024: Tiffany & Sam
In this episode, we’re joined by Sam Hyun, Chairperson of the Massachusetts Asian American Commission, to discuss the rise of violent crimes against Asian Americans across the country, and especially in the Bay Area, and how our allies can stand with us in solidarity, explicitly calling out anti-Asian violence and injustice.
We discussed:
How Sam became passionate about AAPI issues
The priorities of the Massachusetts Asian American Commission
Why we need AAPI solidarity
Update on Hate Is A Virus
Why the model minority myth is harmful
The bamboo ceiling, systemic oppression, and privilege
Recent anti-Asian violence in January 2021
Black and Asian solidarity
AAPI organizations to support
From representation talk to supporting grassroots activists
Clubhouse’s role in organizing and building solidarity
Show notes
Stokely Carmichael: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokely_Carmichael
Massachusetts Asian American Commission (AAC): https://www.aacommission.org/
Asian Americans Advancing Justice: https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/
Bryan’s Hate Is A Virus podcast episode: https://www.tiffanyyu.com/podcast/002
Hate Is A Virus: https://hateisavirus.org/
The Model Minority Myth: https://time.com/5859206/anti-asian-racism-america/
Bamboo ceiling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_ceiling
A call to action against anti-Asian violence: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLCz92Wh99l/
Dion Lim’s reporting: https://twitter.com/dionlimtv
Amanda Nguyen’s post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CK7vwR2HNM7/
Sam’s tweet: https://twitter.com/SamuelJHyun/status/1358915418757492736
Stop AAPI Hate: https://stopaapihate.org/
Hate Is A Virus fundraiser: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/hate-is-a-virus-lny
Terisa Siagatonu: https://www.terisasiagatonu.com/
Gretchen Carvajal: https://www.sfchronicle.com/culture/article/How-a-Bay-Area-poet-became-obsessed-with-making-15298384.php
Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC): https://asiancdc.org/
Chinese Progressive Association (CPA): https://cpaboston.org/
Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC): https://bcnc.net/
Aman Batra: http://www.amankbatra.com/
About Sam Hyun
Samuel Hyun currently serves as the Chairperson of the Massachusetts Asian American Commission. He is also the host of Real Talk Tuesday, a weekly Instagram show for HateIsAVirus, and is pursuing his Masters of Public Policy and Masters of Business Administration at Brandeis University. Sam is passionate about building community, and bridges in the pursuit of creating a world where equality and justice are not a dream, but a reality.
Follow Sam
@SamuelJHyun across social media
Transcript
Tiffany Yu: You're listening to this episode of Tiffany & Yu. This is your host, Tiffany Yu. Tiffany & Yu is a podcast about things that matter. And more specifically, I'm talking with friends who are using their platforms and their voices to cultivate creativity, compassion, and change. Today, I have a very special guest with me, Sam Hyun. He is the Chairperson of the Massachusetts Asian American commission. Hi Sam!
Sam Hyun: Hi, Tiffany, how are you?
Tiffany Yu: I'm doing well. So we're actually recording this on Lunar New Year, which is why I'm wearing red. I don't know where Sam's red is, but that's okay. No shame.
Sam Hyun: I'm wearing my Hate Is A Virus shirt.
Tiffany Yu: That's true. There's a little, there's a little bit of red there on his #HATEISAVIRUS shirt. Sam is actually someone that I had been following because I have also been affiliated with Hate Is A Virus when they first launched about a year ago, but I actually think I discovered him through TikTok and was following him on TikTok. His content is really topical talking about Asian American issues, talking about racial equity. But we met through Clubhouse on Christmas. We originally had been co-moderating a couple rooms together, specifically around bringing the Asian American community together. So we did meet through our mutual friend, Bryan Pham. Brian Pham was our guest from episode two of season one. So Sam first question for you, so I love origin stories. I'd love to learn about your origin story and how you became so passionate about Asian American issues.
Sam Hyun: First of all, Tiffany, thank you for having me on, and also just being such a strong advocate for our community, specifically for the disabled community, which is, as you know, a much-overlooked part of our community that shouldn't be. For me, I grew up in a suburb just outside of Massachusetts, but it was really affluent. But I grew up, lower-middle-class family. And so it was really challenging in terms of trying to figure out where we stood from a socioeconomic standpoint, where I was in terms of the whole community and understanding my identity and always being made fun of for being Asian and not being able to digest it because I can't control that. That's just who I am. And I just couldn't reckon with the fact of my identity was used as a way to look down on me and also where my social standing was. And then I started learning about the civil rights movement and I started learning about Dr. King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Huey Newton, Ella Baker, and then that really sparked my interest in understanding, Oh, there are people speaking up and I realized all my heroes were Black. And I get to college and my freshman year professor is the son of Stokely Carmichael's best friend. And that was how I got introduced to the teachings of Stokely Carmichael and really that led me to learning about not only the African American history and like true African American history. But that my professor encouraged me to go learn about Asian history and then Asian American history. And that was really how I started to see the intersects of the two. And that was really like I realized, wow, not only did Black people fight for Asian Americans to be able to come here at post-1968. But how that history has impacted me of discovering my own identity.
Tiffany Yu: That's powerful. And so now you're the Chairperson of the Massachusetts Asian American Commission. What are some of the priorities on the Commission right now?
Sam Hyun: That's a great question. It's really understanding who we are and what we're capable of doing and recognizing the lay of the land. And the reality is that, we are a state agency that represents the government to the community and the community back to the government. So for us, really understanding what our role is and there's so many great grassroots organizations, community organizations that are doing amazing work. And so for us is to be that pivot point of that conductor of being able to get people to understand where the resources are, who's doing the work, elevate those organizations, so that they're getting the resources that they need while also making sure that the government and legislators are aware of the needs of our community.
Tiffany Yu: So I want to transition a little bit, you mentioned your interest in this space started with learning about Black history. So you had that education then that led you down the line of wanting to learn more about Asian and Asian American history. Can you talk to me about the importance of solidarity? Solidarity within our own community as an Asian community. Do we have that? And then what does solidarity look like with other racial groups?
Sam Hyun: I think that's incredibly important and especially really timely given what's going on within our community right now. We've been going through a really difficult period where many of our elderly are being attacked and there's a lot of pain and rage that's sparked within our community. In being involved in some of all the craziness that's happening, what's been really evident is that we're not whole as a community, that we're very fractured. As an AAPI community, we are very much fractured and we need to have these discussions because part of the reason why it's so hard for us to be heard is because we haven't had the difficult discussions ourselves and we haven't done the work together. There's so many amazing organizations around the country that are doing great work and organizers that have been, but it's time to elevate them. One thing that's pretty obvious is that after all of this happens, blows over organizations like AAJA, Asian Americans justice initiative, or action. I'm like forgetting on that. There's so many different origins that really should be elevated. To me, if we don't come together, then our voices won't be heard.
Tiffany Yu: We had Bryan on almost a year ago. I want to say 11 months ago when at the beginning of the pandemic when there was a lot of anti-Asian rhetoric and misinformation around where COVID originated from, Chinatowns heavily affected. I am curious what the past year has been like being involved with Hate Is A Virus for you.
Sam Hyun: It's been a growing period for us. I think for everybody, we're really trying to figure out how to move in this space. And I think we've done some really great work. We've raised tens of thousands of dollars for small businesses. To let people know, we're a completely volunteer organization. We haven't been paid, we haven't received any money because we really do believe in our mission of getting the resources to the community that needs it. But we've been able to utilize our network, our influencer network, our broader general network to highlight voices and organizations that really need it. And so I think for us, it's very similar to what the Asian American Commission, where we see ourselves as amplifiers and mobilizers. We have amazing co-founders. Bryan was one of them, but right now we're being led by Tammy Cho and Michelle Hanabusa and under their leadership, we've really been able to identify who we are and what we're going to be doing going forward. So I'm just very blessed to follow their lead and go into this year to really make an impact.
Tiffany Yu: Two other concepts I think are important to have in the context of this conversation before we dig into current events, I'd love to get your perspective on model minority myth. Why is it a myth and dispelling that?
Sam Hyun: I think it's really important to understand the context of it. The model minority myth was created to justify anti-Blackness in this country. What's really interesting is this blew my mind when I came to this realization, was that even in our own oppression, like the model minority is meant to oppress us. We are an afterthought in that. It really does illustrate who we are as Asian Americans in this country. And so for me, it's so critical that we dispel that because we're not a monolith and we have so many challenges that our community faces. We have the largest wealth gap. We have increasing disparities just across the board. And if we continue to allow the myth to continue, then what ends up happening is folks both inside and outside of the community think that we don't have any needs, which is not true. So it's important that we eradicate it so that we can actually get to the root cause and fix a lot of the issues that our community is facing.
Tiffany Yu: One thing I often talk about in my disability work, we also talk about how disability is not a monolith, but it is kind of like a "yes and." So it's like, yes, you can have very successful people of Asian descent, but there's also the other side. And it's almost dehumanizing in a way to say that we only have one narrative. We were part of a Clubhouse room chatting about the bamboo ceiling. And so a lot of people were speaking up about how we, as Asians can build more confidence and strategies there. And I was like, okay, well that's that's of course one, one side of the conversation is challenging Asian stereotypes, but the other side was someone then came up and they said, Hey, I know in the context of talking about the bamboo ceiling, we shouldn't frame ourselves as victims. And I'd love if you can share about your view around victimhood and the bamboo ceiling.
Sam Hyun: The bamboo ceiling is really important and someone who shares my last name, Jane Hyun, coined that phrase. I think that kind of just framing the bamboo ceiling of understanding that, in part due to the model minority myth, where there is this notion of Asian Americans and where we can go elevating wise as leaders. We're often seen as fit to lead when a company is tanking but not when a company is rising. We get to mid-level management, but never to the executive level or C-suite level because we're not seen to have leadership qualities that really fit the Western narrative of what that is. Now, when it comes to this comment about, we can't be victims and we need to push through, I think that's the bootstrap theory of American liberalism. Like you can do anything as long as you put your mind to it, which completely ignores systemic issues in terms of how we are built, we operate in a patriarchy, how we have systemic racism, all of these are intertwined and intersect and to create systemic issues that make it really difficult for people to rise up the ranks depending on their identity. And to put them the blame on the people who are being marginalized is problematic instead of addressing the broader issue at play of eradicating those systemic issues so that we can really have everyone have equal opportunity to really become a meritocracy, really give equal opportunity to folks. Instead, you're putting the work, the onus on the people who are being hurt or to do the work to work even harder while you're giving other people a pass. And it's not to like doubt. Here's the thing that I think often gets left out of this conversation. It's not to downplay that other people who have privilege are working hard. It's not saying anything against that. It's more of understanding that, you had it easier because of X, Y, and Z, than this other person did.
Tiffany Yu: I think that's just a really important concept because when you have privilege, you can't really see it until you're in comparison with someone who doesn't. And sometimes we just don't see that those factors are at play as well. And so I loved when you brought up those comments in the conversation because I don't want to diminish the fact that there once upon a time was a Chinese Exclusion Act. I'm just tired of being seen as perpetual foreigners in our own country and for me in my own city. So we're going to take a quick break here, but after the break, we're going to come back with Sam and chat about current events.
[break]
Tiffany Yu: And we're back from the break here. We're chatting with Sam Hyun, who is the Chairperson of the Massachusetts Asian American Commission. He also hosts Real Talk Tuesday, a weekly Instagram show for Hate Is A Virus. Hate Is A Virus is a movement, now a nonprofit that was launched last year in response to some of the anti-Asian hate crimes and harassment that we were seeing at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Now we are 11 months later and I don't want to call it Groundhog Day, but as we're recording this, we are still healing. Many of us still heartbroken and hurting from what has transpired over the last couple of weeks. So I found an Instagram post that was shared by someone named Eda Yu. And it really just highlighted what has been happening over the past couple of weeks. It says since the COVID-19 pandemic has begun, anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States have risen by 1900%. As we approach Lunar New Year, today, Asians are being specifically targeted in violent attacks and robberies in the Bay Area, where I live, and across America. So they have a timeline outlined here, and I will link this in the show notes, but on January 16th, $10,000 worth of cash, equipment, and special documents were stolen from a Korean family-owned restaurant in San Francisco. About two weeks later on January 28th, an 84-year-old Thai man was killed on the streets of San Francisco. Then the day after, January 29th, a man was robbed at gunpoint outside of his home in Oakland. A woman had her wallet stolen in Oakland Chinatown, and another woman was dragged by a car while fighting for her belongings, also in Oakland Chinatown. On January 31st, more attacks happening in Oakland. A 91-year-old man was shoved to the ground. Many of you have seen that viral video. A 60-year-old man was attacked by the same man, and a 55-year-old woman was left unconscious after an attack by the same man. One of the things I want to highlight was that there was almost like a slow trickle of how the media responded to this. Sam, I don't know if you want to shed light as to the reporting or lack thereof that happened with all of these attacks that were happening.
Sam Hyun: I mean, it was basically just Dion Lim, right? It was essentially Dion who's consistently been championing many of the issues that are plaguing the Asian American community, but by and large, we still have not seen mainstream media pick up on what is happening.
Tiffany Yu: And Amanda Nguyen I know also posted a video that ultimately ended up going viral about what was happening and the lack of reporting. Before the initial ask was, how can we get more mainstream media to take some action? But now I'm just really curious, what solidarity and what action our community is looking for right now? And so one of the things I wanted to highlight was when everything happened last year with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Black Lives Matter, this was really an opportunity for the Asian community to show up in solidarity. Do you want to chat about the actions that Hate Is A Virus made as a result of what happened with Black Lives Matter last year?
Sam Hyun: For me, I think it's very, very clear, number one, you show up for the Black community because it's the right thing to do. That's the first and foremost thing, and I think what I would love for Asian Americans to understand is our oppression is directly tied to the continuation and perpetuation of anti-Blackness and how we have been used as pawns in white supremacy. And many of us either lean into that intentionally or unintentionally. And so that's why I think it's so important that we showed up for the Black Lives Matter movement, the Black community, not just because it's the right thing to do. They deserve to actually have justice and freedom and like this is against police brutality, but also because it's a way for us to all get to a country that sees us all as equal.
Tiffany Yu: One of the things that is a little bit heartbreaking for me is I am seeing what has happened, these anti-Asian hate crimes, turning into a racial thing and driving a divide between our Black and Asian communities. So I know you had a tweet that went viral.
Sam Hyun: I made a tweet that said that, "You are not Pro-Asian, if you are Anti-Black. And you are not Pro-Asian, if you are misogynistic." And what birthed that tweet was, I was seeing a lot of comments that were anti-Black, that were basically not being able to see the broader structural inequities at play that were pitting us against each other. But also when I saw many Asian American women speaking up that they were met with misogyny, just immediately invalidated and talked over and yelled at and disrespected and also threatened by men in the community who were just unleashing their rage on them. And so for me, it's like, how can you say that you are pro-Asian if you are attacking our own, if you are really being damaging and harmful to our own community and also, how can you be proclaimed to be your pro-Asian, if you are a racist yourself?
Tiffany Yu: It's almost like we get so caught up in the nuances of who did what rather than addressing the system. So I know one of the calls to action is really amplifying the efforts of this organization Stop AAPI Hate, which is wanting to collect more data and more information and more reporting around these hate crimes. I'm curious about if you're aware of any other mobilization efforts that are happening, because one of the things I have found is when all of this is happening in my city, I literally do not know what to do. Like, what is the ask? Is there anything I can be doing? What do mobilization efforts look like for those who are like me and just unclear what the next step is?
Sam Hyun: I will tell you what we can't do, which is call for more policing. What we can't do is try to exact revenge. One of the things I'm worried about is Asian American society to be vigilantes in this. This will just be continuing the perpetuation of the racial divide between the Asian American community and the Black community, which is not, it's not there. Have there been tensions in individual instances and within certain communities? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that we are enemies of one another, and I want this to be very clear that the actions of an individual do not reflect the entire community. Just like, as Asian Americans, we were horrified when Trump was saying "kung flu," "China virus," because we were being generalized and we were being treated as if we all were, our ethnicity, us as beings, were a virus. And so I think one thing that needs to be clear is that we need to not generalize the entire community for the acts of individuals, but also we really should not be calling for more policing because as we've seen that only leads to more damage and more harm. I'm not sure if many people are aware, but particularly within the Southeast Asian community, they have suffered immensely because of police brutality. And they are darker skin than most East Asian, so the complexities of how different communities are treated even among our community is really important to highlight.
Tiffany Yu: I feel like what you brought up is a little bit of a controversial point, which is, there are certain members of the Asian community who do think that a potential solution is more policing. And so I do want to highlight that there are varying perspectives. I have noticed more grassroots efforts coming up to tap into some neighborhood allies to join our elders as they're going about their business. I just feel really heartbroken that our Chinatowns are targeted because maybe it's non-English speakers, maybe it's a lower likelihood of reporting. This is what we're coming to in terms of the fact that this is a systemic problem, is that I'm like, Sam, tell me what action I need to take when really it's a whole ecosystem working together. So in addition to that, I know that there are a couple of fundraisers going on.
Sam Hyun: Hate Is A Virus, later on tonight, we'll actually be kick-starting our crowdfunding campaign so that we can really start to raise a lot of money to really be able to pivot that money back to the organizations. We will be releasing names of organizations that we are personally working with, and we really want to highlight and emphasize that are doing great work. But also, again, it's really important that we understand this is a structural and systemic issue. Even a lot of the violence that is happening has a lot to do with economic inequities. We need to talk about, within our own community, making sure that we're getting funding for our elderly homes that we're fighting gentrification. One of the things that is being lost in this conversation is the gentrification of Chinatowns across the country. Because the folks who are living there are unable to stay because they can no longer afford the rent or just being priced out. And so there's so many different, like our businesses that are going out of business, like we need to support them. And I think that we are so quick to come together and band together when talking about representation and being heard. But then we don't fight for the most marginalized within our community that are active every single day, even before these recent attacks happened, suffering immensely. And so I just wanted to pivot and to be honest, this was brought to my attention by grassroots leaders. This was not something that like came to the, I had a Eureka moment, but it was more of a kind of like cold water being thrown on my face. Like Sam, you can keep on talking about representation. You keep on talking about these issues, but like what about the grassroots? So even in Oakland, there is activists like Terisa Siagatonu and she's been in the community a long time, Gretchen Carvajal. There's a lot that are on Clubhouse, and they are very active within the community that, even here in Boston, we have ACDC. We have CPA, BCNC. There's just so many different organizations that are fighting for our communities day in and day out that are just not being heard.
Tiffany Yu: How are you seeing Clubhouse play a role in these mobilization efforts? One of the things I love about Clubhouse is the ability to cross-pollinate different communities. And so I'm curious if you have noticed quicker action by being able to use platforms like these and maybe not just Clubhouse, TikTok, other social media platforms.
Sam Hyun: Clubhouse is really interesting because it allows for people to come together and have a conference call basically on demand. And so Clubhouse can really be a powerful tool when used correctly. It's just like anything, if you abuse it, it's going to be very toxic. But If you are intentional about it, it would be a very powerful outlet and a tool for folks to organize and mobilize. That's something I've had to learn. I've made my mistakes. I've definitely had my bumps and bruises and realizing as we're learning and growing too, and again, like I think this is something I've learned from a potent activist Aman Batra. I have to give her credit for this. And she called me out on this, is in our learning of not making sure that we're not being harmful of others that like when people are teaching us, then taking the emotional labor to teach us, that we really do understand the impact that we're having. And so being cautious of what space that we take up and the words that we speak.
Tiffany Yu: That's powerful. I know you run a club on Clubhouse called Asian American Family Meeting. I think we're all learning together and I appreciate Clubhouse as a platform where, you have both the call out and the call in, and depending on the room, it's rooted on respect. And so I want to highlight something, which is violence is never okay. What happened is just not okay. And intentionally harming people and hurting people is also not okay. And I know one of the things that people talk a lot about on Clubhouse is that it's not just about intention, it's also about impact. So being able to take a step back and listen is also very important. So I've been doing a lot of work around vaccine prioritization. And one of the things I've noticed is that, as much as we want to keep equity in mind, as we try and think through our tiers, and of course this is dictated state by state. So I know you're in a different state, but I've noticed that everyone's question is when am I going to get the vaccine? And so I'm curious how we can move from a what's in it for me perspective to more of one through community care. And I feel like this is part of the transition that you're trying to get more members of our community to and this is really where solidarity comes from too, which is when I am harmed or when an elder in our community is harmed, I am also harmed. And if you care about me, you are also harmed.
Sam Hyun: We really to start educating our community too because there's also a lot of misinformation going around and a lot of there is also fear of the vaccine. One thing I would love for our community to do is really start to see each other as family, not just staying within our echo chambers of, within the Chinese community, Korean community, Filipino community, Bhutanese community, but really understanding that we have to, first of all, value each other one another and hear and see and love one another before we even can really build, build that foundation before we can really build something beautiful.
Tiffany Yu: I had a great conversation with Kareemah Batts last year. And I asked her a similar question. And she was like, well, we really need to do is we need to see everyone who's in our ecosystem as an extension of ourselves. And she even dated a back to the doctor who helped her mom give birth to her is part of her. I thought that was a very radical shift in how we're thinking. I love the work that you do, Sam, thank you for coming on the podcast. I always end by asking what you are grateful for.
Sam Hyun: I'm really grateful for the community. And I think I'm really grateful that, I think there's no way that any one person can make the changes in the world that we need to see. So I'm just really grateful that there are so many people out there that are ready and willing and are always striving to make the world a better place and against all odds. So I'm really grateful. And on this Lunar New Year that the Asian American community, as much as we've gone through, I have also seen a lot of hope in the sense of there is signs that we are starting to come together. So I'm very grateful for that.
Tiffany Yu: And I think it really highlights the paradoxes of life that even as hard as things are now, we are seeing some members of our community come together and we are really learning that nothing we do can be done alone. Like it's all done in community. So if people want to follow and support your work, where is the best place to do that?
All of my socialsSam Hyun: are the same. Samuel J Hyun, S A M U E L J H Y U N. So those are all the same.
Tiffany Yu: Follow all the socials. I really love Sam's perspective. Thank you so much for coming on the Tiffany & Yu podcast, Sam.
Sam Hyun: Thank you, Tiffany.