035: Tiffany & Marisa
In this episode, I’m joined by Marisa Hamamoto, founder of Infinite Flow, to discuss how her journey of not feeling like she belonged led her to create spaces of inclusion and belonging for others.
We discussed:
Marisa’s accolades
Checking in on the rise in anti-Asian violence
Marisa’s PTSD diagnosis and being seen as a non-disabled ally
Infinite Flow’s founding story and programs
Using creativity to drive inclusion
What motivates Marisa to keep learning
Finding that sense of belonging
Show notes:
Infinite Flow: https://www.infiniteflowdance.org/
PEOPLE’S Women Changing the World in 2021: https://people.com/human-interest/marisa-hamamoto-infinite-flow-inclusive-dance-company/
What About Us: https://vimeo.com/515466459
adidas x Infinite Flow Dance flash mob: https://youtu.be/r63rilm3Sho
Adelfo Cerame Jr.: https://www.instagram.com/adelfo_ceramejr/
Scoops of Inclusion: https://www.scoopsofinclusion.org/
About Marisa Hamamoto
Named 1 of 13 People Magazine “Women Changing the World 2021”, 1 of 9 women leaders “reimagining sport" for the adidas International Women's Day Campaign 2020, Marisa Hamamoto is a stroke survivor, speaker, dancer, and founder of Infinite Flow, a nonprofit and professional dance company composed of dancers with and without disabilities using dance to promote inclusion and celebrate intersectionality. Since 2015, Marisa has led Infinite Flow’s dancers to perform at over 100 events, from school assemblies to corporate events with Apple, Facebook, Red Bull, Porsche, Farmer’s Insurance, International Monetary Fund, Kaiser Permanente, among others. Her videos have been viewed by over 75 Million people on Facebook alone with Sheryl Sandberg and George Takei being amongst the public figures that have shared her work, and she has been featured on NBC Today, ABC Good Morning America, among other national and international media outlets. Marisa and wheelchair dancer Piotr Iwanicki made history becoming the first dancers to perform at Apple’s Steve Jobs Theater with CEO Tim Cook in the audience. As a social entrepreneur, she’s been a fellow with Red Bull Amaphiko and Facebook Community Leadership Program. Marisa is a leader, artist, and speaker on the rise looking to empower people through dance and storytelling, to think outside the box, disable bias, build new connections, and rise to a higher purpose. She is a graduate of Idyllwild Arts Academy and completed her BA and MA a Keio University in Tokyo.
Follow Marisa Hamamoto & Infinite Flow
Marisa Hamamoto
Website: https://www.marisahamamoto.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarisaHamamoto/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marisahamamoto/
Infinite Flow
Website: https://www.infiniteflowdance.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infiniteflowdance/
Scoops of Inclusion: https://www.scoopsofinclusion.org/
Transcript
Tiffany Yu: Hi, everyone. You're listening to this episode of Tiffany & Yu, the podcast. This is your host, Tiffany Yu. If you're new to the Tiffany & Yu podcast, this is a podcast about things that matter. And more specifically, I'm talking with friends who are using their voices and platforms to cultivate creativity, compassion, and change. So today we have with us a good friend of mine, Marisa Hamamoto. She's a stroke survivor, speaker, dancer, and the founder of Infinite Flow, which is a nonprofit and professional dance company, composed of dancers with and without disabilities using dance to promote inclusion and celebrate intersectionality. Hi Marisa.
Marisa Hamamoto: Hi, Tiffany. Thank you so much for having me.
Tiffany Yu: Marisa, you sent over your bio and you've got tons of accolades in there. I'm curious if you have one that is your favorite or the most meaningful to you.
Marisa Hamamoto: Oh, my gosh. Well I'll just say with any accolade, most of my accolades have probably come out of left field. And most of the time I go through massive imposter syndrome of questioning whether I deserve this or not. So in all honesty, I don't know how to answer that question. I would say I don't think there's ever been a time where I'm actually working towards an accolade, it just kind of comes as a result of maybe being recognized of the impact that I'm making. So every time I receive some accolade, I'm very grateful for whatever that accolade may be. And I use that as encouragement to do more and to create more impact and on the day that I feel like I'm in the gutter, sometimes it does help to go, Okay. Okay. I'm here for a bigger purpose here. One accolade that I got recently that really did come out of left field was PEOPLE Magazine named me one of 13 Women Changing the World in March, at the height of the Asian hate crimes and what was going on in the media and in our country in that space there. So that was that was like my most recent, bigger accolade. My first reaction was, okay, this is a scam. This doesn't seem right. My initial reaction usually is like, what me, really? And then, when I learned that it was new, it was like, Oh, okay. And this time, I very much interpret this as, okay. We survived the pandemic. My work is important. I better do more. Just consider this as a message from the universe that more work in the space of inclusion needs to be done.
Tiffany Yu: I love that answer because similar to you, as long as you're doing the good work, that the honors will come. And I view those as a way to reinforce that what you're doing is in alignment with your mission and your values. You mentioned the dualities of receiving all of this praise and achievement and accolades for the work that you're doing at Infinite Flow and trying to balance that with everything that's happening with the rise in anti-Asian violence. I wanted to check in with you about how you've been feeling. We live in California, where the majority of some of these incidents are happening. How are you doing?
Marisa Hamamoto: How am I doing right this moment? Right this moment, I'm doing okay. Because I'm talking to you and I know you, and we understand each other, we're very similar. We're both leaders in the disability space while being Asian American. Right this moment, I feel like I belong. But you're absolutely right in the sense that, yes, there was this duality between being recognized by some massive publication and then having Asian hate crimes. And I'm glad that it's not just me, but I felt like these past three, four months in which finally, Asian hate crimes were actually being talked about, was that a, this is nothing new, but number two, for me, I've never learned about Asian American history so much in the last two months as I've done in my whole entire life. And I've learned so much about the reasons why I've faced so much discrimination as an Asian American. This isn't just me, but this is many people, first of all. And number two, this is not just because of current events, but this is from a long history of systemic injustice. And I don't know about you, but learning about this, knowing about this, having people talk about this on one end, it was great that finally, this erased history is actually being brought to the surface, but on the other hand it was very triggering. It was like all of this information was triggering in the sense that, for me, my earliest memory of anti-Asian racism was when I was seven years old, second grade elementary school in Irvine, California, in the eighties, late eighties. And at this time like Irvine is right now very highly Asian. However, when I was growing up, it was like, where Asians were still the minority. I was attending a predominantly white elementary school and during recess, I was playing with my Chinese friend, Alice, and then in the middle of that, a group of boys and most of them, from my memory were white, came over, ran over to us just to make fun of our eyes. And it was, Japanese, Chinese. I mean, they use those words. They put their fingers next to their temples and put them up and down. So this was definitely like racially targeted and it was just me and Alice. And we were one of the only two Asian American students in probably the entire school. So that was my first memory. And I remember Alice and I were too young to understand racism, but I remember from that day forward, we kept an eye for each other. Not that we played every single day with each other, but there was always this sense of, Oh, we need to protect each other. That was my earliest memory. And throughout my dance career, everything from being put in the end of the line just because I'm darker than everyone, to being told, Oh, we don't consider Asian Americans to fit the role of a ballroom dancer. I feel like I've encountered a lot, so I think the last couple months, I'm enlightened to see many awaken to this erased history, but yes, it's been triggering. How about you? How are you feeling, Tiffany? I know it's been a roller coaster for you too.
Tiffany Yu: You and I have had conversations around this before, which is we both are Asian American leaders leading our disability organizations, but never centering that aspect of our identity per se. And you use the word enlightening and the word I use is like moments of clarity. Clarity around a renewed sense of grief that Asian women just have been unsafe for a long time. And this is where intersectionality comes to play. The reason why I called clarity or enlightening is I never thought that that was connected to my race. I just thought, and maybe this is a daughter of Asian immigrants mentality that, my goal in life was just to blend in with the wallpaper. Or as you and I both talk about that Japanese proverb that says that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. But then the other thing you made me think about from my childhood is that when anyone would mention anything about my Asian-ness, I would diminish it and erase it and say that I'm American. I would assert my Americanness, which is a continued erasure of our longer-term history, which you and I are just learning about now. honestly, I really appreciated the conversations that you and I have had over the past couple of months, because we're also trying to strategize as we learn our own history, because people are looking to us, we also have to protect our mental health. And it's also like when we work in equity and inclusion spaces, people are well-meaning when they send us the videos or they want to make us aware. But what it does is it kind of reopens a wound that we haven't yet properly healed.
Marisa Hamamoto: Absolutely. I fully resonate with everything you're saying, and actually one thing that you brought up during our phone call that I actually was like, you know what I need to check on that was I got officially diagnosed with PTSD just two weeks ago. And nothing new, I've known I've had PTSD since I had my stroke 15 years ago in college, et cetera. So it's nothing new, but what it did give me was clarity that, Oh, I do have this invisible disability called PTSD. In Asian culture, mental health is considered even more taboo to be talking about than it is American culture, whatever American culture you want to define as. And it's just interesting that it was all the the PTSD that I had re-experienced in the last couple months, and that was not necessarily from the stroke. It was from Asian American, anti-Asian discrimination. We are both tapping into this really interesting yet not talked about enough area of intersectionality. What I'm actually discovering as I discover my own Asian American story is that the news likes to say Marisa, who was a stroke survivor that temporarily couldn't walk is now running Infinite Flow, a dance company with dancers with and without disabilities. This is like the narrative that's been told. And honestly, having been interviewed so many times sometimes by default, that's what I say, Oh, you know, so I had a stroke and that's what led me to Infinite Flow. But what I'm noticing now is that it is the combination of not feeling like I belong as an Asian American, not feeling like I belong as a Japanese American living and going to school in Japan during my college years where, I thought, okay, I'll be around a lot of Japanese people, I will belong and I still don't belong. I'm not Japanese enough. I'm not American enough to, if I talk about dance, I'm not enough of a ballerina. I'm not enough of a Hollywood dancer. I started ballroom too late so therefore I'm not enough of a ballroom dancer to be a competitive ballroom dancer. I mean, all this, not being enough of one identity or another of just not fitting a box. It maybe eventually led to my own mission of Infinite Flow, which again, it's about creating belonging. Recently, thank you to my writer over at PEOPLE that actually pulled this quote out in which she pulled out the quote that said, because I didn't belong in a box as a dancer, I created my own. And that's exactly what I'm doing, it's the sense of not belonging in so many different spaces. But also realizing that it's not me, it's just so many other people that don't feel they belong, where they feel like they have to fit a certain box to be accepted. Whereas, what we're seeking right now really is to just be your authentic self and just be yourself and that's what America is. But I feel like how I will be telling my story, my founder story of Infinite Flow will forever be different because of this awakening that I've gone through.
Tiffany Yu: Wow. There was a lot to unpack there, it's just so powerful that now you're sensing this theme of belonging throughout your whole narrative. Did you feel anything when you got the PTSD diagnosis?
Marisa Hamamoto: You know, I'll be really honest with you. I haven't quite processed this fully, your community, my community, the disability justice community has educated me so much about invisible disabilities because when I started Infinite Flow, this was a wheelchair dance company. This was manual wheelchair users, dancing with standing individuals. I mean, it was not inclusive. It just kept on going broader and broader. And then it was only in the last, like, I would say a year or two where, actually a couple of my youth students started talking about their invisible disabilities, and then on social media, thank you to many that are educating their audiences around their own chronic illnesses and invisible disabilities. I will say that, it was a combination of, oh, I actually do have this. Oh, it's okay to acknowledge when I'm triggered. Just like yourself, I work for myself, it's okay to go, okay, I need to take this afternoon off so that I can recenter myself and it's okay to give myself permission. But also, just in general, I feel like oftentimes in the disability space, whether this is spinal cord injury or, disability justice, I feel like I've always been seen as the non-disabled ally. And somehow the word ally, like I feel like I'm an ally to the Black community. I feel like I'm an ally to LGBTQ, but when people say that I'm an ally to the disability community, I feel like, Whoa, hold on. I feel like I'm in it, but I couldn't quite put that in words, so now it's like, I'm starting to understand how even within various, the reason why even Diversability, your community exists, and this is not just spinal cord injury, not just deaf individual, this is disability and all different types, everything from visible invisible to everything. There's this sense of being able to empathize with each other. For me, one of the turning points in my own work was, Shaheem was my first Deaf dancer that became part of my professional dance troupe. And it was very interesting because it was actually through this flash mob that we did at Venice that I found him, I can't remember how I found him, but anyway, I had met him around that time. So I invited him to dance with us and he very much resonated with this idea of using dance as a catalyst to really break the stereotype and really send out a bigger message. And for this flash mob too. It was where I had individuals of all different walks of life, identifying with all different gender sexual identities, as well as disabilities coming together. And what was happening is that because when you do have a disability, you can have empathy for another, or I would hope that you can. For me, that was what's been happening in my case. And I'll be really honest. There's a lot of shame around, from a cultural place. When I got my stroke, I was in Tokyo. I had no one to turn to. I thought mental illnesses were fake at that time, nor did I even know the term mental illness. There was just a lot of shame of admitting that I even had PTSD and going and getting help.
Tiffany Yu: This is also where intersectionality comes into play. So Asians are three times less likely to seek mental health support. I have a feeling, due to a combination of racial trauma and intergenerational trauma, there are more of us out there and the more we can speak out about what we're experiencing from a mental health perspective, by leading by example, because you talked about being unapologetically yourself, we're able to open up pathways for other people who look like us to say, Hey, if Marisa and Tiffany are doing their thing and managing their triggers and living with a mental health condition, then that's where it is. Let's go ahead and take a break and then when we come back, we'll continue chatting with Marisa.
And we are back from the break. We are chatting with Marisa Hamamoto, who is the founder of Infinite Flow, also named one of 13 PEOPLE Magazine Women Changing the World. Before the break, Marisa and I were chatting around, you called it an awakening of how your founder story around Infinite Flow was really this desire to want to belong, which ties in with our earlier themes and the biggest theme that resonates with a lot of Asian Americans is being seen as this quote, unquote perpetual foreigner in our own country. I always like starting out my podcast by sharing how I know my guests. So even though this is after the break, I want to share how Maritsa and I met. We met because Tatiana Lee was doing a workshop at the Apple store in San Francisco. And then we grabbed dinner, but you and I didn't really get to chat until the Adidas
Marisa Hamamoto: Adidas flash mob.
Tiffany Yu: But then before that, before that Kima and Marc did do that dance, at the, the wildfires benefit, which I'm going to link a YouTube version of it because they danced to a song that is now my favorite song called What About Us by P!nk. And I danced in your flash mob and I was super awkward and
Marisa Hamamoto: Oh no, no, no, come on, come on. You were not awkward. You did an incredible job. And I was just really proud of you to get out of your comfort zone.
Tiffany Yu: That's true. That's true because that was definitely me getting out of my comfort zone. I will share that video as well because that was something really fun to participate in. And that was actually my last time in LA, before the pandemic started. But since then, we've had a virtual blossoming friendship, because Marisa participated in a Facebook program two years ago, which I then participated in last year. And honestly, I just really loved the way that Marisa runs Infinite Flow and really inspired by her leadership. Usually I start my podcast by talking a little bit about origin stories. And you have touched a little bit on the stroke that you experienced 15 years ago, the fact that you were a dancer. I'd love if you could share the origin story of what led you to create Infinite Flow.
Marisa Hamamoto: Sure. The short story is yes, I had a stroke during college that temporarily paralyzed me from the neck down, which led me to Infinite Flow. And that's the short story. But I would say that, dancing has always been my passion, as long as I can remember, and during my teen years, I pursued a professional ballet career, but my body just didn't didn't fit that mold. It was just a lot of rejection, a lot of nos. When I was in college and I was in Japan, I had a stroke which temporarily paralyzed me from the neck down. And to me that was a big slam of the door to my dance career altogether. Now I did walk out of the hospital two months later, everything that happened in the hospital is a little bit of a blur to be really honest with you. But I did walk out. Today I am that mostly physically recovered, except one thing that you and I actually share is I don't think I've ever shown you this, but I've also got a slightly--
Tiffany Yu: We're putting our hands up to the screen, because she's telling me that her -- I mean, you do have a little bit of hyperextension
Marisa Hamamoto: A little bit, a little bit, not as much as you, but I do have, my left hand has a little bit of hyperextension. And so there's a little bit of paralysis left in my left hand. I don't consider myself physically disabled anymore. The stroke brought a lot of trauma from my childhood back, and that was everything from the Asian American racism to the body shaming. I was also sexually assaulted by one of my ballet teachers who also didn't believe in me and I will say that that sexual assault, it left a really big scar further of not belonging in the world. And it was something that honestly, just like, I mean, I'm still going to therapy for it because I still get haunted by every time I kind of go into this like, space of feeling insecure about anything that incident still comes up. It's something that I'm still working through. I can't say that I have like, overcome all my trauma. No, no, it's, it's a constant work in progress, but I would say, just to kind of skip a little bit here. I was scared to dance after I came out of the hospital. The stroke happened when I was dancing. So, just, again, we're talking about PTSD. I just was not able to bring myself to dance because I was scared that it was going to happen again. And one thing that I have learned about PTSD recently as I got diagnosed is that one of my behaviors is that I tend to avoid places and activities and things that have led to trauma in the past. Back then, because the stroke happened during dance class and while I was dancing, I was just scared to go back dancing. I went to grad school. It was very low key life. I had a very mellow part-time job, teaching English, got through three years. And after I graduated from grad school, when I asked myself now, what do I want to do with life? And all I want to do was I still wanted to dance. There was always a part of me that felt like I was destined to be a dancer, and I think back now, there was also a little part of me at that time that I wasn't just going to be a dancer, but I was going to do something amazing with dance that was much bigger than myself. So that was always part of me. I was able to get back into dancing through discovering ballroom dancing three and a half, four years after I had my stroke. And something about dancing with a partner was just fun. I had really socially isolated myself. So naturally this craft of partner dancing and social dancing, I mean, it's social dancing. So it brought me back to being around people, which was much needed. So I got really addicted to it and somehow made it my career and then moved back to Southern California, moved to LA in 2012. I was like giving myself a fresh start to start my dance career all over. However, I quickly learned that I was just not fitting the box of the Hollywood dancer again. So I'm again, feeling this sense of not belonging and a couple of years in 2014, I hit rock bottom. I just kind of lost my purpose of why I was doing what I was doing. And that was when I accidentally discovered wheelchair dancing. And something about being a stroke survivor, having been in that place where I was not able to move my upper or lower extremities. And seeing that someone, who has paralysis is able to dance. That was like a really like, Whoa, I didn't even know that this existed. it naturally drew my attention. I did some research and I was actually really, really shocked at the inequities that people with disabilities just had altogether around dance, around life. And then, learning that 1 billion people in the world have a disability, one in four Americans have a disability, like all these statistics. And then just, I know that dance world pretty well. And I mean, how often do you see anybody with a visible disability, anything around accessibility. I've never seen that. And so I just felt like this is not right. Here I am trying to make it as a dancer yet there's a whole bunch of people who don't even have equal access to dance. And that just wasn't right. My heart directly went, there's something about this that I feel like I'm destined to do something about this. And then immediately, like I had this vision of this beautiful dance company. At that time it was wheelchair ballroom dancing was like that vision. So then, I met Adelfo. Adelfo was a paraplegic athlete who had zero experience dancing. We met on social media. We got into the studio. I was terrified to dance within him initially, but after a couple hours of dancing with him, I realized that dancing with him was nothing different from dancing with anyone else and dance doesn't discriminate. And that night, all I can think of was if the world danced, there would be no war. And I just could not let go of that vision that I've got to share this experience that dance can connect all of us and unite all of us. And that vision and mission and purpose just became so big to the point that I had to take action. It was going to be a disservice if I didn't. So that eventually became Infinite Flow. And I will say that it has been a five and a half year experiment of building this, this dance company. I mean, it's evolved a lot. In my understanding around disability justice, disability inclusion, what the heck a disability is and isn't, and I've learned so much. And because I'm constantly learning, my company is constantly evolving. And as you know, in addition to learning about justice and inclusion in all that, building a company or a business period in itself is, there's a lot of pieces to it too. So I will say I am a work in progress in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion. I'm a work in progress when it comes to entrepreneurship. I'm a work in progress of just running a dance company. But what's been consistent with me is, whenever I kind of hit this moment of, okay, what am I supposed to do right now? I always return to my purpose of creating belonging and creating inclusivity whose voices are not heard, it comes back to that. And my biggest aha in the last couple of years as a social entrepreneur is understanding this concept of systemic change. I can't say that Infinite Flow has it down perfectly, but what we're trying to do is create systemic change. We're not trying to just put bandaid on a situation. Oftentimes the question I get asked, from people around the world are you going to create satellites? And I get really uncomfortable getting that question and answering that question because from my view, the goal here is to bring inclusivity and accessibility into existing systems and spaces and programs, not necessarily create more satellites that segregate that. So that's the direction I'm headed. I can't say that we've done everything we possibly can to take it in that direction, but starting with just changing perceptions and painting a beautiful picture of inclusion through our performances and content. That's where we've started. The second thing is our school assembly program. I believe that as children, if you learn about, if you grasp the concept of inclusivity as a young child, it stays with you your whole life. our elementary schools and assembly programs started as a result of one elementary school inviting us to their school, but I've taken it further down, both in-person as well as our virtual assembly program and short film, Scoops of Inclusion. If you look at the school assembly program, we make it fun. We make it interesting. We make it really like uplifting. But there's a lot of purpose to it that we're really building the next generation. Alongside continuing to really create more innovative, experimental, dance performances and content, I am also putting a lot of emphasis on our school assembly and youth program.
Tiffany Yu: I love that you walked me through the Infinite Flow empire. And then I love that you said, the work that you're trying to do is trying to create system change. And what you're highlighting though, is that we are operating in a system. And disability intersects every single part of this system. You talk a lot about using creativity for a bigger purpose. What you've been able to do is you've been able to find a skill that you have, that you know how to do so well, and use that to start a conversation, to bring more allies or accomplices into our work . Can you talk about how you're using creativity, art, dance to really help drive these conversations?
Marisa Hamamoto: Sure. Absolutely. If we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion and the education around that space, I mean, this is all very important. I would say that we complement that education, whether it's around unconscious bias or systemic racism or anything traditionally educationally there, it's important. Our efforts complement that. I will say that, it's one thing to learn with your mind, but it's another thing to feel with your body and feel with your heart, I would say. And, whether it's the flash mob that you had experienced, where you're actually engaging in a community and dancing, or whether you are watching a Infinite Flow performance, our goal in a way is to somehow leave an impression and impact that's beyond the head. It's something that you feel something that you embody. There's a quote by Brené Brown that says something along the lines of, how information moves from your head is through your hands. It's kind of like that in which you can learn, think, think, but unless you apply, it doesn't become something. I feel like, we all have a body and we all can feel. And what you feel with your body has a lasting impression on you. And that's just something I know as a dancer. If I relate this to my own stroke, and something that I probably don't talk about enough, but I probably should talk more about is , I remember two, three weeks in being in the hospital and, saying, okay, now it's your time to go to OT and PT and start doing rehab. And, I would be wheeled to this therapy center and they would give me a list of exercises and some I was able to do, some not, but I noticed that all these exercises were very dry. Lift your knee 10 times, in my case, I lost dexterity. So one of the exercises that was very difficult for me was squeezing a ball like 10 times. It was things like this, but then for me, I was like, okay, these exercises are good starting point, but there's just so much more to movement as well as feeling their body. I have a really hard time putting into words what we do at times, because a lot of it's just coming from like intuitive feeling. But a lot of it's just feeling, a lot of it's also like, I'm very blessed with such an amazing team of dancers with disabilities and not who are just ultra talented that already their presence breaks the stereotype in so many ways. That in itself, they say that the medium is the message and that in itself is amazing. But where my personal strength and genius comes in is to be able to not just highlight the stereotype that's being broken, but what we can create together. Because that ultimately this is not about putting one person on a pedestal saying, Oh, look at this person. It's really about how can we work together? So going back to your question about creativity, for me, dance is the only thing I know. That's kinda what it is, but I do believe that we are each creative human beings, whether we know that or not, and you can define creativity in however way you want. Just getting out of bed. We all have a different way of getting out of bed. That in itself is a creative practice from my point of view. We can choreograph getting out of bed in a gazillion different ways, like from a choreographer's point of view. So anyways, with that said, I do think that, each of us are brought onto this earth for a purpose, for some purpose, and I would say that combining your passion or your skills in the creative field with a purpose that you care for, when you align those two things together, magic does happen and you do find fulfillment. When I talk in the social entrepreneurship space, or when I talk at colleges, that's my message. Combine your passion with a purpose that you care about, try to combine those two things and you might be surprised on the fulfillment that you get, but also the impact that you create. But definitely do it with authenticity. Don't do it just for the sake of doing it or to attract attention, like do it because you really genuinely care, and love what you do.
Tiffany Yu: You talked a little bit before the break around what it meant for you to be labeled as a non-disabled ally. Only then recently are you learning, due to this recent PTSD diagnosis, you are a part of our community, but even before knowing that, what was driving you to want to continue to learn more? You talked a lot about disability justice in this conversation, and it can be easy if you are labeled a non-disabled ally just to do the bare minimum and people for you to think that you're great. You continue to do the work to figure out how to be better to our community. And a lot of times that's an uncomfortable place to sit. We're always opening ourselves up to being canceled or being called out. I'm just curious, like what that driver is for you to want to be better, want to learn more. And hopefully other people who are listening to this can use that as motivation.
Marisa Hamamoto: My short answer to that is that I'm an empath. So when something is not right, even if it doesn't affect me. So for example, a video on social media is not captioned. So thus Shaheem and other Deaf individuals can't access that. Somehow the empath in me doesn't do well. I personally get emotionally affected because I've been othered, basically my whole life and that inaccessibility creates othering. I will also admit that I've been called out on the lack of accessibility, accommodations too. And I've had to learn along the way. It's not like I have this down perfectly. I'm constantly learning. The driving force is just empathy. It's empathy. It's really also putting yourself in someone else's shoes. I mean, something that you tell kids to do, it's basic humanity, 101 stuff, but it's that. One thing right now that I'm starting to also understand, and this is also like watching, Diversability, what you do too is really, I'm not the expert at everything. And so allowing others who have more expertise in one thing to be the voice when it's called for. I had to let go of perfectionism and this is coming from my own education around what white privilege is. And, I'm not white, I'm Asian, but white privilege behaviors when I'm talking to, for anyone that's like wondering here, but the perfectionist in me felt like I had to be right and I had to be perfect on everything versus now I see it as I start off with I'm a work in progress. Let's give someone else the voice to share that part of the inequity, or that can be a better voice in one area or another. It's that pain and empathy that I feel for where I don't feel belonging as well as others, that is the driving force to why I continue to make an effort to learn.
Tiffany Yu: I feel like you'd have such deep intimate experiences with what it feels like to not belong and not want other people to feel that as well. One of the themes that we touched on a lot throughout this episode was, I started out by asking what's your favorite accolade? And you talked about imposter syndrome, and then you talked about the changing or the evolution of your founder story from really knowing what it was like to not feel like you were enough or not feel like you belong. You've been on this journey for a long time of trying to create your own boxes, because the places that you originally found yourself told you that you weren't enough or that you didn't belong. So I was just curious if you feel like you found your sense of belonging now.
Marisa Hamamoto: I accept that what I am creating, let's just say, my story is that I didn't fit all these boxes. And I personally still don't feel like I belong but the lack of belonging is coming from not necessarily because I don't fit in existing box, but it's because I'm creating a new one in a way. But again, this can't be just my box because there are so many people that also don't feel like they belong, or there's the sense of not feeling they're enough this or enough that, not enough Asian, not Asian enough, not black enough, not disabled enough, all these things. I guess I'm slowly starting to find people that I belong with, including yourself. I'm just noticing that there are some of us that are on a very similar wavelength. I'm kind of in that place right now, where I am exploring how to create space for more people that feel the same way as me, knowing that there are many people like me that are out there that haven't found belonging. It's going to be a constant exploration, but I will say what keeps me going on a daily basis, it's just very simple. It's gratitude. It's feeling grateful for what I have right now, feeling grateful for all the opportunities and all the people that come my way, all the lessons. It's a simple state of gratitude that keeps me going as well as feeling that I matter. One of the affirmations that I do have to repeat myself is that I matter and I'm valuable and it's something that I do come in and out of and I know that this is not just me, this is many others. But what I always kind of ground myself into is whenever I'm having, like this episode of just feeling insecure, feeling like I can't like, going into like this negative talk cycle, I catch it. I take a moment, close my eyes and list 10 things I'm grateful for. And usually that centers me. That's exactly what keeps me grounded. I've noticed that a lot of this lack of belonging is also made up in my own head. Maybe some of it is from the outside in, but a lot of it's also like internalized that I need to let go of.
Tiffany Yu: And what's coming up for me as I asked that question is, I wonder if part of it is not that we belong now, but that we have become okay being that nail that sticks out if we come back to that. And understanding that there are systemic factors and messages that we continue to receive as Asian women that tell us that we don't belong. I love that you mentioned you have these things that keep you going. So I do close all of my podcast episodes with this practice that is what has kept you going, which is asking our guests what you're grateful for today.
Marisa Hamamoto: I am grateful for having this conversation with you today, and being this totally chill conversation, because we know each other, we understand each other. This is maybe one of my first podcasts where I actually really know someone. Before this, I was going, Oh, shoot. I know Tiffany so well, I hope that I'm able to tell my story because I know you know my story. But I'm grateful that we were able to have this conversation. I'm incredibly grateful that we have technology. I'm also grateful, maybe because this just happened, I was actually grateful to see the Oscars have a shift this past weekend. It was a very hopeful Oscar's from a diversity perspective. That was kind of cool to see. At the end of the day, there's so much work to be done in our space. There's just so much work to be done. But as entrepreneurs, as human beings to keep ourselves going, we do have to continue to look at the cup half full, not half empty and acknowledge the good that's coming, but also pay attention to the issues that need to be addressed as well.
Tiffany Yu: The Oscars to me were a continuation of the disability revolution that both you and I are on. So if people want to support you Marisa or support Infinite Flow, where is the best place to do that?
Marisa Hamamoto: You can follow me at @MarisaHamamoto, Infinite Flow at @InfiniteFlowDance. You can go to our websites, marisahamamoto.com, infiniteflowdance.org. You can sign up for our email list. If you want to watch Scoops of Inclusion, which is our short film for kids, you can go to scoopsofinclusion.org, or just follow the links through my websites. Thank you so much, Tiffany, for having me.
Tiffany Yu: Of course, Marisa, thanks for coming on the show. And that is the end of this episode of Tiffany & Yu.