58:16):
Who knows? But what I am hopeful is that
with this new sense of alignmentthat I have within myself, I am
able to find the people that really see my work and see me as
someone who can bring hopefully some value to their lives.
And I'm excited about that prospect of being able to work
(58:39):
in more alignment. That's awesome man.
What do you have going on for the rest of this year and into
the short term future? I am hoping to somehow fund the
next season of the podcast. And I also started writing a
newsletter to keep building the sense of community that I want
(59:02):
for myself. So for anyone who's listening,
you can subscribe to my newsletter.
And if you want to be a financial supporter, you can.
But it's it's open and free for everyone, regardless of whether
you can donate. And I am working on this new
framework around courage. I think this is a really timely
(59:26):
thing for me to be studying and talking about, and I don't have
any plans to write a book yet, but it is percolating.
So the next sort of era of my work, I think, is gonna be
around courage and community. That is wonderful and I can't
wait to see more of your episodes.
(59:47):
And also, I hope that people do get to tune in and also to
follow you on Instagram and on LinkedIn, because I feel that
there's so much wisdom and courage.
And also, and also like different, like, I feel like I
have learned a lot of different leaders because of your, your
social media. Like I've learned about Doctor
Killick cadet, you know, from change cadet, you know, and I, I
(01:00:11):
was like, gosh, there are so many people that I have learned
from or been exposed to because of your work.
And I think that is a really important platform.
This is why I have such a profound respect for your work.
And the last question I have is.If you had to go back in time to
October 8th 2023, what would yousay to your past self?
(01:00:37):
Oh, I would say you are on the right track and I would say I am
really proud of you for speakingyour truth even when you know it
(01:00:57):
is not a popular one. Thank you so much for sharing
and. And I'll probably tell her
actually, to save money. That too, I think that that's
always nice because, you know, inflation and I'll be happy to
deal with that. But yeah, I, I just want to say,
you know, thank you so much for being on my show.
It is so great to reconnect withyou after all these years and to
(01:01:18):
really see the the evolution of you and also seeing how that has
continued to transform and it's been such A to watch you along
the way. Thank you so much for your kind
words. That's really, that's really
kind. I'm gonna receive that.
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